Shadows Of The Knight

by Speaker-to-Customers

Sequel to Black Knight but you don't need to wait for that one to be completed before reading this. Captured by Irenicus, with some of her friends slain and even worse having been done to others, T'rissae must work with Jaheira to survive and rescue Viconia and Imoen. The mutual dislike between them is going to make that difficult...

12. Fire And Ice

Chapter Twelve: Fire And Ice

I seemed to fall through darkness for several seconds, a longer journey than on previous occasions when I had passed through portals, before landing in a strange place where parts of the floor seemed to be made of flesh rather than stone. A group made up of two Yuan-Ti mages and several seeming humans were there, but seemingly not gathered to meet us, for their apparent leader was engaged in berating a bedraggled gnome.

"Listen, you little maggot!" the man, who appeared to be of the same semi-human race as Raelis Shai and Haer'Dalis, bellowed. "I want to know how you got your collar off, right now… or you'll find there are far worse things than being a slave!"

"No!" the gnome wailed. "I don't care what you say! I won't be a slave any longer!"

"Well, if that's the way you…" the leader continued, but then was interrupted.

"Aawill! Hold!" one of the others called. "Others have come through the portal."

"What? Others? Ah, the primes. How foolish of you to have followed your actor friends here. Von'ith, close the portal, please," Aawill ordered. I might have tried to intervene, and stop the portal from being closed, had I been able to tell which one of the group was Von'ith. Aawill turned back to us. "Do you have any idea where you are, primes?"

"I assume I'm on another plane, naturally," I said. We were going to have to fight before long, I knew, but I hoped to get as much information as possible first. My colleagues could sense the way things were going and were preparing. Nalia put up a Stoneskin.

"Oh, you're a sharp one, prime," Aawill said. "I'm afraid it's much worse than that. This place is one of the finest prisons in the Planes. There is no way out of here… except at the whim of the cambion. What fools you must be to come here of your own volition. No matter. I expect you'll bring a grand price from the cambion as new thralls. Hunters… take her!"

We reacted faster. I put an envenomed bolt into one of the mages and then drew sword. I defended the others from attackers who tried to close with them, as my friends finished off the mages with missiles and then drew their own close-quarter weaponry. We had one surprise, as an invisible halfling tried to backstab Nalia, but her Stoneskin saved her from harm and, as the halfling became visible, Yoshimo struck him with Celestial Fury and stunned him into rigidity. It only took moments for us to slay all our foes and a minor wound to Yoshimo was the only hurt we had taken.

I questioned the gnome as the others looted the bodies of the fallen bounty hunters. He told me that in this place all the prisoners had magical collars fastened about their necks that suppressed their wills and made them obedient thralls to the Warden and the guards. His own collar had had a flaw, and he had managed to remove it, but found that there was no way of escape and no safe place to hide. The actors, he told me, had been taken straight to holding cells to await transfer to the Duke who had issued the bounty on their heads. All other prisoners would attack us on sight… unless we could obtain, and destroy, the device that controlled them. It was held by the Master of Thralls, a fearsome tanar'ri, but less powerful than the Warden. If we headed straight for the cambion who was the Warden we would surely lose – or, at best, have to slay all the other prisoners. If we aimed for the Master of Thralls first, and destroyed the control orb, the prisoners would revolt and join us.

That seemed by far the better option and I agreed to act as he had suggested. He gave me directions, and a quick outline of some of the perils of this place, and I turned my attention to the finds my companions had made. Much of the items were saleable, although of no immediate use to us, but there were a couple of very useful things among them. A Wand of the Heavens, that could call down Flame Strikes, which went to Jaheira; a few potions and some arrows of fire and of ice; and a pair of Boots of Speed! I had owned a pair before our capture, although of course these were not the identical ones, and had put them to good use in rushing at foes and smiting them before they could react. Now I could employ the same tactic once more.

As I did, very soon, when we came upon a group of thralls gathered around a brazier. It was the brazier that the gnome had said could be used to destroy the control orb, and we needed to gain access, and we had no option but to fight the thralls even though we knew that they were not our enemies. They had little of interest, other than examples of the control collars, but a niche in the wall held a useful stock of enchanted arrows. More importantly, the brazier was now unguarded, and the way ahead was clear.

For a short distance, at least. Ahead we ran into more thralls accompanied by Umber Hulks and a wyvern. We followed our usual routine of using Cloudkill against the Umber Hulks, killing them at once and injuring the others, and met those who made it out of the cloud with blade and arrow. Once the Cloudkill vapors had cleared we advanced again only for Minsc to make a dangerous mistake.

The gnome had warned us of strange, fleshy, pulsating orifices in the floor that opened and closed rhythmically. Those, he told us, were portals to cells containing the most violent of the prisoners, ones too ferocious or insane to be controlled even by the collars, and if we stood on one while it was open we would be transported into the cell below. Minsc, with his eyes fixed ahead on where other thralls were just coming into view, did not watch his footing, stepped on the center of a fleshy glob and it opened to swallow him.

We could not abandon our Minsc and I led the rest of us through. Rescue Minsc first, worry about how to get back later. We found him under attack by five Githyanki warriors. I had never encountered Githyanki before but I recognized them from their descriptions in books I had read. They were known to have formidable mental powers, developed during a millennia-old war against the Illithids, and so it was not surprising that the thrall collars had not been able to control them and they had been confined in this separate cell. They were armored in plate-mail and armed with two-handed swords, and attacked relentlessly, not responding to my attempts to call a truce. We had no alternative but to slay them.

It was surprisingly easy to leave the cell again. One would have expected the portal to be one-way but it turned out that there was a matching portal on the cell floor that took us back to where we had entered. Perhaps the outward portal operated only for a limited time, to permit entry and exit by guards, perhaps to take a prisoner away for release – if any ever were released – or execution. Be that as it may, we left the cell without delaying, lest the portal closed and did not reopen.

Once out, we searched the bodies of the thralls we had slain earlier with Cloudkill and missiles. One of them wore Gauntlets of Weapon Skill; not as powerful as the Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise I had worn in Baldur's Gate, but useful nonetheless. And on we went to face the Master of Thralls.

It was a surprisingly easy, anticlimactic, fight. We had been warned that he was a tanar'ri and so had loaded all our missile weapons with twice-enchanted ammunition, save for Viconia's sling and Nalia's bow which created sufficiently powerful missiles through their magic. We hit the Master with such a volley that he was slain outright. He had two Air Elemental guardians, and they attacked, but our weaponry disposed of them almost as quickly.

We found the control orb we sought on the Master's corpse, as well as a Staff of Air, no doubt the source of his power over the elementals. Our next step was the destruction of the orb; I ventured an attempt at breaking it by the crude method of smiting it with the Hammer of Thunderbolts, but this proved ineffectual, and we hastened back to the brazier. The magical flames consumed the orb and it burst apart.

We could hear the sounds of fighting and knew that the thralls, freed of the control, must have revolted at once. I wanted to save as many as possible and so, with the aid of a Haste spell from Nalia, we rushed to the Warden's area at great speed. We entered the fight on the side of the thralls, starting with a volley of twice-enchanted missiles, and caught the Warden by surprise. It was another easy and anti-climactic victory. The Warden fell almost as quickly as the Master of Thralls had done. We had more problems dealing with three Umber Hulks that arrived too late to aid the Warden, after most of the thralls had departed to their own planes, and they managed to injure Minsc quite badly before we disposed of them.

We collected up quite a few items that looked valuable, including a sword that looked to be highly enchanted, but we left it until later to examine them in detail. We packed our trophies away, sought out the holding cells we had been told about, and opened them with a key taken from the Warden's corpse.

Raelis Shai was effusive in her gratitude, praising us for buying their freedom with our blood on the basis of such a short acquaintance, as were her companions. She didn't give us any concrete reward but we had gained so much on this adventure that even Viconia could not complain. Raelis opened a portal that would take us home, and prepared to use one for her company's escape, but Haer'Dalis declined to accompany them. I gathered, from their conversation, that Haer'Dalis had been in a relationship with Raelis that had broken up. He said that he would return to the Prime Material plane with us, and offered to join my company, but something about his attitude did not sit well with me and I declined his offer. I suggested, instead, that he recruit other actors and run the theatre himself. Raelis Shai gave him the theatre deeds and then departed. My group, and Haer'Dalis, stepped through the other portal and were transported back to the theatre.

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It was almost midnight, by Athkatla time, when we returned. We rented rooms, the most luxurious the inn had to offer, and occupied ourselves identifying the magical items we had obtained but had not taken time to examine. The most interesting of these was a longsword named Adjatha the Drinker, twice-enchanted, which healed its wielder slightly with each successful stroke and gave her immunity to Charm and Domination spells. Nalia took it, for use when we fought foes likely to use such spells, but in all other respects it was inferior to Daystar. We then retired to bed.

In the morning we sold off our surplus acquisitions, making a considerable sum, but by this time we were so well-equipped that there were few things for us to buy that our existing possessions did not better. I began to consider storing things for Imoen's use once we rescued her. We were approaching the point at which I would regard us as strong enough to face the Cowled Wizards and Irenicus. There remained only a couple of outstanding matters. The lich Kangaxx, and the Ring of Gaxx that he held… and Firkraag.

It was time to face the dragon once more.

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The area around Firkraag's lair was very much as we had seen it before but perhaps slightly less populated by monsters. An Ankheg rose to attack us, and we killed it quickly; we didn't even bother to take its shell, as all of us who wore armor now had something better. A few goblin archers tried to ambush us, without success, but we encountered nothing else before we reached the lair's entrance.

Inside we fought a few hobgoblins, and a few orcs, and a veritable horde of vampiric mists that emerged from their cave. Minsc and I dealt with the mists by ourselves, with the rest of us staying back out of the way, and they gave us little trouble. We saw some signs that some other adventurers might have been in the lair since our last visit; dead orcs and hobgoblins that we had not slain, and bearing wounds that did not seem to have been inflicted by the weapons those monsters themselves used. It was not entirely unsurprising; I just hoped that they had neither been slain by Firkraag nor had slain him themselves and taken the Holy Avenger sword. I rather wanted it for myself.

We reached the side room from which vampires, mummies, and ghasts had emerged to attack us on our previous visit. I suspected that it might have been repopulated by Undead since then and took no chances. I had Nalia summon monsters and, with them ahead to soak up the undead's attacks, I and Minsc went in to remove any potential threats. There were no vampires but there were three mummies and two ghasts. They slew most of our summonses but did no harm to us before they fell. The one remaining summoned gnoll continued to act as our vanguard as we moved on to clear out the ruined chapel that, just as it had been on our earlier expedition, inhabited by Shadows, Shadow Fiends, and Wraiths.

We rejoined the others and moved on only to be confronted by a female human warrior. She challenged us, apparently mistaking us for orcs, but lowered her weapon once she realized that we were from the civilized races. She was tall, six feet or so, clad in plate-mail and bearing sword and shield.

She asked if we, too, were seeking the tomb. I asked which tomb, explaining that we were here to fight the dragon Firkraag, and she told me that her name was Samia and that she was looking for the tomb of King Strohm. She had been given approval for their mission by Lord Jierdan Firkraag and she had not been aware that he was a dragon. If she had known she admitted that she might not have dared enter. The Undead, which she had avoided rather than fight, had been bad enough.

Her objective was to find texts detailing the life of King Strohm III of Tethyr, entombed further within the complex, but she had hit a dead end. She possessed a key to the area but a magical field was preventing her from entering. Strohm had lost his life to treachery, and she thought that perhaps she was a descendant of the traitor, and the magic barrier was attuned to her heritage. Someone of a different bloodline, such as me with my obvious non-human ancestry, might be able to pass.

"You want us to go in, overcome any dangers, and retrieve the texts for you, is that it?" I asked. I cast Detect Evil, as a matter of routine, and she glowed red to my eyes.

"That is my intention," she confessed. "I will compensate you, of course, and you can keep any other treasures you might find. I am only interested in the texts." It seemed a fair enough offer and that she was Evil did not necessarily mean that she was not telling the truth. I agreed, and she handed me a key.

"According to legend, the tomb has seven guardians," she warned me. "The last guards the burial chamber and is invisible even to the strongest magics. I am not sure how you could get past such a creature, but you seem well-equipped, and you have just defeated foes that would have been beyond my abilities. The texts should be in his tomb within the burial chamber. Once you have them, return to me, and I shall compensate you. Good luck… you'll likely need it."

Her key opened the door, the one that we had ignored on our last visit as we had taken the other path, and we entered a maze of corridors. A multitude of doors opened from the corridors but many of them were fakes, traps, there only to confuse and injure intruders. Yoshimo dealt with the fakes and we progressed through the real doors.

A book that we discovered, after slaying a Fell Ghast immune to non-magical weapons, detailed some of the protections of the tomb. The last guardian could only be seen with the aid of a special mask, and that mask had been split into six pieces and divided up between six guardians. Those guardians would only willingly part with the pieces to members of King Strohm's bloodline. Anyone else would have to slay them.

The first guardian was a genie, specifically a fire genie, an Efreet. He shrouded himself in flame and I was slightly burnt in slaying him. His dead form dropped a section of an elaborate mask.

We had scrolls of Protection from Fire, and some spells and potions to that effect, but I wanted to conserve them for the fight against Firkraag. I therefore traded the Helm of Balduran for the Dragon Helm and had Jaheira cast the weakest, and therefore most expendable, of her protection spells on me. With that, and my Ring of Fire Resistance, I was sufficiently protected from fire to feel confident that I could endure five more such encounters. The others, less well protected, were to stay back.

The first door that I opened led, not to another Efreet, but to a Beholder. My protections were of the wrong type and I took some hurt before, with the help of the others who rushed to my aid, we slew it. I had made a wrong assumption and paid for it. Jaheira healed me with a Cure Critical Wounds spell and I went to the next door.

Behind this one was another Efreet. My protections worked and I slew it, taking another section of the mask, and moved on to the next. I continued until I had slain the last Efreet and gained the last mask piece. It assembled itself into an ornate headpiece and I donned it before summoning my comrades and opening the next door.

The final guardian was a greater Fire Elemental, and had it been invisible would have been a formidable foe, but I could see it plainly and could guide the others. It wounded me but did not last long. I put aside the mask, exchanged helms with Viconia again and re-donned the Helm of Balduran, and opened the final door to the burial chamber.

The grave held a shield, set with dragon scales and seemingly a part of the same set of armor as the Dragon Helm, and a single-handed longsword with an elaborate hilt and a crossguard shaped like the claws of a dragon. The tomb did not contain any texts. And I heard the noise of people approaching, including the heavy footsteps of something like an ogre.

"It seems we have been used," I said. "Summoned monsters might be required."

Viconia and Jaheira conjured up two Mountain Bears and a Fire Elemental, none of which would have been any use against a red dragon, and sent them ahead of us to meet what I guessed would be Samia and her allies. My guess was correct. Samia was there, accompanied by five companions; an exceptionally large orog wielding a battle-axe, a mage, a dwarf in armor, a human in studded leather, and an elf dual-wielding Kozakuran blades.

"You have done well," Samia said. I held back from attacking in case she had genuinely believed that the texts were there, and had no nefarious intent, but I strongly suspected otherwise. "I had my doubts about this plan, but it worked. Get some fool to take the risks, and then we take the treasure and bury them in the tomb. Sorry to crush any illusions you had about this academic adventure, but I'm more concerned with how much we can sell these little trinkets for."

Of course, while she was wasting time talking, my group were positioning themselves to get good lines of sight, and the bears and elemental were moving up to the mage and the dwarf. As soon as Samia's party made a move we struck first and hardest. I suffered a minor wound, as did Jaheira, but the others were untouched. Even the bears and the elemental survived intact. Samia, and all her companions, died. They had some decent equipment, and we would be able to sell it for a goodly amount, but nothing that matched ours. We gathered it up and took the time to Identify the sword and shield from King Strohm's grave.

Now those were exceptional. The Dragon Scale shield, twice-enchanted, and giving resistances to fire, cold, and electricity. And the sword Peridan, the Dragon Slayer, bestowing upon its wielder immunity to fear, the power of regeneration to a somewhat lesser extent than that given by Nalia's Ioun Stone, and able to cast Detect Invisibility once a day. Ideal finds when we were about to fight a red dragon.

We sent the bears and elemental ahead of us as we took the path to Firkraag's sanctum. They helped us clear the path when orogs attacked. One of the bears died in the process but we took no harm at all. On we went, until we reached the stairs down to where we expected to find Firkraag, and at that point we began our final preparations.

Potions, spells, and scrolls, to give resistance to fire, to enable us to resist the dragon fear, to enhance our strength and our combat skills; everything we could think of that would help. Yoshimo laid some traps on the path to places where we might retreat. And then, having done all we could to tilt the scales in our favor, we attacked.

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Our preparations were wasted. Firkraag must have had Contingencies in place to cast protective spells upon himself, and although our initial attacks hurt him, he was almost at once seemingly invulnerable. With the respite he gained from that, as our weapons glanced from him doing no harm, he cast Remove Magic and stripped away all our spell and potion-derived enhancements and protections. We fell back, trying to lead him over Yoshimo's traps, but they seemed ineffective too. He hurt us with fire, with wing buffets, with claws and with teeth. We could not heal ourselves with spells, under his constant attack, and were forced to guzzle Potions of Extra Healing with desperate haste. He turned himself invisible, and Nalia had been stunned by a wing buffet and could not use the Detect Invisibility power of Peridan, and until Viconia managed to cast True Seeing we were almost helpless against him.

We managed, at last, to get far enough up the staircase to be out of his reach, renewed our protections, and attacked again. Jaheira cast Invisibility Purge, and Nalia cast the most powerful protection-removing spell she had, and our blows began to affect the dragon again, but as much as we hurt him, he hurt us more. Jaheira was Silenced, unable to cast spells, reduced to using only her sling and her club when the dragon was close. Yoshimo was badly hurt and knocked so far back, by a wing buffet, that he was out of the fight. Minsc was reeling. Nalia went down, unconscious and bleeding heavily. Viconia went down to her knees, blood running from her mouth, crying out "Nau! Ol shlubnaut xuz saph nindol! Usstan zhal naut izin ol!" And I was in scarcely better shape. Death for all of us seemed only a moment away. I had led my friends to their deaths…

I gathered every ounce of my strength and struck, and struck again… and Firkraag's legs buckled under him, his body sagged, and his tail flopped limp. One more strike with everything I had left… and Firkraag collapsed to the ground, his tongue lolled from his mouth, and his breathing stopped. The great red dragon was dead.

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Healing took priority over victory celebrations. What spells we had left were used. We did not use all our potions, for Jaheira would be able to do more healing once the Silence wore off, only enough to stop our bleeding and keep us alive. It was several minutes before we were recovered enough to think about the dragon's treasure.

And treasure there was. Not a great hoard of gold, for Firkraag used his gold when he went forth in human form, and did not keep heaps of coin as nothing more than expensive bedding. A mere one thousand five hundred danter in coin. No great store of magic items, either, just a single Cloak of the Shield; no doubt he had used any he obtained to equip his guards, as when he had given the Dragon Blade to Tazok. Only one spell scroll, although it was of the Eighth Level spell Protection From Energy, a spell so advanced that it was as yet beyond Nalia's ability to cast. The dragon's skin and scales could be turned into armor better than full plate and resistant to fire. And the prize of all prizes; Carsomyr, the Holy Avenger, five times enchanted. Two-handed, as I had hoped, the very weapon with which I had achieved mastery. It would be a fearsome weapon against mages… such as Irenicus. Or the lich, Kangaxx; the Ring of Gaxx was almost within reach. And then, at last, we could pay the Shadow Thieves their fee and be shown the way to Spellhold and Imoen.

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We stripped as much skin and scales from Firkraag's body as we could; I had hopes that Cromwell might be able to create two suits of armor from the grisly trophies. Before we finished the after-effects of Haste spells took hold, exacerbating the weariness from our exertions, making us so weary that we could scarce put one foot in front of the other. We made our weary way to Garren Windspear's cabin, so tired that dealing with a small band of orcs was a major effort, and only barely managed to stay awake to hear his thanks and congratulations. We slept all through the night and well into the next day. We awoke feeling refreshed, and renewed, and were able to bid farewell to Garren and his son and set off for Athkatla with our spirits high.

It did not last. We were attacked on the way, by Dermin Courtierdale and four other Harpers. They were well equipped, and highly skilled, and it was they who had prepared in advance with spells and potions. Their invisible thief targeted Nalia, placing himself behind her before hostilities began, and his opening move was to stab her in the back.

He killed her.

Yoshimo went berserk. Celestial Fury almost leapt into his hand and he hurled himself at the killer, crying out Kozakuran war-cries, attacking furiously and giving no thought to defense. Minsc roared in anger and went for Dermin with just as much savagery. The rest of us fought in more disciplined fashion. I used the Boots of Speed to catch their mage off-guard, cut him down, and then moved on to the next foe. Viconia and Jaheira fought as a team, covering each other, aiding Minsc, and saving Yoshimo when his rage betrayed him and he was badly wounded. And all the Harpers died.

We gathered around Nalia's body.

"You can bring back our young lovely, right?" Yoshimo asked, his voice pleading, his hands trembling.

Viconia examined the body. "One clean stab, straight through the spine," she said. "Nothing that would prevent resurrection. I do not have the spell memorized… but I have this." She produced the Rod of Resurrection we had stolen from Mekrath, aimed it, and activated the rod.

Nalia stirred, gasped in a deep breath, opened her eyes and clambered to her feet. "Was I… dead?" she asked. "There was a gray plain, and a crystal tower, and… yes, I was dead, and now am alive again! Thank you!"

"We could not be without our mage," Viconia said, "and you are… tolerable company, for a rivvil jalil." For Viconia, that was praise.

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There was so much saleable equipment on the bodies of the Harpers, together with what we had gained in Firkraag's lair, that we could barely manage to carry it all. We had to leave behind a few things that, although non-magical, would still have fetched a reasonable price. Oh, for my lost Bag of Holding! We were much closer to Trademeet than to Athkatla and so changed our course and headed there instead. The merchants there should be a good market for our goods, and there was at least one that we had not visited and might have items we could use, and we could then move on to Athkatla with lightened packs. A brief side-trip should not delay us too much.

Or so I thought.

In the main square of Trademeet we came upon an altercation between three monks. One was known to me, slightly; his name was Rasaad yn Bashir, and we had met him in Nashkel where he had been demonstrating martial arts to the locals, and he and Viconia had almost fought over their opposing religious convictions. It had taken all my diplomacy to defuse the situation and get them to agree to ignore each other. Now he was confronting two other monks of the same faith, worshippers of Selûne, and they were accusing him of being a heretic and a traitor. The argument escalated and turned physical. Rasaad laid out the two opposing monks, with a a high spinning kick and a single punch, and then rushed off into a nearby building.

"Nice technique," Yoshimo commented.

I spoke to the two remaining monks, once they had picked themselves up, and they told me that they were members of the Sun Soul order and worshippers of Selûne. Rasaad had been one of their order but had absented himself from services recently and they feared he had deserted Selûne to join the Twofold Trust cult. This cult, they explained, was led by a man named Collus Darathon. He preached the heresy that Selûne and Shar were not separate beings but aspects of the same goddess.

"A truly vile heresy," Viconia put in.

"Indeed," said one monk. "Would that Rasaad saw things as clearly as you."

The affair didn't seem to concern us much, although Viconia was frowning at the thought of the heretic cult, and we let the monks go on their way and we went on ours and entered the shop of the local smith. We sold off our surplus gear, for a considerable sum, and then saw Dynaheir's Robe of the Good Archmagi on sale. There was no point in trying to assert our rightful ownership and so we purchased it, and packed it away, to be given to Imoen once we freed her. And Nalia had the rent in her Robe of Vecna, where the sword blade had pierced it, repaired and the bloodstains cleaned. We made for the inn next but, as we passed the Temple of Waukeen, Rasaad came out and approached us.

"Excuse me," he addressed me. "I am Rasaad yn Bashir. You seem familiar to me. Have we met?"

"My name is T'rissae Tlabbar," I replied. "We met in Nashkel. I stopped you and Viconia here from killing each other."

"Only the rivvil would have died, Jabbress," Viconia muttered.

"And more recently I saw you knock down a couple of your fellow monks," I said. "What was all that about?"

Rasaad explained about the Twofold Truth heresy, as his ex-fellows had done, and said that it had proved so appealing to members of his order that he no longer trusted them. He intended to join the Twofold Trust but only to infiltrate it. He believed that its leader, Collus Darathon, was an alias of a Dark Moon monk named Alargoth, who was responsible for the death of Rasaad's brother. And, even if Collus turned out not to be Alargoth, the heresy clearly threatened all who serve Selûne and must be eliminated.

"It threatens those who serve Shar, too," Viconia said.

"Will you join me in seeking out the Twofold Trust and bringing its lies to an end?" Rasaad asked.

"We should do this, Jabbress," Viconia urged me. "My goddess approves."

"You would work alongside a worshipper of Selûne?" I queried.

"For this cause, against a common enemy, I would," she said. "As a Darkcloak of Shar I am not subject to the usual strictures on members of my faith. I know that Shar looks upon this course of action with favor. If the Selûne worshipper will work with me, I will work with him."

And so, with some reservations, I agreed that Rasaad could join us.

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Rasaad had no definite ideas on where we could find the cult and so we followed my original plan and returned to Athkatla. We went straight to the Docks and to Cromwell's smithy. He examined the dragon skin and scales that we had brought, and measured those of us who wore armor, and declared that he could get two sets from it as long as one was for Viconia, the smallest of us, and the other for either me or Jaheira. If he made a suit for Minsc there would be insufficient remaining for a second. I was satisfied with my Pride of the Legion armor and so we decided that to equip Viconia and Jaheira would be the most efficient use of the skin that we had.

With our two healers now resplendent in red dragon armor, both now better protected from weapons and from fire, we went to sell off their former armor before making an assault on the lich Kangaxx. We emerged from the Adventurers' Mart and met a cloaked figure, seemingly an old woman, who hid her face.

"Ho there, strangers," she said. "I seek a man named Rasaad yn Bashir. Do you know him?"

Rasaad identified himself, and she told him that he would find the answers he sought at the Borrokin Amphitheater, an abandoned structure to the east of the city. Having delivered her message, she departed, and I agreed that we could postpone our confrontation with Kangaxx and accompany Rasaad first.

We had a minor adventure as we neared the amphitheater, an attack by a highwayman who had a pack of trained dire wolves, but none of us were hurt save for Rasaad, who was badly bitten. We lent him Nalia's Ioun Stone, to slowly heal his wounds, rather than use up spells. At the amphitheater itself we joined a group of monks in listening to an address by a man named Brother Hammerhelm, a former Sun Soul monk well known to Rasaad, who preached that Shar and Selûne did not exist as separate entities but were merely the two aspects of the Twofold Goddess. Viconia muttered under her breath, expressing her disagreement and disgust, but I played along and pretended to be convinced. Rasaad hesitated, and was somewhat unconvincing at first, but I guided him and Hammerhelm believed that he had won a convert. We were told the location of the Twofold Temple and the passphrase that we would need to gain access.

On our way to the temple we met four Sun Soul monks, the Tears of Selûne, who accused Rasaad of having betrayed their order and massacred the monks of the Athkatla chapter. The evidence they quoted was so flimsy, and such an obvious frame-up, that I must admit I did not take it as seriously as perhaps I should have done. I may have come over as flippant, at least in the eyes of one of the monks, who attacked. Her companions tried to stop her, she resisted, and she killed one of them before going down herself. The other monks, saddened and shame-faced, departed without further trouble. The dead possessed a couple of potions and two interesting items; a scimitar which enhanced the dexterity of its wielder, and a cloak which improved a dual-wielder's ability with the off-hand. We gathered them up, of course, and Minsc took the cloak and passed on his Cloak of the Sewers to Yoshimo. I insisted on giving the fallen monks a decent burial.

The Temple of the Twofold Trust was an impressive building, crowned with a large dome, and we followed my usual course of scouting the outside thoroughly before seeking admittance. We came upon new recruits to the Trust being tested by being made to pit their skills against wild animals, a pointless and cruel exercise, and further on we saw others who were bound to stakes, laying on their backs, under the bright sun. This, they said, was another test, and they objected when I said I would release them. I persuaded them that it was stupid and they accepted their freedom. Another monk was skulking in the bushes, spying on the others, and attacked when I queried him. He had carried nothing but a Potion of Extra Healing. We hid his body in the bushes and went inside the temple.

Collus, or Alargoth, gave a brief speech welcoming recruits to the Twofold Trust but departed before we could get close enough to take any action. As a potential recruit I was then put through a series of pointless, annoying, and painful trials. In the first I had to fight three invisible stalkers in a glaringly bright room. My reward for passing was a Gem of Seeing, granting the power of True Seeing once a day. A valuable item well worth the trouble.

My second, the Trial of Pain, involved me having to take off all my armor and equipment and subject myself to being beaten by four monks. If I rejected the Twofold Goddess I would fail the trial. My tolerance for pain is high, and nothing they did to me approached what Irenicus had put me through, and I worded my replies carefully so as to avoid swearing allegiance to a goddess other than my own whilst still appearing to accept her. They were fooled and, when I was on the verge of passing out, they declared that I had passed. My reward this time was a helmet named the Eyes of the Beholder. I drank a Potion of Regeneration before donning my gear again and moving on to the next trial.

Next, I had to face Shadows in a darkened room and then tell a disembodied voice a secret. I told it of my identity as a Bhaalspawn, feeling that enough people knew about it by now that divulging it once more would not do a great deal of harm, and it was satisfied. That gained me a set of gauntlets, intended for the use of monks, granting increased damage to unarmed attacks.

In the last test, the Trial of Penance, I had to confess to a sin or reveal a sin committed by someone else. I confessed to being appallingly rude to Tyrianna in my own language, taking advantage of her lack of understanding, to mock her without her realizing it. In my own defense, I had been about to start my period, and feeling more irritable than usual, but I didn't mention that alleviating factor to the Master of Penance. I thought the sin was incredibly trivial, and was prepared to come up with something else if necessary, but it was taken as sufficient and I passed. That trial, I thought, was idiotic, and so was the reward; a cloak, the Cloak of Atonement, which granted the ability to cast certain spells, but at the cost of weakening the wearer's constitution for eight hours. Still, maybe someone would be willing to buy it.

The rest of the party had not had to undergo trials of their own, as I was regarded as acting on their behalf, and we were now free to wander freely. Viconia planned to use the opportunity to try to sway members of the Trust back to the worship of Shar, or even of Selûne; she would rather have outright enemies of her goddess than adherents of a belief system that seduced worshippers of Shar into what she saw as a blasphemous perversion. The trick would be doing so without being revealed as an infiltrator and either expelled from the temple or attacked.

Thus far, this whole affair had been tedious at best, painful at worst, and I rather regretted having become involved. Then, as we were talking to the temple's Master of Combat, there was a development that reinforced my misgivings. The Master was an old friend of Rasaad, from the Sun Soul Order, and Rasaad was trying to convince the Master that Collus Darathon was the same person as the Dark Moon monk Alargoth. He was having no success and then one of the Twofold Trust monks rushed in and reported to the Master that the temple was about to be under siege. A force of Dark Moon monks, Sharran priests, and mercenaries, fifty strong, was marching to the attack. The membership of the Twofold Trust numbered only half that.

"I cannot fight against genuine worshippers of Shar," Viconia said. "You know this."

"It's possible you might be able to avert open conflict," I suggested, without much hope. My own goddess was a friend to Selûne, but Viconia was my alurl abbil, and I didn't want to get caught in the middle.

Viconia's eyes seemed to light up. "Perhaps I may," she said, and she followed as we left the temple, in the wake of the Twofold Trust monks, to face the approaching Sharrans.

Some fighting was going on already, a few monks who had been outside trying to hold back the attacking forces with little success, and then the leader of the Sharran forces stepped forward into plain view.

"Collus?" the Master of Combat exclaimed. "Then… Rasaad was right."

"Alargoth!" Rasaad shouted. "I know that is you. Face me now, coward!"

Collus, or Alargoth, laughed and his face transformed. "So, Rasaad yn Bashir, you are too clever by half," he said. "Yes, I am Alargoth. I have many names, many faces, and many secrets."

"What was the point of this charade, Alargoth?" Rasaad asked. "What was the point of turning your own followers against Shar?"

"That is my question too, false one," Viconia added.

"My followers? My followers are strong and steadfast in their faith," Alargoth claimed. "The Order of the Dark Moon has no place for those who would turn to heresy."

"Liar!" Viconia accused. "Shar did not sanction this. You made your heresy too appealing, iblith, and seduced those who would have remained loyal to Shar had you not turned their heads. This false creed may weaken Selûne, but it will weaken Shar too, and Shar has enemies other than the waela Moonmaiden. You are cast out. Those who continue to follow you will incur the disfavor of Shar. Your priests will lose their spells. Turn back, loyal followers of Shar, or suffer."

"Who are you who claims to speak for Shar?" Alargoth scoffed.

"I am Yathtala Viconia DeVir, highest ranking Darkcloak of Shar in all Faerûn," Viconia announced, in her haughtiest tones, "and you… you are nothing!"

"A Darkcloak? A weakling who does nothing but utter soothing platitudes to fools who whine about other weaklings dying," Alargoth sneered. He glanced around and saw that some of his followers, most noticeably the priests, were wavering and some were falling back. "I shall show you who has Shar's favor!"

Alargoth raised his hands and they became sheathed in ice. White vapor shrouded them. The Frozen Fist power, unique to Dark Moon monks, a deadly ability I had never seen but only read about. Viconia raised her hands, too, and said a word in Calishite Alzhedo. A bolt of energy lashed down from the sky, struck Alargoth, and staggered him. His Frozen Fists lost their icy sheen and became normal bare hands. He stared at them in disbelief.

"W… what is this?" he gasped. "You…" He turned to his men. "Kill them all!" he ordered, and then turned again. "You have not seen the last of…" he began, and then his speech died off in a gurgle as Yoshimo, who had crept up on him invisible, thrust Celestial Fury into his stomach, drove it in to the hilt, and ripped it across. Alargoth's intestines spilled out, he clutched at them unavailingly, and fell on his face. Yoshimo cut his head off just to be certain.

Perhaps a third of Alargoth's men obeyed his last command, and attacked, and even managed to kill a couple of Twofold Trust monks before dying. The majority, however, turned and ran away.

"It is over at last," Rasaad sighed. "I can scarcely believe it. Alargoth is dead. But now what shall I do? The quest for vengeance has consumed me for so long that without it I feel that I have no purpose."

That made me think. What would I do after we rescued Imoen? I'd never really had a chance to decide what to do with my life. First there had been Sarevok, determined to kill me, and survival had been my main priority. After I'd settled that I was dragged into the campaign against the Crusade, and then Irenicus had encompassed my banishment from Baldur's Gate, captured and tortured me, and manipulated the Cowled Wizards into arresting Imoen along with him to force me into a rescue attempt. What next, after that? Should I go into the far north, and seek out my aunt again, and try to learn more about my mother? Or, still north but not as far, go to Waterdeep, find the Promenade of Eilistraee, and try to be taken on as an official Silverhair Knight?

I was further distracted when Viconia stood up from Alargoth's body and held up a jet-black cloak. "I have it!" she cried, triumphantly. "Shar hinted that coming here would be greatly to my benefit, and now I see why. Shar be praised!"

"I take it the cloak is special?" I commented.

"Indeed so, abbil," she replied. "Highly enchanted, and blessed by Shar herself. She truly looks upon me with favor." She took off the non-magical black cloak she had been wearing, which she had favored even to the point of turning down the offer of a Cloak of the Shield because of its red color, and slipped Alargoth's cloak on in its place. "A prize most precious."

"Congratulations," I said, and then turned back to Rasaad. I contemplated asking him to stay with us but then decided that the detente between him and Viconia would not last forever. "You could take over here," I suggested instead. "These people could do with someone to lead them. Only, it might be a good idea to steer them away from beliefs that will upset the followers of two goddesses."

"Well spoken, Jabbress," Viconia agreed. "These gullible sheep need to be steered in a proper direction. Those who turned away from Shar need to be guided back, and even those formerly of Selûne would be better returned to her than to continue to hold to blasphemous false beliefs."

"They don't need to kill each other, though," I said. "Get them to go their separate ways in peace, at least for now, or else stay here, each group practicing their own religion, and keep learning interesting ways of kicking each other in the face non-lethally."

"A school of martial arts open to both faiths? An interesting idea," Rasaad said. "I will consider it, my friend, and will stay here as you suggest, at least for a time. And thank you, my lady, and you too, priestess of Shar. And my most fervent thanks to you, Yoshimo, for slaying my enemy."

And now, at long last, we could get back to Athkatla and take on Kangaxx to win what should, hopefully, be the item that would give us the edge against the Cowled Wizards and Irenicus.

I'd said that before, of course, and it hadn't worked out that way…

Glossary of Drow Phrases

Nau! Ol shlubnaut xuz saph nindol! Usstan zhal naut izin ol! = No! It cannot end like this! I shall not allow it!

rivvil jalil = human female

Jabbress = female commander

alurl abbil = best friend

waela = foolish

iblith = excrement, offal

Yathtala = High Priestess

abbil = trusted/close friend