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Chapter 25

The spider and the fly: Part II

Elene exchanged a look with Imoen over her shoulder before slinking into the darkness.

The floor and walls of the tunnel felt strangely damp, the path clearly hasn't been in use for a very long time. Rats skittered past her feet, but she ignored them. She gazed down the length of the tunnel and saw nothing in the gloom. Deeming it safe enough, she summoned a ball of light to illuminate the path. Elene began to trace the wall with her hands, seeking another catch to open the path to the dungeon.

Eventually, the path reached a seeming dead end. Elene scrabbled along the walls. Within a few seconds, her searching fingers found another catch, this one around chest height. She listened, trying to get an idea on what awaited them on the other side. Hearing nothing, she gestured for the others gathered behind her to prepare themselves before pressing down on the raised surface.

The wall slid open. Beyond it was a long hallway lined with cells, like the miner's quarters. They'd found the dungeons.

Imoen launched into action, pushing ahead of her friend and peering into the cells closest to her. "Which one of you is Rill?"

The men in these cells were in even worse shape than in the miners' quarter. They'd been beaten and starved. But their eyes shone with a different fire from those in the other room. One of them responded and pointed to a bearded man sitting in a cell in the middle of the hall. That man's face and body were full of cuts and bruises and his eye had swollen shut, he was in the worst shape of the lot, but he was alert.

Imoen went to the cell, lockpicks at the ready. "Right, yer getting outta here."

Rill found his feet quickly despite his condition. "After mine, you can open the cell to my right. Andar there can pick the rest of the locks."

"Phew, here I was thinkin' I'd have to let all of you out myself," Imoen chuckled, then grinned as the lock clicked in her hands. "There, done. Alright Andar, your turn."

"Rill," Jaheira stepped forward to address the apparent leader of the prisoners. "We've cleared most of the path up. Can you get your fellows out safely? We are going to leave this whole place underwater by the time we're done here."

"Music to my ears, maam. I can do what you ask, and I can offer you something better." Rill looked to a cell at the other end of the hall. "Let me introduce you to Yeslick."

Once Imoen let Andar out, he got to work on the other cells while she followed Rill to the other end of the hall. Yeslick, it turned out, was a dwarf. Unlike the rest of the miners, he was kept alone in his surprisingly clean cell. But judging from the systematic marking of days on the walls and the wear of his rags and blankets, he had been there for a longer time than the others. A far longer time. Even so, his eyes glimmered with shrewdness as he studied them.

"Yeslick, old friend. Looks like your prayers have been answered," Rill huffed a tired chuckle as he leaned slightly against the bars while Imoen got to work on the lock.

The dwarf nodded, slow and deliberate. "Aye. About time."

He got to his feet with surprising spryness when his cell door swung open. Although he had been in captivity, he had evidently been keeping himself in shape. He must have tremendous mental resilience to maintain the presence of mind to do so, rather than give in to despair.

"Thank ye, friend. I am Yeslick Orothiar, at yer service."

Elene exchanged a look with Jaheira. This was not just any dwarf, but one of the last descendants of the clan who built the mines centuries ago. He must know all the secrets in this place.

"Been languishing in this pit for nigh on a year, praying to Clangeddin and waiting fer my chance to grind Rieltar's skull to dust." He spat viciously to the side, fury in his eyes. "Wish I'd never spoke to the bastard back in Cormyr."

"Who is Rieltar?" Jaheira wanted to know.

"Head of the Iron Throne in Cormyr, opened himself an office in Baldur's Gate now. He threw me in here and got his dog Davaeorn to run my ancestral home into the ground."

"This Davaeorn, is he a mage?" asked Xan.

"Aye, a powerful one, he's been around a while." Yeslick's countenance darkened. "Sick man with his sick cabal of mages. He runs a tight ship but has a penchant for killing those who displeased him in horrible ways. Almost makes a ritual of it. So far he gets work done through his assistant, Natasha. Stunner of a woman, but heart as black as her hair." He jabbed a finger at Jaheira. "If ye get to her, do us all a favour and make sure ye kill her."

"How do we get to Davaeorn?" asked Jaheira.

"I can help ye with that, don't ye worry. There are hidden paths I ne'er told him of."

"Can we bypass the mess hall through this door?" Khalid pointed to the door.

Yeslick shook his head. "Not bloody likely. The mess has clear sight to the stairwell. Ye won't have a choice but to fight them or ye'll be wedged between the force below and this 'un. Davaeorn keeps some men in reserve in the third level." Then his lips curled into an unpleasant smile. "But if yer interested in getting rid of the fools in the mess, ye can get the jump on 'em from the kitchen. They won't see ye coming."

"And you won't be fighting on your own," Rill spoke up. "My boys can get armed up and fight with you. We owe them a realm of pain."

"It's about time we get our own back," growled one of the imprisoned miners.

Jaheira looked ready to protest, but Yeslick forestalled her. "Let em fight. If only to get their dignity back. Ye don't know the things they've done to us."

"If that is your wish," the druid relented.

A flurry of activity ensued. It was a challenge to get two dozen miners out and moving quietly, but somehow, they managed it. They were herded out back to the storeroom, where there were enough weapons to equip them with. Andar was sent to the miners' quarters to release the rest and lead them back to the surface.

Jaheira pulled Elene aside and pointed at four miners close by. "I need you to take these men with you and strike from the dungeons. We want them to think all the miners have come to fight, break their morale quickly."

Elene squinted at her. "What if more arrive from the level below?"

"Improvise."

The druid left her standing alone, bewildered. It seemed that she was being trusted to handle the situation on her own. She didn't know whether to feel honoured or terrified. The men in question watched her with interest as they hefted their newly found weapons.

"Um. Follow me, I suppose," she gestured for the men to follow, back through the hidden passage.

She returned to the dungeon's main door with the men and waited. Her Armour spell was already in place. The plan was simple enough. Jaheira and the others would burst into the mess hall from the kitchen. Xan and his enchantment spells would create enough confusion for Jaheira and Khalid to sweep in with Imoen supporting them. That would be her cue to open the door and sneak in from the dungeon to put their enemies' back lines into disarray.

A commotion erupted on the other side. Elene counted to ten. Then, gently, she pulled the door and peeked out. The fighting had well and truly started by then. Turning to nod at the men behind her, she snuck out and made a beeline for the hall. In the heat of battle, their enemies didn't notice them until Elene was already upon them.

They achieved full surprise on the back line consisting of guards with crossbows and a mage. She ensured the mage went down in her first burst of attack before the other woman could let off a spell. Things grew progressively bloody from there. The miners with her were not skilled fighters by any means, but the ferocity with which they fought was more than enough to compensate.

Clanking footsteps on stone made Elene whip her gaze to the end of the hall, where she spotted the beginning of a stairwell. Shouting a warning to her allies, she vaulted over a table to cut off the incoming reinforcements.

Against a large armed force, she would need the element of surprise. She reached into a small pouch at the small of her back, her fingers closing around a cylindrical bottle. Odd. It felt like the wrong shape. She froze as she remembered something. Earlier, she'd handed the invisibility potion to Kivan when he'd asked for it. At the time, she thought nothing of it. They would be heading in together anyway, what did it matter who held onto the potion?

Instead of an invisibility potion, the only thing she had on her was a bottle of explosive liquid.

Well, Jaheira did tell her to improvise. With no other trick cards left to play, she pulled out the bottle of volatile content from the pouch and launched it at the approaching cadre of guards, backpedalling away as she did.

The bottle exploded with surprising intensity, eliciting cries of pain and shock from the poor souls on the receiving end of the blast.

Even as the survivors batted at the residual flames at the edges of their clothing, Elene launched herself into their midst, cutting and stabbing as she went. Once again, her knives did more effective work in close quarters. Her mind went blank, focused on eliminating as many foes as she could. By the time she had stormed through this new group, she was already most of the way down the stairwell, bleeding from slashes on her arm and side. She ducked around the corner in the stairwell as her miner companions engaged those remaining. In her frenzy, she'd managed to leave everyone else behind.

For a while she just stood there with her racing heartbeat. Judging from the sounds above her, not all the guards she'd charged through were killed. She was trapped between them and the third level. Should she stay there or check the third sub-level? If she continued without the rest, she would be going in without support.

But Kivan made it this far on his own, she realised. She just needed to rely on stealth, try to scout ahead and stay out of trouble. Wait to regroup with the rest. The idea certainly beat sitting there waiting for more reinforcements to run her over.

With that decided, she slunk into the shadows and ventured forth.

The third level was where the guards resided. She avoided the noisiest passage to her left, choosing instead a more winding passage that led to a succession of bedrooms and even what seemed like an armoury. She ducked into one of the bedrooms as men raced out from the armoury, shucking on pauldrons and helmets as they ran. While in hiding, she guzzled a healing potion. Her wounds were beginning to slow her down.

When the passage is clear again, she continued along the passage until she reached a secluded room which seemed different from the rest. Pausing, she listened, but there seemed to be no activity within. She peered into the room.

It was a study. To her shock, though, a woman was laid on her back on the floor. Dark liquid pooled around her, and in the dimness of the room it could have been mistaken as merely an extension of her flowing red robes. But the slight metallic scent in the air told another story. The woman's face was angled towards the doorway, her eyes staring lifelessly ahead. In life, she would have been considered beautiful, with her alabaster skin, sharp features and raven hair. This could be the Natasha that Yeslick spoke of, Davaeorn's assistant, Elene realised.

She stepped cautiously into the study.

"He's not here."

Elene nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice, a throwing knife out and ready before she saw who it was.

"Oh, it's you," she exhaled in relief, lowering her weapon.

Kivan had positioned himself at the inner corner of the room, half ensconced in the shadows. Precisely at the blind spot of anyone looking at the body on the floor. If she had been hostile, she knew that he would have already put an arrow through her skull.

She swallowed, glancing at the corpse again. "Did you do that?"

"Did you hear what I said?" He took a step toward her. "He's not here. Hasn't been here for days."

"I…" She took an involuntary step back when she got a proper look at him. He looked furious. For the first time since she'd known him, she felt a twinge of fear in his presence. "Kivan, listen. Just because he's left doesn't mean we can't find him. This Davaeorn should know where he is. He has to be the one running this show."

"Davaeorn is just another pawn getting his orders from someone else." He jabbed a finger at the dead woman. "She said as much. We should have gone after Tazok immediately. But you told me to wait. Now, I have to waste even more time following chain after chain of scum!"

"Do you think I'm not sick of being led on, with men braying for my blood every step of the way?" she hissed back, tiring of both the situation and his unreasonableness. The buzzing energy within her began to resurface. She just about managed to keep from raising her voice. "I want to get to the bottom of this, too, but not at all costs. Why didn't you wait for us? We could have avoided the battle above altogether if we went in as planned! What were you thinking?"

He stood there in silence for a few breaths, watching her. Then he shook his head. "You'll never understand."

"You're right. I don't understand." She sighed, her anger deflating as quickly as it surfaced. The harrowing trip down the mines had taken its toll, she was too weary to even argue with him. "But it doesn't mean I don't want to help you. Imoen, Jaheira, the rest…they want to help, too. Can you not see that?"

His expression was unreadable, but she sensed that some of her words got through as the feral edge in his frame eased ever so slightly. A minute change, but it was there. She would take what she could get.

"Please?" she prompted, reaching out to him. "We need to work together to get out of here in one piece. Can you work with us, Kivan?"

He glared at her. "Fine. As long as I get my answers."

"Our answers, you mean. I have a stake in this, too." She dropped her hand, somewhat stung by his response. "But right now, we need to figure out how to regroup with the others. The way back would be swarming with guards by now."

She tugged at her sleeve, looking around the room for possible solutions. Her gaze settled on Natasha's form. Suddenly seeing an opportunity, she knelt before the corpse, examining the woman. Up close, though, she noticed the unnatural bend of her fingers and the deliberate nature of her wounds. A chill ran up her spine. No wonder there was so much blood. This woman died a slow, painful death.

"Kivan…" she looked up at him hesitantly. "Was this necessary?"

"I needed her to talk," he replied, his eyes hard as marble.

"And did she talk?"

"Her master Davaeorn is a mage. His study is trapped. He answers to a man in Baldur's Gate." His response was almost mechanical, as if repeating someone else's words. "She didn't know much else of use, her main duty was to watch over the slaves."

"Did she say anything about a seal on the river breach?"

He flicked a cool look at her. "I didn't ask."

Suppressing a shudder, she forced herself to ignore the discomfort she felt from his behaviour. Instead, she focused on the image of the woman in her mind, then proceeded to weave the same visage over herself, extending the illusion all the way to the flowing red robes the other woman wore. Anybody who touched her would immediately notice the mismatch between illusion and reality, but she felt that the trick would hold up well enough to scrutiny in the limited lighting.

Getting to her feet, she threw a final glance at the woman. As much as it pained her to admit it, this was what her friend was capable of. Yet she could not reconcile the sight before her with the man who protected her from bounty hunters all this while.

Kivan pulled on her arm as she made to go back the way she came from. "We go forward."

"What?" she goggled at him. "We can't face Davaeorn just the two of us, we need to find the others."

"We have the element of surprise. He wouldn't expect an attack from you, looking like this."

She had to admit, he had a point. If she got close enough to Davaeorn in this disguise, she could do significant damage without him having a chance to cast a spell. Provided her illusion held up to whatever magic he wielded.

But…if she could get that done without endangering the others, wouldn't that be worth the risk?

"I will be at your back." His hand felt warm on her shoulder. She tried to draw from his confidence but felt only trepidation. She didn't want to let him down, though.

"Alright," she said. "Stay close then."

Kivan's moved behind her to conceal himself in her shadow. The path from the study eventually branched back to the main passageway. She reached a common room, where a group of guards were mustering for a final stand. They turned to look at her, but recognition flickered in their reaction.

"Orders, maam?"

Elene made a show of cradling her side and coughing as though injured. Belatedly, she realised she had no idea what this Natasha sounded like. Improvise, Jaheira's voice echoed in her head. So, she just pointed fiercely toward the hall that led up to the second level.

"Finish them," she gasped, doing her best to sound hoarse.

Yet it worked. The men snapped to attention and raced out of the common room. She fervently hoped that the others had dealt with the main body of guards by the time this group reached them. If all else failed, she knew Imoen had another explosive bottle. At this point, she had to trust that the others could deal with this bunch.

From the common room, there was a sharp bend that led to a narrow set of steps. She hesitated at the top of the steps as she gazed down into the foreboding gloom. Gooseflesh formed on her arms. Something down there didn't sit well with her.

Then she felt Kivan's hand on her back, nudging her forward. So, forward she went.

The first thing that struck her as she passed under a broad arch to reach the fourth level was the smell of incense. Like the levels above, the space was spartan and cold. But it was evident that not much traffic went on in this floor. Further into the chamber, she could hear a quill scratching on paper. A sound that used to be comforting to her suddenly seemed very ominous as she lingered at the threshold.

It's alright. I'm Natasha, remember? I belong here.

Taking a deep breath, she made her way tentatively down the passage. To her left and right, there were alcoves with beds and desks overflowing with parchment and ink. Likely the mages made their abode on this level, close to their master. As she reached a point where the hall narrowed, she paused. Subtle runes had been drawn on the walls on both sides. Keeping her eyes peeled for danger, she reached out and dissipated the magic within them, disabling the trap.

Finally, she reached a den with a crackling fireplace. A wiry man was hunched over a desk, writing. He had dark hair streaked with grey, a hooked nose and flinty eyes. She stared at him, unease filling her. There was something…not right about this man.

Before she could say anything, he seemed to sense company, for he looked up from his work.

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought I told you not to disturb me while I'm writing."

She stepped into the room. The illusory disguise hid her weapons, but her hand hovered on the hilt of her sword. "We have intruders."

The man's eyes narrowed as he slowly stood. It was then that she noticed a slight shimmer around his form, a faint buzz of magic. Here was a man paranoid enough to require a magical barrier protecting him even in the safety of his own study.

"What's wrong with your voice, Natasha?"

Elene knew the jig was up as soon as an arrow flew in over her right shoulder and bounced harmlessly off a latent barrier around the man. Cursing, she drew her sword even as the mage dispelled her illusion with a wave of his hand. Alone in the room facing Davaeorn, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was who the man was, she felt like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

"Ah," he breathed, his eyes widening in recognition. "If it isn't the troublemaker who's caused our operation such grief. Do not mistake me for those fools Tazok and Mulahey. You have made your last mistake coming here."

She swiped at him with her sword. He stepped back, surprisingly agile for such an aged man, then disappeared into a shimmering door which materialised behind him. Within seconds, she heard chanting in the hall and a grunt of pain from Kivan soon after. She scrambled back to the hallway, furiously thinking of how to counter Davaeorn's protection. They needed Xan.

"Elene!"

Words could not describe the relief that flooded through her at hearing Khalid's voice. The rest had caught up! She was about to smile at Khalid and Jaheira as they piled in with Yeslick at their heels, but an ominous click of a trap summoned forth a huge, armoured figure in the middle of the hallway. It was an animus, Elene realised as she took a step back. A construct animated by magic. Suddenly all the stories about assaulting evil mages in their lair reappeared in her mind as the creature hefted its flaming sword and lumbered towards her friends.

This is bad.

The next minutes felt like a nightmare as the party battled the construct. It was heavily armoured and would need its parts pried off it in pieces before it would stop attacking. And each of its attacks packed a wallop. In the meantime, Xan had materialised closer to Davaeorn and was engaged in a duel with the other mage, their chanting and volleys of magic creating sudden bursts of light to further add to the chaos of battle.

Elene had made a valiant attempt to get at the animus' back but was swatted away into the threshold of the den for her efforts. Then her ears caught the buzz of electricity in the air. That was all the warning she received before a bolt of pure blue energy lanced in from the other end of the hall into the den, then back out towards her. Sheer instinct made her sidestep the lightning bolt. Even so, she didn't even have a chance for reprieve as the bolt rebounded against the wall behind her and struck her in the back.

Her body arched, her spine going ramrod straight. The pain was excruciating, like all her nerve endings had been set aflame. She had never experienced anything like it. There was shouting nearby, but she couldn't hear much over the ringing in her ears. Her sword clattered to the floor and she followed soon after as she crumpled into a boneless heap.

Spots swam in front of her eyes. Her fingers and extremities twitched uncontrollably in shock. As she lay there, every breath became more laboured as her vision began to blur. Someone was calling her name, she knew, but she couldn't even bear to lift her head. She wondered if she was dying.

Time to wake up, great predator.

In her pained daze, a sinister whisper flitted through her mind. It bade her to use her ability. Use it, get up and get back in the fight. But…Kivan had told her not to, hadn't he? He was right. She didn't know what the power was, what it really did. What did it really cost her, every time she drew on it?

But she could hear the cries of her friends. If she chose to stay there and die, then they would die, too.

What do you have left to lose?

Drawing a shaky breath, she focused on the hum within her blood. Once again, she sought out the spark of power within. It was still there, she found, as strong as it was at the bandit camp. This time, instead of pooling it into her hands to heal herself, she funnelled the mysterious energy across her body. An unnatural warmth began surging through her limbs as the power began to fuel her muscles and dilute the crippling pain.

In the wake of the warmth, she felt stronger and sharper than ever before.

No one noticed when she pulled herself into a crouch. She quietly collected her fallen sword, backing into the shadows as she did. It was strange, but something in this place was feeding her. Like an aura draped over her shoulders, a comforting nimbus. She became conscious of nothing else beyond her killing instinct, and it wanted blood.

Her attention was diverted when a blast resounded from around the corner. Xan's shout of pain made her move, panther-like in the shadows. Neither mage noticed her as she entered the room. Xan tried to pull himself up from the ground to mount what would likely be a feeble defence. Davaeorn was casting a spell that would likely end the duel when Elene came up behind him. A grunt of shock left his lips as she impaled him through the liver. She made sure to twist the blade as she yanked it back out. The spell fizzled out in the mage's hands. He folded and toppled to the floor, much like she did barely minutes earlier.

She loomed over him. Yet as he lay there dying, he looked upon her and gasped in awe as if seeing her for the first time.

"My…lord…" he rasped.

Breathing hard, her sword fell from her fingers as her senses were invariably drawn to an alcove before her. She raised her eyes to look upon the small shrine there, with a symbol hung on the wall, a human skull surrounded by a halo of tears. A name hovered at the edges of her mind, so tantalisingly close but it flitted away from the grasp of her consciousness at the last second.

Suddenly she felt hyper-alert, overcome with an intense feeling of wrongness, a burning sensation at the back of her skull. The humming of her blood intensified, it reverberated through every inch of her. It sang. Unconsciously, her trembling fingers closed around the long knife on her belt, a mindless instinct urging her to carve the life out of Davaeorn as he lay there gulping what were sure to be his last breaths. It would be a fitting death for one such as him. She would paint the ground with his blood, this feeble man who tried to kill her and her friends.

She drew her knife.

"Elene!"

Xan's strained voice jarred her out of the dark trance. She dropped the knife, then clutched at her head. It took all her willpower to shake off the residual bloodlust from her ability. To fight the instinct to kill. The effort to do so left her utterly drained.

Then she collapsed, like a puppet whose strings were severed, and knew no more.