Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 38
The way out
Hells, that is a lot of blood.
Xan reached for a healing potion, frowning as he watched Jaheira cast the first of a litany of spells to plug the gaping slash across Kivan's front. Behind him, he could hear Khalid and Imoen already at work stripping their fallen foes of their valuables, their voices soft and controlled in the echoing passage. If they were lucky, they can also find some evidence to tie these collaborators' presence with Sarevok. Somehow, he doubted it.
"Didn't expect…the axe to…fly back like that," Kivan grunted, clearly in pain.
Jaheira shushed him. "Don't move so much."
"I have a potion if you need it," said Xan in offer.
"A second spell should be enough for now." Jaheira shook her head. "We need to conserve resources; we have no idea what awaits further into the crypts."
Tucking away the potion, he glanced at Kivan. The stoic look he received in return didn't do much to comfort him, but Jaheira was right. Bendalis the scribe had been resourceful, using a powerful invisibility spell scroll to spring them out of the barracks before guiding them to the hidden entrance into the Keep's lower levels. True to their recent run of luck, though, they practically walked into a cadre of elite fighters and spellcasters barely thirty paces into the catacombs. The only good thing that came out of that encounter was the certainty that the men hadn't been expecting them. Fighting two mages and two fighters in a tight space had been a challenge, more so since they didn't have Elene to run interference and eliminate the key threat quickly like she usually did.
Elene.
Where was she? The last he saw her was before they retired for the night. She'd appeared more withdrawn than usual. The presence of the Gatewarden to arrest them in the morning had been a rude awakening made worse by the realisation that she was nowhere to be found. It was hours until she was escorted to a cell not far from them in the barracks. Yet she heeded none of their calls or questions.
Bendalis had assured him that Tethtoril himself would get her to the catacombs after sentencing by the Keeper of the Tomes. Hopefully, she would be sent to a safer spot than they were. He shuddered to think what would have happened if she'd run into Sarevok's men on her own.
Xan looked around at the old stonework above and around them, noting the age worn into foundations of the place. Although he'd been plagued with a troubling sense of foreboding the moment they left Baldur's Gate, he hadn't expected to experience this side of Candlekeep. Brooding in the walls of his cell earlier, he could see how hard the fortress was on those who broke their bylaws. Undoubtedly it was the same rigidity and strictness that made Elene so structured and proper, and Imoen so clever in her rebelliousness. They'd both adapted in their own ways, two people raised within the same environment yet growing up very different from one another.
"Found a note." Imoen gave the small scrap of parchment in her hand a funny look. "This guy's name is Prat? Anyway, note says they're supposed to go back to the Gate once they confirmed what happened to us. It's signed just 'S'."
"Seems Sarevok had it all planned," Xan remarked bitterly.
"Yeah," Imoen huffed, pocketing the note. "Feel pretty dumb, kinda walked right into it."
Khalid hefted the throwing axe used by one of the dead men, the one that inflicted the heavy wound on Kivan. Magical, Xan could tell, even without sensing the glimmer of power resonating from the weapon. A normal axe wouldn't be able to return to the wielder's hand like that.
"We can only move forward," Khalid said, strapping the axe to his weapon belt.
Jaheira got to her feet, pulling Kivan up with her. "Let's go."
They traversed the long, winding hallways with Imoen handily leading the way. Earlier, she'd shared of her misadventures in the catacombs during her formative years. When asked why she snuck around such a gloomy place, she shrugged. There was something to be said about young women who did things for the simple reason they weren't allowed to. Had Xan been in a better mood, he would have been amused at how very Imoen the explanation was.
Once they delved into the older crypts, though, Imoen began to flounder. Even in her brashest moods, she'd never dared to delve deeper into the lowest levels. Not after all the stories the guards and monks spread about undead and shades in the deep underbelly of the Keep. Given the age of the place, Xan almost expected to find such denizens in the darkness, yet their journey continued uninterrupted. The silence was stifling, with the only sounds for hours coming from their own footsteps and breathing. Worse still, there was no sign of Elene.
"The air is changing," Kivan announced suddenly.
Jaheira paused, tilting her head. After a while, she nodded. "I feel it. We are on the right path."
"You think Elene found the way?" Imoen asked.
"We'll search for her if she didn't," said Jaheira.
The corridors became less winding after a stretch, though there was a trap set in one hallway which Imoen spotted in time. Other than that, not a soul or even a ghoul. The lack of encounters made Xan even more nervous if anything. If Sarevok and his men knew about this path into Candlekeep, surely he would have laid more traps or challenges along the way. An ominous feeling clung to Xan like cobwebs, making him check shadows and corners with more paranoia than necessary.
Then, he heard it. Hissing sounds, which reminded him of the lovely dinner party at the Seven Suns.
Oh, not those creatures again.
"Doppelgangers," he warned.
As one, his companions drew their weapons. In the flickering light of distantly lit torches, he saw the grim set to Jaheira's features as she turned to glance at Kivan, Imoen and himself in the rear. Then she nodded to Khalid, who led the advance. The sound of fighting ended just as they neared, signalled by the heavy thump of dead weight landing on the stone floor. Khalid and Jaheira quickened their pace, then froze when they passed the threshold at the end of the corridor. Xan, Kivan and Imoen hurried to catch up.
Imoen let out a cry of relief, lowering her bow. Taking the sight in, Xan's hand strayed involuntarily to his moonblade instead.
The corridor opened into a large chamber with smaller alcoves lining the area at even intervals. Elene stood in the middle of the chamber, looming over the bloody corpse of a doppelganger. Several corpses in fact, as Xan looked more closely. She seemed in torrid state, breathing heavily with her gambeson and sleeves slashed and lined with dark stains. In the semi-darkness, her eyes flashed like quicksilver towards them, then narrowed in unfamiliar hostility.
"Elene!" Imoen called to her, stepping forward.
To their surprise, Elene raised her sword and levelled it at her dearest friend. "Stay. Back."
Imoen stopped dead in her tracks. "Wh…What's wrong?"
"You wear her face. But I know what you are!" Elene growled, then raised her other hand.
"Get back!" Xan called out.
A flash of light ignited in Elene's hand as she called out a command word. With unnatural speed, she hurled a large bolt of fire towards Imoen. The girl managed to dodge at the last second, the fiery tips of the spell grazing her on the arm. Xan switched his attention the moment the danger passed, his eyes tracing Elene's path as she bolted like a frightened deer, deeper into the crypts.
"She thinks we're shapeshifters," Kivan ground out.
"We gotta go after her!" Imoen cried.
Without waiting for the rest, Imoen hurtled forward into the gloom. Xan managed to exchange a worried look with Kivan before his kinsman headed off to pursue her, cursing under his breath. Xan went with him, trailing at the tail end of the group. As his eyes skimmed over the slain doppelgangers, he counted three of them. Those were only the ones he could see, he thought. How many did Elene face along the way? How many friends had she been forced to kill while they taunted her in the darkness?
Bastards. What have they done to her?
Xan ran, his heart in his throat. The chamber funnelled them toward another hallways, then through narrower and narrower corridors. Until eventually, the human-made stone walls and floor faded into natural rock of the grey cliffs surrounding Candlekeep. Caverns lay beneath the catacombs, older than even the crypts themselves. The pathway became more jagged, paved by water flows through the rocks hundreds of years ago. He craned his neck as he hurried carefully over a particularly narrow passage crossing over a dark body of water underneath. The water was almost stagnant, but he knew the source came from the sea just from the smell of the air.
Imoen's shout almost made him stumble, forcing him to quicken his pace. As he rounded the corner, he spotted her on her hands and knees, ensnared in thick webbing rendered almost invisible against the stone. Adjacent to her was the mouth of a grotto, and he could hear aggressive chittering coming from within.
Kivan had readied an arrow by the time the first giant spider reared its ugly head from the grotto. Jaheira summoned vines and creepers from the earth to entangle the ones behind it, while Khalid advanced with great care to face the creatures head on. Assessing the situation, Xan launched a gout of fire from his wand at the webbings close to Imoen instead. The webs shrivelled and disintegrated with the heat, allowing Imoen to pick herself up and get to relative safety. Angry as the creatures were at having their domain intruded, they did not last long in combat with the group.
"Are you alright?" Khalid asked Imoen as he crossed the webbed path to reach her.
"I'm fine. Come on, we're gonna lose her!"
Quietly, Xan wondered if they were too late to catch her. She'd have netted a significant head start on them by then. Unless she'd been stalled by something else in the caverns.
The way forward narrowed as they progressed, the paths sloping downwards. Khalid's blades made quick work of a stray ghoul before the creature even posed a threat, they simply didn't have time for it. After a long, uneventful slog, they heard the distinct sound of a male shout. As they began to move faster, the shout degenerated into pained screams echoing against the cold stone walls, making Xan's hair stand up at the back of his neck. After what felt like forever, the group skidded to a halt at the cusp of a naturally formed stone bridge. The structure led to a smooth path sloping up. Xan blinked. The layout reminded him so much of the Nashkel Mines, it almost made him shudder at the recollection.
They'd caught up to Elene, at least. She looked up at them, even as she knelt over the prone body of a man covered in blood. A chill ran through Xan's spine at the image. From the methodical wounds carved into him, his death had been slow and painful. It looked more like one of Kivan's handiwork than her usual clinical kills. She'd meant to hurt that man.
Elene scrambled to her feet, her knives out at the ready once more. This time, she stumbled backwards, leaning against the wall for support. Like the winds had finally been taken out of her sails. Out of the corner of his eye, Xan caught the grim looks exchanged between Khalid and Jaheira as they prepared to intervene.
"You stay back!" she snarled.
She's behaving like a cornered animal.
Slipping away from Khalid's attempt to pull her back, Imoen squared her shoulders and approached.
"Now look here you, it's me, yer old pal Imoen. And I'll prove it," Imoen looked her square in the eye and continued. "Yer favourite colour was green. Then after we reached the Gate, for some reason ya told me ya kinda like blue more. You like fish, but ya don't eat the skin coz yer strange like that. Ya get real mad when I fold the edges when I borrow yer books, coz ya hate them dog ears messing up the pages…"
The wild look seeped out of Elene's features with every additional bit of trivia Imoen offered. Xan felt a pang of melancholy as he realised he'd never known these little things about her. Through months of travel and camaraderie, beyond what he could see with his own eyes, she only shared glimpses of who she was and what she'd liked whereas Imoen had been by her side from the very beginning to see it all.
"…then Ulraunt noticed writing on the parchment and all the monks caught the lashing of their lives. When actually you were the one trying ta be clever with disappearing ink and..."
"No one else would know about that incident with the ink," Elene said at last, lowering her weapons.
"Yeah, ya owe me for that," Imoen smiled, then sobered. "Lene, it's me. We're us. Yer safe."
With trembling hands, Elene dropped her knives. She tried to straighten, making considerable effort to push herself off the wall. Imoen was there to catch her when she floundered, grasping desperately at her friend for support as she gibbered incoherently.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…I didn't hurt you, did I? K-Karan. Hull. They wore their faces…corpses…I saw, they were in the crypts. They're dead, Im. All dead." Elene sobbed. "I had to kill their faces. They weren't Karan or Hull. But they looked and sounded just like them…"
"Hey, shh, I'm here, Lene."
Xan could see Imoen was trying to be strong for her friend. However, he could also see the girl stiffen, expression shifting to shock and dismay, deeply shaken by whatever Elene was trying to tell her. Stepping forward, he gently took Elene's other side.
"Let me take her."
Imoen hesitated, then shifted her weight to let Elene lean on him instead. "Okay. You…yeah, okay."
Once Elene's arm was secure over his shoulder, he whispered to her, "We're getting you out of here. I promise."
She nodded, then lowered her head, squeezing her eyes shut against whatever horrors she'd witnessed. Imoen stooped to collect her fallen blades. Positioning them to move, Xan saw Kivan hunched over the corpse on the ground, relieving the dead man of his possessions. His kinsman moved with clinical precision, pausing when he pulled out a piece of paper from one of the compartments in the man's belt. He unfolded the paper and skimmed through it in silence.
"Well?" Jaheira prompted.
"Sarevok's messenger," Kivan answered, pocketing the paper.
Unfolding to his full height, Kivan led them across the bridge. It was a smooth path, slippery at certain places, but clear of enemies. The sound of lapping water accompanied them, the glow from the water below creating light ripples in the rock ceiling. Xan didn't pay much attention to his surroundings. All his focus was centred on getting the woman next to him to put one foot in front of the other, even as she smeared blood all over his robes. Although her attire was shorn and bloodied, the flesh of her arms appears to be intact. That meant that she'd been hurt and subsequently healed, likely multiple times, as she fought through her enemies. If he had to guess, she'd used that unique ability of hers again, stretching them to the limit to keep herself alive. He didn't know what to think about that.
His sanity was greatly bolstered when he began to feel moving air against his face as they neared the exit, until the only thing standing between them and freedom was a rock wall. Some tinkering by Imoen netted a hidden mechanism which enabled the wall to slide open with a grinding noise.
The sky had begun to darken by the time they surfaced. Looking up, Xan determined that they were at the western face of Candlekeep, facing the cliffs. He maintained the presence of mind to cast a quick illusion over their heads so that no one from the windows of the library towers would spot them by accident. They were fugitives now, after all.
Elene looked up. To his relief, he observed a minute change in her countenance once out in the open. Her posture became slightly straighter as well, no longer leaning quite so heavily on him for support. He squeezed her waist to remind her she was safe, earning him a grateful look.
"Let us get moving. We need to find a safe shelter to recover," Jaheira beckoned them onward.
Gazing at the clear skies for a moment, Xan suppressed a sigh. No rest for the wicked.
The group trudged onward and headed up the slope, aiming for the treeline. Elene soldiered on without complaint — pale, glassy-eyed. Xan recognised the signs of someone in deep shock. They cut through the cliffside at a slow pace, each of them fatigued after hours languishing anxiously in a prison cell and the mad dash through the catacombs afterward. Once they got under the cover of the trees, Xan dropped the illusion covering their presence.
"Here," Kivan pointed once they reached a suitable glade deemed far enough from Candlekeep's walls.
Imoen threw a wistful look at the distant spires of Candlekeep. "What about the horses?"
"We'll have to move on without them," Jaheira answered.
Gently, Xan deposited Elene against a large oaken tree. She barely acknowledged him, so lost she was in thought. Nonetheless, she accepted the water canteen he offered and took a long pull from it. While she recovered, the group stood around not knowing what to do until Xan cleared his throat.
"We should prepare camp," he said.
Kivan moved first, grateful to have something to do. They set about their usual tasks preparing to rest for the night, trying to pretend at normalcy. Jaheira approached Elene slowly, as though afraid to spook her. Her caution was overblown, though. Elene merely stared at the patch of earth before her feet, not even noticing Jaheira's poking and prodding as the druid set about healing her wounds.
Hours passed in uncomfortable, stilted conversation. They didn't dare start a fire for fear of detection, so they had to cope with dry rations for the night. Imoen somehow managed to cajole Elene to eat several small bites after getting her cleaned up and healed. Otherwise, Elene was mute and unresponsive. Though at least her eyes regained their lucidity as time passed, as though she had begun to process recent events and wrap her head around it. Hopefully, she would come out fighting on the other side.
As for Xan…he'd quietly come to the realisation that his investigation had more or less concluded. Sarevok was the real threat all along, not Rieltar or the Knights of the Shield. He could return and report on a coming war between Amn and Baldur's Gate, triggered by an ambitious, bloodthirsty scion of the Iron Throne. Would it threaten Evereska? Not likely. With the current state of affairs, Amn would win that war and crush the madman and his delusions for conquest before his armies went east toward his home.
They just needed to be sure to stay out of the path of carnage. Perhaps he could even convince his superiors to give Elene protection, if he could justify her innocence somehow.
"What are we going to do?" Imoen asked eventually, voicing all their thoughts aloud.
Xan glanced around his companions gathered in a loose circle. None of them could offer an immediate answer. Even Jaheira looked lost. Framed for murder, likely all their faces would appear on bounty notices stretching from Beregost to the Gate. Getting back into the city would be hard enough, trying to arrange a meeting with Duke Eltan and Scar without landing back in the dungeons would be nigh on impossible without inside help.
Turning, he sought to reach out to Elene, but stopped short when he caught the look on her face. The predatory glimmer in her eyes, the one he witnessed in the caverns, had returned. If anything, it intensified as she gazed at Jaheira.
"Before we discuss that…Jaheira, I have a question for you."
Jaheira angled her body towards her charge, studying her. Everyone else stirred, sensing the suddenly charged atmosphere. Imoen glanced uncertainly between her friend and the druid, wondering at the sudden change in her friend.
"Well, what is it?" Jaheira prompted.
Elene's face was carefully blank as she spoke. "Did you know?"
"Know what, child?"
"About me." She narrowed her eyes. "What I am."
Jaheira made a frustrated sound. "You're an elf. Gorion's foster daughter. A former scribe of Candlekeep. What kind of answer are you looking for?"
"Really? All these years, all those letters? And he never told you?" Elene glanced at Khalid. "Either of you?"
"What's this about?" Jaheira snapped.
Elene stared at her for a long time. Then she looked to Xan. "Is she lying?"
He resisted his first reflex to bristle at her question, treating him like he was a walking lie detector. From the edge in her tone, he knew this was important. So instead of trying to argue, he merely shook his head. "I sense no deceit."
"Do you mind telling us what this is about?" Khalid asked slowly, sensing the same undercurrent.
Dropping her gaze, relief filtered through Elene's features even as she nodded to herself. Jaheira was about to prod her again when Kivan stopped her with a warning look. He raised a hand halfway, as if to say, wait. Clenching her jaw, Jaheira glared at him but chose to relent. Xan raised an eyebrow in surprise. When did she start listening to Kivan of all people?
When Elene eventually broke her silence, her voice sounded small in the night, her eyes still glued to the ground. "Gorion left behind a letter for me. He…cleared up some things."
"What things?" Jaheira prompted, earning her a frown from Kivan.
"He said," she paused, as if thinking of how to phrase her next words, then scrubbed her face in resignation, "I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it." She swallowed. "He admitted that my birth father was Bhaal."
For a long while, no one moved. Xan stared at her, feeling as if he was suddenly underwater. Was this some kind of cosmic joke? If so, he knew the Gods were laughing at him. They had to be. The one time in his life he'd found someone worth protecting, worth fighting for, and she was the offspring of the vile, deceased Lord of Murder? Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Imoen cover her mouth with both hands while the others to his right sat unmoving just as he did.
"Bhaal? The Bhaal? The same one Alaundo kept going on about?" Imoen stammered.
"Yes," Elene finally raised her eyes to look at her friend. "The Bhaal. And all the things the prophecies allude to."
"You're an elf," Kivan pointed out. "How can you be the child of a human God?"
"He…took on mortal avatars before the Time of Troubles. To look like the race of people he wished to…" she trailed off with a vague hand gesture, looking uncomfortable.
Impregnate. The word you're looking for is impregnate.
Xan felt ill. But he had to ask. "Did Gorion know this for a fact? Or he merely assumed?"
"He was quite certain about it." Elene looked away, her expression becoming pinched. "Ulraunt more or less confirmed it when he sentenced me."
The silence stretched; all present rendered speechless. Kivan got to his feet and began to pace to one side, his anxious energy increasing Xan's own agitation. Turning his head, Xan noted Jaheira's ashen face, like she was finally given the last piece of an elusive puzzle and was dismayed by the answer in front of her. Khalid idly rubbed at the side of his face, disbelief plain on his features. It was interesting to Xan, that these two had known Elene's foster father before she was even born, and yet were not entrusted with the secret.
Why did Gorion decide to keep her? Was it driven by the Harpers' agenda? Were they cultivating a weapon here in Candlekeep as a trump card? Xan dismissed the thought out of hand. If that were true, Elene would have been trained to fight well, to be strong in magic, or at least the basic tenets of intrigue and subterfuge. Instead, she had been allowed to cloister herself with Oghma's disciples to train as a scribe of all things, sheltered from all danger in her ignorance.
"Elene," Khalid reached out to touch her knee. "I swear to you, we never knew."
"We didn't. But I suspect some of our brethren did," said Jaheira with a pained look.
Elene turned to her with cold eyes. "Was I to be a Harper pawn? Is that why Sarevok wanted me eliminated?"
"No. No." Jaheira shook her head vehemently. "Whatever you may think, we, our people, do not trade in the affairs of Gods. This goes beyond, far beyond our mandate." She sighed, a weighty sound coming from someone who'd been their pillar of strength all this while. "Gorion taking you in didn't mean Harper interference in your upbringing. As far as Khalid and I knew, he'd retired, and that was that. He had not been involved in our affairs ever since you came into the picture."
Elene nodded slowly, seemingly satisfied with Jaheira's answer.
Kivan paused his pacing and asked, "Why does Sarevok want you dead?"
"Because he shares the same heritage. He'd confessed as much," Elene replied, her tone bland.
Her answer hit Xan like a hammer. On this day, he'd discovered not one, but twoBhaalspawn. While he was not familiar with the prophecies of Alaundo, he'd lived through the Time of Troubles. He remembered well the havoc wreaked by Bhaal in his proxy wars with other Gods during those dark years. This revelation disturbed him greatly. Sarevok's trail of death and destruction was befitting of his true nature. He was indeed a grave threat to the region, if not the Realms. Was Elene doomed to walk the same path by virtue of her blood?
He froze. Wait. Was this the real reason why he'd been sent to the Sword Coast?
To investigate the veracity of Alaundo's prophecy?
Xan frowned as he read the missive. An odd assignment, to be sure. Although not the strangest he'd ever gotten in his years as a Greycloak. Then he remembered he was being watched, so he schooled his features back into neutrality as he looked into the eyes of his superior.
"Am I to understand you wish me to gather insight on an…iron crisis?" he asked, doing his best to suppress the incredulity in his tone.
Cool green eyes gazed back at him. Unimpressed, unamused. "Not beneath you, I hope?"
He cleared his throat. "Of course not, Master Nalin."
"Good." Nalin flexed his fingers, a habit of his Xan always found distracting. "Find out what you can, Xan. Make sure whatever rot taking place in the Western Heartlands does not find its way here."
"Of course."
As he gathered himself to leave, though, Nalin leaned forward in his overstuffed chair. "And do keep an eye out for anything…out of the ordinary, while you're there."
He cocked his head in curiosity. "Like what, sir?"
"It's been a quiet decade since the Time of Troubles ended. More strife is sure to rear its ugly head soon. The only question is in what shape or form. See to it that your report includes anything or anyone of interest you meet in your mission." Nalin paused, then gave him a curt nod. "May Corellon show you the way."
Taking in Elene's weary face, he cursed his superior, his mission and most of all, his rotten luck. Captured, imprisoned, tortured, and somehow, he'd managed to find the portent he sought without even knowing what he was searching for. His report would have to cover Sarevok and Elene both. And despite Sarevok being the clearer danger, Elene's elven blood will put her on centre stage, especially if the short-sighted cretins of Eldreth Veluuthra caught wind of her. Her guilt would be presumed a given just by virtue of her heritage.
Jaheira's question from the other night echoed loudly in the recesses of his mind, taunting him. Of duty and split loyalties.
Accursed druid. One way or another, she was going to get her answer, after all.
.
Author's Note:
And so, Elene decides to come clean. I was 50-50 about whether she'd keep it secret or be transparent. Then again, given the mess Gorion inadvertently created from keeping it quiet in the first place, she should be smart enough to know secrecy wouldn't be the best strategy for her tight-knit group.
Do let me know your thoughts. :)