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Chapter 15: The Wretched Truth

Hand over your ward and no one will be hurt! If you resist it shall be a waste of your life!

That had been Sarevok's warning to Gorion that night in the rain, out by the old standing stones just a mile east of Candlekeep. Her father had laughed coldly, power rising about him in warning as the great armoured man stepped from the treeline, flanked by monsters and spellcasters alike.

I would be a fool to trust your benevolence. Step aside and you and your lackeys will be unhurt.

I'm sorry that you feel that way, old man.

Gorion had made her run, promising her he would follow. He had not followed. And for whatever reason, Sarevok had not found her that night. Perhaps he had been wounded, for in the aftermath only he and his ally Tamoko had escaped. Elatharia had found Gorion's torn body with the help of Imoen when her sister found her wandering the road the next morning. They had both wept over Gorion, as Nalia had over Lord De'Arnise. And in the end, after burying him, all Elatharia had left of her foster father was his grey cloak which she hugged to herself that night in spite of the warm weather, watching the firelight of their camp.

They had rejected Nalia's sniffled offers of hospitality. The girl was grieving (and irritating), her mother revolting, and the castle was in no fit state to host guests. Not even low-born ones. So in the end, Nalia had paid them handsomely enough that it seemed altogether a waste of time to go back and empty the vaults…and they had moved to go, citing a need to get back to Athkatla sooner. The girl's eyes had widened as they moved away and she had run after them, asking to come as well. Elatharia had denied her this with as much vehemence as she could.

"Tell me, my Peacock – is it common in this Prime Material Plane for a young lady to wish to escape one marriage by entering into another, equally loveless one?" Haer'Dalis was inquiring from where he sat against a tree, strumming the small harp he carried with him when travelling.

"More common than you might expect, tiefling," Valygar put in while Anomen spluttered. The ranger had taken the events of the day far more in his stride than had the young cleric, who had been keeping his eyes on the armour he was polishing by the fire since they had finished their evening meal.

When her request to join the group had been declined, Nalia had looked to Anomen, then Valygar, explaining at some speed that she simply had to escape because she was betrothed. If that was not possible, then she called upon their kind (and nobly born) souls to take pity on her and marry her instead, in name only of course.

Haer'Dalis had not stopped laughing about that all day. Once the camp was set up, Valygar and Aerie on cooking duty, the bard had leaned back against a tree and pulled out his harp, chuckling his way through a few possible songs to fit the preposterous marriage proposals and the indignation of the intended grooms.

"Marriage is a pointless Surfacer practice," Viconia derided, eyeing Anomen with poorly veiled amusement from her seat upon the ground not far from Haer'Dalis.

"M-marriage should be about love. When you want to spend your life with that person and know you don't want to live without them," Aerie corrected sternly from across the fire. Anomen, polishing his armour beside her, sent her an appreciative smile.

In truth, the avariel had seemed faintly entertained by Nalia's request, and especially by Haer'Dalis's improvised songs – though she was far too polite to admit to it, attempting to send sympathetic glances Anomen's way instead. Yoshimo had thrown in a few suggestions for rhymes, all of which Haer'Dalis ignored. The tiefling seemed determined to hold onto his mirth, in spite of the Kara-Turan's attempted input.

"I am sure the cleric of Helm will attest that, in his level of society, such is not the way of marriage. (And quite rightly, too)," Edwin disagreed, looking up from his spellbook as far around the fire as he could get from Anomen and Aerie. Both of them blanched at the sound of his voice and turned similar glares his way, "Marriages are normally arranged by one's parents to improve or stabilise family standing. Although from what I have heard about your father, I doubt any noble family would be happy to have you, Anomen. Perhaps you should have agreed?"

"You horrible, unfeeling…" Aerie started to sputter.

"Take back your dishonourable words at once, Thayvian!" Anomen exclaimed, dropping his breastplate with a clang and looking ready to pounce to his feet until Aerie's small hand settled on his forearm.

Edwin just watched this stirring and cooling of Anomen's wrath with a faint smile – from what Elatharia could see from her removed vantage point. No one seemed to be paying her much heed, since she had been so carefully quiet since the fight with the trolls in the DeArnise Hold.

"Your words are to be expected, Red Wizard," Valygar noted coolly, shifting his position upon the rock at the edge of the camp with a sense of coordinated menace, narrowing his eyes Edwin's way, "All you can care about is yourself and your own advancement. Honesty, love, truth and shared happiness are all anathema to you."

"Oh, and now you profess to know me, ranger? I have heard that it is you who have sworn off any threat of furthering the Corthala line," Edwin sneered, looking back down at his spellbook and waving a hand dismissively, "Go, bother someone else."

Valygar did not continue the budding argument, apparently preferring to fall back into his habitual silence. But he watched Edwin for several long moments, even while Aerie leaned into Anomen to whisper some kind words his way and Viconia and Haer'Dalis took up a conversation about the rarity of marriage around the Planes. Yoshimo had been quietly fletching arrows, part way around the fire between Aerie and Edwin's disparate seats.

It was still too hot to sleep under tents, and they made their camp under the open, star-filled sky, half-sheltered beneath a mossy overhang and half by the press of trees nearby. In the opposite direction a stream tinkled quietly and beyond it swooped the open road back to Athkatla, cutting through the broad Amnish farmland. It would have been better to have had Jan with them, given recent events; he could have warded the camp better than Aerie or Elatharia with Illusions to throw off potential attackers.

They were understandably nervous, given that they had been ambushed by a Bhaalspawn so recently. Sister he had called her, staring down with golden eyes. And he had dissolved into golden dust at his death, just like Sarevok had. Just like she would one day if any of her other murderous siblings found her. And there it was, the problem that was really on everyone's minds: how had he found her? And who might come next? And when?

It was partly because of this that Elatharia had been too distracted to listen to the words of Haer'Dalis's songs – and had only half-listened to the recent bickering. But, more than that, her own memories were pulling her thoughts too far into the past to really appreciate the events that had so amused Haer'Dalis.

Seeing Nalia grieve for her dead father had reminded her all too strongly of how her own adventures had begun, with the death of her foster father Gorion at the hands of Sarevok, the brute she had learned was her own brother through Bhaal. It made her realise that few of her current companions likely understood what it was like for her to be so young, and so alone. Not that she would have ever wanted Gorion to linger, overbearing, while she inevitably waded through blood to kill Sarevok before he killed her. But she had been left with no guidance mere hours after leaving Candlekeep for the first time in her life.

From what she had learned of her friends, only Valygar had lost his father in similar circumstances. Yoshimo had alluded to growing up an orphan, while Aerie and Edwin both still had two living parents each, however distant. Viconia's upbringing in Menzoberranzan hardly seemed conducive to a consideration of parents that came close to the expectations of the surface world, and Haer'Dalis was rather a mystery for such a talkative fellow.

No, only Imoen could understand. She owed her this much.

With shaking hands, Elatharia settled her journal onto her lap, its smooth leather binding cool against her fingertips as she leaned back against a rock, well away from the others, and slowly turned the stiff pages until her own small, neat handwriting gave way to Imoen's more flowing script.

22nd Mirtul, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

Hello, Elatharia. I've decided to start writing in here because I don't think I will ever be able to talk to you out loud about what's happening to us – but I think that I'll go mad if I don't tell someone. Sometimes I get a glimpse of his journal, and if the date he uses is real then we've been here for over three tendays now.

I still haven't seen you. I think maybe he keeps you in a separate cell past Rielev's tank room and the other rooms for his captives. He's shown me Jaheira, and Minsc…and oh, Elatharia the things that he has shown me. And everything else…I don't know where to start. I hope he hasn't done the same with you, I hope he has spared you the sights, the endless torments, the – but wait. I had better start from the beginning, right? Or I'll have done got ahead of myself and there won't be any sense to get out of what I've written. And there I go, right there, making no sense. I can't think straight in this place, my thoughts are all jumbled. My head aches.

He has Khalid, and Dynaheir. He's killing them, slowly; a bit at a time. Each time he brings them out to torment them he makes me watch, and if it's Khalid then he brings out Jaheira. If it's Dynaheir then he brings out Minsc. But it's all for me. I know it is. He's doing it to teach me something, saying 'Do you see?' and cutting and saying 'do you see?'

Over the last three tendays he has shown me every way to kill that his twisted mind can think up. He seems to have a lot of enemies to kill. If I close my eyes when he's showing me then he worms his magic inside and twists and prods and pushes until I can't take it anymore. And now I don't close my eyes. It doesn't seem so bad anymore. He asks me for my opinion, any suggestions…and I've started giving them. Sometimes I laugh. It just bubbles up and keeps on going until I'm gagging and weeping again. I think he's driven me mad. Or maybe he's just taught me that I always was.

26th Mirtul, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

I don't hear your voice. He rarely mentions your name. He talks about power, and unlocking potential. He teaches me about death and pain and sometimes he watches me do the same. He geased me the first few times. The most recent time I volunteered.

30th Mirtul, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

You will wonder, if we ever get out of here. I know you will. I'm not a good liar. Not with you. You'll see that I never really had a cell. You'll see the room he keeps me in and you'll wonder how much of it was my fault. Or will you? Do I? He blinds me, drugs me on the golden light. I'm not me when that happens. But I think he geases me, or Enchants me before he – we – and I...

I won't believe anything else.

He does it like he's testing something, an experiment like everything else. He mutters about memories and feelings like he can't quite recall what they are, while he's tormenting me. He learns everything, just for the sake of knowing, just so he can make it worse, so he can win. Afterwards, when he's gone and I sleep…I wake up crying, and I realise that no one who ever loves me will ever know me like he does.

4th Flamerule, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

I can't stop it. It's getting worse. I dream of golden light, and when I wake my head aches like my bones have twisted into a little dagger at the back of my skull. Every time he has made me kill it's got worse. I dreamed of you the other night – you didn't look the same, with black eyes and golden hair just like the light. You handed me a dagger made of bone, my own bone, and you told me that I will learn. What will I learn?

5th Flamerule, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

We killed Khalid and Dynaheir today. She was first; he dragged out Minsc and then he showed me. I was crying so much that I couldn't see her past the tears; she begged me for help but there was nothing I could do. He put geases on me to make sure of that. Minsc's shouts, his howls – they were as bad as Dynaheir's screams. At least it was over quickly. Fairly quickly. And the golden blindness didn't come, it just flickered behind my eyes, at the back of my head, and my skin crawled like there was something living inside me, trying to get out.

Khalid came next. I can't speak of that.

6th Flamerule, 1369 DR – Year of the Gauntlet.

He seems distracted, has done for hours. He sat at the table in amongst all of her things, this 'Ellesime' he mutters about, and he just let me sit there on the end of the bed, looking through the doorway and watching him. He seems to be struggling to write these days. He seems more certain, and more distracted by it. He hasn't touched me for over a day. He only came in here twice to write, and if he knows that I've been watching how to undo the wards around these chambers for myself then he doesn't seem to care.

I've found a knife, and a bow. No arrows yet. Out in the storeroom up the stairs from my – from her chambers. He hasn't come back.

I've put your spellbook and mine in a bag, with Gorion's cloak. Our…captor…he kept them in a chest in this room, unlocked like he didn't care if I found it. He's been teaching me spells but before today he's only let me see my spellbook when it was in his hands. It feels like a trap, getting to your things and mine so easily. But then there are things of mine that he never took. Like my belt, and the lockpick Khalid gave me last year for my birthday before we went to Durlag's Tower.

I've done had enough of this. I'm getting out of here. I'm taking my chances.

Numbly, Elatharia closed the book, watching its plain leather cover resting on her drawn up knees. Her hands were shaking, but her breathing was steady.

"The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sown from their passing. So sayeth the wise Alaundo," she whispered the words under her breath, and a shudder ran through her.

Imoen's words left her in no doubt now. Her sister was as much of a Bhaalspawn as her. Irenicus really had wanted them both, though he had taken to tormenting them in different ways. He had forced the previously dormant essence of murder into Imoen's consciousness with 'lessons' and disturbing emotional manipulation, among other horrors. He had attempted to conversely tame Elatharia to his will, with the worst violence and tortures imaginable.

For the first time in her life, Elatharia both needed and wanted to talk to Jaheira.

"I take it that you have read your sister's journal entry and ascertained the obvious," Edwin commented, catching her by surprise as he perched on the side of the rock she was leaning against. He eyed her as placidly as he knew how when she looked up at him balefully, her shoulder digging into his knee as she twisted, "Unless your recitation of a prophecy which concerns yourself is a new admission of egotism, or a shocking change of religious bent."

"What do you mean, 'the obvious'?" Elatharia demanded, blinking away the tears that had welled in her eyes.

The Transmuter slipped her journal back into her bag of holding before the Red Wizard could consider plucking it from her grip. Instead, he picked his way over her legs and inspected the ground for a few moments before sitting next to her, staring thoughtfully into the guttering fire as he settled himself upon the dusty earth. It had hardly rained in this region for months, so he would not become muddy at least.

"Well? You mentioned something about 'the obvious'?" Elatharia repeated, staring steadfastly at Edwin.

"You have finally realised that your sister is a Bhaalspawn," he told her evenly, "Something which most fools would have realised once they had learned how similar you are in age, your fosterages at almost exactly the same time in a place that rarely takes on children. Your utterly unknown heritage."

"Are you implying that you have known this for over a year?" she truly hated him in that moment, until he looked at her in mock reproach, his arm pressed against her shoulder, warm and insistent in its pressure with every breath.

"No," Edwin denied, "(Although I am glad that she thinks, correctly, that I possess such powers of deduction.) But I have suspected. Have you not?" He was speaking to her in an almost-whisper to avoid the others hearing; Yoshimo was sleeping not far away, Aerie and then Anomen a little further out. Valygar was watching the trees and the road from a vantage point across camp. Haer'Dalis and Viconia were muttering to each other across the sheltered area, by the trees. Edwin was whispering, and that was why he and the Transmuter were so close together against that rock. The only reason.

"I suspected," Elatharia agreed, watching the dying firelight dancing across his golden torc and its red ruby rather than look at his face, "Why did you never say anything?"

"It would have served no purpose. She never manifested any powers like yours. It was a curious inconsequence – until your Irenicus chose to make something out of it, correct?"

"So you only stay with me for my Bhaalspawn power? Because I serve a 'purpose'?" she glanced at his face and saw his eyebrows rise.

"And why do you keep me around? For my (admittedly highly entertaining) wit? For my spectacular fashion choices?"

He waggled the fingers of his hand where it rested on his knee, causing the rings he wore to glint in the firelight. His disdainful tone brought a laugh from Elatharia, in spite of everything. Hearing her mirth, Valygar looked over at them briefly, his eyes glinting in the dimming firelight. His expression registered surprise until he looked away again, frowning into the darkness. It was not often that Edwin made someone laugh. It was not often that Elatharia got a chance to laugh.

"Something like that," she smiled, slipping her arm through his without really thinking too much of it. He was warm, and close.

"Hmm," he glanced down at her as if in disbelief, but his arm shifted to accommodate her own. There was a hint of a smile threatening to break through.

Feeling suddenly guilty for finding mirth at this time, just after reading Imoen's journal, Elatharia broke the eye contact, looking down at her fingers curled around Edwin's sleeve, pale against the black of the fabric. It was a little stiff under her touch, but smooth. And through it she could feel him, and the weight of his arm against her. When his shoulder brushed her chin, Elatharia looked up in startlement. She had not intended to get so close. The glint of the firelight on the beads of his beard caught her eye, and she glanced at his face warily to see him watching her thoughtfully. No sneer. No frown. No smile.

"I miss her," Elatharia sighed, and Edwin's eyebrows raised slightly as if in surprise. She turned her cheek against his shoulder, preferring not to see the judgement he might cast upon her for this admission.

"You will avenge her," his voice hummed through their points of contact, his tone that of a correction. He toyed absently with the hem of her grey cloak where it had settled against his leg.

"I will," Elatharia agreed, her fingers fisting in the fabric of his sleeve, anger blooming bright and golden for a moment as she considered all the types of vengeance she would have to wreak upon Irenicus to make them even, "Right after I've saved her."

His jaw brushed against her temple as he turned his head, as if intending to read her sudden change in mood. She tilted her head back and met his eyes, trying to ignore the rush of something else that frayed her concentration as she did so. His expression was hard to read but there was something…curious…in his dark eyes.

"I still miss her though," she insisted firmly, and his lips quirked, "Don't you miss anyone from home?"

His brows drew together in confusion, or something of its ilk, and he raised his hand – for a moment Elatharia thought he meant to brush her cheek, but instead it changed course and he ran it through his hair. He returned his gaze to the fire and the snoozing camp a short way away, his frown deepening.

"Your questions betray your coddled upbringing," he uttered at last, and just accepted her nudge when it came. She found herself burrowing against him further, biting back a wry smile. The boulder was now digging uncomfortably against her spine, but she found that she needed the physical contact with someone more than a comfortable sitting place.

"Just different, I'd say," she suggested, not in the mood for a real argument. He grunted in disagreement, but it sounded half-hearted, too.

"Playing the diplomat tonight, I see," he noted quietly, the rough edges of his tone smoothed out by the darkness and their closeness, it seemed.

His comment made her think of Imoen again, who had always sought the happy middle ground. How much she must have suffered, and how long she had suffered! Elatharia was not known for her caring nature, but her sister was another matter to her. Sister in more than name and more than upbringing.

Taking a steadying breath, she forced herself to grow calmer, knowing that Edwin must have been able to feel her quaking at his side. She drew out another sigh, rubbing at her face beneath her mask with her free hand and surprised to feel the dampness of tears. Willing the moment of weakness to pass, she watched the stars for a time, picking out the constellations and recalling the names of each silvery point of light, comforted by the rise and fall of the Red Wizard's shoulder against her cheek as he breathed.

She recalled the stories Gorion had told her and Imoen, of the spelljammer ships which could sail the open space between the stars. Imoen had loved those stories. There was a doodle of one of their ships in the margin of her journal which her sister had drawn just after they had destroyed the bandit camp near Baldur's Gate. She had laughingly suggested that be their next adventure, and drawn little stick figures which Coran had labelled with each of their names. Elatharia might have drawn out the journal to look at it again, if Edwin had not been by her side. That reminded her of reality, and she blinked away the nostalgia which had overtaken her.

There.

Another sigh.

It was a quiet night.

After a moment of quiet contemplation, the Transmuter looked up at the Red Wizard again. He had been staring into the last flickers of flame dancing across the charred logs of the fire, lips pressed tightly together, still rubbing the fabric of her cloak faintly between thumb and forefinger. It was enjoyably rude to interrupt his thoughts, so she nudged his shoulder with her chin. He grunted.

"Edwin?"

"What is it now?"

"I meant what I said earlier – I am, contrary to your belief, a wizard in my own right. I might not be a Red Wizard, or an expert in Conjuration versus Evocation, but don't think I haven't noticed how many Evocation spells you like to fling around, like Fireballs and Lightning Bolts. That's the opposite of specialisation. I know that there's something strange going on. I know there's something you're not telling me; I always have, but I'm a better wizard now than I used to be, and I'm starting to understand. Have anything to do with why you left Thay?"

"You think that I have some obligation to tell you?" he sounded incredulous, very still beside her.

"Not particularly," she shrugged, pleased to have the chance to make him feel uncomfortable, "But I'll work it out."

"You did something today," Viconia had been attempting to quell this train of thought for several hours, and now with the others no longer paying any attention, she had lost her concentration for a moment in the peace of the night. Haer'Dalis looked around at her with a crooked smile, nudging her knee with his.

"I do many things, beautiful Blackbird. I have certainly done many things today," he reached out and tucked some of her hair behind her ear, the promise of his touch on her skin taunting at best. He only smiled when she glared, "You will have to tell me in more precise terms…"

"I would if you did not fill each silence with your empty words!" she told him as fiercely as she could, "You…you moved to my defence when the guards of that wretched Hold might have attacked me. I was ready to run, but you…you were the first to show your allegiance to me," the anger in her voice wavered, and with it went Haer'Dalis's teasing expression.

"There is something painful in the way that this world does not accept you, my Blackbird," the tiefling admitted softly, his eyes two pools of pure blackness in the fading firelight. His voice was deep and honest, utterly unashamed by such words, and part of Viconia could not believe him, no matter how much she wanted to.

"I did not say it to gain your pity," she told him coolly, remembering the tale she had told him of the horrors she had faced upon the surface after leaving Elatharia – and before.

"And as I said to you before, it is not pity that I feel when I see you – or when I think of you," Haer'Dalis told her, so patient, "One who has been a slave understands these things…"

"I was never a slave," Viconia spat reflexively, and he just raised his eyebrows at her.

"Then what were you to the caravan master who used you? What were you to the men who abused you outside Beregost?"

"I was taken without regard for my true station! Used against my rights!"

She wanted to shout, to take up the Flail of the Ages and swing at him…but she had to bite back her anger, lest the others hear. Haer'Dalis seemed unfazed in the face of her temper.

"Is that not the way for those who are taken as slaves? As my father was, as my human grandparents were? Was my mother any less unfortunate to have been born a captive? Was I?"

Viconia had no words to answer that. Her stomach dropped to hear his words, and his tone. The thought of herself as a slave made her feel physically sick, and her hands shook with the flooding memories. But…he was also right. And she ought to have hated him for it; once she would have. Instead all she could do was snarl at him and ball her hands in frustration. She felt so angry in that moment that she wanted to weep, and with the thought of that she slumped, sighing.

"You are a wicked and deceitful creature, to push me about so in our conversations," she admonished, though he started to smile again at her words, "Did you learn what you wanted from me? Have you finished studying my behaviour for your next terrible play, jaluk?"

"Oh, my Blackbird! More misinterpretation!" he was smiling, though, "I am fascinated by you because of who you are and what you have felt, but I am also fascinated for the sake of learning," he affected a very solemn expression, pressing his palm over his heart, "I am not going to use that which you have told me for the entertainment of others, Viconia," he swore.

"I know better than to trust your oaths, tiefling," Viconia reminded him, and that made Haer'Dalis laugh.

"Very wise, my Blackbird," he admitted, grinning again now. She eyed him thoughtfully from the corner of her eye, wanting to smile for no reason that she could fathom. Her words came from her before she could check them.

"And to think that all I had intended to was to thank you. Sometimes…" she stopped, looking away – and glad that he could not see her blush now that she wore her true form.

"Sometimes?" he prompted, his deep voice closer than she had expected. It sent a shiver down her spine.

"I am not like the blushing avariel, simpering over your every word," the drow reminded him – and herself. He chuckled at that.

"Aye, you are not," he promised, and a glance at his face showed that he was holding back more laughter, "Though I do not see how she is so bad…" She ignored his taunts.

"Have her then. I have no reason to care," Viconia shrugged, "The drow are not so prejudiced as the surfacers when it comes to pleasures of the flesh. We take as we will and do as we wish. Though it is of course under the whims of the females. As it should be."

"Ah," he dipped his head to meet her gaze, "Then should you not be choosing someone? Do you not truly mean that I am here for both of you, not both of you here for me?" Haer'Dalis paused, then shrugged, "I would argue 'tis both."

Viconia blinked at him for a moment, unsure.

"And, my Blackbird, I am still waiting. Sometimes…?" he prompted again.

"Sometimes…sometimes I…no, you will not draw such nonsense from me!" Viconia denied him, and ignored his disappointed look, "But…you have mentioned before that you were once a slave, and you have referred to the Blood Wars many times. I would…know more."

Haer'Dalis nodded solemnly, standing unexpectedly and drawing her up with him, keeping her hand in his. He gave her a look of mock-reproach when she attempted to tug free. His skin was warm against hers, and even contact as simple and chaste as this made her throat go dry.

"Yes," he told her, "Though perhaps not here." He began to draw her towards the trees, and Viconia wondered at her lack of fear, "You have told me of your time on the surface, and it is only fair that I tell of my past, also."

They stopped a little way from the camp, not far amongst the trees but out of sight, where a few rocks crested the thick undergrowth. Here Haer'Dalis sat, against the tree at the centre of the rocks. He let his arms rest by his sides, unthreatening, and looked up at Viconia almost blandly until she sat cross-legged on the ground before him.

She heard of his birth, to a half-demon slave in the depths of the Abyss. His grandmother was a marilith who had fallen out of favour with her Abyssal overlord, used to breed half-demons and their ilk as an eternal punishment. His mother, similarly, was kept purely to breed more offspring which could be used as an expendable force in the Blood War. When he had been born with so few demonic traits; blue hair, a few markings on his skin, black eyes, but little else to suggest his heritage, he had been ill-favoured in the demonic army. He had been brought up as a frontline warrior, and learned to fight better than most of the others his age to compensate for the disadvantages he had in size and demonic traits. He had fought for uncounted years as a slave in the Blood Wars, beaten readily by his masters, attacked without mercy by his foes.

It had taken a long time, but Haer'Dalis had earned some respect, taking on a role of leadership in the army which almost equalled his fallen grandmother's. Still, there had been no joy in this endless war. Though the violence did not fill him with fear, and he did not shy from destruction of his own, it was not in his heart to play such a role forever. His salvation came uncounted years later when he became the lover of Raelis Shai, the granddaughter of a succubus who had earned her way as a spy in Sigil. That city, as neutral ground, was not one which would permit active Blood War missions. Nor could the generals follow Raelis there; she was blackmailed into returning with news because her overlords kept her baby son captive. Haer'Dalis helped her free him, and together they escaped with the others who would come to be the Sigil Troupe. Safe in Sigil, she had taught him the ways of the actor and the bard, and filled him with joy. In that city he had also been inducted into the ways of the Doomguard.

And for the first time in her century of life, Viconia sat and listened to a male tell his story, and she passed no judgement.