I apologize for my delay with updating, but I've recently reinstalled both Knights of the Old Republic games (old memories) and not only have they been keeping me busy, but... Baldur's Gate isn't exactly the thing to write about when you're playing around the Star Wars universe.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own
private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which
determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau
CHAPTER TWO
Duality
At first, Imoen had been grateful and relieved to see a change in Vendice's behavior after the bard had read the letter. Though the sight of the dead bodies, Gorion's especially, had been shaking for both, the young thief was too cheerful by nature to remain in pain for long. She had hoped Vendice wouldn't brood either, though she had every right to do so; and her wish had seemed granted for a while. But now, when they were back on the road and making their way eastwards, Imoen wasn't so sure.
The tune that the bard had been composing and humming occasionally along the road began as a pretty happy-sounding one and the thief thought Vendice was trying to discard her sorrow. But more and more, it had grown into a rather forced charade which resembled a madman's. Once, one of the mothers sheltered in the monastery had given birth to a dead child – Vendice now reminded Imoen of that woman's lost and disbelieving attitude while she clung to the baby and sang to it, unable to admit the truth. Also, it was worrying how oblivious the bard was to her surroundings and how lifelessly her steps were taken, at always the same pace, a cadence that would have properly fallen into the description Gorion's stories gave to undead creatures.
Except from the humming, they walked in silence and kept a steady pace that allowed a good view and study of the land. If Imoen had been a ranger, she was sure she would have found it all very educative. As they were passing by a group of trees the two girls had never seen before, Vendice suddenly came to a halt, stopped humming and spun on the thief so abruptly that the redhead's heart skipped more than just one beat.
"Why are all beautiful things frail?" asked the bard, her eyes clouded and seeming to look at some point directly above Imoen's shoulder. "For example, dreams. They're beautiful, aren't they? But fragile, so fragile..."
"D-" the thief tried to catch her surprise-accelerated breath. "Dreams? Yea, I think so. Why; didja have any special ones lately?" She did not yet know what to make of this sudden turn of events she couldn't have possibly anticipated and was doing her best to be her usual cheerful self.
"I am having one right now," Vendice confessed with an air of exaggerated secrecy. "Promise not to tell anyone, but it's a nasty, nasty dream." The smile plastered to her lips looked silly and distracted.
Imoen didn't know what to do, what to say; she considered knocking her friend unconscious and going from there, but dropped that course soon enough because it wasn't her style. She couldn't possibly bring herself to hit Vendice out of nowhere. "What was... is... your dream about?" she asked reluctantly.
"Many people," answered a gleeful Vendice. "They all love the murderer; even Gorion does. And the murderer... well, he's cute when he's wearing pink instead of that ugly armor. You like pink, Imoen, don't you?"
Imoen nodded, for she knew not what else to do. She waited for a while and just held her short bow close; she doubted her friend would be able to defend in that state, if anything were to attack them. The bard would probably not even notice it if everything started wilting and turning into ash around them, out of the blue. Imoen expected Vendice to say more. But her friend just stood there obliviously for a few additional moments, then turned around and resumed walking. And so, the thief followed, the tension grew with each step they took and the young rogue's nerves felt like old, unstable bow strings by the time they ran into a rather odd pair of travelers.
The two men had stopped along the path for a reason that Imoen couldn't guess by merely looking at them; already they appeared more than just suspicious. One, a tall human dressed in green robes, was looking around with an amount of merriment and carelessness that seemed to annoy the other, and he kept gaping at every single leaf in the trees or blade of grass on the ground. He pointed and gestured frantically, trying to explain something. His companion, a leather-clad halfling with a look morose enough to make one want to become invisible and sneak past unnoticed, was taking turns of glaring at either him, or the two approaching girls.
Vendice stumbled right between them and nearly tripped over her own boot, then simply froze there and Imoen had to stop a couple of steps away and watch with enough caution for the both of them. "Oh, hello," said the bard in an awkward, clumsy, remotely pretty-girl like manner. "I'm Vendice." She smiled to the halfling, who just rolled his eyes at her in response and grumbled something.
The green-robed mage whipped around and gawked at her like she was the last living dragon in the world or something to that effect. "Montaron!" he then exclaimed, more than a tad louder than necessary and with an enthusiasm as unexplainable as, per example, where that scroll of Tethtoril's back in Candlekeep had disappeared. (Well, actually, even that had an explanation, but Imoen would carry such a deadly secret of utmost importance to her grave.)
"Ye don't need to be yelling like that, dolt," snapped the halfling in return, then turned his poisonous glare to Imoen. "Move those busy-bady eyes some place else before I lose me patience."
"But Montyyy," the mage switched to a whiny voice that simply didn't belong there, with his image of a grown-up man. He sniffled and stomped his foot moodily when the other's attention was back at him, then the next second he had cleared his throat and was grinning wryly. "This young wayfarer is in need," he said seriously, with an air of self-importance, as he pointed to Vendice.
"I am?" Vendice though fit to actually speak, or more likely rant, by that time. "Err... I am! Though you don't look like a knight in shining armor." She gave the mage an apprehensive look. "Maybe if you bought some plating and turned your friend into a horse... err... pony."
Imoen swallowed a very tight knot and felt it roll down into her stomach in a fashion much like she was sure a rock would, though she hadn't yet tried that feat. The halfling was looking at Vendice in a manner that was none too friendly, especially with his hand going down to his belt, where he was sure to have some weapon.
"Looks to me like she could still use some roughing up, Xzar," said Montaron with an ill intent.
"Nonsense!" the mage switched back to gesturing widely and exclaiming, and somehow Imoen didn't think it was so much of an accident when his hand whipped about and caught the halfling right in the face. Though Xzar seemed to be quite eloquent with his apology and excuses.
Montaron spat at his companion's feet and glared up at him with all the fire of the Nine Hells. "Blast, ye blithering idiot, I'll be dumping ye down the first sewer mouth I see open."
"Young traveler," said Xzar, not minding his companion's injuries any more than you would a simple troublesome fly. "I can offer you healing potions as a token of our good will."
This time, his manner had been a courteous one, though its respect most likely hid some personal interest in his case; or that was how Imoen felt about it all.
"I won't even hold you in debt for it," continued the green-robed one. "Though your conscience knows otherwise."
"Like all good people," muttered the halfling.
Vendice would have to be stupid to accept such an offer; after all, the bard knew her way with people even better than the young rogue did. Imoen relaxed and let out her breath, but her peace only lasted for the moment before she actually looked to Vendice. What was she thinking? Currently, the bard was worse off than just 'stupid', her own sanity seemed to have been completely torn to shreds.
"I'd be grateful for your assistance," the half-elf accepted whole-heartedly, nodded and even disregarded the fact that she had her own potions somewhere in her backpack. "Maybe you would even travel with us for a while; we're headed for the Friendly Arm Inn, to meet some nice people there."
Imoen felt an urge to just slap her forehead and sigh, but she held back from that, for the sake of paying attention, if not for good first impressions. "Vendice," she said, stepping in. "Maybe we should... go?"
The bard was just taking the potion offered to her and staring at it with wide eyes, much like she hadn't ever seen such an object before. "But I'm having fun here," she protested to the thief, then pouted. "Why doesn't this pretty bottle shine?"
Imoen couldn't possibly fail to notice the nudge that the halfling gave to his companion when he thought the two girls weren't looking anymore. She heard the whispered words clearly: "Mayhap we can convince them to go to Nashkel with us, hmm?"
"Nashkel!" Xzar yelled with glee, thus ruining every effort to maintain secrecy that the halfling had made. "Yes, let's go to Nashkel!"
"Nashkel?" Vendice didn't seem completely oblivious either, though she wasn't concerned with the fact that the first objective of the two had been to speak behind her back. "Is Nashkel going to like us?"
"Err..." Montaron seemed to lose his grip of the situation for a while, only to regain it a moment later and cast an angry look at his mage companion. "Why don't ye come with us and find out for yerself?"
"Vendice," Imoen tried to grab the bard's arm and warn her – as much as someone in her condition could be warned – that something about the two didn't look right.
"I like you," the bard said, ignoring her and peering over to Xzar. "You're funny and you gave me the pretty bottle that doesn't shine."
Xzar twirled in place and just seemed to stare over to the horizon without purpose. His halfling 'friend', if he could be called so, grunted and grabbed the sleeve of his robes. "We'll go with ye to yer Inn, if ye come with us to Nashkel. Ye owe us that fer our time," he addressed Imoen more rather than Vendice. With that, he dragged Xzar away along the road, going past a stone indicator that marked the path as the Coastway.
"Let's go," Imoen pleaded with her bard friend soothingly and began to lead her away as well.
Vendice complied without much in the way of protest, waving and shaking the potion bottle around with the hand free from the redhead's. "Imoen, why don't you agree with me that it's pretty?" she asked poutily.
"I never said I didn't agree, Vendice," the thief attempted and managed a smile, to hide her actual need, which was of sighing profusely.
At least they were moving again, and the two suspicious men were ahead and couldn't make any move on them without her seeing it.
Vendice didn't know much of herself, really; she didn't even perceive things, aside from the vague impression that she was taking steps. As far as she was concerned, she could have been on some floor in the middle of the Abyss, dead already, and just walking off to nowhere land. At least she felt safe here, away from the world and without the need to concern herself with ethics, morals and being witty for the sake of good conversation. Peace and quiet, much like those she had in Candlekeep, but even better because there were no stupid little chores and no incompetent villagers for her to help. No monks to lecture her for the smallest things and make her read all of those boring books. Not even the voice.
All that, until she stepped on a twig, and it snapped. And with it, something also snapped in her own head and she gave a sudden start that wrenched her through an immensely burdening lid back up to the surface. She gasped for air and collapsed to her knees when her legs buckled, unable to sustain her; it felt as if something had been controlling her body and now she had it back and her own command of it had overridden its previously received indications.
"Vendice!" she heard a worried voice, Imoen's, from her right, and the thief's cold hands slid around her arm and helped her up. "Are you alright?"
The bard leaned on her friend for support and watched the world spin around at an eerie inconstant speed. There were many lines and spots of both light and shadow that merged and darted about frantically, but they began to fall into place and form bigger things with each blink her lids performed. Her eyes stung as if they had been wide open for a while longer than it was natural and she felt a few soothing tears well up on the edges to drown the pain.
"Where are we?" she asked Imoen, somehow, through all of the confusion.
"A good way closer to the Friendly Arm Inn than we were, I think."
Vendice was vaguely aware of the uneasy shift of weight her friend performed, and also of her sigh, and she could almost feel an awkward look fixed on her with concern. The Friendly Arm. Quickly, notions fell into place and she remembered; she remembered more than she would have wanted to. "When did we get this far?" she asked, frowning.
Just then, the ordeal began in her head. Damn you! the voice gave a terrible cry of displeasure. DAMN YOU! Silly little girl, I was having fun being you! "Being me?" Vendice asked, shivering with fright and managing to not even hear Imoen's next reply.
A moment of silence, then... "Vendice?" the thief shook her gently. "You're acting strange."
The bard fell into her friend's arms and wrapped her own about the redhead, seeking comfort in an embrace that never came from the limp, stunned and frightened girl that was Imoen at present. Nevertheless, she clung for a couple of moments and buried her face in the other's shoulder, which helped, offered enough comfort to keep the dismay-ridden tears from spilling out. She sighed.
Then, Vendice let go and recomposed herself, ignoring the wails and laments of despair that the voice issued as it stormed through her brain. "Who are these two?" she asked quietly and pointed to the human mage and the grim-looking halfling that had stopped further along the road and were by all semblances waiting for them.
"You... took 'em with us," Imoen explained with a shrug and avoided the bard's eyes as she fidgeted with a fold of her shirt. "You were acting strange, Vendice. I was so scared..."
"I'm sorry, Imoen," the bard sighed. "Gorion's . . . death has... affected me more than it should have. I'll be fine now." There was a grace about her, an aura of something similar to majesty that no one could deny. She turned away after offering her friend a comforting pat on the arm and surveyed the two men. "Get moving," she told them, the prompt and expeditious way a commander maneuvers his troops about the field.
The halfling grumbled and the mage whined, but both of them heeded her words and began to walk. The two girls followed, with Vendice trying to estimate what harm had been caused and whether these two should be kept or not. She reached the conclusion that, played right, they might prove useful cards for her to hold.
Cards? Played right? Where had she found so much strength all of a sudden? This wasn't what she knew herself to be, wasn't the artistic girl that wished to spend her time wandering and gathering ideas for new ballads to write and sing. She reminded herself of a knight or something of the sort, who was getting ready for war. And assuming she did have a war to fight, she didn't even know who her enemies were, which was, overall, just stupid. She would have to ask Imoen about what happened.
But not before settling one little dispute she still had. 'You,' she thought firmly to the chaos-driven voice. 'Stop shifting about.' What if I don't? came the reply. What will you do? You can't hurt me without hurting yourself... but I can get away with hurting you just fine. It laughed at her; it no longer snickered, no longer teased, no longer tried to annoy her – it was plain out defiant and condescending. 'What have you done to me?' demanded a no less resolute Vendice. I possessed you, it sneered. I have as much power over your body as you do, little girl. Or even more. 'We'll see,' Vendice did not give it the satisfaction of appearing defeated in her own mind, though this worried her more than she was able to explain.
The time for answers seemed to have come, and there was no Gorion to offer what was required. Who, then, was Vendice to turn to? Why, yourself, of course, offered the voice without hesitation. If you want something done right, do it yourself. Wasn't that how the saying went? 'How come you end up helping me?' Vendice asked it with a flicker of hope. I'm not helping you, the voice backed away and faltered for a moment. I'm... amusing myself. Yes. Yes, that. 'Well, well. You are bound to my will as much as I am to yours, are you not?' A grin spread on Vendice's mentally projected face; she did not know where the realization had come from, but she knew it to be true. It rang of a power that she could yet muster; the voice fell silent.
"So, Imoen," Vendice began as her steps grew more confident and her hips began to sway with the usual charming grace that the bard had built over time. "Care to explain to me exactly what I did while... grief-stricken?"
The thief looked relieved when she eyed her and more than happy to share.
It had begun to rain again and the four of them were completely drenched by the time they finally reached the bridge leading to the gates of the Friendly Arm. The entire ensemble looked as huge as a full-fledged castle from where they were standing, with its stock of fortified walls of solid stone and a titanic central structure rising up from behind, even taller. There were even guards positioned strategically on the battlements and at the gates. Yet somehow, the atmosphere failed to be as austere as that of any castle; not that either Vendice or Imoen could actually tell, not having seen a real castle, but the place did look friendlier than Candlekeep itself.
Montaron sputtered with displeasure, still trying to shake the water off of him, for as pointless as the effort was. "Ye'd do well and hurry, fop," he snapped at Xzar, who had remained behind and was staring up at the clouded midnight sky, his mouth wide open to capture some of the falling drops.
Imoen sighed and wound her careful way around the two, trying to ignore Montaron's glare. The halfling didn't seem to like anyone or anything and hadn't taken too well to the couple of jokes the thief had tried on him along the road. The only information they had managed to draw out of him was about his own profession; he was in part a rogue as well, though his primary training had gone into fighting skills. Knowing that and not finding him to be an agreeable and understanding companion at all, Imoen was a bit reluctant to leave her back open to the halfling.
As for Vendice, she had been silent for quite some while, unable to think of anything but the strange old man they had encountered. They were squinting and trying to decipher the writing on a stone pillar in the middle of a crossroads, to make out which way led to the Friendly Arm, when the white-bearded red-robed mage with a pointy hat had appeared. None of them had caught the moment exactly, so as far as they knew he could have simply materialized out of thin air.
"Ho there, travelers! Stay thy course a moment to indulge an old man," he had greeted them in a strong voice. Vendice had been compelled to admit it was dipped in wisdom, or so it appeared. Then, he'd shown himself as rather eccentric and asked some mildly allusive questions about their sanity, which were particularly hard on the half-elf. Wondering what it was he knew, she had been as polite as she could, but also quick in her dealings with the old man and had not disclosed one thing about their destination. Though strangely he appeared to know what it was already, for he had offered directions. Then, he had excused himself, apologized for taking her time, and left.
The bard had found herself unable to occupy her mind with any other thoughts than questions about who the strange man might have been. That was what she was doing now, when her boots splashed into yet another puddle, then thudded against the creaking wood of the bridge. She found the Friendly Arm a rather depressing place to be, in its drenched state, and the mud she caught glimpses of beyond the walls contributed. The guards didn't seem to mind them any more than to cast a few glances their way and make sure they would behave, so she went past the gates and headed up for the visible set of stairs leading to the actual inn's entrance.
Somewhere in the background, Montaron was still struggling with Xzar and Imoen had stopped to give the halfling a helping hand with it. Just as Vendice, who had hurried past the thief and taken the lead again, set foot on the first step, a robed figure detached from the shadows of the last and began to descend toward her. Somehow, Vendice was sure he was staring and found herself in a foul mood she had been unaware of. She would have liked him to bump into her or something to that effect, only for her to be provided with a vent.
"Hi, friend," the man laid honey on bread with his sweet tone as soon as they met and he cut the bard off from her path. "I've not seen you here before today. What brings you to the Friendly Arm?"
Despite the rain that rolled off from the thickness of her mane and pretty much every corner of her face, Vendice felt her cheeks heated and her green eyes burned when she fixed the robed stranger with a glare. "First off," she said. "I'm not your friend. And secondly, why I'm here isn't any of your flaming business." You tell him! the voice cheered, which only caused the girl to roll her eyes.
The man gave a loud snort. "How rude," he scowled at Vendice.
"Tough luck," replied the bard with a grimace and made to go past him and enter the Inn.
He grabbed her arm, squeezed tightly and held her in place. "No, really, that is utterly rude of you," he spat between clenched teeth. "I'd teach you a lesson about manners, but that implies you are going to live."
Vendice rolled her eyes and jerked away, but he brought her back into place, and only then did the girl start worrying. Maybe he wasn't just some drunk fool with the pretense of nobility and skill about him, after all.
He sneered at her and brought his other hand below her chin, lifting her face toward his own. "You're a lovely one, too," he remarked. "That's a shame. If I didn't have to kill you, I could find you other 'uses' for being so uppity."
A million possible actions she could have taken swarmed inside of Vendice's mind, some of them her own ideas, others suggested by the voice. Of all, she chose one – she spat at him, stamping his cheek with a stain of white. His grip loosened in the moment of surprise, and she pushed him away, then kicked at him. The man staggered for a moment, but obviously he wasn't just no one, and certainly not drunk, for he recovered the next moment and began to chant. Even if she possessed no skill to do so herself, Vendice was no stranger to casting spells – bards were versed in all kinds of lore – and she recognized the Magic Missile.
The half-elf drew one of her swords and swung it quickly, performing a zealous stab at the man's chest. At the same time that the blade plunged into his upper left half, he released the spell at her and four bolts of white-red light sprang from his fingertips and came forth. The speed was amazing, a technical detail usually left out of the stories about heroes and great deeds, and they hit Vendice like hammers, an impact that knocked all breath out of her. She stumbled and gasped, losing all conscience of what she was supposed to let go of and what she should hold on to, all sense of direction, including where up and down were, and the last of her remaining rationality.
The cracks she heard were only faintly perceived as belonging to her own bones when her body began to roll down the stairs, and the pain invaded her in a belated fashion. "Ugh," she groaned as soon as she had stopped falling, or thought she had, and tried to lift her head. That only released a surge of purely physical hurt inside every fiber of muscle involved and the world spun about in a frenzy of red. Something else, a warm substance, trickled down her cheek along with the rain, and that was the last thing she knew.