Chaos Shall Be Sewn in Their Passage
Deep in the Marching Mountains, which acted as a border for the human nations of Tethyr and Amn, was hidden a great temple, dedicated to the God of Murder: Bhaal. At dusk, on what was to be the night of the first full moon of the first full year after the time of troubles ended, all of Bhaal's surviving followers – all of who had strayed and could be found in that time now adorned Myrkul's wall at the heart of the hells - were gathered for the ceremony that would lead to his rebirth.
Most of the faithful, as well as several hundred women and children - at least one pair for every race known throughout the prime material - were packed into the temple's spacious courtyard. All were held in thrall by the beating of a magical drum, the herald of the ceremony which would soon start. Those under the dead god's compulsion were even blinking in unison, woman and child alike.
As the sun's last rays faded over the western horizon, a figure stepped up upon the dais of the upper level, overlooking the courtyard, drawing every eye not enchanted to that spot. The figure was masked, garbed head to foot in black robes, streaked with crimson red that shimmered and seemed to flow and shift like miniature rivers of real blood. Gloved hands raised up - one holding a wickedly curved and sharp silver dagger - spread wide and high overhead. When the Deathstalker spoke, it was with a voice that rang out across the courtyard, cold and merciless, void of all emotion except perhaps for zealous anticipation. Nothing at all visible or audible about the figure indicated to which race or even sex they belonged.
"Welcome, oh faithful of Bhaal," the cold voice intoned, "Tonight, our lord and master, the great Lord of Murder, shall be restored to us!"
The priests, priestesses, assassins and murderers all joined in a joyous cry so various that none of it was understandable to anyone, and so loud that the phrase 'wake the dead' may have been truly applicable. Certainly the oversized skeletal warders seemed stirred by the sound for a moment before they resumed their patrol of the walls. The thrall-held women and children did not so much as stir a finger.
"This night," continued the priest when the cheers had died down, some ten minutes later. "On this night I shall lead and perform the ceremony which Lord Bhaal himself entrusted me with. This night, the very blood of our Lord God will run free, the Children will fuel their Unholy Father's return. Let the first sacrifice be brought forth!"
Down came those arms, and the figure turned away from the audience, and took two dozen steps to the altar pavilion where the sacrifices were to take place. One by one, the women came up first one, then the other, of the two grand staircases leading from the courtyard to the altar, and placed their own child on the altar, unable to resist the magical compulsion Bhaal had left in them before he died. The High Deathstalker sneered behind the mask concealing their face in satisfaction over what was to come. Really, what mortal being could resist even the lowest of gods, let alone Bhaal?
With each child, a different prayer was said to the dead god, and then down plunged the dagger through the child's heart. There were no bodies to remove. For after only a few moments, the victim's body, even the blood which spilled in the basin, disintegrated into a mist of golden energy, which was absorbed by the altar.
So it was that dozens of children were sacrificed; some borne by thralls, and others by the willing priestesses of Bhaal. This continued well into the night, with the full moon rising high in a cloudless sky. As the moon reached its zenith, each of the priests and priestesses were beginning to kneel in communion as the now long-dead god's power began to stir.
Then the ceremony was interrupted. An arrow was fired over the wall, slaying the drummer. With the spell binding the thralls broken, absolute chaos erupted. The faithful, though skilled in dealing death, were vastly outnumbered by mothers who suddenly realized that they were leading their own sons and daughters to be slaughtered, and that they weren't likely to leave that dreadful place alive either. Those females of races capable of flight took wing, and were soon gone without a trace. A drow vanished into blood and shadow, carrying her daughter even as she slew three priests with their own weapons and a single invocation to Lolth. A demonic succubus, abandoning her tiefling spawn, opened a gate back to the hells, which killed, or at least severely burned, anyone within a pace of her in hellfire. Females of the vermin races scurried about, trying to escape with their young and only biting indiscriminately at ankles.
In the midst of all the chaos, the great gates, which had been sealed at the start of the ceremony, were dragged open. The remaining mothers stampeded out, trampling the already dead bodies of the assassins who had been guarding it. A young man, whose hair was nonetheless already gray, sprinted past the black-armored priests who were now fighting his companions, killing the civilian women who came too close, and trying generally to get out of their own temple alive.
On reaching the altar, he found a skull mask, a hooded black robe streaked with blood, and a wickedly curved silver dagger, laying on the ground, abandoned, as well as the body of only one of the thrall women, a red-headed human woman whose green eyes were forever locked on a place beyond mortal sight.
"GORION!" screamed a voice from the far side of the altar.
"Alianna, I-" the young man, Gorion, began. As he looked up, he saw a fine-featured elven woman, her child in a basket beside her. She had wavy chestnut hair that tumbled down her back, framing an elegant, short and narrow nose, sky-blue eyes, high cheekbones, and thin lips the color of blood.
"Why?" she cried, much to Gorion's confusion. "Why did you come?"
"Your letter said-" he began again.
"LETTER?" she shrieked, "I sent you no letter. When last we parted I-" this time it was she who was interrupted.
"Gorion!" called one of his companions. Even he couldn't tell which through the din. "Hurry! They're regrouping!"
"Come with me, Ali," Gorion said, holding out his hand, "We can live as a family; just you, me, and the child."
"My daughter will fuel my god's rebirth! Nothing can stop that!" she exclaimed, and lunged after the abandoned ritual knife. Gorion was closer, however, and reached it first. But just as he had risen with it, she, and the weight of all her armor, landed on the now-upright weapon, which pierced through her armor directly above her heart, as well as the flesh beneath it, as though it were so much butter. She collapsed on top of him, her life force already draining from her.
"Though not… by my hand… though not… this night… she will… fuel… his re…" Alianna sighed out these, her final words. Her beautiful eyes open forever as she joined her god in death. For what seemed like an eternity, Gorion knelt there, too stunned to move. His beloved Alianna's body was spilling blood all over the ground and his robes; until Gorion felt a hand on his shoulder.
"We can't stay any longer. They've rallied and are pushing us back," the voice said with a clipped rustic accent. Gorion looked up, startled, into a pair of blue eyes framed by long reddish-blonde hair. The woman's ears were pointed, but to a more subdued point than Alianna's, identifying her as a half-elf. As she pulled Gorion to his feet, he looked down at the face of his lover one last time, saying, "Goodbye, my love."
She was right, of course. Looking up, Gorion saw black-armored warriors coming up the staircases flanking the dais, and a lucky fireball from the gates annihilated the southern staircase, taking those murderers with it. He took up Alianna's daughter, who was strangely and completely silent – though one look at her told him she was indeed alive - from her basket, and sped toward the dais. Holding the little girl tightly to him, Gorion vaulted off of the dais, Nadina following right behind him.
Each of them landed atop a crossbowman who had been taking aim at one of their companions. One of their shots went wide, fired by accident when the unexpected weight landed on them. One ricocheted off of a wall and hit a third bowman in the neck. His shot, fired in a death spasm, buried itself in the ground. They tumbled, Gorion protecting the child the whole time. Then standing, they ran as fast as Gorion could keep pace. Joining their companions at the gate, the whole group engaged in a fighting retreat, taking special care to protect Gorion, and Winthrop, the only other one who had secured one of the children.
[-]A massive trail led one way, likely the stampede of women and children taking flight from that den of horror, that even the most unskilled of trackers could have followed. And a trail of bodies – more Bhall's faithful than anyone else, led another. Gorion had ordered his companions to go in a different direction than the fleeing women, to force those fools still worshiping a dead god to split their forces up. No, not fools. He would never think of Alianna that way. The sun's rim peeked over the horizon as the companions finally stopped to rest, the pursuit shaken. Of the twenty-five them who had gone into the temple, nine stood grouped together.
"We are clear," the woods-wise Nadina proclaimed, her eyes closed as she listened to her druidic insights. They would tell her far more accurately who or what was nearby better than their eyes or ears ever could. "The nearest band of Bhaal's faithful is half a league away."
Gorion produced the letter which had led him and his… associates… to that unholy place, reading it once again, as carefully as he possibly could, though he knew already what he would find. It was her handwriting, her diction and word choice, that warned him of Bhaal's imminent return, begging him to come and save her child, the 'precious baby girl' who had finally changed her heart away from that dark god's worship.
Doran, Nadina's suitor, crouched down next to Gorion as the scholar sat cradling Alianna's child; the child that should have, in his mind, been his own. A little girl, just as the letter claimed, and seemingly of pure elven blood, though of course the girl's true father was no elf, and never had been. "You have our condolences for Alianna… and we are all sorry that we could not save more of the Children. But… what do you plan to do now?"
"I will do exactly as I told Alianna I would do," he replied, balancing the toddler in one arm on one knee while re-reading the letter yet again with his free hand. "I will find some place quiet, some place free of excessive temptations… and raise this child as though she were mine."
"But where?" Riebald asked. "I mean, we did what we set out to do. Bhaal's return has been stopped, or at the very least postponed, and we plucked a couple of the Children out while we were at it. But where could you possibly go that is safe for… for their blood?"
"Blood only holds so much sway in a person, even tainted blood," Gorion countered defensively. "For now, I think it would be best if I kept my intended destination to myself. It is not that I do not trust all of you, for I do. But this girl can never be traced back to this temple."
"Here now," the heavyset but still muscular Winthrop chimed in, bearing the other toddler, this one seemingly pure human. "It's all well and good that you want to care for Alianna's child; in fact, I applaud you for it. But it will raise a few eyebrows, a full-blooded human claiming to be the father of a full-blooded elf."
"I know," Gorion murmured. "She is an orphan, both her parents dead. That much I know to be truth. And that much I shall say. If anyone asks, I will tell that her mother was a dear friend of mine, and that she wanted me to care for the girl."
"Close enough to the truth then," Winthrop said. "Perhaps you would care to give her a sister?"
"You won't take care of that one?" Gorion asked.
"Call her Imoen," the man told him. "And I've not done enough yet to be retiring and raising a family. Besides, the girl is her sister. They should stay together. Call her the daughter of an old friend, as well. But one that means to come and claim her one day."
Winthrop looked down at Imoen, and a fond smile appeared on his face. "After all, that part's true too. I'll be along to raise lil' Im just as soon as I finish up some more business I've let lie for too long."
Nodding, Gorion accepted his second charge, a second ward, and slipped the scroll away. Winthrop was right. This lifestyle was not one for raising babes, especially children with such blood as theirs. And they were sisters, though they must never be allowed to know it. "Very well, my friend. I will contact you by the usual channels when I find a safe haven."
"Gorion," Nadina said, laying a hand on his arm just before he left. "I saw what happened. I heard what she said. If she did not send the letter which brought us here… who did?"
"Her murderer," Gorion replied through a haze of tears.
[-]On the valley floor across Gorion and his associates, a milling mass of women, each of them with at least one child, whether or not that child was hers, huddled together for the protection of numbers. Each and every one was someone who lived on the surface: humans mostly, but dwarves, varying races of elves, a gnome or two, even another drow who apparently lived in Cormanthor. There had even been a fire giant with them until she stomped off to who-knew-where, and a sea elf – breathing with a magical globe of water conjured around her head – until they came across a river, which she had dove into without hesitation or a glance backwards that any of them had been able to see. And leading the lot of them, trying to keep them together and organize them, was a human woman named Melissan.
Like all the other women, she was disheveled from the events at the temple, and a long run over night, her dress tattered – some may even say indecent - and stained with blood that she claimed belonged to a priestess of Bhaal. She was desperately trying to organize the remaining forty or so women into some sort of column that had a chance of escaping.
"But what are we going to do?" a small, somewhat pretty woman from Kara-Tur demanded. She had a boy, big for his age, at her side. "Melissan, my son and I need shelter-"
"We all need shelter, you short-lived, two-legged roach of a woman!" another woman interjected. This one was a wild elf. While most resented their disheveled state, wild elves, this one in particular, flaunted it.
"Please, please!" Melissan yelled, tucking a lock of red-gold hair behind her ear and raising her hands to try and get attention and prevent the fight that was brewing from bubbling over. "I know that all of you are tired. We all are. I know that all of you are hungry. We all are. But we must continue flight from the temple for now. And we must stay together. Alone, any one of us is an easy target for a wild cat, or a wolf, or a Bhaal-trained assassin. This road is too well-worn to be a coincidence. It must lead somewhere where we can find food and lodging. Taka, Elliandre, please… both of you calm down and we will all be fine. The others look to the two of you almost as much as they do to me."
Fear was a very effective tool, especially when none of them had the slightest idea where they were. They would stay together long enough to reach a nearby town, assuming that there was a nearby town, but Melissan was sure that her reasoning was correct. And then they would disperse, as they must. Each of them had birthed a child of a dead god, children who would almost certainly be compelled by their very blood to follow their father's portfolio as murderers, if these women's husbands didn't strangle them and the bastard offspring in some misbegotten sense of self-righteousness first. Taka, the Kura-Turan, looked disgruntled, but stopped shouting, holding in her young son, Sarevok, a little higher and a little tighter. Elliandre, the elf, just leveled her with a glare.
That the 'Lord of Murder' had 'perished' beyond recall was of no true surprise to Melissan. She had studied the prophecies of Allaundo in her younger days, and thought she knew the warning they contained. It was beginning. The Children wouldscatter. Everything was falling out of place, just as had been foretold. The 'score of mortal progeny' had passed out of their fathers' hall, either into the grave or the relative safety of their mothers' – even if it were adoptive mothers' – homes. And the 'chaos sewn in their passage' in and of itself might have done - to an individual without as much foresight as Melissan - to satisfy the last line of the prophecy. She didn't think so.
Now all that was necessary was patience, perhaps years' worth of patience. It would be at least two decades, but likely longer, before everything reached its apex and started falling back, and even then, it would need to be poked and prodded as it fell to ensure that it was all properly placed. For now, Melissan contented herself to lead the women down the slopes of the mountain, away from the fallen temple. She was far from alone in the hope that she would never set eyes on that accursed place again.
[-]Some time later:
An old, rickety looking wagon trundled slowly up the narrow path to the gates of the library-fortress of Candlekeep. It looked old and worn, with the side rails bearing many splinters, and no trace of paint left on its weathered woodwork. In its seat, which looked as though it had recently been hand-planed until it was very smooth, was a middle-aged man. He was rather unimpressive-looking, with a very neatly cut head of short, gray hair that belied his youth, an average build, and an weary face that showed years of toil, in which was set a pair of light grey eyes wearied with concern and sorrow. With him were two little girls. One of them, with a short mop of black hair, and a pair of pointed ears betraying elven heritage, was curled up in her seat, fast asleep. Her name, given to her by Gorion, was Lysara. The other one, a human by the looks of her, was quite awake, and bouncing around the cart, her almond-shaped, chocolate-colored eyes going this way and that, trying to take in everything at once. This little handful was named Imoen.
Gorion pulled the reins, cueing the small mule pulling the wagon to stop just as they reached the gates. With difficulty, Gorion climbed down and, with a slight limp, approached the Warder - the one who kept watch over Candlekeep's entrance. Without a word, he simply handed him an old, worn book. After examining this for a moment, he nodded at Gorion, and gestured him through the now opening gates. A stable boy with wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a somewhat vacant expression approached to handle the cart as Gorion retrieved his remaining pack, woke up Lysara, and led both girls into the outer grounds.
Candlekeep was both a library and an imposing fortress. Built originally as an outpost in some war which bears no influence over the current tale, monks and priests of both Denir and Oghma, the two gods of knowledge, had taken up residence. There were two sets of walls surrounding the towering library's keep. The outer grounds, behind the outermost wall, which completely encircled both the inner grounds and the keep itself, were home to the stables, a temple of Oghma, a barracks, wherein the watchers of the keep slept, warehouses for food and water stores, and an inn, unimaginatively named the Candlekeep Inn. The inner grounds behind the inner wall, which encircled the keep itself, were home to several grand fountains, and a brick walkway which wound through carefully tended flower gardens on all sides of the library, a place of quiet contemplation and discussion most days that the sky was clear.
Gorion flagged down one of the Watchers - a young man named Hull - and requested that he keep an eye on the girls while he had a word with the library's master. Then he climbed up the high steps, and walked through the wide-open double doors, which were tall enough to admit a small giant, into the library itself. Imoen was now bouncing around in the flowerbeds, giggling and having a great deal of fun, all the while avoiding Hull's awkward attempts to restrain her. It amused Lysara to watch hull trying to bend down and grab the rambunctious Imoen, who was having no difficulty moving whatsoever, while Hull, who was in the full plate mail worn by the watchers, was having a great deal of trouble keeping up. After a few minutes, though, Lysara turned her blue eyes to the water. In spite of the racket Imoen and Hull were making - Hull kept tripping, which made a tremendous clanging and clattering sound – all sound was being gradually blocked by a tone which was building within her own ears, or perhaps her mind. She watched a raven's reflection land on the wall's in the water. She had been trying to clear the noise from her ears and almost looked away, before the bird's eyes caught hers. There were no whites, no pupils, just solid black orbs, transfixing her to the spot with an inexplicable terror.
The sound of voices raised in argument drawing nearer pierced the fear and the noise that was blinding her to the outside world. With a start, she looked around just in time to see Gorion and Alastor, the library's head, come through the main doors from the keep, deep in a rather heated argument, though her ears had not cleared enough for her to hear. Alastor stopped, and looked between Imoen and Lysara, then wheeled back on Gorion.
"Alright, they can stay!" He said with fury in his voice, "But they are, both of them, your responsibility. He turned and strode away without another word.