I wonder what I would've been in another life
In another life… The Killers

Chapter One: Suffer the Little Children

"On small things does the fate of the world turn," said the Solar. "Events have not transpired as Alaundo foresaw. In his visualization the Chosen One, the ward of Gorion, would have been male. Sarevok. Had that come to pass, and had he been the one to accompany Gorion, how would you have fared? How would he have done in your stead? Would he have become the Hero of Baldur's Gate? Would you have followed the path Sarevok took in this reality? Let us see…"

0=≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

Gorion caught his balance and gasped for breath. Alianna was dead at last, but she had hurt him badly before she went down, and he was almost out of spells and potions. He looked around and saw that at least half of the Bhaal cultists had been slain, and the remainder had fled deeper into the temple complex, but his few Harpers were in poor shape. None were dead, fortunately, but some were bleeding, and all looked somewhat battered. The unhealed wounds implied that they, like him, were low on healing spells and potions. They would be in a bad position if the cultists regrouped and counterattacked. Alianna was dead but Madele, who was almost equally formidable, still lived. She had retreated, wounded, but no doubt she would heal herself, rally the others, and return to the fray armed for battle instead of dressed for ritual. The wise course would be to get the Children out of the temple, and away, as quickly as possible. There were more than twenty of them, and no bodies of children to be seen, and so it appeared that the Harpers had arrived in time to save them all. Hopefully that happy state could continue.

"Everybody out!" Gorion called. "Run, children, for your lives!"

Some obeyed at once, a few merely stood looking dazed, and a few others took more positive action by snatching up weapons from the ground before running. A drow girl, as tall as an adult woman but with the build of someone no older than twelve or so in human terms, dashed to where the body of another female drow lay. Not one of the Harpers, nor one of the Bhaal cultists as far as Gorion could tell, this woman too had been very tall by drow standards and was garbed as a Ranger. Gorion wondered if the dead drow might be Cierre of Luruar, as he had heard that she was exceptionally tall, until he saw the girl pick up a crossbow, a quiver, and a silver circlet from the corpse. Cierre was known to favor the longbow, with which she was reputed to be highly skilled, and to be equally deadly with sword and axe. This dead drow, presumably the girl's mother, must have been some other drow Ranger of lesser renown.

A couple of teenaged human boys acquired swords, another grabbed a quarterstaff, a girl found a dagger, and a little girl of no more than ten or so, with features and garb that suggested she hailed from Kara-Tur or the Hordelands, seized a short-bow and quiver of arrows. Those children who had made the decision to arm themselves joined Gorion, and the other Harpers, in spurring the dazed-looking immobile children into joining the exodus from the caves.

As Gorion ushered the throng of youngsters out he considered which he would choose to take with him to Candlekeep. One of those who had acted proactively, he thought; perhaps the Drow girl, or the little girl of Kara-Turan ethnicity, for they were the ones who would face the most difficulties if they were simply left to make their own way in the world. It would be a hard choice; perhaps he might sneak a second child in, under the guise of her being an orphaned relative of Winthrop unconnected with the Children of Bhaal, but neither of those two girls could be explained in that context. He would have to choose one and hope that the other made it to safety on her own.

An armored cultist emerged from the inner passages and brandished a mace. "For Bhaal!" he cried, and made for Galvarey, who was covering the rear. A second cultist was a few paces behind the first and no doubt others would soon follow.

Galvarey brought his sword up into a guard position, ready to defend himself and the Children, but was not called upon to use it. An arrow struck the cultist in the throat, and a crossbow bolt hit his eye, almost exactly simultaneously. The man dropped dead on the spot and the one behind him backed away and retreated out of sight.

Gorion saw the two girls he had noted, the Kara-Turan and the Drow, lowering their weapons and exchanging a brief grin with each other before resuming their flight. Those two, and a teenage boy who had turned to stand beside Galvarey ready to fight the cultist, were now lagging somewhat behind the others.

Gorion led the throng through the outer cave. "We'll see you safely to Soubar, on the Trade Way, or to Baldur's Gate," he told the children. "You'll have to find your own way from there, but we'll give you enough money and supplies to get you started. Follow me. Quickly now!"

They emerged from the cave mouth, out into the open air, and descended the zig-zag path down the steep slope to the forest floor. He cast a wary eye over the surroundings as he went; the Forest of Wyrms was not a safe place. Dragons were rarely seen, despite the name of the forest, but it was infested with several varieties of giant spider and packs of wolves and worgs roamed the area. He saw nothing to cause alarm. The passage of two bodies of armed humans, first the cultists and then the Harpers, might have caused the creatures of the forest to vacate this area. It would not be wise to take that for granted, of course, and he would keep his eyes open for potential dangers.

And keep an eye on the Children, of course; it would be tragic if any of them wandered off and fell victim to the perils of the forest. Even as that thought crossed his mind, he realized that some were missing already; the two girls he had noted earlier and one of the boys. And Galvarey. Where had they gone? Then he heard Galvarey's voice calling out, coming from the top part of the sloping path, sounding agitated, irritated, and pained.

"Come back, you young fools! Come back here! Aargh! Ow! Damn it! Oh, blast! Pick up that sword, boy, and you can keep it."

"What's going on, Galvarey?" Gorion called. There was no immediate reply, but after a few moments Galvarey appeared on the lower part of the path. He was limping and had lost his sword.

"Three of the Children have run off," he reported. "The two girls who slew that cultist, and a long-haired lad who was waving a sword around. The little Easterner girl yelled something in her own tongue and took off down some sort of goat track. The other kids followed her down. I tried to go after them, but it was too steep for me in this armor, and I turned my ankle and lost my sword. They seemed to have some idea where they were going, and I'd say we might as well just leave them to it. Has anyone a healing spell or potion? I'm completely out, and I can barely walk on this leg."

Entillis Fulsom produced a potion and, as Galvarey drank it, Gorion considered what to do about the runaways. It sat ill with him to just leave them to their own devices, but pursuing them with his few comrades, with all the other Children to look after, would be difficult and might put other lives in danger. "Which way did they go?" he asked Galvarey.

"They went over the side of the path in that direction," Galvarey answered, pointing to the east.

"We'll go around the hill that way, then," Gorion decided, "and hopefully catch up with them. If we don't, though, I think we'll have to let them fend for themselves."

"They seem capable, for children," Galvarey said, "and I'd guess them to be more wilderness dwellers than city folk. I think they'll be better off in the wilds than on the streets of Baldur's Gate."

"You might be correct," Gorion said, "and I certainly hope so. We'll still set off in that direction, and keep an eye out for them, but we can't afford to spend much time searching. Is your leg fit to walk now? Then let us be off."

0=≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

They spent the night at the Blue Dragon in Soubar. The inn was much too small to provide beds for the whole throng and most had to sleep in the stable. Now that there was time to talk with the Children Gorion found, to his horror, that the rescue operation had not been in time to save them all. The sacrifices had already begun when the Harpers arrived, starting with the youngest infants, and the reason for the lack of bodies was that the Children had turned to dust when they were slain. It was a horrifying revelation, and a further horror was that some of the Children had been the offspring of the very cultists who were sacrificing them; conceived and born, in fact, merely to be vessels for the rebirth of Bhaal. Most of the Children were traumatized by their experiences and the ones whose mothers had been about to sacrifice them were in the worst shape of all.

Gorion wondered, once he had been told about the cultist mothers sacrificing their own children, if the dead drow woman he had seen had been a Bhaal worshipper who had changed her mind at the last moment, unable to bring herself to kill her child, or if she'd been an innocent duped into bringing her child to the temple and then slain as she tried to save the girl. He doubted if he would ever learn the truth, as he had seen no sign of the drow girl and the other two runaways, and soon he was too occupied with the remaining Children to give the matter any further thought.

Trying to keep things calm almost drove Gorion to distraction. The other Harpers weren't much help; he had hoped Reviane would be good with children, but she soon disillusioned him, and scolded him for making that assumption just because she was female. Luckily, his friends Khalid and Jaheira arrived before he started tearing out his hair. They had been away on an operation in Amn and had not made it back in time to join in the actual assault on the temple. Now that they were here Jaheira took charge of dealing with the traumatized Children in a competent, no-nonsense, but sympathetic fashion. Gorion was able to leave her to it, with great relief, but the stress caused him to consider a choice he would not normally have made.

He had found a spell in the libraries of Candlekeep that was designed for dealing with traumatic memories. It originated with the Sharrans, normally an indication of extreme evil, but it came from the Darkcloak branch of the Sharran religion and that represented Shar's lesser-known benevolent aspect as the Lady of Loss. The spell description had included a warning that it was something of a blunt force approach, and had cautioned against frivolous use, and he found that to be oddly reassuring. No such warning would be attached to a spell intended for malicious purposes. It would deal with trauma by removing the memories of the traumatic event but would not affect the recipient's core sense of self, personality, or skills that had been learned unless they were indelibly associated with the trauma. It would, however, entirely remove the recipient's memory of people, including loved ones, if their loss was the primary cause of trauma, and that was one reason why caution in the spell's use was advised.

Gorion thought that it sounded appropriate for these circumstances, and he would have liked to use it on all the worst-affected Children, but that would not be feasible. The spell included an element of ritual, and consequently had a long casting time, and casting it on them all would take several days. He decided that he would have to restrict it only to the individual he took to Candlekeep and the one he would bring in later in the guise of an orphaned relative of Winthrop. He prepared only one casting of that spell and devoted the rest of his capacity to defensive spells suitable for the journey.

He was still concerned about the fate of the rest of the Children. Turned loose on the streets of Baldur's Gate, even if well provided with funds and supplies, they would be vulnerable to exploitation. Some might be taken in by foster parents, or by guilds as apprentices, or find berths as cabin boys on the ships of the bustling seaport. Others might fall in with less salubrious company. He suspected that some might end up with the Thieves' Guild, or in the brothels of the Undercity, or be taken by slavers, and anything might happen to the three who had run off by themselves. Still, at least they would have a chance to survive, and it was better than them all being sacrificed to resurrect the dead god Bhaal.

Or slain by Cyricists. Khalid and Jaheira had brought news. A large band of warriors, flying the Black Sun banners of the new god Cyric, had been seen heading into the Forest of Wyrms toward the temple of Bhaal. It had been Cyric who slew Bhaal, at Boareskyr Bridge not far from Soubar, and the return of the Lord of Murder would be the last thing Cyric would want. Undoubtedly the expedition had been intended to stop the ritual although, unlike the Harpers, the Cyricists would have done so by slaying the Children as well as the Bhaal cultists. They must have been not far behind the Harpers and had they arrived during the fight the Harpers would have been caught between two enemy forces and almost certainly wiped out. The timing of the rescue mission had been perfect by sheer good fortune. When at last Gorion was able to retire to bed, in a cramped room shared with Galvarey, Entillis Fulsom, and Tel-Anon, he was feeling better about the way things had gone. Even so, he was still tormented by regrets; not only for the Children he had failed to save, but for Alianna. Having to kill the woman who had once been his lover, and for whom he had still harbored feelings, had been extremely distressing and his sleep was troubled by nightmares.

In the morning, as the Harpers were getting the Children ready to move on to Baldur's Gate, Gorion decided upon the best candidate to be taken to Candlekeep. His first thought had been to choose the girl who had picked up a dagger during the flight from the temple, feeling that a girl would be too vulnerable in Baldur's Gate and more likely to end up in an abusive situation than the boys, but Jaheira told him that the girl had screamed at the crying Children to shut up, rather than try to soothe them, and had kept to herself and refused all requests for her to help with getting the necessities for the night together and everyone settled. Jaheira thought that she would be a disruptive element in Candlekeep and Gorion agreed. Instead Gorion turned his attention to the tallest of those boys who had armed themselves, a lanky fellow of perhaps fourteen or fifteen, who had behaved himself more favorably. He had assisted in setting up the temporary beds, helped with preparing the meals, and had done his best to reassure those Children who had been too frightened to sleep. A much better prospect, Gorion thought, and he made his decision.

"Young man," Gorion addressed the youth, "can you read and write?"

"I can, sir," the boy confirmed. "I'm no scribe but I can shape my letters well enough."

"Well, then," said Gorion, "do you wish to go to Baldur's Gate with the others, or would you prefer to come with me to the library citadel of Candlekeep? I promise that you will be safe there, and there will be tutors who can train you in whatever skills you wish."

"Could they teach me sword-fighting?" the boy asked, sounding eager.

"Indeed so," Gorion confirmed. "The guards of Candlekeep, known as the Watchers, are skilled fighters and include trainers in their number. You would be expected to earn your keep with odd jobs, running messages and caring for visitors' horses and the like, but in return we could certainly train you to be competent with sword, bow, or axe."

"I'd like that," the boy said, "and I'm not afraid of hard work."

"Good," said Gorion. "In that case, come with me. What's your name, lad?"

The tall youth lifted his head proudly. "Sarevok."