16 Eleasias
The journey home was with only the incident of infection. Dradeel's book, within the pack Imoen had obtained for being kept with the other copy of the charts, spoke of the cure: To kill first the chieftain and drink a simple potion of belladonna. Imoen made the alchemy with ingredients she drew from the ship's supplies, and the flower that I had brought. Disposed of, it was a bitter drink.
"I," Viconia boasted, "turned to the savage and mighty creature; and back again at the moment it appears that you disposed of their chief. It was a repulsive experience, but valuable for the moment of usage."
Imoen frowned. "So who did you kill?"
Viconia leaned gracefully back against the ship's wooden rail. "The Selunite surface elf it was the pair of you who told me of. We drow know the lore of monsters and of becoming them. I used the sense of smell to seek him; he lurked in the forest, drawing a casting circle by his spellbook. I simply ripped his throat out."
Selune the moon, Shar the darkness, the sisters who had sought to slay each other since before the beginning of mankind. We had let Viconia know.
"Dradeel," I said. "His name was Dradeel, Dradeel the navigator; and he'd have been better off if we hadn't helped him."
"Shar favoured me for it," Viconia said simply; though there were only a few clouds in the sky, she dared to stretch a dark arm out from her cloak into the air, her skin without flaw. "How many times have you forced me to stem your leaking blood from some foolish battle? I gained more power from it. Perhaps enough to destroy a wizard by the use of a cleric's castings alone, now."
"It's evil and I know it," Imoen said, her voice muffled and drawn, and she turned away from Viconia.
There was no chance to be free of each other's company for all the voyage home. This ship was a small single-masted cutter; and what Imoen had wished to tell me of it was that once there had been a name chiselled upon the hull, scratched out by claws, and certain of the fittings were of the modern-day city. That Kaishas had sought to conceal. Most likely once it had been a speculative spice-merchant, for some of the supplies still kept in it were of that description; wrecked, perhaps, by the Sirine Queen for Kaishas' trading of Evan (my rightful possession, she had said, and yet at the time we had thought little of it; it was a reason for what had happened to us within the island's strange waters at the time of the wreck...). Whether its first crew had drowned; or died at beasts' claws; or died at the claws of beasts who looked human...
(That was unfair. Some were more human than almost all humans. I had nothing tangible of him left.)
We were confined to a ship built for half of our number to be contained. The tasks did not fill all hours, and we could not be clean nor in solitude, and though the provisions had been for the appetites of werewolves they came low. By the time of landfall there was nothing any wanted more than to be alone in a room in an inn, a large one all to oneself with a scented bath and a piping hot meal set out with real cutlery.
The endless movement of the waves and the blank sky were numbly repetitive, and I tried to think as they. The crew speculated on the ship's identity, the names of some they had heard gossip of. It could even have been owned or part-owned by my father. Travelling from Baldur's Gate on the eastern route, caught off-course by an unusual wind or strange gale. In stories of ships found adrift on the water with no trace of any crew, they spoke of ghost ships. We had given our share of ghosts to the island.
Mendas' sea-charts guided back to the point of joining the tributary of the Chionthar that led back to Ulgoth's Beard, and we sighted land once more. Mendas, or Selaad...
On the decks my knees almost gave way to become used to solid ground once more. There were few about at the hour; hardly any fishers visible, the afternoon beginning to turn to nightfall.
"To that man first," Shar-Teel said, unsheathing her sword, eager to kill from those days of sailing confined.
There were five other men upon the docks; two humans, a dwarf carrying a warhammer in hand, a golden-skinned elf in the black garb shot through with the ripped teardrops and jagged gold-and-silver lightning bolts that proclaimed him a doomcrow, and a gnome robed in a pattern of enchanted suns and magnifying-circles. Unusual to see an elven Talassan, I thought; trying to scare up tribute, no doubt. The elf turned his head to look at us; Viconia hissed, and Faldorn folded her arms, scowling. We were hardly in the favour of that god.
Both of the humans wore armour; one carried a longsword, and the other an axe. They were well-dressed. Magic glinted from the first's chainmail, and the second wore both bracers and boots with the look of expensive enchantment. Their clothes and hair were clean and neat, their faces clean-shaven. The dwarf's hammer was the same bright gold as Viconia's old morningstar, and the gnome's robes fairly bristled with pouches for spell components.
The taller of the two men walked unhurriedly toward us, his group behind him.
"And would you be the returning heroes of the Beard, my lady?" he asked Shar-Teel, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. "Killed a demon, did you?"
"It's hard to remember how many males we've crushed," she sneered; by her side Viconia sidled up to smirk.
"We've killed not a few she-devils ourselves," he replied, and unsheathed his sword. They were—they could have been vengeful Talassans, the thought flew across my mind; there's a shrine to Talos in the city and lots of bad behaviour from them about the times of their storm festivals—and they could have been more bounty hunters, for other reasons. I drew the Burning Earth.
They were good, it was plain. The axe-wielding human said a few words, and a blue arcane shield covered his body; and all the movements of the enemies quickened. We couldn't keep up with how fast they moved. Then Imoen made her own casting, and suddenly we were closer to them. The first man's longsword shifted through intricate patterns that stalled both Shar-Teel and Ajantis, his armour far better than the stained cloth they wore; and the axe's blade sheared past my face. The dwarf was calling a battlecry, the warhammer arcing swiftly through the air. Viconia prayed, and a sort of darkness settled on us that gave some form of blessing.
The Talassan chanted in a deep voice, his arms raised high in the air; and the gnome behind him moved. Faldorn cried her chant at the same moment, and then lightning burned from the sky above us. Clothes singed; skin burned; but Faldorn had cast her druid's protection against the lightning storm, she yelled words that were likely druidic swearing at the other worshipper of a deity concerned with nature— The blue electricity struck down from the heavens again, and for a moment we were blinded. I ran back from the fighters. A spell of missiles spun from the gnome's hands, and Shar-Teel grunted as each hit her. She did not let it ruin the strikes of her sword.
The dwarf's warhammer fell through the air by my knees; I jumped back. Shar-Teel aimed a blow for his head, and he blocked; I didn't make it in time to stab forward. Imoen held her nut shells, reaching for her spell of confusion.
Then the acid arrow flew through the air and took her on the collarbone, and she stuttered the spell. She beat at the acid, and Faldorn and Viconia were near her so there wasn't much I could do— I blocked the axe's blow. Viconia called not for healing but for some other spell, I could tell.
The dark fire burst down from the heavens over the dwarf's head; there were scorch marks on both his armour and his skin. But rain fell over him to soothe his wounds, and hail to us: fierce winds blew at the Talassan's command, and thick stones of ice buffeted us.
Faldorn called to the skies to crackle above their heads; the casting seemed to come more easily to her than the first time I saw her call lightning. The strike seemed more powerful than Viconia's, and scorched the armoured warriors; but the Talassan was free from it.
"—Fool; waste not casting upon something that the enemy can protect from—" Viconia called to her; Faldorn swore again in her druid's tongue.
The gnomish mage was casting. Shar-Teel pushed directly through the storm, and took the dwarf's attention. Ajantis' cold blade slid across the axeman's mage-shield. I could not withstand winds as they; but I could navigate them, run with their backflows and past their damaging currents. I heard Imoen begin the words of another spell against the mage. I neared him, aiming to stop the spell—
Then Imoen and I stood alone in a maze, the leaves of autumn blowing in yellow and red and deep purple. She was behind me, finishing her chant; I stepped forward. Thorns gathered where the Burning Earth's blade struck, entrapping them. Missiles flew from her hands into a target of empty air. The grass underfoot was pointed, as if it was made of frost shaped to needles rather than pliant leaves, and coloured a strange grey-blue. In the sky, yellow and dark blue mixed together, woven into a disturbing half-sphere.
"—Where are we?" Imoen called. I looked behind the next corner of the maze, but there was nothing there and the thorns grew to reshape the path. I couldn't let her become separated; she ran behind me.
The gnome had cast.
"An illusion, it's got to be—keep moving!" Imoen said. "Don't trust anything—but I think it's you for real—" She ran behind me, crunching over the blue grass and the leaves. The thorns moved; I wove away from them.
"—You learned Islanne's spells and Dradeel's," I said. "Where's the caster?"
Thorns at each corner we searched. She held on to my arm so we wouldn't be torn apart by the maze; but we could see nothing past the changed walls of thorns, the wrong sky and the cobalt grass. Imoen's robe blew behind her as we ran to search.
I stopped; this led nowhere. "Come out!" I tried to taunt.
"Smelly gullynapper hiding away! Coward!" Imoen called, looking up to the sky.
He was not behind the maze. I tried to squint as if looking into shadows; the secret to a trap, the secret to something hidden—
The gnome's face was behind the sky; it might have as well been the vast expanse above us. He looked to float, translucently, a giant gazing above us as if we were only toys in a crystal ball to be shaken. His face was striped the yellow and dark blue of the sky's colouring; his nose was huge, the whites of his eyes like enormous boiled eggs, his cheeks thick and each imperfection of his skin made ugly for being so large.
"You are in my world now," the gnome replied, and laughed. The ornately patterned collar to his mage's robes made him look like a djinn illustrated in a fairy tale, a god of this illusion.
I stared at the false sky. There must be some break in it, some hidden spring or glimmer, a device. Anything could be happening to our real bodies, in the real world, and with Imoen's spell we had to move quickly—
I closed my eyes, and pulled Imoen through the thorn hedge. It did not hurt; the feel was only the cold pressure of rain and hailstones flying.
"—There!" Imoen cried. I opened my eyes; there it flickered, there a seam in the sky. She cast her fire spell, lowering her hands. We heard a scream, and again the illusion moved and shifted.
Cold, I remembered. It had been so warm with Durlyle on Balduran's isle—
The red glow came to my hands, and I reached for where that enlarged face truly was. The gnome yelled in pain, and resisted the force to still as the dead; but that moment gave Imoen the chance to attack with Balduran's blade past the illusion. The thorny hedges fell apart around us, and the coloured leaves blew into the wind and dissolved to ashes.
We were once more on the pier of Ulgoth's Beard, and the Talassan's hailstones cracked open over our bodies. Rage swept his face as he saw that we had killed his companion, and it was all we could do to stand upright and resist being flung into the sea. A hailstone hit my temple heavily, and black spots danced in front of my vision. Imoen staggered, her torn clothes blowing her away.
"Get the other caster!" Shar-Teel ordered. Then her sword went down, in a pattern that the dwarf could not block: he fell, his head split half open, bloodied and with the white of the skull broken. The swordsman saw:
"Arrne! Those two; then the drow!" he called. He'd left no way for his group to retreat—good armour and weapons and preparation or no. Faldorn's wolf howled from where she had called it, and ran past the winds: its fangs tore at the elf's robes, and for a moment the wind buffeted us. The Talassan cried out in rage. Lightning lanced down from the sky, and when I rolled to one side I saw that a blackened hole had been breached through the pier's wood. Imoen raised herself up, her clothes smoked, stumbling below tides of hail and wind.
I lunged forward, and the Talassan reached for his staff ended by a spear's point. It was slender and silvery-gold, ending with three points entwined together like a hybrid of harpoon and trident, almost an elegant design of vines, and looked light and evenly-weighted enough to be thrown. The priest pierced the wolf's side with it, and then the blunted end spun into my stomach; I gagged. He spoke a word: where the spear pierced the wolf's dead flesh it glowed gold, and Faldorn's creature lay still. He twisted it out of the body; and came to me, the long spear spinning quickly between both his hands. From Shar-Teel Imoen and I both knew, that the key to a greater-ranged weapon is to narrow the gap and close; but he wasn't leaving us any chance for it. He danced to the left and kept Imoen against casting, I lunged forward from the right and he did not do the same himself; but he was far better...
Imoen spoke with her hands. I need time. The spear's point almost forced me off the end of the pier; I swept myself below its gleaming, whistling cut. The winds moved him, almost letting him fly, his footsteps winged; I fought to stay standing. The burning blade met a hailstone, and the air sizzled with steam.
"—Why are you trying to kill us? We didn't hurt the Talassans—" The Burning Earth met the spear in its flight; and to prevent it wrenched from my hands I bent to his blow. Then withdrew, to stab quickly to his other side. Imoen had stepped back from him.
The priest saw I was only trying to distract, and did not reply. Then Viconia's casting swept from behind him, a black ribbon that settled across the mail he wore below his robes. The small dark tendrils of smoke dulled parts of it from the glitter of enchanted protection. It didn't stop him, but it did give time for Imoen to be away. He thrust the spear forward; I sidestepped, and blocked him against reaching her.
Imoen chanted; alone against the Talassan I still would have lost; still a long way to go to protect the others. He seemed to know every combination I had, and rode his own winds. I had to take a step back, but Imoen's casting was done. She stepped out behind the priest with Balduran's sword in her hands, and then the golden point appeared out of his chest like the centre of a red daisy, blood-blooming flowers. The air was suddenly still. The hail dropped to the wood of the deck...
The swordsman against Shar-Teel was good; but Ajantis kept the axeman away, and she was simply better than he was. The mage-speed had worn off all our limbs, and now Shar-Teel was still strong; Imoen and I had no time to do anything before her two-handed blade lodged itself in his stomach. Trailing innards, trailing parts that I ought to have been accustomed to; then she simply struck down the other from behind while Ajantis fought him. There were five people dead on the docks. We'd been attacked, we'd been seen to be attacked; we could explain it to the town, I thought. Imoen's face was bruised.
Then we searched the bodies for what was usable. The usual—weapons, armour, a few potions. Viconia had leaned over the corpse of their leader; she straightened, idly stretching.
"Goodness," she said, with irony. "You rivvin have...occupied yourselves." She showed, then, the scroll upon new parchment that the man had carried; and on its head were sketched drawings of all of us, our features picked out as if by direct eyewitness. Perhaps eyewitness from this very town. Viconia clearly a drow, her ears pointed and her skin drawn black; Shar-Teel, glowering evilly at the viewer, baring her teeth. Ajantis, scowling and well-muscled. Faldorn behind him, her hair even more badly tangled than in reality, her undead wolf's head depicted beside her. Imoen, a mage robe's collar around her neck, her hair a little shorter than it was now. And me; the face...a little different to what I remembered from a mirror, but I'd done little gazing into mirrors of late; slightly more planed and lined and coarsened, and like the others I looked like a dangerous criminal. Descriptions, rather than names, were provided. I'm not as short as all that, really, and Shar-Teel couldn't be that tall without giant blood. Below it was quite a lot of writing that was at a rather small size.
Viconia read out the list in one of her throatiest voices, almost gloating over it.
"A reward of ten thousand gold is offered for these evil fugitives from justice, dead or alive. They are guilty of the following crimes:
"Of the assault of the renowned bard Silke Rosena."
Imoen and I exchanged glances, remembering: that was how we'd met Garrick.
"Of larceny from the citizen Aldeth Sashenstar."
Imoen sniffed. "Well, it went to good use in the end." Tiber, brother of Chelak.
"Desertion of the Flaming Fist Special Forces."
A long pause.
"Aiding a drow fugitive; —never mind that...Horse theft from one Sendai Argrims of Argrims."
I'd forgotten that one, too.
"Association with known assassins in Nashkel. Incitement of riot in Nashkel," Viconia read out.
Imoen flushed. "That really wasn't our fault."
"Attempted kidnapping of a noblewoman. Do you seek to frame us, jalil?" Viconia mocked, glancing at me.
"I probably don't count," I sighed.
"Impersonation of same..." Viconia said.
"That," I said.
"Fraudulent manufacturing of evidence to cause city unrest..." Viciona returned to reading, and shrugged her shoulders at the arcane verbiage.
"Environmental destruction and thefts of lands in or about Durlag's Tower."
Faldorn stamped a foot. "It was for the greater good of Nature! Citified folk are so stupid."
"Illicit retention of treasure trove."
Ajantis shook his head. "I tithed my share to Helm and Ilmater," he said.
"Banditry," she continued; I cringed. I'd helped to do that...
"Suspicion of harbouring known Rashemi spies," Viconia said.
Which was ridiculous. Dynaheir was perfectly honest about her dajemma.
"Suspicion of harbouring known Thayvian spies."
Ajantis cursed. "The traitorous Red Wizard!"
"He's called a spy here," I said. "I hope that doesn't mean he's in any kind of trouble..." He'd helped us, while he'd been here, and it was obvious from his robes alone that Edwin had not been a spy.
"Association with known werewolves," Viconia said, and that gave us pause; they couldn't possibly know where we'd been. Faldorn by mistake? Or Kaishas' husband Mendas or Selaad, if he'd been caught here...
"Vandalism of the inn of Ulgoth's Beard," she continued; and scowled. "Those thieves of the dagger caused me to miss some valuable sleep. And themselves some valuable hours of life.
"Involvement with demon summoning; disruption of a human grave. How else was I meant to have raw material for my spells of undead but by worthless rivvin corpses?" Viconia looked smug.
"Suspicion of iron sabotage within the dominion of Nashkel," she added.
So that was one of the crimes they wanted us for.
"Traitorous communications with Amnians."
"The Order merely possesses a chapter-house within Athkatla. I am Waterdhavian," Ajantis protested. "And...likely they would deny me." He stared at the ground.
"And..." Viconia paused to give suspense before the final line. "The theft of a pair of golden pantaloons with uplifting properties of the gusset that very nearly defy gravity, shaping quite nicely both the front and the rear; an improved contour to increase the self-esteem of a wearer of either sex; a continued sanctity and privacy maintained by the respective buttocks the pantaloons have held since their dim and distant origins in the very beginnings of our realm; and containing a fold to make daddy proud."
I didn't remember that. Imoen's cheeks reddened, and she slowly opened the back of her spellbook to show some golden material that had been very carefully folded to fit a small space. "The Friendly Arm, y'see..." she muttered. "Mistook me for a laundress..."
"By order of the Grand Duke Sarevok Anchev," Viconia finished.
—
The fireball spread boldly from Edwin's fingers upon a mass of the enemy.
—