..The murderer that other children of Bhaal have become...
...The murderer that children who aren't the children of their fathers become...
..The war that would be their fault...
"...Are you a murderer?" the Keeper of the Tomes simply said in interrogation upon the Baldur's Gate warrant of arrest, and below the truth spell the truth had to be spoken.
We waited in Candlekeep's dungeon.
Imoen sniffled. "'S not fair," she said. "We'd stop the war. Sarevok couldn't invade Candlekeep on our behalf anyways. We deserve to be out of here."
...Well, maybe one of us did not, but we had to do it. They'd taken her spellbook, all of our tools. She sat miserably, her arms around her knees; if she'd come alone they would have perhaps set her free. The bars seemed uncompromising, the locks certainly too well-enchanted to try to pick with a fingernail.
Or bite off a finger, take the bone and sharpen and shape it to be right...
Any plan involving that was not a good plan. Imoen looked up.
"Maybe Tethtoril'll help us after all," she said, "at least this joint's heaps nicer than the last time we saw behind bars. If'n Ulraucous lets him even know." The faint smile she'd cracked faded. "And I never got to see Puffguts too. And—"
We were both, probably, worrying for Faldorn and Claudia. Maybe this time Sauriram would mount a prison rescue, if they had indeed ended up there. Faldorn was hardly one to ever give up.
"—And we're both getting to be real connoisseurs of thiefly accomodations, aren't we?" she said, trying for lightness.
"Right you are. Sister."
"...With a really bratty big brother we're gonna get," Imoen said.
Then she stood, suddenly beaming. An older, fat man had come in, with Tethtoril from before. I saw the first man reach inside his apron pocket for tools, and then in a few seconds—incredibly enough—the lock was open and he was hugging Imoen. Above her head he flung me a brief, angry look.
"Ol' Puffguts!" she cried, clinging to him; "Tell me a story 'bout trollops and plugtails like old times?"
"There is little enough time," Tethtoril said. "I will open a way down to the catacombs below. Your equipment is in the next room; Imoen, take this scroll I have copied for you."
Once more we retrieved possessions in a hurry; Imoen draped the hood of Gorion's cloak above her head and tightened her belt around her mage's robe. She gave a quick glance to the scroll Tethtoril had given.
"That's great," she said, "but I need another rogue stone. I couldn't get hold of two in the city. 'M sorry."
"You always did come underprepared for magic lessons," the Reader answered. "Ours, alas, would be noticed if gone. But still I can tell you that it would be a bad idea to visit the tomb in white marble to the north-west on the second left-hand passage that shows the symbol of a scroll encircled by gold that may or may not have certain gems buried by one who no longer has a use for it. Naturally, such a blasphemy of all that lies under Candlekeep would be most unwise." A more serious look swept across his face. "It is the tomb of a demigod largely forgotten by history, Imoen. For even gods are mortal."
"Thanks," she said. Tethtoril turned, and with some gestures and chanting opened up a section of the stone that turned out to be set over a metal grille in the wall. I would not have noticed that secret hidden; he unlocked it by spell, and Imoen and I scrambled within to damp steps that smelt of mildew.
"I'll be back," she added to Puffguts, "I'll stop Sarevok for what he did to Gorion—don't ever doubt that. Should've told it me, though." She stuck out her tongue; then she held up her right hand, and inside it were two of the tools that he had used to open our cell. He mock-cursed her, and slid back the door to hide the catacombs once more from Candlekeep's guards. "'Till then!" she called at the last.
A pink magelight snapped from her fingertips in the darkness. She clung tightly to Tethtoril's scroll.
Down these passages it was dark and quiet; we were going roughly westwards, I thought, which ought to be toward the coast and the sea. Rough tiling gave way to an earth floor that crunched below our feet. Below Candlekeep, an older part of the fortress; neither Imoen nor I had known there were other secrets below. It made sense, I supposed; forgotten crypts that had been later built over.
There were sounds ahead of us of something that dragged upon the ground. We paused, listening; then the smell of carrion hit us, and the ghoul shambled into view. No speaking haunt, it raised clawlike hands and simply attacked. Imoen raised her hands, and paused;
"—The instantlike fire spell came after dreaming of blood," she said. "Best not to use that stuff..."
Missiles ripped into its dead skin; the Burning Earth slid through it. There was only one of it upon this path, thank goodness; we walked past the truly dead corpse. In our flickering light we could see silver spiderwebs now, clinging to the low ceiling and underfoot as well. I doubted Shar-Teel could have walked fully upright in here, or Sarevok.
"I think I'll fireball any spider nests," Imoen said cheerfully. She rubbed at her eyes with both fists. "No, spell's not fixed in my memory right now. Think you could fight without using any weird powers, Skie?"
"Shar-Teel would be able to. I'll do my best." The dirt on the ground looked as if it had been raked by some hand of the past, forming complicated and roughly triangular interlocking patterns that our feet scuffed; that other things had also scuffed over the years. Perhaps it had been done by magic rather than many hours of painstaking care. There was a frozen feel to the ground here, as if it was early winter frost in this underworld.
Imoen turned left; the second passage. It proved to be long; on the floor we saw a tripwire laid at the height of a human chest. Traps indicated we came closer; the chittering of spiders meant we came closer to having to fight.
They were the ones that could teleport. You had to listen for them; you had to think, where would they go next, usually behind; dance away from the fangs; Imoen sent the same fan I'd seen from Claudia straight from her hands, when one dared to go behind to attack her. Then we were through, coated with spider blood and hairy limbs that stuck to cloth, and the walls of the tomb Tethtoril described. Rich, dusty marble encircled a sarcophagus-box in the centre, marked by the scroll in gold; and an inscription. Old Chondathan, a dialect I wasn't quite sure of.
"Here lie," I read, holding the Burning Earth close to it, "the earthly...properties? Possessions? Of the one whose dust dissipated to air... No, that's probably too literal. Not all wish to live beyond death and not all wish to live in memory."
Imoen pointed to its lock in a rather businesslike fashion. There was the glimmering rogue stone, waiting to be found in the desecrated tomb; a coronet made from thin strands of golden wire and decorated by delicately cut rubies; a pair of books again in Old Chondathan, one a text on strategy and the other on improving the body, curiously undamaged; a diamond necklace; indiscernible scraps of fabric, decayed; and a simple bronze ring, engraved. Dum spiro spero: while I breathe I hope. A combination of sentiment and honouring. It was grim by the tomb, but we had dealt with the spiders here.
"Can you cast the spell now?" I said.
She frowned. "Not 'till we get out of here, Skie, weren't you told before that Candlekeep's got a field against direct transport magic?"
"Then sit down and get back some of your spells." I brushed a part of spider leg from my calf. There was a shallow cut through the leathers, fortunately not infected; I'd heal it. When we got out of here there might be a chance to bathe. "Candlekeep's big. We'll probably have to fight again." No point in hurrying if the next battle would kill her; Imoen, family, best friend.
"Already wasted enough time." But she lifted out her spellbook; the coronet rested on her tangled red hair, the diamonds glittering above her mage robe despite how bedraggled we both were. Her magelight strengthened to a steady glow, and I read myself. Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum; for peace prepare to war, the book of strategic advice began, and it was strangely easy to read.
We could spend the time thinking about—disquieting revelations; or grasping on to anything we need to save the city; my father is dead... Victoria belli non est positus ex moras, and I could remember the first tutor who had taught me that language.
"Fireballs fetched," Imoen said at last, brushing back her hair and standing. We closed the tomb behind us, though it was still clear we had taken from it.
At first, it was her the voices whispered to in the darkness.
"Imoen..." It could have been the wind whistling underground, or spiders chittering. "Imoen..." it whispered once more. "Imoen, give me back my book you stole!"
"—Phyl!" Imoen cried out; a middle-aged woman in mage's robes threw herself at us, her long fingers stretching out like claws. I'd the sword up almost before I knew what I was doing, and it went through her. Imoen had stumbled back in horror; "Stop it! Stop! Don't kill—" she began.
"Die, primatesss," it hissed, and Imoen sent an acid arrow into its face. When it died, it was a doppelganger.
"—So Sarevok guessed we'd come back here after all," Imoen said, her voice shaking a little. "It's really not fair. I live here, and he finds the secret passage first and sends monsters into it.
"I think I've still got one of Phyl's books in my room, if Puffguts hasn't found the secret hiding place under the mattress," she added. "The Princess Rogue and the Pirates of Passion. I used to think she only read boring histories." We walked on.
"—Histories are not boring."
The second voice was for me: Eddard. "Skie! Skie, you have betrayed me, you are everything against me—" But I had seen him as a doppelganger before. The catacombs suddenly widened before us, showing a wide hall tiled once more in dark red and pale orange. We could faintly smell saltwater; this way must come close to where it broke to the sea. In the centre of the room stood a small army of stilled skeletons, a forest of bones that rose from the tiles.
"...They're probably triggered by stepping on the wrong ones," I tried to reassure both of us. "Like that red one there, it's raised a bit above the others..."
"Then we're stepping far, far away from them," Imoen said, holding spell components in her hands. "No—too many to take out with one fireball, worse luck."
Cautiously we stepped into the wide hall; the skeletons did not move. But then voices came for us.
"Defilers of nature! You left me to die, and I thought of you as friends! I hate you forever—"
"You brought me, Imoen, and I am dead already to defend you—"
Images of Faldorn and Claudia came to kill us for what we had done, and these did not quickly return to their true shapes. After death they became what they truly were. I wiped my shortsword's blade on an unbroken section of grey skin.
"Imoen, they couldn't have known, they found it in our minds..."
"Yeah, I know. Can't do anything about it now." She turned away from the one that had been Claudia. "Hope they give a good chance for a giant fireball safely far away from us next time—"
"Imoen! You must awake before it is too late! For there has been too much innocent blood shed this night. Child, wake from the illusions before you! Your mind has been controlled by Sarevok's monsters all this night," a grey-robed old man said, stepping out from the opposing doorway. His face was familiar to me, and his eyes were sad. Behind him stood Tethtoril and Imoen's adoptive father, waiting for her.
"You're doppelgangers."
"No, Imoen! I was under a spell," the grey-robed man said; Gorion. "Sarevok stabbed me with a poisoned dagger; it was not true death, but only a seeming death. I lay paralysed in that field for a tenday and above, tormented by spiders and vermin. Tethtoril and Dan brought me out; not willing to break your heart once more, child, they could not tell you." He leaned on his long staff as if he had been very ill. "But I had to come here. Phylida came to offer you a mother's loving embrace, but she lies murdered! Unaware of their true selves, you have killed Shistal and old Theodon."
"Shistal," Imoen said, "I remember picking greengages with him last spring. You're alive? Mr G.?"
"And you must remember playing checkers with old Theodon," Gorion continued. "We know you are none to blame; come to us, Imoen."
"Then I'll tell you all the stories you want, poor lass," Winthrop said. "Why, it's the dirtiest of all dirty tricks done to you and all of us." He took a pace forward.
"If you're alive after all," Imoen said, staring at the one she called her uncle, "then I can see that everything'd come all right..."
"And there is still a chance for that," Tethtoril said, and raised his red-sleeved hands. "Let us dispel this illusion."
Imoen, do it now, please, said my hands, but her eyes were still on her family.
"Come," Gorion said, his arms spread wide to embrace her. Tethtoril's hands were moving: too quickly.
Then the fireball burst over the three of them.
Grey flesh raced from the ashes of it; Imoen cast a simpler flame arrow into the eyes of the one who had been Gorion. These were fast, hasted; their shaped claws hurt. We stood in their ashes.
"Got to cast," I said numbly; the blue pulsed below my hands in a way it had not done before, almost twisting and shaping veins and muscles within. You couldn't expect the gifts of a god of death to be at all friendly. Imoen shuddered at the healing.
"Race you to the end of the caves," she said, "more'n past time we were gone." She waved her hands and chanted: her spell of haste settled over us both.
Past tangled stone tunnels, trying not to crash into walls while navigating them all; setting dry spiderweb to shrivel and fall apart with a touch of flame; past the threatening gaze of a basilisk, ducking in and amongst chillingly worn stone statues and diving into the reflective shelter of dark, salty seawater. We swam under and out to reach the beach, salt stiffening our hair.
Imoen sat up on a rock, opening her sealed scrollcase and bringing out her materials. "Keep your hands and arms inside the interplanar cart at all times," she said, "we're headed straightaway back."
—