2 Eleint
People, asking for help against the god who brought monsters to them. The Low Lantern was a ship owned by smugglers, moored and linked to hidden caves below the docks; many of those in the underworld had been the first to fear Sarevok. Dowager Duchesses allying to pirates, lotus-smugglers to former soldiers.
Imoen and I had been returned by Tiax, too late beyond the attack. There was the Helmite called Annaclair, wounded horribly deep to her belly though clinging to life; the Harper couple seated by each other, his arm around her shoulders and her skin marked by saplike blood. Ilmatari, a woman called Laola Axehand, ordinary citizens, dead. Shar-Teel almost invigorated by the battle, accusing us of missing the fun. Until there was nothing we could do, Imoen and I tried to help where we could.
"Tiax, get to it," she ordered the gnome kidnapper.
"It does not conflict with the eventual rule of Cyric." The healing spell he cast over Vai was genuine enough; Imoen scowled, and sighed in relief. Water to boil and fetch, bandages to hold, work even for the far untrained. We could see that wounds had festered, demon's claws and the scars of terrible divine magics. I used that gift on a young man lying feverish, still unconscious after I had cast.
A long night. It wasn't over quickly as with a sword; long, drawn-out worries that suffering would turn to death, Faldorn having to adjudge to whom she would best grant her healing... Imoen and I were not as exhausted as those who had fought, but I could see her grow tired.
"Enough," Faldorn said, "your lack of gift for it is no longer needed. Even slackers like you two may need some rest."
"Tiax owns that he abducted these two and prevented their escape, for they would both have been killed, and that would not accord with the master of Tiax," the gnome said.
"Tiax is a mad evil Cyricist," Imoen snapped. The phrase Tiax will rule all had rooted itself inside my head; Tiax will smite thee, Cyric is the one true god over all galley-flogged short-knickers, When Tiax rules breeches will not ride up all wedge-like, Tiax appoints you whipper of the slaves and faithless when he rules... His sermons counted beyond abduction and into torture.
Dynaheir pointed to a quiet corner. "That which is done cannot be untangled from the threads of fate; rest before thy final chance. Cyricist, thou will be watched carefully indeed."
Before her strong look he even quailed; that was why Imoen and I had much to learn from her. "Yes, yes, the all-seeing Tiax thinks his continuing to quietly heal would be best."
Imoen and I shared our cloaks as if they were blankets, at the edge of grey rocks lightly sanded. It was cold and in the darkness there were still groans of the wounded. Garrick came to sit with us; it had been so long since the three of us had talked, especially about things that were not the battles we had to try to solve.
"I made sure you were there, Skie," he said; "though it has been years since I played a lady on the stage. Many years, even." He looked into the air before him; I remembered he had told us of theatrical performances, carefree stages and fights with only trick blades. "It's a...responsibility and another world to be nobleborn, isn't it? They looked to you as if a legend. Did you really pull Balduran's sword from a mermaid rock in the centre of the Trackless Sea?"
"Someone close to me helped me find it. You know, Baldur's Gate isn't supposed to be a hereditary aristocracy. I didn't know what value my father gave to his name." And since he's dead I can't ask him for forgiveness for using it.
"What'll you do when this is over, Garrick?" Imoen said.
He shook his head; as if calculating the odds. "Sing, if I still have a voice. I am not made like Dynaheir; I'll travel once more. Funeral ballads to finish composing; maybe someday even songs as if it were spring again. We were friends once," he said to both of us. "My friendship is still yours."
"Thanks," Imoen said.
"'Till the defeat of Sarevok," I said, and Dynaheir echoed it. She sat tiredly down herself, her robes stained and dusty; neatly arranged as always, but her own signs of wear.
"Defeated an avatar," Imoen said to her, "that's up one from me."
She shook her head. "I fear not in fullness. That must be remedied." She watched us as if she believed Imoen and I could achieve it; she didn't know.
"Sarevok's mad," I said, "but he's not the only murderer. Dynaheir, would you really—"
Because there was no point to replace Sarevok with another the same, and because this was the last chance to say it.
"I murdered a child named Stephan Capetri down in the lowest depths of the Cloakwood mines," I said, and waited for the judgement of the righteous witch. On Garrick's face there was pain; but it was as well that he should know the truth of it.
"And what," Dynaheir said coldly, "would thou expect me to do about this at the present time?"
My jaw dropped. "You believe in doing right! You're given responsibility by the spirits of your land; you pass justice in your own country. Everything about you is that you don't condone murderers, Dynaheir! You have to—"
"Then after, Skie! Afterward find the family of the child and ask of them what should be justice in their view. The price of saving the city—equivocation though it is."
"You condone a murderer to stop another murderer? I didn't think you—" I said.
"I cannot be responsible to stand to judge," Dynaheir said. For the first time I looked at the wychlaran and saw a young woman upon her dajemma, rather than unassailable fortress of good whose dignity had not even been troubled by long imprisonment by gnolls. Ragged; weary; saddened; and as far from all-seeing as any other human. "I cannot be whatever image thou hast conjured of righteousness without error. I am not. I tell clearly that my hand cast the excuse Anchev required for the invasion of Amn; by my hand the blood of my guardian and my comrades; by my failure of wisdom these very troubles. On grand scale I have done the same, and with unclean hands seek to end—and end it, and then seek accounting! Only the purely fanatical cannot seek one's own reasons," she said, and in speaking of Minsc a sob had crept to her throat.
Perhaps—likely—there would be no afterward at all. I could feel Imoen's shape beside me.
"Judge thine own self by thy standards—for one can only do that!" Dynaheir said. "A grave responsibility, and yet oddly freeing. Take that image and ask thyself what is righteous. I can tell no further truth.
"The breaking of dawn is not far."
The breaking of...all sorts of things.
—
Sarevok sat within the Grand Duke's palace, for the seat of temporal power in the city.
"This is...not what I expected should result," Tamoko confessed to the captain of the Flaming Fist who stood beside her at the gates, the dishonourable Angelo. She disliked Dosan and he earnestly returned the favour; crude and cunning and mercenary, and a despiser of women.
Cythandria had betrayed her lover as a coward; his sister held the story of how he had become a god; and his avatar had been defeated by mortal hand. He ought to have...changed, removed from one influence of poison. Instead he had become hated by the city once worshipping him as saviour. To release a monster to city streets was cruel and dishonourable and murderous, and those who followed him still did so from fear.
"Some mighty storms ahead, shouldn't doubt," Angelo returned, impassive as ambivalent.
The Grand Duke waited for a surrender through those white marble doors; of one called Sauriram, suspected of quiet support of the rebellions against him. Tamoko had seen the wife of the old Duke in her meek place in the past when she had guarded for the Iron Throne. Perhaps it was only paranoia that made Sarevok regard her as enemy, though Perorate had not objected to the suspicion. The dowager was ill and mourning, only now coming to give formal allegiance as a noble to the Duke. Perhaps the widow feared him and would fear him still more when he attacked her in his madness for news of his sister. Perhaps Perorate was correct.
I love Sarevok, and would share his company until the end, Tamoko thought: for good or for ill. For death or life. Her thread to him could not be so easily snapped and turned to ash.
Should those golden eyes meet her own, what knowledge of her own role in betrayal should come to him?
"Feel like a drink, Koza bitch?" Dosan said; Tamoko knew the man's corruption went deep to the trade of outlawed drugs and other illicit merchantry that went with his many filthy habits. His hand shook slightly as he searched his uniform, and his eyes were wide as if he had already taken something. Few had been strong enough to be close to the sight of the Ravager in unrestrained fury.
"If you insist, Koryan dog." It was only by grandfather he inherited the surname, and his grasp of any culture they shared was atrocious. Between their lands of Kara-Tur was antipathy.
Dosan's hand shook once more, and a silver vial fell from his cloak; likewise did a crude miniature. Tamoko stooped for both and saw the face of a thickset child, the portrait unfinished in brown sepia.
"Who is she?" Tamoko asked, seeing the man's hand reach to take it from her grasp. The face was not his barbarian daughter.
"Granddaughter," Dosan said curtly, snatching his property back from her. The vial went to his lips and then he offered it to her. "She's a good girl. Thirteen. I could have known of her for years, done better with her than her blasted mother."
Tamoko took her own sip of the liquid. Once she and Sarevok had sampled morimatra, the black wine of the drow elves that burned throats as if spiked cantrips in the mouth; this was similar in strength and gave an edge of merciful bleakness to her mind. "I have never wanted child," she said. A quiet, serene house by grey sea and shore; books in kanji and practice-space for the warrior's path; a simple place to rest between travels and battles with the one she cared for.
"You're a a clever one," Dosan said. Again he drunk. "She ran from me twice. First to join the foreign branch of the Fist when she knew I wouldn't want it, second time when she left that and a trail of bodies behind her. Maybe whatever fool of a man fathered Tevanie, who knows? She's a good kid no matter what her folk are. Loved her old grandfather for the first decent care she ever knew."
Tamoko took the silver flask once more herself. "Once I had a smaller brother," she said. "He was weak and weedy and I protected him in our youth. I do not know if I caused him to be outcast or no, for I left my clan quickly on a ship. I hope that he was saved."
"Don't," Angelo said, "don't think of it. They die on you and they leave you and they say they want your head on a pike."
"Because you, I understand, held that granddaughter as hostage. In some ways I almost wish that your stratagem had worked, treacherous dog and eater of dogs."
She returned the bottle to Angelo; in a simple orison she could restore herself from this state of confession. For Skie had driven Sarevok mad by his failure to find her; for the traitor Cythandria had driven Sarevok mad by revealing her cowardice; for Rieltar, curses be on his dead name, had driven Sarevok mad by cruel upbringing; for Bhaal and the Ravager had driven Sarevok mad by their hatred unleashed upon Baldur's Gate.
For Sarevok was mad.
"Wouldn't have hurt her, you cursed witch," Angelo said. "Know her mother won't have her hurt either, for all the good that'll do. I could have brought her up like any noble's child, magic lessons and horse-riding and all that I didn't think to give to my own kids."
"I do not think so," Tamoko said. "People are ever prone to repeat their mistakes."
"Eh. Game of checkers on the gods' board," Angelo said. "Move where you're told to; move where you're made. Can't do anything else with being what you are."
"Blood tells," said Tamoko, cold in the morning wind. "Blood gives no choice."
And yet some had made different choice to Sarevok.
"Can't live with family; can't live without them. Not often they come to kill you in person, granted," Angelo Dosan said, while they waited for the last storm to break.
—