3 Eleint
The golden sword of Balduran touched me once, twice on either shoulder.
"By right of conquest I proclaim Skie Silvershield Grand Duchess of Baldur's Gate."
Officer Vai's armour was dented and cracked; her face bandaged and burned; her red hair loose to the winds. I stood; she offered me the sword; and knelt herself.
"I induct Fylla Vai as commander-in-chief of the Flaming Fist and as military authority of Baldur's Gate. Commander, prepare the holding cells as instructed."
There is a coronation ceremony that begins with the ratification of the votes in the Dukes' palace, and lasts for three days in the city with carnival and fishers' parade and naval celebration; Sarevok forwent such a thing in his time. This was further abbreviated. A ragged shout from the folk by the dais in the marketplace, beggars and merchants and fishers alike standing in curiosity; and then they parted before me as if Balduran's sword had the power to make me above them, or as if they feared all of the late events of the city.
Imoen and Claudia and Dynaheir were ready by the skyships, interrogating their guards and men with a group chosen by Vai. The leftward one, they said, was closest to completion; we set to preparing it as if a real ship. The triple sails flared out to catch the high winds; the arcane controls of the lower deck buzzed ready for a mage's touch; the runed metal plates for an armoured hull shone clean; the glass portholes shone dark as a starry night.
"Say what ya like about Sarevok's Cyth woman, she took good notes," Imoen said, flinging one of Cythandria's notebooks to Claudia. "My goddessy self's scanned it and marked up the complicated bits on skyships, I've got the main points of the flight-start sequence. Dyna can just set up a mental link, you read up the finer controls, and I'll give the demigoddess power boosts while it lasts. C'mon, Hon'bull-duchess-lady!"
Imoen was too tall, far closer now to Sarevok's height than to mine; her size had changed though her body was the same, the way a gnomish eyeglass magnifies a picture without altering its proportion. Her eyes were still golden and sparks flew from her hand when she ran it through her hair. While it lasted we had a demigoddess on our side.
And then we were flying. Instead of a ship pushing west from the docks the ship rose directly up through the sky, first as if it was upon the swell of a vast wave and then as if it was like nothing but itself. The wind of the bright day blew the sails to full mast and below the ground fell away as if the city of Baldur's Gate were a toy miniature of itself, damaged by war as if a careless foot had trod on it. Imoen had taken chief role in the battle with the man who murdered her uncle. This was my part of the fight to mend.
"Steer south-east-east, and bring the sails to portside breeze!" They caught the winds, though winds alone could not support a ship; transferred it as if an air elemental and gave direction. We followed where the maps led us; we had no time. Tellarian would never have expected what he'd taught to be used here—
A shadow to the north that might have been Ulgoth's Beard, Wenric's farm. The Cloakwood from above, a wild tangle of wood and spiky cliff and seas beating against the valley of spiders; the dark clearing of the flooded Throne seen joined to the lake, easily visible from the sky. Had the Dukes been able to spy from above they should have seen it, ended the troubles before it began. The wind ran through my hair like a salt breeze, ruffling and taking. The currents of the air moved like waves below the hull. A flock of gulls flew beside us rather than far above, birds with outstretched wings on their way to the ocean. The sea's in the blood of a Baldurian; we must take easily to ships of the sky.
The ship drew directly from mages and demigoddess, though they'd had no rest; power of the Weave to mount it and bring it to take back the city's renegades. The narrow, line-like path of the dusty Coast Way spooled below us like stray thread, the forests of Peldvale and Larswood to the east. We sailed on the road to Nashkel in hardly any time at all, from the air hours what took caravans days.
"Bring her to levitation-hold! Lower to twenty; bring down the ladders!"
Nashkel was dark and damaged. From above we saw smoke-blackened rooftops and houses trampled as if giants had stepped over them; descending, we saw the temple of Helm ruined and taken apart, the graveyard violated and with a horrible stench rising from a crude-dug pit in its corner, the road to the garrison marked by soldiers in the Fist's colours who stopped and stared. I climbed down the lowered, silken ladders; and jumped from the end in a way that wouldn't have been advisable in the skirt of a duchess. My hair was dirty and tangled, blown around my face; my clothing the same leathers in which I'd faced Sarevok.
But in old histories of cities with still-longer histories torn by more warfare than ours, the first Dukes are always shown in ragged armour blackened by battles; for the title's true meaning is warrior and leader of wars...
"Lieutenant!" I snapped. Behind me Sorrel dropped to the ground, drawing a longbow that carried an arrow of detonation. "Bring out your captain. Sarevok Anchev is deceased; the skyship above you contains enough spellfire to raze the garrison to the ground; and I am the Duchess Silvershield."
He stopped, and stared, and obeyed. The captain came, with other men who watched the skyship hover above. Imoen leaned over the deckside and gave a cheerful wave; her eyes still glowed a gold visible at a far distance, and they did not find it of reassurance.
"You killed the Son of Murder?" the man rasped; in his uniform he was slightly unkempt, his hair longer than regulation and grey-streaked between black. His face carried a wild, haunted look. Sorrel whispered the name of Captain Saavis.
"Your pretender to the ducal throne is dead. There is this as proof." Around his neck Sarevok had worn a medallion marked with the symbol of Bhaal; I would ensure it disposed of once this thing was done, for it gave pain—and tempting—to hold. And to those who sought to place divine faith in Sarevok, they should know already. "Note also his sword. Order all your men assembled here, Saavis. No. My men. And all the people of Nashkel you can muster within..." I looked up at Imoen. "Half an hour's space of time. Use no force on any civilian."
There was a struggle to obey in him, I could see that; whether he ought to seek to kill me and have the skyship strafe from above, but in the end I had told the truth that his master was dead. Or perhaps he saw something too close to Sarevok in Imoen far above, or in me. He departed to give the necessary orders.
The temple of Helm—Nalin. An old farmer had shuffled up to assemble. I spoke to him.
"Traitor Nalin? Rebels in the woods, with murderer Brage. Milady, we've cooperated—mine and some here; we've not given cause against the soldiers. We'll not be punished?"
"No, you won't be. Stand and wait." Saavis made easy collaborators, then; we could hardly kill more. There were words also about how many had died in the taking of the town, mage's fireballs that had killed only children, soldiers murdering the Amnian garrison and the village men who dared to stand against them. And Sarevok himself had not even been present to lead the Nashkel invasion.
Saavis gave a slow, cold salute. "Your Grace. We stand obeying orders," he said. His men formed two thick lines of soldiers, Fist uniforms in varying degrees of neatness, as if their rule in Nashkel had lowered standards. Most of the villagers they had brought to stand witness looked at them with fear, and some bore signs of past wounds though we had ordered against hurting them to bring here. A woman held her small, fair-haired boy tightly at her skirts, trying to stop his crying.
I signalled above to Imoen. "Then fear not at what you witness here, for none today will be harmed." Saavis gave a start; above Imoen cast; and then the soldiers' bodies melted in their grouped line. The scuffed dirt under their footsteps was empty.
Make the voice carry so they will not run in confusion. A spell of Imoen's augmented my throat; this time I could make a voice carry. Sauriram had briefly instructed me of some of the words. "These were men of the former Grand Duke and they have not been killed, only transported to face justice in the city of the Gate. I stand here to emancipate Nashkel; fetch Nalin of Helm and allow him leadership." I could see Emerson, the master of the mines, sitting on the ground empty-eyed, his hands bound by chains; he had been a prisoner in the garrison. Were the priest turned rebel he could do the task for the time being. I remembered Nalin's black eyes and compelling voice. "Sarevok Anchev's war has ended."
Sorrel and I clambered back to the ladders; they were drawn upward. Imoen waited for us in the skyship, and then we flew to seek out the Cloudpeaks Pass. The mountains were green-yellow and white at their tips with early snow; there was the single pass between harsh rocks and the road past it, further south than the hills we had travelled in search of the gnoll fortress. Imoen stood and watched; Claudia and Dynaheir took the skyship's mage-controls.
I reached out to touch her shoulder; looking up at her, she seemed slightly shorter now, closer to Edwin's height than Shar-Teel's. "How are you?"
"Still got the power," Imoen said. "This is good, y'know? Pretty much what I wanted, except I've got to do what you want first."
"All right." I looked quickly down at the land below, coordinating with the maps; "—Adjust course a little north-east. Thanks, Claudia—"
We saw it, rivers flowing on the lowlands below the Cloudpeaks, the roads that led to trading and spaces for caravans, where a city of a trading hub should have stood bold on the landscape protected by waters and walls and host to hundreds of caravans at once, some say every caravan of the Sword Coast at different times. In the right place there was a black blot on the landscape, and by the map that blot was called Crimmor—
Sarevok's military dispatches were of a success.
"No signs of movement!" one of Vai's Fists called, looking down through a long spyglass. "They were—call them monsters, what they've—"
"Fly on!" I ordered; had to stop them where they marched; we flew to the south-west, where before Athkatla itself there were other cities in the path, Salemancé and Vascarra and Zaragois and if we should find another city that wasn't there any more—
Imoen stood, only taller and bigger than Viconia now; hours of travel. It wore on her. They'd...military history; by the flow of the river and supplies they'd probably march to Zaragois for its seasonable harvest, an army marches upon its digestion...
"Course—adjust to south-south-west, five degrees—"
And there Claudia gave a cry that our army had marched. We hung down from the ship's ladders, and called to give orders and proofs that Anchev was dead and no longer their Grand Duke. There were Fists leading; and there were men not in uniform, men forced and whipped by others; there were wizards in robes, but I was too far to see the faces. They marched low in a valley; enough of them to be visible from the air, dragging war-machines on their route.
Imoen gathered her power; flung it down; they had stopped to give the skyship ear and eye and though some seemed willing to fight she did not grant them a chance—
The teleport magic was golden over them, even a few shapes who seemed to fight the disappearance, and then I knew they would be in the large cells Vai had appropriated and prepared. Sarevok to Amn to Crimmor; I could almost dream of it, that he'd wanted to kill a city for—
"Out of teleports," Imoen said, desperate to stay practical; her eyes glowed still though she was close to her usual height. "Getting back to human! One stop to go, right?"
"One stop to go. I don't think they split their military significantly." And the navy—but they were accustomed to passenger-birds. Exhaustion showed with good reason in Dynaheir and Claudia as well, but we must fly to end the war and return to the protection of the city for the skyship itself.
"To Athkatla—steer seven degrees to the west for now, sails to catch the northerly—"
We stared at the giant metropolis from above; they stared back. The document had been drafted, quickly, a list of offers dictated to a scribe taken on board the skyship for simply that reason. He was an Ilmatari priest, dark-skinned and ashen below it, ill through the voyage—and yet strong enough to write the words.
In merchantry, you allow for negotiation. And here that negotiation must serve Baldur's Gate, for as many crimes as the city committed it will not do good if it is impoverished forever in penalty; such things only breed more strife in history—
We announced the death of Sarevok the Pretender; the Amnians would view that as political instability, and so we needed skyships and Imoen to prove our strengths remained. We announced withdrawal of troops from Nashkel and the River Road. There was no offer of compensations placed in it, only that we should reassign our soldiers involved in the invasion and return coerced Amnians accidentally abstracted. We raised the matter of the betrayal to the sahuagin. For negotiation purposes, they ought to send between six and ten nobles aboard our skyship.
Imoen magicked the scroll down in an elaborate levitation spell, before the very Council House—about which I had only read. Athkatla's not really lined with gold, Tellarian said; some of the streets were pale and clean and others seemed dirty and dark almost beyond belief. In the centre was Waukeen's Promenade, white-walled at the very edges and otherwise filled by the bright stripes of stalls. Almost four times as big as the marketplace in Baldur's Gate.
The skyship floated high and steadily above the city.
"Claudia, what aggressive measures would we have, if we had to?"
"Enough stored energy to...to hurt a lot of people here, not that we want to," Claudia said, determined though tired. "Hurt a lot of buildings, perhaps. We've used a fifth part of the existing energy to arrive here; we'll require at least half of the remaining to return. Dynaheir?'
"Invocations," the witch said. "Ice; fire; detonation; gas clouds. They were stored partly in liquid form, partly enspelled into the hull." Her eyes were closed. "On direction. This ship is designed to depend on a group."
"Defensive ability?" The skyship could protect its hull with a shield, and extend it to sails and deck as well; but it was finite.
"An hour's space for full shield," Claudia said. "That should have been first in our view."
"Yeah, well, ice storms from skyships are just plain fun. In theory," Imoen said. "No, sorry, Claud, you're right. Let's try to do better."
It was subtle, but it became clear that Athkatlan soldiers were arranging weaponry, moving it, pointing cannon at the skyship; of course. If they brought it down they could study—
"Raise it fifty feet higher—and show them the shield for a few seconds!" They still had a diplomatic excuse—we still had a diplomatic excuse. We waited.
In Sorrel's spyglass a messenger held up a scroll in the square, dressed in the colours of the Council. Innocents had abandoned the Promenade. Imoen cast to raise it up, showing her power; the golden glow rose like a star.
"They announce themselves willing to accept the surrender of Baldur's Gate," the Ilmatari said.
Surely that was exaggeration. They were besieged on other fronts; we'd seen damage to their port that I didn't want to think about...
"Compensation of a thousand gold pieces for every slain or missing citizen; confirmation of the death penalty administered for all soldiers who fought against Amn; the plans for skyship-building and piloting; rebuilding of Crimmor, Nashkel, and naval damage at expense solely borne by Baldur's Gate; the Duchess Silvershield as a hostage while negotiations progress," the Ilmatari said.
We could shout down that people must leave the Promenade, that within an hour we shall unleash the ice storm and knock down buildings and show what we can do with one single skyship while Imoen casts herself...
No.
"They began negotiation. That's a good thing. Compensation not in the form of gold but in labourers paid by the city and sent to work in Amn to rebuild, six months of man's hours for each noncombatant victim." In order to show both that we are human, that away from Sarevok we can change— "Send all commanding officers identified by Amnians to Amn on the condition that Amn fairly try them for their exact parts in the invasion. The skyships—" Halruaa will object, I had to think; if their objection is divided against Amn; but if Baldur's Gate does not recover there may well be another attempt at war... "The skyships will be open for negotiation in ten years' time. Rebuilding at the expense described. The Duchess Silvershield...exchanged for a single hostage of Athkatla. For—the time it takes to draft a preliminary treaty. Then once more we will exchange, and our ambassadors can find the details..." Often the demon of merchantry is in the details...but I have never had a mind for them. "The Duchess Silvershield and her scribe, if he is willing."
—
A pair of strips of pink cloth hastily wrapped around our wrists would both show Imoen of any harm; and then they would act.
The government in Amn has been established since 1333 as the creation of the Council of Six, six anonymous rulers drawn from the noblest houses of the city, and while identities are hidden as the Masked Lords of Waterdeep there is likely at least one Jysstev and Colwyvv contained among them. From lowest to highest they rank Dahaunarch, Pim—somethingarch, Iltarch, Namarch, Tessarch, Meisarch...
Inside the Council of Six building they wore heavy masks and robes, seated in a balcony that set them high above any petitioner who came; guards lined the halls that led to them, and on the ground were traces of magical triggers that could no doubt explode in magic. One looked far up at them; it gave the meaning intended, I was able to tell myself; perhaps that could be overcome inside if known. The priest had nothing to do with any of the war.
"The man who started this is dead," I began. "I'm responsible for killing him, along with a demigoddess waiting in the skyship. Have his sword to hang in the promenade if you wish. Let the Duke's signet ring he stole rest on an agreement."
Imoen performed; she sent out golden pigeons with jewelled eyes that flew like bullets to search for the ships and order their ceasing. She summoned a bronze mirror the size of a small lake from the sky above, and showed scenes of Sarevok's empty ruined armour, of the Fist soldiers guilty of obeying Sarevok's orders taken captive in the city. We should try them ourselves of crimes; we would have to kill those who had murdered in his name.
Crimmor would be enough to make any man hate. They fear the skyships and Imoen and Sythilis in the south, and agree to this...for reason enough. Perhaps someday Amnians shan't despise us.
They chose to draft rather than kill; the war was done. The moment the ship turned to carry us home, Imoen dropped into a dead faint.
—
Tangles and pink ribbons and sinking into blissed blissful sleepatlast.
Like a story about the princess in a bower in her balcony, one of those who could make plants grow by touching them and loved all the creatures of nature as if Eldath had kissed their porcelain eyelids when they were born; then the princess sank into the vines that softly grew around her and protected her to sleep.
Imoen liked pink ribbons better, pink edged with gold, good proper real gold, and as if she'd stolen an entire cartload all at once she sank deep into them. She'd done what she wanted; become what she wanted; and now she was going to have a good long rest in a place rocking her gently to sleep.
"Go away," Imoen murmured cheerfully, "I'm sleeping. I'll be awake in...a couple tendays, maybe. Or...bouncing off the walls tomorrow if Skie brings me those nice sugar cakes, depending. Anyway, I earned the right to sleep once in a while." The pink ribbons were a soft nest she'd made for herself; she smiled to herself in her sleep.
"Imoen."
Beautiful voice, pretty and majestic like a hundred singers all singing two notes at once, odd but lovely harmony.
"Y' just wait there or I'll chuck my boot at you," Imoen said in her sleep. Yep, pink ribbons hadn't gone away; she felt like she was getting some real proper sleepytime at last, so she could be nice about the silly interrupter.
"Imoen Winthrop."
"Meow! This isn't Imoen, it's your pet cat just going for a walk. I'm not mean and scratchy-clawed at all." Imoen gave a deep sighing breath; someone'd given her a cushion under her real head, she could tell, nice soft blankets and probably Skie looking out for her. As long as she looked okay, didn't make the kid sister freak or anything. Hopefully there were nice roses in her non-goddess-thank-you-very-much cheeks now and all that.
"Imoen daughter of Bhaal!"
Imoen sat up in her bower. "—I didn't steal it and if I did you can't prove it!"
She was a woman, taller than Shar-Teel, shaped weird as if she wasn't human or elven or anything; but the weirdest thing about her was the shining blue skin like a cross between the sea and the moon, the tall yellow wings, and the unrelenting blind eyes without iris or pupil. "...Hey. Who are you, and why'm I dreaming about you?" She pinched herself and even scratched herself with her fingernails. "No, it's not a blood-dream and doesn't feel like one. So what in the planes are you, and why're you stopping a demigoddess' beauty sleep?"
No, she didn't want to be a goddess or a demigoddess or anything, she knew that for sure beyond certain double-pinky-caterpillar-pie. She'd just felt like getting annoyed at the shameless interrupter of sleep who didn't look remotely real.
It almost repeated her thoughts—and she was calling it an it and not a she, because she felt like it.
"You are no demigoddess, Imoen, no longer. Sarevok's throne was shattered and you exhausted the powers within you. You have what you wanted."
Imoen raised her head. "Yeah, and don't you forget it. Me and Skie're rogues; when we don't get what we want we know how to nick it. Unless it's nastyevilwrong, of course."
"I...know, Imoen. Your cheerfulness and innocence are your shield."
Now that...echoed, even more than the strange voice did. "Hey! Did you steal Mr G.'s letter from me or what?"
"I am a solar, Imoen. It is my duty to know."
She knew about solars, she read books. Plane spirits, s'posed to be nice ones but still scary, because absolute good could be scary just like absolute evil if it couldn't bend and be nice to people and have a dance and a drink and a silly rude song or two— "All right, solar lady. What is it?"
"Do you think you and Sarevok could try to seize the power of your father and not have it echo through all the planes? He is gone to where you cannot follow now, but you took it and lived. There are others, Imoen, you held only a portion of murder. They mass and they hunt, and sooner or later they will come after you. Sooner, for your glowing like a bright star."
Imoen thought about it. "Then if they get me instead of Skie—then that's okay. She did the same thing for me before she knew she was doing it."
The solar shook her head. "It will not be so simple, Imoen."
Islanne, Imoen remembered, magical lady dwarf; different entity completely, same ghostly-abstract-stuff, when what she really wanted was a nice handwritten list on how to cast the make-'em-vulnerable-where-it-counts spell. "So what've you got that I need to know? Look, I'm sorry I was nasty to you, solar lady, I'm just tired. Maybe we'd like each other a lot if we met someplace else. Just tell me something that'll help me protect Skie and everyone else, Vic and Shar-Teel as well as Claud and Dyna and Faldy and Ajantis and the squirrel and Lady Sauriram and her niece Lizabeth who used to own the nice petticoat and...whoever."
Because Puffguts and Mr G. brought me up right in the end; because when things get tough I know what I've got to do. Imoen's clothing was her pink mage robe, now, glowing like the dawn between her shifting ribbons as she stood with it falling nicely around her.
The solar almost...laughed, in bellchimes-from-heavenly-planes-like-flutes-and-nothing-like-Kirinhale, and Imoen congratulated herself that she'd even make a solar quit takin' herself seriouslike all the time.
"Then learn more of the planes, Imoen, for your fate will call for you. Know that once more you will have the choice of an even greater power. And on that day, may you choose rightly..."
Then the solar was a blue blur slipping away from her and she was drowning dark brown in normal sleep, falling back into something warm and soft and safe so she didn't mind it, sleeping a long time and not bothering to get up until she was really sure Skie meant it.
—