His eyes yawned open like great gates and batted down like the wings of a bird. All around him were thrumming colors. Subdued oranges, pulsing purples, and tenebrous blacks. They swirled and clotted in his vision like the palette of an unsatisfied painter, one who was brushing them, again and again, unable to find the right tone. Everything was hazy—obscured. And still. Too still.
A flitter of his eyelids and things still did not clear. Where was he? He'd just been in the sewers. Not crawling in the shit, but parlaying in a real secret stronghold. A meeting of titans, as it were—something he always enjoyed, especially when they handled the invitations themselves. Mincing with words or dicing with blades were both a talent of his, talents which he enjoyed measuring against the high and the holy, especially when uninvited, but being welcome was a nice break for one such as he—the quintessential trespasser, oathbreaker, and heathen. So, in he strolled and…
They'd played him for a fool.
Embarrassment was the least he gave to his adversaries. It was what they got, for failing to meet their reputations. On the stage of duel or debate he had honor, but it wasn't a secret that he lost that…limitation on the street.
He'd killed for less—and he'd enjoy this very, very much.
It took but a second to realize that his eyes were not the problem. Rather, it was the surface through which they gazed. Opaque like a coat of amber it was. With a bit of focus, he could peer through. Outside this rather choice window was an even choicer environment. Chitinous platforms and walls interweaved with pink, fleshy bindings, as though he had been swallowed by an abyssal beast. There was some sort of chest or receptacle in the room's center, and it seemed as though the wall was lined with cages just like his. But such creatures didn't take prisoners, and especially not in such clever ambushes. If he'd been captured by something so violent they'd have just gutted him on the spot. Still, it was a far cry from the simple but tasteful decorations of his adversary's sewer retreat. There was something going on, and whatever it was, it was far different than he had anticipated.
But no matter who his enemies were, they had to be intelligent. Too intelligent for their own good, for thinking they could cross him of all people. Oh, they were probably celebrating even now. The famous…the man and the myth himself. He who the streets placated, and to whom they prayed. The greased palm, and the man with the lighter. He could imagine their gloating.
Reputation was a tricky thing to uphold. You could fill a hundred pockets and slit a thousand throats—but one fuck up in the streets and you were dead. An immortal can be brought to the level of a serf within hours, his citadel revealed to be nothing but a peasant's playhouse of straw. All it took was one. Little. Mistake. Thugs were like stalking sharks, prowling the dark depths, deep within the pool of divinity. One surfaces, gets a few lungfuls of holy air, but one lick of blood and the thralls below will frenzy—and devour their master whole. The streets will be baptized in fire and steel, until the day when a little shark gets fat enough on its meals, and floats to the top. Then the lifecycle of a dreg starts anew.
Not that he was particularly worried about such things. For one, he had no attachment to Baldur's Gate, no more attachment than he'd had to his distant and sandy homeland. Leaving was pure simplicity, one he wouldn't deny himself if it came down to it. For two—he was no dreg. Enough nasty schools of sharks had jumped to claim his neck, only to be proven naive at the ends of his blades. He was no simple target, not for thugs, nor for the fists. For three, he couldn't care less what the dregs thought of him. They wouldn't recognize greatness if it punched in their nose.
No, he was something greater. A virtuoso of the bond, the blade…and blood. Fire coursed through his veins and smoke wafted from the great and greedy engines within his chest. To be taken a fool by these trumped up cultists, caught in a trap that he'd been fully expecting…well, it wasn't embarrassing.
It made him boil.
He would break free. Then, he would break his captor's neck. Yes, that was it. And, now that he decided it, it might as well have been fate.
He went to move his hand but found it stuck, and struggling only made his restraints bite down all the harder—but who said that would stop him? He pushed, jostled—bled as the sharp edges bit into his wrists. Perhaps his cage—if it could be called that—could withstand his strength in bursts, but he doubted its durability overtime. His feet had walked upon hot coals, and his back had laid upon beds of nails. A little pain wouldn't stop him from taking his revenge. With cavernous breaths he stoked a fire hotter than the Hells and greater than any dragon's, and it concentrated around his hands and wrists. He could feel it then, the slight sizzle of chitin. Whatever these creatures were—the muses of those cultists—they would be nothing more than ants under a magnifying glass to him, once he got out.
Just as he was beginning to feel a little slack in his restraints, he heard it: the sickening sound of flesh curling inward. From whatever crevice that had opened crawled…no, floated in a creature beyond his wildest imaginings.
It was tall, very tall. Perhaps eight or nine feet. Its purple and bulbous head thumped with cerebral power, like its brain was a terrible machine that ached to be divulged from its skull's cage. Around a hidden maw radiated many tentacles—five, four, he didn't know—and they swam through the air like eldritch antennae. A splindly neck traced down to a thin body and whip-like limbs, all covered in grimly regal armor that bloomed out from its back like some twisted night flower.
No. No, Not that. It couldn't be that. Of all the beings in creation—
With a wave of its hand a rush of energy hit the chest in the room's center and it…shifted—clicked like a lock undone. Foul steam emanated out as the top unlatched and curved to the side. It was some kind of…pool, or wash basin. In went the creature's hand, and it stirred and stirred until it came out with a handful of writhing worms. Or…tadpoles. That was the word they used for these monsters.
The creature turned to his cage, and began levitating towards it.
His breath quickened and heated and his wrists thrashed against their jailors. Black leaked from his mouth and small embers flew out as he bashed his head against the amber plating of his pod. Thump, thump, thump, and a small crack emerged but not before the creature willed it open. Out the door swung, but his restraints tightened.
A deep breath, like he was trying to suck in all the air in existence. His chest expanded like a war balloon and smoke danced even from out between his eyes. Just as he was about to let loose the bellow the creature wagged its finger and his body responded like a bonded servant.
He would kill it, he thought. Snap its neck like a twig and then piss on its corpse. He'd use the sharp edges of its armor to play darts with its minion's heads and then fry the tentacles over a—
Nothing had prepared him for this. The end was coming too soon. He'd never foreseen this. One mistake would snuff out a flame that could have threatened Naga. The whole universe would quiver with the knowledge that he was reduced to a brain eating slave, a servant to something lower than even those mongrels they called gods.
Just like that. Fate plays its hand, and for once it wasn't in his favor. He couldn't even cry: No scream escaped his lips. Even in complete and utter defeat, he had to face it in dignity. That was his burden.
Up the mind flayer's hand went, curled around the singular parasite which would soon spell the end of this man's storied life. What adventures he'd had! Shouldn't he have been happy? But, as the tadpole's slimy tail wriggled and its many layers of teeth unfolded, it felt like a lie. How many threads would be cut by this one act? What questions left unanswered, what answers forlorn and unearthed?
In that moment, even he trembled. The fearless one, reminded once again by the tug of fate's leash.
The parasite jumped and latched onto his eye. He seethed and his skin burned with the heat of many suns but still it dug. His muscles were steel, his tendons like spider silk, and his bones tough as a mountain, but nothing could have trained him to resist such a threat. Between his eye and skull it slipped—and thus began his dance with death. Chains were set upon the unfettered: A small worm threatened the man of perilous destiny.
Was he afraid? Who knows. He would never have admitted it. What was for certain was that even he, the great proclaimer, doubted his beloved in those moments before the darkness claimed him.
How cruel fate could be to its chosen.
