Makings of a Monster

Winski leaned back and regarded Sarevok, who had just related to him the results of the trip to Candlekeep. The deep sinister voice, the towering height. The bald head, angular cheekbones and golden eyes. My son, he caught himself thinking. No, godson. He felt pride and ache, excitement. He wasn't getting any younger, and all the dreams he had held for himself had burned to ashes together with Jelena, but now he had a clear purpose again. Emotion choked his throat.
- "Sarevok, if you were to become a god... it would be more than I ever imagined. Something remarkable, certainly, but an immortal being of immense power... of course, there is this business of those siblings of yours."

-"I will fight anyone," said Sarevok.
- "You have learned to trust your willpower and courage, and to this day it has most often been enough. Gods know you have more of those qualities than hundred of your average souls combined. But this is not a matter where you can trust to yourself and your personal qualities only. These other siblings may be very powerful, too. And don't forget that the Bhaal essence is theirs to channel as well. You are not yet immortal, and you can be in only one place at a time. So besides of being the most remarkable person I have ever met, you need resources, allies, and long-term planning. In one word, something there's a bit of a shortage of in your makeup. Patience." Winski paused.
- "I'm not impatient!" Sarevok snapped impatiently. "And what's so funny?"
- "Oh, nothing. Nothing at all," said Winski. "Anyway. Bloodshed in a godlike scale. No matter how many highway bandits you can hack into pieces simultaneously, you can't do such a thing all by yourself. Fortunately, it can nicely coincide with Reiltar's plan to establish Throne in the Sword Coast, himself as the head."

- "And once he doesn't have his head anymore, the Throne would be ours to use as we like," concluded Sarevok grimly. "He is building the base in Baldur's Gate."
- "Having control of the Throne certainly would be an asset," nodded Winski. "But as for the bloodshed itself, any sort of ritual murder on proper scale sounds impractical to me."
- "A war then." Sarevok's eyes glowed a little. He felt the familiar rush of blood in his veins, the idea of himself as the one who not only plays with the pawns, but makes the rules of the chess and even tosses the board to the walls of cosmos if he so wishes.
- "Throne itself can't declare a war, though it certainly can act as a gray eminence," mused Winski. "Baldur's Gate is governed by a liaison of four Grand Dukes, who are chosen among merited citizens."
- "And a head of Iron Throne could well be one such?"
- "Certainly. You would just have to keep your public outbursts in minimum."

Later, Sarevok outlined the plan to Tamoko.
A war. He is certainly thinking in grand scale, as Winski wishes him to do, thought Tamoko ruefully. Wars were a fact of life to her, after all the clans of her homeland where more or less in war all the time, but intentionally seeking to start one seemed a bit dubious to her. When Sarevok talked about it, his eyes glowing the cold Bhaal-glow, Tamoko detected defensive hostility of which he was very unlikely to be aware of himself. He is denying the side of himself I fell in love with. The one who is brave about being vulnerable, who can channel passion into other things than anger and destruction too. For the first time Tamoko recognized the feeling she had harbored a while. She felt resentment against that phantom of a dead god, who filled Sarevok's shattered soul with its consuming power. He thinks he is powerful and in control, but he is much less than he was when he was younger and innocent in the purity of his emotions. Damn you, Bhaal! Tamoko berated herself for her disloyalty. This was what Sarevok wanted, and she had sworn her loyalty to him, and she loved him. And still, she just wished that he wouldn't seek the divine powers. She wanted her lover back. A disgrace you are, Daidoji Tamoko. Not worthy of your swords, not even your family name.

As Winski went to sleep he first felt a grim satisfaction in that he had a plan now. He stopped to think of his own place in the future ahead. Sarevok needed him now, but once he didn't? Wouldn't it be appropriate that a Lord of Murder would murder him then? He chuckled darkly, finding that he didn't care one way or the other. All that mattered was Sarevok. Winski himself was but grass, already beginning to wilt. He felt an ache he had tried to avoid: he thought what Jelena would think of their plans. How evil and wrong she would find them.
Well, my love. I thought then I was the misguided one, and wanted to learn from your morals. And now you are ashes, and I'm a hollow man getting older. My worst mistake, and yet I miss you so, after all these years. Rest in peace, you who always had kinder and gentler heart than those around you, and who precisely for that reason went to early grave after lifetime of suffering.