Cards Reshuffled

No matter how you try, no matter how you try to be strong, there is only so much pain and fear you can take. Sooner or later, and with enough pressure, anybody will stumble, and rationality will give way to blind instinct.

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

“Jaheira?” Zaerini tried again. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest a bit?”

“I am perfectly sure!” the druid snapped, her face twisted into a mask of pain and rage. “Do not presume to coddle me, child!”

So much for being helpful, the bard thought, sighing. She understood perfectly why Jaheira was acting the way she was, that she was trying to use anger to keep her terrible grief at bay. That didn’t make her any easier to deal with though.

So leave her be, Softpaws advised. This is not the time.

I know…but she’s my friend! There has to be something I can do. “All right,” she said, hoping she sounded patient. “Just let me know if there’s anything I can do, would you?”

Jaheira’s voice was biting when she replied. “Do? Do what? Can you give me Khalid back? If not, do not be so free with offering to do things for me.” Then a brief expression of chagrin flickered across her face, and she shook her head. “I…am sorry. I…did not mean…”

Rini gave her a brief smile. “Hey…don’t worry. I understand. I remember when I found Gorion…”

Jaheira closed her eyes for a second. “Yes,” she said. “So you would. You need not worry. I will still be capable of pulling my own weight. I will not come apart at the seams…I simply have not taken it all in properly yet.”

“Jaheira, I worry because you’re my friend! Not because I need you to fight for me.”

“Perhaps…but all the same, I cannot afford this…this weakness. Not now. Not when it may cost us our lives.” The druid shook her head and increased her pace. “Enough. I will not speak of this further, not now.”

Zaerini followed her, uncertain if she’d been of any help or not. What she had said was perfectly true. She worried about Jaheira for the druid’s own sake. And yet…there was also another thing. Jaheira is so strong…she always has been. To see her like this is really frightening. And I know it’s selfish to think like that, but I just can’t help it.

Do try not to gnaw at your own wounds, Kitten, Softpaws said. It will not help. You cannot help the way you feel.

I know. But that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty about it.

Yoshimo had caught up with the others by now, despite the furious pace Jaheira was setting, and was walking a little ahead of the others, searching for traps. A good thing too, since it let the exhausted Imoen fall back and relax a little. Rini still kept her eyes on the Kara-Turan, though so far he had done nothing to merit distrust. There had been another encounter with one of those annoying Mephits, as well as with some goblins, and he had proven very helpful with his exotic sword. A katana, he called it.

The tunnel the adventurers were walking through made a twist now, and there was another doorway to the left. Zaerini hesitated, but reasoned that she might as well have a look. She had no way of knowing which way led out however. If there is such a way. Perhaps he…Irenicus…simply magics himself outside. Or perhaps he never goes outside at all. He seems…suited to this place.

The doorway led to another tunnel, and now she could hear sounds from up ahead. Combat. Screams, shouts. Is it him? Is it? Should we turn around? It’s him, I know it’s him, IknowIknowIknowIknow…

But even as her panicked mind was telling her to run, the tunnel suddenly lead into another room, and she stared in surprise at the sight that met her. Not Irenicus, no. But what she saw was horrible enough in itself. There were more of those terrible jars, but these ones didn’t contain just any corpses. Rather, they contained one single creature, replicated again and again. An elven woman, with hair the color of autumn leaves, gold with red hints, and with a face that was pale and beautiful as she slumbered in numerous copies inside the jars. I…I know that woman don’t I? I’ve seen that face before. But where? I can’t remember…

One of the jars was empty, broken in pieces, and its former occupant was standing in the middle of the floor, green fluid dripping from her naked body, sticking the strands of her long hair together. Her eyes were wide and crazy, her teeth bared in a snarl. She stood over a dead body, a man in dark leather armor, who was lying on his back with a smoking hole straight through his body where his heart had once been.

“Er…” Rini said. “Sorry for bothering you…we’ll just be going now if you don’t mind…”

“You!” the woman spat. “Have you come to torment me again, my ‘Lord and Master’?”

“Of course she hasn’t,” Imoen interjected. “She wouldn’t do that. And anyway, she’s not a lord. Are you, Rini?”

The half-elf shrugged. “Not unless something very odd happened to me since the last time I had reason to check.” She turned to the elf again and tried to sound as reasonable as she could. “Look, we really mean you no harm, I promise. Honestly.”

“Little Rini is right!” Minsc said. “Only the nastiest of evil villains would harm pretty ladies, and we are all Heroes of Goodness, shining like the sun.” He raised Boo to his ear and listened intently. “Oh. Boo tells me that he senses it is cloudy outside today, but otherwise the simile works, though Minsc doesn’t know what monkeys have to do with it. Are monkeys good? But Boo also says it is clearing up already, so maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“Minsc, I think you’re thinking of ‘simian’,” Rini said. And how does he know that word, I wonder? Probably…probably he called him that during what brief time they both spent together.

“Lies!” the elven woman spat. “Lies, all of it! You think to fool me, with your tricks and illusions? With your masks? I know who you are, I would know you anywhere. Do you think I do not recognize you and your lackeys? And you think you know me, but I am not her! Do you hear me? Do you even care? I am not her! Now kill me if you must, but I will not suffer this any more! NO MORE!” Tears streaming down her face, she raised her hands to cast what promised to be a devastating spell, and then she toppled forward, her mouth a wide ‘O’ of surprise in her face, her eyes already glazing over in death. She fell on her face, and on her naked back a red flower bloomed.

Yoshimo’s face was set and grim as he rose from a half-crouch behind the corpse, wiping his katana clean. “She was insane,” he said, shaking his head. “Better that she be given a swift death than that she be allowed to harm us and risk our escape.”

Jaheira nodded, looking tired. “I fear it is so,” she said. “Illnesses of the mind are beyond my skill, I could not have helped her, and she was clearly very dangerous.”

“Poor, sad elf lady,” Minsc said, and there were tears in his wide blue eyes as he cuddled Boo to his cheek. “Minsc knows what it is to be lost and confused, that is how he was before he found Boo to guide him and explain things to him.”

Imoen was looking at the jars, touching one of them with a fascinated expression on her face. “More of these things…how I hate them. The other ones are dead, see?”

Rini took a closer look. It certainly appeared to be the case. The other clones were lifeless, some of them rotting already, she could see it now. At least that means I won’t have to break any more jars open. I don’t know if I could take that. Not…not after Khalid. “Yes,” she said, her voice frighteningly emotionless, even to her own ears. “I see. I suppose they were the lucky ones, weren’t they?”

“What a tortured creature that clone-thing was,” Imoen mused. “She was a copy? A copy of another person? I wonder why Irenicus made her? I doubt he took pleasure in her company; he's beyond that. He's fascinated with death. He showed me... over and over...” She bit her lip. “He kept showing me…but I don’t know what he wanted me to see.”

“We’ll find out,” the bard said, trying to give her friend an encouraging look. She was so tired herself though. She didn’t know how much longer she could be strong. Especially now…with Jaheira the way she was. Minsc was kind, but too uncomplicated. Yoshimo was a stranger. I have to be strong. I have to take care of them, Immy especially. But why would he do such things to her? Why? If it was I only, I could understand. But why her? “We’ll find out,” she said again, hoping she didn’t sound as exhausted as she felt as she pushed her grimy hair out of her eyes. “But first, we have to get out of here. Let’s go.”

It can’t be that much further now. It can’t. Oh please, let it end soon. I’m so tired…please, I don’t want to have to pretend to be fine much longer. I don’t think that I can. And if I fail…then what will happen to Immy? That could break her utterly. Just a little bit longer. I can do that. If I have to.

They went on. Ever onward, through dark corridors and darker rooms, past deadly traps and beasts. Goblins. Duergar. A doppelganger locked inside a small cell, trying to trick them into releasing him, spitting and cursing when they refused. Rini had killed him through the bars, two Acid Arrows piercing the gray skin. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t ‘honest combat’. She didn’t care. What she did care about was staying alive, and she had spotted some spell scrolls lying about on a table inside the cell. They might just help her with that.

Still they went on. In a small and abandoned temple, a statue of an anonymous god watched them silently, blind stone eyes betraying nothing of his thoughts and name. I would like to see Bhaal forgotten like that, one day…forgotten by all.

On they went, and now the dungeon opened up into a more open area, a sewer with stinking water and pipes jutting out of the walls. Again, an attack. More of the men in dark clothes, ironically thinking them in league with their own captor, never giving them the chance to prove differently. Death. Again, death. Even when I would rather avoid it, I end up killing. Have I a choice? Have I ever truly had a choice?

And now the tunnel was sloping upwards, ever upwards, and there were sounds coming from ahead. A battle was raging somewhere in front of them, screams and explosions were clearly audible. Irenicus might well be there. But she had no choice. Again, no choice. She could glimpse sunlight now, up ahead, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, despite the way it hurt her eyes. I have to get out! I HAVE TO!

Blinking like a newborn, almost blinded, she crawled across a heap of rubble, heedless of danger, feeling hot sunlight burn her face. Trying to shield her eyes, she raised her head. And she saw. She saw it all.