Part 7

It must have been later in the day than he had originally thought, because it was already full dark when Khalid left the inn to retrace his steps back to his family's home. His family's, not his. That was the way it had always been, only now he finally had the chance to truly appreciate the distinction. After tonight, he would be free of their influence forever.

He was glad of Jaheira's suggestion that he bring his sword, but now, as he glanced uneasily into the shadows, made only slightly less threatening by his infravision, he wished he had brought his armour too. But that would have been silly, really, there had been no reason to go fully armed to a tryst.

And what a tryst it had been! The warmth of his memories immediately made the darkness a little more hospitable, not to mention reminded him of how eager he was to be back there as soon as possible. He felt bad for leaving, but somehow he knew that Jaheira would understand. She wasn't an unreasonable woman, even though it seemed she liked to pretend to be. He was probably in for a scolding, but what was anger, but another form of passion? Then there was the opportunity to "apologize"... he had a feeling that he would be doing that a lot in their life together, and the idea was more than a little exciting.

Their life together... his new life with Jaheira. Yes, that had a very nice ring to it. Now all he had to do was endure his father for but a short while longer, and it would all be over.



The house was dark when he arrived, but that was not so unusual. Lately his father had been a lot more restrained in his spending, at least from what Khalid could see, and opted not to light rooms that were not being used at the time. He admitted to himself that he liked this change in his father, had secretly hoped that if he could start running his household more realistically, then perhaps he would some day have a more realistic perception of his half-elven progeny. He also secretly enjoyed the sight of his brothers stumbling about in dimly lit corridors fumbling for lamps. Thanks to his elven sight he had no such inconveniences.

He went to the door and was about to knock when he noticed the front door was already slightly ajar. Maybe one of the servants had been careless? But no, something didn't feel right at all.

Khalid unsheathed his sword and eased carefully into the house, his attempt at stealth aborted by a crunching noise under his boot. A glance downwards revealed another of his father's expensive vases had fallen victim to some sort of mischief. The scar on his left cheek twitched at the memory of how Achmed had somehow managed to foist the blame for another long ago broken vase onto Khalid, despite the fact that it was Achmed who had thrown it at his half-elven sibling, and then attacked him with one of the shards. Kasim had never been one to resort to physical discipline, but he made an exception that day for Khalid. Ironically it was one of the few times he had ever received any sort of "special treatment."

But what had hurt more than the pain of the beating, even more than the humiliating assault on his dignity and privacy, even more than walking stiffly from his father's study afterwards to see Achmed's gloating smile and Nabil's wince of pity, even more than having to sleep face down for almost a week, than having the scar on his face staring back at him every day in the mirror, a constant reminder of those awful moments... No, what had been worst of all was that his father refused to listen to his side of the story, to even consider that Achmed might be lying when he claimed that what he did to Khalid was only in self-defence.

The memory had come and gone in an instant, but uneasiness remained as Khalid advanced further into the house. Why had no servants cleaned up the mess?

His answer came in a soft, red glow suffusing the walls, and a fallen body, stabbed in several places, leaching blood out onto the marble floor. One of the servants, and she hadn't been dead long, judging by the heat that was still coming from the body, and from the gore that surrounded it.

Khalid stared at the body in shock, then something made him turn to come face to face with a black clad figure, masked and bearing a sharp sword that had been poised to attack. His first kill, and it was solely thanks to accident, rather than skill, as the momentum of the intruder carried him straight onto Khalid's outstretched sword.

"W-who are you?" Khalid demanded, grabbing the dark clad invader by the throat, but he received no answer but a gurgle as the man died.

He pulled his sword from the body and continued moving through the house, now alert for ambush. More servants littered the floor in a grim carpet, made still more eerie by the crimson glow of slowly cooling blood: stabbed, dismembered, beheaded, but the most frightening were those that appeared to have no mark on them at all.

Cold fear suffused Khalid, leaching through to his very bones. Where was his family? So far he had seen nothing but servants, and that filled him with hope. Maybe they hadn't been at home...

"Kha... Khalid... Is that you?" a familiar voice gasped as he entered the parlour.

"Nabil?" He looked around frantically, but all he could see were more dead bodies.

"Over here..." his half-brother's voice came again. "In the corner..." It seemed to be coming from a heap of bodies.

Khalid followed his ears and saw a bloodstained hand gesturing weakly from beneath a few dead servants, and he heaved the corpses aside, looking down at his brother's ashen face.

"Nabil, w-what happened here?"

"They came... like a wave out of the dark... so many of them..."

"Who?" Khalid asked, but his brother continued talking as if he hadn't heard.

"Achmed... dead... that rhymes..." Nabil's dazed chuckle turned into a watery cough.

"Where's father? Come on, Nabil, tell me..."

"Still alive, I think... told him... lock yourself in... I'll hold off... how hard could it be?"

Khalid swallowed, surprised and touched by his older brother's admission. "That was very brave..." he murmured.

"Very... stupid..." Nabil countered, and began to cough again, blood splattering his chin.

"Nabil..." Whatever he would have said was cut off by his brother's trembling hand coming up to pat him on the shoulder.

"...were a good brother Khalid... always liked you, y'know... didn't show it... should have..." Nabil gave a last gurgle and was still, his hand slumping back to his chest.

Khalid stared at his older brother in shock, but there was no time... he'd said their father was still alive... He locked himself in... His study? That would be perfect, only one way in or out... if you made enough of a barricade you could last for days.

He looked about for new intruders, but found none, experiencing a stab of gratitude that none had come upon him while he was talking to Nabil, because he certainly hadn't been paying much attention.

Nabil was dead, Achmed as well... the thought left him in an absent sort of shock. Surely he should have felt something? Hadn't he wanted to be free of them? But not like this, no, never like this...

His father still lived, or had been living the last time Nabil saw him, and that idea galvanized him now, as he raced through the halls, dodging mutilated bodies and pools of slippery blood, heedless of the carnage. Only one thought was on his mind, he would save that blasted man! A distant fraction of him chuckled at the phrasing - already he was picking up some of Jaheira's audacity, or at least he hoped so.

When he got to his father's study, the scene of so much humiliation, it was to find the door already forced open, and his father standing before one of the dark clad intruders, who had his sword poised, ready to strike.

"Khalid - !" Kasim exclaimed, the hope in his voice something that, in another time, another place, Khalid would have killed to hear.

But it was already too late, the sword was in motion, it was too late to stop it.

"Nooooooooo!"

Neatly the razor sharp blade whipped through Kasim's neck, yet his father still stood upright, blinked once, a look of astonishment on his face, as his would-be murderer turned to face Khalid.

The half elf nearly missed parrying the strike as he continued to stare at his father, who should have been dead, yet somehow was not. Perhaps the invader had actually missed his strike? Again Khalid parried, forcing his opponent back. This was the moment, the moment he had dreamed of for so long, the moment when he would prove his worth to his father, at last. He actually laughed aloud as his blade slid neatly beneath his enemy's ribs, and the figure crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

What he had not noticed, in the momentary heat of the brief battle, was that his father had also crumpled. Kasim's head lay near his body, but it was no longer attached. The intruder's strike had been true, after all.

Sickened and appalled, Khalid dropped to his knees, heedless of everything but the grotesque reality before him, until an appalling warm wetness violated his senses, soaking through the knees of his pants. Blood warm. He felt his gorge rise as he realized he was kneeling in blood, his father's lifeblood, and his enemy's. But even that ghastly sensation paled as he regarded his fallen sire. He could see his father's eyes, wide and staring, and then, as he returned their gaze in horror, they blinked, appearing to focus, first on Khalid, and then on the detached landscape of the body they once belonged to, mired in a widening slick of crimson.

He had heard stories from some of the veterans of the guard about how heads that were severed sometimes held briefly onto life, just as a man with a mortal wound did. Despite their chilling effect, he had dismissed the accounts as fabrications, designed to frighten green recruits such as he had been. The idea had been alarming, true, but no more than a campfire story was.

The reality was far different. Horror at the gruesome spectacle overwhelmed him, a horror that was mirrored in the face of the man... head... his brain struggled not to process the grisly distinction. Those eyes, he felt he was falling into those eyes, falling into the Abyss. Perhaps he was already there? Slain by one of the intruders though he did not know it, and this was his eternal fate, to remain locked into this macabre tableau, a testimony to his failure.

Khalid didn't know how long he stared into his father's dying eyes. Probably not long, but it felt like a lifetime before Kasim's eyes blinked but did not fully open again. It was a lifetime, he realized, hysterical laughter bubbling from his lips. The end of a lifetime.

The sound of footsteps behind him, and he turned like a wild thing. More of *them*. They stepped forward, carelessly, seeing in his grief, in his defeated posture an easy victim. Like his father had been... As if in a dream, Khalid saw his sword seem to leap into his hand, and he cut a wide swath in front of him, taking the first attacker off at the knees.

The man fell face down with an agonized scream, blood pouring from the stumps of his legs. Khalid contemplated him for a moment, tilting his head like a bird before stabbing downward, putting the wretch out of his misery.

Now the rest were cautious, but Khalid was not as he threw himself to his feet and forward into what soon became a slashing melee of chaos. A hand here, an arm there, he dismembered adversaries like a farmer scything hay, screaming his horror and rage and loss. Blood sprayed, soaking his clothing, splattering his face. He could taste it on his lips.

They kept coming, a swarm of darkness, surrounding him on all sides, and he attacked them brutally, his thoughts in a red haze that was more than his infravision, more than the blood spread liberally on the floors. They slipped and fell in it, more falling prey to his desperately swinging sword, but he managed to keep his footing by some grace, the same fortune that favoured the foolish. Over and over he hacked at his enemies, they were not people to him, only shadows and living meat that tried to overwhelm him again and again, that would give him no peace.

As the last one fell he continued slashing at the corpse, unable to trust that it was really dead, until finally exhaustion forced him to his knees. This time the blood didn't matter. He was already covered in it, and so was most of the room. Even his father had become more blood-spattered, as if the headless body had somehow risen and participated in the battle.

"Father..." Khalid turned again towards the man who had given him life, quickly grasping his head, the severed fragment that had once held the thoughts and mysteries of a living, breathing man. It felt surprisingly light in his hands, no more than a large melon. The giddiness of despairing laughter threatened to overwhelm him again.

The nose, even more aquiline than his own... the bushy eyebrows that always made his frown seem extra dark, his displeasure that much more cutting... Khalid stared intently, numbly, categorizing Kasim's features for the last time. His thumbs brushed over the once firm jaw, slackened now, with no muscle or tendon to support it, feeling the beginnings of a stubble that he himself had never been able to grow. He closed the unseeing eyes, wondering if they had really seen him, if his father had glimpsed his own fate in the face of his unwanted son. His last, living son.

"Father..." Khalid wept, clutching his father's head against his bloody chest. "Why did you have to leave me now? Now, when I had finally found the strength to leave you..."

After a time, he became dimly aware of the smell of smoke, slowly tempering the iron reek of blood that pervaded the room. Smoke... that was supposed to mean something... but he couldn't remember what it was. All he could focus on was the head in his hands, but even that had ceased to have any meaning for him...

He had no awareness of the one that came to him, who pried his bloodstained fingers from the horrific relic he embraced, and pulled him from the burning building mere seconds before the roof collapsed, scouring away the blood and the horror with cleansing flame.



Voices called to him... called him and importuned him and interrupted his peace... sometimes the voices were grave whispers, muffled, furtive... other times they were great shouts that by rights should have shaken the very foundations of the world, but here they were muted... distant... even the sounds of a woman berating someone... those almost made sense, almost touched him, and forced him to retreat deeper... deeper, away from... something... but it was only when the scolding gave way to tears that he submerged completely...

He remained in the silent world Underneath... where there was no time, or space, no words or thoughts, only a driving fear, a spear of pain that lanced him if he ventured too close... too close... but it was such a small world, such an empty world... he was alone, and gradually that began to matter to him... The voices were still calling, but they were a lot quieter, as if they had given up hope... maybe they would be gentle to him now... maybe, if he could just make it through the pain, he could find somewhere safe...

His eyelids felt like they were weighted down with lead, and the rest of his limbs as well. For a moment he felt true fear that he had no more control over his own body, that he was trapped in its shell forever, a consciousness unable to affect the world in any way. Then, slowly, his muscles began to respond, and he was able to open his eyes.

"Hello friend," a warm male voice greeted him.

Khalid turned his head, seeing a young man of his own age, dressed in long brown robes that proclaimed him as a mage. He had wavy dark brown hair, a well-groomed beard, and kind blue eyes which held more than a little concern.

"Where am I?" Khalid tried to stretch and found could not. He was secured to the bed with some sort of restraints. Sheer panic welled up in him, and he found himself struggling, even though it was futile. "Why am I t-tied up?"

"Easy there..." Gentle, but firm hands settled on his shoulders and pushed him down. "I mean you no harm, Khalid. Now are you going to settle down, or will I have to put you to sleep again?"

"Again? I - " So many questions, his tongue tripped trying to give voice to them all. "Who are y-you? H-how do you know my name?"

The young mage chuckled. "Patience, my friend. All will be explained. First things first. I am Gorion, mage and sometime scholar, though I fear not as often as I would wish." He somehow managed to bow, despite being seated.

"Gorion..." The name sounded strangely familiar.

"Ah, Jaheira has told you something of me, then? Nothing too bad, I hope..."

"Jaheira?" That name Khalid did know. "She's here?"

"Oh, most definitely," Gorion said, eyes twinkling, "and until an hour ago she was planted right here where I am sitting. I swear she had been there so long I thought she was going to take root. The past weeks have been hard on her, and she's barely slept. I finally had to resort to a little magic to convince her to get some rest - she's going to have my head for that, I know, but what are friends for?"

The charming, gentle manner of his bedside visitor did much to put Khalid at ease, and he finally did manage to relax a little, well, as much as one could manage while bound hand and foot with no indication of when one would be set free. But while his body relaxed, his mind was still struggling to make sense of what he was told. "Weeks?"

"It's a long story..." Gorion began.

"I'm not going anywhere," Khalid replied wryly.

"Oh, yes, well... I'm very sorry that was necessary, but it was the only way we could keep you from hurting yourself. You were quite distraught."

"Hurting myself? Distraught?" Khalid felt like a trained bird parroting back responses. "I don't remember..."

"What is the last thing you do remember?" Gorion asked.

"Let me think... I was... at the inn with Jaheira, and we..." he trailed off, feeling his face heat up like a bonfire. He cleared his throat. "She asked me to come with her and I said I would... but..." Suddenly the heat was replaced by cold sweat as everything came back to him.

Blood everywhere, on his hands, on his clothes... they were stabbing him again, and again - he couldn't tell how badly he was hurt because there was so much blood, his, theirs, his father's... His father... "Noooooooooooooooo!"

"Khalid... I think you need more rest..." He heard Gorion begin the recitation of some arcane words.

He was shaking, inside and out, trying to hold onto his thoughts even though they were slipping away. "No!" Khalid tried to sound calmer. "No, please... please... I'm alright..."

Gorion stopped casting. "No, my friend," he said sadly, "you are not alright, and it is perfectly alright for you to be so..."

"My family... all gone..." Khalid turned his head away, swallowing.

"Yes... that is a horrible thing I cannot pretend to understand. What you're feeling right now must be awful, and terrible. I... you have my deepest sympathies for your loss..."

"So, you thought you could get away with a sleep spell on me?" A strident and blessedly familiar female voice made itself heard long before the spare, elegant figure of a certain Druid stomped into the room to seize Gorion by the hairs of his neatly trimmed beard. "Well, his screaming woke me up, and I decided to come see if you needed any help before I yanked all of these," she tugged on the mage's beard, making him wince, "out for your trouble."

"Owww!" Gorion yelped. "Jaheira!"

"I never liked the beard on you anyway... So say goodbye... " the half-elven Druid crooned with malicious relish.

"Jaheira..." the young mage wheedled, speaking very slowly and carefully, as though trying to charm an angry viper, "someone is awake and wants to talk to you."

"What?" Jaheira relinquished her hold on her friend's facial hair and he gasped in relief, clapping his hands to his abused face in case the mercurial Druid changed her mind.

"I'll just leave you two alone..." Gorion said, making good his escape.