A single candle burnt in the room, illuminating a desk, a small book opened on the desk and a young woman sitting behind the desk, biting the tip of a quill with an absent, distracted look on her face.
The scene was peaceful, but the woman’s thoughts were not: like the flickering flame of the candle, they morphed, quivered and vibrated, much like the heated air over a desert does quiver and vibrate—and, in so doing, creates illusions so accurate that, in the end, it is impossible to distinguish what is real, and what is not.
It is easy to get lost in a desert. Especially when one travels it alone.
-----
The question, first asked in an impassive, businesslike tone, What do you want? And then, in an amused, lightly mocking, familiar one, What do you want, sister?
The answer, at first nothing but a sensation, hiding timidly deep within the recesses of the limbic brain, I want—
And that, all. A want. A want—of what?
An apology? After all, it had all started from the guilt she did not want to feel.
She had been right to demand justice for Jaheira and Khalid’s death. And, in the end, after all, she had prevented Cernd from killing Sarevok under the influence of her dead sire’s power. Next to this, merely separating friends—or men who could be friends, anyway—
There was simply no use feeling guilty towards her brother; not only because there was nothing to do about it; but because she had saved his life, again. And the consequences of that went to her account. The consequences; what of the victims?
But the guilt was there: and it was not the sharp, uniform shame towards the future victims for saving their murderer’s life. It was a discordant, divergent, two-way guilt— It made her angry. Because it meant that what she had thought when they had parted was true; that, through cooking and sewing and being so damned, stubbornly helpful and reasonable, her brother had, in the end, managed to get to her.
And then, Sarevok had delivered her to Trademeet, as he had said he would, and had let her go, as he had said he would, and was now leaving, and she was losing him from her sight, and everything was unresolved, abandoned, dangling, free to chase her for the rest of her life, to jump at her when she would least suspect it, perhaps to catch her off-guard, again.
The last time had been enough.
The distant, dissonant, pulsating, throbbing memory of a brother-murderer-brother; but it would not do to confuse memories. And people. And facts. They were confusing enough on their own.
As seconds, minutes, hours passed, as the candle started to splutter and still sleep would not come, as thoughts amassed and quivered and tensed and throbbed, and upset and upset, more and more, the balance and the peace of the woman’s mind; as possibilities and scenarios were considered and weighed—the answer slowly, gradually; and then, when some unnamed threshold was crossed, suddenly and clearly, like an avalanche—emerged.
I want to see you, brother. Now. And finish it.
-----
How do I kill you, brother? Tell me.
Tell me.
Images, stilled in the amber of memory: Sarevok in the Undercity, in his heavy armour, covered in blood, laughing; Sarevok during their escape, dressed in makeshift plates, swapping creatures aside, frightening their enemies simply with his appearance. Sarevok fighting Renal Bloodscalp (you’ve shielded yourself magically, pervert). Sarevok, invisible, unseen, yet unidentified, dispelling Edwin’s magic. Sarevok standing by her on top of a hummock, casting acid arrows. Sarevok charging blindly at Kyland Lind. Sarevok fighting trolls (stone skins are useful, little sister). Sarevok throwing himself at a rakshasa, pinning the shapeshifter to the floor. Sarevok pulling an elf off a horse and beheading him with a clean swipe of a Calishite scimitar.
I know you, brother.
I know you. You can do magic, but it’s not your first choice, is it? When you have time… when you are at leisure, then it’s magic for you. When the fight comes to you, it’s always the sword. Too much time spent doing one thing, I guess… Old habits die hard. You’ll go for the sword. Which sword?
Images, offered by the mind’s inner eye: Sarevok with the giant, cruel blade (I have been considering calling it The Edge of Chaos, sister). Sarevok with the flaming sword with the odd grip (must protect self from fire). Sarevok with the sharp Calishite scimitar—
You’re not really ambidextrous, are you, brother? You favour the right hand. Slightly, but you do. When you fight one-handed, it’s always the right hand; when you hang a scabbard, it’s at your left side. You are weaker on the left. Are you wearing your bracers now, at home, brother?
Sarevok in Adratha’s hut, pouring wine for her. Sarevok in the druid village, at breakfast, passing a jug of goat milk to her, laughing.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if you aren’t, will you remember to cast those stone skins? Most of the time, you forgot, even after the cave. There was just no need, everything was over too quickly. If you do, then, I guess, I’ll just have to cast magic missiles, eh?
Can you see the invisible, brother? Tell me.
Awakening with a freshly healed arm (I purged the invisibility and healed the arm and your brother carried you here). Cernd, disappearing, in a henge, during a fight.
You can’t.
A ring of invisibility. A sword which hastened its wielder and, once drawn, made her unstoppable with magic. A dagger. Not a throwing dagger; but at close quarters, thrown with potion-enhanced strength, enough.
A bit of poison on the tip of a dagger, nothing lethal… only a bit of a sleep-inducing potion, enough to dull the senses and slow down reflexes, to relax muscles and slacken control… Anishai?
“In times of necessity, it is possible to fashion simple, relatively weak poisons from ubiquitous materials, such as certain—”
“—spell components. (Though only a simian would waste spell components in this manner.) For instance—”
Thank you, brother. Now, my other-brother… I won’t stun you. No. I’m not as… provident as Father is. But you will understand that I won’t fight you on your terms, either.
Yes. I think you will.
-----
Barely past the first hour after midnight of that clear, cloudless night, a hooded, cloaked figure crossed the streets of Trademeet from Vyatri’s Pub in the direction of the city’s largest plaza; and then disappeared in the maze of streets on the north-east side.
Of the two passers-by who saw it, the first one, a human, knew better than to occupy herself with odd figures who walked the town by night; the other, a halfling, decided simply that the figure must be a fellow Shadow Thief, due forthwith for a private meeting with the Lady Itona, publicly a rich widow, and the guild-mistress of Trademeet in her other character. Which was why he might be quite surprised if he followed the figure to its destination; but he did not, and thus we shall concern ourselves with him no further.
There was a pair of guards standing in front of the Lady Itona’s great, elegant house; for a moment, the figure considered bluffing its way into the residence—but, in the end, decided against it. The house was not where actual guild business in Trademeet was carried as a matter of course; any caller to the house’s mistress might require a password. And it was possible, however unlikely, that the guards were intelligent men; the route would be tried if it must, but, for the enterprising thief, there existed, perhaps, alternate paths.
The figure made its way to the back of the house, where its suspicions were soon confirmed: the residence had a garden, quite large, with a patch of trees to the left, and a lawn, a bench, a pond and a gazebo to the right; as elegant as the house, though now, rather desolate for lack of leaves on plants.
The figure passed casually by the house, passed by several other buildings, entered a side lane and, when it made sure it had not been followed, or, indeed, noticed, cast a spell of invisibility on itself; and then, returned to its target. The garden was unguarded, it had noticed through the ornate wrought iron of the fence; that meant that the garden was trapped. The Lady Itona might be confident that those in the know would know to avoid her house; and she might wish to appear nothing but a foolish, incautious dowager to those not in the know; and actual guild business might be conducted elsewhere; but the garden was trapped.
Trapped it was.
Ever so often, faintly glowing silver sigils of active warding glyphs showed up on the ground, forcing the invisible thief to circumvent them in a wide arc; them, and the pressure plates—for the owner of the house, it was evident, did not put her complete trust in magic, even if magic was easier to do away with before a soirée. In this one thing, the thief was lucky: the insects which had eaten the grass had uncovered the glyphs, and made her job much easier than it might otherwise be. Nimbly and skilfully, she moved cautiously across the lawn in the direction of the house, plotting her route in her mind: when she escaped, she would not have the time to choose a path at leisure.
A small smirk appeared on the thief’s face as she closed in on the silent building, heading for the massive wooden door which must lead to the living room. This was thievery. It made her blood tingle and—
A small zephyr wafted then; and the thief suddenly halted in her tracks. Something odd was there, between the door and the leafless, branchy tree closest to the house; something—perhaps an errant twig which had not moved on the wind exactly as it should; there was no telling. Only a vague sense of danger remained from the moment when the wind had blown; but the thief, taking care to check that there was no one out back on the street, and seeing that there were no lights reaching her from the house’s windows—decided to take the risk and follow up on her hunch.
First, a half-crouch, in as covered a place as one might find in the leafless garden; then, some quick hand movements—the next spell would be vocalised; finally, the small cantrip which had once already saved the thief’s life: a cloud of golden dust, blown off from the hand to settle on—
I guess, Imoen thought, eyeing the complex trap into which she had almost stepped, I was right when I thought it couldn’t be that easy.
-----
The glitterdust settled also on her; and, for a short moment, she was perfectly visible, a clear target in the moonlight. She paused, unmoving; but no one appeared to have taken notice of her. Trademeet was a peaceful city; and this, a peaceful neighbourhood.
The glitterdust faded; and with it, Imoen, too, faded into shadow. Now nothing but a spot of dark grey in the grey night, she carefully made her way around the illusion hiding the trap. The door was unavailable as a means of entry; she would have to enter the house through a window.
She made her way along the wall of the house, hiding in the shadows of the overhanging balconies and checking the windows for traps and for possibilities of entry. The first window would not budge.
The second did.
She checked her weapons one last time: the sword, and the poison-coated dagger; then, checked the ring on her finger, and the spell components, and the spells she remembered, and her plan; drank a potion of fire resistance and a potion of strength; made sure that she was ready, and slid through the open window into the dark room inside.
She was in.
-----
By the time she realised that the room, whilst dark, was not empty, it was already too late.
Ilmater, she first thought, wide-eyed, this is worse than when I found Hull and Phlydia— And then, suddenly, sullenly, cynically, Well, if he hasn’t killed me yet, he’ll sure kill me now.
Behind her, the window, untended, closed with a crash.
-----
Time, pregnant and intimately embarrassed, flowed slowly like treacle.
The sword was in her brother’s hand quicker than she had expected; the other hand, meanwhile, flung off the boy who was watching her with an expression of pure, unadulterated fear in his cute, hazel eyes; he rolled off the bed to the floor with a small cry. Neither sibling paid him much attention.
A moment of mutual non-aggression passed slowly as the sister forcibly prevented herself from reaching for any of her many weapons; at the end of which, the brother sighed, nodded, stood up unhurriedly, and picked up the teen from the floor by the scruff of his neck. The stable boy was, by this time, recovered from his shock and protesting lightly, “It’s her!”
The cry was promptly silenced by a deep kiss planted on the sweet mouth; and, as the young man was cavalierly set outside the chamber’s door, a firm, “It was fine. Now go. Leave. Forget what you saw.”
“I wish I could,” Imoen said with feeling, leaning against the nearest wall as her brother slowly closed the door after his company; as he stood by it for a moment, listening; and then, as, sword still in hand, he crossed the room to a cabinet and, picking up a jug standing on top of it, started to drink from it, in large, heavy, throaty gulps. He finished; he poured out the rest of the contents on his head; it was wine, and it settled in a multitude of small, blood-red droplets on the naked skin of his neck and shoulders, around the thin golden necklace which was the only thing he wore.
“Well, sister?” thus calmed, he asked quietly, without looking at her; quietly, and not sounding in the slightest amused. “What can your brother do for you?”
“You have mistaken your mark, I believe,” he added when no answer was forthcoming. “The effects are in the cellar.”
Imoen frowned. “You think I’m here to steal something.”
“Not on family business, certainly.”
You’re a better assassin than that, she heard in the curt assertion; and so, asked, “Listen… Don’t you want to put something on?”
For a very precious moment, the offer was considered. Then, “No.”
“No?” Imoen repeated.
“No,” Sarevok replied; then, gesturing with the hand with the jug at the bed, said simply, “My bed. My bedchamber,” he added, with another pointed gesture. “My life. It is you who are the guest in it. A much unwanted guest, little sister,” he finished dryly.
“Well, yes, but—”
“—Damn!” The jug smashed into the wall across the room, leaving behind a dark stain of wine and a shatter of porcelain. “What do you want, sister?!” the man abruptly yelled out, looking at her at last, “Why have you come here? To make me—what? Apologise? For murder? Beg for your pardon before you kill me? I,” he finished imperiously, “do not apologise. And I,” he added, stressing every word, “Do not. Ever. Beg.”
I was right!
The relief was immense; so, in the end, she had found the truth and not the illusion— But already, the sharp, burning executioner’s gaze swept over her, head-to-toe, toe-to-head; she felt naked herself; and Sarevok, slowly, with such sudden, cruel accuracy that, for all the relief, it took all of Imoen’s strength to prevent herself from reaching for her weapons, said, “No. I see. It is you who have come here to seek my pardon, sister.” He laughed. “You have separated a man and his friend, and you are suffering pangs of conscience on account—of: not my future victims. Me. And,” another delighted laugh, “it worries you, in the depths of your little heart. You want to be rid of them. You want to hate me with the fullness of your fury again— Well,” he shook his head. “Have what you want. I have no need for it. Just, please, when we meet again… Do not say a word.”
Imoen sighed deeply and tore off the wall; and, after a moment’s search on the floor amidst the tangled mass of male clothing, and the eventual discovery of what she was looking for, approached the naked man; who, by this time, had frozen into a statue of himself, drawn in light, darkness and blood-red wine. He must have realised, then, that, until this point, she had, indeed, not said a word—
She touched his arm, lightly, once, and said, “Pants. Bed. Please?”
When that brought no response, she added, cautiously, “Little brother?”
-----
They were sitting on the bed in the darkness; he, now clothed, hunched, with his head bowed low, his hands on his thighs and the tip of the Chaos Edge tracing lazily some sigil on the floor; she, cross-legged, looking away and slightly turned away, with her left shoulder to Sarevok’s right, both her blades in her lap, and her right hand free to draw them.
There was no telling which one would be quicker to the kill. All it would take—
“Why?” she asked, breaking the silence at last.
The shrug was barely palpable. “It was weak.”
“Weak,” Imoen repeated blankly.
“It was futile, sister,” a pause, “to have attempted to negotiate a ceasefire with an enemy loath to consent to it. The dead,” another pause, “claim their rights, and you would have inevitably ultimately treated the offer of,” yet another pause, “a permanent truce as an attempt to subvert your loyalties. As, in the end, you so amply demonstrated. It was plainly preferable for both sides to cut down losses at the earliest possible convenience.”
The sarcasm came on its own. “The earliest possible convenience? Just when did you realise, brother, that I would not betray my friends?”
A small laugh. “In the henge. Cernd was harmed then, and that took precedence, but—”
“You lie.”
“I do?” The voice seemed more curious than angry.
“I remember… ‘A history and a future such as cannot be amended.’ That was in the cave, wasn’t it?”
There was a moment of silence; followed by a deep sigh. “I think that I was… confused, sister.”
“Confused. You were… confused.”
“Yes. It is the correct sentiment, of course. But you had just saved my life at that point; and, both before and since then, there were moments when you did not appear overtly hostile. I thought that there was some scope for mutual agreement, and that, given sufficient proof of my goodwill, the agreement may be reached. Eventually, however, I realised that you were, at most, as—”
“—confused?”
“Yes.”
Another small silence.
“But, as you well know, brother, that wasn’t what I was asking you. Not: why you decided to end our—”
“—familiarity?”
Yet another silence, this time much longer and filled with two minds attempting to assimilate a concept fundamentally alien to them both.
“Yes, that,” Imoen said in the end. “Why did you decide to attempt it at all?”
A laugh. “I can’t tell you that, sister.”
-----
Suddenly annoyed to the extreme, she uncrossed her legs, got off the bed and stepped right into the path of the sword. “You know, little brother,” she said, folding her arms as the blade stopped when it encountered her in its path and Sarevok, barely raising his head, looked her straight into the face, “for once—for once—you might have refrained from laughing and have replied to the question, instead. Because. Well. My brother comes—has come, actually—to some deep, life-changing, groundbreaking, earth-shattering resolution—and has decided to act like a normal human being around me. And then, he not only fails most miserably at it, but he won’t even tell me why. That’s just fine. Great. Peachy, even. Why am I bothering with you, again?” she added, wringing her hands, acutely aware how histrionic she must look.
A perplexed frown answered her, followed by a deeply irritated, “Whatever came to your mind that I was laughing at you, sister? I was laughing simply because that was the exact truth: I can’t tell you. I don’t know. Even if you won’t believe it.”
The blade rose from its rest, bypassed her neatly and followed its owner as he stood up and crossed the room: five feet of steel, exactly as long as she was tall: the sharp edge, the simple hilt and the intricate guard and pommel which had taken her friends’ lives. “How do you remember the first days of independence, sister?” she heard in the background as she watched it, suddenly fascinated.
“How did you welcome the terrible pressure of freedom?” she heard then, and transferred her look back to the blade’s holder.
But he did not expect her to reply; instead, he laid the blade by his side, and leaned against the wall, folding his arms; and spoke on, “Life in a cage is as simple as life within an inch of attaining a lifelong goal, is it not, sister? The choices are obvious: there is no choice. The prisoner has no choice, and no power, save the power to plot an escape. The escape comes to pass; yet even then, the choices are limited. Kill this. Go that way. Bargain for information. Bargain for cooperation. Do all you can to win freedom—”
“And then, freedom is won,” she heard as she leaned against the small cupboard which stood on this side of the bed, “And the prisoner, who, until that point, had to interact with one, two, ten people at most, is suddenly thrown back into the vast, treacherous sea of human relations; and, goalless, directionless, must find his way in it. Even you— When Aran let you go, you did not immediately make plans for your future. You could have potentially left Athkatla that very same day, sister. You could have returned north; the money would have lasted at least part of the way.”
There was no malice in the simple observation; still, when Imoen concentrated her tired mind, she frowned. “Yes,” she admitted. “Somehow, it simply… did not come into play. I had to regain my bearings. Find a goal. Just… start living again. But you, brother—you knew what you wanted, even then,” she said, trying to return the courtesy and sound possibly non-confrontational in turn, “And you had a place to live.”
A brief laugh. “I remember the argument we had about it. And I will reply to you the same way as I replied then, sister: unlike you, I cannot walk the streets of Athkatla freely. From the pinnacle of the society, from the expectation of immediate ascension—” A missed beat, “From all that, I fell back into the underworld. For a moment,” he added pensively as Imoen, surprised, looked up, “I even thought that Beshaba had smiled upon me widely, that my destiny had really run a full circle— No matter. I was free to act, within limits; free to make a name for myself, among those who knew my name already, yet were strangers to me; secure, within a cage. And my plans had suffered a drastic setback—”
The anger had not gone far away enough not to return when she needed it. “It pains me to hear it, brother.”
Sarevok looked at her, and, with a cool smile, replied, “I knew that you would understand, sister. After all, unlike me, it was not the first time you lost control of your life and must redo it from scratch, was it not? You are, one might say, experienced in that regard. This ought to have made you doubly sympathetic to my predicament.”
“It did not,” Imoen replied, folding her arms. “I see no reason why it should. I see no reason why I should pity you for not having managed to start a war, brother. And stop confusing Irene and me,” she added, suddenly irritated. “I followed her because I wanted to. It was not my life you upset. So, stop that.”
Her brother was watching her oddly; at last, he shrugged lightly. “Aran wanted you, in every possible meaning of the word and whatever your opinion,” he said in a calm, conversational voice, as if merely picking up a lost thread of the conversation. “And he, as you may know, has a genius of his own: an eye for the exceptional. For the unique. He finds it, he chases it and he makes it his own. An insignificant idiosyncrasy, of some help in his trade, I believe: he rarely misses a bargain, and equally rarely a talent. And, forgive me, sister, but, back then, you did not look especially physically appealing.”
“Neither did you, brother,” Imoen retorted perfunctorily as she digested the parts of her brother’s speech he was so careful to avoid.
“I have no idea,” he spoke on, meanwhile, “whether I wanted to keep you away from him, then, or him away from you; both, probably… But then, you were gone, and I stayed. I, too, had things to do: recover my strength. Secure my rank among Aran’s people. Familiarise myself with the chain of command, with the guilds—”
“He trusts you,” Imoen noted.
A half-smile crossed Sarevok’s face. “He is a fool. But I met Mae’Var, and he mentioned you; I met Valen—Bodhi’s envoy—and she mentioned you; I met Anishai, and asked her about you. It appears, sister,” he added, suddenly amused, “that you were making quite the name for yourself when your career among your fellows was so unfortunately interrupted.”
Imoen groaned silently; some of her feeling must have shown on her face, because Sarevok, still amused, added, “Well, you would not expect me not to take interest in a sibling, a fellow survivor, a rising star of the criminal firmament and one of the very few people I knew in Amn, would you? And, of course,” he added, much more quietly, “the later events proved that you did not put me out of your mind, either. Even if your interest was less… detached.”
“Less detached,” Imoen repeated flatly; and then again, “Less detached. I was scared to death that you would come and kill me, brother.”
There was a silence; at the end of which, the man shrugged lightly again, and said, “Yet, in the end, you came to me. In the company of a sibling, no less, and yelling at the top of your voice about an attack. I am not easily fazed, sister; but I cannot say that the manner of your reappearance in my life did not surprise me. Especially given what was yet to happen.”
Suddenly, the amusement returned to his voice. “I pride myself on not being inflexible, either, sister; but that day was full of surprises. I saw you kill. I saw you—murder. I knew that the next few nights would not be kind to you. I had known that Bodhi would hunt you; and—” A brief hesitation, followed by a shrug. “That was all; except that, ever since that time, matters grew, step by step, even more… complicated. Until, that is,” he added, much quicker now as his tale was, apparently, coming to an end, “you told me to stop stalking you; and I finally realised— It was pathetic. I should have realised that sooner, and on my own. However, the deed was done, and all that remained was to amend the fault.”
There was a deep sigh, and Sarevok picked up the sword from the floor. “As you see, sister,” he said lightly, “I cannot answer your question. Whatever gold and diamonds you have come here for, little thief, you must satisfy yourself with zircons and fool’s gold. As much as it pains me to say so, I have never decided to attempt anything. Not as such. I was merely… confused. Caught in the events.”
He shrugged, and, deeply scowling, added, “Though, now that we speak of the matter… Unless we are the two last of the kinfolk alive, or unless you strike against me first, or unless I lose my mind again—consider yourself free not to be deathly scared of me. And now. Is there anything else you want, or will you go now? I would like to take some sleep before I leave.”
“You don’t sleep well,” Imoen said, not moving from the cupboard.
“No. I don’t,” her brother replied curtly.
It was as if some undefined veil, parted for a moment, had closed again; and so, she asked only, “What will you do now, brother?”
Sarevok shrugged. “Return to Athkatla. Learn what Aran has managed to do about Bodhi and Irenicus.”
“Tell Aran from me that I don’t want to be a Shadow Thief anymore, will you? I have no idea how to put in my resignation properly.”
An odd glimmer appeared then in the man’s eyes; but it disappeared quickly, and he said only, “I see. I will. What do you plan to do instead, sister?”
Imoen frowned. “Stay here, I think. There is an adventuring party I might want to join if they are in town— Are you really sure you can’t stay, too? You aren’t expected back in Athkatla for several days more, I think.”
On some level, it was deeply satisfying to hear the silence which greeted the question.
-----
Without taking his eyes off her, her brother reversed the grip on the sword, thrust it into the floor, folded his arms again, and said simply, “No. I will not kill you if I can, sister. But I will not die for your vengeance. And I will not die to please the masses.”
“And you will not apologise for murder,” Imoen finished, sighed, and added, “You know, brother, I don’t think it’s really possible to apologise for murder. You may try to atone for it, but apologise? No.”
She saw his face then, and took pity on him. “Do you know that if I wanted you to die—really, really wanted to—you would have been dead twice over already? Three times, maybe,” she added, remembering the night’s preparations: she really had been ready to kill if her suspicions would not prove true. “Didn’t Cernd tell you—?”
“Cernd did not tell me anything. Only that—”
“I really am sorry, you know,” Imoen interrupted abruptly; after which, she sighed again. “I am a thief, not a paladin, remember? And it’s not as if I was asking you to surrender. I only want to spend a couple of days with a brother who doesn’t want to kill me, in a city we have apparently saved together—even if he absolutely had to make sure to introduce himself to its High Merchant in the absolutely worst possible way—” She shrugged. “I don’t think I’m a pink and black fury anymore, you know? More like… rose and grey.”
For a brief moment more, the siblings only watched each other, tiredly; until, at last, the brother let his gaze drop to the floor and, lazily, languidly, he let it sweep over his sister once more; after which, he said, amusedly, “Rose and grey, you say, sister? It agrees with you, I daresay. Have you considered wearing pale green with it? Something in the vein of celadon, possibly?”
Imoen blinked; but, recognising an attack from the flank when she saw it, she halted, feinted and parried; and hence, replied, “Have you ever considered wearing old gold instead of honey gold, brother? It would fit your eyes better, I think.”
There was a small laugh. “Touché, sister. I forfeit. Will you be returning to the inn? Or do you prefer to stay here?”
Imoen looked around the room. The stain of dark wine had dried long before, but the porcelain shards still littered the floor. And the bed— “Here?”
“In the guest bedchamber, sister,” she heard the amused voice reply. “If so, I will have to send someone to guard your property.”
“There’s no need to. I put a trap on the door when I was leaving.”
“Ah. In that case, excuse me—”
-----
She did not see him anymore that night; instead, a firm-faced, middle-aged woman who introduced herself as “Mrs Stoker, steward of the house,” came to pick her up and, having shown her the house’s baths on the way, led her to another bedchamber. If the woman were in any way annoyed by being woken up in the middle of a night, an unexpected guest to wait on, a large wine stain on a wall and other such minor affairs, she let none of it show; but she was clearly, utterly and quite visibly scandalised by the guest’s firm refusal to the offer of a personal maid to be sought and found on the day to come.
The guest, on her part, waited until the door closed behind the steward; waited some time more; and, when she was completely sure that the steward was gone, burst out laughing. Then, she found a steaming brew standing by the bed, with a small, curt tag: “Not poison.”
It took some contemplation to drink it.
But it was not poison.
-----
She had never sought out this land before; but this time, she felt, she must. And, since the land was her, and since she felt she must, the land was found.
Irene was sitting on the ramparts of the citadel of Candlekeep, dangling her legs from the wall. She looked alive. “Hello, Imoen,” she said, and smiled.
“Hello, Irene,” Imoen replied, sitting next to her sister.
“I see that our brother and you have come to an agreement,” Irene said, without special rancour.
“Does it bother you?” Imoen asked.
“No. Not really,” Irene replied. “It won’t last long.”
“Oh,” Imoen said; and then, added, “What do you think of him? Really? It’s important.”
A shadow crossed the dwarven face; a moment passed; finally, Irene said, carefully, “Would you ask to be shown the way by a man who moves blindly because he cannot see the light for the one he casts himself?”
Imoen slowly mouthed the words, and smiled. “I can ask him to light my way while I lead him… Thank you, sister.”
“There was a question I wanted to ask you last time, you know,” she added, pulling her legs under her chin. “You said that I was turning to be Father’s puppet in life. And the first times we met, when you looked different, you did look a bit like a puppet. So… You are a puppet, aren’t you? You are saying just the things Father wants me to think, aren’t you?”
The dwarf beamed. “Now, that’s a very interesting question, isn’t it? But I can’t answer you that, I’m afraid. After all, I’m a liar.”
“And that’s a paradox if I ever saw one,” Imoen laughed. “So, you really are still there!”
The dwarf appeared to be lightly startled. “I was here all the time.”
Unmindful of the interruption, Imoen spoke on, “A memory and a shadow, and, unless you say things which make no sense, or things I already know, you must say only Father’s truths… It must be awful for you. Listen… Why don’t you be quiet, and I talk, this time? A lot happened recently, and I want to tell you all—”
-----
She awoke when the sun was high on the sky, and the warm sunrays were tickling her nose; and, for a moment, until she remembered what had happened at night, she felt completely, utterly lost.
Then, as she remembered what had happened, she got off the bed with a start.
Sarevok was in the living room of the house, smooth and urbane, and surrounded by a cloud of smell of the brew she had drunk the previous night; though that civilised image was completely spoilt by one small detail: for he still had the druids’ deerskin clothes on him. He was sitting by a long table, reading something his sister shortly recognised as his journals from his life in Baldur’s Gate, with a deep scowl of disgust on his face. As she entered, he rubbed his forehead and yawned; and then, as he saw her, said noncommittally, “Imoen. How was your night?”
“Fine,” the thusly named replied, and added, “What’s that brew, brother? The not-poison?”
She found herself the object of most punctilious study as she heard, “Chocolate? It’s Maztican. I thought you might enjoy it. Did you?”
“Yes,” she replied, stealing surreptitiously the jug containing it, and discovering that a paper-thin porcelain cup had appeared in front of her out of nowhere, “I did. It’s Maztican?” She frowned. “It must be expensive.”
“A bean is worth roughly ten times its weight in gold,” she heard, and sputtered; and, in pure self-defence, said, “I don’t want a maid, brother. I’ve never had a maid, and I don’t want a maid.”
Her brother frowned and shrugged. “I wasn’t offering you one, sister. Was Elaine?”
“Elaine?”
“The steward. Mrs Stoker? I asked her to prepare everything for you.”
Imoen leaned back in her chair and, sipping chocolate, said, pensively, “This will be weird.”
Sarevok laughed. “No, it won’t. But if you changed your mind—”
“No. I didn’t. We must fetch my things from the inn.”
“The mistress of the house will want to meet you. She seemed deeply impressed by your nocturnal achievement… Yesterday, she boasted to me that her security is unbreakable.”
“There is a party in the evening. If you’re to go with me, we must first speak with—what was his name? The High Merchant?”
“Logan Coprith. I already have. He said that, as long as I keep away from any Lurraxols and Alibakkars, and don’t go out publicly, I can stay in the city. This includes, obviously, any social gathering.”
“But not shopping?”
A laugh. “No. Not shopping.”
“Will you go with me? You will carry the stuff. I must buy a bow, arrows, scrolls—”
“—clothes, sister.”
A snort. “Yes, brother. That, too.”
-----
It was not a perfect day.
It was a day full of awkward silences, the likes of which all too often happen when two people try to avoid a lot of topics; after all, most topics these particular two people ever had in common divided them rather than united them.
It was a day which did not forget that there was a reckoning yet unfinished; that one of these people still had much of a history to answer for, and that they both had a destiny yet to face; that the dead claim their rights, and that it is only just and right that they do so.
It was a day which did not pass without a death; because death follows the Children of Murder even when they are happy. But this time, the kill did not go unaccompanied by a restoration; and when the Children of Murder examined the piece of sparkling, metallic string with which Sarevok had garrotted the one who had called himself Darsidian Moor while Imoen had finally destroyed Rejiek the Hidesman, a murderer whose house she had once visited—they unanimously decided that it must be nothing else but the string of the Gesen Bow, the last work and the masterpiece of the greatest bowmaker ever, Gesen Khan; once in possession of the Shadow Thieves, and then stolen, until it resurfaced in, of all places, a tanner’s shop.
It was not a perfect day; but it was, all in all, a good day.
And so, as they both walk the streets of Trademeet in Mirtul, where, because of the efforts of a pair of druids, lilac slowly begins to bloom: this very large, golden-eyed young man and this very short, rosy-haired young woman: for a brief moment, nothing but a pair of siblings—let us leave them, for this moment, as they are, alone.
End of Part III: Horses’ Move.
