Chapter 74: Out of the Frying Pan
There had been a half dozen mephits in the chamber. They were all dead.
So were the extra nine or so mephits that had materialized under a small metal cage thing in the middle of the room before Minsc had managed to smash it. The portal had been a very nasty surprise, but then again, this entire place was one big nasty surprise after another.
Imoen only wished she could have done more.
If she'd had her wands and spellbook, she could have blasted the entire room with fire and lightning and then blown up the surviving mephits with blasts of cold. As it was, she had used one of her few scrolls - a fireball one - to kill a couple of the mephits and hurt a couple more, and then she'd spent the rest of the fight firing arrows from the doorway while Ember and Minsc and Yoshimo had fought the ugly things up close.
"If only I had my spellbook," she grumbled out loud.
"Hey, it wasn't that bad," Ember said, smiling a little with her mouth but not with her eyes as she uncorked a healing potion. There was a large burn on her left arm. "Besides, it's done now."
But we aren't done yet. Not by far.
"Boo is tired of mephits," Minsc announced. "They make his fur stand on end. Little Yoshimo, will there be more?"
"Not that I know of, my large friend," Yoshimo said, wiping ichor off his katana with a scrap of cloth, "but then again, I have only seen this chamber and the next. Still, one can be hopeful, can one not?"
Minsc grinned. "Boo likes the way you think!"
The floor shook with a distant explosion. Imoen couldn't tell where it came from. She didn't like it.
"We should get moving," Ember said. She looked worried.
Yoshimo nodded. "Follow me. There were no creatures in the next chamber when I was there, but I must warn you: it is not a pleasant place," he said.
He was right.
For the most part, there was nothing really wrong with the room. A well-stacked bookshelf stood in one corner, next to a shelf full of potions and powders. There were several workbenches in the room, each holding its own pile of equipment. It looked just like the kind of wizard's study you could see anywhere, except for the dead man that lay splayed across one of the workbenches. He was cut open, and most of his innards had been scooped out.
"Boo is too young for all this!" Minsc gasped, clutching the hamster to his chest.
"I was imprisoned in there," Yoshimo said quietly, pointing at a half-open door that led to a small, empty room. "They had taken my katana and other belongings, but fortunately, they did not find the spare lockpick in my boot. I escaped and reclaimed my possessions from one of these tables. Then, I noticed ...him." He winced.
"Maybe you were to be next," Ember muttered.
Yoshimo smiled weakly. "Who can say?"
Imoen couldn't take her eyes off the body. "At least he didn't suffer," she whispered to herself. She remembered it now; their captor - Irenicus - had taken her to this room, and the man had been on the table, already dead. Then, he'd made her watch as he cut the body open. He'd cut and ask 'Do you see?', cut and ask again, but she didn't see and she didn't understand and she didn't know what he wanted. Why had he shown her this poor man? Why had he made her watch as he reduced the man to a pile of wobbly red pieces of meat? Why couldn't she stop thinking about it?
A loud crash somewhere nearby shook her out of her unpleasant reverie. It wasn't an explosion; it sounded more like glass shattering.
"What was that?!" Ember asked. A second crash answered her.
"It sounds like it's in the next room," Imoen said. "I'll go look." A nervous knot blossomed in her belly as she tiptoed past the disemboweled man and down a narrow corridor. There was a third crash. For a moment, she wanted to turn back and just wait in the nightmarish study. But we have to get past it, no matter what, she reminded herself. Better to find out as soon as possible.
The sounds were coming from a doorway ahead and to Imoen's left. Moving as stealthily as she could, she approached the doorway and looked into the room.
Ten large glass jars, a lot like the ones they'd seen earlier, were lined up along the walls. Four of them were broken, and a thing that looked like a controller was broken, too. A dead man lay in a large puddle of milky fluid on the floor; from the look of it, he'd been shoved into one of the shattered jars. A naked elf woman stood over him, clumsily holding the hilt of a broken sword - had she taken it from him, perhaps? She was so very pale, and it looked like she was drenched in the fluid; her golden hair hung in slimy strands that clung to her shoulders. Her eyes were very dark and looked glazed.
"Not her. Not her!" the woman cried, and hit another of the jars with the sword hilt. It shattered with yet another loud crash, spraying her and the dead man and the room with a fresh layer of the nasty fluid.
She's mad! Imoen carefully backed away from the door and beckoned to the others to come, then peered into the room again just in time to see the woman smash the seventh jar.
This time, the woman noticed her. "No more!" she screamed, and brought the hilt down on the surface of the eighth jar. Her hands were bleeding. "I am not her! I am not! We are not!"
"Who... who are you then?" Yoshimo asked, coming up behind Imoen. "Is there anything we can do for you?"
The ninth jar exploded in a shower of glass shards. The woman glared at Yoshimo. "Do for me? Do for me?!"
"Perhaps if you calm yourself," Ember said, "we could help--"
The woman smashed the last of the jars. "Never again!" she laughed. "No more death to rise again not her!" Then, she plunged the broken stump of the blade into her own neck.
Nobody said anything.
"What... what is this madness?" Yoshimo finally asked, sounding very shaken.
"Look at the jars," Ember whispered.
Other women were floating in the remains of the jars. They almost looked like they were sleeping, but they were all dead, and they all looked just like the crazy woman.
"They're all copies," Imoen stammered. A horrible thought occured to her. "They're copies of her, the woman he loved, aren't they?"
"I think so. I can't see who else they could be," Ember said quietly.
Imoen stepped away from the doorway. It was too much. "Let's just get out of here," she groaned.
Another distant explosion made the ground tremble. Tiny waves ran across the red-streaked fluid on the floor.
---
The next stretch of corridor was very long, very plain, and blissfully empty. There were traps here and there, but Imoen spotted them easily, and Yoshimo helped her disarm them. The four of them talked as they walked. Yoshimo thought they might be in or near Athkatla, and told them about the city. It felt strange, talking about normal places and things, but it was comforting, too; together with the the bland non-creepiness of the tunnels they were walking through, it almost made Imoen feel like herself again.
It'd been spring in Athkatla when Yoshimo was whisked away. The news had come as a shock even though it shouldn't have; after all, Minsc couldn't have grown that hair and beard in a week. There was her own hair as well, which was constantly getting in her eyes, and Ember's hair, which had grown well past her shoulders. It just was easier to ignore what that meant, I suppose, Imoen mused as they crossed a narrow walkway that spanned a giant sewer pipe. She didn't like the thought of having lost an entire season, not even winter, which was her least favourite.
She reached up and touched the gap in her eyebrow where it'd been cut. They'd all changed so much, hadn't they? Scars both inside and out, little white lines that didn't really tell the truth about themselves. Minsc looked at every shadow with suspicion; he'd never been so jumpy before. Ember kept herself busy with trying to find the way out, but whenever they slowed down for a moment, Imoen noticed a kind of lost look in her friend's eyes. Did her own eyes look like that, too?
She shook her head. This wasn't what she wanted to think about.
"Being caught unaware like that... it's quite embarrassing," she heard Yoshimo tell Ember. "My profession does not leave itself open to those who are not wary."
"And what is your profession?" Ember asked.
"As I told you, I am Yoshimo!" Yoshimo said with a grin. "If you need it, I will find it. If you want it, I will obtain it. None in Athkatla are stealthier, more dashing, or share my skill with a blade. I can dance on the head of a pin, as well!"
Ember giggled, as did Imoen. It felt very good. A smile crept across Imoen's face and stayed there as she listened to Yoshimo talk about how he'd come from the distant Kara-Tur, bravely seeking his fortune.
---
The not so distant explosion made dust and bits of plaster fall from the ceiling and made Imoen's heart try to jump out of her throat.
"We're getting closer," Ember muttered beside her.
But to what? Imoen wondered. They'd already passed places where there were little craters in the floor and scorch marks on the walls and ceiling, and they'd seen at least a dozen dead men with masks. Irenicus had to have been here, and not too long ago, either.
There was a white light ahead of them in the middle of a pile of rubble.
"What's that light?" she asked just as another explosion shook the corridor they were in. Large chunks fell away from the pile of rubble, and they were suddenly flooded with light. Imoen's eyes flooded with water as she squinted against the blinding whiteness.
Minsc roared with joy. "Look, little witches! It is daylight!"
It's so bright! Laughing, Imoen ran towards the hole in the wall with her friends, squinting and wiping her eyes. Oh, it's wonderful! They were almost at the opening...
"Wait," Yoshimo said quietly, and held her back by her arm.
Imoen blinked confusedly. "But-"
"Look."
Blinking and squinting a bit more, she could make out several figures standing outside the opening. They were throwing spells and shouting at each other. The closest of them stood just outside, with his back facing them. Her blood ran cold.
"It's him," Ember muttered.
Imoen reached for her bundle of spellscrolls. She was not going to let him hurt them again!
Irenicus turned halfway towards them. "So, you have escaped," he said in that horrible cold indifferent voice of his. "You are more resourceful than I thought."
"You're not going to torture us any longer," Imoen growled.
"Torture? Silly girl, you just don't understand what I'm doing, do you?" He turned to cast a spell at someone else outside.
"I don't care what you're doing!" Imoen shouted, and started reading the spell from the scroll she'd picked. A jet of flames shot from her hands and straight towards Irenicus's back.
He didn't as much as flinch. "Enough," he said, and casually flung a cluster of magic missiles at Imoen. They hit her chest, one after another, and knocked her to the ground. For a moment, she couldn't breathe. Ember screamed. Minsc roared. Others were shouting. Why was everyone shouting? Air. Air!
She drew a deep, painful breath.
"You will cease your spellcasting and come with us!" someone shouted.
"You bore me, mageling," Irenicus said. "You may take me in, but you will take the girl as well!"
Girl? What girl?
Ember shouted at someone. Unfamiliar hands grabbed Imoen by the arms and picked her up.
"Wait! No!"
They didn't listen.
A dimension door opened up in front of her and swallowed her whole.
