We of the Art know many ways to influence the minds of others, from subtle suggestions, to charms, to outright domination of the mind, to the geas, which goes even further. They are tools, however distasteful, like all magic...it is the use they are put to that determines morality.
Why, then, is it that I have no compunction about draining the water from the bodies of my enemies, or frying them with arcing lightning, or calling comets down on their heads, but shrink at binding them permanently to my will instead and sparing their lives?
Upon what rational basis does that lie? None, perhaps. But there are some things worse than death. Indeed, to lose oneself beneath the will of another is a death of a sort, one I would not wish on anyone, even an enemy, and especially not a friend, as it was so long ago...
-Excerpt from Of the Children of Murder.
It's kinda funny that after all this I end up back in this guy's cage, Imoen thought bitterly, as she gazed, defeated, through the glass of the cramped cage. At least in her cell she'd had room to pace around.
As she'd proven, she thought bitterly. Countless times.
Through the glass, she gazed upon the chaotic, dusty, expansive room on the lower floor of the Spellhold Asylum that Irenicus had taken as his lab. She could see the a group of all-too-familiar glass jars at the other end of the long hall, and within them the shapes of people, imprisoned as she was.
Some were fighting, beating on the walls. Let them fight. There's no more hope for them...no more for me, either.
And, closer, close enough that she could make them out, stood the familiar form of Irenicus. Beside him stood a slim, pale woman in black.
She looks...dead. On the outside. Like he's dead on the inside. Is this his lover, his "Mistress"? No, she couldn't live in that room any more than he could. There was too much life, too much beauty there.
Irenicus was sprinkling dust on the floor around the woman, and Imoen was enough of a mage to know why. He was preparing to cast a ritual, one of great power.
What was it that Dynaheir had said, that Mystra closed the highest magics to humans after the Fall? Is this one of them? What...what is he?
Irenicus finished his task, and turned towards Imoen. He almost seemed to smile. Almost. And then he spoke.
"It is a shame, that you will die without knowing what you truly were. You have a...most interesting family."
"I have no family! Only Gorion, and he's dead!" She threw the defiant words in his face with a force born from some unknown depth of her soul.
"Ah, there you are wrong. You have met...hmm, two of your relations that I know of. Not that it matters. I suspect this will be quick."
He raised his hands and began to chant.
One of the men in the far cages slumped to the floor, and Imoen could see, see the essence, the soul, flow from him to Irenicus' hands. A faint, dark glow began to settle over the circle of dust and the woman inside.
What's happening!
Two. Irenicus began to glow, as well, as the magic from the bodies coalesced around his upraised hands.
I'm going to die, aren't I? Just like them...
Three. A dome of utter darkness began to form around the woman in the circle.
If this were a story, the dashing hero would break in right now, slay all the villains, and free me with a kiss.
Four. She thought she could hear laughter. She thought she could feel pain.
But this is no storybook, and there are no heroes, are there? Only villains, and the dead.
Dallan is dead, all my friends are dead, all the heroes are dead.
And so, there will be no rescue for me either, will there?
Five. The dark dome collapsed in upon its equally dark occupant, and Imoen heard a feminine scream of pure ecstasy.
Only death.
Blackness.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.
Dark, menacing clouds obscured the moon as we made our way up the forboding, twisted, maddened steps to Spellhold. The wind periodically gusted fiercely, sending shrieks through the air as the trees on the seaside cliff bent their heads in seeming terror at the power of Nature unleashed.
All in all, it was a very bad omen.
If the Asylum had loomed in the distance, it literally towered now, with a forbidding aura so overpowering I thought for a moment it was magical. And perhaps it was, not the magic of the building but the magic of the man I knew I would find somewhere within, and in full posession of his powers, vast and terrifying.
Irenicus. If I thought the Wizards could hold you here, they should have locked me up in there instead of Imoen. No, you're there, you're free, and you are waiting.
The last landing, the last stair, before the door. The wind rose to a piercing scream, and I shivered involuntarily. I knew, intellectually, that this was natural weather...or, at least, I couldn't feel any evidence of a spell, but he could have masked it, or done something else...I shivered.
Stop that, or you'll spare him the trouble of even killing you by collapsing into a jelly on the spot.
Aren't you supposed to be on my side, Milei?
I am. It's you that isn't. You're defeating yourself before you even step into the circle. Who is to say you and your friends cannot match him?
There's a collapsed section of Waukeen's Promenade that says I can't match him.
And an unmarked grave outside Candlekeep that said you couldn't match Sarevok. Where is he now, pray tell?
This is entirely different, and you know it.
Maybe. Still, this is natural weather. Ask your druid if you want. I'm sure she'll be happy to reassure you.
I hope so.
What? She almost seemed surprised. No sputtered denials, no blushes, no dissembling?
Just say that soon after I realised the idiocy of lying to myself and the shade of one of my oldest friends, I also noticed how stupid it is to try and hide things from someone who can read your mind.
I knew you'd come around eventually, kid.
I felt eyes on me, and I realised I had stopped in my tracks, gazing forward at the rickety wooden Asylum door, still as a statue. It was, predictably, Jaheira who spoke first. "You are afraid." It wasn't a question.
"Guilty as charged." I tried to grin at my own joke, but could only manage a sad smile.
"As I expected. It would be foolish to be unafraid in this situation, and you are only occasionally foolish."
"Why, thank you for that vote of confidence." Our exchange of wit did little to lighten the mood.
"Surely, Dallan, you do not think that only you are afraid? I have my fear, as do we all, I am sure." She paused and gave the others a significant look. Not daggers in her eyes, this time. Table knives, perhaps, or forks.
Valygar was the first to pick up on the unspoken cue. "Certainly I fear this mage, Dallan. I heard about the destruction in the Promenade before I left the city, and had hoped his capture would be the end. But if he is loose, he is an evil of such power that he has to be stopped...and if your friend can be found, then we shall free her too, though her own power may take her in the end."
Aerie nodded silently in assent, while Minsc, being Minsc, was more vocal. "My brother of the woods speaks truth! Minsc fears no evil, but Boo is positively quivering! Let us apply a righteous butt-kicking to this wizard and find little Imoen, lest Boo leave us all pungent presents!" And our faces began to brighten. There were smiles, where before no expressions held. The oppressive darkness of the forboding asylum began to fade.
Yoshimo was the last. "The only thing Yoshimo fears is the menacing eyes of our resident druidess," he said, smiling, though there was an odd look in his eyes.
The darkness shattered, and there was laughter instead. Jaheira made a convincing play of going for her quarterstaff, so convincing that I reached for her hand...in order to restrain her, I thought in justification.
I thought you had decided to stop lying to yourself, chided Milei from my pack. I ignored the dragon and caught Jaheira's hand.
And then I saw her eyes, shining and dancing with mirth as she smiled. There was no situation to defuse. I became uncomfortably aware of the soft warmth of her hand, such a contrast to the cold winds still blowing off the sea as we stood facing the doors of Spellhold. Neither of us made any move to break the contact.
Where did all this silence come from? And what is it about loving Jaheira that makes it so damned hard to talk!
I tore my eyes from Jaheira's and turned to regard the indulgent smiles of the others, cheeks burning.
"Err...apologies. I appear to have...lost track of time." That brought more chuckling, and I continued.
"I have to thank you all, here and now, for staying by me, despite what you know. You are all wonderful people, true friends, and your help and presence has been priceless. No matter how this ends, I have been a better person for knowing you all.
And now, shall we go in? It would be madness to come all this way to stand outside the door, wouldn't it?"
I pulled open the creaking wooden door. Its hinges strained to hold it against the gusting wind, and we entered quickly to close the door. As I entered with Jaheira, hands near but no longer touching, I was struck by an insight: I knew what I saw in Yoshimo's eyes. Why would I not, when it was in my own?
It was the look of the fey, the look of a man who sees his own approaching death. Yet his was not my vague suspicion of impending death...it was a certainty so iron-clad as to cause me a small thrill of fear.
What a difference an hour makes, I thought bitterly as I regarded the shattered husk of a young woman that sat before me in a grey robe on the edge of a bench, bright red hair dingy with dust, flat, dead eyes gazing out of an expressionless face. Her arms lay slack at her sides, and scars covered them along with her face. New scars, as if Irenicus hadn't given her enough the last time. I turned to the group, and a sea of concerned faces stared back at me.
Things had started well enough. Entering the Asylum, we had been conducted to the spacious and well-appointed entry hall, where a Cowled Wizard introducing himself as the Asylum Co-ordinator had greeted us politely.
We had misunderstod the purpose of this place, he had said. It was not a prison but a place of healing, and Imoen was not ready to leave it. He had offered to conduct us on a tour, as well as show us the woman we had come to find.
Or what was left of her. What did they do to her? Where's Irenicus!
He seemed enthusiastic about his vocation on the tour, showing us five of what I imagined were his more interesting prisoners...I mean, patients. Couldn't possibly be a prison, after all. Looks like a prison, feels like a prison, sounds like a prison, but it's a "place of healing".
I heard the wizard's so-smug and oddly familiar voice saying those words, and briefly envisioned what he would look like without his cowl, or a head to put under it.
Isn't that a little extreme?
Doesn't he deserve it? He has harmed this girl you say you care for.
The Voices were putting their two coppers in. Joy.
We'd been taken aback at the punishing conditions the "patients" were kept in, for what seemed to be inborn, if unusual, abilities. Valygar had remarked rather un-subtly about the "corrupting influence of magery", but I'd ignored him. He was really quite a likable and humorous man, excepting his irrational if justified prejudice, and I hoped that time journeying with Aerie and I without either of us transforming into liches would convince him otherwise.
And then we had come here, and the hopes I held had crumbled to dust. Gone was the bright, bubbly Imoen that had been so kind and welcoming fifteen years ago to a young refugee from the High Forest, brought by Gorion, old even then, and my Aunt Ellandra to Candlekeep at the "tender" age of fifty. Gone even was the occasionally brooding Imoen that had freed me from Irenicus' cage. In her place was...
The co-ordinator's voice brought me out of my revery. "She is quite well, considering the circumstances."
As if in reply, Imoen spoke for the first time, almost whimpering. "So empty...empty..."
Empty of what?
I blinked back tears. "And what circumstances would those be? She certainly wasn't this bad off when you took her away for defending herself!"
"Surely you must have seen the signs even then. But despite our best efforts, she has slipped to this. Her consciousness comes and goes. It is fortunate that you arrived when you did."
"That it is. We shall be leaving with her, to find healers that don't disguise their craft in jailer's garb." I bit back every word, and swallowed outrage. Politeness was necessary.
"Oh, you misunderstand," said the wizard, and suddenly a change came over his voice. My heart sank as I realised why that voice had been so familiar.
Paranoia is just another name for awareness, Milei. Why did I drop my guard?
It's also just another name for irrational fear. Tell me, had you even guessed this, could you have stopped it?
Irenicus, for he it was, continued. "It is fortnate for me. I am quite done with her for the moment. It is you I am after. You have surmounted the obstacles I mounted in your path, and you have passed my test and proved your potential. Your little experiment in sculpture proved that you even now have some limited control over your divine essence."
"A control that I will not exercise again short of death."
"Ah, but you will have no choice. You can do nothing to thwart my plans now. Yoshimo, I trust all is in place?"
I blinked, and turned to Yoshimo. His eyes fell from my gaze, ashamed, and he spoke in halting tones.
"Dallan, my friend...things are..are not as they seem. Master...Master Irenicus, all is ready. The required ingredients were delivered and administered."
Looks of shock showed on the faces of the others, looks that were certainly mirrored on my own face as I stared in shock at the charming rogue who I had called my friend. I held his eyes this time, and elvensight picked out a faint film over them, almost a glaze, in the mage light of the cellblock's hallway.
I trusted him! Why did I trust him!
Because you thought you needed his help. You did. And because without trust, society does not function as we understand it, and you have instead the chaotic nightmare that the Drow live in.
This is not the time for philosophy, foolish little dragon. None betray my Child and live!
I recovered first from my shock. "Yoshimo, why? I trusted you, counted you my friend. Why do this?"
"I apologise, Dallan. There are circumstances you are not aware of," he replied mournfully.
At his answer, anger replaced shock on my companions' faces. Jaheira spoke first, in a calm voice still dripping with vitriol and venom. "Let me be the first, Yoshimo, to spit at you the name of traitor. You have earned it, and will likely hear it many more times this day!"
Irenicus sat back, almost smiling, as the sentiment was echoed in Minsc's bellow, Valygar's quiet confidence, and even in Aerie's voice, losing its stammer and its petulance to deliver a denunciation forged in the fires of anger.
He turned again to me, eyes penitent and downcast. "There is no explanation that will satisfy. Your wrath will come regardless."
I remained calm, both to stave off the demands of the Other, and because Yoshimo seemed almost sincere in his remorse. There was something in his eyes that was not right...the glaze that had come over his eyes when he spoke to Irenicus...there was more to this.
"I will survive, despite what you feel you had to do. And then, Yoshimo, you will explain this, whether you think you can or not. I suggest you rehearse your lines, your life may depend on them." I forced myself, with only limited success, to speak with a calm and confidence I did not feel. I was at Irenicus' mercy once more, and if Imoen had suffered this fate, who knew what he had in store for me?
Irenicus spoke once more. "Such threats, Dallan? You will find you are quite powerless to effect them, for I would not have you damaged."
"There is no battle, no heroics. Only sleep." And he raised his hands.
Blackness.
'It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?'
A wise man named Lorien asked me that, once. He explained that it is often easier to die to escape your suffering than to live and endure it.
