Stay tuned! Watch this space! Dance the jig! All that stuff. (Plus I finally managed to get a number of chapters ahead on Sanctity., which makes me feel warm and cuddly, but has kept me even busier. My kingdom for greater speed.)Anyway, here's CoM! Actual Stuff happening, who'd have thunk it?
18 - Shadow Puppets
Athkatla, like Baldur’s Gate in my memory, is lit by night. Lamps on poles flicker and cast long shadows over the city streets, and I am as familiar to the shadows as I am a stranger in the city. Moving past guards undetected was simple enough; they are either poorly trained or apathetic, and if what I know of Amn is true it is more likely the latter than the former. All the better for me. I am not particularly intent on involving myself in illegal activities tonight, but one never knows and it is better, should a situation occur, that I have not been seen dropping from the back window of an inn. But now I move openly, a man passing through the city by night. Odd, certainly, but nothing worthy of suspicion.
Signs mark the streets, written in a language I do not recognize, then translated into common. Yet another language to contend with, and I was only just becoming accustomed to the few I know already. But I know that I am on the edge of the Promenade, and think over conversations with Jaheira and Yoshimo over dinner last night to find my way from here. To the east, will be the Slums. I have no particular business anywhere that implies such dismal poverty. The docks seem a more reasonable objective, at least for tonight.
My mind marks down streets straight and twisted, painting a map on the canvas of my memory, but the city is larger than I had anticipated, and soon I have forgotten many of the trivial roads. For the moment, that is acceptable. As I move farther from the center of commerce, the patrols thin and finally dissipate into nothing. Even my vision is quiet; the lamps are just bright enough to hamper my elven vision while being, between spots of light, too dark to lend much assistance to my human side. The streets are still and cold, and my feet make no sound to break the quietude.
In silence even a whisper resounds like a shout and I hear them coming far before they are upon me, though I do not make it evident. There are three, I think, or perhaps… no, four. I continue my walk, and my pretense that I do not hear them, and then they stop, and I grip my dagger and turn. Four men in black clothes stop, each wearing a hood, some drawn up while others rest on the men's shoulders. The one who appears their leader cocks his head, sending his reddish hair swishing.
“Well,” I say with a smile half jovial and half a threat, “What have we here.” I already know the answer, of course; either muggers or pickpockets or both, engaged in a rather paltry pretense at going someplace interesting.
Red smiles a gapless smile. Ah, a well-fed, well-groomed street thug. The City of Coin indeed. “Oh, nothing friend,” he says in his thick, strangled accent. “Nothing at all. We’re just fellows on our way to—“
I purse my lips tight. “Evidently,” I say, “You have confused me with a simpleton.” Bloody idiots. I know their ways. I am their ways refined. Perhaps someone should teach them to put some thought into their targets. I look them over and smirk. “Really now. You aren’t even particularly good thieves. I heard you coming long before I turned around.”
It would seem even a thug has brain enough beneath their scalp to recognize an insult. With a growl, Red moves upon me, pulling blade from sheathe, and then his three friends have drawn their weapons as well, and a short sword and three daggers are glittering in the scant light. The daggers I am unconcerned with for the time being, but the short sword allows Red a greater reach than I am comfortable with. Had I my old equipment, my swords and throwing daggers… but I do not. Still I am far quicker than they, and even Red, by far the fastest of the lot, is clumsy and slow in comparison. Thieves are not known for their battle prowess. Quite an unfortunate bit of luck for him.
Ducking a blow, I drive my dagger into Red’s knee, and hear the splitting of bone and his screams. He stumbles, then shrieks when he hits the street, but as I turn to deal with his brethren, one of them strikes with his dagger. The air before me stiffens and the blade rebounds with the shimmer of magic in the air and a tingle of my bracers. Instinctively, I lash out and my own dagger strikes him in the gut, tearing downwards when I retract my arm. The stink of ruptured intestines floods over me, and he is screaming, but still alive and there are still two others. It is then, of all times, that Red grasps my ankle and pulls.
The street meets my shoulder and drives the air from my lungs, but no street thug can obviate an instinct for battle forged over long months of fighting for one’s life. I kick free of Red’s hand, crushing his bones under my heel, then turn onto my back and kick with all of my strength into the leg of the man holding his intestines inside his abdomen, as though it will save him. The air has grown misty and damp, and the cobblestones beneath me are slick with moisture, but there is no time to think, and I pull myself to my feet. Two remain now; the one I kicked falls to join Red on the ground, rolling in agony and screaming.
My shoulder sends throbs of dull pain through my body, but it is nothing. I have known pain greater than these dullards could begin to inflict. My strength has not entirely returned, but that is irrelevant; half of myself is enough to deal with street thugs.
I am approaching them when the strike comes, harsh and sharp and strong enough to break my neck if I had not moved forward at the last moment. My knees buckle beneath me, and once again the ground rushes to meet me, but this time I catch myself on my hands and one knee. The impact shakes my joints. From the side of my eyes, I see the white and black form rushing the two thieves. It moves so swiftly my eye cannot follow, and with a sickening lurch of dread my mind fills with images of the woman who slaughtered Minsc. I know what I am looking at.
But this is different, my mind tells me. This one kills coldly, with neither relish nor distaste. I get to my feet just as the second thief collapses in a bloody heap and ready myself. There is no way of knowing if Tymora or Beshaba look upon me tonight, but I am in better shape for battle than I was when I met this one’s kin, and I will never be a lamb.
Red eyes sparkle as he looks in my direction. His white teeth shine when he smiles. “I am terribly sorry then,” he says softly, “I should not have struck you. A grievous error.” He turns, then, and looks down at the dead and dying. A frown mars his face, and he sighs. “And another error. These are not the prey I desired. But I thought the hoods… well, you understand.”
“Not particularly,” I say, my voice both calmer and steadier than I had expected. Odd, truly, that I do not feel afraid. There is nothing menacing in his gaze, or his stance. There is power, and malevolence, but no actual threat. “I am, however, willing to stay still and hear your explanation.”
He shakes his head, very nearly a gesture of regret. “Ah,” he says, “But I cannot. A shame, really, I would not terribly mind a good chat over dinner.”
“What?”
A smile. His teeth are so damned white. “Nothing,” he says, “Nothing at all. Not yet. But you will know one day, I think. When the time comes. When you make your choice.”
In the distance, through the thickening mist, I hear the sounds of footsteps against cobblestones, and the whisper of voices in my ears. The man, pale and elegant and bloody and beautiful, bows. I do not return the gesture.
Just behind me, I hear a rustling. When I turn there is nothing. When I turn back, he is gone.
Sunlight is welcome for once, chasing away dreams of pale demon men and bleeding thieves. My dreams have become odder with each hour of rest; I dream in tones of grey and bleeding, faded color, and wake with no remembrance of what the nighttime whispered to me. That, in itself, is odd. It had been so long since I saw morning without the echo of the Voice’s laughter in my mind that I barely remembered what it is like to wake in peace... and now, suddenly, this endless, deafening silence.
The bells chime, undoubtedly what awoke me, marking the start of a new hour, and hunger dulls my mind just as sleep dulls my senses. Sitting up is a chore of sorts, but nonetheless I pull myself from the blankets. It takes me some time of washing, brushing and dressing, but I manage to arrive downstairs before I collapse from hunger. Jaheira and Yoshimo are seated at a corner table. I demand soup from my beloved Patricia before sitting with them and saying my greetings.
Jaheira looks me over, and frowns. “I do not recall finding that outfit in the laboratory,” she says. Ah, one of the few things we have in common; we do not bother with niceties.
“That is because I bought them yesterday.”
Jaheira is sipping her soup when I speak, and puts down her spoon when I have finished. “So am I correct in thinking that you gallivanted off and purchased a set of likely too expensive and, frankly, rather unnecessarily decorative, clothing without consulting me?” Because of course I would consult her every time I make a move. Incredible enough that she managed to notice my transformation.
“Yes,” I say. “And furthermore, I would go so far as to say you should likely follow suit before I abandon you out of sheer embarrassment.” Yoshimo, his leather armor still near pristine, cocks an eyebrow and looks Jaheira over. He drinks from his water cup and looks her over again.
Jaheira scowls. “I will not spend what little gold we have on luxuries.”
We retain over 1,200 gold from my pawning of jewelry and useless miscellanea, and another 100 or so from the corpses of the thieves last night. Little is relative, I want to tell her. 'Corpse' too is relative; Red was still alive when I took his purse, though not for long afterward. And I did not even stain my new clothing with his blood. But of course, I do not say these things. Instead, I repress the need to smirk and say, “Consider it an interrogation advantage.”
“What?”
The barmaid sets my glass down beside me, and I drink before I answer, watching her irritation rise at the abandonment of her question. Finally, I set the glass down. “This is a city impressed only by wealth, no? Do you think they will speak to you, let alone answer your questions, if you look like that?” She remains in the same torn and stained clothing she had been wearing upon capture. The badly fit leather armor she wears over them is hardly an improvement.
Jaheira scowls again, but Yoshimo chuckles. “It is true,” he says, “You may be as rich as an emperor but they will not hear your words if you look a beggar.”
“And if you are a beggar?” Her words are short and sharp.
“Then you had best dress as an emperor,” he says with that charming grin.
My throat is still dry. I detest this feeling, dehydration, weakness, weariness that will not fade. “We are hardly beggars. The situation is constrictive, but not particularly bleak." All things being relative, in the end. There was a time that I would have spent ten times our current limits on a trinket for a one-night stand. "And besides, it is too late. I have already bought you new clothing.”
Jaheira glares at me. “If it is already purchased, there is nothing to be done about it,” she says, but there is gratitude behind her stubbornness.
“Your appreciation,” I say, “Is overwhelming.”
“I will not thank you for extravagance.” She says these things and calls it responsibility, but of course in the end it is idiocy. She will not relish the gold we've saved when she is cut down by a kolbold because of inferior protections.
“Such a shame, that,” I say, and lean toward her slightly, “Extravagant is the one of very few things worth being.”
Yoshimo chuckles, and Jaheira stares at me a long moment before smiling, just slightly. The barmaid brings my soup, which smells like nothing and tastes like water, and we fall into planning. We will split up so as to cover the most ground and question the greatest number of people. I will walk the Promenade itself, as I do not know the streets as well as Jaheira or Yoshimo. When breakfast is done, I distribute the new equipment I had purchased; leather armor for Jaheira, studded and painted in camouflaging green. A scimitar that she straps to her hip. A small wooden shield that she straps to her arm. And for Yoshimo, a quarrel of arrows to replace those he shot at Irenicus, or at goblins, or at the demon woman in the depths of Irenicus’ rat maze.
“And for you?” Jaheira asks, raising her eyebrow.
“I have the pleasure of your company,” I tell her. Of course, I also have several outfits, a leather long-vest and a set of master lockpicks. This is not her concern.
When all is calmed, we sit upstairs at the round table in the center of my room, and Yoshimo spreads a sheet of paper across its surface. Quite a surprise; paper is not cheap, and he does not think a moment before beginning his sketch across the surface with an equally pricey inkpen. His map is crude and the one in my mind is more easily read. But even so I put on an interested face and take it when he is done.
It is mid-morning by the time we leave the inn, the day warmer by far than the night before. Sun trickles over the buildings, turning white rooftops to platinum. A circus has arrived in town, its tent filling the center of the square, surrounded by people. As I draw near and finally pass it, the frivolous music one tends to associate with a circus seeps forward, and I take note of the juggling dwarves and a rather ridiculous gnome casting pathetic illusions in a futile attempt to draw attention away from the dwarves, and from the tiny-shouldered blonde elf smiling and laughing.
The crowd is thick around the tent, but I manage to squeeze through the throng and, once past the the thick of the assembly, searching the crowds for one who carries the potential for compliance in my questioning. Finally I spot a noblewoman, glancing my way and trying not to appear to do so. I nod in her direction, then half-smile and gesture to her. She cocks an eyebrow and hesitates before she approaches, but in the end, approach she does.
“Greetings my lady,” I say in my most charming voice. “I seem to have something of a situation, and I thought perhaps you could help me.”
She looks me over, no doubt trying to discern if I am a gigolo, or perhaps a well-dressed beggar. In the end, she relents. “What seems to be the trouble?” she says, still uncertain. She has an inane arrangement of feathers and beads in her hair and three earrings down one ear. It is rather difficult to take her seriously. I am tempted to tell her theat my situation is simply that I take offense to feathers in one’s hair and excessive ornamentation.
“A friend has been taken by a grouping of what I am told are called Cowled Wizards,” I say, “With her, they took a rather gaudily dressed mage in leather.”
“Ah yes,” she says with a knowing look. For a moment, I think she might have a notion about what it is I am in search of, but in the end, she says only, “That incident from yesterday, I assume?”
“Yes. Might you know where she has been taken?”
She snickers. “I have no idea. But it doesn’t matter, she deserved to be arrested.”
My hands nearly tear her throat away, but I clench my fist and smile my honeyed smile. “Oh? Whyever would you say that, my lady?” I ask. I wonder if the sugar in my voice is equal to the venom in my heart.
“She is a mage,” she says, as though she simply cannot believe the necessity of explaining this to me. “All mages should be thrown in prison, or left to feed the birds. If only all of Amn could be cleansed of such deviants.” She continues her rant, but I do not hear her, and turn on my heel to leave while she is still in mid-sentence. Her words are irrelevant to me, and she is nothing more than a half-wit. And this city, indeed this entire country, is simply more of the same, hiding beneath their beds from powers that they cannot, in the end, avoid. All their laws did not save their precious commerce center from Irenicus. A City of Fools.
But it is also the City of Coin. I finger the heavy bag of coins I slid from her belt during her tirade. If this purse carries the coin to purchase an outfit half so ridiculously overblown as my dear noblewoman’s, it will be enough to feed the lot of us for months on the budget of kings. It should also be enough to purchase cooperation.
But through a series of useless nobles, peasants, guards and beyond, as is typical, it is a beggar in the street who provides me with the most useful information I have found thus far. It costs two silver to loosen his tongue, and he salivates at the sight of the coins. How wretchedly desperate.
I will never beg, and I will never salivate.
“They’re Cowled Wizards,” he says. “I don’t know where—“
“They take them,” I finish for him, “I know. I know. It appears that no one knows. You say nothing new and thus nothing of use to me. Find a more worthwhile handful of words before I reclaim my coins.”
He shrinks backwards, clutching the money to his bare and withered chest. “You won’t take them!”
“Then I will take something off of you to equal their value.” I look him over. “From the looks of you that would amount to a leg at the least. Possibly two.” He shrieks, but he is poor, dirty and beneath the notice of those around him so no one looks his way. I suspect they would watch impassively if I butchered him where he stands. Or perhaps they would simply ignore it. Here, he is not even worth the time taken to watch as he dies. “Tell me,” I say.
He looks back and forth. “There is only one group powerful enough to cross the Cowlies,” he whispers, “And that…” A dramatic pause. Wonder of wonders, I’ve got an actor on my hands. “…is the…” he leans closer and whispers, his fetid breath suffocating me, “Shadow Thieves.” With that, he withdraws and nods a slow, deliberate nod. “But where you’ll find them, I don’t know. I don’t go looking for trouble, that’s for sure, so I couldn’t tell you. And people don’t go looking for the Shadows anyway. The Shadows come looking for them.”
The Shadow Thieves. I remember the name. Gorion spoke of them, as he spoke of various things and places he knew when he was an adventurer and still young. But I cannot remember a damned word of what he said about them. More clearly I remember them as a group of assassins whispered about in Baldur’s Gate; the group that Sarevok had attempted to blame for his crimes. I had cleared their names then, but not out of love for them.
“Thank you,” I tell the beggar, and bow slightly.
It is mid-afternoon, and I am tiring and growing hungrier with each passing moment. I speak to a handful of others, but they are worthless to me. In the end, I return to the inn as the last beams of sunlight are beginning to fade, frustrated but weakening and too tired to continue. The tavern is alive with the typical nighttime assortment of people, and at the bar, Jaheira is drowning herself in ale.
Facing away, she does not see me enter. I nearly approach her; how amusing it would be to see her face when she realized that I have witnessed her chugging alcohol like a drunkard. But I scowl instead and motion to a barmaid to give her my order, and the direction to serve me in my chambers.
Upstairs, I sit and flip through The History of the Dead Three while I await my dinner. From downstairs, there are the strains of music played in a style I recognize. More than likely, it is the same bard who had visited on the day we arrived. I sip at a clay mug filled with watered down pear juice, and memorize the words of my father’s history, if this truly is his history. One hopes it isn’t, at least not verbatim. How sad the cosmos would be if the fate of the dark gods truly was decided by a game of knucklebones.
The windows are open, and the air fills with the scent of night air and smoke, still billowing. Will this place ever smell the way it did, again? I have never experienced its natural aromas, but I can imagine the scent of cooking meats and sweet wine mixing with flowers and sweat. I can imagine much of anything, and much of anything would be better than the odor of broken marble and dust.
The food, when it arrives, is fair enough, but by the time I have finished my meal, the ache of my muscles has worsened and I can only think of rest. Will I ever be the man I was? Bitterness in my mouth. I have escaped the prison of body only to stumble into a prison of time. If Imoen had not been taken I might have spent the next handful of days recovering and plotting my vengeance, but she is gone and I have no choice but to find her before she is killed, or worse. There is no time to rest, and thus no time to recover. My body will heal, I know, but so much slower than I can easily tolerate.
I have already pulled the covers back from my bed, relishing the coolness of the sheets, when I see at last the note on my pillow. Yellow parchment, written with a swift, chaotic hand. I narrow my eyes and lift the note, straining to read the words.
Darvith,
If you want to see Imoen again, come to the Copper Coronet. Tonight.
Come alone.
A friend
My jaw tightens, and in my mind, Imoen is smiling.
He knows my name. He knows her name.
She may be dead. This could be my only lead towards saving her.
The lines are broken and uneasy, written by a man not well-educated, though obviously literate. I stare at the letters until I have memorized every ridge, every error in stroke.
It could only be a trap.
I tear up the letter.
Next: A little night meeting.
-Nyx
edit: added a dash for clarity. (Thanks Laufey
)
