Chapter 141: Dark Tunnel
The campfire crackled weakly, even as Reynald poked dying embers around the edges with the tip of his dagger. The warmth the flames had produced was fading a little, and the adventurers all drew their cloaks around their shoulders as the night chill penetrated the camp site a little more.
The mood in the party was fairly dim, despite their hopeful venture. Intensive study of the volumes the scholar Rendval had uncovered revealed that a possible way to resurrect the only partially-vampirised Jaheira required taking the heart of the vampire that had bitten her and using an altar of the god Amaunator.
Unfortunately, Amaunator was a deceased God – but not long ago, in the month of waiting for Edwin to develop a route to the Underdark, the party had travelled across Amn to the Umar Hills, where the village of Imnesvale had been under threat from an unknown source. Further investigation had revealed that a Shade Lord, leader of Shadows, had been preying on the village from nearby catacombs – catacombs which turned out to be a former temple of Amaunator. And Imoen had remembered seeing an altar there.
So they had departed early that afternoon, not planning to return to Athkatla soon – they would go to the Umar Hills and then straight to where Elhan and the rest waited, to face Suldanessellar and Irenicus, hopefully in a party six-strong.
It seemed, however, that none of them quite dared hope. Harrian’s gaze was constantly locked on the flames so intently that whenever he looked away, spots appeared in front of his eyes; Minsc tended calmly to Boo; Reynald seemed deep in his own thought as he sharpened the Sword of Chaos; Anomen was packing away the pots used to cook their dinner, and even Imoen – who had been bright and cheerful, even more optimistic than Harrian when they had set off – was lost in thought, her arms wrapped around her legs as she rested her chin on her knees, a slightly pensive frown on her face. Behind them, further towards the trees, was the small, light cart they had bought, upon which rested Jaheira’s body. However hopeful they were, it felt intensely morbid to be carrying a corpse across Amn.
Harrian stretched a little, breaking the silence as he grunted quietly. “We should get some sleep, and set off as soon as possible in the morning,” he instructed curtly.
Anomen glanced at him. “Harrian… we had to force you to stop for the night. Let us make this a good night’s rest. We shall be at the catacombs by noon tomorrow, if we leave just after dawn,” he said cautiously.
“We can set off before that.” Harrian fidgeted distinctly.
Reynald raised his head calmly, and the Bhaalspawn settled a little under the gaze of those cool blue eyes. “Rest, friend,” the fallen paladin said quietly. “The day shall be intensive tomorrow. Let us have a calm evening, a restful night, and a solid march on the morn.”
“These are hardly the best circumstances for a calm evening,” Harrian responded, but amazingly less venomously than he’d directed most answers to anyone all day. Though his morbid disposition had been alleviated with Imoen’s news, a depression had made way for absolutely frayed nerves, mood-swings, and an intensive drive to move as quickly as possible. He had laughed, he had thanked the Gods, he had hugged them all when he’d heard the news, but as the party hurried to get ready to depart, a dark mood had come along, and he had snapped at them repeatedly to speed up.
“A hero’s life is rarely calm. Always administering the boot to evil’s buttocks does not allow much rest. But when rest is available… Minsc and Boo like to make the most of it. It leaves my mind so much more at ease when battle comes,” the big ranger spoke up quietly, resting with his back against a tree trunk and his eyes half-closed, Boo nestled comfortably in the palm of his big hand.
“I’m not being unreasonable. I’m just suggesting we get an early start tomorrow,” Harrian said quietly.
“Yes, but by ‘early start’, you mean three hours after midnight,” Imoen said gently. “Rest. We all need to rest. We will have an early night, but the evening is still young.” She glanced around. “Think we’ll need to set up a watch.”
“Yes. Remember what happened last time we didn’t?” Harrian said with certainty, glowering at the remains of the fire.
Silence fell upon them all again. It was an odd atmosphere; charged, worn, both frantic and weary, leaving them feeling as if they’d been run to death. It pained Harrian to think it, but he missed Haer’Dalis. The bard would always find a way to fill an evening, even if it was just by annoying everyone – annoyance was a minor issue to deal with compared to this dull, oppressive feeling that had settled.
“We need music. I suppose Haer’Dalis took his lute with him,” Imoen mumbled, sulkily staring at the dying fire, and evidently thinking similar thoughts to Harrian.
Anomen, who was easing himself back down to sit next to her, shook his head. “If he did not, then it is not with us. I did not see it anywhere around the house.” There was a long, taut pause again. “But then, none of us can play it.”
“I can!” Imoen piped up.
Harrian gave a brief bark of laughter, then shook his head as she looked at him challengingly. “No, no… nothing…” he assured her, chuckling. “I can just easily remember the few times we thought we would try to regale the common room of Candlekeep inn with a few verses of song. Winthrop banned us from trying ever again unless there was a brawl and he wanted to clear the tavern!”
Imoen stuck her tongue out at him. “If I recall correctly, that wasn’t because of my playing, but your singing.”
Harrian gave another smile, which hadn’t been a regular sight all day. “I will insist you had some part in it, but I concede your point.” He glanced at the others – Minsc was now listening intently, and Anomen looking at them with a slightly amused expression. Only Reynald was inattentive, focused on the sharpening of his blade. “I sound like a dying cat when I sing.”
Imoen chuckled. “And I can hardly string two notes together on a lute…”
“It was some dusty thing you found up in the attic which Winthrop had once used – in need of some desperate tuning!”
“Sounded fine to me!”
“We got bottles thrown at us!”
The two siblings exploded into nostalgic giggles, laughing the laugh of those who desperately need to smile, desperately need some light, desperately need an escape from the darkness. It was also the laugh which is followed by a long, painful, acute silence.
“It is the waiting Minsc hates most of all,” Minsc said at last, his own, usually smooth brow wearing an uncharacteristic crease. “Evil waits… evil acts… evil is about, and yet, we can do nothing. Good must triumph, but not yet. The Good rest in their cocoons, waiting to become heroic butterflies, and until then the nectar of evil flourishes without limit.”
This was also met with a silence, but a silence of a very different flavour. Then Imoen, who was giving the big ranger a rather confused look, took a deep breath. “Minsc… don’t butterflies die after a week?”
“I thought we were trying to be cheerful?” Anomen wondered aloud.
“Minsc has a point, though,” Harrian mused. “Well… maybe not about dying in a week. I hope. But these times are always… trying. There are things we need to do, yet right now… this is the pause. So we’re more effective when we do go and fight… erm, nectar.” He poked at the fire with the tip of one of his throwing knives. “Do you think elves are dying as we wander around these woods? We could be in Suldanessellar now, finding, fighting Irenicus.”
“And you’d just leave Jaheira?” Imoen asked gently, knowing he was just sounding out thoughts, but guiding him along with them so they didn’t take him to too dark places.
Harrian considered this for a moment, then slipped the knife back into his bandolier. “No. Of course not. I was just thinking of the ‘greater good’ for a moment.” He shrugged, his expression twisting into a wry smirk. “Hells. We focus too much on that. We fight, and we die, and we give for the so-called greater good. Have you ever met anyone who’s benefited from the greater good?”
“Well, no. But we are the fighters and givers,” Anomen said, tactfully skirting around the dying part.
“Yeah. Let’s live for ourselves for a bit. We’ve earned it,” Imoen sighed, leaning back against the log she and Anomen were propped up against. Harrian didn’t miss her shifting a little closer to the cleric as she did so, and felt a brief pang. But no. He had to hope.
“We could buy a lute,” the pink-haired mage continued, chewing on her lower lip. “And hire a travelling minstrel to run around behind us as we travel.”
“No. He’ll probably just compose another bloody song about me,” Harrian groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“The minstrel boy to the war has gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him.
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him.
’Land of Song!’ cried the warrior bard,
’Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!’
The minstrel fell, but the foeman's chain
Could not bring that proud soul under.
The harp he loved ne'er spoke again,
For he tore it's chords asunder.
And said "‘No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery!’”
One more long pause fell upon them, and all eyes slowly turned towards Reynald, who had not looked up from sharpening his sword even as he sung in a low voice, in a voice where his usually educated accent had made way for a sharper northern twang. He was showing no signs of acknowledging his sudden actions or their response to it.
“I did not know you sang, Reynald,” Anomen said at length, looking surprised.
“Buy a lute and I shall play it,” the fallen paladin responded dryly, glancing up slightly. “No, I am no bard – though I suppose I could be, as I do not know what I am anymore. But I am a man who likes music.” A wry smile crossed his face. “Besides, I was afraid our fearless leader would eventually try to sing to cheer us up, and from his recent accounting of his singing abilities, I did rather want to stave that off.”
“Where’d you learn that?” Imoen asked, similarly thunderstruck. “I only ever heard it in that tavern up at Ulgoth’s Beard. Never this far south.”
“You forget, we knights… we wander.” Reynald slowly stopped sharpening his sword, and sheathed it smoothly before glancing at Harrian. “And now you are calm, your minds empty, this might be a good time to get that slumber our fearless leader spoke so often of.”
Harrian nodded slowly, his brow furrowed. “Why that song?” he asked at last, even as he gestured to the others and stood up himself. “It’s not the most cheerful of ditties I’ve ever heard.”
“I do not encourage mindless cheer,” Reynald replied, smirking a very little as he clambered to his feet. “But I thought the ballad fitting. Fighting, losing, and yet not quite being defeated? It is the sort of thinking I feel we should be currently encouraging.”
