In The Cards

There is one enemy more deadly than any dragon, lich or beholder. It knows and can anticipate your every move. It knows your darkest secrets and your hidden desires, and it knows just what will hurt you the most. What is this enemy, you ask? To find out, all you need to do is to look in a proper mirror…

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

After a much-needed rest the party set out once again. The narrow staircase slowly wound itself deeper and deeper into the Tower. As she walked on, Zaerini thought she could feel the temperature rising, and she wondered if she would soon find herself at the very center of the world. Then she heard something, a strange and mournful sound rising up of the depths below her. Chanting, deep-voiced and doom-laden chanting. She couldn’t make out the words yet, but the rhythmic sound throbbed in her ears and pounded in her very bones.

“The Death Knight,” Jaheira whispered. “It must be the night of the full moon outside, and so he is singing of the deeds that doomed him to his cursed existence.”

Rini didn’t answer. The song of the Death Knight kept pulling at her, urging her onward. It woke images in her mind, images of blood and death. Murder. Child of Murder. The song tugged at her, the horrors it spoke of more and more tempting to the part of her that came from Bhaal. More images of murder, of slaughter. A knight, a stalwart knight in shining armor, one considered brave and just by most, dedicated to righteousness. An Inquisitor, seeking out and destroying those considered practitioners of dark magic. He had been on the trail of one such mage, one whose necromantic experiments had certainly been both dangerous and disgusting. However, the wizard’s wife had still loved him enough not to want to betray his whereabouts to the paladin. And then, driven by his zeal… He tortured her, Rini thought, feeling sick with the horror of it all. He tortured her to make her betray her husband, claiming that her love for him proved her as evil as he was. And…and only after she died was it discovered that…that she had been pregnant. She didn’t even know herself.

The paladin’s god had seen his crime, and hadn’t waited long to mete out a terrible punishment. The simple removal of divine powers wasn’t enough for an atrocity such as this. The knight had been turned into a Death Knight, twisted and evil, and part of his curse was being forced to sing of his crimes every full moon. The song started over again, over and over. The half-elf thought it might drive her mad if it went on for much longer, the story it told was that horrible, and the images were vivid in her mind. Worse, she could feel her sire stirring within, and though he did not speak his pleasure was clear. Make it stop, she thought. Please, make it stop! I can’t take this much longer.

And then there was a hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and she felt the terrible song diminish into a distant annoying buzz in her head. Edwin was looking very concerned as he peered into her face, and his voice was tense with anxiety. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “You look really bad.” Then he paused, flushing a little, and when next he spoke his words practically stumbled out of his mouth. “Well, when I say ‘bad’ I don’t mean bad as in ‘ugly’, I mean ‘bad’ as in ‘seriously unwell’, and possibly suffering from a malevolent spell, but not ugly. (No, never that. Quite the contrary.)”

“I’ll be all right,” Rini said, managing a small smile. “Thanks, Eddie. Just, hold onto me, would you? It seems that helps keep the song out. I’ll be fine, as long as you don’t let me go.”

“No,” the wizard said in a very quiet voice. “I will try not to. (Believe me when I say that I have no such wish whatsoever.)”

Comforted by these words Zaerini went on, trying to ignore that Imoen, who was walking right behind her, said something that sounded suspiciously like an ‘Awwww!’ I’ll be fine. He’s not going anywhere. He promised not to.

The chanting had stopped by the time the adventurers reached the bottom of the staircase, finding themselves in a large circular chamber, with stairs leading down towards a pit-like area. What it had originally been built for Rini couldn’t even begin to guess. Perhaps Durlag had meant to raise pet dragons. But now it was cold and empty, apart from its one uninvited inhabitant. The Death Knight. She recognized it from their previous brief encounter, from the dark armor and the blackened skull to the infernal light blazing from the empty eye sockets. Knowing exactly what had made it become a Death Knight in the first place didn’t make it the least bit less terrifying. There was something standing on the floor behind the Death Knight she noticed, an oblong object covered with a dark piece of cloth, but the former paladin didn’t give her any time to ponder what it was.

“Hello, little ones,” the Death Knight said in a low and almost kindly voice. “I have been expecting you. Step into my parlor, as the spider told the fly.”

Now let me see, Rini thought. There are several more or less traditional responses to a comment like that, according to the ballads. Like ‘Quake before me, Evil One!’ Doesn’t sound like me at all. Or ‘MUAHAHA! I am the stronger one, I will drink your blood.’ No, no I don’t really want to do that. And ‘Please don’t kill me’ sounds rather feeble. “Tell me something,” she said, saying the first thing that popped into her head. “When you tortured that innocent woman to death, did you honestly believe that you were doing a good thing? If you did, then I feel almost sorry for you. You’re obviously not just a an evil bastard, but a stupid one as well.”

Behind her she could hear Jaheira whisper something that sounded like ‘suicidal infant’. She didn’t pay much attention to it. The Death Knight was smiling at her, or at least she thought he was. It was a bit difficult to tell, since his face was more or less fleshless. “She was a sinner,” he said. “I have no regrets about wiping such filth off the face of Faerun.

“That is o-outrageous!” Khalid sputtered, forgetting his normal timidity. “Your God was r-right to punish you.”

The Death Knight shrugged. “My God lacked my insight. Being so Good he cannot comprehend the evil that lurks in the heart of men, not truly. In time he will see that I only served Law and Right, and he will take me back.”

“Oh really?” Edwin said. “Tell me, do you also have hallucinations where you believe yourself to be a pink elephant, or do you make a habit of drooling and talking with trees? They’re both popular pastimes among the insane, I understand. (Perhaps we can pacify him by introducing him to basket weaving or finger-painting, as long as he doesn’t decide to use our blood rather than paint.)”

The Death Knight sounded rather annoyed when next he spoke. “Cease your prattle, your words are worthless. You have all served your purpose admirably, but now I tire of you.”

“We serve no purpose of yours, foul one,” Yeslick said, his voice flinty. “We will destroy you or die trying.”

“You know nothing,” the undead warrior said. “You will go the way of all flesh, but I thank you all the same. “You have done just what I wished. I need a base that is fortified and secure, and I also do not wish my hirelings to die with every step. I bait some foolish adventurers in and they make the floors safe. My posturing upstairs was made to taunt you, and egg you on. They come this far and die, and I do not need to sully my hands removing traps. I need not dirty my hands at all. Foolish flesh kills itself with my Mirror of Opposition. Durlag has built me a fine home, and you have been an excellent maid service. It is the duty of the flesh to toil and then be laid to rest. Already I have discovered an item of true power or two, but if you have done the same, then you will not enjoy them much longer. Perhaps you will forsake the flesh and return, but I doubt you to be that privileged.”

Mirror of Opposition, Zaerini thought, remembering something. Kirinhale the Succubus warned me to ‘beware the mirror’. She tried not to glance to openly at the cloth-covered object on the floor.

Jaheira growled deep in her throat as she drew her scimitar. “Fiend,” she said. “Unnatural filth. It is you who will die here, but I think it is not rest that you will find.”

The Death Knight chuckled quietly, and Rini recognized the sound she had heard when Edwin dropped that pebble down the shaft. “Your resolve will make for a good epitaph. Here I shall crumble your bones to dust. You have discovered nothing that will not be silenced with your death. I will give you pain unlike you have ever known. There is no opponent more dangerous…than yourself.” With that he tore the cloth off the object behind him, revealing it to indeed be a mirror. Its surface was dark though, and the reflections were murky and unclear. But something was stirring, moving slowly within its depths as the Death Knight chanted a spell in a loud and booming voice, coming closer to the surface. And then the mirror images emerged. One for each of the adventurers, resembling them closely, but also twisted and foul.

Jaheira’s mirror fiend was a rippling, changing form, claws and fur, scales and feathers all mixed together as it changed and changed, as if in a mockery of her druidical powers. Khalid’s was a walking corpse, rotting and dreadful, bleeding from many cruel wounds. Yeslick’s was wearing heavy chains, and its face was pinched and starved. Imoen’s looked almost normal, but in its own way it was equally frightening. Its face was cold and emotionless beneath her pink hair, and as her graceful black-garbed form glided closer her eyes were like empty pools, dark and still. Edwin’s was equally unnerving. It looked like him, but its face was pale as death, and then it opened its mouth and hissed, revealing a pair of cruel fangs dripping blood.

Finally Zaerini stared at the image that was heading for her. No outward monstrosity marred its features, no fangs or claws. It had her red hair, her own gently pointed ears and firm chin and her own golden eyes. Those eyes were blazing with a terrible light, a murderous fury that she had seen before and knew all too well. Sarevok. I…look just like Sarevok. It was made all the worse by the fact that she had tasted that fury herself, and she knew that the bloodlust she saw in the burning yellow eyes was exactly what she had felt at those times. And…what Sarevok feels as well, I’m sure. We…may not be as different as I had once thought. Oh Gorion, what if I turn out like him?

Then there was no more time for thought. The reflection was upon her, fighting with the same speed and agility that she possessed, using the same tricks. For every move she made, the mirror image knew how to block and parry her, and she couldn’t get close to it. Worse, she wasn’t even sure if she could harm it. It had her face. How could she kill herself? She was vaguely aware of her friends fighting all around her, of screams and clangs of weapons, and magic hissing in the air. She could pay no attention to it; she was completely focused upon her opponent. But she was wearying by now. Her arms ached, her legs were shaking and sweat was running down her face and back, almost blinding her. There might be blood as well; she had received at least one shallow cut across her cheek, and a deeper one in her leg. She knew that she couldn’t keep this up much longer.

Focus, kitten! Her familiar’s voice was sharp within her mind, and the cat, who hadn’t been gifted with a mirror image of her own, hissed and slashed with her claws at the monster’s legs.

I am! But she’s too strong for me!

Of course she is! She’s made to resembleyou! You need to cut her off at the source!

It took the bard a few seconds to guess the meaning of this, but then she saw. The Death Knight was still chanting in front of the mirror, feeding its power, and its surface swirled with black ripples. The source…

She couldn’t reach the mirror, there were too many enemies in the way, and she was locked in close combat and unable to cast a spell. But there was something else she might do, something that only she among her friends could hope to pull off. Drawing a deep breath she gathered her voice, and she sang, a high and clear note, pure and deadly like a blade sliding into a heart. With a loud tinkling sound the Mirror of Opposition cracked from side to side, showering the Death Knight with broken glass.

In the blink of an eye all the mirror fiends winked out of existence, and the Death Knight screamed in agony as his own spell lashed back at him. He reeled, the orange light in his eyes flickering unsteadily, and he started reaching for his large two-handed sword. But as he reached towards his back to draw his sword he left himself open. Khalid, bloody and badly wounded, staggered to his feet from where he had fallen before his mirror fiend’s attack, and with his final strength he plunged the Black King’s sword into the Death Knight’s rotting face.

The noise was terrible, as if all the air in the chamber was being sucked out in a raging storm. Rini fell, her legs unable to bear her weight, and when she was finally able to move again the Death Knight was gone, only his empty armor remaining. Only his empty armor, and one more thing, a small object that had fallen on the floor near where his hand had been. The bard’s questing fingers closed around the hilt of a dagger. It was a dark blade, warm to her touch and strangely heavy. Its hilt was decorated with a single deep red gem, its core an impenetrable darkness. Thanks a lot, Death Knight, she thought. At least I’ll have some small compensation for all your annoying speeches…