In The Cards

Imagine a very large and rabid bear, a real man-eater, its teeth and claws red with blood and gore. Then imagine a poisonous coiled snake, a deadly viper whose sharp bite is instant death. Sound scary? Now…imagine that they are your raging bear and lethal serpent, wanting nothing more than to strike against your foe. Now, isn’t that a much nicer thought?

Excerpt from ‘Ruminations Of A Master Bard’

Edwin was strongly tempted to kick the door to the Blushing Mermaid’s upper gambling room open, but in the end he decided against it. Satisfying, as it would have been, it wasn’t the wizard thing to do, not even for the sake of drama. Smiling unpleasantly to himself he removed a small wand that was hanging from a loop on his belt, and pointed it at the door.

WOOOOOM! The door was neatly incinerated by the thick bar of flame that struck it, and the remaining bits of charcoal dropped to the floor. Now that is the wizard thing to do, Edwin thought as he stepped through the still smoldering doorway, wand raised.

The assassin Marek was getting to his feet, staring at the door with an expression of fear and disbelief on his plain face. The blonde courtesan who had been sitting on his lap stared at Edwin with wide eyes and then hastily retreated into an adjoining room. Edwin strode into the room, never taking his eyes off the assassin. He could practically feel magic crackling from his fingertips, dancing through his blood, filling him with ecstasy. Now, which would be the most satisfying way of killing him…

“You!” Marek called out. “How did you…never mind. I know why you’re here, but you’ll never have the antidote!” He pulled a small and dark bottle out of his pocket and held it by the neck, raising it high. “Come one step closer, and I’ll smash it to bits! You’ll never be able to reconstruct the antidote before all your friends die!”

Edwin froze, cursing under his breath. Can’t let him smash that bottle…but he must die, or he will do so anyway.

“Yes,” Marek taunted. “That’s the way of it. I suppose you care for them enough to pause, don’t you? Or perhaps…just one of them? The redhead, maybe?”

Does everybody know that?

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Edwin sneered. “She means nothing to me.” He couldn’t afford to show any weakness, his opponent would take advantage of that in a second.

Marek smiled, raising the bottle a little higher. “Oh no? Then I suppose you won’t mind my employer making…use of her?” His smile widened a little at the Red Wizard’s blank look. “He is something of a connoisseur when it comes to female flesh, I’m sure he’ll appreciate her. Who knows…he may even let me use her some…once she has been properly broken in of course.”

When Edwin got really angry, angry enough that simple sarcasm wouldn’t suffice, it was usually an explosive thing, with lots of flashes and bangs, and broken things flying all over the place. It was fire, and lightning, and loud thunder, and in general behaving very much like his mother did when she got angry. Not this time though. Marek’s poisonous words dropped into his heart like slowly falling vitriol, and as they seared his soul he turned…cold. It was as if his mind had suddenly been encased in ice, cold and hard, and utterly merciless. And…suddenly everything became so very clear, he could see every pore on the assassin’s so very ordinary face, every shifting nuance in the dark bottle glimmering in the torchlight, even the beating pulse at the man’s throat. And he could see something else as well, down on the floor, though he was certain Marek hadn’t noticed, and a soft voice was whispering in his mind. Slowly, slowly, the wizard bared his teeth in something that might almost have been mistaken for a smile, and as Marek caught sight of it his eyes widened a little and he took an involuntary step backwards. Afterwards Edwin was of course totally unable to consciously reconstruct the Look, much as he tried, even despite practicing in front of a mirror.

“No,” Edwin said in a very mild voice, purposefully not looking at the floor. “I think I can promise you that I will be the one doing the breaking, actually. Starting now!”

The Magic Missile spell had several advantages, but its most important one was how quickly it could be cast. Five angrily red and glowing orbs leapt from Edwin’s fingertips even before he had finished his sentence, and they slammed into Marek’s raised hand with a hiss and a crackle. The assassin cried out in pain, and the antidote tumbled from between his suddenly broken fingers, hurling towards the floor and destruction. It never reached it though. Softpaws leapt, neatly catching the tiny bottle in her mouth, and darted away, slipping under a cupboard where she would be out of harm’s way.

Marek stared after the black cat in dismay, groaning and clutching his damaged hand. The momentary surprise was all the advantage Edwin needed to launch his second attack. Bitter and freezing cold enveloped the Iron Throne assassin like a deadly blanket, freezing the very blood in his veins and the flesh on his bones. Impressive, Edwin thought, still feeling that deadly calm. Very impressive. It seems the time I spent trying to learn the ‘Cone of Cold’ wasn’t entirely wasted.

The predatory look on Edwin’s face remained as he watched what remained of Marek. The assassin had been neatly frozen into a lifeless statue, still with a surprised and pained look upon his face, and he was freezing cold to the touch. “As I said,” Edwin remarked, “I think I will do the breaking around here.”

A single whack with the staff was all that it took to reduce Marek to a heap of neat little cubes that might have been used to chill drinks. Softpaws gave them an approving look as she emerged from under the cupboard. Very nice hunting, wizard, the cat remarked. Shall we move on to larger prey then?

“Yes,” Edwin said as he took the bottle of antidote and scattered the icy cubes with a contemptuous sweep of his foot. “Yes, we certainly shall. (And…and if Sarevok has dared to…to touch her…then the tale of his demise will be one to give even a demon lord nightmares and nervous twitches for millennia to come.)”

There was a small side entrance to the Iron Throne building, used mainly for servants and deliveries, and once the two halves of the antidote had been combined that was where Lothander led Edwin. Stopping by to let the rest of the party benefit from the cure first was out of the question. Lothander had explained that while the antidote would remove the poison from the afflicted person’s system there would still be a lingering weakness for a day or so. That meant that the others would be of no help in rescuing Zaerini, even if they were cured, and taking time to cure them might mean losing time that the bard didn’t have to spare.

“Here,” the freckled young assassin nervously said and handed Edwin a key. “This opens the side entrance, and the main dungeon door as well. There will probably be guards though. Can…can I please go now? Please? I honestly would have preferred not having to hurt your friends…I…I think I’ll just go and become a…a butcher or something.”

For a moment Edwin considered killing him. It would certainly give him some satisfaction, seeing that he had been involved in Zaerini’s abduction, but a fight on the street outside the Iron Throne probably wasn’t a good idea, and it would waste his recourses. “You may go,” he said in a cold and matter-of-fact voice. “And I suggest you go far away. If my friend is not brought safely out of the place you helped put her in, then I promise you that I will come looking for you, and I’ll bring along a sharpened wooden pole, a live eel, some salt, and a large assortment of needles. I hope you catch my meaning.”

“Y-yes,” Lothander stammered. “I d-d-do, sir.” Then he rapidly turned tail and ran off down the street.

What could you possibly do with those strange things? Softpaws asked.

Edwin shrugged. “I have no idea. But neither did he. I’m sure the spineless fool made up something appropriately horrendous.” He craned his neck backwards to study the Iron Throne building. It was a massive compound built from gray stone, and it looked very grim and uninviting. “And now, let’s go inside and tear that place down on top of Sarevok’s head. After we fetch Zaerini out of the dungeons, of course.” I am coming, Hellkitten. Please hold out. Just a little while longer. I am coming.

Sarevok, as it happened, wasn’t present in the Iron Throne building at this particular moment. Rather, he was at the other side of the city, in the Ducal Palace, getting prepared for yet another aggravating meeting with the current Grand Dukes, in order to convince them of the wisdom of war against Amn. The war that will pave the way for my Ascension, he thought. Rivers of blood, flooding these very streets, sweeping all these little humans aside like gnats. And that river will bear me along, straight to my Father’s Throne. Just a little while longer now…my wait is almost over.

When a deferential pageboy told the large warrior that a wizard had come to see him, he half expected it to be Winski, despite knowing that his old mentor still wasn’t entirely recovered from his recent ordeal. Instead, it was the young but talented mage Semaj who nervously greeted him. “What do you want?” Sarevok asked. “I am extremely busy.”

“I have important news,” the wizard whispered once he had set up a ward to ensure privacy. “I thought you should be told at once…Zaerini has been captured. She is in a cell in the Iron Throne dungeons even now.”

For a moment it felt as if the world stood still, hanging in empty space between one heartbeat and another. His little sister…captured? His laughing, teasing, fiery, unbearably annoying sister shut inside one of the dark holes in the Iron Throne dungeon? “What?” Sarevok asked, his voice strangely tuneless and empty. “What did you say?” This…this isn’t right. She is supposed to die, yes, to be slain in glorious battle. Not…not to be trapped in the cold, away from the light until she withers away. “Who? Who has done this?”

Semaj licked his lips, looking extremely anxious. “It…it was Reiltar. He used Marek and Lothander, poisoned her so she could be taken alive. It seems he intends to have her before he kills her, I found him in the cell, all over her. He even mentioned something about inviting you in so you could learn how to properly handle a woman.”

Sarevok was absolutely still, as if he had suddenly been turned to stone. Assuming stone statues could have fiery eyes shining with murderous fury that was. So I could learn how to ‘properly’ handle a woman…he…he would do that? Yes, of course he would. He wouldn’t be the accursed fiend he always has been if he didn’t do a thing like that. Power, pleasure and pain, they always went hand in hand for him. He…he demonstrated that often enough…Mother…I would hear her sometimes at night as he used her…see the marks…and then…the garrote. Her lovely face, bloated and black…

“Sarevok?” Semaj said, taking a step backwards. His teeth started chattering. “Sarevok?”

That…that…that loathsome little WORM! He would do that to my sister, would he? To one of the Children of Bhaal, one whose footsteps in the lowly mud of the mortal world he is unworthy to worship? He would defile her with his foul touch, seeking to drag her down to his level? He would take her against her will, seeking to extinguish her light?

“Sarevok? Are…are you all right?” Semaj was quite pale by now, and his legs were shaking as he saw the look on the larger man’s face.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHH!” The roar was that of an enraged beast, something very large and very dangerous. A bear perhaps, or a lion. Sarevok’s face was twisted with rage, a murderous anger that was more than human, and the fires of his eyes were burning brighter than the terrified Semaj had ever seen them. Then, the roar stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, though the golden eyes still burnt with hate and bloodlust. Sarevok started walking towards the door, picking up speed as he went. His face might as well have been carved from stone.

“S-s-sarevok? Wh-where are you going?”

For a few seconds Semaj was certain that those words would be his last. Sarevok stopped in his tracks, turned around, and looked at him, his massive form radiating menace as the sun radiates heat. “I,” Sarevok said, “am going to see my sister. You will not detain me further.”

Semaj vigorously shook his head. When Sarevok was in this mood, nobody would dare speak against him. Well, possibly Winski, but Semaj privately suspected that the older mage was a little insane.

Sarevok moved through the crowded streets of Baldur’s Gate, and the crowds scattered rapidly at his approach. There was something about the sight of a very large man in spiky armor, and carrying a huge sword, that implied that getting out the way would be a good idea, particularly since he seemed to be in an extremely dangerous mood. Sarevok barely noticed the people around him of course. The same thoughts kept running through his head, again and again.

I will not let him desecrate her. I will kill him first, no matter the Plan. She is mine. My sister. Mine to cherish, mine to kill. We are connected, by blood and by spirit, and nobody can understand her as I can, soul to soul. Her death will be mine, and it will be a glorious one, a dignified one. How could I ever have let Winski talk me into sending assassins after her? I see it so clearly now, I see everything more clearly these days. It must be just the two of us at the end, brother and sister, in a first and final meeting of souls. Should I kill her now? It…is so hard to think through the red mist, the whispering words. I should kill her now. Yes. I should. But…but then it will not be as I wished it. No. I do not have to decide until I get there and see what has happened. But I know one thing. For doing this to her, I shall make Reiltar’s death all the more drawn out and agonized. Perhaps I could resurrect him and kill him over and over again? Once for Mother…once for Winski…once for my Sister…and once…once for me.

Yes. Once for my Sister…and once for me.

And as he increased his pace even further, Sarevok smiled, reciting his promise silently to himself, over and over again.