Philip Athans - Baldur's Gate

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"Torm save me," Abdel called and sliced his sword back to his left, then right. The spider paused, and Abdel rolled
all the way over to one side, hoping to escape the web. Hair was pulled painfully from his arm, and a strand of web
stuck to his neck. He was a fly now, a meal for this eight-legged predator, and like a fly, his desperate struggles only
served to cement his captivity in the sticky web.
"Hold still," the spider said, and Abdel flinched at the sound of its voice. It was a sound like glass being drawn
across steel, and it set Abdel's hair on end as much from the sound of it as from the horror that such a creature had the
power of speech at all. "Hold still, human, and let Kriiya drain you. Let Kriiya drain you dry."
Philip Athans
BALDUR'S GATE
For my two girls.
(I’m still a regular person.)
Acknowledgments
Abdel is all mine, but every other character in this book, the beginning, almost all of the middle, and the end of the
story is based on the brilliant work of the creators of the Baldur's Gate computer game from Bio Ware: James Ohlen,
Lukas Kristjanson, Eob Bartel, Ray Muzyka, John Gallagher, Scott Greig, and the rest of the Bio Ware Baldur's Gate
team. And thanks to Interplay's Black Isle Division. Thanks guys, it was fun!
And, I must of course acknowledge my editor Jess Lebow. (Okay, I put your name in the book. Now where's my five
bucks?)
Chapter One
The blades came together so hard they threw out a blue-white spark bright enough to burn its gentle arc into Abdel's
vision. The impact sent a shudder through the heavy blade of his broadsword, but he ignored it and pushed back in
the direction of the attack. Abdel was strong enough and tall enough to seriously unbalance his opponent. The man
stumbled backward two steps and brought his empty left hand up to keep from falling. Abdel saw the opening and
took full advantage of it, flashing his sword across his opponent's open midsection and slicing deeply through chain
mail, flesh, and bone.
Abdel recognized two of the four men who were trying to kill him. The men were sellswords—hired guards and
thugs—just like Abdel. They had obviously been paid, but by whom and for what reason, Abdel couldn't fathom.
The man Abdel had killed took ten or twenty seconds to realize he was dead. He kept looking down at the deep gash
that had nearly cut him in two. Blood was everywhere, and there was a hint of the yellow-gray of entrails. The
expression on the man's face was nearly comical: surprised, pale, and somehow disappointed. The look of it made
Abdel's heart leap, and he couldn't tell if it was from the horror or the pleasure of the sight. The pause was enough,
though, to allow another of the bandits to step in and nearly gut him with one of the two small, sharp axes the
mercenary spun madly in both hands.
"Ramon," Abdel said as he skipped back half a step to avoid the second axe. "Long time."
He'd worked with this one before, a year ago, guarding a warehouse in Athkatla that was storing something a very
long and increasingly bizarre parade of thieves were intent on stealing. Kamon's trademark was this fast and furious,
though not terribly exact, twin axe attack. A short, stocky man, he was a fighter many less experienced opponents
underestimated. Anyone who'd been fighting as long as Abdel had, though, could tell by the man's quick, crystal blue
eyes that he was a smart and capable fighter.
"Abdel," Kamon said. "Sorry about your father."
It was an old trick, older even than Gorion, who sometimes seemed to Abdel to be the oldest man ever to walk the
streets and trails of Faerun. Abdel could see his foster father out of the corner of his eye. Gorion was on his feet,
fighting, but as usual trying not to kill the bandit—who was obviously not as considerate as the older man. The dark
complexioned bandit with the elaborately covered headscarf was coming at Gorion with a scimitar too fast, too out of
control. Gorion was able to keep him at bay with his heavy oaken staff, but for how long?
Abdel let Kamon come in with his right-hand axe and caught it with his blade just under the head. The broadsword's
sharp edge cut into the axe handle, and Abdel pulled up but not out, and the axe came out of Kamon's hand so quickly
it left a red burn on the bandit's palm. Kamon cursed and backed up three quick steps. The loss of one of his weapons
surprised him, caught him off guard maybe, but Kamon was experienced enough to keep his eyes open. The axe was
still stuck on Abdel's blade.
Abdel knew he shouldn't stop to try to pull the axe off, but when he heard the crunch of gravel behind him he did it
anyway. He was hoping Kamon would do the obvious thing, and Kamon obliged. The bandit came in fast with the
other axe, swinging low to cut his victim at the waist.
Abdel pulled his knees to his gut, keeping his sword across his chest to protect him. His feet came off the ground,
and he fell onto his backside at the same time the big halberd blade came down from behind him. The crunch of gravel
was the heavy step of Eagus, the first of the bandits Abdel had recognized when they first presented themselves on
the road. Eagus still bore the scar on his face from that bet he'd lost to Abdel in Julkoun eight months ago. The
memory made Abdel smile even as he was suddenly drenched in thick, hot blood.
Eagus's blow, meant for Abdel, had split Kamon's head in half from crown to chin. Abdel was disappointed only
because now he wouldn't be able to ask Kamon if he ever found out what it was they'd been guarding in that
warehouse.
Still curled in a ball, Abdel swung his feet up and brought his sword back, the hand axe still stuck awkwardly to the
blade. He was hoping to gut Eagus from behind while the halberdier still had his weapon stuck in his friend's head.
Halfway up a burning pain drove the breath from Abdel's lungs, and he instinctively dropped to his left.
The fifth bandit, the one who had been hanging back, had fired a single crossbow bolt into Abdel's right flank. Abdel
tore it out, pulling some links loose from his chain mail tunic and roaring at the pain. He made eye contact with the
crossbowman just long enough to send the man scurrying backward in fear. The sellsword could only hope the
crossbowman was scared enough not to shoot him again. Abdel had more immediate problems.
Eagus swore as he worked at wriggling the blade of his halberd out of Kamon's head. He had to stay close to the
halberdier, but Abdel gave himself a handful of seconds to check his father's progress. Gorion was holding up well. He
was letting his opponent tire himself out with one hopeless lunge of a scimitar after another.
"We can go on like this forever, Calishite," Gorion said, guessing the man's origin by his peculiar dress and choice of
blade, "or long enough for you to tell me who hired you and why."
Abdel grabbed Kamon's axe free of his sword, keeping track of Eagus's hurried progress with one eye while keeping
the other on his father.
The Calishite sellsword smiled, revealing a tarnished silver tooth, and said to Gorion, "We were paid extra, sir, not to
say. You can give us your ward, though, and maybe live."
There was a sound as if someone had tossed a maidens-thigh melon from a guard tower, and Eagus's halberd was
free. He swung the polearm up and around, spraying Abdel and the road with more of Ramon's blood. Abdel threw the
axe, and Eagus dodged it easily. The throw wasn't meant to kill but to force Eagus off balance, and Abdel knew there
was only one way, and one second, in which to test the success of this method.
Abdel came in fast, leaping really, his feet leaving the ground for a risky half second. He speared at Eagus and felt
his blade sink home through a gap in the bandit's rusted armor before he tucked his feet back under him. He meant to
stand and drag his blade up through Eagus's guts to disembowel him, but Eagus wasn't quite as off-balance as he
could have been. The bandit slipped gingerly off the tip of Abdel's blade. There was blood, and Eagus was obviously
in pain, but he fought on.
The halberd came down hard again, and Abdel almost didn't have a chance to get his sword up to block it. His
broadsword blade bit deeply into the thick wood of the halberd's pole, and this time it was Abdel who was disarmed.
Eagus, his yellow teeth showing through the brown and gray mass of his ill-kept beard, had the advantage of leverage.
Though the act of twisting the long, heavy weapon out of Abdel's strong grasp obviously caused Eagus pain,
opening his wound yet wider, the sword came free of Abdel's grip.
Eagus allowed himself a coughing laugh when the broadsword fell from the halberd. He wouldn't be as encumbered
as Abdel had been, and he took full advantage of it. Abdel could still hear the ringing of steel that meant his father was
yet engaged with the Calishite swordsman. He would have to fight Eagus alone, and without his sword. Eagus, maybe
a bit fatigued now, maybe having lost too much blood, came in too slowly, too clumsily, and Abdel was almost
disappointed when he easily batted the halberd away with his arm. The force of Abdel's blow meeting Eagus's nearly
broke the young sellsword's right forearm. It hurt, but Abdel ignored the pain and kicked up with his left foot,
slamming the toe of his sturdy boot into Eagus's seeping wound.
Eagus shrieked and dropped, his knees falling out from under him like dry twigs. Abdel pulled out the dagger Gorion
had given him as a coming-of-age gift, the one with the silver blade. He cut Eagus's throat, watching the man's eyes as
his life fled him. Abdel smiled at the sight, though he knew Gorion wouldn't approve. That's when he realized Gorion
was still fighting and there was—
The crossbowman stepped out, dark eyes slitted against the midmorning sun, padded leather vest creaking with
every movement. His long red hair fluttering greasily in the breeze. He aimed carefully at Gorion.
Abdel screamed out, "Fa—"
The crossbow released, and the heavy steel bolt shot through the air with a hiss.
"—th—"
Embedding itself deeply into Gorion's eye.
"—err!"
Abdel knew, before Gorion's twitching body hit the gravel road, that the only father he had ever known was dead.
Red filled his vision, a ringing filled his ears, there was the stinging taste of copper in his mouth, and Abdel went
mad. He ran at the Calishite swordsman first, simply because he was the closer of the two surviving bandits. Abdel's
heavy silver dagger was out in front of him just swinging back and forth as if he was working a field with it. The
Calishite danced back and brought his scimitar up.
There was a clang of metal, and the Calishite pronounced the first syllable of the name of some forgotten god as
Abdel's sturdy blade slashed through the finely wrought scimitar. Two thirds of the curved blade spun wildly off into
the brush at the side of the wide gravel road, and the Calishite couldn't help but watch it spin away as he continued to
back up and out of the reach of the slashing dagger.
The Calishite's foot dropped an inch and a half into a wagon wheel rut in the road, and he fell backward, off balance,
enough to be saved from the next slash that might have taken his throat out.
Growling in feral, incoherent rage, Abdel came forward and slashed again. His arm vibrated from the sudden
resistance along the blade of the heavy dagger.
The Calishite probably saw his broken blade bounce once after it hit the ground before the world spun and
something wet and sticky splashed across his face. His severed head might have lived long enough to experience that,
but he was dead before his head and his body hit the ground.
The crossbowman didn't bother to wait long enough to curse or beg or be horrified. He wasn't the smartest man on
the Sword Coast, far from it, but he was more than smart enough to know when to turn around and run for his life.
Abdel, still wild with a murderous frenzy now wholly out of his control, chased the man down and butchered him into
a mound of bleeding meat. Finally spent, the foster son of Gorion of Candlekeep collapsed onto a pile of leather, gore,
and crossbow parts, and he wept.
* * * * *
Abdel had been selling his strong sword arm and experience up and down the Sword Coast for years, and had spent
the last tenday escorting a merchant caravan from Baldur's Gate to the library at Candlekeep. The massive monastery
had been his boyhood home, the closest thing to a real home Abdel had ever known. It was there that Gorion, a kind
but stern monk, had raised Abdel in the worship of Torm, god of the brave and the foolish, and had tried to instill upon
Abdel his own love of the written word and the history and traditions of Faerun.
Abdel had studied hard, but his mind wandered, and both he and his adopted father soon came to realize that he
would never live the life of a monk, cloistered away copying the great texts, storing away the knowledge and
experience of others. Abdel sought his own knowledge, his own experience, and he found it in the world outside the
protective walls of Candlekeep.
It seemed to frighten Gorion somehow, Abdel's need to fight, to kill, but he seemed also to have some deeper
understanding of it, as if he expected it of his foundling son, though he could never really condone it.
Abdel looked nothing like this man who was not truly his father, and it seemed to surprise no one who knew them
well that they didn't think much alike either. Where Gorion was thin of frame, bookish, and rigid of posture, Abdel was
powerfully muscled, with chiseled features and ink black hair he kept long to flow with the same fluid grace as his
body. Abdel was nearly a foot taller than his adopted father, almost seven feet tall, and probably outweighed the monk
threefold.
They hadn't spoken much in the last several years, but when Abdel was offered the spot on the caravan from
Baldur's Gate he jumped at the chance not only because his purse was growing light from some lean times, but
because he truly wanted to see his father again.
Their meeting had been oddly emotional from the moment Abdel stepped through the gates of Candlekeep. Gorion
was happy to see him. Maybe Abdel had spent too much time with sellswords and hired killers, but it seemed to him
that Gorion was almost too happy to see him. They had talked of many things that first evening. Gorion was always
curious to hear Abdel's stories of battles fought and won, of greedy merchants and marauding ores, or seaside taverns
and the warrior's camaraderie. This night, though, Gorion seemed detached, preoccupied, and nothing was more unlike
Abdel's father. The young sellsword got the feeling his father needed to tell him something.
Abdel, as he was wont to do, simply asked his father what was on his mind. Gorion had smiled and laughed.
"'And hid his face amid a crown of stars?'" Gorion asked, quoting some bard Abdel vaguely recognized.
"Staey of Evereska?"
"Pacys," Gorion corrected, "if memory serves."
Abdel only nodded, and Gorion asked him a simple question: "Will you come with me somewhere?"
Abdel sighed deeply. "I can't stay, father, and you know I'll have no more of your books and scrolls—"
"No, no," Gorion cut his son off with a heavy, worried laugh, "none of that. I meant somewhere outside the confines
of Candlekeep. A place called the Friendly Arms."
Abdel had to laugh. Of course he'd passed through this legendary roadhouse on more than one occasion. He'd gone
there a few times to find work, or wine, or women, and had never failed to find at least one of the three. What his father
might want there, he couldn't hazard a guess.
"There are two people there . . . people I must meet," Gorion said, "and the road is treacherous."
"Is this something to do with my parents . . . my mother?" Abdel asked, though he had no idea why, and even tried
to stop the words as they passed unbidden through his lips.
Gorion's reaction was the same as every time Abdel brought up the subject of the mother and father he never knew.
The old monk was pained by the thought.
"No," Gorion said simply. Then there was a long, strained, awkward pause before he said, "Not your . . . not your
mother."
He wanted to go to the Friendly Arms to meet some people who had some information for him, that was all. Gorion's
life had been centered around the gathering of other people's information, so Abdel was hardly surprised by the
request. He agreed, of course, since he'd probably have wandered into the Friendly Arms on his own anyway. Having
his father along for company on the road would be a pleasant change of pace.
So the two of them walked out of Candlekeep together for the first time that next morning, and they'd made it well
past highsun of the third day out of Candlekeep, following the wide, well-traveled Coast Way road, before finding their
way blocked by a band of cutthroats.
* * * * *
Abdel rushed to the side of his fallen father at the first sudden sign of life.
It was a ragged, gurgling intake of breath, and Abdel crawled toward it like a drowning man to a floating barrel. His
wounded side sending brilliant flashes of pain from his waist up to his neck and into the space behind his eyes, Abdel
fell to the ground more than sat. He tried to say "Father," or something else, but the sound stuck in his throat, lodged
there painfully until he thought the word itself would choke him.
His father's one remaining eye wandered, searching blindly, and his left hand fumbled in a pouch at his belt. His right
hand was twitching with painful spasms, clawing at gravel as if trying to push the pain away.
"Mine—" Gorion managed to say; just that one, clear word.
"Yes," Abdel breathed, his throat tightening again to cut off any more words, and his eyes once more filling with
tears at the sight of his bleeding, dying father.
"Stop it," Gorion said, again in an unbelievably clear voice. He said something else then, something Abdel couldn't
make out.
The old monk's hands came up, and Abdel blearily realized he was working a spell. Gorion touched him roughly, the
dying man's hand falling more than reaching to the young sellsword's side. A wave of warmth washed over Abdel's
midsection, and the burning pain abated all at once. Gorion hissed out a long, pained breath and Abdel, the wound in
his side now closed, almost completely healed, said, "And now you."
Gorion didn't begin another casting. "Last one," the monk croaked out.
Abdel wanted to spit his anger at his foster father for wasting his single healing prayer.
"You're dying," was all he could say.
"Stop the war . .. I'm not—"
Gorion's body shuddered with a wracking cough, and his left hand came up with a sudden jerk that made Abdel
flinch. Gordon was holding a tattered scrap of parchment in his hand, and it tugged in the goosefeather-fletched
quarrel still protruding from his ruined eye. The parchment picked up some blood. Abdel reached out to catch his
father's hand, and Gorion let go of the parchment.
"I'm taking you back to Candlekeep," Abdel said, shifting noisily in the gravel as he made to lift Gorion in his arms.
"No," the monk grunted, stopping him. "No time. Leave me . .. come back for me .. ."
Gorion's body was seized by a shuddering wave of pain, and Abdel sighed at the sight of it.
"Your father—" then another cough. A single tear dropped from the only eye that Gorion had left to cry with, and he
managed to say, "Khalid," and, "Jahi—" before his last breath hissed away and his eye turned skyward.
Abdel cried over his father until Gorion's right hand stopped twitching. The sellsword's hand brushed the parchment,
and without thinking he took it in his grip. He sat there for a long time on the road, surrounded by the dead and the call
of crows, until he could finally stand and begin to prepare his father's grave.
Chapter Two
Tamoko could not see what her lover saw when he stared into the empty frame. There might have been a picture in
there once, perhaps a mirror of silvered glass, but now it was just a frame, hanging by small brass chains from the
ceiling of Sarevok's private chamber. Sometimes he would stare at the thing for hours at a time, occasionally muttering
a curse or jest to himself, or taking scribbled notes down in an expensive notebook bound in gem-encrusted leather.
Tamoko could not read the language of Faerun, was uncomfortable even with the intricate characters of her native
Kozakura, so she had no idea what he was writing. She knew only that Sarevok saw things in that frame, kept track of
things, kept watch on his pawns—and he had many pawns.
She sat with her legs folded on the wide, too-soft bed—a silk sack eight feet on a side stuffed with feathers—and
tried to meditate. Something was prickling the back of her neck, though, and it was distracting her.
The smooth silk of Tamoko's black pajamas hissed against the silk of the bed and sent a chill of goosebumps up her
thin, strong arms. She was a small woman, not even five feet tall, with the smooth skin of a pampered lady and the
strength of a berserker. A life of constant training made her what she was: a killer, in every sense of the word.
She didn't bother to close her eyes, but kept her tongue on her palate and concentrated on her breathing, and on the
blood flowing quickly through her veins.
The room was dark and the air still, two things that normally helped her to center herself, but not today. Today the air
in Sarevok's private chamber, deep in a complex of rooms few ever saw the inside of, felt heavy and dead. The steady
orange candlelight, barely flickering in the still air, made her blink. The dampness made her silk garments stick to her
every modest curve.
Minutes dragged on, and she continued to struggle to meditate. When Sarevok stared this intently and seemed this
disappointed, it usually meant he was going to ask her to kill someone, so she would need her concentration.
"My brother," Sarevok said suddenly, so suddenly a lesser trained assassin might have flinched, but not Tamoko,
"is on the path."
"Your brother?" she asked, too quickly, and Sarevok took a long, unsettling time to turn around.
"I have at least this one brother, yes," Sarevok told her in that voice she often thought was—not seductive—maybe
seductive....
A cold chill ran down her spine, making her angry with herself. There was something about Sarevok, to be sure, that
she knew she should be on her guard about. He wasn't a man, not a human, that was certain. Even the barbarian men
of Faerun were more like her own kind than Sarevok was. She had no idea what he was, but she liked it. He wore power
around him in a haze like Faerunian women wore perfume. She could imagine him steeped in it. He was decisive and
sure, not blundering about at the whim of a god, nor blindly attached to some infantile cause, nor forever in search of
shiny metal disks. Sarevok wanted power—power and something else. As afraid as Tamoko sometimes felt in his
presence, she couldn't help but admire him. The fact remained that when they were together, in the dark, with nothing
physical coming between them, even then he could tell her only what he wanted her to know, and he never wanted her
to know much. He was in control, always.
"The nature of his death?" she asked, meaning two things: that she knew she was here to kill for him, and that she
was loyal enough not to ask why.
Sarevok laughed, and the sound made Tamoko smile—not because his laugh was particularly pleasant, but because
it wasn't at all pleasant. Indeed, this was no mere man.
"Then he will live?" she concluded.
Sarevok continued to smile his dire wolf's smile and leaned forward, then rose and slithered onto the bed, coming
slowly toward her. For the briefest fraction of a heartbeat, she wanted to back away, to escape the hard, tight,
masterful embrace she knew was coming, but that was her mind's reaction. Her body's was something else entirely.
They slid together easily, and the touch was warm, welcoming, and full of the promise of danger that drew her to him
in the first place, kept her coming back, and finally made her his slave. She'd killed for him ten, twelve, fifteen
times—she'd allowed herself to lose count—and would easily kill a hundred more if he would look at her like that, hold
her like that, move into, through her, then past her like that, just one more time.
"This one," he breathed into her ear—the sound seemed made more of heat than air— "will live ... for a time."
He pulled away suddenly, and she heard herself gasp. She was disciplined enough to keep herself from blushing, but
a twinkle in Sarevok's eye told her he noticed. Sarevok always noticed.
"The two Zhentarim," he told her, "will live for a time as well, but only for a time. I will bring them here from Nashkel."
"They have been useful to you," Tamoko said, her voice sounding small next to his, "so they shall die quickly."
Sarevok laughed again and Tamoko had to work hard to suppress a shudder. It wasn't excitement she felt this time.
"Let us not jump to any hasty conclusions, darling girl," he said. "They have the ability to fail me—especially the
little one."
Chapter Three
During the days of the Avatars, the Black Lord will spawn a score of mortal progeny. These offspring will be
aligned good and evil, but chaos will flow through them all. When the Murderer's bastard children come of age,
they will bring havoc to the lands of the Sword Coast. One of these children must rise above the rest and claim their
father's legacy. This inheritor will shape the history of the Sword Coast for centuries to come.
Nonsense.
Abdel couldn't believe it, but there it was. The sheet of stiff parchment his father had thought so important that he
clutched it with his last quiver of energy in a dying hand, that he smear it with his own blood, was a disconnected bit
of rambling about—what? Some dead god, maybe, if the reference to Avatars was indeed about the Time of Troubles
when gods walked Toril like men, and, like men, died there.
When he'd first started to read it, over the still form of his father, Abdel had been certain it was some personal
message, some secret his father had been keeping from him. When he first unfolded it and turned his still weeping gaze
up to the graying sky, he thought it must have been about his mother; maybe a message from her, a letter she'd written
to her infant son moments before she died, or gave him up, or sent him away, or sold him, or anything—anything that
would provide some explanation for why he never knew her.
Instead it was just nothing, a scrap of words that formed a bit of some prophecy, that may or may not come true, but
wouldn't, Abdel was sure, have anything to do with him.
"Whatever is to come to pass, old man," Abdel said to his father, just before he laid him into his shallow grave, "you
won't be around to see it. Maybe I won't be either."
He wanted to say something else. He searched his mind and his heart for some prayer, for some line of verse or story,
for some memory. He struggled to find words, some marker to the winds that this man had passed from its breath, but
there was nothing.
The rain started as he filled dirt and gravel over the dead body of his father, and Abdel let the rain wash away his
tears. When he was done he stood to his full height and turned his face up toward the cold droplets. He ran one hand
through his thick black hair and closed his eyes, letting the rain wash away Gorion's grave dirt and blood.
His father had tended to the wound in his side. It had been deep, but it was now almost healed. He refused to feel the
lingering pain, but it was difficult.
He wouldn't live with a wounded heart. His father was dead at the hands of bandit sellswords. Someone paid to kill
him and probably paid well. It was business, that was all, but by failing to kill Abdel too, it was business left
undone—left for Abdel to finish himself.
Abdel, son of Gorion, adjusted his chain mail tunic, scuffed his hard leather boots on the gravel to clear away some
of the mud, shifted his shoulders to center the weight of the big broadsword that hung from his back, found a stick,
and set it upright in the disturbed earth. He hung on the wet wood the tiny silver gauntlet that his father had worn on a
thin gold chain around his neck, knowing some anonymous traveler would be along soon enough to steal it.
"I'll be back for you," he said, then turned his back and walked away.
* * * * *
It was impossible to tell what made the horrific sound that snatched Abdel out of a restless sleep, or how far away
the source of it was, but he was on his feet in an instant.
He had buried his adopted father that day and made it to where the Way of the Lion from Candlekeep met the long,
well-traveled Coast Way road. A stone marker had been erected there. Intricately carved from a solid block of granite,
it had been a welcome sight when he'd seen it, days ago, on his way back to Candlekeep. Now, it was a reminder of all
he had lost since then. With Gordon gone, Abdel wasn't even sure he'd be allowed back into Candlekeep.
Now there was little time for those thoughts. The sound was getting closer, and getting closer fast.
It was like a chorus of angry dogs competing for attention with a thousand bards whose tongues had been cut out
so all they could do was wail and mutter, grunt and shout. The sound made Abdel afraid, and that was a rare thing.
He had to force himself back against the stone marker, so strong was his urge to slash out into the night at that fear.
Abdel assumed he was in for a fight with whatever was making that godsforsaken racket. Whatever it was it sounded
like a lot of somethings, and he'd have to fight as much with his mind as with his arm to make up for the odds.
The stone felt rough and wet against his back, and he realized he'd removed his chain mail tunic when he lay down to
sleep. The night was dark, still overcast from the afternoon and evening's rain. Abdel set his eyes to slits to try to cut
through the darkness and see what was making this noise, which was now so loud the sellsword's ears began to sting.
The chorus of incoherent vocalizations threatened to drive Abdel mad with fear and rage.
He saw the whole thing first as a mass of shadow, like it was one thing, huge, moving along the ground to the south
of the crossroads. The mass hit a tree—not a huge tree, but sizeable—and seemed to suck it under without hesitating.
Then the mass started to take on shapes inside it, and Abdel realized to his horror and frustration that this loud
gibbering mass was a horde of individual creatures—hundreds of them—that walked like men.
Abdel drew in a breath slowly, his jaw slack so he wouldn't hiss and give himself away. Though the moon was
tucked behind a mantle of cloud and not a single star was visible, Abdel was thankful suddenly that he wasn't wearing
his armor. A reflection might have attracted the attention of any one member of this impossible swarm and sent the
entire horde in his direction. Even Abdel couldn't possibly defend himself against this tide of dark-skinned bodies.
Just then Abdel saw the glint of steel among the shadows of the horde. They've got swords, he thought, they're armed
with swords. This made him realize he was holding a lot of telltale steel himself, and he silently slipped the broadsword
blade behind his back.
He didn't gasp when he heard he rustle of gravel behind him, on the other side of the crossroads marker. He
tightened his grip on his sword and tried to think of a prayer to Torm. The sound behind him stopped, but he didn't
dare turn around.
His attention behind him, Abdel didn't hear the thing approach from his left side, but he could smell it. Before he
even realized what he was doing, he brought his blade back around in front of him, twisted his wrist, and slashed low
across his left side. The blade met with resistance, and though Abdel couldn't see the beast in the darkness, he knew
by the fact that it didn't scream that he'd killed it instantly. There was a flurry of babbling, yelling, guttural throat
noises that burst into Abdel's hearing right after that though, and he realized there were more, lots more, and they'd
seen him.
As much trouble as Abdel was having seeing anything but the vague outline of his enemy, the horde things seemed
to have no trouble seeing him. Rusted, pitted, jagged blades slashed at Abdel and the noise was deafening. He flicked
back one attack after another, killed one of the things, then another, all the time keeping his back against the stone
marker.
He kept his blade slashing in front of him to make a sort of wall of steel, but the occasional slice got through. The
wound in his side began to hurt again, but he had to ignore it and keep fighting. When he killed another one of the
screaming, babbling things another stepped on the back of its fallen hordemate and came at Abdel anew. Abdel began
to realize he was going to die that night.
There was a subtle change in the tenor of the mass sound and after a few seconds of an altogether different keening
wail, the horde turned as one and came north. North, to Abdel.
Abdel kept batting them away, one after another until he was covered in blood, some of it his. It seemed like hours,
like forever, but only seconds passed before a sudden burst of light blinded the sellsword.
There was no noise, no thunder, but Abdel was sure it must have been lightning striking the stone over his head.
He'd had his eyes wide open, drinking in any meager scrap of light he could, when the yellow flash came out of
nowhere. He screamed in pain and clenched his eyes tight. Tears streamed down his gore-spattered face, and the
rhythm of his defensive slashes faltered.
The sound the horde of creatures made in reaction to the light was deafening. A thousand varieties of keening wail
sent shivers through Abdel's body. It sounded like a whole village being slaughtered at the same time. They stopped
attacking, and as Abdel bunked past huge amorphous blobs of purple and electric blue that filled his vision, he saw
the horde retreat. The creatures—ugly, naked humanoids with sickly purple hides stretched over taut muscles and
heads like distorted lions with wiry black manes—fled the light that still burned brightly, but with no heat, above
Abdel's head.
Exhausted and relieved, Abdel slid down to his knees, the stone scraping through his thin chemise. He was panting,
almost gasping for air, and his sword seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.
"Good enough," a reedy, gruff voice said, "ye can stop that damn light."
Abdel wanted to spring to his feet and whirl into a defensive stance against this stranger, but he just couldn't. He
decided to wait until whoever spoke those words came close enough that he could kill him without standing up.
"It'll go away on its own, right?" another voice asked. "Let's get a look at our new—our new friend."
Footsteps came around the stone marker, two sets, and Abdel did manage to stand to meet them, though his chest
still heaved. He closed his eyes tight again, holding his sword out in front of him with both hands. He was looking
down when he opened his eyes. He saw, past smaller purple flashes this time, a pair of bare, wide feet, covered on the
instep with thick, curly red hair. The boots that stood next to those feet were finely made of shiny black leather.
One of the newcomers chuckled and said, "How ye fairin', boy?"
Abdel had to laugh. He wasn't fairing very well at all.
"That's the second time this day," Abdel said, blinking his watery eyes to finally clear his vision, "that I've had to
fight for my life. Do you intend to make it a third?"
"Ha!" the one with the hairy feet—Abdel could see now that he was a halfling—exclaimed. "We intend no such
thing, lad."
"By all means, no," the other one—a tall, thin human draped in black robes—added. "Rest easy—rest easy."
Abdel studied these two unlikely rescuers. The halfling was odd for his kind, though he was as short, stocky, and
fair of complexion as most of his race. He had a devilish quality to him, though, that Abdel had seen in a long parade of
sellswords, toughs, thieves, and rogues, but not many halflings. He was wearing thick, reddish-brown leather worked
into armor to protect his vitals but cut to leave his arms free. A long sword of excellent make, an imposing weapon for
one as small as he, hung at his side in a gold filigreed scabbard. The halfling wriggled his pug nose and smiled back at
Abdel's stare.
"G'day, young sir," he said in an odd accent that might have been—Waterdeep? Some city, Abdel was certain, which
was again unusual for a halfling. "Name's Montaron, an' my travellin' companion 'ere is Xzar . . . that's 'im set that
godsawful bright light up there to interrupt that little party ye were throwin'."
Abdel nodded to the halfling and turned his attention to the human. The one called Xzar was tall, thin, and twitchy.
His face kept moving like there were worms under his skin, and his mouth worked as if he were talking to himself
silently all the time. Every once in a while he'd twitch his head violently to one side, as if to shoo away a fly that wasn't
really there.
"Gibberlings," the human said, "are not quite at all—" a twitch made him pause "—fond of light... at all."
"Gibberlings?" Abdel repeated, understanding that was the name of the horde of beasts. An apt name for all their
incomprehensible vocalizing.
"An' ye are?" the halfling prompted.
"Abdel," he said, shifting his sword to his left hand and holding out his right. "I am Abdel... son of Gorion."
Montaron took Abdel's hand, and his grip was firm. He smirked a little, as if at some private joke. Xzar rubbed
nervously at his own face, absentmindedly tracing lines around the rather prominent tattooed mask surrounding his
eyes. When the halfling's hand fell away, Abdel turned his open palm to Xzar, but the human twitched away from it
and made a quarter turn as if to wander off.
"Ye'll 'ave to excuse my friend, there," the halfling said, nodding to Xzar, '"e's not the friendliest sort, but 'em casties
he does makes 'im might 'andy in a pinch."
Abdel thought nothing of it. This Xzar was a strange one, but he'd met stranger.
"I should thank you," Abdel said to the halfling.
"Aye, ye should," Montaron chuckled, "if ye 'ad any manners. I don't myself, so tend not to expect 'em in others.
This road ain't an easy walk. Maybe we could offer ye a chance to return the favor, eh?"
"I'm bound for the Friendly Arms," Abdel said, raising his eyebrows to wait for a response.
Xzar grunted, but Montaron only continued to smile blankly.
"Yell find more work in Nashkel," the halfling said.
"Nashkel?"
"Aye—" Montaron started when suddenly it was dark again.
The magical light went out all at once and seemed to take the sound of the receding horde of humanoids with it.
"Thank the Lord o' Three Crowns," Montaron said, his voice suddenly edged with a surprising glee, "I was
beginning to think that would never fade away. Things are clearer in the dark, ain't they Abdel?"
The sellsword only blinked, hoping not to go blind from all the sudden changes in lighting.
"Anyway," Montaron added, "there's work fer the taking in Nashkel."
"I have business at the Friendly Arms."
"So ye're not in need o' work?"
Abdel was, in fact, quite in need of work, but promises had been made, and there was this Khalid and another waiting
for Gorion at the Friendly Arms. The gnome-run roadhouse was three days' travel to the north, and Nashkel was a full
tenday in the opposite direction.
"What kind of work?" Abdel asked.
"The kind o' work I'm guessing ye're in," the halfling said, "an* lot's o' it. Word around the campfires is there's some
trouble in the mines there."
"I have to go to the Friendly Arms first," Abdel said flatly. "There are people waiting for me there, but I will be in
need of work."
"So the roadhouse first, then?" Xzar asked matter-of-factly, and in the darkness Abdel couldn't tell if the mage was
talking to him or to the halfling.
Montaron solved the problem by answering, "Aye, the Friendly Arms first, then Nashkel. I could use a night's sleep
in a real bed anyway."
Chapter Four
After spending three days with Montaron and Xzar on the road to the Friendly Arms, Abdel had to admit he kind of
liked the gruff halfling. The little guy was odd, to be sure. He would complain incessantly all day that the sunlight was
too bright, even though the sky was overcast and dull gray most of the time. His aversion to light was sometimes silly,
other times it was disturbing. Montaron seemed amused by his human companion, Xzar, and often teased him by
tossing pebbles and twigs at the tall mage's head as they walked.
Abdel was ready to do more than tease Xzar. Abdel was beginning to think about killing him. As the halfling joked,
and the mage pontificated, and the hours dragged on, Abdel would devise elaborate plans to murder Xzar, just to pass
the time.
Xzar had a way of speaking that confused and irritated Abdel. He would rearrange and repeat words for no good
reason, would remain silent when he should speak and speak when he had nothing useful to say. The mage twitched
literally all the time, and though Abdel felt sorry for the obviously disturbed man at first, eventually he couldn't think
about anything but how much he wanted to slap him.
He was able to ignore the twitchy mage for the first day's walk, but when they'd settled into camp, Xzar told him the
one thing Abdel always wanted to hear.
"I know," Xzar told him, "who your father—your father is."
Abdel sat up straight and Montaron, who had been chuckling happily in the darkness went suddenly bone still.
"What did you say?" Abdel asked, the only way he could think of to ask the man to continue.
"Xzar," Montaron started, then just said, "Xzar. ..." again.
"Your father," the mage said to Abdel, ignoring the halfling, "your father was—"
"Enough!" Montaron said sharply, and the mage spun to lock eyes with him. "Can't ye see the boy's a mite sensitive
"bout that?"
"How would you know this?" Abdel asked Xzar, ignoring the halfling. "You don't even know me. You don't know
who I am, how could you know my father?"
Montaron reached out and put a hand on Xzar's forearm. The mage jerked away violently.
"He should be happy," Xzar said to no one in particular, "he should be happy to be the son of a god—of a god."
Abdel sighed. The man was insane.
"I am the son of a god?" Abdel asked, anger making his voice tight and quiet.
"Oh," the mage said, his voice dripping condescension, "oh, yes, oh, yes, you most certainly are."
"My friend," the halfling said to Abdel, "is obviously a madman, but 'e can make fire shoot from 'is fingertips, so I
keep 'im around."
"Shut your ..." Xzar scolded,"... your ... your—he's the son of Bhaal."
Abdel sighed again and lay down to go to sleep. Xzar muttered to himself for a little while, his voice eventually
fading into the sound of the crickets.
"I buried my father," Abdel said, more for himself than for the delusional mage or the halfling, "the only father I'll
ever need, the day I met you two. He was no god, and neither am I."
"An' what if ye were?" Montaron asked, his voice soft on the night's quiet breeze.
Abdel looked up at him, and even in the darkness he could tell the halfling's face was set, serious. This made Abdel
laugh.
"I'd wish myself a thousand times a thousand pieces of gold, for one," Abdel answered. This made Montaron laugh.
"I'd drop the Sword Coast into the sea just to see it sink and make zombies of everyone who ever spoke ill of me."
"Make me lord o' Waterdeep?" the halfling joked.
"Aye," Abdel said, mimicking Montaron's peculiar brogue, "ye'll be king o' the world."
The two of them laughed, and when Montaron finally settled down to sleep he said, "Sometimes, lad, things 'ave a
way o' surprisin' ye."
"Yes," Abdel said, yawning, "they do at that."
* * * * *
Abdel had visited the Friendly Arms over half a dozen times in the past several years, but the sight of it always
surprised him. It had been a rather well-built fortress in its day, constructed by a cult of the now-dead god Bhaal. The
story was that the band of gnomes who ran the place had run afoul of the cultists, and after years of fighting back and
forth the gnomes drove the Bhaal-worshipers out. This seemed unlikely to Abdel, though, as he'd met a few gnomes in
his day and found it difficult to believe that people who barely reached his knee could drive anyone out of anywhere.
Abdel didn't know anything about this god Bhaal, but if it was true that his worshipers were driven out of such an
imposing stone fortress by these tiny forest folk ... well, no wonder the god didn't survive the Time of Troubles.
Xzar's delusional ramblings weren't lost on Abdel either. The fact that the mage had used Bhaal as the focus of his
fantasies about Abdel's parentage must have meant that Xzar had heard the story of the origin of the Friendly Arms as
well. If they'd been in the Dalelands his father might have been Elminster, or maybe he should move to Evermeet and
take on Corellon Larethian as his sire.
The Friendly Arms was a little village as much as it was a fortress. Within the high curtain walls of gray stone was a
collection of buildings devoted to any number of purposes but all serving travelers in one way or another.
Abdel and his two companions approached the front gate and a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered over a moat.
Coming in from the south they could see that the moat didn't make it all the way around the keep yet, and there were
teams of diggers and other laborers halfheartedly wandering about. The moat was a new addition, then, and certainly
more for show than for defense. The Friendly Arms never locked its gate, and everyone was welcome inside, so the
likelihood of siege was hardly pressing.
They passed over the drawbridge and made their way with no wasted time from the pillared entrance to one of the
biggest buildings in the broad, open bailey. Even if Abdel had never been there before, the sound of revelry leaking
into the early evening air would have told him that this was the inn proper. It was a long walk to the high oaken door,
and as they crossed the bailey they passed a group of gnome guards. The sight of the tiny fighters made Abdel smile.
The three guards, each no taller than two and a half feet, were dressed in fancy but functional ring mail. Their short
swords were smaller and no doubt lighter than Abdel's dagger. One was holding a spear from which fluttered the
banner of the Friendly Arms, less heraldry than advertising. The three little men nodded to Abdel and returned his
smile, then turned their attention abruptly to the inn.
Abdel noticed a sudden change in the tavern sounds. Montaron stopped too and held out a hand to gently block
Xzar.
The mage twitched away and shouted, "Stop touching me!"
"Shhh," the halfling warned as the gnome guards began moving slowly toward the inn.
There were pauses in the steady sound of laughter and frivolity, that was what first alerted the guards, then came
loud cheers, a crash, and breaking glass followed by a loud grunt.
Montaron laughed and said, "Sounds like my kind o' place!"
The three travelling companions followed the gnome guards to the door. Abdel stood behind the gnomes as one of
them opened the door, and he was hit with the blast of sound from inside just a fraction of a second before the chair
hit him in the face. Down the big sellsword went, never seeing the three little gnomes wade into the crowd. The guards'
fists were small, but when they brought them into play at their own eye level, taller men dropped like sacks of flour.
Abdel, angry, bleeding from the nose, stood up, grabbed the broken chair, and surveyed the dark room full of
doubled-over men. He gave up hope of finding the one who threw the chair, but he gave the room an icy glare all the
same. Laughter started, and Abdel turned red before he realized they weren't laughing at him but at the man being
carried out by the three gnomes. They were dragging the dirty, vile-smelling commoner more than carrying him, and
the big man made a small sound every time his head bounced against the rough wooden planks of the floor.
Abdel looked at the now unconscious man with undisguised fury as he was dragged past. Montaron grabbed the
chair when he saw Abdel jerk forward.
"Leave 'im," the halfling said. "Looks like 'e's paid in full."
Abdel stood stock still and tried to let the anger pass, but it wouldn't. He wanted to kill someone. Montaron was
looking at him curiously.
"See?" Xzar stage-whispered.
The halfling pushed the mage away and pulled gently on the chair. Abdel let him take it.
"Ye'll be needin' a drink," he said, and Abdel nodded.
A gnome woman climbed up on top of the bar and called to the room, "Next one throws a chair gets my fist in his
danglies. This—" and she paused long enough to belch resoundingly— "is a class establishment."
A cheer followed this warning, and the crowded room fell back into the general chaos of a night at the Friendly Arms.
* * * * *
The ale was good, and after three pints of it Abdel was starting to relax. He sat at the bar and kept his head down,
ignoring the tussle and bluster of the ever more crowded barroom. He'd not spoken since he'd been hit by the chair,
and though his nose hadn't bled much, he refused to wipe the blood away. The big sellsword was quite a sight. He'd
been rude and sullen enough that Montaron soon left his side, disappearing quickly into a crowd that naturally
towered over the little halfling. Xzar was easier to get rid of, the mage having found a dark booth, in a corner, in which
to sit and mutter to himself.
Abdel didn't do much thinking, he just sat there and drank. He wasn't one for self-pity, but it had been Nine Hells of a
tenday. The thought of leaving again in the morning with the halfling and that damnable muttering mage didn't appeal
to him in the slightest. His purse was light, though, and not getting any heavier. The trip to Nashkel, if he took it,
would be a lean one. He'd decided to let Montaron and Xzar go on their way without him. decided to look for some
paying job here at the Friendly Arms, when he remembered why he'd come here in the first place. Gorion, with his
dying breath, had sent him here to look for—and Abdel couldn't remember the names.
"Damn it all to the Abyss," he mumbled to himself, "What does it matter anyway?"
Abdel ordered a fourth pint from the pleasantly gruff gnome woman who was tending the bar. He'd paid her every
time from a dwindling supply of coppers.
"Nah," the gnome told him when he slid another four copper pieces across the wet bar, "this one's for the smack on
the beak."
Abdel nodded, accepting the woman's drink, then accepting the wet rag she held out to him. He wiped the blood off
his face and allowed himself a short laugh when he realized the gnome woman hadn't gone away but was just standing
there staring at him.
"You should put a window in that door," he said, "so a guest can see what's coming before he opens it."
The gnome laughed, said, "I'll pass the suggestion along," while waiting for him to finish the pint in one swallow,
standing ready with a fifth pint. This time she took his copper.
"Well met, good sir," a richly Amnian-accented voice next to him said.
Abdel turned slightly to his right and glared at the lean Amnian with a look that would give the man no illusions that
his company was welcome. The Amnian flinched at the stare.
"You are Abdel," he said, "Abdel Adrian."
"Gods," Abdel breathed, was this the man Gorion had come to see?
"You are," the Amnian said. "Where is Gorion?"
"Dead," Abdel said simply, then his throat caught, but he didn't cry. "Who is this Adrian?"
"You are not Abdel Adrian?" the Amnian asked.
"I am Abdel, son of Gorion, but I go by no other name."
The Amman's response to this was simply a puzzled stare. The man was obviously a half-elf. His long, thin face and
ears just barely too round to be called pointed would have been proof enough of that, but the bright violet of his eyes
was a sure sign of elf blood. The human part of him was surely Amnian; he had a large, long nose and dusky olive
skin. He was dressed as if for battle, in dented armor that he was obviously uncomfortable in. He was wearing a helmet,
which, considering the surroundings, seemed a wise idea. His lips curled and twitched. He was nervous.
"You have come here to meet me, though," the Amnian said. "I am Khalid."
That was it. Khalid—the last word his father spoke as his life drained from his punctured eye, then Abdel
remembered that there was another.
"Jah," he said, "I was to meet Khalid and Jah."
"Jaheira, yes," Khalid said, grinning ear-to-ear, but still nervous, "she is my wife. She is here."
The Amman turned instinctively toward a table on the other side of the room, but the crowd blocked his view.
"Come," he said, "sit with us, and tell us what befell your father. He was a great man, a hero in his own way, and he
will be missed."
"What do you know of it?" Abdel asked, bile suddenly rising to the back of his throat. His voice was full of menace.
"What was he to you?"
Khalid stared at Abdel as if the sellsword had suddenly transformed into a cobra. He was scared of Abdel, and he
was not at all able to hide it.
"He was a friend," Khalid answered, "that is all. I mean no disrespect."
Abdel wanted to say something rude to the Amnian, but he couldn't. Instead he fished in his pouch for money for a
sixth pint of ale. He came out with only three coppers.
"Bhaal!" he cursed loudly, stood, and threw the coppers into the crowd.
A drunk somewhere muttered something mildly offensive after having been clipped on the temple by one of the hard
thrown copper coins. Abdel shot to attention, and more than one man, even innocent ones, scurried off to darker
corners. Sweat broke out visibly on Khalid's upper Up.
"Gods," the Amnian said, "what did he tell you?"
Abdel looked down at the Amnian but said nothing.
"I will be happy to buy you a drink," Khalid said. "Please, come with me. We don't want any more attention do we?"
Abdel grunted and let himself be led through the crowd. He caught sight of Montaron for only the briefest of
moments. The halfling was holding a silk purse, and Abdel was sure the little man winked at him.
Abdel took a couple of deep breaths to try to calm himself, and when Khalid said, "Here she is," Abdel looked up,
and his breath caught.
Jaheira was beautiful. Half-elf like her mate, she too must have had a human parent from Amn. The two looked oddly
alike, but both the elf and human sides favored Jaheira the more. Her face was wide and dark, her lips full, and her eyes
bright—nearly the same violet as Khalid's—-and they sparkled with intelligence. Her face was framed in thick hair that
摘要：

"Tormsaveme,"Abdelcalledandslicedhisswordbacktohisleft,thenright.Thespiderpaused,andAbdelrolledallthewayovertooneside,hopingtoescapetheweb.Hairwaspulledpainfullyfromhisarm,andastrandofwebstucktohisneck.Hewasaflynow,amealforthiseight-leggedpredator,andlikeafly,hisdesperatestrugglesonlyservedtocementh...

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