by Филип Этанс
"Havarian?" Abdel asked, momentarily concerned.
The old pirate finally let loose a huge, phlegmy cough. Spittle and mucus trailed off his chin, and his body convulsed through a series of deep gags.
"Are you all right?" Abdel asked.
Havarian managed a laugh and said, "Smooth..»
Abdel sighed and threw his back into the rowing. He couldn't get there fast enough.
* * *
Abdel didn't study the island asylum very carefully at all. He could spot the tallest tower easily enough and made straight for it. The building did generate a kind of dull foreboding, and Abdel had to work to keep it out of his mind. He didn't want to think too much about what he was doing. He didn't want to think that he was intentionally breaking into a place that no one would ever want to see the inside of.
Abdel shook his head and rowed faster.
"Ease up, kid," the old pirate grumbled. Havarian looked up at the towers and battlements of the fortress-like asylum and went pale. "Ye sure yer'll wantin' to be in such a hurry?"
"I need to get to that wall, there," Abdel said, ignoring the old man's question, "below the tallest tower."
Havarian scanned the rocky shoreline and pointed at a collection of boulders that made something like a miniature harbor. Waves crashed all around, but there was a small place of relative calm no more than a few yards from the base of the tower. The smooth brick wall rose up from the jumble of boulders, just at the edge of the island.
"I can get yer in there nice enough," Havarian said, taking the oars, "but I won't be hangin' around this rock, boy. Yer passage was one way, hear?"
Abdel smirked and nodded impatiently. Havarian turned the dinghy into the shelter of the boulders and nodded once to Abdel when he thought it was shallow enough for the sellsword to get out of the boat.
"Don't die in a place like this, boy," Captain Havarian called after Abdel, who was wading toward the boulders at the foot of the wall. "It's a bad place to let yer soul loose in."
Abdel nodded again, only glancing at the old man long enough to see him already rowing quickly away from the island.
It took Abdel only a few minutes to find the odd glyph Bodhi had traced for him.
He said "Nchasme," in a loud, confident voice and was rewarded with the sound of stone grinding on stone.
A cluster of bricks pulled back into the wall slowly, shedding dust as they moved. A door barely big enough for Abdel to squeeze through opened into darkness. Abdel thought he heard a man screaming from somewhere far away, and he looked back at the little harbor. There was no sign of Captain Havarian.
Abdel forced a smile and ducked into the opening.
* * *
The man was missing both his legs, but that wasn't his most obvious handicap. Abdel took another small step toward him, the big sellsword biting his bottom lip in puzzled indecision. The madman with no legs was weeping inconsolably and occasionally barking out a strangled, desperate, "Where are you going?"
Unfortunately for Abdel, he was doing this in the open doorway that was the only exit out of the straw-littered room. The place smelled so strongly of urine it was all Abdel could do to hold his stomach down. He could have simply pulled the man away and passed, but there was something about the grimy, crawling skin and the gnashing, ground-flat teeth, the flying spittle, the crawling lice, the smell, and the insane, unpredictable nature of the man that made even Abdel more than a little reluctant to touch him.
Abdel cleared his throat, but the madman gave no sign that he noticed the sellsword or any one of the handful of asylum inmates in the room.
"I need to pass," Abdel said, in a clear, unwavering voice that still sounded weak somehow.
The madman didn't look up, but he did sob loudly once and squeak out, "Come back, come back, come …"
"Oh, 'e ain't movin', swab," one of the other inmates, a vile-smelling man in the garb of a sailor, drawled with a wink and a smirk.
Abdel looked at the sailor and sighed. Looking at him made it clear to Abdel that it wasn't the straw on the floor that smelled so bad—it was the sailor.
"That one ain't moved since …" the sailor said, obviously not sure how long the crippled madman had occupied this inconvenient resting place.
"I need to get through there," Abdel told the sailor, as if that would help.
The sailor laughed, showing more empty space than teeth, and said, "Why'd ye e'er set that course, swab? That away leads in."
"In?" Abdel asked.
The sailor nodded, smiling broadly.
"I need to go farther in," Abdel told the sailor. "I need to go all the way in."
"Ye're mad, then," the sailor said.
"So I've come to the right place," Abdel replied, drawing his broadsword and taking three confident steps toward the man in the doorway.
" 'E won't like that," the sailor warned. "The coordinator, 'e don't want nobody to kill nobody."
Abdel stopped and turned, glancing at the blade and realizing he didn't want to kill this poor wretch anyway. "What are you talking about?"
"The coordinator," the sailor said, his tone at once condescending and afraid. "The captain o' this nut house. Big time lord mage type, this one. 'E'll rip ye apart… seen that one do it, too, I 'ave."
"The coordinator?" Abdel asked.
"Aye."
"Take me to him."
The sailor smiled and said, "Name's Mai Cheirar."
Abdel narrowed his eyes. He'd seen dozens of this type before. Pirates, cutthroats, scalawags, whatever you called them, they weren't to be trusted, not even tolerated. Abdel had ended up killing as many of them as not.
"Take me to him, now."
Mai Cheirar stopped smiling and nodded curtly. He sized up Abdel quickly, then smiled again. "Ye'll 'ave to move that one after all, mate."
Abdel turned to the man in the doorway and lifted the broadsword high, holding it as if to behead the raving lunatic.
"I need to get through that doorway," Abdel said slowly.
This time the man looked up, revealing a bruised, pockmarked face.
"All…" he croaked out with a voice deeper than his earlier plaintive wails would ever have hinted at, ". . you … had to … do was … ask."
Abdel sighed, not enjoying being played for a fool. "Just move," he demanded.
The suddenly lucid inmate scuttled out of the doorway and Abdel wasted no time stepping over his slowly receding form with Mai Cheirar in reluctant tow. He passed into a narrow corridor, lit by guttering torches that made the place smell of smoke. There was a faint breeze that kept the smoke from getting too thick, but the air in the corridor was heavy and hot just the same.
Abdel looked at the pirate, who pointed, smiling, in one direction. Abdel was tempted to start off in the opposite direction, but after a moment's indecision, he followed the man's lead. Abdel had to hold his breath when the pirate passed, and as they continued down the corridor, Abdel intentionally fell behind, hoping some space would lessen the stench.
"Ye're sure about this?" the pirate asked, his voice echoing in the tight, windowless space. "Ye're sure ye wanna meet the coordinator?"
"You're sure this is the way?" Abdel asked, ignoring the pirate's question. He tried to breathe only through his mouth. Mai Cheirar passed out of sight briefly as the corridor took a sharp turn to the right. Abdel took the opportunity to take a breath and rub his eyes.
"Aye," replied the sailor, "aye, that's the way …"
Abdel came around the corner just as he took his hands away from his eyes.
"… deeper into my asylum," a clear, resonant voice sounded from a doorway off one side of the torchlit passage.
Abdel looked up at the door and saw a well-groomed, handsome man who by virtue of his very cleanliness appeared out of place here.
The reeking pirate made a jerky, hesitant bow and sputtered, "Co-co-coordinator."
Chapter Nine
"Awoke" probably wasn't the right word for what Abdel did. He felt sort of as if he
was waking up, but there wasn't really any word that might have covered it. He felt strange. His head was numb; he couldn't feel his body, and he had a kind of tunnel vision—blurred around the edges with a sort of bluish haze. He couldn't see everything and even had trouble thinking clearly. Something was terribly wrong.
He could see the corner of a room, a stone wall, flagstone floor, some cobwebs—there was more detail coming into focus now. His vision swung to one side without his intending to move his eyes or his head, his neck, or his body. It was more like the world swung around him. Someone was lying on the floor.
It was a big man, with powerfully muscled arms and legs. He was wearing a chainmail tunic similar to Abdel's own and, like Abdel, had long, dark—almost black—hair. He was lying facedown.
His vision swung suddenly forward and down, and Abdel could see the man on the floor being turned roughly over by a pair of hands that couldn't be Abdel's—they were too small, too dirty.
The man on the floor was limp—dead. The man's face came into view, and the features were as recognizable as the body. Abdel was looking at himself.
So he was dead, then. He was dead and floating above his own body. He'd heard of something like that before—had heard that this happened.
He was surprised by so many things. He wasn't sure what order he should put those things in. He was dead and couldn't feel anything about that. How do you react to being dead? If he was disappointed in anything it was that he didn't get Jaheira and Imoen out. He never got a chance to say good-bye to Jaheira and never knew why Imoen was here—what these people would want with her or who these people were in the first place.
So that was it? All this Son of Bhaal this and Savior of Baldur's Gate that, and here he was floating above his cooling corpse in some godsforsaken madhouse on an island no one bothered to even name? And people—smart people like Gorion and Jaheira—thought he had some greater destiny. He felt like a fool, but worse, he felt like he'd made a fool of them.
His memory was starting to clear even as he continued to watch his own body being dragged by the feet across the rough flagstone floor. He remembered his last sight of Jaheira—and Imoen—Imoen was there.
He thought back, and the events that had transpired until this moment played back in his mind, as if he were watching them for the first time….
* * *
Someone jumped him from behind. It was Mai Cheirar. The coordinator smiled at the sight of it, and Abdel was sure he heard laughter as he stumbled forward. The blow to the back of his head would have killed any normal man, but Abdel not only survived, he managed to remain conscious.
"Very good," the coordinator said cheerfully enough.
Mai Cheirar swore incoherently at the same time.
Abdel turned, and Mai Cheirar hit him again. The sellsword managed to roll with this blow, and it was considerably less painful. He punched Mai Cheirar dead center, smashing the pirate's nose. Blood sprayed across Abdel's forearm, and the pirate staggered back one step, then another, but managed to stay on his feet. From behind him, Abdel heard the coordinator saying something, but the words made no sense. Abdel had time only to form the words "a spell" in his mind before he felt two fingers touch him on the small of his back.
The fingers were cool and dry, and Abdel wondered how he could feel them so well through the chain mail he was wearing. The touch grew rapidly colder, spreading across Abdel's back in a frigid wave. He turned again, and his chest seized up. His knees shook, and his jaw clenched painfully. His right knee almost gave out, but he stepped toward the coordinator and brought his sword up.
The strange man stepped back and smiled. The chill continued to tense Abdel's muscles, and he thought if he could just open his mouth his teeth would start chattering. As it was, he was afraid his jaw would break from being clenched so tightly.
He brought his sword up despite the stiffness in his muscles and sliced it down hard at the coordinator. Stiff, frozen muscles or not, the sword came down fast enough that he should have split the man in half. Instead, the sword pinged off some obstruction in front of the smiling mage. He had some kind of invisible shield around him, and as the sword slid down its impossible surface, Abdel got the feeling it was a sort of elongated dome, as if the man was encased in a glass bell jar as strong as steel.
The coldwas gone all at once, and abdel's jaw came open, and a breath escaped. His arms still stiff, but considerably faster now, Abdel spun his sword through loose fingers and brought it back down at the coordinator—much harder this time. The invisible barrier held, and the sword bounced off it. Abdel heard one footstep behind him and didn't realize that Mai Cheirar had come up close behind him until the sword flipped back past his head and slid down the middle of the sailor's right eye.
Mai Cheirar screamed, and Abdel shrugged, happy to have this tiny bit of good luck in what was becoming a frustratingly long run of bad luck. The half-blind sailor staggered back and dropped his dagger, letting it clatter on the bloody flagstones.
This made the coordinator laugh even louder, and he laughed louder when Abdel tried to slash him again and was frustrated when the sword was deflected once more.
"Damn it," Abdel growled, "who are you?"
"I'm the coordinator," the man laughed, making it clear that he thought the title was ridiculous.
Abdel struck again, and this time there was something different about the way the broadsword bounced off the barrier. Abdel was sure the blade came just a little closer to the coordinator.
Their eyes met for just the briefest moment, and the coordinator actually winked at him, a wicked, mischievous twinkle in his eye. This made Abdel angry.
He growled again—it made him feel better—and stepped in closer to the coordinator. He slashed at the barrier at the coordinator's waist level, and the blade came a good three inches closer to actually cutting the man. The coordinator shrugged and stepped back once, twice, then turned and took four quick steps and passed through a door. Abdel followed so closely behind that he barely had room to swing his sword at the rapidly crumbling magical barrier.
They crossed a thin, dimly lit corridor, and Abdel hung back half a step as the coordinator passed into another room. Abdel needed more room to get a good slash in and finally take the barrier down the rest of the way. He needed enough room to cut this smug bastard's head off.
What Abdel saw in the room made him pull up short.
"You are not a very smart young man are you?" the coordinator said.
Abdel knew he'd eventually kill this man, so he gave himself a second or two to make sure he wasn't imagining things. They were in a room with a ceiling easily three times Abdel's own considerable height. Hanging from the ceiling was a series of heavy black iron chains. Suspended from some of those chains were cages no bigger than coffins. Iron maidens, Abdel had heard them called. They were simple steel cages, about half a dozen of them. Two of them were occupied.
"Abdel!" Imoen called from one of them. "Abdel—what are you doing here?"
"What am—?" Abdel started to ask, then looked over at the second cage, where Jaheira was standing. Her face was covered in another one of those terrible steel masks that kept her from speaking—or casting spells. Her eyes told Abdel enough: she was happy to see him but still afraid.
"You came right to me, Son of Bhaal," the coordinator said. "And they told me you wouldn't be so easily manipulated."
Abdel sighed and hefted his sword. He glanced back at Jaheira one more time, then shot a quick smile at Imoen.
"Take his head off, Abdel," she cheered.
She always had so much confidence in him.
The coordinator laughed again and said, "Oh, yes, by all means, Abdel. Take my head off."
Abdel brought his sword up, took stock of the unarmed man, and feinted once to make it seem as if he was going to oblige both the coordinator and Imoen. The coordinator barely flinched. Anyone—even a trained fighter—would have reacted to the feint in some way. It was the whole reason Abdel even tried it i
n the first place. The coordinator's reaction to the fake attack would tell Abdel how he'd react to a real one, and tactics could be devised accordingly. The only thing Abdel wasn't expecting was for the man to have no reaction at all.
"I'm over here," the coordinator said sarcastically.
So be it. Abdel returned the odd man's smile and set his heavy broadsword swinging in front of him. He stepped toward the man, bringing the blade in and around in fast figure eights. The coordinator's eyes twisted in his head, following the blade, but he made no move to cast a spell. Abdel knew enough from the freezing touch and the invisible barrier that this man was some kind of mage. He was unarmed—not armed with physical weapons—but that didn't mean he wasn't deadly. Still, in Abdel's considerable experience, he knew that spells were always preceded by some amount of muttering, waving about of hands, and the handling of odd bits of this and that. The coordinator made no such attempts.
It struck Abdel that though they were confined to the iron maidens above, here he had both Imoen and Jaheira. This man meant nothing to him now—alive. All he could do, at best, would be to explain why the women were here, why he'd manipulated Abdel into coming here to aid them. Abdel felt a certain measure of confidence that Jaheira would know at least the answers to some of those questions, and even if she didn't, Abdel didn't really care. It was good enough to assume that this coordinator—whoever he really was—was next in a line of various evil geniuses bent on world domination who, for whatever reason, thought Abdel's peculiar parentage might help him become Emperor of all Faerun.
All things considered, Abdel decided to just kill the man and get it over with.
Abdel stepped in fast and held closed his eyes in anticipation of a sudden splatter of blood. The blood never came, and Abdel felt his brow furrow. The coordinator, still smiling, was simply leaning back away from the whirling tip of Abdel's heavy blade. In response, Abdel spun the blade faster, extending the arc lower.
Still smiling, the coordinator backed up, replanted his feet, almost danced backward across the smooth stone floor of the huge room, managing to keep his body always half an inch from the blade. Abdel had never seen anyone move that fast. A flash of yellow passed in front of Abdel's vision, and by sheer force of will alone, he made the sword move faster, until there was nothing but a vaguely gray fog in front of him.