by Филип Этанс
"Jaheira?" Abdel asked, his eyes still blurry and painful.
"She'll be all right," the girl said impatiently. "And I'm fine, thank you."
"Please," another voice said. Abdel turned back to the man strapped to the table. In a voice heavily accented and muddy from a swollen tongue, the asylum inmate said, "Now this of out me get someone can?"
Chapter Twelve
Jaheira pressed her hands to her temples and held them there tightly. She'd eventually have to stop taking blows to the head, she knew, or there might be permanent damage. Abdel was next to her, though, and holding her now in his strong arms, so she was already feeling better.
She looked over at the minotaur sitting on the floor in the little room. A chill ran down her spine, and as much as she thought she trusted Mielikki's varied creations until they proved untrustworthy, she was afraid of the huge creature.
"I get knocked out for two minutes," she whispered to Abdel, "and you make a new friend."
The sellsword smiled and said, "Any port in a storm."
Imoen was helping the odd naked man on the table into a sitting position. The man seemed dizzy and more than a little demented.
"We need to get out of here," Imoen told him.
"That we do," Abdel said, looking between the madman and the minotaur. "We don't have to fight, do we?"
"Sir, fight a up put won't I," the madman said.
Abdel looked at him blankly, and Jaheira let out a breath that might have been a tired laugh. Abdel helped her to stand, and she looked at the minotaur.
"The coordinator," she said, "a man named Irenicus, do you know him?"
The minotaur nodded, the gesture obviously reluctant.
"You can speak," Abdel said to the creature.
"Crazy we're thinks he," the madman said to Imoen, a gentle smile on his face. "Me ask you if one crazy the he's."
"I can speak," the minotaur said, ignoring the madman. Imoen gasped at the sound of the creature's gruff voice.
"What is all this about?" Abdel asked simply.
The minotaur grunted and shrugged. "I was made to inhabit this place. Your Irenicus had plans for this labyrinth beyond peopling it with the addled of your kind."
"But he's gone?" Jaheira asked the huge bull-man. "He's fled this place?"
The minotaur nodded.
"His of woman vampire that with Underdark the into went he," the madman mumbled, nodding.
"Vampire?" Imoen asked him. "Did you say vampire?"
"He went into the Underdark with that vampire woman of his," Jaheira translated. "Why?"
"Does it matter?" Abdel asked, not expecting an answer. "Good riddance. He belongs down there."
"His plans are for Suldanessellar," the minotaur said, and it was Jaheira's turn to gasp.
"Well as say I riddance good," the madman said, laying back down on the table. "Fed been have should they way the eels the fed never he."
"Suldanessellar?" Jaheira asked. The minotaur nodded, and she said, "That can't be."
"Suldanessellar?" Abdel asked.
"What's that?" asked Imoen.
"Us about care really didn't he like was it," said the madman. "Me with fine just be it'll him kill and him find you if, anyway."
"Suldanessellar is an elven city," Jaheira explained. "It's no surprise you've never heard of it. It's one of Faerun's best kept secrets. It's the home of some of the few elves who have yet to join the Retreat to Evermeet."
The minotaur nodded, and Abdel asked, "What could that possibly have to do with us?"
"I have no idea," the minotaur said. "You fought with me against the snortsnouts, and I owe you enough to part ways with you peacefully. I've told you all I have to tell."
"We could use your help …" Jaheira said to the huge bull-man.
The minotaur nodded, but said, "Your quest is not mine."
"At least tell us how to find them," Jaheira insisted.
"Do we need to?" asked Imoen. She turned a questioning gaze on Abdel.
The big sellsword sighed and said, "I guess we do. We can't let this go on. I owe him one for that ritual anyway and for the odd kidnapping here and there."
"Easy is down way the," offered the madman, who was busy replacing the copper band on his head. "It over hanging skull a with door a to come you until turns left three first the take and right the to corridor the follow just."
"Are you getting this?" Abdel asked Jaheira. The druid nodded, listening intently to the madman's directions.
"One that want don't you," he continued. "It over nailed bat dead the with door the through go and that by pass. Ramp a to lead that'll."
"You know what?" Imoen said. "This isn't making me feel better."
"Right the on door third the find and, goes it as far as down that take," the madman went on. "Down way long a be it'll."
"I can image," Imoen quipped, and Abdel shot her a stern look, which she ignored.
"Underdark the to get you when," the madman concluded, "It know you'll."
"One question," Imoen said, looking directly at Jaheira. "Is this Suldanessellar place worth it?"
"I spent time there," Jaheira said. "I learned to be a druid there."
"I'll take that as a y—"
Imoen was cut off when the madman yelped and seemed to hop up off the table.
"Imoen!" Abdel shouted in warning, but the girl was already in the process of jumping backward.
The madman hadn't jumped off the table—he'd been pulled off. Ropelike tentacles covered in a viscous slime hung from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around the suddenly stiff, unmoving inmate. Abdel, Jaheira, Imoen, and the minotaur all looked up at once and saw the source of the tentacles. The minotaur growled something in some guttural language.
Hanging from the ceiling, upside down over the madman's table, was a huge wormlike beast made of fleshy, spherical sacks. Its head was shaped like an onion, and from it sprouted a blossom of tentacles.
"What in all Nine Hells is that?" Imoen said, stepping quickly backward to get out from under the thing.
"Carrion crawler," Abdel, Jaheira, and the minotaur all answered simultaneously.
Abdel was surprised by, of all things, the height of the ceiling. Thinking back, the minotaur had jumped over him. The creature was eight feet tall, and Abdel seven, so the ceiling must have been far above them. He could see a hole in the wall near one corner of the gloomy ceiling where the giant beast had obviously come through. He'd heard of these things. They scoured the deepest caverns and dungeons cleaning up the remains of dead carcasses and the aftereffects of battles. This one had obviously mistaken the madman for a casualty.
"Me," the madman grunted, his jaw tightening around the words, "help."
The minotaur jumped onto the table and brought its battle-axe around in a long overhand arc. One of the tentacles dropped onto the table with a wet smack, and the minotaur deftly avoided being splashed with any of the paralyzing poison that coated it. The carrion crawler let out a hiss and withdrew into the dark opening near the ceiling, dragging the paralyzed madman in with it.
"I won't need your help," the minotaur said. "Go on about your quest."
The bull-man didn't wait to see if Abdel and the women complied. It jumped up, grabbed the edge of the opening with one hand and was through it before Abdel could even get to the table.
Jaheira stopped him from following with a hand on his arm. "Suldanessellar," she said. "Irenicus."
Abdel looked at her and nodded, then looked once more at the dark opening, and said, "You understood those backward directions?"
"I didn't," Imoen admitted.
"I think so," answered Jaheira.
"Then let's go," said Abdel.
Chapter Thirteen
The creatures intended to eat them alive, Abdel knew that much for sure. What he didn't know was what exactly they were or how he was going to kill them.
"What are these things?" Imoen shrieked. "And how are we going to kill them?"
The girl nimbly clim
bed to the top of a smooth stalagmite, deftly avoiding the snapping jaws of the bizarre beast that was chasing her.
Abdel was only paying marginal attention to Imoen's predicament. He was in one of his own. One of the creatures lunged at him, and Abdel dodged to the left, bringing his hand up fast and catching the monster under its snapping bottom jaw and pushing it away before it could bite his face off.
The monsters had come upon them during one of their short, infrequent rest stops as they continued to follow the winding, seemingly endless tunnel deep underground. The things looked like snakes or thick-bodied worms, but to all appearances they were made of stone. Their odd skin was hard—Abdel's broadsword barely chipped at them the few times he'd managed a successful strike—and had the color and texture of the surrounding rock. Though they moved in a snakelike undulation, they appeared to get most of their mobility from two vaguely humanlike arms that sprouted from their serpentine bodies just past their nublike heads. Cold black eyes—two of them—gleamed in the light of Imoen's makeshift torch. Below the eyes was a proportionately huge mouth lined with triangular teeth. Abdel could tell by the way the light glinted off those fangs that they were razor sharp.
Jaheira's voice echoed loudly through the cavern. Abdel understood only the occasional word. He glanced at her as he spun around to toss the rockworm away from him, and he could see her standing still, eyes closed, chanting what must have been some prayer to her goddess. Abdel turned away from her just in time to see the creature snap at his heels. He jumped up fast enough to avoid it but came down on the thing's rounded form. His foot slipped off, and he splayed his arms out to break his fall. The monster twitched away as Abdel hit the stone floor. His ears rang, and he wasn't sure if Jaheira had stopped praying or he'd gone deaf.
He looked up, and Jaheira had opened her eyes. Another of the monsters snapped at her, and she twitched away. There was something about the movement that looked wrong to Abdel. Jaheira moved just a little faster than he'd known her capable of in the past, and the monster seemed to move more slowly than his companions. Abdel didn't have time to mull over this strange feeling. His own monstrous opponent was coming at him again.
Abdel rolled to the right, and the thing shot past him as if it were suddenly struck blind. Abdel smiled at the thing's show of weakness and hit it hard on the top of its head with the pommel of his sword. The thing let out a shrill whistle that Abdel instinctively knew was a sign of pain. He took advantage of this opportunity and jumped onto its back. The thing was as long as Abdel was tall, and when the sellsword wrapped a strong arm around it, he could feel no warmth. The thing was actually made of living stone.
There was a pained, all-too-human scream from behind him that sent a chill down Abdel's spine. One of his companions had fallen. The scream had an edge of panic in it that Abdel recognized all too well. Whoever it was was sure she was dead.
"Imoen!" Jaheira screamed, then grunted when the worm she was still just trying to avoid lunged at her again and almost found its mark.
Abdel dragged the blade of his broadsword across the rockworm's eyes and was happy to see them burst open and pour out a dark gray, watery putrescence. A sharp, tangy smell pervaded the tunnel, and the thing convulsed hard once in Abdel's grip. He let it buck him off and made use of the momentum to get some distance from the thing. He hit a warm, wet spot on the floor and slid a bit farther than he wanted, but he recovered in time to see the thing blindly lunge at him. Abdel fed the creature the length of his blade and was satisfied when the shower of charcoal blood was followed by the rockworm's final death spasm.
"Abdel!" Jaheira called sharply. "Mine!"
The sellsword burst to his feet, yanking the sword out of the dead creature's gullet and turning in the direction of Jaheira's voice. She was backing away, nimbly dodging the rockworm's leaden strikes. Abdel rushed it and slashed with a backhand motion in an effort to take its head off. The worm twisted, anticipating the attack, but didn't move fast enough to avoid it. The prayer Jaheira had offered up was the obvious source of this welcome advantage.
Abdel's sword lodged into the rocky flesh of the creature's bottom jaw. It too shrieked in pain, and Abdel grunted, smiling, as he sawed into the thick hide. The rockworm's lower jaw came off with a pop and a torrent of gray fluid.
It tossed its head back and to the side, and Abdel, overextended for the cut, couldn't get out of the way in time. The thing's bleeding head smashed into Abdel's broad chest and knocked him back hard.
Abdel, dazed, looked up and saw nothing but a dim yellow haze. Something seemed to pop in his chest and a wave of pain shook his body.
"Imoen," Jaheira said quietly, her voice quavering with concern.
Abdel stood, his vision starting to come back, and stepped over the twitching, jawless rockworm as it finished dying. He ran and stumbled at the same time to Jaheira's side, coming around a stalagmite. He could hear more of the rockworms skittering in the darkness. Next to the base of the stone column, Imoen was lying, gasping for breath like a drowning woman. Jaheira kneeled over her and began praying. She held the tiny rock she always kept close to her in one hand, and her other hand slid deftly across the wound, smearing bubbling crimson blood over Imoen's shredded chest.
"By the black gods," Abdel muttered, "she's been.. half.. eaten."
Imoen's eyes stared up at the darkness above them in mute, twitching agony. Jaheira's voice lifted in a songlike prayer, and Abdel thought he could see a thin, blue-gray glow around the fingers of the hand she now pressed hard into the wound. Another wave of pain made him stagger backward. Jaheira didn't look up at him. He stepped back, then fell back and rolled away from the women. In the darkness no more than a few paces from him, rockworms began to gather.
* * *
Jaheira pulled her hand up suddenly with a shouted last word and her prayer was over, Imoen pulled in one rattling, deep breath and made to sit up. Jaheira, her hand covered in the girl's blood, gently pushed her back down.
"You'll need to rest," Jaheira told her.
Imoen rested her head on a smooth stone and smiled. Jaheira returned her smile, then looked at Abdel and said, "Well have to stay here for at least a few hours," she said, "but by Mielikki's never-ending grace, she'll… Abdel?"
She spun, realizing in a wave of nauseous dread that she'd lost sight of him in the darkness.
"Abdel?" she called again.
She was answered by an inhuman roar that echoed deafeningly in the confines of the cavern and made the half-elf throw her hands up to her gently pointed ears to keep them from bursting.
"Abdel!" Jaheira screamed, her voice drowned out not only by the ringing in her ears but by the clatter of rockworms—all around her—moving in fast for the kill.
She saw Imoen mouth, "It's happening again."
* * *
Everything that was the essence of Abdel Adrian disappeared into a roiling vortex of rage, bloodlust, and wild, kill-frenzied mania. His body contorted—he could feel that, and it hurt. He was changing again. He didn't know exactly what was happening to him, how it was happening to him, or why it was happening to him. He could feel it and experience it only for the first few moments, then any greater consciousness was replaced by the pure murderous impulses of the Bhaalspawned demon he had become.
He could see the rockworms clearly now when all there had been before was darkness. His perspective had shifted decidedly upward, though he didn't have the capacity to understand why. He grabbed for one of the creatures, all thoughts of something as puny and ineffectual as a broadsword forgotten, and held it easily in one huge, firm grip. When he squeezed he could feel the rocklike skin puncture, and the thing's blood bathed him. He roared in idiot pleasure and turned his attention to another rockworm, then another.
He tore through their stony bodies as if they were made of tissue paper. When some of them turned to flee in the face of prey that had turned predator, the Abdel-thing moved quickly behind them. He grabbed one by the tip of its tail and spun it into the othe
rs. The rock-worms started biting at him, but their teeth just tickled around the edges of what used to be his thighs but were now closer to his ankles.
He killed them for the pure joy of it and let not one single rockworm escape alive.
When the last one lay twitching at his transformed feet, pouring its charcoal blood onto the cold floor of the cavern, Abdel screamed again.
This time, his voice sounded more like his own, real, human voice, and his body convulsed through a single body-tightening cramp that made his vision blur and flash yellow again. He fell to the floor of the cavern, and his eyes cleared enough to see his hand, and it was starting to look human again. He tried to call out for Jaheira, but his throat was tightening, changing back to something with human vocal chords. He sputtered a ragged cough.
"Abdel!" he heard Jaheira call, her voice echoing from quite a distance.
He looked up, and with tears streaming down his face, he saw the dull blotch of Imoen's torchlight. It took him several minutes to stand on shaking, cramping legs, but he eventually made his way back to the light.
* * *
Worms made of rock, giant beetles, and the things that looked like stalactites that occasionally tried to drop on them from the ceiling of the tunnel aside, Abdel couldn't imagine how any thinking being was able to live in the Underdark. There was no passage of time, save for the rhythmic drips of water or the occasional fall of pebbles. Abdel had no idea how long they'd been down there. They'd made torches from the hard stalks of giant mushrooms and scraps from their own dwindling clothes. They would stop to rest and occasionally sleep. As soon as one of them awakened, he or she would rouse the others, and they'd start moving again. It was a blind existence, and the toll it took on all of them was intense.
The nature-worshiping Jaheira just seemed tired all the time. She prayed to Mielikki, and her prayers were answered, though it was an unlikely place to feel the touch of the Lady of the Forest. Still, Jaheira was as moody and quiet as Abdel, and though they walked side by side for mile after endless mile, they hardly spoke.