Betrayal, Belgin realized. "Look out!" he howled.
As Miltiades wheeled to confront the threat, Jacob struck. Betrayed and deceived, somehow the paladin almost deflected the attack from his flank, flinging out his hammer in a desperate parry. Jacob's blow smashed the warhammer from Miltiades's hands and hacked through his shining breastplate. Miltiades grunted and fell spinning to the ground, blood streaming from the horrible rent over his left shoulder. "Jacob!" he cried.
Without thought Belgin leaped to help the stricken paladin, but Kern was too close to him. With the speed of striking snake the smiling red-haired youth reached out with a hand that became a swordlike blade of bone.
"Now, now," he said, hissing in mockery.
Somehow Belgin twisted out of the stroke, taking a long, jagged cut across his scalp but keeping his head on his shoulders. White spots starred his vision. He stumbled and fell backwards to the rotten boardwalk, blinking. Doppelgangers. Of course.
Aleena began to work some kind of spell, but the Trandon-duplicate turned on her. With one brutal stroke he clubbed the graceful noblewoman to the ground with a forearm that had grown into a spiked mace. Aleena's half-formed spell burst in a shower of fiery sparks, hissing and sizzling in the dark mire of the street.
Marks howled as an ember struck him, then hopped away, hobbled by the lasso around his torso. Belgin caught the end of the rope and yanked Marks off his feet as he rolled away from Kern's attack. "Stick around," he muttered. The Kern-thing smashed its murderous blade down at the bard, but Belgin scrambled back and somehow found his feet.
In the street, Miltiades rose to his knees, groping for his warhammer. "When did you take Jacob?" he rasped. "When?"
“I haven't been Jacob in a long time, human fool," the blond-haired fighter replied. He raised his sword for the killing stroke. Miltiades, wounded and unarmed, raised his hand to ward off the blow.
From the darkness behind Jacob a gleam of silver drifted through the air, tumbling slowly before it crashed into the fighter with the shrill ring of metal meeting metal. What now? Belgin wasted a precious moment gaping at the scene in front of him before a flurry of violent slashes and stabs from the Kern-doppelganger sent him scrabbling and squirming backwards, narrowly avoiding an ugly death. "Bastard!" he swore angrily. He finally found the rapier at his belt and drew the blade in time to drive the false Kern back a step or two.
Behind the Kern-doppelganger, Jacob reeled drunkenly and stumbled away from Miltiades. A dwarven fighting axe lodged in the side of the fighter's head. Amazingly, the creature reached up and wrenched the gory blade from his skull. Then a small, stocky shape barreled into his legs, taking him down.
"Stab me when I'm not looking, will you?" shouted Rings. "Leave me to die in a stinking desert, eh? By Moradin's beard, I'll teach you better, you traitorous wretch!" The dwarf found his axe with one hand and set to work, slamming the heavy blade into Jacob over and over again.
Belgin danced back a step as the false Kern slid to one side, warily eyeing the new threat. The Trandon-doppelganger joined him, pressing Belgin with massive blows that split boards and splintered anything in their path.
"Come on! We can still get them!" he hissed to his comrade in arms.
"Not if I cheat," Belgin said. He raised one hand and spoke an old spell, one of the few he knew that was any good in a fight. From his hand, a green arrowhead of energy streaked out to strike the Trandon-doppelganger in its chest. The bolt of energy slagged at once into a vitriolic patch that seethed and bubbled, eating its way into the creature's body. Shrieking with inhuman pain, the Trandon-thing staggered back and fell, its heels drumming against the rotten planking.
The Kern-duplicate snarled in anger and struck back, cutting a shallow gash across Belgin's left arm and another under his ribs. The sharper riposted, running the doppelganger through its midsection with his rapier. The creature hissed and recoiled, then pressed forward again. "Fine," muttered Belgin. He danced back two steps, steadied his hand, then rammed the point of his rapier into the monster's left eye. The doppelganger collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Belgin panted and watched his fallen foes for signs of consciousness, his wounds stinging abominably.
No one around him was moving.
Aleena lay dazed on the ground, an ugly purple mark on her forehead. Slowly, Miltiades hauled himself to his feet. With his teeth clenched, he spoke a prayer to Tyr, and the blood coursing from his broken armor slowed to a trickle. Rings stood up as well, his axe dripping with gore. Belgin winced and sheathed his rapier.
"Good timing, Rings," the sharper said. "What happened to you? Jacob said you were dead."
The dwarf bared his teeth in a fearsome grin. "Oh, he sure thought I was. We found the portal you marked for us in the desert temple, and then that orc-kissing bastard ran me through without a word. He thought he'd killed me, alright."
"You don't look poorly for a mortally wounded dwarf," Miltiades said with a grimace of pain.
Rings smiled and tugged at a silver band that pierced his eyebrow. "I got better, as they say. Years ago I found this enchanted ring in a mage's tower. It takes time, but the dweomer repairs any injury that doesn't kill me instantly. I never needed it as badly as I did a few hours ago, that's for certain." He looked down at the creature that had imitated Jacob, sprawled beneath him in a spreading pool of blood. He snorted and kicked the motionless form, hard. "Guess you found out about him."
Aleena moaned and stirred. Miltiades limped over to the mage and pressed one hand to her forehead, speaking a prayer. The ugly wound faded, leaving a faint mark. The woman's eyes fluttered open, a little glassy at first. "Doppelgangers," she groaned. "Watch out-"
"We dealt with them," Miltiades said. He helped Aleena to her feet. The mage swayed but quickly found her balance, and her eyes seemed to clear and focus. "You're lucky to be alive. Another inch or two, and the creature would have stove in your skull."
Aleena took in the site with one sweep of her eyes and returned her attention to Rings. "Who's he?"
"A friend whom Jacob didn't kill as thoroughly as he should have," Belgin said. He frowned, thinking. "You know, Miltiades, Jacob must have been a doppelganger all along. He turned on Rings before we returned to Skullport, so he must have been replaced before we set off in pursuit of Eidola."
The paladin crouched by the imposter's body. In death, he still resembled the blond-haired fighter he'd pretended to be; only the great blade of bone that grew from his forearm, a clever mimicry of a sword, marked him as a shapeshifter. "They must have overcome him the first time we were here," he said quietly. "I never suspected. How did he hide his evil from me? That should be impossible."
"Greater doppelgangers can do that," Aleena said quietly. "We had plenty of time to study Eidola. When she wore the Eidola's shape, she was Eidola Boraskyr. In her mind, in her thoughts, she was a perfect mimicry. If the doppelganger that replaced Jacob was one of her kind, he could defeat virtually any test that might reveal his true nature."
"He'd have killed me for certain if Rings had not intervened," Miltiades sighed. He looked up and clapped one hand to the dwarf's shoulder. "My thanks, Rings. I owe you my life."
The dwarven pirate scowled. "Don't thank me, paladin. After what he did to me, I'd have killed him if he was sipping tea with a table full of old maids." He cleaned his axe on Jacob's cloak and thrust it through the loop on his belt. "Say, who's that little rodent?"
Belgin followed his glance, only to find Marks quietly edging into a nearby alleyway. He bounded forward and caught the trailing end of the lasso with one hand. "Oh, no you don't," he said with a cold smile. "We've got places to go, Marks, and you're the fellow who's going to take us there."
I'm going to need a scorecard soon to keep track of the roster changes, Belgin thought absently as they followed Marks through the streets of Skullport. First there were the seven of us, the Sharkers. Then Belmer, who was actually Entreri, killed Kurthe. Brindra perished, fighting the fiends. Anvil was struck d
own by the doppelganger masquerading as Jacob-even though we didn't know that at the time. That pup Noph joined us, and we lost him beneath the mage-king's palace. Rings and I followed Miltiades and Jacob after Eidola… then we lost Rings and Jacob in the city… then Jacob found us, and left us again, as we found Aleena… and now, finally, Jacob is dead and Rings is here again. He rubbed his eyes, realizing suddenly that he couldn't remember the last time he had slept.
"I hope Eidola's having the kind of day I am," he snorted.
"If Tyr smiles on us, hers will turn out much worse," Miltiades said. He attempted to smile, but it came out poorly. Haggard with exhaustion, still pained by the wound Jacob had given him, even Miltiades was near the end of his strength. The paladin grimaced and spoke to Marks. "Well, where is it? We must be on top of the Unseen by now."
The small fence scowled angrily. "We're here. You want that warehouse." At Belgin's doubtful expression, Marks sighed and went on. "We don't have a headquarters or a fortress, you idiots. We don't need much more than a few safehouses and meeting places. You'll want the side door; the front door leads to nothing but an empty storage room."
“Is Eidola there?" Rings asked.
"There's a good chance of it," Marks said. "It's about the best place for her to go to get out of sight and rest for a time."
The four interlopers withdrew to the shadows of a dismal alley across the street from the ramshackle structure Marks had indicated. It seemed innocuous enough, one more disused old building in a town full of them. Miltiades frowned, thinking. "Anything else we should expect?"
"There's a second structure inside the first. In the space between the buildings there are two leucrotta, unchained to roam the building. They'll attack any who don't respond with the correct password. The inner door is marked by a very dangerous glyph, and the room beyond is guarded, usually by four or five doppelgangers in human guise." Marks winced and muttered, trying to resist the rope's compulsion, but he continued despite his efforts. "If there's anyone important here, expect more guards."
"Tell us the password and the name of the glyph," Aleena said.
" 'Derzhim haalva,'" Marks replied. "The glyph is cirr."
The sorceress nodded.”I have no further use for this one, Miltiades."
Without ceremony, the paladin sapped the villain with a short-hafted swing of his warhammer. Marks groaned and sank to the ground. Belgin released the magical lasso from the small man and coiled it at his belt. "What happens if Eidola isn't here?" he asked quietly.
"We'll keep looking," Miltiades answered. "Come on." The paladin led them across the street and into the opposite alleyway, pausing at the door Marks had indicated. He glanced back once to make sure everyone was ready and then pulled the door open and stepped inside.
The interior of the warehouse was nearly pitch-black, littered with casks and crates stacked at odd angles. A rank, rotten smell permeated the building. Aleena quietly produced a slender wand from her sleeve and spoke a word that woke it to soft incandescence. The place was a mazelike tangle of bales and boxes, stacked to create a winding labyrinth. "The room we seek must be hidden deeper inside," she observed.
"Agreed," said Miltiades. He led the way into the rickety mass, threading between leaning stacks of barrels and kegs. Somewhere off in the darkness, beyond their soft globe of light, something large snorted and moved. "The leucrotta," whispered the paladin.
From the darkness, a high, piping voice whispered, "What do we see, eh?"
"Humans. Delicious, delectable humans," answered a second piping voice from the other side of the chamber. "Oh, how fortunate we are today!"
"Now, now, we must first see if we may devour them. They may be friends."
"Perhaps. But who would know if we didn't tell, eh? Eh?"
"We shall be punished if we are caught," admonished the first voice. "No, we must ask to see if they know the password. Do you, delectable humans? Do you know the words?"
"Please, say that you don't," said the second voice.
"Derzhim haalva," snapped Aleena. "Now, leave us be. We have business here."
Silence greeted them. After a long moment, Belgin whispered, "Did they agree?"
"They're not attacking us," Aleena offered.
Keeping a wary eye on the clutter and darkness around them, they picked their way up to a door in the room's far wall. There Aleena quietly disarmed the glyph Marks had warned them of. With one more nervous glance at the darkness behind them, she said, "We can enter any time you're ready. Do we have any reason to think there may be friends within?"
"No, not that I know of," Miltiades said.
"Good." The mage raised her hand and spoke a soft word. An azure nimbus of light sprang into being around each of them, flickering and leaping.
"Aleena! This spell is intended to make someone easier to strike!" Belgin hissed in alarm. "What do you think you're doing?"
The mage smiled grimly. "I know, bard. But if we're going to fight doppelgangers, we'll be able to tell at a glance who is with us and who isn't. The doppelgangers can mimic our faces and features to their hearts' content, but they won't be able to mimic the aura I've just created with this spell. When we step through that door, you can strike at anyone who isn't glowing."
Miltiades, Belgin, and Rings exchanged glances. They remembered what had happened the last time they cornered Eidola. "A sound idea," the paladin said. He readied his hammer and shield, then kicked the door down, leaping inside with a great battle cry: "For Tyr and justice!"
In the room beyond, half a dozen human guards-no, doppelgangers in human guise, Belgin reminded himself-sprang to their feet to meet the attack. The first died under Miltiades's hammer before he even raised his hand in his own defense, and the second fell a moment later to a hissing ray of green energy from Aleena's wand. In the space of a moment, it seemed that everything in the room changed. Three Miltiades now filled the small guardroom, along with two Aleenas and two Rings. A towering hook horror loomed behind them, screeching and clacking its claws. Only the original Miltiades, Rings, and Aleena glowed with faerie fire; their mimics were perfect, but not good enough.
"This makes things much easier," Belgin muttered. No one wasted their attention on his sarcasm. He dashed forward to engage a faux-Aleena, slashing and stabbing with his rapier.
A flash of light and a sudden sharp slap of thunder marked another of Aleena's spells as she downed three more doppelgangers at once with a bolt of lightning. Belgin hurled himself into the fray, still pursuing his original foe. As the sharper finished off his opponent, two doors burst open and more doppelgangers streamed into the room, screaming with rage. "We've got trouble!" he called to his comrades.
"We've got trouble!" echoed a false Belgin who fell on him with a flurry of blows. The sharper grimaced and parried his counterpart's attack. With a quick move he riposted and took his doppelganger through the heart, watching in horror as his own face grayed and contorted with mortal agony. I didn't need to see what I'd look like with a sword between my ribs, he thought grimly. Baring his teeth in determination, he returned to the fight.
The next foe he faced was Eidola.
He blinked in amazement. The doppelganger hesitated, perhaps surprised herself. "You!" she barked, her voice rough as stone. "What will it take to teach you the extent of your folly?" With a bestial roar she shifted into the monstrous form of a minotaur and smashed a colossal axe down at him, a two-handed blow that could have split a tree.
Belgin yelped and dodged back. "Eidola! She's here! The minotaur! No, the cuttlefish! No, the elf mage!" Even as he tried to dodge her attacks, avoid the other doppelgangers boiling into room, and keep track of his comrades, Eidola shifted from shape to shape in a fluid motion that kept him back on his heels. "Damn it, will you just pick one shape and stick to it!"
Eidola, now a tall, handsome elf with a cruel twist to his mouth, raised her (or his?) hands and streamed blue-glowing darts of magical energy at Belgin, Miltiades, and Aleena. The bard tried to duck aside,
but one bolt struck him on the hip, jolting him with a shock that knocked him to his knees. Belgin cursed and tried to rise, but Eidola pressed her advantage, working another spell that struck at him with a lance of scorching fire. When did she learn to cast spells? he thought in disbelief. Even as the fire scorched his shirt and coat, Belgin twisted and slipped behind another doppelganger, using its body to shield him from the flame. With an agonized screech, the creature caught fire and staggered away.
Aleena replied with a powerful invocation that stabbed at Belgin's ears like a dagger of ice. From her hand, a streaming sheet of lightning flashed forward to level the room, blasting false Miltiades and duplicate Rings to ash I and ruin. The Eidola-mage deflected the spell with some manner of magical shield she'd woven held against Aleena's spell. As the roaring thunder died away, Belgin realized that Eidola stood alone at the far side of the room, while he and his companions stood largely unharmed at the other. Between them lay nothing.
In the sudden silence, he stepped forward and said clearly to his comrades, "That's Eidola. She's right there."
The moment shattered. Snarling a curse, Eidola wheeled and dashed back through the doorway she'd emerged from, vanishing into the darkness. Miltiades, streaming blood from a new cut high on his forehead, let loose with a very unpaladin-like howl of rage and thundered after her, brandishing his hammer. Aleena followed, a step behind, pelting after the paladin.
Together, Belgin and Rings sprinted after Miltiades and Eidola.
The chamber beyond the doppelganger lair was nothing more than the topmost landing of a dark, spiralling stairway leading down. Green, rank moss coated the stone with a wet and slippery blanket. Clattering and cursing, Belgin and Rings raced recklessly down into the abyss, trailing the silver gleam and green witch fire of the paladin and the wizard. More than once, the sharper lost his footing and slipped or stumbled a few steps before steadying himself against the narrow walls.
"Does this place have no end to it?" he growled in frustration.
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