Baldur's Gate (19 page)

Other than the one warped wooden door, Abdel and Jaheira could see a handful of large windows, all of which were protected by heavy iron bars.

“It won’t be easy to get in,” Jaheira said.

Abdel grunted again and nodded. He was anxious to be on with it, but he knew he needed the sun to set.

“I’ve never actually done this before,” Jaheira told him. He looked at her, confused, and she said, “I mean, I’ve never broken into a building before. This is burglary, right? We’re thieves now.”

Abdel smiled and shrugged. “We’re spies,” he said.

“What do you think we’ll find in there?” she asked.

“Carts and crates full of iron ore,” he offered. “Maybe some of that iron-weakening potion…”

Jaheira allowed herself her first real laugh in days and said, “Yes, with huge labels that say: Iron-Weakening Potion, Made in Baldur’s Gate by the Iron Throne…”

“… for all your iron-weakening needs,” Abdel finished, and they shared a laugh.

“How did you know I was a Harper?” she asked, breaking the mood for the space of a heartbeat before Abdel started to laugh again.

“No,” she pressed, “I’m serious. I could get into trouble if… well, you weren’t supposed to know.”

“Please, Jaheira,” he said, “you’re not the only Harper I’ve ever met. You people are about as secret as… well, you’re not as secret as the Iron Throne, let’s put it that way.”

She looked at him sharply, going from surprised to offended to horrified and back to amused in a fraction of a second. She smiled and said, “I thought I—I thought we were being so coy.”

“You were on a mission, you said,” Abdel explained. ‘The rest of us were just looking for work.”

Jaheira gasped at that last statement and actually hit him lightly on his powerful arm with her small fist. “That insane mage and that halfling were Zhentarim agents,” she reminded him. “They were on a mission too, I can assure you.”

“True enough,” he agreed, then seemed somehow wistful, “and the mage still has my dagger. Gorion gave me that dagger. I do intend to kill those two.”

“I’m sure you do,” she said “I won’t try to stop you, if that’s what you mean.”

Abdel forced a smile. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He was starting to depend on Jaheira to do just that.

Night came to Baldur’s Gate, and no light was visible through the barred windows of the big building.

“No one’s there,” Abdel said. “It looks empty.”

“We should go.”

Abdel followed Jaheira across the street. They walked arm in arm to allay suspicion, just two young lovers out for an evening stroll along the riverfront. They got to the side door, and Jaheira tested the rusting iron handle.

“Locked,” she whispered.

Abdel brushed her aside lightly and took hold of the handle. He leaned sharply into the door, and it opened inward with a disturbingly loud crack. He smiled at Jaheira, who could see his white teeth in the darkness and said, “Abdel Adrian, Master Thief.”

He almost laughed, but froze instead. She used that name: Abdel Adrian. The only other time he’d heard that was when he met Khalid in the Friendly Arms, what seemed like a lifetime ago. He hadn’t thought anything of it then, but hearing it again now, after all that had happened, for some reason filled him with a nameless, undefined dread, like his heart was suddenly mired in mud.

He couldn’t see her face clearly in the dark, but she tipped her head to one side. He shook his head slowly and forced a smile. He’d just opened the door into what might be no less than the Iron Throne’s secret enclave. Now wasn’t the time for conversation. Determined to ask her about that name as soon as they were finished here, he gently pushed the door open.

Inside there was only impenetrable darkness. Jaheira touched his shoulder, her touch warm and familiar. He bent down to let her get her lips as close to his ear as possible so she could whisper, “I can see.”

Abdel nodded. Jaheira was a half-elf and had inherited her elf parent’s extraordinary night vision. It made Abdel feel a bit better that at least one of them could see, but he still felt at a decided disadvantage. Fumbling around in the dark he was as likely to hurt—or even kill—Jaheira with a misplaced sword thrust as he was to take out a member of the Iron Throne. He shut his eyes tightly, then blinked, hoping his eyes would adjust, and he’d be able to see. It helped a little, but he was worried still.

Jaheira brushed past him and crept lightly into the expansive space. The whole building must have been one single room. Abdel followed closely, and she reached out a hand and grasped his. Abdel didn’t like that they were so close together and without both hands at the ready. He tried to pull away, but she held on tight. He returned her grasp nervously, forcing himself to trust her.

She led him through the building slowly, making a number of zigzagging turns to avoid stacks of big wooden crates that were just enormous black mounds to Abdel’s human eyes. For all he knew, there were a hundred men with crossbows encircling them in the darkness even now, just waiting for a clear head shot. That stack of crates in one corner could as easily be a manticore, stalking them. Abdel wanted to pull his sword and just start swinging it. He had to consciously will his hands away from the pommel, and he tightened his grip on Jaheira’s hand to help. She squeezed back.

She stopped abruptly and uttered a barely audible shush. Abdel wasn’t making any noise, so he knew she wasn’t trying to tell him to be quiet. She was alerting him to something. Abdel opened his eyes as wide as he could, hoping to drink in any spare scrap of light, hoping just to be able to see anything at all. Jaheira didn’t move and out of pure frustration Abdel closed his eyes. When he did, he heard the noise. It was so faint at first he’d assumed it was coming from outside, from the nearly empty street. Voices, deep and resonant male voices, muffled by some intervening structure, echoed in the darkness.

He leaned in close to Jaheira’s ear and didn’t stop until the tip of his nose brushed her fragrant hair.

“Where?” he whispered.

Jaheira didn’t answer but started moving again. Still holding Abdel’s hand, she led him to what even Abdel could see was a wall. At first Abdel thought his light-starved eyes were playing tricks on him, but there it was: a thin strip of flickering orange light. The voices were louder now but still muddy and undefined. The speakers were trying to keep their voices down. Jaheira shifted her weight, moving enough to reveal another source of dim light. From the size and distance from the floor, Abdel assumed it was a keyhole. Jaheira gently tugged him down, and he realized she wanted him to look through it. He obliged, holding the sheath of his sword with his other hand to keep it from rattling on either his own chain mail or the floor.

He blinked once and squinted through the keyhole. From this rather limited perspective he could make out much of the room beyond. There was a wood floor, same as the big warehouse room. Something moved, and the movement startled him. It was a man, maybe an elf—humanoid at least. The figure was in silhouette. He could hear what he thought were two voices. The light must have been coming from a torch or maybe a fireplace. Abdel could feel the heat on his eye.

The two figures conversed a bit more, and Abdel still couldn’t tell what they were saying. The side of the figure he saw blurred, and Abdel blinked. The strain of peering through the little keyhole was obviously affecting his eyesight. When he pulled away he heard the scuffle of feet, and Jaheira put a hand on his shoulder, and he could feel her tense next to him. He didn’t stand, though he desperately wanted to, for fear of making any noise. The footsteps were receding, and there was something about the pattern Abdel couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Steps,” Jaheira whispered in his ear. The sound of the receding footsteps quickly faded away. Abdel could see nothing through the keyhole now but the wood floor and the orange firelight.

He stood slowly and put one hand on the middle of Jaheira’s back. He drew her in to whisper into her ear, but her head wasn’t turned to the side as he’d expected it to be and their noses touched. She gasped and leaned a minute fraction of an inch toward him, and he forgot where he was, what he was doing, and kissed her.

Her lips were warm and soft and welcoming, and lights danced behind Abdel’s closed eyelids. He felt her hand on his chest, and he held her tighter, and her mouth opened just a little more—

—and a bright light blazed in the darkness, and a gruff voice grunted, “Pretty.”

Abdel pushed Jaheira away and drew his sword in the space of time it took the half-elf woman to blink once and close her mouth. Abdel’s eyes burned, and he could only imagine what Jaheira’s more sensitive eyes must feel like.

“Alive!” the voice commanded, and there was the loud stomping of men rushing at him. Abdel, still blinded, holding his stinging, dripping eyes tightly closed against the light, just stabbed out at the sound.

One man went down with a wet thud, and Abdel tried to open his eyes. The light was still too bright, but he could see the outline of a small man in front of him—too close. Abdel couldn’t get a swing in before the figure pushed into him.

“Move!” Jaheira shouted, and Abdel realized it was she who had pushed him. He took three quick steps back and felt the weak wooden door pop open behind him. When they passed through the doorway, Abdel’s eyes cleared enough to see two men—wharf rats, all torn blouses and bandanas, and bad tattoos—cohiing at him with wooden cudgels. He pushed Jaheira to one side of the doorway and hefted his sword, looking to cut both attackers’ heads off with one slice.

Instead, the door slammed shut in his face, knocking the tip of his sword to one side. Jaheira pressed her back against the door and set both feet. The men outside started pounding on the door.

Jaheira, tears streaming out of eyes now bloodshot and aching, said, “Wedge it closed, we’re going downstairs.”

Abdel only shrugged. The little room held only a crude stone fireplace—the crackling fire slowly dying—and a thin wooden stairway leading into darkness below. He didn’t have anything to wedge a door shut with at hand.

Jaheira sighed, then began mumbling the words to another prayer. Abdel stared at her, feeling the pressure of each second as they passed by like hours. The men outside pounded, then leaned against the door trying to push it in. Jaheira looked concerned, but continued her chanting, then closed her eyes. Abdel could hear a creaking noise, faint at first, then a loud cry of warping wood.

“They’re pushing through!” Abdel warned her. “Move aside!”

“Wait,” Jaheira said, “that was me…”

The leader of the wharf rats clearly said the word “crossbows,” and Jaheira jumped away from the door and into Abdel’s arms. The tips of two crossbow bolts appeared in the middle of the door where the back of Jaheira’s head had been only seconds before. Those two were followed by a third, and Jaheira didn’t wait for the fourth. Taking hold of Abdel’s hand she ran down the stairs, and he followed.

“I warped the door closed, but—” Jaheira started to say when they ran right into a strange humanoid creature that was so unnaturally featureless, with smooth gray skin and big, dead eyes, the woman screamed at the sight of it. The creature hissed and as Abdel brought his sword up, having to slide it past his own bulk in the thin stairway, the creature blurred, bulged, and started to transform. Steel plates appeared from nothing, and its eyes shrank to human size, the dark-gray whitening quickly, and the center popping into a medium blue color. Abdel’s sword came down and clanged on a metal plate, sending a spark flying. The thing grunted and fell backward.

Abdel swung his sword around, and Jaheira dodged away, trying to give the big sellsword the room he’d require in the confined space. She wasn’t fast enough, and Abdel had to hesitate. The creature regained its balance, fully transformed now, and it was a man, in plate armor and tabard emblazoned with the heraldry of the Flaming Fist, who then ran away from them into the darkness. Abdel took one step to follow and paused when he heard the crash of the door upstairs breaking free of its hinges. Feet scuffled on the wood floor above.

Jaheira said, “Let’s go!” and tore off after the transformed creature.

Abdel hesitated again. The wharf rats were coming down the stairs, and Abdel turned and put one foot on the bottom step. He met the eyes of the first man down. The thug stopped short, surprised to see Abdel so close to him, sword out in front and ready for the charge. The wharf rat’s comrade couldn’t stop quite as fast, not having seen Abdel, and he inadvertently pushed his friend from behind. The first wharf rat fell onto Abdel’s sword and let out a thin, gurgling whimper as he slid down the length of the blade, stopping only at the polished brass hand guard. Blood poured over Abdel’s hands, and he pushed forward to try to clear his blade.

“Abdel!” Jaheira shouted from down the corridor. “There’s too many of them!”

Abdel didn’t care how many there were, he just wanted to get this one off of his sword. He tried pushing him off, but the press of thugs on the stairs kept pushing their dead friend back onto Abdel’s blade. He couldn’t move sideways in either direction, so he opted for backward. He took only one and a half steps before his back touched the stone wall.

“Abdel!” Jaheira shouted sharply. He still couldn’t free his blade.

One of the wharf rats fired a crossbow bolt, and Abdel was lucky. The steel quarrel clanged harmlessly off the wall next to his right ear.

“Alive, I said!” the gruff voice called out angrily.

Abdel was still trying to clear his blade when another of the featureless gray creatures appeared out of the darkness to his right. This one lifted a thin, gray-skinned hand, and Abdel saw the flash of gold—it was wearing a ring—and the thing touched its cold fingertips to Abdel’s temple. The sellsword distinctly heard the creature whisper a single word: “Sizzle.”

A pain like Abdel had never felt before exploded in his head, and he was conscious of his elbows jerking up with sufficient force to rip the dead wharf rat from gut to shoulder blade, and then there was only darkness, the scuffle of feet, echoing voices, and hands all over him.