Baldur's Gate (27 page)

The face of the person who’d been following them since they’d returned to Baldur’s Gate came around the corner slowly, eyes like slits in the darkness. Abdel spun around and grabbed for the stranger. He caught half a handful of smooth, cool fabric then his arm was batted away, the blow making his wrist tingle though it came so quickly he didn’t see it. He felt something on his shoulder, and his vision went dark for the briefest moment. He stepped back and spun around at the sound of a voice from above.

“I am not your enemy.”

The voice was quiet, precise, and the accent was unrecognizable.

“Abdel,” Jaheira whispered behind him, and the sellsword gasped and spun, going half for his sword. Jaheira squeaked in surprise and jumped back.

“Don’t do that!” she said, too loudly, then flinched again when Abdel put a hand up to silence her. He turned around and looked up at the balcony. The stranger moved up onto the stone rail and stepped off. falling what must have been fifteen feet and landing as softly as if it had been an inch. It was a woman, short and thin of frame, dressed in a close-fitting black garment unlike any Abdel had ever seen. Her face was hidden behind a mask that showed only her eyes, eyes the sellsword thought must have been eastern—Shou, or maybe Kozakuran.

“Who’s that?” Jaheira asked. The stranger stepped back into the darkness of the alley, motioning Abdel to follow. The sellsword tipped his head to one side, but didn’t follow her.

“My name is Tamoko,” the woman said from the shadows.

“Why are you following us?” Abdel asked.

Jaheira drew her blade but didn’t move forward.

“I know you are not Shadow Thieves,” Tamoko said quietly. “I know you are not attempting to start this war, but avoid it.”

“What war?” Jaheira asked. “War with Amn?”

“Grand Duke Eltan is dying,” Tamoko said, still ignoring Jaheira. “The healer is not what he seems.”

With that Tamoko stepped back into the shadows. Abdel rushed forward with Jaheira at his side and though they were at the entrance to the alley in less than a second, the dark woman was gone.

If they hadn’t spent as much time in the company of the festering ghoul Korak, Abdel and Jaheira wouldn’t have been able to stand being in the alley as long as it took the guards to finish searching the place for them. The fish stew that filled the rusting metal bins they were hiding next to couldn’t have been very good, even before it was thrown away. Abdel looked at Jaheira’s face and in the predawn darkness of the alley he could see she was almost gagging with every breath.

“What’s keeping them?” Jaheira asked in a voice dripping venom and impatience.

“It’s a big place,” Abdel answered. “The Blushing Mermaid goes on forever … almost, with wings attached to wings attached to wings. If they really think we’re in there, it could take a long time.”

Jaheira held a hand over her mouth, but Abdel could still hear her say, “Well, I guess the longer they’re in there, the more thorough a search they give the place, the less likely they’ll be to think they missed us and come back again. Besides, the reek is the only thing keeping me awake right now.”

Abdel nodded and looked up at the sky, which had turned a dark blue with the approaching dawn.

They didn’t have much longer to wait, and when the guards came out it was hard to miss them. They were a noisy, boisterous lot who seemed to have spent more time in the Blushing Mermaid drinking than searching. Abdel and Jaheira forced themselves to be patient until the guards’ voices faded down the maze of crooked streets.

They slipped into a side door and got only a passing, disinterested glance from a halfling cook who was standing on a little wooden stool, stirring a huge black caldron full of that vile fish stew. They made their way out of the kitchens and into the tavern proper. Abdel held back behind a greasy curtain, letting Jaheira slip into the common room alone. He watched her cross the dark, low-ceilinged barroom inhabited by only a scattering of wee hour drinkers. A few of them were passed out on or under tables. One table was occupied by a group of nearly a dozen sailors, still singing some sea shanty and clapping while a woman, who looked so tired she might have been the Goddess of Tired, danced for their amusement and the odd tossed silver piece.

Not even the sailors noticed Jaheira slip into the room, so Abdel followed her to a table far away from the loud group. When he passed the bar a young man in loose-fitting ring mail looked up at Abdel with bleary eyes.

“Julius,” Abdel said, stopping abruptly enough to draw the momentary attention of a couple of the sailors. Abdel looked back at them, and they turned away from his steely gaze. He reached out and took the young guardsman by the shoulder.

” ‘Ey,” Julius slurred weakly. He reeked of stale beer and sweat.

Abdel dragged Julius to the table where Jaheira was staring at them both expectantly. Julius sat down heavily— was sat down actually—on one of the little stools, and his head bobbed loosely on his neck.

“Finish me off, why don’t you?” he murmured, making passing eye contact with Jaheira. His nose was swollen and purple and big bruises were forming under both his eyes. He had jammed bits of blood-soaked cloth up both nostrils, which only made his voice weaker, comical.

“Julius,” Abdel said gravely, “we need some time. You’re not going to turn us in, are you?”

Julius sat swaying gently for a few moments, trying to choose one of the Abdels he saw. Abdel glanced over his own right shoulder to try to see what Julius was looking at.

“To the Abyss with ‘em all, my big, giant friend. They busted me, d’you believe that? They busted me to footman,” the young guard said.

“Julius,” Jaheira said, having to just hope he could understand her. “The guard at the palace told us Eltan is dying. What’s been going on here?”

“Eltan Schmeltan …” Julius murmured. “He can kiss my—”

“Julius,” Abdel said roughly, and the young guard laughed sloppily and tried to sock Abdel in the arm playfully but just waved impotently in the air.

“Yeah… yeah… Eltan,” Julius said around sudden, violent hiccups. “He’s taken… he’s taken… he’s taken…”

“Ill?” Jaheira provided.

“Yes,” Julius said, scratching at his hair like a dog. “That too.”

“Julius,” Abdel said, but the young guard didn’t look up, he just snored loudly. “Julius!” Abdel shouted, and the sailors all looked at him. The dancing woman sat down and sighed.

“Hey, swabby,” one of the sailors called, “keep it down.”

Abdel ignored the sailor and shook Julius awake.

The guard smiled and said, “They busted me to footman, so now I gotta wear this damned ring mail. I hate ring mail. It—”

The door to the street burst open, and an enormously fat woman surged into the tavern, panting and sweating.

“Whoa,” Julius said and nearly fell off his chair. The woman crossed to the bartender and told him something Abdel couldn’t hear, though the woman’s face told him the news was urgent and grave. Even the sailors were looking at the bartender in anticipation.

“Hey up!” the bartender shouted, sliding to the center of the long bar. “Hey up!”

Even some of the passed-out drunks, whose eyes were growing red and puffy, looked up at the bartender.

“Dawn breaks over a sad city,” the bartender said, his voice gravelly and loud, “for Grand Duke Eltan is dead!”

The woman who’d been dancing for the sailors gasped and began to cry. The sailors regarded her for a few seconds, some seeming legitimately worried, then they all shrugged in turn and started talking about what a bastard their first mate was.

Abdel turned to look at Jaheira. Her face was a stone mask—as hopeless as he’d ever seen her.

“Angelo,” Julius murmured. “I have to take orders from Angelo.”

“Angelo?” Abdel asked, “The half-elf?”

Julius nodded loosely and said, “Aye, sir. He’s taken over the Flaming Fist. Now there’ll be nobody to stop the ducal election from going to whatsisname.”

“Who?” Jaheira asked.

“Sarevok,” Julius said sluggishly. “It’ll be Grand Duke Sarevok.”

Abdel was hesitant to follow Julius’s stammered, mumbled directions, but had little choice. As another day dawned over Baldur’s Gate, Abdel and Jaheira stole cloaks off a wash line and went through the waking streets with hoods drawn over their faces. They kept to opposite sides of the street, assuming the guards would be looking for a couple, but kept each other in the corner of their vision all the way.

They followed Julius’s directions and came around the back of the ducal palace, keeping to the still shadowy alley facing the rear gate from which Julius claimed the ducal healer would eventually emerge. There was something about the healer—Kendal was his name—that Abdel didn’t like the first time they’d met him. Now they had this strange eastern woman tell them there was something amiss with the healer the very night that Eltan, under Kendal’s care, died of some mysterious ailment. Abdel only hoped Julius, who was passed out in the Blushing Mermaid when they left him, wouldn’t remember telling them where to go, or even remember meeting them at all, and tell his superiors.

Abdel forced himself not to think about what else Julius had to say. If it was true that his half brother Sarevok was here in Baldur’s Gate, was Reiltar’s man on the Sword Coast, was responsible for the whole bloody mess, what was he going to do? If Sarevok became grand duke, if Eltan was dead and even Tethtoril had turned against him, what could the two of them do against—

The door opened, and Abdel and Jaheira stepped silently back into the shadowy alley and watched Kendal stride quickly, casually, out into the street. The sellsword and the half-elf glanced at each other and followed the healer into the maze of slowly waking streets. Kendal took what could only have been a purposefully meandering path through the streets. Though it wasn’t difficult to follow him, both Abdel and Jaheira were becoming more and more wary of being caught out in the open. It was with some relief that they saw Kendal ditch into a dark, thin alleyway. They followed him into the shadows and stopped when they saw him change.

By the time Kendal reached the end of the alley—less than a dozen yards at most—he’d blurred around the edges and faded into a new form altogether. What came out the other end of the alley was a young woman, carrying not a bag of medicines, potions, and such but a basket of fresh cut flowers.

Jaheira breathed out through her nose, and Abdel took her by the elbow and nudged her gently forward. The doppelganger continued on its way—actually paused twice to sell flowers to passersby—then slipped into another alley without ever looking behind it. Abdel and Jaheira circled around quickly and were at the other end of the alley before the doppelganger emerged, this time in the form of a burly laborer in mud-stained coveralls.

Abdel and Jaheira hid behind an apple cart and watched the doppelganger disappear down another side street. They moved quickly along the next block, hoping to cut the doppelganger off, but when they cut through an alley, back to the street they’d seen the creature turn down, there was no sign of the laborer. The street was all but empty. The sun had barely peeked over the city wall.

“Damn them all,” Abdel whispered.

“I hate those damned doppelgangers,” Jaheira said.

“As do I,” replied a voice from behind them.

They turned and saw what could only be the slight eastern woman from the night before. She was dressed in shimmering black silk that Abdel thought must have cost her a king’s ransom. The sword that hung loosely from a cord around her neck was thin and curved gracefully. The hand guard was a simple oval with a cloth-of-gold-wrapped pommel long enough for two hands. Abdel had never seen a sword like it.

“It is a katana,”Tamoko said, noticing Abdel noticing her weapon.

Abdel nodded once and said, “And you’re a doppelganger.”

Tamoko smiled sadly. “I understand that that possibility would exist,” she said, “but I am not.”

“Who are you?” Jaheira asked, her brow furrowed.

Tamoko nodded in the direction of an alley and stepped in, this time making no attempt to hide herself. Abdel and Jaheira reluctantly followed. Jaheira drew the silver dagger, and this elicited a tiny, knowing smile from Tamoko. Abdel almost returned the smile. This strange woman’s face was not unlike Jaheira’s. Her ears showed no trace of elf blood, but her features were strangely sylvan.

“I can take you to the Iron Throne,” Tamoko said simply.

Jaheira laughed in response and said, “Can you really? And will they wait to kill us there or pounce on us in the street?”

“They will not expect anyone to be coming in from this entrance. You will be able to kill them all and—”

“This is ludicrous,” Jaheira interrupted. “Abdel…”

The sellsword held up a hand, and Jaheira’s look all but burned into his flesh.

“My friend is right,” Abdel said to Tamoko. “We have no reason to trust you… or anyone in this pit of shapeshifters.”

“I am your brother’s lover,” she said, locking her eyes onto his. Abdel felt the truth radiate from them. She was speaking so simply, so plainly, and never wavering. He had no real reason to, but he believed her.

“Sarevok?” Abdel asked, the name almost tripping on his tongue.

Tamoko nodded once. “I can help you, but you must not kill him.”

“This is madness,” Jaheira scoffed. “This lover of yours is going to start a war. Thousands of people are going to die. He’s already killed two of the most powerful men in Baldur’s Gate, and others…” Jaheira stepped forward and bent the elbow of her sword arm just slightly. Tamoko fixed her gaze on the tip of Jaheira’s blade. Abdel could feel what was about to happen and didn’t like the feeling one bit.

“No one believes us,” Abdel said then, just letting the words pour out. “They’ve accused us of murder, of being Shadow Thieves, of being Amnian spies, of the gods only know what else. They’ve killed all of our friends, all of our contacts. We’re alone against this man—my brother if that’s what he is—who by nightfall will be the next grand duke. There might be people left who can help us, but they will need proof.” Abdel spared a long, telling glance at Jaheira and added, “They will need written proof.”