Shadows of Amn

Chapter Twenty-One

Jaheira was practically panting, and Yoshimo's hand was still on her shoulder for a very long time after Imoen had collapsed back into a deep but fitful sleep.

"She might kill us all before she dies," Yoshimo said.

Jaheira spun out of his grip and spat, "That's enough!"

The Kozakuran bowed his head, his eyes fixed on Jaheira's, and took one deliberate step back.

"She is possessed," he said pointedly.

Jaheira closed her eyes, calmed herself a little, and said, "I wish it was that easy, Yoshimo."

She opened her eyes and saw that Yoshimo was looking down at Imoen, his right hand resting uneasily on his sword hilt. She needed to get the Kozakuran away from Imoen before he tried to do something either cowardly or heroic. She stepped to him and put a firm hand on his chest.

"Let's let her rest," she said.

Yoshimo glanced at her, then back at Imoen, and said, "Wouldn't it be the safest thing?"

"Her soul is being drawn away from her and into the part of her blood that carries the essence of the God of Murder," Jaheira explained. "You haven't seen what she's capable of. A burst of temper and an unsettling change in the tone of her voice … you have no idea, Yoshimo."

"All the more reason," he said, looking Jaheira in the eye. "There may not be another chance."

Jaheira pushed him gently and said, "Let's talk about this outside."

Yoshimo looked down and nodded reluctantly. "You have a few moments, but if she moves again…"

Jaheira sighed, happy to feel Yoshimo step back, happier to see him turn and duck out of the lean-to.

"If I have to," she said to his receding back, "I'll kill her myself."

She followed him out, and they walked a short distance in silence before Yoshimo turned to her and said, "What will convince you that you have to?"

"All hope exhausted," she answered flatly.

"Spoken like a true priestess," was his curt reply.

"Druid, actually," she joked, though her heart wasn't in the banter.

"There's a chance Abdel has already failed," Yoshimo said. "I understand your confidence in him, but Bodhi is no ordinary woman and more than a match for your strong young friend, blood of a god or no."

"I'll have to tell you again that you have no idea what this god's blood can do."

Bodhi's whole body exploded in pain—a kind of burning agony she hadn't experienced since before she'd become a vampire. Things had pierced her flesh before, but weapons of steel or claw never hurt her. A blade had to be enchanted to make her bleed. No fist could bruise her, and no claw could rend her, but here she was, being torn apart by this thing's bare hands.

She'd tried to speak to him, to hypnotize him, to run from him, but nothing worked. The roof had been ripped off the Copper Coronet, revealing the dark, moonless sky. The thing that was once Abdel Adrian had destroyed the tavern, then turned its full attention on Bodhi. She'd even tried to tell him where to find the pieces of the Rynn Lanthorn. She'd tried admitting all her lies and manipulations. She'd even said she was sorry.

It took her leg off, and the pain was literally blinding. It ripped her arm off, and she almost passed out. She could feel cool blood drying all over her.

The creature bit into her chest, and she could feel her heart burst, and more blood exploded out everywhere. One of her breasts came off in its mouth, and she screamed. The sound was as alien in her ears as it was in her throat.

"Abdel!" she screamed, the blood that had filled her throat fountaining out with the name. "I love you … I loved you, Abdel…."

The inhuman, wild eyes that had been burning a solid, hot yellow flickered, and the huge, misshapen head tilted to one side.

"Abdel," Bodhi said, and for the first time in more years than most humans could count, she started to cry.

He started coming back all at once, and watching his transformation actually succeeded in distracting Bodhi from the fact that she'd been ripped to pieces. There were few enough ways to kill a vampire, but that was one of them. Her head was still attached to her shoulders though, and at least some part of her heart still quivered spasmodically in her chest. Bodhi came to the nightmare realization that she could live for hours, no days, years, even centuries just exactly like this—in agony.

"Bodhi," he said, in a voice that almost sounded like Abdel's.

"Abdel, please …" she said.

His hand came back to normal in the time it took for him to reach for, grab hold of, and lift the sharp half of the broken wooden stake. The yellow faded from his eyes.

"Where?" he asked, his all too human face covered, dripping in blood.

She coughed out another gout of cool red blood and said, "My casket… under the soil. In the dirt."

A tear slipped out of one of Abdel's eyes, and Bodhi hoped it would fall on her. It might have, but she couldn't see or feel it.

"Careful," she whispered, shifting her blood-drenched shoulders to turn her open chest to him. The movement sent wave after wave of burning agony through her, but she had to do it. It would be hard enough.

Abdel held the point of the stake over the last remaining fragment of Bodhi's heart.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She felt the stake go in, heard something that might have been dry leaves blowing over stone, and there was nothing.

Finally.

Jaheira was about to turn and go back to the lean-to when a blast of hot air blew her off her feet.

She slid to a stop through a bed of dried leaves and came to rest pushed up against the sprawled form of Yoshimo.

"By the long departed," the Kozakuran exclaimed, "she exploded!"

Jaheira got to her feet, ignored her shaking knees, and took one step toward the lean-to before looking up. When she did look up, what she saw made her stop in her tracks.

The shelter was gone—apparently consumed by what looked like a whirlpool of gray, black, and silver smoke. The whirlpool was standing on end, perpendicular to the ground. A man stepped out through the whirling winds still pouring out of the gate as if he was strolling into a friendly tavern for a night of play. He saw Jaheira and smiled.

"Irenicus!" Jaheira sneered.

The necromancer didn't answer, just leaned down, his feet still lost in the whirling magical clouds. He rose with something in his hand—an arm, thin and pale. It was Imoen's arm.

A spell came to Jaheira's mind, and she started her prayer, running through the words as quickly as she could, but finding they fell into their own rhythm, refusing to be hurried.

Irenicus spared her an unconcerned glance before scooping the rest of Imoen's limp form into his arms and simply stepping back.

Jaheira's spell drew to a close the exact moment Irenicus and Imoen faded from sight. A bolt of lightning, easily as big around as Jaheira was tall, crashed into the magical gateway, and Jaheira closed her eyes against the blinding flash. Her hair stood on end, and her skin crawled.

Yoshimo said something in a language Jaheira didn't understand, and she opened her eyes.

The whirlpool was gone, and so were Irenicus and Imoen.

"More than one problem solved," Yoshimo mumbled, "I should say."

Jaheira collapsed to the ground and slammed her fist into the uncaring earth.

Abdel fell more than walked down the stairs into the basement. He was covered in freezing gore and nearly blind with a crushing load of guilt and self-loathing. He found a barrel of water and ripped it open with his bare hands. He spilled it over himself and was immediately drenched. He rubbed the blood off his skin as best he could; his need to be cleaned of Bodhi's gore far outweighing his need to retrieve the pieces of the Rynn Lanthorn.

She'd told him where it was, and he'd killed her—mission accomplished. Abdel knew that back in Tethir, if they knew, they'd be cheering, reveling in their chance to defeat Irenicus. Abdel still wanted to care, but at this exact moment and in this exact place, he couldn't. All he wanted to do right now was go back—crawl back if he had to—to Candlekeep and just hide himself away. Here was more blood spilled because he was the son of Bhaal. More blood and more and more. He could just stay in Candlekeep, behind the walls, in the monastery. What better place? Who better than the monks to find some way to rip this curse out of him or kill him trying?

He looked at himself, and there was still so much blood on him. He saw the water from the barrel running to, then through the trapdoor. The casket was there, and the artifact the elves needed so much—that he needed so much—and that Imoen needed so much.

Imoen.

They could go back to Candlekeep together.

Abdel stood and walked purposefully to the trapdoor. He opened it without hesitation. The lanthorn would solve two problems. One more immediate than the other.

He dumped the soil out of Bodhi's casket and heard metal clatter on the wood as the jagged pieces dropped to the dirt floor. Abdel scooped them up in his big, bloodstained hands, and, just as Elhan's mages had promised him they would, the fragments caused a teleport to activate, and the root cellar was gone in a flash of blue light.