Philip Athans - Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn (Forgotten Realms: Computer Tie-In Novels)

Baldurs Gate Trilogy

Book 2

Shadows of Amn

Philip Athans

Late in the summer of the Year of the Banner, AbdelAdrian, son of the God of Murder, returned to Candlekeep a hero.

Gates that had been closed to him only weeks beforewere thrown open this time. A man he'd known all his life, a man who hadaccused him of murder, who had locked him up like an animal, who had all buthanded him into the clutches of the Iron Throne, had embraced him with a smileof relief and confidence.

"Abdel," Tethtoril said, a tear coming tohis eye, "Abdel, I'm so glad you've returned to us. I can only hope yourstay this time will be a long one, and you'll

"Abdel!" a thin, reedy voice soundedbehind him. Abdel turned to see a face he hadn't seen inhow long? A year?

"Imoen," Abdel breathed, meeting theslight girl's hasty embrace. "Imoen, you've grown into

"Don't say it, Abdel," she interrupted, asmile softening her voice and making her eyes dance.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, kid," hetold her, and they embraced again.

She held him and said, "I'm sorry aboutGorion. I'm so sorry."

Abdel's breath caught in his throat, and he forceda weary sigh.

"He didn't die in vain," Tethtoriloffered.

Abdel looked up and was surprised that Tethtorilseemed to have moved farther away. The sky over the secretive bailey ofCandlekeep roiled with green-gray clouds. Abdel could smell lightning butcouldn't see it. He was delighted to be able to return to his home with hishead held high, but there was a heaviness in the air and someone missingno,more than someonetoo many people. Where was Jaheira? She'd come with him fromBaldur's Gate, surely, and there was Xan, but didn't he get lost somewherealong the road? Abdel remembered Xan arguing with the ghoul Korak, thensomething happened

"Abdel," Imoen whispered, her breath coolagainst his bare chest. Abdel didn't remember taking off his shirt. Imoenshivered against him, and he looked down at her. He was easily a foot and ahalf taller than the girl. Imoen was beginning to fill out, her little girl'spronounced joints smoothing into her arms, her hips rounding, and her ribsfading into smooth, pale skin. Her hair was long, and it blew into Abdel'sface, stinging his eyes. He breathed out a little laugh and made to gently pullher away, but she wouldn't let go.

Her small grip on his strong arms tightened andtightened some more when she whispered, "What's happening to me?"

He said her name again, then winced when one of herfingernails pierced his skin. Blood ran out of the wound, trailing down the topof her finger and past her wrist.

"Something's happening to me," shewhispered, her voice deteriorating into a guttural, inhuman grunt. She actuallysnorted, spraying Abdel with freezing-cold spittle.

"Imoen," he said, and when she didn'trespond, he pushed her away more forcefully. He might have been the only man onthe Sword Coast able to push back against her suddenly superhuman strength, buthe had no time to be pleased with his physical prowess. He hissed at the sightof this young girl's face. Her normally refined features were twisted and ugly,and her mouth was growing into a gaping, fang-lined abyss. A tongue, forked andlong like a snake's, shot out and tasted Abdel's bare chest with a touch sochill it made the huge sellsword shudder.

The thing that had once been Imoen made a soundthat made Abdel shout in return, as if he could launch the sound of his ownvoice against it in battle. Imoen's reddening eyes bulged to several timestheir natural size with a look as scared and confused as it was hungry andmalign. A string of curses spat forth from her quivering mouth, alreadybleeding where the razor-sharp edges of her teeth pulled against the purplemass of her lips.

Abdel pushed her farther away, and the touch of hernaked skin was freezing, and the texture was dry and rough, almost scaly. Abdelreached behind him and found the pommel of his sword though he swore hecouldn't feel the strap across his bare chest. The sword came out with a shriekof metal on metal that harmonized with the Imoen-beast's keening wail. Abdeldidn't think about what he was about to do to this girl he'd known since shewas a baby, who'd put up with his sullen moodiness and occasionally crueltaunting through their cloistered childhood, a kid who wanted to follow him onhis adventures and was pushed aside at every turn.

Abdel brought his sword down hard and fast. He cutoff her head and screamed as it fell to the brittle brown grass of Candlekeep,and he was still screaming when he woke up, right into another, all-too-real,nightmare.

* * * * *

Abdel may have been a hero, but he had not returnedto Candlekeep. He saw the light coming from the brazier first, then closed hiseyes and felt the heat. The copper bowl full of orange-hot embers was too closeto him. He tried to bend away from it, but his naked back moved only a fractionof an inch before it met a rough, cold stone wall. Abdel flinched away andadjusted again. Try as he might in those first few moments between dream andreality, he couldn't find the happy medium his body was demanding.

The unforgiving iron manacles chaffed his wrists,and the sound the chains made when he moved mocked him. Abdel growled, a low,animal noise deep in his throat, and clenched his fists.

He blinked his eyes open and saw a man enter thecell. He was short and fat, with a stinking abundance of body hair thick withsweat around the black leather straps of his simple girdle and harness. Therewere tools hanging from the straps, most of which Abdel didn't recognize. The strangeman met Abdel's gaze and smiled, revealing a single tooth hanging yellow andjagged from his upper gum. The man's beard was uneven, broken by a rough burnscar that did nothing to add attractiveness or even character to his roundface.

"You are awake," the man said slowly,careful to pronounce each word as if language was new to him, or at the veryleast difficult.

"Jailer..." Abdel started to say, thenhis parched throat closed on him, and his eyes watered. He sucked in a breathand started choking from the smoke from the brazier, dehydration, and the achefrom a bruise he didn't remember getting.

"Dungeon master," the man murmured,looking away from Abdel, then pausing as if seeing the brazier for the firsttime. As he reached up to grab a poker hanging from a hook on the wall toAbdel's right, he said, "Dungeon master, not jailer. This is not a jail,it is a dungeon."

Abdel sighed, trying to meet the man's blank,glazed stare, but to no avail. The man was an idiot.

"What" Abdel croaked as the man set thepoker into the burning coals and held it there. "What is your name,Dungeon Master?"

The man smiled but didn't look at Abdel."Booter," he said, "is my name. My name is Booter."

"Where am I?" Abdel asked, his voicebeginning to really come back now. "How did I get here?"

"My boss's place," Booter drawled,scraping the tip of the iron poker against the bottom of the copper bowl."My boss took you. I do not know where he took you from."

"Who is your boss?" Abdel asked, eyeingthe poker suspiciously. He could feel the anger building, and though he wasstarting to remember trying to pull the chains out of the wall and failing, hekept his voice as level as he could.

"Who is your boss?" Abdel asked again asBooter pulled the poker out of the hot coals and dragged it across Abdel'schest. He screamed, smelling his own skin and hair burning and feeling everypopping blister and seared inch of flesh in a pain that was almost a livingthing on its own. His scream drowned out most of Booter's answer to his lastquestion, but Abdel was sure he heard the man say "Shadow Thieves."

He couldn't be in Amn, could he?

Abdel had seen Jaheira murdered by Sarevok. As hewent to spill his half-brother's vile blood, Jaheira was returned to the worldof the living by the prayers of the priests of Gond at the request ofsoon-to-be Grand Duke Angelo of Baldur's Gate. It was fully a day afterSarevok's death that Abdel saw Jaheira alive again. She'd cried in his arms,and Abdel, drained of his ability to feel anything, just held her. They sleptlittle, though the sense of relief was there. So much was over, but so much hadbeen lost in the process. Instead of sleeping, they went on long walks throughthe dark streets of Baldur's Gate. Citizens, merchants, tradesmen, and soldiersalike recognized Abdel and tipped their chins to him in silent thanks. Word ofSarevok's deadly plans spread quickly through Baldur's Gate, a city, like somany others, that all but ran on gossip.