Abdel drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and the thing made eye contact with him. Abdel could feel the waves of paralyzing panic practically inundating him from both Elhan on his left and Jaheira on his right.
The creature's eyes flashed violet light at Abdel, and something about that look made the injured sellsword say, "Imoen."
The thing nodded. It made a sound that all who heard it wished to whatever gods they worshiped wasn't a laugh, and crawled completely out of the ooze-filled chest cavity of the dead Ravager. The thing stood on backward-bending legs and crouched.
Abdel felt for the Kozakuran's sword, but found only a blast of pain from his shredded shoulder. The creature seemed to nod at Abdel again, then it leaped into the air, flinging itself straight up into the heavens like a crossbow bolt. In less than a second it had faded to a point, then nothing against the blazing blue sky.
"Oh, no," Jaheira sighed.
"I'll live," the sellsword managed to croak. The effort sent pain raging up and down his dry throat.
Jaheira put a warm, gentle finger to his lips and said, "Don't. You're healing, thanks to that blood of yours, but you need time."
Abdel forced a smile, knowing full well that time was something they didn't have in abundance.
Elhan couldn't keep his eyes off the tattered remains of the Ravager, even to look at the smoking ruin the proud tree-city of Suldanessellar had been reduced to.
"Where's Ellesime?" Jaheira asked finally.
Elhan spun on her, his eyes wild. He calmed himself quickly, taking a deep breath, then said, "The queen is safe. Ellesime is in Myth Rhynn."
Abdel and Jaheira exchanged a long, pained, exhausted look, and the sellsword began the painful process of trying to stand up.
Ellesime screamed again, and the guards near her cringed at the sound of pure, desperate fear in their queen's shriek.
The link she'd shared with Irenicus for centuries uncounted had never been one of words or even tangible thoughts. The two were simply aware of each other. Now, for Ellesime to have said that something had changed would be an incredible understatement. The man at the other end of this joining of spirits was at once in mortal agony and riding a cresting wave of self-satisfied triumph. The horror of what Irenicus had become and the feel of his soul unraveling alongside hers was what was making Ellesime scream.
For their parts, the elves who had accompanied her to Myth Rhynn couldn't possibly have imagined what she was going through. The guards were busily fortifying the crumbling structure of what one of the mages had described as a wing of Myth Rhynn's ancient library. The soldiers knew only that the walls were full of holes and there was no ceiling.
They'd heard only pieces, gleaned from magical mind-to-mind communication with loved ones left behind in Suldanessellar, that the creature was dead, but that a new creature was coming. This one had taken to the air, and the guards now looked at the sky above their ring of ancient walls with dread and the simple knowledge that they couldn't keep the thing out, so they'd have to die fighting it.
All of the elves were uncomfortable within the normally forbidden confines of the ruined mythal city, but doubly so the handful of mages they'd brought with them. The elf wizards were busily studying long, time-weathered scrolls and gathering little piles of odds and ends where they'd be in easy reach.
Abdel, Jaheira, and Elhan's sudden appearance in the middle of the crumbling structure made more than one of the elves go suddenly to his guard. One wizard very nearly got a spell off before dismissing it with an impatient grumble, "One less against the beast."
Elhan, dizzy from the teleport, stumbled to Ellesime's side and spoke to her briefly in Elvish.
"I can feel him falling apart," the queen said weakly. "He can't control it."
Abdel, his shoulder now a mass of red, tender skin and his side almost completely healed, squeezed the grip of the enchanted sword. He'd have to choose between this woman, this elf queen who was a vision of such beauty Abdel had never thought possible, and the life of the little girl he remembered playing with in Winthrop's wine cellar.
"How do we k—stop it?" Abdel asked the queen. "That thing was once.. was once a young, impetuous girl, who deserved none of this."
Ellesime nodded, then winced in unseen pain. "I met him here," she said, her voice weak. "It was in this library. I wanted him to come for me here, with this avatar of his. If he saw me here, again, all this time later, maybe … maybe … At least it's far enough away from the Tree of Life."
"There is another life at stake, your majesty," Jaheira prompted, running as much as all the others on adrenaline, impatience, and sheer terror.
"Your sister," Ellesime said, addressing Abdel directly for the first time, "is not like you."
Abdel drew in a breath and took a step forward that made the elf warriors move to intercept him. He backed away just enough to let them know that if he wanted to get past them, they wouldn't be able to stop him.
"She's enough like me," Abdel hissed, "so that your old lover could turn her into that… that…"
"It would have been an avatar," Ellesime said, "if Bhaal were alive. Instead, it's just. . close enough. It can kill me, this new one, the Slayer. Your sister's blood was lying dormant, where yours was given a chance to show itself. What occupation did your foster father allow you to pursue? Sellsword? Mercenary?"
Abdel nodded.
"And Imoen's?" the queen asked.
"Her foster father was Winthrop," Abdel said, "an innkeeper. Not quite as serious a man as Gorion. Imoen was a happy, precocious girl."
"And there was nothing to draw the Bhaal out of her," Jaheira, understanding, added.
"What could all this matter now?" Abdel asked, his brow furrowing in anger. "I have to kill her. You've brought us all here, and now there's only one way to stop all this. To keep this Slayer of Irenicus's from killing you—from killing us all—I have to kill Imoen."
"No," Ellesime said, "there is a chance…."
Chapter Twenty-Five
Irenicus appeared in the center of Suldanessellar in the guise of an elf. Any number of the mages running all around him in a panic to aid in the recovery of survivors could have identified the disguise with a word and the wave of a finger or two. The pandemonium around him was as good a disguise as the illusion. He stood at the base of the Tree of Life unmolested.
He smiled up at it and closed his eyes. He could feel its power pulse through him like a second heartbeat. The tree was life, and for Irenicus, it would be eternal life.
He sank to his knees and touched his forehead to the holy ground. Looking like one of hundreds of elf believers who came to commune with the tree every day, Irenicus started to repeat the words of the ritual.
Her reached out with his left hand, and the tips of his fingers brushed the warm bark of the Tree of Life.
His arm quivered with the power pulsing through it and into Irenicus's heart.
"Forever," Irenicus said, "Forever. Forever. Forever…"
The sound Queen Ellesime made was worse than any scream Abdel had ever heard. It was the kind of tortured wail that could only be made by someone who'd lived long enough to understand the true significance of what was happening to her.
"The Tree," she coughed. "Irenicus … is at the Tree of Life!"
"Ellesime," Elhan said, following her name with a soothing string of Elvish words Abdel didn't understand.