Shadows of Amn

Abdel swallowed in a throat suddenly dry.

"They've got Jaheira and Imoen there too," Bodhi said. "I can get you there and get you in." Bodhi looked up at the ceiling, not looking at him. "It must be near dawn up there."

Abdel glanced up at the ceiling himself and found no answers there.

"I have to go," she said.

"If Jaheira and Imoen are being kept at this madhouse as you say," Abdel told her, "nothing could keep me from going there."

"And will you help my brother?" she asked.

Abdel sighed. He'd been manipulated into all of this but.. "Of course," he promised.

"I have to go," she whispered, tracing something into a scatter of sawdust on the floor. "You will see this mark on a wall at the base of the tallest tower on the island. As quickly as you can, say the word 'nchasme' or you will be burned to cinders. A way in will be opened for you."

"Wait," he said, an edge he didn't like still playing havoc with his voice. "Stay with me—I mean … go with me."

She moved slowly to the stairs and put one foot on the bottom step. He took a step toward her but knew he couldn't go any closer.

"I can't," she said simply. "It's almost..»

"Bodhi," he said.

"The captain can get you there," she said, her voice loud and clear. "There's only one madhouse. It's on an island. You'll need a boat. I beg you … I beg you to go there. And remember the word—"

"Nchasme," he repeated, glancing down at the sawdust. She'd traced two wavy, parallel lines like water, with something that might have been an eye between them on the right-hand side.

Her eyes red and her face drawn and weary, she looked back at him. With a tight, forced smile, she ascended the steps, opened the door, and passed quickly through it.

Chapter Eight

Having taken the form of a bat, Bodhi flew with all her still considerable strength to race the lightening sky to the asylum's jagged, unforgiving towers.

She alighted on a high minaret and turned her face to the east. The sky was a deep blue that became both lighter and more blue as she transformed into a woman again. Hanging sixty feet from the ground in a slim, shuttered window, Bodhi sneered at the patch of crinkled gray-brown horizon that would soon enough explode into a light that would fry her to ashes with its first tentative reawakening. Bodhi hated the sun, despised the light. Every day mocked her, showed her that as long as she lived—through century after century of supreme immortality—she still had a weakness.

She looked down at the waves crashing over the rocks below and thought of Abdel. A surge of power, riding on the god's blood even now coursing through her own brittle veins, passed over her, and she smiled, letting her long, graceful canine teeth slip from the protective wrap of her gums. She hissed at the sun as the first sliver of it broke the line of the horizon.

The light touched her hand as—still hissing her impotent defiance—she backed into the window and went to draw the shutter behind her. Where the light touched her there was an uncomfortable heat, just on the edge of pain. Bodhi drew the shutter closed all the way and held her singed hand in her other, examining it closely. The sun's light had touched it. It should have all but burned off, but instead it was barely kissed with red.

She smiled and drew in a breath, almost considering throwing wide the shutters to spit her challenge at the hated sun. Instead, she moved to the door leading to the stairs down, which led to more stairs down, which led to a little locked room where sat an old, weathered casket. Abdel, she thought, Son of Bhaal.

In the days since Minsc started working at the Copper Coronet, the place had never been so clean. After a full night of working, the red-haired madman always stayed through the morning to clean up and wouldn't go to sleep until the miniature giant space hamster he carried with him told him it was all right. No one was happier about this than Abdel, who returned to the tavern exhausted, still crammed into his borrowed trousers, and in need of a boat.

When the big sellsword came up the stairs from the cellar, Minsc greeted him with a smile and said, "The big man, Boo, it's the big man!"

"Minsc," Abdel said, "I need your help."

Minsc smiled and looked down at the little animal sitting contentedly on his shoulder, nodded, and said, "Anything you want, if you help me move the captain."

Abdel stepped into the common room, a dark space that smelled noticeably better now than it did the last time Abdel was here. There were no windows, and though the sun was bright outside, Minsc was working by the light of a single candle. In a particularly dark corner was a grizzled old man, passed out and snoring loudly.

"The captain?" Abdel asked, vaguely recognizing the old drunk.

Minsc nodded, still smiling, and crossed to the old man. "Let's go, Captain Havarian! Closing time!"

Abdel smiled for the first time in a long time and tried to think of a god to thank. "This man has a ship?" he asked Minsc.

Minsc shrugged, lightly tapping the old man's face, and said, "He's supposed to be some kind of big pirate captain, but he's been here—alone—every night since I've been here."

"I need him awake," Abdel said, glancing around the tavern until his eyes stopped on Minsc's wash bucket. "I need a ship."

Abdel picked up the bucket and threw the full load of water square into the old man's face. Havarian burst into blustering consciousness, roaring a word that made even Abdel blush before barking out, "We're scuttled, lads, we're hard aground!"

Minsc laughed loudly, and Abdel put a hand on the delirious pirate's shoulder in a futile attempt to steady him.

"What in the name of blue-green Sekolah. ." the pirate sputtered, then finally fixed blurry eyes on Abdel.

"I need a ship," the sellsword said, close in to Havarian's face.

The captain laughed—a gravelly, almost choking sound—and said, "Passage costs, lad, but I can take ye as far as Luskan, if yer need be."

"I won't need to go that far," Abdel said.

"Good," the old man said, "but it'll cost ye wherever ye're goin'."

"I have nothing to pay you with, old man," he admitted, "but perhaps we can work something—"

The old man coughed out a laugh and managed to stagger to his feet. "Poor son of a…" Havarian growled. "I'm going home."

"I can lend you some coin," Minsc said. Both Abdel and the captain whirled on him. The act of whirling made the old sailor fall heavily on his rump, eliciting another grumbled curse. "How much do you need?"

Abdel looked at Havarian for an answer. Rubbing his bruised rear, the old pirate asked, "How much ye got?"

"I thought you had a ship," Abdel said, scowling at the still-drunk captain and against the glare of the sun from the sea.

From where he sat sprawled in the bow of the little dinghy, Captain Havarian belched resoundingly and said, "Yer friend with the mouse couldn't afford a ship. Besides, I didn't charge ye for the clothes."

Abdel grunted and let the subject lie. He concentrated on rowing, keeping to the course the captain had set for them. Havarian seemed to know all about the island asylum, though he wouldn't tell Abdel any specifics about it. He just kept saying, "Bad port, that one, bad port."

The captain had given him clothes that fit reasonably well. Abdel wore a simple white sailor's blouse and sturdy though short trousers under the chain mail tunic Bodhi had arranged for him. The heavy broadsword hung from a simple thong sling he'd made himself waiting for Havarian to get the boat. He felt awake, alert, and ready for battle for the first time in a while. He hadn't slept, but it didn't matter. His finger and other wounds, including the nasty puncture to his gut, had healed completely.