21 #3
He turned on his heel and stalked toward the door. “Come on, then,” he said, feeling as if he were sinking into darkness, as if his words should echo from the depths. “Let’s be out of here before the jackals arrive.”
* * *
“Now, before I set you free,” Astarion said, tapping the lockpick against his fingertips, “I am going to need you to promise me something.”
Den Suriel’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
“Yes. You see, I’m actually here to steal some of that blood they’re worshipping.” Astarion pointed the wire at him. “Swear to me that we are allies until the blood is stolen and we’ve escaped.”
The aasimar frowned. “What do you intend to do with the blood?”
It would have been very nice to be sure that the paladin couldn’t sense lies.
He hadn’t said anything about Astarion calling himself Petras, but perhaps he expected people to give false names, at least when they were in a jail cell.
Hells, what can I say that’s at least partly true?
“Without getting into too many details, I can promise you that it will be destroyed.”
Den Suriel studied him for a long moment. Under other circumstances, Astarion would have assumed that a gaze that intense was a prelude to a proposition and preened a little. As it was, he attempted to look trustworthy.
“Are you attempting to bring back the god Mask?” den Suriel asked.
“What?” Astarion was so startled that he nearly choked. “Bring back—is that even possible? I’m pretty sure he’s dead. At least, as dead as gods get. If he wasn’t, I imagine this crew would have brought him back by now.”
The aasimar smiled slightly. “If you’re a fanatical zealot in his service, you’re hiding it well.”
“My dear paladin, the only thing that I am a zealot in service to is my own self-interest.”
Den Suriel looked slightly disappointed by this, but that was paladins for you. Most of the world was disappointing by their standards. “Very well,” he said. “If you free me, then we are allies until we have escaped and the blood is…ah…dealt with.”
“Swear it on your oath as a paladin.”
Full lips pulled down in a frown. “That seems a trifle extreme.”
“Darling, I’m a thief who came to steal something you came to destroy. I don’t think a little extra insurance is a bad idea.”
The aasimar’s eyes narrowed. Astarion concentrated on the fact that he was telling the exact truth. Hells, I wish I knew if I had to keep doing this. The best lies may be true, but it’s helpful to have some falsehoods around the edges.
Whatever those blank white eyes were searching for, they either found it or didn’t.
“Very well.” Den Suriel straightened, and the slight glow around him intensified a fraction.
His voice rang out like the tolling of a bell.
“I swear on the oath I serve to Lathander that we are allies until then, that I will protect you with my life and soul, by Tyr and Ilmater and all the just gods, upon my honor as a knight of the Argent Badger.”
That was all rather impressive until he reached the bit with the badger. I wasn’t expecting the part about life and soul, though. That certainly may come in handy.
Aloud, all he said was, “Thank you. Now, roll over and let me get at this lock on the back of your ankles.”
The manacles were the easy part, as it turned out. The door lock was much larger, and while big locks tended to give you more maneuvering room, the tumblers were heavy enough to snap lockpicks. Astarion spent more time bending and twisting wire than he did actually picking the lock.
When the door creaked open, den Suriel was through it immediately, one arm raised instinctively in front of him as if it still bore a shield. Astarion rolled his eyes. “May I suggest that you wait back here and allow me to reconnoiter?”
“Ah…yes. I suppose that might be a good idea.” The aasimar had the grace to look embarrassed. “I don’t suppose you saw my weapons on the way in?”
“No, but I’ll keep an eye out.” There was a good chance that said weapons were with Astarion’s daggers, which he would very much like back.
He glided down the hallway, moving lightly on the balls of his feet. It intersected another hallway, and Astarion glanced in both directions before turning down one. Despite the lack of obvious enemies, his back felt exposed.
The hall was very short and dead-ended at what had probably once been a prison cell but was now filled by some kind of waist-high concrete box.
Astarion could make out writing that looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it.
He reached out a hand, then drew it back before he could touch the surface.
Cold radiated off the box so intensely that he could easily imagine the skin of his palm sticking to it.
The opposite hall held a nearly identical structure. Astarion made his way back to den Suriel, who frowned. “Let me take a look.”
“Do you know that writing?” Astarion asked while the paladin examined one of the boxes.
“I believe it’s a variant of what is written on a sarcophagus to create a mummy.” The paladin frowned. “But what’s it doing in Baldur’s Gate? And why is it so cold?”
“Saponification,” Astarion said. “It’s how they’re making those waxy mummies. Don’t give me that look, someone explained it to me. I have no interest in making mummies, waxy or otherwise.”
And if I did, he added silently, they would be much better looking.
“When they were hauling me in, they said something about cells being converted to tanks. I imagine this must be what they meant.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no reason a mummy has to be from the desert, as long as it’s kept dry and you use the right spells…”
Den Suriel’s hand hovered over a carving of a scarab.
Oh, that’s where I’ve seen these before.
They’re like the carvings on those ridiculously tasteless pillars in the great hall.
Except these were done by someone who knew what they were doing. No wonder I didn’t recognize them.
“We need to find a way to smash these,” den Suriel said.
“May I suggest we find our weapons first? You may have the unwavering fists of justice, but my hands are precision instruments, and I would rather not smash them on frozen cement.”
“Yes, of course.” The paladin stepped back and nodded to him. “I’ll wait here.”
“Good. And if anything crawls out of the tank, please do try to dispose of it quietly.”
There was another set of modified cells before Astarion reached a corner. Green light spilled around it.
Good thing the paladin can’t see me, or he might notice that I don’t actually cast a shadow. It had become second nature to Astarion not to stand between a light source and a wall, but there were limits to what you could do in a corridor only five feet wide.
At the end of the hallway lay the room where the jailor was playing solitaire. From this angle, all he could see was the edge of the table and occasionally a half-melted hand laying down cards. The skeleton guards were visible only as bony elbows protruding into the doorway.
Halfway down the hall stood a door. Astarion slunk toward it, keeping low. There was absolutely nowhere to hide, unless you were someone like Yousen who could stand up against a rock wall and become invisible, but there was no point in making things easy for the enemy.
The door was slightly ajar, enough to make out some of the room’s contents.
Excellent. There was a battered shield nearly as tall as Astarion, an absurdly large sword, his own daggers tossed in a careless heap atop a trunk, and something that looked like a cross between a sarcophagus and an unmade bed.
Astarion started to move, then froze with one foot suspended in mid-step.
He could not, should not go inside. It was wrong on every possible level. His stomach churned at the mere thought of crossing that inviolable threshold.
Private dwelling. Well, shit. Who knew mummies had bedrooms?
He hastily pulled back against the wall.
This was the reason that Astarion had never devoted himself wholeheartedly to being a thief.
It was very hard to steal things when you couldn’t invade someone’s bedroom.
Public buildings like shops and temples were fair game, but even a private room at an inn stopped him in his tracks.
On the other hand, it kept Violet from breaking into his room and leaving powdered silver in his bed, so he couldn’t say it was all bad.
He made his way back down the hallway to den Suriel, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, as if meditating. He opened his eyes at Astarion’s approach. “Any luck?”
“Yes and no. Our weapons are in a room right before the guard post. The door is partly open, but if the hinges are anything like the ones on our cell, the minute you touch it, it will scream like a priest in a brothel.”
Astarion spread his hands. “Even if I could oil the hinges, I strongly doubt I could get out with that oversized sword and shield you carry without making some noise, and that will bring at least two skeletons and the jailor down on my head.”
He gave den Suriel his best rueful smile.
“I fear that I am a lover, not a fighter.”
And this is where he suggests the paladinly thing…
“Fortunately, I’m both,” den Suriel said.
That was not quite what Astarion had expected. Is he…flirting? No, surely not. He’s a paladin. I’m sure something terrible happens to them if they flirt.
“I’ll rush in and grab the weapons,” den Suriel said, which was closer to what Astarion had expected. “Even if they come charging at me, once I’m armed, I can deal with them.”
Astarion had to struggle to keep the triumph out of his smile. “How did they catch you in the first place?”
The aasimar rubbed his temple ruefully. “Bad luck, I’m afraid. I happened on a group of skeletons, and they were no problem, then another group, and they were no problem. The third group had about forty, though, and that was a problem. Then one of those mummies showed up,
and while we were going toe-to-toe, another one came up behind me, hit me with a spell, and then bashed me over the head.”