23 #2
“He wants to see what it tastes like.”
Den Suriel blinked. In a rather more normal voice, he said, “You’re shitting me.”
“I can’t right now, remember?”
The aasimar rubbed his temples. “We are constantly warned about the banality of evil, and yet it never fails to astonish me.”
“Darling, you should see his choice of décor.”
Den Suriel climbed slowly to his feet. “Very well,” he said, sounding as tired as Astarion’s heart. “May the gods forgive me. I will assist you as I can, and then I will slay you as I must.”
He reached out and caught Astarion’s shirtfront. The battered silk ruffles flattened under his grip. “Answer this one last question, though. Do you intend to see me turned into a vampire?”
“Gods and devils, no.” Astarion tried to imagine the aasimar dropped into the politics of Szarr Palace and repressed a shudder. He enjoyed a certain amount of chaos, but that went beyond chaos and well into catastrophe. “I hadn’t even thought of it.”
“To drink my blood, then?”
“I do not drink the blood of thinking beings.” That came out a little too clipped, so Astarion smiled to soften it. “Darling,” he murmured, leaning in until they were separated only by the width of den Suriel’s fist. “It isn’t your neck I’d like to suck.”
The paladin released him and stepped back hurriedly. Astarion strolled past him, a lazy smile on his face.
That went far better than expected. It’s amazing how much you can lie with the truth.
The truth was, Astarion didn’t actually like necks. There was far too much cartilage there on a large mammal. Given the choice, he’d go for the femoral artery every time.
* * *
Astarion’s anger sustained him on the journey to his great-grandmother’s deathbed.
Strangely, it did not occur to him to worry that she would not last until his arrival.
Lady Erikinia had been sustained by pure will for nearly a century.
She would endure for as long as was needed to die with a proper audience.
Bajia, who had known him longer than anyone else, tried once or twice to charm him out of his current mood with stories of her travels in far-off places. On the surface, he allowed himself to be charmed, but only on the surface, and she knew it, and eventually she lapsed into silence.
The manor house had slid further into disrepair in Astarion’s absence. They left their horses tied out front because no stable boy came to take them.
The front door was ajar. Inside, the great tree was still alive, but lichen had crawled up its trunk, and the leaves that had fallen onto the marble floor had not been swept away. The hallway that led to his grandmother’s rooms was cold and smelled of mildew instead of incense.
Wendin opened the last door for them, naked relief showing on his face. “Bajia. Master Astarion. Thank all the gods you’re here.”
It was a sign of his despair that he did not bother to close the door after them but hurried back to his mistress’s side.
Lady Erikinia lay on white sheets that served only to emphasize the sallowness of her skin. Her face had already been skull-like with age, but now the skin drew so tight across her bones that Astarion half expected it to split and peel away from her cheekbones when she moved.
“Lady,” Bajia said. “We’re here.”
Erikinia’s eyes opened. The right one had gone milky with cataracts, but the left still burned with the old fire. Her hand stirred on the coverlet and moved an inch, and Bajia took it tenderly in her own.
“The boy?” she croaked, her voice a thin imitation of its former richness.
“He’s here.”
Astarion cleared his throat. “I’m here,” he said.
He marveled at how calm he sounded. He was still so angry that it felt as if there were a live coal beneath his breastbone, but he knew there was no point in giving vent to it.
His great-grandmother had burned brightly for a long time, but the last spark was guttering and going out.
The ancient elf’s fingers twitched in Bajia’s hands. “Go back to your people, my dear. The game has ended.”
Bajia made a small choked sound, then passed the old woman’s hand carefully to Astarion.
Her fingers were as fragile as burnt twigs. When they tightened on his hand, he half expected them to break. “Astarion,” she whispered.
“I’m here,” he said again.
She swallowed, a dry rasp like snake scales over stone. “It’s yours now.”
A hard laugh clawed at his throat. He swallowed it down for Bajia’s and Wendin’s sakes.
“Always been an Ancunín here…Promise me. Take care of it.”
“I promise,” he lied.
“You’re a good child,” she breathed.
She didn’t breathe again. Wendin gave a single harsh sob and reached out to close her eyes.
When he straightened up again, his face was wet, but his expression was as calm as ever. “Go,” he said. “Both of you. Go now. They will have felt her death across the realms.”
Astarion went. Leaves were falling from the great tree to lie golden across the floor. He was already mounted when Bajia emerged from the house, her face twisted in a frown. “He won’t come with us,” she said grimly. “Says he’ll see her buried. He’s going to get himself killed.”
“That is his choice,” said Astarion, who had seen such things even in his short time practicing the law.
Bajia searched his face for a moment, then nodded once, almost angrily, and flung herself into the saddle. “Come, then,” she said. “I’ll see you to Baldur’s Gate.”
* * *
“Perhaps we should have waited to have our little heart-to-heart,” Astarion said, eyeing the forces arrayed against them.
“Hindsight is always perfect,” den Suriel said, drawing his sword.
“The Inquisitor’s not real happy,” the mummy said. “Says he wants to talk to both of you. Now.”
The dozen or so skeletons surrounding him said nothing, but that wasn’t a surprise.
Astarion and den Suriel had almost reached the door that den Suriel said led to the outer passages, which served mostly as maintenance access to the storm drains.
Unfortunately, the priest’s minions were waiting for them.
Since he hadn’t heard the tromp of skeletal feet, Astarion guessed that there was a shortcut somewhere.
“You gonna come quietly?” the mummy asked.
The paladin put his hand on his holy symbol, then glanced at Astarion and frowned.
“Don’t mind me,” Astarion said.
“There’s a chance I’ll turn you into a pile of ash.”
“In that case, please do mind me.”
“I said,” the mummy said, rather more loudly, “are you gonna come quietly?”
“For the Badger!”
“I believe that’s a no,” Astarion said as den Suriel plowed into the wall of skeletons.
“I got that,” the mummy said, and swiped at Astarion’s head.
Astarion ducked under the punch. “Not the face, you bastard.”
He spun to the side and left a dagger in the mummy’s left kidney, or what would have been his left kidney if it hadn’t been turned to soap.
The mummy ignored it, but den Suriel was suddenly up in his face, which was much harder to ignore.
He drew back his arm to punch the paladin, which meant that Astarion was in the path of a large, waxy elbow.
He managed to duck again, but he put his foot down on something that rolled, and he pitched forward.
His nose and one cheekbone hit the stone floor.
Neither appreciated it. Astarion stayed down for a minute, listening to the sounds of combat.
A skeleton stepped on him, which was annoying, but then it collapsed into a pile of bones that bounced off Astarion’s back, which was even more annoying.
He lifted his chin groggily, just in time to see the mummy’s head smack into the stones directly in front of him.
The face had a puzzled expression, possibly because it had misplaced the rest of its body.
“Are you alive?” den Suriel asked.
“I find that question in very poor taste.”
“Sorry.”
Astarion sat up. “Are there any more of them?”
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“Not in this hallway.” The paladin nudged one of the skeletons with his foot and traced a sign in the air.
“Well done. Now, more importantly, is my nose broken?” Astarion felt it gingerly.
“Again with the nose?”
“My face keeps hitting things. Does it look straight to you?”
“You’re undead,” the aasimar said.
“Yes? And? The undead can still have broken noses.”
“I suppose, but can’t you just…I don’t know…drink blood or bathe in ichor or whatever you people do?”
“It’s not that simple. If it heals before it’s set properly, there could be a bump.” He ran his finger across the bridge. Was it still perfectly straight?
The aasimar, whose own nose had a distinct bump at the bridge, rolled his eyes. (At least, Astarion thought he did. The lack of distinct pupils or irises made it difficult to tell.)
“Listen, you slab of armored beef, there are very few exquisite noses in the world, and I have protected mine for nearly two hundred years. I consider it a sacred duty. My nose is like a shrine.”
Den Suriel was clearly trying not to laugh despite himself. “Which nostril do they leave the offerings in, then?”
“The right one. The left is for penitents.” Astarion got to his feet and dabbed his face with a handkerchief.
With a deep sigh, the paladin leaned forward and inspected Astarion’s face. “Does it hurt when I do this?”
“No,” Astarion said, somewhat muffled because den Suriel had just pressed a gauntleted finger against the bridge of his nose.
“Then it’s probably fine.”
“Easy for you to say,” Astarion muttered. “You probably make a broken nose look fashionable.”
“Do you know, I think that’s the strangest compliment I’ve ever received?”
“Hmmph.”