By the time he’d washed and scrubbed himself clean of all traces of Nashkel’s mine, the rest of the inn had fallen into slumber. Darkness draped the walls of its secluded hallway, dimly lit by the dying hearth’s embers in the common room. Minsc’s loud snoring bellowed beyond his bedroom’s door, but which one the ranger had chosen, Markra didn’t much care to pinpoint. Towel draped around his neck to catch his soaked hair and dressed in nothing but his tunic and pants, he felt more relaxed and comfortable now than he had the whole past week.
Nothing like hot water to clear the head, Markra thought with a small smile. He rubbed his towel along the back of his long ears, just to make extra sure he’d scrubbed back there. I can hardly remember the last time I felt this clean. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve had a bath since…Candlekeep.
He whistled at the thought, but paused solemnly in the hallway. For the first time in a while, Gorion’s gentle smile flash behind his eyes.
It hadn’t been that long since his flight from Candlekeep, but it seemed like ages ago now. Within the short beginnings of his adventuring life, he’d made new friends he never thought he’d meet, had enemies hold knives at his throat, and both killed and saved a number of people. Dreaming about adventurers as a child, Markra had never really thought about the physical and mental tolls of such a life. Now he knew it all too well, breathed it in with every step, and although he had no desire to go back, some part of him did miss his simpler life.
“Appreciate what you have,” as his foster-father would’ve said. Well, after multiple brushes with death, Markra was more than determined now to take that advice to heart.
He was about to turn into his room when a line of light across the floor drew his gaze. Markra blinked and traced its source—the bottom of a bedroom door, where candlelight seeped out from inside. Knowing his own room’s position to this one, he knew exactly who’d claimed it: Khalid and Jaheira.
What are they still doing awake? Markra silently asked, but his imagination conjured a lewd answer instantly, complete with Jaheira flashing Khalid a mischievous smirk. Guilty blush filled his cheeks as Markra shook the thought away, and he quietly pressed on. Right. Marriage. I’d better just leave them alone.
But he’d barely taken two steps past the door when he heard Khalid’s voice on the other side.
“Are you certain this is w-wise, Jaheira?”
“The boy left me little choice,” the druid answered. “I couldn’t rightly deny him with the Rashemani ranger sitting across the way.”
Markra stopped. Wait. They’re talking about me?
And even though he knew he shouldn’t have, he tip-toed back to where he was and pressed an ear to the door.
“Why do you ask?” Jaheira spoke again. “Do you worry for me, my love?”
“W-Well…” Khalid stammered. “We know nothing about this T-Tranzig, o-or what he is capable of. I’m just unsure if only the two of you c-can handle him alone.”
“If you’ve a better combination in mind, I’d be glad to hear it.”
A pause. “Take Markra with you. Th-This whole ordeal with Tranzig effects him the m-most.”
“And leave you alone in a gnoll hive with that buffoon? I thought you wiser than that.”
“If you fear for me, you can always join me at my side.”
“So you intend to leave the children to deal with Tranzig.”
“Th-They’re far from only ch-children, Jaheira, a-and you know it as well as I.”
Yeah, Markra thought as he frowned against the door. You tell her, Khalid.
Another pause. He heard footsteps pad the floor in a busy rhythm, back and forth across the room. Judging by their light weight, Markra guessed it was Jaheira, pacing in frustration.
“They are growing, Jaheira,” Khalid continued. “Markra especially fast. I-I don’t think his show of p-power in the mines was random chance o-or an act of fate. Inherent gifts only appear w-when the gifted is ready to use them. The fact they surfaced now, wh-while his heart had been in turmoil, and he was even able to control it… I-I think you owe Gorion’s ward a bit of credit.”
“We don’t even know what his power is or where it came from,” Jaheira countered, “let alone what it tells us about his spiritual state.”
“He healed wounds e-even you would have trouble with, dear… I-I think that tells a lot.”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
“He wants to lead, so let him. B-Back in the mines, when we were ready to t-turn on one another over a potion vial, it was Markra who’d held us t-together. We already know he’s capable of it, i-if just given the chance.”
The pacing stopped. Jaheira sighed, a little more audible now that she stood closer to the door. One quick glance at the floor, and Markra saw her shadow blocking the crack of light.
“I know,” she confessed. “But as admirable as that may be, I’m not going to put the lives of our party in the hands of an untested boy. He is strong and brave, but also foolish and reckless, with a tendancy for making poor decisions as well as good. He alone allowed Xzar and Montaron to walk out of those mines.”
“I-I don’t recall either of them doing much w-walking after that…”
“He left them alive, with the promise that they would return for him. He had a duty to protect his party and himself by confronting his enemies, and he failed it.”
“So what should he have done? K-Killed them?”
“Yes!” Something hard hit the door when she yelled, and startled Markra off for a moment. “Khalid, they were Zhentarim agents, vile scum of the earth! No, worse than that—Nature does not make evil such as they without any help.”
“Perhaps so,” Khalid replied. “B-But they were also our comrades. We traveled with them, a-ate with them, and there is honor in that. Markra understood that when he chose to spare them.”
“There is no honor to spare for traitors who forsake it.”
She walked away then, and collapsed on what Markra guessed was the bed with a faint thump. “Now, no more questions, Khalid. Our formation is set; let us rest for now.”
“Yes… Goodnight, my love.”
And with that, they snuffed out their light and plunged the rest of the hall into darkness. Though no longer leaning close to listen in, Markra stood on the door’s other side for a bit, struggling to absorb all that he’d heard.
Was I really so wrong to spare them? he thought. Khalid didn’t seem to think so, but Jaheira’s harsh scolding hit harder than before. Whenever Markra made a decision, he did it because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do. But what if he was wrong? What if the choices he made turned out to be bad ones, and it got someone close to him hurt—or worse, killed?
No. He stubbornly shook his head. I can’t think about that now. Worrying about it won’t change anything. If Xzar and Montaron do return, they’ll know exactly what to expect. Until then…
He needed sleep for tomorrow. Finding his room, he rapped on the door a couple times, just in case Imoen was still awake. When he heard no reply, he opened it and walked in.
“Imoen, the bath’s—” he began, but Imoen’s quiet snoring cut him off. She lay curled up on the edge of the bed, half-covered by a sheet and drooling on her pillow.
Closing the door behind him, he couldn’t help but smile. Out like a candle, as usual.
Taking a seat on his side of the bed, he draped the blanket fully over her and dressed down to his night clothes. He had a long day tomorrow, with only Khalid, Minsc, and a hamster for company. It’d be a while before he saw Imoen again, but he felt confident Jaheira could protect her. He had to.
When he finally did fall asleep, his mind lingered on death, and the gaping holes it leaves in its wake.
***
A chill seeped into Markra’s bones as his eyes opened to blackness. Strange, as the air was warm against his skin, yet failed to ease the gripping cold. As if the spectral hands of a ghost had clawed into him and refused to let go.
Where am I? Markra thought as he stepped cautiously through the dark. He extended his hands in hopes of finding the world around him, but felt nothing. What am I doing here?
The flicker of orange torchlight answered him, making him squint as his eyes adjusted. The caverns of Nashkel’s mines yawned and stretched around him, littered with the bloodied bodies of kobold and men alike. Shadows curled along their every contour, danced in the low light, and scared every hair on his neck stiff. Markra almost preferred the blind darkness to the horror at his feet.
Out of the left tunnel, a hot breeze swept through him, the torches shuddering in its wake. An invitation. A calling. Whatever it fancied itself, Markra followed it into the cave. He followed it still whenever he came upon a crossroads, delving ever deeper into the mines. He knew this path, recognized the subtle lines in the stone—the very same he and his companions had journeyed before.
Metal tracks abandoned in the ground, the jagged bridge over stewing lava, the egg-shaped dome of rock surrounded in water, Markra revisited them all. Until, when he reached the deepest part of the mines, he stopped, just outside the toothy doorway leading to the chamber dedicated to Cyric.
“Mulahey,” Markra breathed.
The half-orc kneeled in the center of the room, hunched. He looked exactly how Markra’s party had left him—battered and tossed, unhealed wounds blooming crimson on his body. Yet his gaze held not a spark of guile, not a fire of the passion or rage that’d blazed when they first met. This Mulahey was a shade of the old one, broken and sad.
Hovering in the air mere inches above Mulahey’s heart was a bone dagger. Its hilt was tilted up at a slight angle and its blade down, as if waiting for someone to drive it in. Mulahey seemed resigned to the dagger’s presence; after all, what would a dead man have to fear of weapons? But as soon as Markra stepped into the room, his eyes went wide and a daring snarl set into his jaw.
Another breeze stirred the dust in the air, warm like a breath down his neck.
“Take it…” it whispered. So soft, Markra wasn’t sure if he’d heard it at all.
“Why?” he asked back.
“End him…”
“He’s already dead. What more could I even do to him?”
The wind picked up, urging him forward. “Take it…”
Markra gazed back at the dagger. He couldn’t see any wires attached, no glowing runes in the blade, no other sign that it was a trap. Then he looked to Mulahey. The half-orc had tried to muster his courage, tried to reignite the will to fight his destiny, but it was all a mask. Despair dwelled behind it, in the faint glint of tears and weary slump of his shoulders.
Somewhere within Mulahey’s core, Markra sensed it: the pitiful excuse for a soul, dwindling like a candle flame at the end of its wax. Denied the afterlife promised to it by the Lying Lord Cyric, whatever that was, and trapped at knife-point.
So, Markra finally understood what the wind wished of him.
He could do it. Take the dagger in his hand and plunge it deep into Mulahey, rend his soul inside and out. So very easily, he could wipe away his entire existence. A death beyond death.
But for what reason? What good would that do, to destroy the already-dead?
After a long pause, Markra turned back to face the wind. “No.”
“What?” it asked back.
“I said no,” Markra repeated. “Let the Hells deliver their judgment on him; I won’t. I’ve done enough to him already.”
The bone dagger clattered to the floor behind him. Freed from its point, Mulahey rose to his feet and met Markra’s eyes. He said nothing, but nodded as if in thanks, relief sagging into his weary features. Then he walked toward Markra, passed through him, and disappeared.
Warmth settled into Markra, a parting gift left behind by Mulahey’s passing soul. Right where his heart beat in his ribs, a kindling of gratitude and hope. Markra put his hand over his chest, felt the pulse thump against his fingers. Hope. That was one emotion he hadn’t felt that in a long, long time.
If even a cleric of Cyric could find peace with himself, perhaps he too might, someday…
The wind howled again, harsher this time. Markra shielded his eyes with his arm as it tore through his hair, slapped his clothes, seared over his skin. Within the depths of the mine the voice roared, shook through the walls and threatened to swallow him.
“You… WILL… Learn!”
Markra barely forced his eyes open to see the dagger rise again, aimed straight for him. He woke mere moments before it struck, cloaked in cold sweat.
There is so much material to work with in the Baldurs Gate dream sequences. I like what you have done with this one and the challenge of making Mulahey a worthy opponent with an actual history and intelligence.
The overheard conversation with Jaheira/Khalid is well-conceived and a major question for any writer wanting to work with the BG story. How much do JK guess or know. How close are they to Elminster's inner circle in the Harpers. At what point does the protagonist begin to explicitly connect with the Baalspawn story?? Certainly, Elminster's greeting in Baldur's Gate City suggests that the story has more or less come to light somehow or another. I tend to imagine Gellana Mirrorshade as the one who spills the beans, perhaps due to the impressive evidence of Samuel's rescue...
There is a real sadness inside me about not having written my own version. But the experience is still so huge that I cannot seem to translate it into language. Perhaps I should try putting it into screenplay form with notes about camera shots, music, direction, etc. Sounds like FUN actually!!
There is a real sadness inside me about not having written my own version. But the experience is still so huge that I cannot seem to translate it into language. Perhaps I should try putting it into screenplay form with notes about camera shots, music, direction, etc. Sounds like FUN actually!!
Comments
By the time he’d washed and scrubbed himself clean of all traces of Nashkel’s mine, the rest of the inn had fallen into slumber. Darkness draped the walls of its secluded hallway, dimly lit by the dying hearth’s embers in the common room. Minsc’s loud snoring bellowed beyond his bedroom’s door, but which one the ranger had chosen, Markra didn’t much care to pinpoint. Towel draped around his neck to catch his soaked hair and dressed in nothing but his tunic and pants, he felt more relaxed and comfortable now than he had the whole past week.
Nothing like hot water to clear the head, Markra thought with a small smile. He rubbed his towel along the back of his long ears, just to make extra sure he’d scrubbed back there. I can hardly remember the last time I felt this clean. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve had a bath since…Candlekeep.
He whistled at the thought, but paused solemnly in the hallway. For the first time in a while, Gorion’s gentle smile flash behind his eyes.
It hadn’t been that long since his flight from Candlekeep, but it seemed like ages ago now. Within the short beginnings of his adventuring life, he’d made new friends he never thought he’d meet, had enemies hold knives at his throat, and both killed and saved a number of people. Dreaming about adventurers as a child, Markra had never really thought about the physical and mental tolls of such a life. Now he knew it all too well, breathed it in with every step, and although he had no desire to go back, some part of him did miss his simpler life.
“Appreciate what you have,” as his foster-father would’ve said. Well, after multiple brushes with death, Markra was more than determined now to take that advice to heart.
He was about to turn into his room when a line of light across the floor drew his gaze. Markra blinked and traced its source—the bottom of a bedroom door, where candlelight seeped out from inside. Knowing his own room’s position to this one, he knew exactly who’d claimed it: Khalid and Jaheira.
What are they still doing awake? Markra silently asked, but his imagination conjured a lewd answer instantly, complete with Jaheira flashing Khalid a mischievous smirk. Guilty blush filled his cheeks as Markra shook the thought away, and he quietly pressed on. Right. Marriage. I’d better just leave them alone.
But he’d barely taken two steps past the door when he heard Khalid’s voice on the other side.
“Are you certain this is w-wise, Jaheira?”
“The boy left me little choice,” the druid answered. “I couldn’t rightly deny him with the Rashemani ranger sitting across the way.”
Markra stopped. Wait. They’re talking about me?
And even though he knew he shouldn’t have, he tip-toed back to where he was and pressed an ear to the door.
“Why do you ask?” Jaheira spoke again. “Do you worry for me, my love?”
“W-Well…” Khalid stammered. “We know nothing about this T-Tranzig, o-or what he is capable of. I’m just unsure if only the two of you c-can handle him alone.”
“If you’ve a better combination in mind, I’d be glad to hear it.”
A pause. “Take Markra with you. Th-This whole ordeal with Tranzig effects him the m-most.”
“And leave you alone in a gnoll hive with that buffoon? I thought you wiser than that.”
“If you fear for me, you can always join me at my side.”
“So you intend to leave the children to deal with Tranzig.”
“Th-They’re far from only ch-children, Jaheira, a-and you know it as well as I.”
Yeah, Markra thought as he frowned against the door. You tell her, Khalid.
Another pause. He heard footsteps pad the floor in a busy rhythm, back and forth across the room. Judging by their light weight, Markra guessed it was Jaheira, pacing in frustration.
“They are growing, Jaheira,” Khalid continued. “Markra especially fast. I-I don’t think his show of p-power in the mines was random chance o-or an act of fate. Inherent gifts only appear w-when the gifted is ready to use them. The fact they surfaced now, wh-while his heart had been in turmoil, and he was even able to control it… I-I think you owe Gorion’s ward a bit of credit.”
“We don’t even know what his power is or where it came from,” Jaheira countered, “let alone what it tells us about his spiritual state.”
“He healed wounds e-even you would have trouble with, dear… I-I think that tells a lot.”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
“He wants to lead, so let him. B-Back in the mines, when we were ready to t-turn on one another over a potion vial, it was Markra who’d held us t-together. We already know he’s capable of it, i-if just given the chance.”
The pacing stopped. Jaheira sighed, a little more audible now that she stood closer to the door. One quick glance at the floor, and Markra saw her shadow blocking the crack of light.
“I know,” she confessed. “But as admirable as that may be, I’m not going to put the lives of our party in the hands of an untested boy. He is strong and brave, but also foolish and reckless, with a tendancy for making poor decisions as well as good. He alone allowed Xzar and Montaron to walk out of those mines.”
“I-I don’t recall either of them doing much w-walking after that…”
“He left them alive, with the promise that they would return for him. He had a duty to protect his party and himself by confronting his enemies, and he failed it.”
“So what should he have done? K-Killed them?”
“Yes!” Something hard hit the door when she yelled, and startled Markra off for a moment. “Khalid, they were Zhentarim agents, vile scum of the earth! No, worse than that—Nature does not make evil such as they without any help.”
“Perhaps so,” Khalid replied. “B-But they were also our comrades. We traveled with them, a-ate with them, and there is honor in that. Markra understood that when he chose to spare them.”
“There is no honor to spare for traitors who forsake it.”
She walked away then, and collapsed on what Markra guessed was the bed with a faint thump. “Now, no more questions, Khalid. Our formation is set; let us rest for now.”
“Yes… Goodnight, my love.”
And with that, they snuffed out their light and plunged the rest of the hall into darkness. Though no longer leaning close to listen in, Markra stood on the door’s other side for a bit, struggling to absorb all that he’d heard.
Was I really so wrong to spare them? he thought. Khalid didn’t seem to think so, but Jaheira’s harsh scolding hit harder than before. Whenever Markra made a decision, he did it because he genuinely believed it was the right thing to do. But what if he was wrong? What if the choices he made turned out to be bad ones, and it got someone close to him hurt—or worse, killed?
No. He stubbornly shook his head. I can’t think about that now. Worrying about it won’t change anything. If Xzar and Montaron do return, they’ll know exactly what to expect. Until then…
He needed sleep for tomorrow. Finding his room, he rapped on the door a couple times, just in case Imoen was still awake. When he heard no reply, he opened it and walked in.
“Imoen, the bath’s—” he began, but Imoen’s quiet snoring cut him off. She lay curled up on the edge of the bed, half-covered by a sheet and drooling on her pillow.
Closing the door behind him, he couldn’t help but smile. Out like a candle, as usual.
Taking a seat on his side of the bed, he draped the blanket fully over her and dressed down to his night clothes. He had a long day tomorrow, with only Khalid, Minsc, and a hamster for company. It’d be a while before he saw Imoen again, but he felt confident Jaheira could protect her. He had to.
When he finally did fall asleep, his mind lingered on death, and the gaping holes it leaves in its wake.
***
A chill seeped into Markra’s bones as his eyes opened to blackness. Strange, as the air was warm against his skin, yet failed to ease the gripping cold. As if the spectral hands of a ghost had clawed into him and refused to let go.
Where am I? Markra thought as he stepped cautiously through the dark. He extended his hands in hopes of finding the world around him, but felt nothing. What am I doing here?
The flicker of orange torchlight answered him, making him squint as his eyes adjusted. The caverns of Nashkel’s mines yawned and stretched around him, littered with the bloodied bodies of kobold and men alike. Shadows curled along their every contour, danced in the low light, and scared every hair on his neck stiff. Markra almost preferred the blind darkness to the horror at his feet.
Out of the left tunnel, a hot breeze swept through him, the torches shuddering in its wake. An invitation. A calling. Whatever it fancied itself, Markra followed it into the cave. He followed it still whenever he came upon a crossroads, delving ever deeper into the mines. He knew this path, recognized the subtle lines in the stone—the very same he and his companions had journeyed before.
Metal tracks abandoned in the ground, the jagged bridge over stewing lava, the egg-shaped dome of rock surrounded in water, Markra revisited them all. Until, when he reached the deepest part of the mines, he stopped, just outside the toothy doorway leading to the chamber dedicated to Cyric.
“Mulahey,” Markra breathed.
The half-orc kneeled in the center of the room, hunched. He looked exactly how Markra’s party had left him—battered and tossed, unhealed wounds blooming crimson on his body. Yet his gaze held not a spark of guile, not a fire of the passion or rage that’d blazed when they first met. This Mulahey was a shade of the old one, broken and sad.
Hovering in the air mere inches above Mulahey’s heart was a bone dagger. Its hilt was tilted up at a slight angle and its blade down, as if waiting for someone to drive it in. Mulahey seemed resigned to the dagger’s presence; after all, what would a dead man have to fear of weapons? But as soon as Markra stepped into the room, his eyes went wide and a daring snarl set into his jaw.
Another breeze stirred the dust in the air, warm like a breath down his neck.
“Take it…” it whispered. So soft, Markra wasn’t sure if he’d heard it at all.
“Why?” he asked back.
“End him…”
“He’s already dead. What more could I even do to him?”
The wind picked up, urging him forward. “Take it…”
Markra gazed back at the dagger. He couldn’t see any wires attached, no glowing runes in the blade, no other sign that it was a trap. Then he looked to Mulahey. The half-orc had tried to muster his courage, tried to reignite the will to fight his destiny, but it was all a mask. Despair dwelled behind it, in the faint glint of tears and weary slump of his shoulders.
Somewhere within Mulahey’s core, Markra sensed it: the pitiful excuse for a soul, dwindling like a candle flame at the end of its wax. Denied the afterlife promised to it by the Lying Lord Cyric, whatever that was, and trapped at knife-point.
So, Markra finally understood what the wind wished of him.
He could do it. Take the dagger in his hand and plunge it deep into Mulahey, rend his soul inside and out. So very easily, he could wipe away his entire existence. A death beyond death.
But for what reason? What good would that do, to destroy the already-dead?
After a long pause, Markra turned back to face the wind. “No.”
“What?” it asked back.
“I said no,” Markra repeated. “Let the Hells deliver their judgment on him; I won’t. I’ve done enough to him already.”
The bone dagger clattered to the floor behind him. Freed from its point, Mulahey rose to his feet and met Markra’s eyes. He said nothing, but nodded as if in thanks, relief sagging into his weary features. Then he walked toward Markra, passed through him, and disappeared.
Warmth settled into Markra, a parting gift left behind by Mulahey’s passing soul. Right where his heart beat in his ribs, a kindling of gratitude and hope. Markra put his hand over his chest, felt the pulse thump against his fingers. Hope. That was one emotion he hadn’t felt that in a long, long time.
If even a cleric of Cyric could find peace with himself, perhaps he too might, someday…
The wind howled again, harsher this time. Markra shielded his eyes with his arm as it tore through his hair, slapped his clothes, seared over his skin. Within the depths of the mine the voice roared, shook through the walls and threatened to swallow him.
“You… WILL… Learn!”
Markra barely forced his eyes open to see the dagger rise again, aimed straight for him.
He woke mere moments before it struck, cloaked in cold sweat.
The overheard conversation with Jaheira/Khalid is well-conceived and a major question for any writer wanting to work with the BG story. How much do JK guess or know. How close are they to Elminster's inner circle in the Harpers. At what point does the protagonist begin to explicitly connect with the Baalspawn story?? Certainly, Elminster's greeting in Baldur's Gate City suggests that the story has more or less come to light somehow or another. I tend to imagine Gellana Mirrorshade as the one who spills the beans, perhaps due to the impressive evidence of Samuel's rescue...
There is a real sadness inside me about not having written my own version. But the experience is still so huge that I cannot seem to translate it into language. Perhaps I should try putting it into screenplay form with notes about camera shots, music, direction, etc. Sounds like FUN actually!!
Cheers and Muchas Gracias!!!