James Wyatt - In the Claws of the Tiger

“You’ll have to hold me back, then,” Krael said.

“That’s what I was going to say,” Dania said, glaring at Krael while looking a little uncomfortable at sharing the vampire’s opinion.

“Why, Krael?” Janik asked, wheeling on the vampire. “What did she do to you?”

Krael snarled at Janik, baring his long fangs, for a moment looking like a ravenous beast furious at being caged. Janik didn’t flinch, but held Krael’s stare. After a moment, the vampire spoke.

“All right, Janik. Let me tell you a story. I believe you know the beginning-or shall I go over it for the benefit of those who weren’t present?”

“I’ve heard it,” Auftane said over his shoulder. He was busy tending to Mathas, but clearly paying attention to the conversation. Janik noted that Mathas’s eyes were open, but he looked very weak.

“As have I, Captain Kavarat,” the warforged said.

“Well, then,” Krael continued. “Maija traveled with us back to Stormreach and from there directly to Korth by airship. Along the way, she played with my affections, as I presume she did with yours, Janik. Except I did not fully trust her, so I was not swayed by her charms. Her considerable charms.”

Janik almost leaped at Krael again, but the vampire’s grin told him Krael was trying to provoke him, and he didn’t want to provide that satisfaction.

“She made up a story-that another Emerald Claw agent had contacted her and swayed her to our side, and worked out a deal in which she’d hand a treasure over to me in order to prove her loyalty to the Emerald Claw. She kept up the lie for quite a while. Once we reached Karrnath, she claimed to have had another meeting with this agent, who told her to keep working with me. I knew she was lying, and my superiors confirmed my suspicion, but they ordered me to play along, to find out what she was trying to accomplish. I admit to some curiosity about what she was doing, trying to bluff the Order of the Emerald Claw.”

Krael cracked his neck before continuing.

“That went on for about a year,” he said. “We spent most of that time in Karrnath, sneaking around the agents of the damned king to get the work of the Order done. She seemed genuinely committed to working with the Order, and I was just starting to believe that she was really on our side. Then she came to me and announced that she’d been assigned to look for the Tablet of Shummarak. You know what the Tablet is, Janik?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that caught the interest of my superiors, and they told me to keep working with her. They assigned a priest to accompany us, a simpering idiot named Mudren Fain. They wanted me to get the Tablet if we managed to locate it. Well, it took us a year of searching, and the hunt led us around Khorvaire, briefly to Xen’drik, and finally back to Atur in Karrnath-which is where I saw Dania, of course.”

Janik was getting sick of Krael’s sarcastic grin and mocking tone, but the vampire was telling him new information-new pieces of the puzzle were taking shape in his mind. He glanced at Dania, who seemed to be keeping her anger in check by thinking hard about what Krael was telling them.

“We returned to Atur because we had traced the Tablet of Shummarak to its last known owner, a shifter vampire called Havoc. Mudren finally proved himself useful by discovering the location of Havoc’s crypt. We found him in his crypt, where a bunch of idiots had left him for dead before the Last War. They drove a stake through his heart and left, figuring the job was done. Well, when Mudren Fain pulled the stake out of the shriveled remains of Havoc’s heart, we quickly discovered that the job was not done.”

“Havoc came back,” Dania said blankly.

“Havoc came back,” Krael repeated. “He grabbed Mudren Fain by the throat and drank every last drop of blood out of the damned fool’s body while dear Maija stood there, licking her lips. Oh, and did I mention? I would have stopped Mudren from pulling out the stake, but Maija had cast a spell on me to hold me helpless.”

“Licking her lips?” Dania asked.

“Licking her lying, cheating, blasphemous lips,” Krael said. “And then she struck her deal with Havoc. Anyone want to guess what she gave him in exchange for his help in finding the Tablet?”

“You,” Janik and Dania said at the same time.

“Exactly. Havoc grabbed me while I was still paralyzed by Maija’s spell. He drained Mudren dry and left him for dead, but Havoc turned me into this - ” he bared his teeth again. “And until Dania and her friends so kindly obliterated him, I was forced to obey his commands. Which reminds me, Dania, I never did thank you.”

“Believe me, the pleasure was all mine,” Dania said. “I would have killed you, too, if I could have.”

“And if I can ever return the favor, I will. Anyway, I think Dania knows the rest of the story, or most of it. Havoc led us to the Tablet-”

“You found it?” Dania interrupted. “We were never sure.”

“Oh, yes. We found the Tablet right where Havoc had left it a hundred years ago. Maija spirited it away, breaking her word to Havoc. And Dania and her friends barged in right after that, when Havoc was about to tear Maija’s throat out.”

“If only we’d come a few moments later,” Dania said.

“I said that’s enough, Dania,” Janik said.

Dania got to her feet for the first time. “Well, I’m not going to stop until you get it through your head that this isn’t just some lark that Maija is pulling on us. Don’t you see? If Maija has the Tablet of Shummarak and she’s here, that means she’s trying to release whatever fiend lord is imprisoned here. She might as well be plotting to destroy the world!”

“And of course we’re going to stop her,” Janik said, “but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to cut her down.”

“What if that’s what it takes? We’re not just going to talk her out of it, either. What do you have in mind?”

“We are talking about my wife, damn it!” Janik’s face was a hand’s width from Dania’s. “I will take up arms against the Sovereign Host before I kill her-or let you do it!”

“She is not your wife any more, Janik, any more than she is the friend I once loved. Evil has consumed her! There isn’t any Maija left.”

“You talk as if evil were a monster, like the chuul we fought on the shore. Evil doesn’t eat people, Dania. What are you saying? That she’s undead? That she’s been turned into a vampire, like Krael?”

“I don’t know, Janik! She’s not a vampire, she’s definitely still alive, but-” She stopped abruptly. “Wait,” she said to herself.

“But what? If she’s not undead, then what do you think happened to her? What kind of evil could consume her and leave nothing behind?”

“The undead aren’t the only great evil in the world, Janik. Look around you! We’ve been fighting fiends in the flesh since we entered the desert three weeks ago. This whole place was erected by a force of evil so great-” She broke off suddenly.

“What, then? You think she’s been turned into a rakshasa?”

“Hosts of Shavarath, how could I be so blind?” Dania whispered. “Janik, I think you might be right!”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re here because the Keeper of the Flame sensed something-an evil spirit escaping into the world about the time that we were here. Janik, what if that spirit possessed Maija?”

Possessed?” Krael said. “That would explain a great many things.”

“So you’re saying that the evil spirit we accidentally released while we were here is Maija?” Janik said, incredulous.

“It’s in her,” Dania said. “It has taken up residence in her body and controls her actions.”