Richard Baker: Easy Betrayals

"You could have informed me of this before sending me to the Utter East," Miltiades growled.

"Khelben and I hoped that you'd be able to retrieve Eidola with the girdle still binding her. We should have realized that she'd find a way to remove it once she was out of our sight long enough."

"What's the nature of the hold Eidola possesses over this Piergeiron fellow?" Belgin asked.

"I don't know how she did it, but I think that Eidola trapped some portion of his soul within the prison of a soul gem," Aleena answered. "It shouldn't be possible. These devices wrest the victim's soul from his body altogether, destroying him utterly. But Khelben and I can think of no other enchantment that might allow Eidola to hold my father's life in her hands." She gently reached up to push Belgin's rapier from her neck. "Miltiades, every minute we waste places my father in greater danger. Please, we have to catch her quickly."

Belgin looked at the paladin. "Are you satisfied, Miltiades?"

The paladin nodded. "Almost, Belgin. Lower your sword."

With a flourish, Belgin returned his rapier to its scabbard. "My apologies, Lady Aleena. I-" His words were cut off by a sudden icy chill that settled over his limbs, rendering him motionless. A spell of holding! he realized with horror.

The sorceress whispered and gestured, finishing her enchantment. "As long as we're demanding explanations, Miltiades, I thought your companion had a few to offer."

The paladin turned his attention from Aleena to Belgin, the same measuring gaze in his eyes. He held up a silver chain, with a pendant in the shape of a harp suspended from it. "We found this beneath your shirt as we worked to save your life. What business do the Harpers have here, Belgin?"

Belgin's heart sank. He cleared his throat awkwardly but found he could still speak. "I'm no Harper, Miltiades."

"Then why do you wear the pin?" Aleena demanded. "Do you make a habit of impersonating Harpers for your own purposes?"

"I've seen you wield magic, read runes more ancient than any I've ever seen, and track with the skill of a Silverymoon ranger," Miltiades said. "You're no ordinary scoundrel, Belgin, no matter how much you try to pass yourself off as one. You're a bard, and a sldllful one. And you wear the Harp. So how did you come to be in the Utter East, Harper? Did you travel with Entreri, perhaps?"

"Miltiades, we don't have time for this," Belgin grated. "Eidola is-"

"I know about Eidola," the paladin interrupted. "I'm tired of deceptions. Tell me who you really are and what you're doing here."

Belgin closed his eyes and sighed. "Hundreds of years ago, when the Ffolk first came to the lands that would become the Five Kingdoms, there was a bard named Dereth Caelwindar among them. He was one who wore the Harp in the Moonshaes, and he followed the Ffolk to the Utter East and settled in Edenvale. Learning that he was thousands of miles from his brothers and sisters, he decided to continue the tradition as best he could. When he felt his years gaining on him, he selected a young lass to learn the ways of the Harp. Generation after generation, each Harper passed his lore and knowledge to an apprentice, keeping the tradition alive."

"Amazing," breathed Aleena. "Who could have known?"

"Almost twenty years ago, Lady Jaele Serwid chose me to carry on in her footsteps," Belgin continued. He attempted a wry smile. "I fear that I was not much of student. I was certain I had better things to do than carry a torch for a secret brotherhood centuries dead, and I was always quicker to look out for myself than for others around me. I might carry the Harp, Miltiades, but I've never been a Harper."

The paladin studied him a moment longer, and then nodded. "He speaks the truth, Aleena. You may release him."

The cold shackles holding him seemed to fade away, leaving nothing but a memory of immobility. Shivering, Belgin rubbed his arms and stamped his feet. Miltiades offered him the silver pendant again, but Belgin shook his head. "No, you were right. I have no right to wear it."

The paladin pressed the Harp into his hand. "There's more to you than you think, Belgin. I've known more than one Harper in my day. Whatever you've been, whatever you've done, you've earned the Harp as much as anyone I've ever met. Wear it well."

Belgin considered a sharp answer, but to his own surprise he reached for the pendant and slipped it beneath his shirt. For all the things I've done, he thought, betrayal, murder, robbery, and cheating of all descriptions, I still can't bring myself to mock this lonely symbol. Not now. "You have a way of making me believe that I'm more than I am, paladin," he said in wonder. "Why do you do it?"

"A good man is a hammer in the hand of Tyr," Miltiades answered.

By the bar, the small man bound in the lasso of truth groaned and stirred, climbing back to consciousness. The paladin took up the end of the magical lariat and wrapped it loosely around his shield hand, keeping his hammer free for action. After a moment, the man blinked and looked up at Miltiades, towering over him.

"What's going on? Who do you think you are?" he snapped in a shrill voice. "You have no idea who you're tangling with, you arse-kissing numbskull!"

"Marks," said Miltiades wearily, "Be silent and listen to me. I have two questions for you. First, can you walk? And second, can you lead me to the lair of the Unseen?"

The man's face turned red and veins stood out on his forehead as he tried to fight the compulsion of the lasso, but the enchantment proved too strong for him. 'Yes. And yes."

"Well, come on, then. It's time you were about Tyr's work, scoundrel." Miltiades reached down and hauled the small barkeep to his feet, dragging him to the door. He paused to throw a dark cloak over the man, concealing the lasso that bound him, and then opened the door to the rank street. Belgin and Aleena exchanged suspicious glances, then followed. "Lead the way," Miltiades said.

Skullport yawned around them, pale fox fire dancing on an open grave. The secret city decayed with a conscious, palpable effort. Mud oozed beneath Belgin's feet. Boards and shingles in the buildings around him creaked and fell, as if something old and rotten was waking from a long slumber. The reek of the place threatened to taint his new-found health, clogging his nose and throat with a noisome miasma he could literally taste. Silent, mindless dead walked all about him, shackled to their rotting corpses by the chains of sinister necromancy. But for Miltiades and Aleena, I'd be one more of those poor souls, he realized. When we're done with this, I think I'll retire to someplace quiet and peaceful. Someplace where the dead stay in the ground and everyone is exactly who they seem to be.

"You are dead men," Marks said clearly. He marched along between Belgin and Miltiades, covered in a moth-eaten robe. The sharper held the lasso close by the man's side, concealing the fact that Marks was securely bound. "You know that, don't you? If you leave now, you might gain a few weeks, maybe a few months, to set your affairs in order. We'll find you soon enough."

"I hate waiting," Belgin said amicably. "If I'm going to be killed anyway, today's as good a day as any. Now, where next?"

"This way," the small man muttered, scuffing his feet in the mud. He shuffled ahead, glaring fiercely at the humans who followed him. They only traveled a few hundred yards as the bat flew, but no street in the hidden city ran straight for more than twenty paces at a time. They twisted and turned through alleys and courts, along streets and over rickety wharves, turning again and again.

"Are you taking us to the Unseen by the most direct route?" Aleena asked archly.

"Yes," snarled Marks. "You'll regret.”