Richard Baker: Easy Betrayals

"No, not that I know of," Miltiades said.

"Good." The mage raised her hand and spoke a soft word. An azure nimbus of light sprang into being around each of them, flickering and leaping.

"Aleena! This spell is intended to make someone easier to strike!" Belgin hissed in alarm. "What do you think you're doing?"

The mage smiled grimly. "I know, bard. But if we're going to fight doppelgangers, we'll be able to tell at a glance who is with us and who isn't. The doppelgangers can mimic our faces and features to their hearts' content, but they won't be able to mimic the aura I've just created with this spell. When we step through that door, you can strike at anyone who isn't glowing."

Miltiades, Belgin, and Rings exchanged glances. They remembered what had happened the last time they cornered Eidola. "A sound idea," the paladin said. He readied his hammer and shield, then kicked the door down, leaping inside with a great battle cry: "For Tyr and justice!"

In the room beyond, half a dozen human guards-no, doppelgangers in human guise, Belgin reminded himself-sprang to their feet to meet the attack. The first died under Miltiades's hammer before he even raised his hand in his own defense, and the second fell a moment later to a hissing ray of green energy from Aleena's wand. In the space of a moment, it seemed that everything in the room changed. Three Miltiades now filled the small guardroom, along with two Aleenas and two Rings. A towering hook horror loomed behind them, screeching and clacking its claws. Only the original Miltiades, Rings, and Aleena glowed with faerie fire; their mimics were perfect, but not good enough.

"This makes things much easier," Belgin muttered. No one wasted their attention on his sarcasm. He dashed forward to engage a faux-Aleena, slashing and stabbing with his rapier.

A flash of light and a sudden sharp slap of thunder marked another of Aleena's spells as she downed three more doppelgangers at once with a bolt of lightning. Belgin hurled himself into the fray, still pursuing his original foe. As the sharper finished off his opponent, two doors burst open and more doppelgangers streamed into the room, screaming with rage. "We've got trouble!" he called to his comrades.

"We've got trouble!" echoed a false Belgin who fell on him with a flurry of blows. The sharper grimaced and parried his counterpart's attack. With a quick move he riposted and took his doppelganger through the heart, watching in horror as his own face grayed and contorted with mortal agony. I didn't need to see what I'd look like with a sword between my ribs, he thought grimly. Baring his teeth in determination, he returned to the fight.

The next foe he faced was Eidola.

He blinked in amazement. The doppelganger hesitated, perhaps surprised herself. "You!" she barked, her voice rough as stone. "What will it take to teach you the extent of your folly?" With a bestial roar she shifted into the monstrous form of a minotaur and smashed a colossal axe down at him, a two-handed blow that could have split a tree.

Belgin yelped and dodged back. "Eidola! She's here! The minotaur! No, the cuttlefish! No, the elf mage!" Even as he tried to dodge her attacks, avoid the other doppelgangers boiling into room, and keep track of his comrades, Eidola shifted from shape to shape in a fluid motion that kept him back on his heels. "Damn it, will you just pick one shape and stick to it!"

Eidola, now a tall, handsome elf with a cruel twist to his mouth, raised her (or his?) hands and streamed blue-glowing darts of magical energy at Belgin, Miltiades, and Aleena. The bard tried to duck aside, but one bolt struck him on the hip, jolting him with a shock that knocked him to his knees. Belgin cursed and tried to rise, but Eidola pressed her advantage, working another spell that struck at him with a lance of scorching fire. When did she learn to cast spells? he thought in disbelief. Even as the fire scorched his shirt and coat, Belgin twisted and slipped behind another doppelganger, using its body to shield him from the flame. With an agonized screech, the creature caught fire and staggered away.

Aleena replied with a powerful invocation that stabbed at Belgin's ears like a dagger of ice. From her hand, a streaming sheet of lightning flashed forward to level the room, blasting false Miltiades and duplicate Rings to ash I and ruin. The Eidola-mage deflected the spell with some manner of magical shield she'd woven held against Aleena's spell. As the roaring thunder died away, Belgin realized that Eidola stood alone at the far side of the room, while he and his companions stood largely unharmed at the other. Between them lay nothing.

In the sudden silence, he stepped forward and said clearly to his comrades, "That's Eidola. She's right there."

The moment shattered. Snarling a curse, Eidola wheeled and dashed back through the doorway she'd emerged from, vanishing into the darkness. Miltiades, streaming blood from a new cut high on his forehead, let loose with a very unpaladin-like howl of rage and thundered after her, brandishing his hammer. Aleena followed, a step behind, pelting after the paladin.

Together, Belgin and Rings sprinted after Miltiades and Eidola.

The chamber beyond the doppelganger lair was nothing more than the topmost landing of a dark, spiralling stairway leading down. Green, rank moss coated the stone with a wet and slippery blanket. Clattering and cursing, Belgin and Rings raced recklessly down into the abyss, trailing the silver gleam and green witch fire of the paladin and the wizard. More than once, the sharper lost his footing and slipped or stumbled a few steps before steadying himself against the narrow walls.

"Does this place have no end to it?" he growled in frustration.

"The rock tells me no," Rings answered between breaths. "This maze goes much, much farther than you'd think."

The stair finally came to an end. Belgin and Rings blundered into Miltiades and Aleena, who stood in a long corridor that arrowed out of sight both left and right. The paladin and the sorceress peered each way, plainly frustrated.

"Which way?" snapped Miltiades. "She's getting away?"

"How should I know?" Aleena replied tersely. "Be still a moment, all of you! We might hear her footsteps."

Belgin, Rings, and Miltiades froze. Aleena paused a moment, tilting her head to hear better. From the darkness to the right, a faint sound of footfalls, light and swift, dwindled and vanished.

"She went this way!" the sorceress said. "Quickly!"

"No, wait!" Belgin barked. He stooped and examined the soft velvet of moss and mold coating the stone floor. "Aleena, bring your light here." The Waterdhavian stooped and spoke a word, brightening her wand. In the emerald light, Belgin traced a set of footprints. They initially turned toward the right but then doubled back in the other direction. The bard snorted in satisfaction. "She went left. I'm certain of it."

"What of the footfalls?" Miltiades said.

"A simple trick for any mage," Aleena replied. "Clearly, one of the personas she's absorbed was a skilled wizard. She can't be far. Good thinking, Belgin."

The sharper bowed with a smile. "Glad to have been of service, my lady."

Moving slowly now, the foursome advanced down the hallway to the left, alert for any sign of the doppelganger's presence. After sixty or seventy yards, the passage ended in a jagged tumble of stone and earth that completely blocked the corridor. There was no trace of Eidola.

"Perhaps she fooled us after all," Miltiades said in a tight voice. "Or fled through a secret passageway that we missed along the way."

"I don't think so," Belgin answered. "I've still got her track here. Either she passed through that-" he nodded at the cave-in-"or she's still here, hiding."

"We'll soon see," Aleena murmured. She uttered the words of a disenchantment, unbinding any spell within the vicinity. Silently, the four watched the end of the passageway.