Baldur's gate II_ throne of Bhaal - Drew Karpyshyn [82]
The monks moved warily, expecting to find the enemy who had slain the guards by the door still within the building. She could hear their plodding progress. They moved without urgency, knowing there were no windows in the upper floor, no way out of the tower but the stairs that were now lined with a dozen of the religious warriors.
Cursing herself for not foreseeing Balthazar's treachery, Melissan muttered a quick incantation. Her form shimmered and disappeared, her body and all her clothes and items becoming ethereal. No longer anchored to the material world, Melissan's incorporeal spirit simply passed through the floor, sinking slowly to the ground below. Invisible and unsubstantial, she drifted across the courtyard and through the marble walls, then wandered unseen through the all-but-deserted streets of Amkethran. She did not allow the spell to end until she found a strong mount capable of carrying her swiftly across the desert.
Sendai and Balthazar were working together now, and Melissan did not have the power to stand against them, but Abdel might, if he yet lived.
Melissan was intent on preserving his life if at all possible. She had to try and warn the big sellsword that Sendai would try to kill him. Even now the drow was probably preparing an ambush somewhere between here and the Alimir Mountains where Abazigal made his lair. If Abdel was still alive he would be heading toward Amkethran and right into Sendai's trap.
Knowing the drow already had half the previous night as a head start, Melissan spurred her steed into a quick gallop, leaving the shoddy tents of Amkethran and the imposing marble walls of the monastery far behind.
* * * * *
He felt empty and numb. Abdel's grief slipped into the ground and loam beneath his fists. It poured out of him in tears and wails of anguish, and now there was nothing left inside. His spirit was hollow, his naked body an empty shell.
Abdel filled the void with the only thing he had left- thoughts of vengeance. He no longer cared about the fate of his Bhaalspawn kin. It no longer mattered to him if Bhaal returned and ravaged the land, or if the Lord of Murder stayed dead forever. Jaheira's death had liberated him, freed him from the confusion and moral turmoil that came with being at the center of such epic events. Abdel's life had become very, very simple. He would kill the Five for what they had done to Jaheira. Beyond that nothing mattered.
He couldn't avenge her death here, wallowing in the dirt of Bhaal's realm. Abdel Adrian rose to his feet and stepped through the nearest of the three remaining doors.
He found himself alone on the plateau just outside the entrance to Abazigal's lair. By the position of the sun, Abdel guessed he had been gone for several hours, though an entire night had passed in the Abyssal plane. All around him were the signs of a great battle. Abdel stood in the aftermath of Sarevok's confrontation with Abazigal's hoard.
Along with Abazigal's decapitated form, half a dozen great dragon carcasses were strewn about the blood-soaked battlefield. Their corpses were scarred and disfigured by deep, ragged gashes from the blades forged onto Sarevok's arms and legs, or horribly gouged and gored by the terrible spikes jutting from the dark warrior's knees and elbows.
Sarevok himself was gone. Scattered around the dragons' remains were bits and pieces of his armor, rent asunder by mighty talons, or charred and blackened by the fire and acid spewed forth from the jaws of Sarevok's enemies. At Abdel's feet lay the armored warrior's visored helm, cloven nearly in two. There was no sign of Sarevok's body.
Abdel wasn't surprised. The victorious dragons would have devoured the flesh of their defeated foe-if there was even anything to devour. After his encounter with Jaheira's departing soul, Abdel couldn't help but wonder if Sarevok had been anything more than a suit of armor animated by a disembodied spirit. Whatever Sarevok