Baldur's gate II_ throne of Bhaal - Drew Karpyshyn [92]
He thrust out blindly with his broadsword, hoping to get lucky. Balthazar seized his wrist, braced Abdel's arm and snapped it backward at the elbow, shattering the joint. Abdel screamed in pain and tried to roll clear. He came to his feet just in time to feel Balthazar's foot driving through the side of his knee, dislocating it and ripping the ligaments and tendons from the bone now protruding just beneath Abdel's thigh.
Balthazar stepped back, leaving his crippled opponent writhing on the floor. "Even now I relish the pain I am inflicting," he said, almost by way of apology. "We cannot deny what we are Abdel, no matter how much we try. I suppose that is why Bhaal's Anointed recruited you to eliminate the Five. No matter which side eventually triumphed, Bhaal's evil would still reign supreme in the victor's soul. When this is all over, Bhaal's Anointed can use that evil to resurrect the Lord of Murder."
Abdel shook his head, trying to ignore the all consuming agony of his two mangled limbs while he struggled to follow the words of Balthazar. "Bhaal's Anointed?" he asked, gritting his teeth against the pain.
The monk gave him a sympathetic smile. "You have no idea, do you? You are a pawn, Abdel. A puppet on a string. Melissan has been manipulating you this whole time."
Chapter Twenty-One
Melissan breathed deep of the dank, musty air as she slowly walked toward the abandoned temple. It smelled of empty decay and rotting death-a smell she had become all too familiar with over the last thirty years. Beneath the stale, fetid stench she caught a hint of something else: smoke and fire. The scent of burning hatred, the perfume of violent, living, palpable fury. She smiled.
After giving Abdel her horse, she had been forced to journey here on foot. The trip had taken many days, but that was a minor inconvenience when compared to the decades she had been patiently waiting, and now her patience was about to be rewarded. The hot glow of the flames bathed her body as she entered the door and gazed up at the grinning skull that was the symbol of her god. She felt the heat from the flames lick her skin, caressing her tingling flesh as Bhaal himself had done while he had walked the land before the Time of Troubles.
The inferno in the pit flared up as she approached, as if the collected essence of the dead god burning within recognized her: Melissan, High Priestess of the Lord of Murder, Bhaal's Anointed. Long ago, Melissan had enacted the sacrifices and gruesome rituals that fed her god's hungers. She had led Bhaal's followers in bloody devotion, slaying enemies and victims alike and tossing their bodies and souls onto the evil, eternal fire at the center of the temple.
For her faith, Bhaal had rewarded her with the secrets of ascension so that she might bring the Lord of Murder back to life after his inevitable death. The time for the ritual had come, the essence of Bhaal's offspring had been collected through the Five's war of bloody sacrifice. All was ripe for the dead god's return.
But Melissan now had other plans. The tall woman slowly removed the fine chain mesh she wore over her clothes and let it drop to the floor. She removed her silver gloves and boots and peeled off her long black sleeves and her tight leggings. She stripped away the tight black cloth undergarments that clung to the curves of her shapely form, revealing the horribly disfigured skin beneath. Thirty years ago, Bhaal's anointing baptism of fire had burned his mark onto every inch of her body, except her face, leaving her flesh a mass of ugly, twisted scar tissue that would never heal.
She had undergone the transformation willingly, knowing the rewards would be well worth the suffering when the time for retribution came, and that time was nearly at hand.
Melissan, naked and exposed, stepped into the roaring blaze at the center of Bhaal's temple. The torment was bearable. Temperatures beyond the scope of mortal fathoming incinerated