"Abdel!" Imoen called from one of them. "Abdel—what are you doing here?"

"What am—?" Abdel started to ask, then looked over at the second cage, where Jaheira was standing. Her face was covered in another one of those terrible steel masks that kept her from speaking—or casting spells. Her eyes told Abdel enough: she was happy to see him but still afraid.

"You came right to me, Son of Bhaal," the coordinator said. "And they told me you wouldn't be so easily manipulated."

Abdel sighed and hefted his sword. He glanced back at Jaheira one more time, then shot a quick smile at Imoen.

"Take his head off, Abdel," she cheered.

She always had so much confidence in him.

The coordinator laughed again and said, "Oh, yes, by all means, Abdel. Take my head off."

Abdel brought his sword up, took stock of the unarmed man, and feinted once to make it seem as if he was going to oblige both the coordinator and Imoen. The coordinator barely flinched. Anyone—even a trained fighter—would have reacted to the feint in some way. It was the whole reason Abdel even tried it in the first place. The coordinator's reaction to the fake attack would tell Abdel how he'd react to a real one, and tactics could be devised accordingly. The only thing Abdel wasn't expecting was for the man to have no reaction at all.

"I'm over here," the coordinator said sarcastically.

So be it. Abdel returned the odd man's smile and set his heavy broadsword swinging in front of him. He stepped toward the man, bringing the blade in and around in fast figure eights. The coordinator's eyes twisted in his head, following the blade, but he made no move to cast a spell. Abdel knew enough from the freezing touch and the invisible barrier that this man was some kind of mage. He was unarmed—not armed with physical weapons—but that didn't mean he wasn't deadly. Still, in Abdel's considerable experience, he knew that spells were always preceded by some amount of muttering, waving about of hands, and the handling of odd bits of this and that. The coordinator made no such attempts.

It struck Abdel that though they were confined to the iron maidens above, here he had both Imoen and Jaheira. This man meant nothing to him now—alive. All he could do, at best, would be to explain why the women were here, why he'd manipulated Abdel into coming here to aid them. Abdel felt a certain measure of confidence that Jaheira would know at least the answers to some of those questions, and even if she didn't, Abdel didn't really care. It was good enough to assume that this coordinator—whoever he really was—was next in a line of various evil geniuses bent on world domination who, for whatever reason, thought Abdel's peculiar parentage might help him become Emperor of all Faerun.

All things considered, Abdel decided to just kill the man and get it over with.

Abdel stepped in fast and held closed his eyes in anticipation of a sudden splatter of blood. The blood never came, and Abdel felt his brow furrow. The coordinator, still smiling, was simply leaning back away from the whirling tip of Abdel's heavy blade. In response, Abdel spun the blade faster, extending the arc lower.

Still smiling, the coordinator backed up, replanted his feet, almost danced backward across the smooth stone floor of the huge room, managing to keep his body always half an inch from the blade. Abdel had never seen anyone move that fast. A flash of yellow passed in front of Abdel's vision, and by sheer force of will alone, he made the sword move faster, until there was nothing but a vaguely gray fog in front of him.

A look of concern was made plain on the coordinator's face, and Abdel took heart. The man's lips parted, and he must have only said one short, simple word, and he was just gone.

"Behind—" Imoen shouted.

Abdel spun so fast he almost took off his own head. He let the blade decelerate just enough so he could see better, and there was the coordinator standing at the opposite end of the big room, little more than an outline in the wavering torchlight.

"— you!"

In the space of time it took to blink, Abdel looked up at Jaheira, back at the coordinator—who was just standing there—and made a decision. He started running at the coordinator, his sword spinning at his side and making a gentle, keening hiss in the air. He glanced up at Jaheira again, and her eyes betrayed confusion but also a level of trust he suddenly hoped he'd be able to earn.

"That's right," the coordinator said, his voice echoing in the big room, "come and get me, thug."

Abdel hopped once, then again, and the coordinator's brow furrowed. The sellsword leaped high into the air about midway to where the coordinator was standing. The strange man let out a single barking laugh and came running at Abdel, obviously intending to meet him somewhere in the middle.

Abdel hit the bottom of Jaheira's iron maiden hard enough to make it swing. Jaheira bumped into the cold iron bars with bruising force, and Abdel hung on with his left hand, letting the sword come to rest in his right. The coordinator was almost underneath him when he started mumbling through some incantation.

Ready for anything, Abdel dropped his arm back and changed his grip on the sword. He looked up, fixed the iron maiden's swinging padlock in his mind, and everything went black. He pulled up short so fast that a muscle in his shoulder twisted painfully. He couldn't see the lock and couldn't risk a blind swing at it. He could injure, even kill Jaheira.

"That was easy," the coordinator's mocking voice drifted up from below.

Knowing he was only about eight feet off the ground, Abdel simply let go of the cage and dropped. He hit the floor on his feet and kept his sword in front of his forehead, blade parallel to the ground to block any attempts to split his skull. The darkness was absolute. He couldn't see the blade that must have been a hand's span in front of his face. He couldn't see his feet— couldn't even see the bridge of his nose.

"Abdel.. " Imoen shouted. The sound of her voice—perturbed, impatient, immature—made him feel very nostalgic for the simpler days in the safety of Candlekeep. What was she doing here? "Abdel, I can't see you!"

A muffled sound came from above, and Abdel got the idea that it was Jaheira trying to say the same thing. She might have been telling him to risk hurting her if there was a chance of getting her out.

"You came here exactly when I wanted you to," the coordinator said, his voice echoing too much for Abdel to get a decent fix on his position in the absolute darkness. "You can swing your sword around all you want—even break the ladies free of their maidens—but you can't kill me, and you can't get out of here. You will serve my needs, even if we have to play for a while before it happens. I have a little time, at least."

It was three years before, in Roaringshore, when Abdel joined a merchant caravan headed for Kheldriwer. He was tasked with guarding a wagon filled with fine wine. It was easy enough work—who would steal wine between Roaringshore and Kheldriwer. Well, the caravan master had failed to mention a certain group of priests of Selune from whose temple the wine had been stolen. The priests descended on the caravan on a high pass across the Troll Hills. One of the spells they'd used that day seemed familiar to Abdel now. A globe of darkness had descended over the wagon. That day, Abdel had managed to stumble out of the globe of darkness, which ended—luckily for Abdel—a few inches from the edge of a steep cliff. Assuming this spell was at least similar, and the whole room wasn't dark, Abdel picked a direction and ran.

Over the sound of his own footsteps, Abdel heard the coordinator say, "Come on and die then. You're not the only one. I know you're asking yourself why—why Imoen."

Abdel stumbled, almost stopped short, but kept on. He came out of the darkness all at once, and the coordinator had moved farther away.