Abdel stopped then, adjusted the grip on his sword and asked, "More lies?"

The coordinator shrugged, smiled, and motioned to the iron maiden in which Imoen still stood trapped.

"What's going on here, Abdel?" the girl asked impatiently.

The coordinator laughed and said, "You're not the only one, boy. She has the blood too. She has the blood of Bhaal, and all I need is one of you. Though I'd prefer both."

"That's a lie," Abdel said without actually wanting to. He couldn't help but look up at Imoen, who was simply confused, tired, dirty, and afraid.

"Abdel? she asked quietly.

The coordinator said something Abdel thought might have been "out of the vessel," whatever that meant, but the rest of it was gibberish. Knowing the man was casting some spell, Abdel had no choice but to run at him and hope he got there before the spell went off.

He was close.

Whoever was dragging Abdel's body was stuffing it into an iron maiden.

Sound was starting to become clearer, and Abdel could hear a muffled voice that might have been Jaheira—still masked. He'd failed her. Oh, how he'd failed her!

The man who was stuffing his body into the cage seemed to be standing behind the point in space where Abdel's immortal soul was floating. Abdel tried to speak but couldn't find anything that felt like a mouth. He saw blood dribble from behind him onto his dead body.

The cage was closed over bis corpse, and Abdel wondered why anyone would be bothering to lock a dead body in an iron maiden. The hands didn't belong to the coordinator. They were too rough, and too dirty. The blood dribbled some more, and Abdel thought this man must be Mai Cheirar, still bleeding from the eye Abdel had sliced open.

If it was Mai Cheirar, Abdel thought his soul must be floating somewhere just on the smelly pirate's chest.

The hands shifted to a chain and began hauling on it slowly, obviously struggling with the weight. The iron maiden was being drawn up.

"You can hear me, Abdel," the coordinator's voice sounded. He seemed to be speaking from the bottom of a well—or was Abdel at the bottom of the well? "I'll put you back in your body soon enough, Son of Bhaal. You'll need to be whole to serve me. You'll need to feel every precious sting."

Imoen's otherwise normal, reasonably happy life had become, over the last tenday or so, a sort of hell that alternated between boring, painful, and horrifying. The latter was the case now.

Abdel had appeared rather suddenly, and when he did, the relief she felt was almost orgasmic in intensity. She'd certainly been waiting long enough for this so-called "Hero of Baldur's Gate" to come and save her. His new girlfriend was of little use but as a model for how to grow up haughty and ineffectual. The "coordinator" — he called himself Irenicus, a name he obviously made up himself—was a raving lunatic with a decent command of magery, but he had an ego so out of control and delusions so deeply implanted in his worm-ridden psyche, it was a wonder he could manage anything but a slow, twitching drool.

The iron maiden hurt, as had the leather collar, the chains, the ropes, the grabbing, and the cold-fingered hands of one vampire after another. They were rarely fed, and when they were, it was gruel obviously prepared by a chef suffering from some combination of head injury and sense of humor.

Abdel had come in sword literally blazing, but had managed to get himself killed. He made it a few steps out of the circle of darkness, then was dropped in his tracks by another spell. Imoen had seen a couple people die before. Reginald of Wide Girth, a monk she knew in passing, dropped dead of heartstop seconds after walking in on her while she was bathing. She always took that personally. Yorik—another monk—fell off the top of the Shrine of Oghma, though no one knew why he was up there in the first place. All attempts to restore life to his broken body failed, leading many in Candlekeep to assume Oghma wanted him dead for some reason. That one was kind of a mess.

Abdel's death looked a lot more like Reginald's than Yorik's. His body just up and quit.

Imoen sobbed when she realized he was dead. She began mourning him right away with half her brain and railed against him with the other half. This was Abdel the mighty? Sellsword par excellence who defeated Sarevok, Son of Bhaal, and saved the Sword Coast from years of bloody war? Irenicus was obviously a mage, yet Abdel just ran at him, swinging his sword. Imoen had to admit, at least to herself, that Irenicus actually went easy on him. It was obviously some death spell. Wizards had more creative, more dramatic, more painful, more lingering, and more humiliating ways to kill someone.

Yeah, he was lucky.

Then Irenicus told Abdel's dead body that he wasn't dead after all and had his reeking henchman lock Abdel in his own iron maiden.

This gave Imoen another ray of hope, though this time it was rather less fulfilling. He'd be locked up like her and Jaheira, but if Abdel was alive, they'd at least have some chance. She'd seen him bend metal that was stronger and thicker than the bars of the hanging cages. Powerful as his spells may be, Irenicus wouldn't stand a chance if Abdel managed to get close with either fist or blade.

Then there was all this stuff about her being Abdel's secret sister—or half sister. Not that she needed any more proof that Irenicus had gone mad a long time ago, but here was a delusion that made no sense at all. Granted, she always knew she was adopted, that the kindly old innkeeper named Winthrop wasn't her real father. Candlekeep had a lot of orphans—it was something the monks just did.

She'd heard that Abdel was the son of some dead god, but what. . that means every orphan was? That would make Candlekeep demigod central, wouldn't it.

Besides, if she was a daughter of some dead god, wouldn't she have some powers? She should have at least been able to seduce women—gods do that, don't they? She should be able to lift boulders, withstand the breath of a dragon (thankfully, she'd never had an opportunity to test that one), or do at least one thing that was beyond the normal abilities of mortal humans.

Imoen was mortal enough.

She'd stopped trying to ask questions a long time before. Irenicus almost never answered at all, but when he did, it was usually some sarcastic quip that told her nothing and seemed designed to either make her more curious, or make her feel bad about herself. Imoen was neither curious, nor would she ever feel bad about herself, so the exercise had quickly become tiresome.

Things had changed suddenly though, and she just couldn't help it.

"When are you going to bring him back to life?" she demanded. "Do it!"

Irenicus stopped and looked up at her. Their eyes met, he winked, and he went on about his business. Men, Imoen thought. Bastards.

Imoen watched the preparations for the ritual with only minimal interest. This strange man was going on about his strange work—work that would certainly end in her death. Memorizing the details, ins, outs, and nuances of it wouldn't help her escape or keep her alive, so she opted to spend her last hour or so trying to find a way out of the hanging cage.

The room was lit by torches, then candles were lit, then more candles, then braziers of hot coals that made it so hot in the room sweat was pouring off her. She could see the other woman—Abdel's woman—also looking for weak spots in the bars or floor of her cage and not finding any. She was sweating too. Abdel, naked now and slipping in and out—mostly out—of consciousness was sheeted with sweat. He never opened his eyes, and when Irenicus's people moved him, he let them, oblivious to what they must have in store for him.