Page 77 of Astarion

He slunk toward it through the magical darkness. Almost there…

“Where in the name of the wretched living gods has the blood gone?”

The voice was horribly close. Astarion froze.

“Someone has stolen the sacred blood of Mask! Find it! Stop what you are doing and search for intruders!”

Astarion spent a brief moment wondering if he had at some point accidentally run down the avatar of Tymora with a carriage. Surely my luck is too apocalyptically dreadful to be natural?

He was pretty sure that the priest was standing less than ten feet away. Could it find him in the dark? Did it have access to extra senses?

He began working his way away from the voice, though he was moving at a speed that even a snail might find tame. When he dared to steal a glimpse outside, he saw that the skeletons had indeed stopped what they were doing and, in most cases, dropped what they were carrying as well. The street was littered with stones and pickaxes, and the nearest doorways were jammed with skeletons trying to go inside to search and others who had searched and were trying to come back out.

There was actually a clear spot not far away, the back wall of a building with no doorways breaking it up. The skeletons would see him, but if he moved fast, they wouldn’t be able to grab him.

Astarion made a run for it.

Momentum carried him partway up the wall, and he slapped his hands against it and thought very hard about being a spider. His feet scrabbled at empty air, but a missing brick gave him a foothold, and he was up and over the wall in a couple of heartbeats. The second floor was mostly gone, and he could see skulls turning to look up at him through the hole in the floor.

The remains of a balcony led to the remains of a staircase. Astarion skidded down the last few steps, landed in a pile of rubble, felt something in his ankle twang, and didn’t dare stop. He snatched up a brick and flung it off to his left, where it hit something with a satisfying thud.

The skeletons on the road ahead all turned to look at the sound, which gave Astarion time to bolt past them, go up another pile of rubble, and leap to a nearby roof.

He sank down, his heart hammering. It wasn’t safe here, of course, but since the skeletons couldn’t talk, it might be a few minutes before the mummies figured out exactly where he was. He just needed to breathe and take stock.

“So you’re the one who’s been intruding in my domain,” said a voice from behind him.

—

Astarion spun around on the balls of his feet to face the enemy. For a moment, he gazed across the cavern, and then his eyes dropped, and he saw the former servant of Mask, the priest powerful enough to raise an army of undead, the priest who…only came up to Astarion’s belt buckle?

“Yes, yes,” the undead halfling said, levitating just past the edge of the roof. “You were expecting someone taller.” A dark veil covered his face, but green fire flickered in the eyeholes. “Get it out of your system, I’ll wait.”

“I assure you, I had no plans to say anything so unoriginal.” Astarion spread his hands and put on his most winning smile. “The Inquisitor, I presume?”

“I think it sounds better than ‘the sole survivor.’ ”

“Quite, quite. I apologize for the intrusion. In fact, I was hoping to speak to you.”

The priest tilted his head. Wisps of hair still clung to it, though the only truly luxuriant growth was atop his bare feet. He wore a black cassock embroidered with dark red, a pattern of swords and masks chasing one another in an endless procession around the hem. When he moved, Astarion caught glimpses of brightly colored motley underneath. “If you wanted to speak to me, there are easier ways than to destroy my creations. Do you know how long it takes to raise a mummy, if you want it done right?”

“That was the paladin’s doing, not mine. Your creations threw me into a cell with him. I would have preferred a much more subtle exit myself.” He let his face assume an appropriate solemnity. “I have often had reason to offer thanks to Mask…Brother Shadow.”

The priest’s veil hid his expression, but a note of wariness crept into his voice. “You would claim to be a Shadowmaster?”

In point of fact, Astarion had never aspired to be any kind of clergy, although Mask might have been his choice had the matter arisen. No vows of poverty, for one thing. “Alas, no. I sought to enter his service once…in early Kythorn, in the Year of Shadows. You can imagine how well that went.”

The priest snorted at the reference to the Time of Troubles, when the gods had been cast to earth. “Indeed. So, what, then—you came here looking for instruction? Are you telling me you wish to become a servant of our god?”

“If such a thing is possible. You were the only remaining cleric that I could find.” Astarion let his gaze travel across the cavern, as if admiring the priest’s domain. Where the hell were the adventurers with his distraction? This is an inspired story I’m spinning, but at this rate, I’ll be ordained before they get here.

Honestly, he was surprised that the priest had been willing to talk at all, but then again, halflings were a gregarious people, and the man had been trapped down here for decades with only skeletons for company. It was possible he’d made the mummies simply for conversation.

“Tell me why I should trust you,” the priest demanded.

“I would advise you never to trust anyone,” Astarion said in Thieves’ Cant.

And then, because even if Mask was dead, it was possible He still had a sense of humor, an explosion rocked the cavern. Clouds of dust roiled up, and pebbles fell from the ceiling. In the distance, Astarion could hear a familiar voice shouting, “For the Badger!”