[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."So the Avatar of Bhaal has triumphed over Balthazar.I am impressed." Despite her words, Abdel knew she was mocking him."Have you come to stop me, Abdel? Come to strip me of my destiny?"Abdel said nothing, but simply nodded.Melissan drifted free from the column of power, gasping slightly for air as if she had been taking a long drink."If you want Bhaal's power, all you have to do is come and get it," she taunted.Angry, vengeful thoughts propelled Abdel through the void as he flew at her throat.His outstretched hands clasped themselves around the entity's neck and squeezed.Melissan disintegrated into sparkling dust, then reformed a few feet away."Your ignorance is amusing," she chuckled."You cannot kill me here, Abdel.This is Bhaal's world, and I am now a part of it.Not just a part of it, Abdel.I am this world! This world is me! I have become one with the immortal essence!"Abdel recalled how his encounter with Sarevok in the Abyss had been similarly ineffective.He realized it might truly be impossible to kill Melissan in this world, but somehow, he vowed, he would make her pay for Jaheira's and Imoen's deaths.He hurtled toward her again, but Melissan simply raised a smooth hand and repelled his assault with a flick of her wrist.Abdel felt himself spiraling toward the glowing column in the center of the empty universe.Melissan watched with interest as the big sellsword was sucked into the pillar.Abdel felt the euphoria of infinite power washing over him.He felt the endless possibilities of immortality, the unlimited potential of being a god.He was drowning in the essence of Bhaal.His euphoria turned to panic.Abdel could feel himself dissolving.He was becoming incorporeal, his form washing away in the river of energy raging through him.His physical manifestation was being wiped away, buried beneath the all-consuming identity of the immortal.Like Melissan he was becoming one with the sum of Bhaal's essence.Unlike Melissan, Abdel was not prepared for it."Good," Melissan cooed, "give yourself over to Bhaal's power.Mingle your essence with that of your father and your siblings that I may devour you all."Abdel tried to break free of the glowing pillar.It was like swimming from the center of a whirlpool.The currents drawing him back to the center were too strong to resist."Do not struggle, Abdel," Melissan advised."This is what must be.From Bhaal's common seed all the Children were born, and to a single pool you must all return.You are all one and the same.Bhaalspawn, offspring of the Lord of Murder.It is what you are.It is what defines you.""No," Abdel said weakly, his very will to resist vanishing beneath the onslaught, his identity and sense of self eroding.His memories were vanishing despite his efforts to hang on to them, spilling through his clenched fists like grains of sand.Imoen, Gorion.The names meant nothing to him now, and then even the names were gone, swept away by the irresistible currents of the collective infinite identity surrounding him.Everything he had been was being stripped away, until only the essence of his father remained.Even his own name was lost now.All he had left was the face of a woman, her slightly pointed ears and violet eyes hinting at the elf side of her parentage.Jaheira.He clung to her memory, refusing to lose the last spark of his individuality.He strength from her name.Jaheira.He managed to conjure up recollections of not just her face but her voice.Jaheira.Abdel could feel substance returning to his body.He could hear his lover's laugh, he could feel her warm touch.Jaheira.'Your submission to the collective essence is inevitable," Melissan declared."You are a Bhaalspawn."Jaheira.He could remember her clearly now, the half-elf druid who had stood by him during his darkest times.The lover who had even resisted the call of death to spend one last night by his side.He remembered everything about her: the feel of her soft touch, the smell of her long hair, the sound of her laugh.And he remembered what she had told him.Remember who you are.At last he understood.They were all wrong—Gorion, Sarevok, Melissan, the Five, Balthazar.Even Jaheira had been wrong, though it was her words and love that had saved him and led him to true understanding."No!" Abdel's voice resonated with renewed strength."I am not just some speck floating in this infinite whole! I am not just a Bhaalspawn!"I am Abdel Adrian! Hero of Baldur's Gate! Savior of the Tree of Life! Son of Bhaal, ward of Gorion, lover of Jaheira!"Abdel finally understood.He stopped trying to deny the part of him that was his father's legacy.The taint of Bhaal was within him, it was a part of who he was.Gorion and Jaheira had tried to suppress that part of him, and to please them Abdel had tried to separate himself from it.Balthazar had succeeded in accomplishing what Abdel could not.He had cut himself completely off from his immortal taint, caging it so completely that he was not able to call upon it when he needed it
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]