find her.'
'Make the time,' Rings stated flatly. He slowly drew his axe from his belt. 'I've had all I can stomach of shapechangers.'
'How in Tyr's name can I prove that I'm not a doppelganger?' Miltiades roared. 'Stand here and not change my shape?'
'Work a magic of Tyr,' Jacob suggested. The lean fighter circled wide, moving to leave himself plenty of room to wield his man-high great sword. Belgin noticed that the fighter had his eyes on the rogues as well as the paladin. 'What of you two? Can you show that you're not shapeshifters?'
'Good,' Belgin said. 'Don't trust any of us. I'll make a point of not trusting any of you, and we'll all get on famously.' He turned back to Miltiades. 'I don't think we'll need you to work a miracle, Miltiades. Just answer me this question: Where did we first meet?'
'Doegan, of course,' the paladin answered.
'Better than that, Miltiades. Exactly where and when?'
With an annoyed look, Miltiades deliberately said, 'We met in battle in the court of the fountain, two days ago. I fought Entreri until Noph interfered, lassoing us with his magical lariat.'
'Good enough for me,' Belgin replied slowly. He took his hand from the hilt of his sword. 'I don't think Eidola could have known that. Now, what do you want to do, paladin?'
'Wait a minute,' Rings said. 'So we believe Miltiades is Miltiades. How does he know he can trust us?'
'Tyr guides me,' the paladin answered bluntly. One by one, he studied Rings, Belgin, then Jacob. To his surprise, Belgin felt uneasy beneath Miltiades's unblinking gaze, as if his darkest secrets were laid bare for the paladin to see. The tall warrior allowed his eyes to rest on
Jacob a moment longer and then stated, 'I see no evil in your hearts. You're all who you say you are.'
'Fine, fine, so everyone's what they seem,' Jacob said. 'Now what?'
'We search the city for Eidola, house by house if we have to,' Miltiades replied. He sighed and leaned his warhammer against one wall, sitting on a windswept stone. 'But first, I think we need to rest a short time. I thank you, Belgin-I've allowed anger to rule me for too long.'
'Think nothing of it.' Belgin shrugged his satchel from his hip and collapsed to the ground, while his companions followed suit. He allowed himself a sparse drink of water and gnawed at a piece of dried sausage from his stores. Exhausted, he leaned his head against the cold stone. I hope she's as tired as I am, he thought. Tyr knows it would only be fair. He laughed weakly at the unspoken prayer to a god he didn't venerate, but the cloying sand caught in his throat. The vicious coughing fit left him helpless for several minutes, his chest aching abominably. Gasping for breath, Belgin tried to pretend he couldn't feel the rasp in his lungs.
'Are you I’ll?' Miltiades asked, studying him closely.
'He's from Edenvale,' Rings answered for him.
'What's that mean?'
'It means that I'm dying,' Belgin said weakly. 'It's the damned bloodforges. Doegan has its fish scales… and lately the black malaise that incapacitated the warriors of the city. In Konigheim, it's a weakness of the will or the mind… everyone knows a Konigheimer who's snapped.'
'Including Kurthe,' Rings muttered.
Belgin nodded. 'Some say Konigheimers have been known to grow a third eye. I don't know about that, though.'
'Edenvale's curse is simple,' Belgin continued. 'We just die young. That's it. My father died at thirty three, my mother at thirty one. My grandsire, he lived to be forty-one. He was accounted lucky. Everyone pays the price for our kings' toys.'
Miltiades and Jacob stared at him in silence for a long moment. 'How old are you now?' the paladin asked.
'Thirty four. I guess all the time I spent at sea's been good for my health. I'd probably be dead by now if I'd stayed at home.'
'Tyr has the power to heal-' the paladin began.
'Not this,' Belgin interrupted. 'It's a curse, a magical curse. Believe me, plenty of our priests have tried to undo the bloodforge's effects. I don't know of any who have succeeded.'
'Tyr grant that Kern destroys that infernal device. And any others that remain in the Utter East, for that matter. Nothing could be worth that cost.' Miltiades stood, his face set in a stonelike expression. 'Can you continue?'
'I'll live. For now, anyway,' Belgin said with a grimace of false bravado. Although his hands trembled with the palsy of an old man, the sharper pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his satchel. 'Don't worry, Miltiades-I mean to make sure the doppelganger doesn't outlive me. Lead the way.'
Moving slowly now, the two warriors and the two pirates sallied from the old temple into the stone city. As Belgin feared, the howling wind erased tracks almost as soon as they were made; Eidola's trail was nonexistent. They circled the ancient shrine, searching the buildings nearby to no effect. Again Belgin felt a cold tone in the wind, a hint of malice and solidity that plucked at his cloak like a living thing, but it vanished before he could even say a word of warning to the others. What kind of guardians watched the crypt we disturbed? he thought. Could they still be here?
The outer buildings seemed more intact than the central temple. Smaller and sturdier, some even retained their roofs. Beyond the ring of buildings there was a large open space and a crumbling wall that seemed to circle the whole set of ruins. Broken and buried in drifting sand, nothing but desolate sand and flat sheets of rock stretched out beyond the walls. After one deliberate circuit, they paused in the lee of the outer wall, considering their next move. 'This place isn't a city,' Rings observed. 'There aren't enough dwellings or private buildings.'
'A temple complex or holy city, then,' Miltiades said. 'Deliberately removed from the mundane world, isolated as a retreat for worship and ceremony.'
'It would be appropriate for a city of the dead,' the dwarf added. 'The builders interred their kings and nobles in a sacred city far from the common folk. They could hide the tombs anywhere in Faerun with those magical gates.'
'Who would go to that much trouble?' Jacob asked.
'I can think of someone,' Belgin said. 'The mage lords of ancient Netheril.'
'Netheril?' Jacob guffawed. 'Tell me another tale, charlatan.'
'The statues in the tomb we found were carved in the mode of ancient Netherese dress,' Belgin said, tugging at his ear. 'The runes and hieroglyphs marking the portal, they were Netherese as well. And I've seen a few faint traces of more hieroglyphs in walls sheltered from the wind. Besides… we're sitting in the middle of a desert. If these are Netherese ruins, I'd expect we're somewhere in Anauroch.'
Rings stared at Belgin. 'What's a Netherese? And where in the Five Kingdoms is Anauroch?'
The sharper shrugged. 'I'm no expert, Rings. I'm just guessing. But Netheril was once a great empire ruled by mighty wizards, far to the northwest of the Five Kingdoms… fairly close to the homeland of these gentlemen, in fact,' he said, nodding at Miltiades and Jacob. 'A long time ago, the Netherese brought some kind of awful magical doom down on their heads, and their kingdom fell, only to be buried by the sand and rock of the desert called Anauroch.'
'I've traveled Anauroch before,' Miltiades said. 'I've never seen this particular place, but it feels right. How did you learn of these things, Belgin?'
'I was given an unusual education.' Belgin spread his hands with a disarming gesture. 'I've read a hundred books and learned a thousand tales. But just as my old mentor predicted, I've wasted my learning on a life of iniquity, deceit, and moral ambiguity.' He grinned abruptly. 'If only she could see me now, battling fiends and consorting with paladins. She might think I'd tinned out right after all.'
'Do any of your tales offer insight into the catching of doppelgangers?'
'Nothing as practical as that, I fear,' Belgin said.
'Then I think it's time I called on Tyr to aid us in our quest,' Miltiades said. Standing, the paladin raised his warhammer, his lips moving in silent prayer. The seething brown murk seemed to lift for just a moment, and his silver armor gleamed scarlet in the setting sun. Opening his eyes, he turned to face the old ruins, seeming to search the dusty arcades and plazas with a sense keener than mortal sight. 'She's in that direction,' he stated with confidence. 'Tyr has granted me a seeking spell, and I can sense the lariat that binds the doppelganger.'
