"Why do you hesitate, Balthazar? Time is of the essence."

  "I am ready," Balthazar replied, slightly confused. "Show me the path and I shall begin the journey."

  "The gate is open." There was deep concern in the entity's infinite voice. "Simply pass through to enter Bhaal's Abyssal plane. Once there, you must follow Melissan through the final door."

  Balthazar turned his head from side to side. "Where? I see no gate. I see no door. I see nothing."

  The shadowy being was beginning to dissolve.

  "Melissan is within Bhaal's realm. She has passed through the final door. Enter the realm and follow her through the door. I will keep the gate open as long as I am able." And the creature was gone.

  Knowing time was short, Balthazar rushed back and forth around the obviously empty room, trying to find the gate that was supposedly there. The inner peace Balthazar had cultivated with a lifetime of study and contemplation was rapidly disintegrating, lost in the frantic, futile search for a gate he could not see. He could feel the purpose of his very existence slipping from his grasp. Melissan was about to become the Lord of Murder, and his life's work to prevent Bhaal's return would be meaningless if he did not stop her, but he still could not see the way to his father's Abyssal realm.

  Understanding dawned slowly on the monk. His mind resisted the truth, and tried to bury it in an inescapable fortress of mental will and discipline. Just as it had resisted and buried the essence of Bhaal for so many years. Balthazar could no longer deny the truth, not if he wanted to stop Melissan. Forced to accept his own impotence, he turned his attention back to the comatose Bhaalspawn on the floor.

  * * * * *

  The empty, gray existence of unconsciousness slipped away as Abdel's awareness returned. He felt the warmth of magical healing spreading throughout his body, bolstering his own regenerative powers with their tingling touch. Someone cradled his head in his lap, chanting the soft words of the restoring spell.

  He opened his eyes, expecting to see Jaheira. Instead, he found himself staring up into the tattooed face of the black-skinned Balthazar.

  Before he could react, the monk jabbed the fingers of his right hand into the side of Abdel's neck, just below the line of his jaw. Balthazar's left hand had a firm grip on the other side of Abdel's jaw, almost as if the monk was about to twist his head clean off his spine.

  "If you move, Abdel, I will be forced to kill you."

  Abdel knew this was no idle threat. He was unfamiliar with the particular nuances of the maneuver Balthazar seemed poised to unleash, but Abdel had no doubt it would be instantly fatal.

  "Why not just kill me now and end this?" he asked. Even the slight movement caused by speaking sent jolts of pain through Abdel's neck and skull. Balthazar must have sensed the sellsword's discomfort because he loosened his grip ever so slightly.

  "I must speak with you, Abdel," Balthazar said, still cradling the sellsword's head in his lap even as his hands maintained a firm and ominous pressure. "I must know if you see a gate or a door in this room."

  Realizing he was at the mercy of his foe, Abdel could do little but answer honestly. Though he was unable to turn his head, Abdel cast his eyes around the circular first floor of the tower. The entrance to the building was still sealed, the only exit was the stairway to the second floor.

  "I see no gate. I see no door."

  "It is as I feared," the monk muttered, "I have waited too long. The messenger's power has waned, and the path is no longer open."

  Balthazar sighed, a sound of despondent resignation. Almost as an afterthought he asked, "Have you ever visited the plane of our father?"

  Still uncertain what the monk was insinuating, Abdel could see no reason to lie. "I have seen Bhaal's Abyssal realm."

  The pressure on his neck increased momentarily, causing Abdel to wince in pain.

  "How?" the monk demanded, his voice unable to mask his excitement. "How do you enter this realm?"

  Abdel hesitated before answering. If Balthazar knew the secret to reaching Bhaal's world, he might very well end Abdel's life in an effort to open the passage. However, if Abdel didn't answer, Balthazar would kill him for sure. And in the end it didn't matter. Even if he could somehow break free from his current compromising position, Abdel realized he would never be able to avenge Jaheira's death. Balthazar was too great an opponent. Abdel could never defeat the tattooed warrior.

  "I cannot control it," the big sellsword said carefully, resigned to his inevitable fate. "It has happened whenever I have killed one of the Five. As they die, I suddenly find myself in the plane once ruled by Bhaal."

  "Of course," Balthazar whispered. "The essence of Bhaal would return to its planar home. If the essence was great, as it was in each of the Five, your own essence would be drawn with it."

  The monk's hands suddenly shifted, and Abdel braced himself for his own death. But instead of wrenching his neck, the monk's hands released their grip. Abdel felt something cold and hard slap into the palm of his right hand. He glanced down and saw he was holding Sendai's dagger. Instinctively his fingers wrapped around the grip.

  "You must kill me, Abdel," Balthazar demanded. "Kill me and enter our father's world."

  Abdel hesitated, unsure if this was some type of trick or test.

  "Why?"

  "Melissan has entered the Abyssal plane," the monk explained hastily. "She seeks to become the new Lord of Murder. You must enter the plane and pass through the final door to stop her."

  Still on his back with his head on Balthazar's lap, Abdel pressed the point of Sendai's blade against the monk's throat. He didn't know if Balthazar was telling him the truth about Melissan, but he couldn't see any reason for the monk to lie. Abdel finally had his chance to avenge Jaheira. But for some reason, his hand still refused to draw the rune-covered edge across Balthazar's neck.

  "Why me?" Abdel asked. "Why not just kill me and do this yourself?"

  "I cannot," Balthazar replied, his voice sounding almost ashamed. "I have caged the Bhaal essence within me so thoroughly that I am no longer able to enter the realm of our father. The enchanted markings on my body keep the foul essence contained, the years of mental discipline reinforce the bars of the prison within my soul so that I am unable to access the power of my own tainted blood.

  "It must be you, Abdel. You are the last of our kind. You are the only one who can follow Melissan now."

  The monk tilted his head back, exposing his throat to Abdel's blade. Earlier the sellsword had lusted for just such an opportunity, but now he found he was unwilling to deliver the final cut.

  "Time is of the essence," Balthazar reminded him, his voice placid and serene.

  Abdel sliced the knife across the monk's neck. The warm blood rained down from the jagged wound to coat Abdel's hand and wrist. It pumped forth, splashing across the sellsword's face and chest. Balthazar's body slumped forward across Abdel's own.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Abdel recognized the Abyssal home of Bhaal through some innate feeling of familiarity. Perhaps it was his own immortal essence that drew him to this place, perhaps it was simply the fact that he had been here so many times before. Whatever the explanation, Abdel instinctively knew he was once again in his father's realm.

  But he couldn't tell by looking at the surroundings. Each time he had visited Bhaal's corner of the Abyss Abdel had noticed the subtle changes. From empty void, to parched desert, to fertile, rain-soaked earth Abdel had been witness to the evolution of a dead, forgotten world. What he saw now, however, boggled his mind.

  He was standing in a jungle—diseased, rotting, moribund—but a jungle nonetheless. Gnarled trees the color of deadwood arced up to disappear in the canopy of wide, yellow-splotched leaves overhead. Sickly gray vines hung down from the trees, putrid brown flowers bloomed among the infected flora.

  There was no sound in the plague-filled tangle of trees and foliage, merely a heavy, oppressive silence that seemed to press in on Abdel from all sides with an almost physical presence. Even more overpowering was the pungent, cloying odor of gangrenous growth that hung in the air like a noxious cloud. With every breath Abdel was forced to fight against the urge to disgorge his last meal.

  The moldering jungle grew so thick around him, Abdel could barely see five feet in front of him, but he knew the door he sought was somewhere in the murky, mildewed forest. Despite his revulsion to even touch the diseased plant life, he would have to hack his way through the growth to find the door.

  Abdel took a hesitant step forward, and his bare foot sank an inch deep into the dark lichens and fungi that carpeted the ground. The decomposing moss squelched up between his toes in a dark green mush of liquid and vegetable matter. As if reacting to his movements, slime coated vines dropped down from overhead to wrap themselves around his head and bare shoulders.

  He shrugged them off in disgust only to discover thick, deformed weeds had sprouted up from the earth beneath his feet and were entwining themselves around his naked legs. Abdel kicked them loose, their malnourished, sickly stalks far too feeble to offer much resistance. Gagging at the fetid stench of decomposition wafting up from the mulch beneath his feet, Abdel pressed onward.

  Shuddering at the mucky feel of the vegetation against every inch of his exposed skin, Abdel snapped off branches and tore through thick jungle leaves. A blade would have made his progress far less distasteful, but Abdel was completely weaponless. Again and again he reached out with his bare hands to rip his way through the dense growth. His fingers became discolored and sticky with the foul-smelling sap leaking from the plants surrounding him.

  It didn't take him long to realize that the plants were pressing in on all sides—literally. The foliage reached out to brush against him like the begging hands of lepers huddled in front of Ilmater's temple. The vines continued to drop down from above, coating him with their stringy, tangled tendrils. Roots and weeds hounded his every step, writhing in and about his legs and feet as if they would trip him up.

  The clutching, grasping forest of living disease quickly became more than mere inconvenience. Abdel found himself struggling to maintain his balance beneath the heavy net of sickly, wet vines from above. The malevolent undergrowth became more insistent, tugging and yanking at his feet and ankles and quickly wrapping itself up as high as his knees if Abdel kept his foot in place for more than a few seconds.

  The realm of Bhaal was opposing him, trying to prevent him from blazing through the jungle in his search for the door through which Melissan herself had passed. It was succeeding. Abdel became frantic, swatting and kicking furiously in his efforts to dislodge the aggressive plants, but no matter how much he struggled he could not break free.

  Abdel reached down deep inside himself, trying to summon the Ravager once more. Balthazar might have bested the gigantic beast, but Abdel knew his demonic form could easily tear a savage path through the vegetation. The fires of his father's fury began to rise, and Abdel braced himself for the terrible transformation.

  It never came. Abdel could feel the inferno blazing within his soul, but it had no effect on him. The jungle, however, responded emphatically. Like some enormous spider spinning a cocoon, the plant life wrapped itself in spirals around him. The trees bent down to entwine their branches around Abdel's limbs, caressing and clinging to him like a long-abandoned lover.

  Abdel realized Bhaal's world was indeed alive, but it wasn't attacking him or impeding him. It was drawn to him. It recognized the immortal essence within Abdel, and it wanted to fawn and fondle him. In trying to summon the Ravager, Abdel had only intensified the yearning of the jungle.

  With awareness came mastery. Abdel stopped resisting the plants and instead focused his will on shaping them. He imagined the thick vegetation retreating, drawing away like respectful servants retreating after their master had dismissed them. The vines, roots, and branches encasing his body receded in response to the will of one of Bhaal's children.

  Abdel envisioned the jungle parting before him, clearing a path to the hidden door that led to Melissan, and again his mere desire made it so. The way before him was obvious now, a narrow corridor knifing through the dense growth that led straight to a single wooden door standing untouched by the forest.

  The leaves rustled as he walked past, like subjects waving at the procession of a new king's coronation. Unimpeded, Abdel marched to the door and opened it without hesitating.

  The realm of Bhaal vanished, and Abdel found himself in the void once again. But this void was already occupied. Melissan hovered in the emptiness, her body encased in a pillar of glowing power. The ends of the shining column stretched to infinity in every direction, but its width was barely enough for a single person.

  At least, Abdel assumed it was Melissan in the light. The tall, attractive woman he remembered from previous meetings was gone. In her place floated a hairless, smooth skinned being who was neither male nor female. Melissan had become both ageless and sexless. She had shed all previous identities, and was in the process of being reborn, remade, and rebuilt as an immortal.

  The new Melissan noticed Abdel hovering in the void beside her. When she spoke Abdel was not surprised to discover her voice had already begun to adopt the infinite depth of an immortal.

  "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 drew 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. That was not the answer. By denying that part of his soul, Abdel left a hole in his own identity.