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“Young Ravengard doesn’t trust us.”
“Hmm?” Gortash pauses, mid-story, “Oh, him - well, of course he doesn’t trust us. I wouldn’t trust us, were our positions reversed.”
The newly minted Archduke of Baldur’s Gate had shed his celebratory regalia for comfortable trousers and a thick velvet robe in Banite black, which left the center of his chest exposed from throat to navel. An elaborate filigree of gold embroidery on the folded collar and sleeves of the robe catches the low firelight, teasing at wealth, like the gold rings the tyrant still wore even when the rest of his fine coronation garb lie scattered across the floor of his bedroom in crumpled heaps, like shed snakeskin.
“It will be a problem,” The Dark Urge says. “Does your plan not rely on his trust?”
Gortash waves a hand, still holding a cup of wine, dismissively. He is barefoot and standing on a chair. “Not his, particularly. One of their trust. I don’t suppose it really matters which. Personally, I have much higher hopes for that blond elf when it comes to replacing our dearly departed Ketheric. He seems desperately eager to please. Now kindly shut up, you’re meant to be listening. …where was I?”
“Lord Szarr,” The Dark Urge supplied, still half distracted. “See? I am listening.”
Gortash goes back to recounting the story of his victory in a verbal rout. He gesticulates grandly while he speaks, even more-so than usual, only coming down from the chair when he needs to refill his wine, and then promptly climbing back up again.
Reclining on Gortash’s plush velvet divan, his tail tapping idly against the floor, the Dark Urge regards him fondly. This vicious tyrant, who had taken an entire city and forced it to kneel before him, is well into his cups, ebullient in his personal victories. There had been a party after the coronation. Fretting over the rest of their problems could wait until morning, Gortash had said. He wanted to enjoy himself tonight and he had. His words have become softer around the edges as his cup grew emptier. He is very nearly slurring, the hint of a dockside accent growing stronger as the night wears on. It makes the Dark Urge think, longingly, of prying open his jaw so that he might reach down Gortash’s wet, pink throat and touch his claws to the place where that accent hides during the day.
There had been no place for a butcher at an Archducal Coronation party. His presence would have soured the celebrations; would have reminded the lofty elite present of the spilled blood and discarded offal that made possible the sweet, seasoned meat of their feast. And anyway, Patriars made his claws itch like nothing else. He wasn’t sure he could control himself, surrounded by so much perfumed, arrogant flesh begging to be rent.
Instead of attending the feast, the Dark Urge had followed their potential allies back to their camp, on the edge of the city. Shadowed alleys with muck squelching underfoot were more home to a Bhaalist than elaborate halls, where monstrous urges had to be hidden behind smiles and lies. In the broken ruins of an abandoned fortress in the hills, the Dark Urge had found a place atop a crumbling stone wall, and from there he had watched and listened as young Wyll Ravengard and the others who had accompanied him filled their absent companions in on what had transpired at Wyrm’s Rock. Perched overhead, as still and monstrous as any gargoyle, the Dark Urge had observed as they huddled around their campfire and argued over Gortash’s offer. Wyll Ravengard led the opposition, who wanted to refuse Gortash’s offer outright, against a few - including the blond elf Gortash had called eager to please - who thought that they might have something to gain from a temporary alliance.
They were wise to doubt. The Chosen of Bane was quick to make alliances, but just as quick to discard them - with no more thought than he had given for his expensive coat, which now lay crumpled on the floor - once they no longer suited his needs.
And as for the Dark Urge… Bhaal’s truth was simpler. Everyone dies alone.
But he was the favorite of his father, chosen above his siblings, because he understood patience. The Dark Urge had remade the Cult of Bhaal and held its throat in his fist with an iron grip because he, alone, understood the sweetness of two simple words… not yet.
He was not a child, clumsily grasping at the treat in front of him. The Dark Urge would tolerate whichever allies Gortash deemed fit to get them closer to their goals, and then, one day, he would kill them. Ketheric Thorm would have been a challenge, true, but one which the Dark Urge had found himself looking forward to, before these tadpoled fools had robbed him of the kill which should have been his by right. In doing so, they had inadvertently volunteered themselves in his place. Whether he killed them tonight or a year hence was immaterial. They would all die by his hand, in his father’s name, regardless.
The Dark Urge had perched over their unsuspecting heads in the darkness until their campfire had been doused and everyone had retreated to their bedrolls. As Ravengard approached his tent, the blond elf - Astarion, he had heard one of the others call him - had slinked up alongside him out of the darkness like a stray cat begging for scraps. They had spoken, too quietly for the Dark Urge to hear, but Astarion seemed to be trying to soothe the ruffled feathers his earlier words had caused. In the moonlight, his pale hands had fluttered over Ravengard’s face, his neck, his shoulders, cosseting and mollifying in equal turn. Eventually, Ravengard must have been won over by whatever sweet nothings Astarion lavished him with, because they had kissed before entering a tent together. That was interesting.
Once the camp had gone quiet, the Dark Urge had left, using a spell of feather fall to jump from the edge of the ruined watchtower unharmed, and made his way back to Gortash’s private apartments in the Upper City.
And now, in this moment, he must pay his penance. The Dark Urge had abandoned his tyrant to the tender mercies of a party thrown in his honour by the city’s elite. A room full of grasping, scheming noblemen was as much Bane’s playground as a dark alley was Bhaal’s. It is clear Gortash had thoroughly enjoyed himself, and now he is determined to tell the Dark Urge all about it.
He forces his attention back to the present. It takes effort. The evening air is warm enough, but a fire had been lit in the grate anyway, It makes the room feel pleasantly stifling. The divan is plush and soft against his scales. Gortash favored luxury in all things. His rooms were always a dangerous treat, after too long in the utilitarian austerity of Bhaal’s temple. Soft things, expensive things, did not survive long there. Laying on it now tempts him towards indolence.
“... at which point I told him that if he left his mansion more than once a decade, he might find himself more knowledgeable about current events.” Gortash smirks, flush with the memory of his victory.
Outside the window, a faint explosion and the night is torn by a sudden flash of gold and red, which rips across the black sky like a wound.
“Ah! Fireworks,” Gortash says, delight plain across his face. He hops down off the chair with both feet at once, like a child stomping in a puddle, which just sends the remaining wine in his cup sloshing over his fingers. “Shit.”
He shakes the wine off his fingers and drains what’s left in the cup as he crosses to the open window just as another burst of red and gold tears across the sky. It reminds the Dark Urge of the distress rockets launched by sinking ships.
“Someone appears to be celebrating my coronation. Come over here and look.”
A little part of him raises its hackles at the thoughtlessly commanding tone, but the Dark Urge can refuse Gortash little at the best of times, and even less when his tyrant is so pleasantly flushed and pleased with himself. With a little sigh, he climbs off the divan, which creaks like breaking bone as it is relieved of his weight, and goes to join Gortash at the window.
The Archduke of Baldur’s Gate cuts a fine figure silhouetted against the open night air. When he reaches him, the Dark Urge winds himself around Gortash’s back like a dragon around its hoard, trapping him between scaled flesh and hard stone. The spiked tip of his tail curls around one of his human’s soft, bare ankles. After a moment’s thought, he lowers his snout and bites the meaty junction of Gortash’s shoulder and his throat, just hard enough to tear the skin and prick the muscle underneath.
Gortash sucks in a sharp breath at the sudden, sharp pain, but doesn’t flinch nor pull away.
“Don’t use your Archduke voice on me.”
“Apologies, dearest,” Gortash says, not sounding terribly apologetic at all. The Dark Urge bites him again, a little harder this time. A warning. “I’ll have to practice. To teach myself to turn it off and on.”
“You’ll enjoy that.”
“Hmm,” Gortash agrees, wordlessly, as another burst of light explodes across the sky, casting red and gold shadows across their faces.
The Dark Urge switches to licking at the blood trickling from the ring of puncture wounds decorating Gortash’s bare shoulder. The copper tang of blood on his tongue reminds him of something.
“Your blond elf is a vampire spawn,” he says.
A frown tightens the muscles in Gortash’s shoulder. “Surely not. The coronation was in the middle of the day.”
“He is. One of Lord Szarr’s, I suspect. He smells like him. While you were drinking and eviscerating patriars with your sharp tongue, I followed them back to their camp. He reeks of grave dust and blood. Though I can’t speculate how he’s walking in the sun without burning like fat on a fire.”
“Fascinating. I wonder if the same Netherese magic that suspends the ceremorphosis is also blocking the more unpleasant aspects of his infection… that’ll be worth looking into. I hadn’t even considered the effects of the tadpoles on undead.”
The Dark Urge can feel Gortash’s mind beginning to work, within the bone cradle of his skull. His skin practically hums with it, the silent vibration of gears beginning to turn.
“I thought you were celebrating tonight,” he says, dry. Teasing.
“That was before you gave me something interesting to think about.”
“Ulder Ravengard’s son plotting your downfall isn’t interesting?”
Gortash waves a gold-clad hand. “I’m a Banite, someone is always plotting my downfall. One gets used to it. Anyway, I knew Wyll Ravengard when he was barely old enough to shave. He reads entirely too many hero novels. The boy was always running headlong into trouble that daddy had to help him out of. He’s more a threat to himself than to us. Now this tadpoled vampire spawn, on the other hand - he could be useful. Especially if you’re right about him being one of Cazador’s.”
Even drunk, Gortash’s mind worked like one of his merciless engines; quick and hot as molten metal, spinning plans that could topple empires from the air. How the Dark Urge adored him like this.
“Go on,” he turns to nuzzle at the unbitten side of Gortash’s throat. I’ll keep you for last, he thinks. It is an old promise he had made to himself; repeated often and fondly, like a child’s bedtime prayer. Until every other heart has stopped and even the gods are dead at my feet, I’ll keep you. None can touch you but me, and only then. The very last.
Gortash’s fingers, in their filligree gold claws, pluck at the air as he thinks aloud. “Well, I can’t imagine Cazador has been kind to the poor wretch. You can see it in his eyes, the desperation for any sort of positive attention. Those sorts are easy. We lure him in with honey, promise him everything he’s ever wanted, shower him with compliments the whole way, and in return all we want is for him to use the netherstone to help us control the brain. A true alliance. Trust me - give a man who’s been kicked like a dog his entire life a seat at the table as an equal and he’ll lick your boots to keep it.”
The Dark Urge can feel Gortash’s chuckle before he hears it. His scaled hands are pressed against the warm, soft skin of Gortash’s belly. He wants to reach inside, through muscle and organs, and cradle that laughter in the palm of his hands like a cherished thing. Before he can stop himself, his claws dig in just a little, betraying his yearning.
“Ah!” Gortash hisses sharply, an edge of arousal warring with the discomfort. The muscles in his stomach jump under the Dark Urge’s claws. The line between his pleasure and his pain was a faint, blurred thing at the best of times, but he masters himself quickly. “There, are you happy now? I have a plan. Have,” he insists, “Had a plan since those tadpoled idiots set foot in Wyrm’s Rock this morning. May I go back to enjoying myself now?”
As he says the last part, his hand comes up to press against the back of the Dark Urge’s own, flattening the scaled palm against the flesh of Gortash’s belly. “Really, normally I’m the one who frets,” he chides.
“Yes,” the Dark Urge agrees, with feigned solemnity. “But you’ve abdicated your responsibility for celebration, and so it falls to me.”
He turns their twined hands so that he can lift Gortash’s fingers to his mouth and lick the dried stains of spilled wine from them.
“I do hope we aren’t turning into one of those couples that start acting like the other,” Gortash muses, still wine-drunk and entertained. He uncurls his fingers, so that the Dark Urge’s long, agile tongue can slide between them. “I don’t think I could pull off a beheading with quite the ease you do, dearheart.”
That thought plucks another free from the back of the Dark Urge’s mind. He pauses his ministrations to Gortash’s hand.
“They’re lovers. Ravengard and Astarion.”
“Who?”
“The blond elf you want to replace Ketheric with. His name is Astarion.”
Gortash makes a little noise of frustration that his attempts at celebration have once again been stymied, but the gears of his mind bite into this new information regardless.
“Kill Ravengard first, then. Before I convince Astarion to join us. Otherwise our new friend will have the devil on his shoulder arguing against everything I say." The Dark Urge can tell without looking that he is smirking at his own wit, and allows his tail to coil tighter around Gortash’s ankle.
"And in his grief after the tragic loss of his lover, we will be the dear friends who comfort and guide him.” Dramatic to a fault, Gortash presses his hands together in mockery of beatitude. “Hmm, of course it will have to seem unrelated. Nothing sours a business relationship like accusations of murder. But, no matter… there are dozens of dangers that can befall an errant young adventurer in a city such as this. We’ll just have to find one of them.”
His voice brightens. “Perhaps your sister. We’ve been meaning to send someone after her ever since that little stunt she pulled in the Illithid Colony. A favor for a favor, a chance for our new allies to prove themselves…”
“No. Orin is mine to kill, and I’d rather not attempt it with potential enemies at my back.”
“Very well… perhaps Lord Szarr then? I’m sure our vampire friend will be eager to join in if we tell him we’re mounting an attempt to kill his former master. I would be very surprised if there’s any love lost between them.”
The Dark Urge considers this, allowing his gaze to fall out over the city below them. To the east, along the wall separating the Upper City from the Lower, the Szarr mansion squats like a carrion bird looking over its prey. He has wanted to try to kill the vampire lord since he first became aware of him, but other priorities always took precedence. There was no thrill like killing that which considered itself immortal.
“You like that idea,” Gortash observes. His hand has found its way to the ridges of scales along the Dark Urge’s chin, stroking them. “You’ll get young Ravengard and Lord Szarr both in one day. That’ll be positively decadent for you, won’t it? Perhaps I’ll come along. Ridding the city of a vampire lord seems suitably Archducal, and it’s been an age since we killed anything together.”
“Mephistopheles’ vaults,” the Dark Urge recalls, fondly.
“It’s settled, then. We’ll mount an attack on the Szarr mansion. I’ll make up some suitable excuse about ridding our fair city of a bloodthirsty menace and we’ll invite Ravengard’s band of idiots along to help. Let them think we’re trying to prove our integrity - putting on a show of good behavior, what-have-you… and then once we’re in the mansion we’ll find a convenient excuse to split ranks. I’ll take our vampire friend with me, Ravengard will go with you, and you’ll ensure something suitably bloody happens to him when no one is looking.”
In the distance, a last round of fireworks light the sky. A celebration for a man who would doom them all with a smile on his face. What they might think if they could see him with the living embodiment of murder itself coiled around him like a lover.
The Dark Urge considers this new plan, turning it over in the light, looking for flaws. As usual, there were none. Even half-drunk, Gortash’s plans were brilliant. There was a reason he, and none other, was worthy to be the Chosen of Bane. To stand by the Dark Urge’s side as they began the unmaking of the world.
“Brilliant,” he says, bending to rub his face against Gortash’s throat. He smells of sweat and the lingering remnants of stale perfume. “As usual.”
Gortash is a vain man. He preens under the compliment, as smug as any patriar, leaning back in the circle of the Dark Urge’s arms.
“You should invite Ravengard with you,” the Dark Urge says. “When we have them in our grip and the time is right to strike. Invite Ravengard with you, and I will lay claim to Astarion.”
“Hmm… Any particular reason why?”
“Ravengard is in love and he believes me to be the bigger threat. He won’t countenance sending his lover off into the darkness, entirely at my mercy. He will insist on switching. Astarion with you and himself with me.” He dips his head to nuzzle at Gortash’s neck, pressing the words into his soft, human skin. “When I kill him, I want him to realize how he has underestimated us. It will be beautiful. His regret, his pain in realizing his mistake, will make his death sweet beyond measure.”
“Not to mention making it that much more convincing that his death was truly an accident, should our vampire friend every get it in his head to question the circumstances of his lover’s death.” Craning his neck, he presses an affectionate kiss to the Dark Urge’s snout. “Brilliant, dearest. Whatever would I do without you?”
“Drink wine alone. Talk about your plans to your machines. Fuck patriars.”
In his arms, Gortash feigns a shudder, “How dreadful. May that day never come.”