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His thoughts are a scattered wreck upon the sea of the man he used to be. Glimpses—sanity, satiety—are all he has of the world around him. Gortash striding, stumbling, muttering back and forth and back again along Wyrm Rock's halls as he contemplates and Ulder hates him fury burbling up under his chest an acid that threatens to spit from his tongue, but then the moment in gone and there is the scent of iron-blood and the drip-drip-drip of Umberlee's bitch fingers clawing in at this putrescent wart on her domain that she will destroy. There is the sharp-spice scent of a banquet laid heavy over tables and Dillard Portyr's thin voice warbling over his congratulations to the preeminent Arch Duke and even the weather-vane will break under this storm before it rolls him under again to rot and iron and fish. His sword comes down, down for Gortash's neck, and stops perched on the man's shoulder instead, as his lips speak words ( traitor ). Hush, the storm says, he will earn his due and then Ulder is drowning again over and under waves and tumbling and there is no Up—
That was days ago. The storm has left him since, but his mind is scattered fragments storm-shattered and bumping-breaking up against itself, moved only by the waves left behind, even now that the worst danger is past. The storm hovers, always, on the horizon, a thunder cloud that could roll over him just as easily and which will drown him in the coming tenday. It is only waiting, though for what, Ulder does not know.
He can remember before—before Gortash and the woman-dressed-in-viscera and the parasite behind his eye and the Crown that broke him first, that made this so easy, the cracks he left behind that let Gortash in—but he does not know how to return there, to fix himself.
"I thought I might find you here, Duke." A familiar voice he has not before heard croons.
He cannot find enough of himself to reply. Umberlee drip-drip-drip hisses a how-dare-you-in-my-domain, but she cannot reach him either.
"My, my," the woman-thing tuts, "you have seen better days, haven't you? Poor thing."
The cambion spreads her wings, chest forward, breasts high with her satisfied smile, teeth, and THE DEVILS HAVE FOUND HIM EVEN HERE. His son pleading father as two horns drip-drip-drip down over one eye and he finds enough of himself, his hate, to say, hissing-spit:
" Deviless. "
"That won't do." She says. "But you really aren't yourself now, are you, Ulder? I can help."
His body does not flinch back in time before (puppet-strings warped, jerky clumsy movement) she places a gentle hand against his cheek, stop your crying pup , wipe away tears and he gasps—
He is not the man he once was, but he is no longer scattered fragments gone. A small dinghy, rough, but sea worthy enough to survive the waves that remain in the storm's wake. It won't survive the storm, but still, he is not drowning, not anymore.
And with a growl Ulder slaps Mizora's hand away. "What do you want, devil?"
"A touch of gratitude wouldn't hurt," she shakes her head, but it isn't a 'no' it is meant to draw him in and down her breasts and hips and she smiles, satisfied, when he looks without meaning to. "Where are your manners?"
Ulder places a hand against his breastbone, may Helm preserve me.
"I reserve my respect for those who have earned it. And you have earned nothing."
She smiles at him, simpers, eyes flashing with the mirth of a well-kept secret.
"Why, that's no way to treat the only person offering to help you."
"Devils don't help." Ulder says with finality. "And you should know better than to think I might treat with your kind."
"I think you might." She says, stretching, lithe-predator. "After all, what do you have left to lose?"
She glances around his dismal prison cell, as though there might be riches hiding in the iron-stink pool of filthy water in the corner, before she smirks, dismissive.
She makes a point. What does Ulder have to offer a devil? He is too old for even children to truly be a consideration and his one son is already taken.
"You are wasting your time." There is a note of pride in his voice. "And you are welcome to it, if it keeps you from tormenting some other poor soul."
A curling smile tells him she believes him well ensnared in her trap.
Devils are simple. All he has to do is keep saying no and Ulder is good at that. Devils, Patriars, what difference does it make? Ulder has the practice of decades behind him. He will take pleasure in disappointing her.
“What would you give to protect Baldur’s Gate?” Mizora asks.
His eyes narrow; his breath quickens. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a simple question.”
There is no silence here, not when the metal groans under the weight of the sea above and there is the incessant hissing of water as Umberlee tries to reclaim what is rightfully hers. (Even now he can feel the weight of Her pressing down. Ulder Ravengard is no sailor, but every Baldurian learns to fear and respect the sea.) They wait, gauging one another.
“You can’t save Baldur’s Gate.” Ulder sneers.
“True,” Mizora answers, a piquant shrug tilting her shoulders. “But you could.”
This is a familiar road.
“Power always has its price.” Ulder replies. “I will not save Baldur’s Gate only to sell it into the service of a devil. The answer is no.”
Mizora sighs. “You haven’t even let me finish. The bargain I am offering you is thus: pact your soul to me and I will free you from the Iron Throne. Together we can slay Gortash. With his power, we can bring the Absolute to heel—”
The storm darkens, clouds threatening on the horizon and Ulder feels the waves beneath his fragile prow begin to quake. I AM the storm declares.
“—what do you have to lose? With that illithid tadpole behind your eye your soul is doomed one way or another. Now you might at least have a chance to save the city you claim to love.”
Ulder’s left hand quakes. He shapes it into a fist.
“No.” His voice rings hollow.
Mizora looks through him. “Ulder, honestly—”
“Do not speak so familiarly to me, devil. ” Ulder thunders.
“Grand Duke, then.” His title rolls off her tongue like an insult. “You are aware that my presence here is the only reason you can think ? I am holding The Absolute—” lightning strikes, thunder quakes “— at bay. Without my help, you would be consumed. I am offering you a stay of abeyance, if you will. Your soul will still be forfeit, mine instead of that false god’s. You will still die. But I am offering you time. Time enough to save your city. Wyll is here, you know, in Baldur's Gate.”
Ulder remembers, devil blood in his veins, and falters.
“Son?” The word whispers across his lips, so quiet he might have wondered if it was even audible, were it not for the twitch in her lips.
"Will you save him?" Mizora asks, blinking slowly.
There is no dealing with devils, only surviving them. Ulder hides a grim smile. This is so very much like dealing with Patriars.
"I have no son." Ulder replies.
There is no surprise in the devil's expression.
"I see." Mizora replies. "You'll leave Baldur's Gate to perish, then? I expected better, former Grand Duke, but then I suppose men in power only care so long as they can keep that power."
The barb does not sting coming from a devil's mouth.
"I have yet to hear any reassurance from you that your bargain will be of any worth. All you have promised is to free me from this prison. You have not faced the Absolute." He does not flinch as the storm darkens. "What can a mere Cambion do when faced with an Elder Brain? No, you cannot help me, and your price is worth far more than what you would offer."
"And if I could tell you the Elder Brain's weakness? Point you towards how one might slay it?”
“Empty promises that you cannot fulfill.”
“If I were to swear it?”
This is an interesting proposition coming from a devil, which makes him all the quicker to deny it.
“I do not care for ‘what if’s.” Ulder replies. “Beg, bargain, and plead, but I have no intention of making a deal with you.”
Her anger is palpable. She raises her wings as if by making herself bigger she might also make him cower into compliance. Ulder stares back at her, defiant.
“Fine.” She snaps.
DROWN says the storm.
And Ulder shudders to pieces.
He is the broken prow of a proud ship, under and drowning. Air is happenstance, memory is the flood, brushes remembered flashes of what-had-been. The world is blood and flood and the ashy memory of words on his tongue enemies from within and without / go . It could have been hours, but it was surely merely moments, because when his mind comes back to himself, to the solidity of fashioned planks, Mizora is still standing there, smirking at him. He does not fear the water (he never had before), but he might fear the storm.
"Will you hear me out now, Grand Duke?" She raises one long finger. "And before you deny me once again, if you say no, I will go away and leave you here to rot. "
Dying is not the worst thing that could happen to him. The devil standing in front of him is proof enough of that. But knowing The Absolute waits on the fringes, ready to drown him in its storm of HATE-SPITE-DISDAIN at any moment and knowing that each time more of him would be lost . . .
"I will hear you out, devil." Ulder says finally, "at least it will break up the mundanity of my cell."
She tilts her head with a smile. He knows she has not bought his lies.
"The Absolute is no mere Elder Brain. You may not remember, but Gortash and his allies are using powerful, ancient magic to control it."
The ghost of a memory brushes up against Ulder's spine. Something he knew-but-did-not-know as he bowed before that un-god. What she is saying sounds correct. That is the problem with devils.
"If you entrust your soul to me, I will free you from the Iron Throne, lead you to Gortash and provide you with power in order to seize this magic from him and his allies. Of course, it is still up to your efforts, but once you have seized this magic you will be able to weaken the Absolute and save your precious Baldur's Gate."
"And in return you will have my soul and my servitude, forever." Ulder replies. "In exchange for freeing me and some paltry power."
She clicks her tongue at him. "And? What other choice do you have? Serving as the Absolute's thrall will hardly be better, will it?"
They say when one becomes a Mindflayer their soul is destroyed. Ulder wonders. To be ground under the storm for years, until perhaps by some lucky chance, he is killed. Or to be in service to a Devil for years, until he is killed and his soul is forced to battle in agony for eternity. It's not much of a choice, is it?
An eternity of agony for the chance to save Baldur's Gate. By Helm, Torm, and Tyr, how was this the only choice left to him?
"I won't put you in power over Baldur's Gate. You would have me win against the Absolute, only to use the pact to take power for yourself."
"You could abdicate the title of Grand Duke. Though most the patriars are dead; I worry who would step into your place."
"You would allow this?" Ulder asks.
"Is that a term you would like to add? That I allow you to abdicate, with no fear of reprisal?"
"That I be allowed to abdicate, that I not be required to take another position of power in this or any other city, and that once the Absolute is dead, I be allowed to leave the city behind."
"You're a bit old to be on the road, aren't you?" Mizora says. "What if I have tasks that require your presence in the city, hmmm?"
"I won't let you use me as a weapon against Baldur's Gate. If I stay here, you will poison everything I have ever worked towards."
"Fine." Mizora agrees. "I have other uses for you. I hope you don't mind Avernus."
Ulder keeps his mind carefully blank, dancing around the edges of that memory with care. Avernus. How he never wants to return there.
"What tasks will you require of me?"
"Who's to say? Even I can't see into the future."
"I won't be a tool for you to use however you please."
"Oh, but you will. If you have grievances, limits, restrictions . . . you'll need to be more specific." She ticks these points off on her fingers.
He thinks back to the stories he has read of devils and what they might require of him. Most of the tales are useless, cautionary one-offs that say nothing of what it might be to live under a devil's thumb.
"I won't kill men for you. Only other devils."
"How principled."
They both know he has the blood of countless men on his hands. Not all of them deserved to die. Such is the nature of war.
"I won't enslave others for you, I won't drag back those who have escaped."
Her eyes narrow.
"And I will not be used to find magic artifacts and place them into your hands."
"That doesn't leave me much to work with." Mizora says. "Killing devils is all well and good, but there is plenty in Avernus that cannot rightly be called a devil. Shall we say you will hunt the Infernal, the Soulless, and the Heartless?"
It is a trap.
"Agreed." Ulder inclines his head.
"Then as for escapees, will you accept it if they fall under the same? Infernal, Soulless, Heartless?"
"Agreed."
"As for powerful artifacts, hmm, that one is personal, isn't it? What if we were to limit it to nothing that can control the mind, sway the senses?"
"No." Ulder will stand firm on this one point. "I will not be used to increase your power."
"Fine." Mizora growls. "Luckily for you, The Absolute is something of a personal project, shall we say. Normally I would not be so generous with terms. We are agreed, then?"
Ulder stands on the precipice and hesitates. He is not a fool, which is why he knows he is not the most clever man. Try as he might he could stay and argue with the devil all day and all night for better terms, but it would make no difference. He has to hope that limiting the damage he might do will be enough.
"Agreed." He says.
Mizora smiles and for the first time in days he cannot smell the blood of iron as the stink of sulfur fills the air.
"Let us read the terms." She says and with a snap of her finger, two of her infernal sisters join her as witness. They titter, hiding smiles behind their wings.
It is slow going, as Ulder tries to append as much as he can to memory, while avoiding the worst traps Mizora has set. Each time he protests a term, a phrase, some small thing, Mizora's smile grows brighter and sharper. He is braiding the rope that will form the noose around his neck and doing so gladly because it is better than the alternative.
Finally, the pact is read, and all that is left to do is sign his soul away.
May Helm forgive me. Ulder thinks, even knowing it is foolish. Helm does not forgive.
He signs on the dotted line.
The bite of infernal magic sinking into his soul is worse than he could have possibly anticipated.
"Right on time." Mizora says, furling the scroll and stowing it away, her two infernal sisters sinking into ink-black portals of their own as they return to their home.
He is about to ask, when he hears it: the pounding of boots upon the metal floor.
"Father—"
Wyll ( tainted devils blood) rounds the corner, his eye leaping from Ulder to Mizora, before he turns on her in his fury and demands: "What have you done?"
“I did warn you.” Mizora says. “Even with all my generosity, you still spurned the power I gifted you. Surely you didn’t truly believe there would be no consequences for breaking the pact, hmmmm?”
Wyll’s mouth falls into a grim line. Behind him—a tiefling, all red-hot glow—draws her weapon.
“I should have killed you, the Absolute be damned. What have you done, Mizora?”
“Ah-ah-ah,” Mizora chides. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Ulder cannot say anything without his tongue burning, the choke of sulfur and ash. He remembers Wyll placing a hand against his throat as he tried to plead. A voice, the voice that has been in the back for seven long years, recriminations of how could he have raised such a son, a liar, a power hungry devil-fool fall silent.
“We gotta go.” The tiefling says, “The whole place is going to blow. We’ll catch Mizora in the hells, kill her then.”
“Aren’t you going to ask, Karlach?”
“Fuck off Mizora! Wyll, we’ve got to go. ”
Wyll hesitates, his hand half way towards Ulder. He could reach out, take it in his grasp. They stand closer than they have in years, yet the gulf between yawns, gulping gaping chasm.
Wyll understands even before Mizora says: “Meet my new pet warlock.”
“No.” Wyll whispers.
“Go.” Ulder replies.
And the prison begins to shake and shudder, metal groaning, the burbling of oncoming water Umberlee’s laughter.