Jaheira raised from her blanket roll as fresh and businesslike as if she were not sleeping before Norman's scream. With the same cool manner she pried Haer'Dalis' arms lose and freed Aerie's body from his embrace. But as her hands dove beneath the corpse and emerged back with no trace of blood; as she touched and investigated, a concerned frown creased her forehead. Finally she said just one word: "Poison".

That was enough for Haer'Dalis to shake off his stupor. The tiefling jumped to his feet, his eyes flashing dangerously. Before Norman knew, the Entropy was out of its sheath and trained at Edwin's throat. The Red Wizard moved his chin carefully away from the blade's point. "I drunk of it too…" he said cautiously.

"Not after her," Haer'Dalis echoed Norman's thoughts, "and you forbade anyone else to drink, while encouraging her to take a sip. I was wondering about your sudden generosity yestereve."

"I might drink of it now, if that should convince you, " Edwin suggested.

"And I am to believe that you have not taken an antidote?" Haer'Dalice parried.

"There is only one way to find out," Jaheira said dryly and pushed Haer'Dalis back away from Edwin. "Give me the flask, wizard. Any antidote will wear out as the day turn, but the poison will not. And if you did that…" she nodded in Aerie's prostrate form direction, "It's only suitable that you should suffer similar fate."

"That will not return Aerie back…" Norman said and licked his lips. Jaheira had not done it even for Khalid. "I… We need her back, Jaheira, if we are to get out of this accursed dungeon. Punishing Edwin could wait."

"I did not do it, you fool!" Edwin screamed. "If you ask me," he continued in a calmer voice, with soothing, dangerous undertones, "There were two in our most pathetically inadequate party who applied themselves to the purpose common to breeding-obsessed monkeys and ill-born men: competing over the attentions of the wretched girl. So one of them might just have decided that if he should not have her nobody else would. Or another might have discovered that someone else lifted her skirts while he was not looking… " Norman and Haer'Dalis both turned to the wizard growling.

"Am I hitting too close to home?" Edwin sang innocently.

"Or maybe our cold blooded druid could not stand the sight of our handsome paladin-boy sighing after the girl, not her?"

"Give me the flask," Jaheira said evenly.

Edwin shrugged and if Norman did not watch him cautiously he would not have noticed the shade of fear on his face. "I can do so, O she-bear, but being forced by our leader's exceptional stupidity to spend night in this excruciatingly uncomfortable place, I have consoled myself as I might… And I am afraid that there is not much left..."

Edwin quickly produced his flask and upended it. There was but one drop of crimson that tore itself from the rim with a visible effort and splotched the floor. Like blood…

Edwin giggled unsteadily: "Now, what are you going to do now, my righteous paladin? Or have your precious Torm already abandoned you for your… hiccup ...your foolery?"

"I have not come even close to the flask yesterday, and if the poison was indeed in wine, it got there before Aerie drunk of it. And who says that you did not poured out the content after you poisoned Aerie? Haer'Dalis and I… we both loved Aerie. You hated her."

"And that's exactly why I would not have poisoned her. Is not that obvious?"

" What about you, my precious bard? Did you indeed loooove Aerie or was she growing too demanding? Was she perhaps pregnant and wanting you to take care of her bastard? To marry her? Have not you perhaps fed her a choice morsel dipped in that very special sauce?"

Haer'Dalis growled and threw himself at Edwin, the blade making a high arc in the air.

"Noooo!" Imoen screamed and dove head-first clutching to Haer'Dalis' feet. Entangled, the bard fell, but not before a lightening bolt burned his throat out.

Edwin leaned against the wall, his hands shaking and still steaming from the hastily made spell. He said tearfully: "A man must defend himself from planar assassins, no? Would not you agree that the murderer convicted himself? Such viciousness could only be produced by guilty consensus…." And to Norman's horror Edwin sobbed.

"He, indeed, is drunk," the warrior realized, "he did drink the wine."

"Jaheira…" Norman pleaded, but there was no need. With a heavy sigh the druid went to her knees and closed her eyes, deep in meditation. He could only hope that she was praying for enough bliss to restore the two misfortunate lovers to life. It somehow felt wrong and unfair to give life back only to Aerie. Besides, she would need Haer'Dalis to raise the child, and Norman felt bloody sure that he would ascertain that the Tiefling would not ran away from it.

IF it is Haer'Dalis who is the father of the child… Hades! I do not even know if there is a child!

Troubled, Norman went to take a look at Edwin – and found him curled up in a corner, no more alert than a bundle of red rags.

Imoen put her hands around Norman: "Ya need some sleep big bro. Dontcha worry, Jaheira is going to take care of everything." He kissed her sister lightly on the brow and then, on some ancient instinctual love that a man has for his kin, he hugged her tightly and found that he was unable to let go. So they lay to sleep that night shamelessly entwined as two lovers would, but he thought, listening to Imoen's misty breath touching his cheek, that it was the highest form of innocence.

Imoen woke first and gave Norman a playful slap on his ramp. Norman sat up groggily and peered around. Aerie's and Haer'Dalis' bodies laid in the farthest corner of the room, neatly covered with blankets. Despite these precautions, sweet smell of decay touched his nostrils. He wrinkled his nose and called for Jaheira. Soon it will be too late…

To his surprise the druid did not respond. Norman and Imoen walked over to were the woman lay and after a short hesitation Norman shook her on the shoulder. Limply, the body rolled toward him, opening an ugly red wound – ear to ear – to their view. Imoen made a choking sound behind him and vomited noisily on the floor.

Then she touched him on the shoulder. Edwin occupied the fourth corner of the room. Before him lay another flask, some of it content still damp on the floor. The leather pouch shone with the angry red glow on his belt. Three giant steps took Norman over to Edwin and he took the man in a bear hug, prohibiting him from moving, while Imoen opened the pouch with trembling fingers. She threw it on the floor as if it could bite at her or burn her fingers. Sungem. It was red now, not orange, but it was the sungem.

Before thinking, Norman snapped Edwin's skinny neck. The wizard twitched once in his mighty hands and then died, not ever coming out of his drunken stupor.

Without talking the brother and sister rushed out of the room.

R-O-T-A-N-U-A-M-A

From tile to tile. Away. Away from this accursed place…

The shimmering wall dissipated as soon as the sungem was close to it. Norman and Imoen stepped into a large round chamber. Right in the middle there towered a huge shape of a sleeping dragon. Norman edged close to the wall, away from it. And then he caught a gleam of an opening eye to one side of the dragon's head, from under the leather wing. The monster started uncoiling its neck…

"Imoen!" Norman whispered, "the warding stone…"

A clicking sound and echoes came in response. A stone jumping up and down on the stone floor tiles and ricocheting off the walls. A stone thrown as far away as possible by a strong hand. In disbelieve Norman turned away from the dragon raising on his hind legs, to look at Imoen.

"You killed them all…" he whispered in disbelief…

His sister nodded and giggled, her eyes as mad as they were when he saw her in Spellhold.

"Gotcha, bro!" she exclaimed with delight, "GOTCHA!"

And then she began transforming into a huge shape, covered with plated steel and spikes, ugly and huge and terrible; She cut off one entrance to the room. The roaring dragon was between him and the other one. Norman did the only thing he could to save his honor. He drew his sword and pressed the cold blade against his forehead, showing the two monsters that he was ready to do the battle.

That he was ready to die.

The dragon's claw dug under the fallen human's chin and pulled on the straps of the open-faced helm. It fell off then and rolled to the wall, hitting it with a hollow sound. Blond curls, bleached almost to white by the hot Amnish sun, where they were not marred with blood, spilled on the floor in a semicircle. The humans would have called this boy's face noble, with its tall forehead, pronounced nose, crooked to one side, and square chin. The rosy blush of youth still struggled with the stubble pushing through it. Two and twenty of short human years, at a glance. Thaxll'ssillyia had seen the boys just like him, and girls besides. And those younger than him, or older. Elves, dwarves, halflings, even gnomes. Redheads, brunettes, greenheads. The dragon winced. This one put up a good fight - he would have won too, if not for the strange shape that fled laughing. Thaxll'ssillyia did not chase the shape. One of the sword blows cut through his amour almost to his shoulder blade, hurting him deeply. And there were food at last after fifty or so years of hunger. "Good fighter... " Thaxll'ssillyia reflected, crushing the skull between his massive jaws. "But not good enough." After eating his fill the dragon yawned and stretched. It was time to go back to sleep.

THE END