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A wizard and a tiefling sat across the table from one another. The bar was dark and empty, the other patrons long since left of their own accord or otherwise escorted from the premises by the staff an hour or so gone. Being guests of the upper rooms, they weren’t asked to leave even when the barkeep left for the night - something in her expression spoke of quiet sympathy for the pair still nursing their drinks in the corner.
“You should get some rest, soldier, you look exhausted.” Karlach leaned over the table, peering into darkened eyes that were highlighted further by the deep set exhaustion in the bags beneath them.
“I should say the same to you, but I fear we are both in the same boat, same creek, and not a single paddle between us.” Gale replied with a sigh, taking another sip of long-warmed ale.
“How do you do that?” She managed half a smile for the first time in hours. “You take a phrase like up shit creek without a paddle and make it sound like bloody poetry .”
“Would you rather I be blunt?” He returned the expression, though it looked more forced, pained.
“Maybe not,” she shrugged, “punch hurts as much as a pretty blade. Something like that.”
“Now who’s being poetic?” A genuine smile quickly gave way to another sigh. “Why are we here?”
“Because everyone else went to bed, and for some reason I got lumped with the grumpiest face for company.” Despite her words, Karlach’s tone was light - she was glad, for once, to not be alone when the shadows nibbled at the back of her mind. The sand in the hourglass chafed at her in ways she didn’t want to think too hard about. “But what are we going to do after this?”
“Well, I assume eventually one or both of us will get tired enough to sleep, and we’ll finally go back to the rooms upstairs and pretend like we had our full 8 hours when everyone else gets up.” Gale shrugged, taking another sip of lukewarm ale.
“Not that, I mean…” Karlach made a broader gesture with her hands towards the door, to the city, to where all their troubles somehow managed to lay sleeping until dawn. “I mean after everything’s done. When we win. The city freed, everyone paraded around like big damn heroes…”
—
Gale noticed the words she didn’t say, the unspoken lines, the darker truth that little could stop the time from running out on her mechanical heart. His own chest ached with the Orb as he remembered - or perhaps more accurately was unable to forget - how his own time was soon to end when he fulfilled his promise.
Not if .
When .
He elected to ignore the unforgiving truth in both of their futures. She didn’t need reminding of that, Karlach needed a friend, a little hope, a reason to go on fighting just one more day.
Something worth fighting for.
“I think, when we’re done here, I’ll go back home. To Waterdeep.” He moved his nearly empty tankard to one side, drawing invisible lines upon the tabletop with his finger. “There’s the great libraries here, a nice little tavern out this way with the best pies you’ve ever tasted, and my own tower right over there. Of course, the coastline won’t be too nice to visit, not in that weather - it’ll be winter before I get back there, you see.”
“Gods, Winter .” Karlach’s gaze drifted into a nostalgic longing, somewhere in the middle distance where shadows clung to the dust coating the older furniture. “Do you know how long it’s been since I even felt cold ?”
“I don’t imagine there’s a lot of ice in Avernus,” Gale attempted his own smile, hoping to lighten the mood further.
“Exactly! Not a bloody snowflake down there, or up there - never sure on that one.” She shrugged with a grin, draining the last of her own pint before continuing. “So go on then, what is worth seeing in Winter in Waterdeep? Maybe I’ll have to pay you a visit, get the full tour from the local expert!”
Gale’s chest ached far deeper this time. Not from the Orb, or from the thought of his own mission, but at the sweet and bright optimism in the tiefling’s eyes. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve sworn she was already planning what to pack and saving up for a carriage so she didn’t have to wear out her boots on the journey between cities. “Well,” he began, searching his memories and swallowing back the homesickness that rose as he found them, “there’s a huge ice rink in the merchant’s quarters, it’s free to visit too. You only have to pay to hire the skates.”
“ Gods I miss that! I haven’t been since I was little! What else is there? Oh tell me you at least get snow, I could do with a good snowball fight to let off some steam.” Karlach grinned, flexing her arm before pretending to throw an invisible snowball with some force.
Gale ducked.
She laughed, at last, that felt more natural. Maybe it was all an act, a sweet little lie, but there were two liars on the stage and at last they were able to share a moment of joy before the curtain inevitably fell.
—
Karlach listened intently as Gale continued. Stories about how the snow was rare, but sometimes a few of the more generous wizards would go out in the middle of the night and leave strategic piles of it around so the children could build snowmen in the morning without the streets being blocked by the drifts.
He was animated as he talked, gesturing and drawing on the table with his fingertip to illustrate. It was fascinating to watch and listen, as the wizard never seemed to find himself short of words.
Gale spoke of colourful lights and decorations strung up in the streets, of hot food served from quaint little carts that only seemed to be around when the nights were long and the weather cold. He talked of how Tara would complain of the cold, up until the point his mother knitted warm clothes for the poor tressym and insisted she wear them.
Apparently Mrs Dekarios wasn’t someone who was easy to say no to.
In return, Karlach told him about her childhood memories of the Winters in Baldur’s Gate. How she and the other kids would sometimes sneak around in the early darkness of short days, leaving their mark on the many statues of bygone heroes. For a moment she felt a small pang of guilt remembering how she had once defaced the statue of Minsc - not that there was any way to know that the ranger himself was trapped within the cold stone, of course. But the moustache and the crude drawing on his forehead hadn’t been a particularly generous way to remember a legendary figure in the city’s history.
After a while, Gale crept behind the bar, “borrowing” a bottle of cheaper wine for them to share. One that wouldn’t be missed when it inevitably wasn’t returned.
“I miss it. Bowls of steaming hot stew, the roasted nuts my mum used to love - maybe she’d find it funny that I could cook them on my tits now. Real chest nuts !” Karlach laughed as Gale struggled not to spit out the wine he had just sipped.
“Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
“Steal the wine? Because the barkeep was still there.”
“No, I mean… We haven’t sat like this, whiling away the hours til dawn, not once in all the time we’ve been travelling together.” Gale risked another sip of his wine as he awaited her reply.
“Well,” she faltered, thoughts only half forming, “we haven’t really had time to stop and think. One battle to another, days and bloody days of walking across the landscape until our boots are worn out…”
“We should’ve done this sooner,” he lamented, and she couldn’t help but agree.
“Then we’ll do it again, too. After…after everything’s all dealt with, we can share a bottle of the good booze. Maybe some of the others will join us too, we’ll have plenty to celebrate after all!” She raised her glass, trying to keep her smile from fading with the soft echo of her lie.
—
The clink of their glasses sounded hollow and cold, yet still the alcohol was almost as warming as the brief touch of Karlach’s hand on his wrist.
“Just a few more days, soldier, then it’ll all be over. We can finally get some rest.”
“You make it sound so…peaceful.” Gale found himself following her euphemism, even as he hoped to keep the sun from rising so they might stay in this one moment for another month at least.
“Well, we’ve about earned it, I’d say.” Karlach laced her fingers in his, squeezing gently as if trying to give him impossible hope.
“We have, haven’t we.” He returned the gesture, grateful at least for the warmth of friendship even if there would be very few more tomorrows to talk like this. Like they’d known each other their whole lives. We’ll know each other for the rest of our lives , he thought bitterly, tempted to curse the names of every god who fated them both to an untimely end.
They would never be able to skate in the markets of Waterdeep. Never run like children through the streets at night leaving crude drawings on statues. Never share a hot meal on a cold night while watching the simple spells of dancing lights brighten the darkest hours.
Their own darkest hour was closing in almost as fast as the dawn, with no way to stop the fateful sunrise from sealing their fates.
“We might not have had any sleep,” Karlach’s voice was quiet, far away, even though she was still right there in front of him, “but it was a nice dream while it lasted.”
He kept hold of her hand until the sun rose, not knowing how many more dawns lay ahead, but knowing one thing for certain. After their last sunrise, he wouldn't be there.
He wouldn't be able to hold her hand as time finally caught up to her.
He wouldn't be able to dry her tears with the edge of his sleeve.
He wouldn't be able to tell her it was worth it, no matter what…
All he could do was make sure she had those last moments of peace - of real peace, knowing the home she loved would be safe for good. He would pay that price a hundred times now, he realised.
Not to regain the favour of a goddess who scorned him.
Not to find his own glory in the act of self sacrifice.
Gale affirmed it to himself as he recorded his own last message that night, one Karlach likely wouldn't even hear in the end.
His life would be the currency to buy her the chance to say goodbye.
—
Do you want to see a softer ending, or the tragic ending?
I want the tragic ending.
I want the positive ending.
The portal was right there, glowing with sickly Weave, the final gateway to the end that had been decided so long ago. Gale didn’t hesitate. He knew what he needed to do, what was expected of him, and he had made peace with all that meant.
He cast one last glance at his friends, all locked in ferocious battle, each pressing towards that gateway into his doom…but he would be the only one to step through towards the end. Then they would all be safe. So he could permit himself one last look, to carry them in his heart before it beat its last.
Astarion, fighting side by side with Halsin, the two instinctively protecting one another despite the chaos of battle. Even Shadowheart was fighting alongside Lae’zel and the transformed Orpheus, their blades seeking the heart of the Emperor whose protections had turned out to be little more than a manipulation. Wyll was using all his strength, every spell he had left before the contract faded, to keep his friends from being hurt.
Allies everywhere had joined the fray, each one knowing what was at stake, none willing to back down even an inch. Blades, arrows, spells - whatever strength they had was not being spared, as the battle raged on with desperation and determination in equal measure.
Then there was Karlach. The deep and almost terrifying roar of her unbridled rage tearing through the air as surely as her axe tore through the hide of the gigantic red dragon that she faced down without a hint of fear. Not that the wizard expected the barbarian, of all people, to be scared. She had been…more than just brave. She knew this battle would be her last, just as much as it would be his. Karlach was giving her all for everything she loved.
Gale pushed back the tears threatening to sting at his eyes as he threw the bottle of Haste Spores at his feet, feeling the magic seeping into him almost immediately. It was always hard to tell if he sped up or if time around him instead slowed, but he was able to close the distance to the portal easily whilst casting enough spells to ensure the way was clear.
His eyes locked on the final chapter of his story, he turned his quill to the page.
—
Karlach’s throat was raw, her heart pounding in her chest, the sounds of battle near deafening in her ears, but she still sensed it somehow. Her eye caught the flash of purple robes moving faster than they should through the battlefield, leaving her little time to make the decision.
“Voss, please! ” She screamed, calling out to the Githyanki ally who had just taken down another mindflayer with his silvered sword.
A moment later, Voss was taking her place, weapon coming up to pierce the dragon’s throat as Karlach leapt towards the spores and took off at a sprint the moment the unsettling hastening empowered her steps.
—
The last thing Gale expected as he stepped through to where the Elder Brain floated, menacing and grotesque as it wore a crown that did not belong upon it, was to feel arms wrapping around him from behind.
His heart stopped, almost ready to trigger the Orb and take his attacker with him, but he recognised this heat.
The searing fire nearly burned his back, tears almost as hot falling to his shoulder slower than either of them were moving - of course she used the Haste Spores to catch up to him, but why?
“Karlach, please - you can’t be here! You’ll die!” He begged, pleaded, even as he pulled on the Weave to attack their greatest enemy with magic that would at least not harm his friend.
“I’m going to bloody die anyway, but you don’t have to.” Her voice left no room for argument, heated embrace leaving him before he had a chance to try as she leapt down the platforms towards their foe.
Why…why can’t you let me… Gale didn’t even have time to finish the thought, as his other friends came rushing through the portal behind him. Why can’t you all just-
—
The battle raged on, each and every one of them fighting with everything they had, until finally the day was won. Not with the explosion, not with the sacrifice that Gale had prepared himself for, but with the united strength and determination of people who - for some reason he couldn’t quite define - were not willing to let him die alone.
Though the victory felt hollow, short-lived. As the power of the tadpoles faded away, Astarion had to run for cover, smoke curling from his skin with a sickly scent of necrotic burning. Halsin had followed, rushing his apology, unwilling to let his love suffer alone. Lae’zel and Orpheus were discussing all that had to be done, a destiny she was just as unable to turn away from as Gale had been unable to turn from his imminent demise.
His formerly imminent demise, he supposed, though he began to feel the fear creeping back in - just how long would the Orb remain stable? Would he still have to find a way to ensure the end of his life wouldn’t take thousands more alongside it? The thought stung, that such a death now wouldn’t even serve any purpose. He wouldn’t even earn the forgiveness he had yearned for all this time.
Karlach stepped quietly beside him, taking his hand in hers, squeezing it just as he had done before at the tavern. “Sorry, soldier. You’ll have to find another way to satisfy that goddess of yours.”
Gale turned to look at her, already knowing he would see tears welling in her eyes. He could hear it as her voice wavered, could feel it in the way her fingers were trembling against his own. “You’re not alone, Karlach. Please, you don’t have to be strong for any of us. We are all right here, and not going anywhere.”
She smiled, bittersweet, as the light in her chest flared brightly. The Tiefling doubled over in agony, a primal scream breaking her smile into a mask of pure anguish.
Kneeling by her side, Gale felt his heart break just as surely as if it were burning up with hers. “There…there has to be something we can do, some way we can-”
“Stop,” she gasped, looking up at him with such sorrow that was still somehow coloured with kindness, with that spark of life that she had been clinging to for so long. “Please, stop. It’s alright, I’m…I’m not alone. I can watch the sun go down for one last time, and know you’re all going to be ok.”
“It’s not fair.” Gale mumbled, feeling his already broken heart tearing into smaller pieces as she fell to her hands and knees with a guttural cry.
“You’re right, it isn’t.” Wyll’s hand was on his shoulder, soft but firm pressure reassuring as the warlock turned that determined gaze to Karlach now. “Karlach, I’m not letting you do this. I’m not letting you die, not when there’s something I can do about it.”
—
Karlach could barely hear the words above the cacophony of pain roaring through her body, could barely feel the hand that touched her burning skin without pulling away. The gentle caress guided her cheek until she was facing him, seeing an even hotter fire in Wyll’s eye, filled with conviction. He wasn’t going to back down easily.
“Wyll, please,” she forced her voice out of the inferno in her lungs, “just…let go. It’s alright, this is what I want.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” He stared her down, refusing to leave her side. “You want to live, you deserve to live - didn’t you have a promise to keep for Winter?”
Karlach could almost feel Gale’s sorrow without even having to glance at where he knelt sobbing quietly beside her. “It was a nice dream, something to make the night less dark, nothing more.”
“Why should you be denied your dreams, when everyone else gets to reach for theirs?” The wizard broke his silence again, taking both of her hands in his own, trying to hide how he winced from the heat. “If there’s a way, if there’s any way-”
“I don’t want…” She felt her resolve ebbing away, the kindness eating away at the desire to end the pain the easiest way she knew how. “I don’t know what I-”
The agony tore through her again like a rush of lava searing through every vein, body close to tearing itself apart.
“We’re out of time.” Wyll stated the obvious, standing and offering his hand towards Karlach, almost as if hope itself were sat in his palm. “We can go back to Avernus, buy some time. We may have to fight, but we fight together . If we don’t find a way to cure you, then it’s little different to dying here, except we will know we tried. That we didn’t give up.”
Karlach hesitated to take his hand, until she heard Gale’s voice speaking directly to her heart.
“We can’t give up, Karlach,” he stood, not offering but pulling her to her feet alongside him. “Because you never gave up on us.”
“Alright,” she took one last shuddering breath of the air from the city she loved before stepping through the portal, “here we go.”
—
The portal was right there, glowing with sickly Weave, the final gateway to the end that had been decided for him. Gale hesitated. He knew what he needed to do, what was expected of him, but that didn’t make it any easier. Nothing ever could.
He cast one last glance at his friends, all locked in ferocious battle, keeping their foes away from that gateway into his doom…clearing a path for him to step through to the end. Then, once the remnants of the mindflayers had been beaten back, they would all be safe. So he could permit himself one last look, to carry them in his heart until it beat its last.
Astarion, fighting side by side with Halsin, the two desperately protecting one another throughout the chaos of battle. Even Shadowheart was fighting alongside Lae’zel and the transformed Orpheus, their blades seeking the heart of the Emperor whose protections had turned out to be just another manipulation. Wyll was using all his strength, every spell he had left before the contract faded, to keep his friends from dying before the end.
Allies everywhere had joined the fray, each one knowing what was at stake, all willing to pay the same price should it come to that.
Then there was Karlach. The desperate and almost terrifying roar of her unbridled rage tearing through the air as surely as her axe tore through the hide of the gigantic red dragon that she faced down without a hint of fear. Not that the wizard expected the barbarian, of all people, to be scared. She had been…more than just brave. She knew this battle would be her last, just as much as it would be his. Karlach was giving her all for everything she loved, just as she always had.
There was some comfort in that, hearts destined to combust resonating across the battlefield. Each beat still bringing them both closer to the last, to the peace that the eternal dreams of that one last sleep might finally provide.
Gale pushed back the tears already burning in his eyes as he threw the bottle of Haste Spores at his feet, feeling the magic seeping into him almost immediately. It was always hard to tell if he sped up or if time around him instead slowed, but he was swiftly able to close the distance to the portal whilst casting enough spells to force his way through.
His eyes locked on the final chapter of his story, he turned his quill to the last page.
—
Karlach’s throat was raw, her heart throbbing in her chest, the sounds of battle near deafening in her ears, but she still sensed it somehow. Her eye caught the flash of purple robes moving faster than they should through the battlefield, leaving her no time to say goodbye.
“Voss, please! ” She yelled, calling out to the Githyanki ally who was struggling against another relentless mindflayer with his silvered sword.
But it was impossible. Everyone was locked in combat, unable to get away, not one of them capable of stopping Gale’s resolute march to a gallows of his own making.
Karlach screamed. Her eyes burned hotter than her heart with tears, watching him step through the portal alone. His magic sealed it behind him before any of them could react.
As the dragon’s claws came down towards her again in a vicious strike, a part of her almost let them take her down. But she couldn’t fall. She was a shield, for as long as she stood on her feet she was the wall that kept the monsters from taking any more of her friends away.
Her axe tore through the dragon’s flesh, the spray of blood coating her in a darker crimson that began to sizzle and evaporate almost as soon as it landed on her skin. Karlach put every ounce of her will, her strength, into keeping up the fight, refusing to acknowledge the inevitable until it happened.
—
The portal sealed closed, leaving only the wizard and the Elder Brain he faced. Alone.
Gale’s hand felt cold, empty.
The giant creature glared a challenge, its mind reaching to his, thoughts probing even as it tried to stir up a myriad of spells to destroy him before his task was complete. But it was too late, for everything.
The Karsite Weave pulsed like a sickness, dread seeping through his veins as he stretched out his empty hand and summoned the dagger into sharp reality in his palm. He closed his eyes and breathed his last shuddering deep breath, feeling time slow to a crawl - perhaps a remnant of the Haste Spores, or simply the phenomenon of knowing the end was finally here.
The point of the dagger turned almost on its own to face his heart, a target outlined by the glow of the Orb, but he didn’t need his eyes open to see. As the blade drove home to its target, the cataclysm that had long been brewing in his body finally reaching its release, Gale turned to that comforting dream.
The power of his mind let him feel familiar cobbles under his feet, let him hear the babbling laughter of a myriad of strangers enjoying the season’s festivities, let him taste the stew that Karlach had promised to cook for him. A hundred images of all that could never have been, of friends playing in the snow like children, of eyes filled with wonder at the beautiful lights dancing in the sky like fallen stars…
He could even feel the cold of the Winter weather spreading through his body…or perhaps that was merely the chill of death’s last embrace, unkind, denying him any comfort even as it pulled him from the dream to his final waking moment.
Tears streamed down his face unbidden, agony tearing him apart cell by cell in the beginning of the explosion that spelled out his final words: “Forgive me…farewell.”
—
The aftermath was pure devastation. Less than if the explosion had been in the city, but battles rarely left anyone free of scars. The day was won, but the cost was a high one to pay, and Fate had yet to exact the final toll.
Karlach could only watch heartbroken as Astarion began to burn up in the last of summer’s setting sun, his freedoms gone almost as soon as he had finally won them back. A lifetime of darkness awaited, and even though Halsin ran after him, there was little the druid could do to cure a vampire of his allergy to the light.
Lae’zel was in a heated debate with a transformed Orpheus off to one side, the latter clearly as ready to meet his end as the tiefling was herself, unable to bear the weight of shame even as he passed the torch to his people’s last hope. Karlach could only hope the warrior would be strong enough to carry it.
She glanced down at her hand, feeling the emptiness of loss as if her friends were all slipping from her fingers one by one. Even the sympathetic smiles of those that remained felt like they were a mirage that would disappear if she dared to reach out. Reach out…like she had to Gale…and he was already far beyond her grasp.
Tears stung briefly in her eyes, evaporating before they could even fall - she almost laughed, then, at the cruelty that she was to be denied even the right to cry as the heat of her heart raised from a fever to an inferno.
The scream that left Karlach’s scorched out lungs came unbidden, overwhelming her as the agony crashed into her like unforgiving waves, soon feeling as if she were drowning beneath the unstoppable ocean of pain.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t form a single word on her tongue. She could barely hear the panic in the voices of her friends as they rushed to her side.
Karlach pushed them back, forcing herself to speak through gasping breaths. “No, please,” each syllable was a dagger in her heart, another grain of sand as her hourglass emptied its last, “please stay back, I can’t let you burn with me.”
“Karlach, listen,” Wyll began, ignoring her plea and stepping in closer, “there’s still a chance.”
“No, not now,” she forced herself to smile before the pain brought her crashing down to her knees. “I’m tired, Wyll. So tired. I’ve been fighting so long, every day-”
“You’re not alone now, we can fight together-”
“I don’t want to. Not any more.” Karlach tried to look him in the eye, but found her courage falling as surely as her hopes had when she accepted her fate. When she knew her heart couldn’t last. “I think…I think I’ve earned my rest, this time.”
“But there’s hope, there are still dreams, things to fight for.” Wyll was begging, desperate. He couldn’t let go, couldn’t accept that she already had.
“It’s enough,” she forced herself to continue, “just to know that you can have what I couldn’t. Lay down your blade, for a day, for me. Promise me you will take that time to play in the snow, to taste some good home cooked stew, to draw something crude on a statue of Balduran in my honour.”
She heard him laugh through tears that were already falling to the floor in front of her. At least he was able to laugh, to cry - he could do that for both of them now. “I don’t know if I can promise that,” he tried to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but withdrew his hand before even making contact with the searing heat, “but I promise you that I’ll try.”
“Thanks, soldier.” Karlach finally found a little strength to smile, if only for a moment before the next surge of agony tore at what remained of her broken heart. Her fingers closed again around empty space, wishing perhaps… “I’ll try to have some nice dreams, so don’t you cry for too long. They all need a hero, show them what the Blade can do.”
She had read, or maybe heard, somewhere, about how your life can flash before your eyes when death closed in. It felt like the echoes of her life were already replaying through her body - old scars aching like fresh wounds, the burning of her heart turning into an inferno far too close to the fires that had marked her skin further. Heat that felt like the hells themselves, the battlefields of Avernus where she had fought tooth and claw to survive for so many years…
Where she had fought the man who knelt before her, sorrow in his eyes, so desperate to reach out to her hand as she tried to grasp at empty air for a comfort that was already long gone.
Nobody knew what lay on the other side of death - those brought back by magic, by miracles of deities that seemed unwilling to show her such benevolence in her final hour of agony, they never remembered. The uncertainty was terrifying, but at least she didn’t have to fight any more. Her axe had long fallen to the floor by her side, no longer to be wielded in a frenzy, no longer to be swung in the name of the devil who had controlled her life nor to guard the lord who sold her to the infernal damnation that was finally claiming her.
Despite the pain, despite the searing agony of her flesh igniting on her very bones, there was a soft peace in the acceptance. It would all be over soon.
The last light of the setting sun was still just visible even as she closed her eyes for the last time, letting the view give way to the impossible dream.
She longed to know what it might feel like to be cold for a change, to need a blanket at night, to huddle close to the hearth with that lightly spiced stew she loved so much as a child. She wondered what it might feel like to catch snowflakes on her tongue and feel them melt more gently into raindrops, rather than evaporating into steam like her tears did now. How nice it might be just to shiver, to feel the soft warmth of an embrace close in around her.
Karlach could almost feel it now. Arms wrapping around her, just barely tangible, a familiar soft voice talking to her in an echo of one already long gone. Gale spoke of their dream, talking as if he were guiding her around Waterdeep now, pointing out the sights and promising treats would follow soon.
Perhaps, had she opened her eyes, she might have seen the shimmering image of the simulacrum as it played out its final command…but the soft lies in his voice were already fading with her final breath as she whispered her last to the man who was already gone:
“Thank you…goodbye.”
—