Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad (26 page)

Ruha frowned. In contrast to their first meeting outside the Wood of Sharp Teeth, Mystra was now using names freely. Perhaps the goddess no longer feared attracting the attention of her enemies-or perhaps there was another explanation.

“Goddess-“

“Not now, Ruha.” Mystra turned toward the frothing curtain in the center of the courtyard. Already, the ridge of ash and molten rock had risen as tall as her avatar, and it showed no sign of abating soon. “At the moment, I have a village to save. I will talk with you later. Until then, the Weave is denied you.”

“Denied?” Ruha stumbled and nearly fell down the stairs. “You are taking my magic?”

The goddess paused to look back at the Harper, and did not seem to notice when the lava began to swirl around her ankles. “For now, Ruha. Now go, while you can. I will be lucky to seal this volcano of yours before it engulfs the whole village.”

Ruha bowed to the goddess, then turned toward the journal lying near the gate. The molten rock had closed to within three paces of it, but even without her magic, she could run that fast.

Twenty-Four

The citadel walls had turned orange and soft with the heat, and the rampart walkways had started to sag. A red-glittering portal in the empty gateway siphoned lava back to the paraelemental plane of magma, but not as fast as the molten rock poured from the ground, and already the ridge around the fissure stood as tall as the gatehouse. At each end of the crack kneeled an avatar of Mystra larger than any dragon, sweeping cinder and ash back into the rift by the armful, fusing the seam closed with her magic breath. Yet volcanoes are mighty things, being the much-favored toys of Talos the Destroyer, and even this small one was filling the citadel faster than the goddess’s avatars could seal it. Liquid stone lay in the courtyard as deep as a man’s chest. Any moment, it would melt through the citadel walls and send a tide of fiery syrup rolling down upon the village.

But Mystra could manifest no more avatars there. The volcano was only one of a thousand matters troubling her at that moment. She had two avatars trying to win support for her upcoming trial, and one more investigating their lack of progress. Four more were attending to the troubles she had started with Cyric, for her attacks had left the One with no choice but to assail her temples in kind. At any given moment, she was tracking the Worm of Gloom through the caves of Mt. Talath, or battling a gigantes at Elventree, or hunting a kraken in Hillshadow Lake, or defending her temples in any number of places too many to name.

And regardless of anything else in the heavens or on Faerun, one avatar stayed in the House of Knowledge, searching Oghma’s library for the spell that had turned Adon’s mind against her-as though the One needed to look his tricks up in a book!

So, when one of Kelemvor’s avatars rose out of the fissure’s boiling lava, she was grateful for the help. His avatar was almost as large as the ones she had manifested, so that although he stood in the molten rock from the waist down, his shoulders rose above the brink of the fiery rift.

“Kelemvor, you pull the cinders back into the fissure, and I will seal it closed behind you.”

Kelemvor was so browbeaten that he actually reached up to obey, then he remembered himself and brought his hands back. He brushed some beads of lava off his glowing chain mail, as though that was what he had intended all along, and stared into the boiling stone.

“I have no wish to involve myself in this. It is one thing to deny Cyric’s dead leave to depart Faerun and quite another to destroy his temples. If you are not careful, you will start the godswar Oghma fears-and then Ao will cast you both out.”

Both of Mystra’s avatars dropped their jaws, and the one facing Kelemvor paused to glare at him. “If the only reason you came here is to issue warnings, you have wasted your time.” Mystra waved her arm at the orange lake that filled the courtyard. “Do you think I asked Ruha to do this? I am not even sure how she did.”

Kelemvor scowled, for it seemed strange that a lava fissure would just happen to open at the moment of Ruha’s attack. “Perhaps this is Talos’s doing.”

Mystra’s avatar resumed her work. “I have thought of that. It certainly has the mark of his magic, and he has as much reason to delay Malik as we do.”

Kelemvor nodded. “And speaking of Malik, why did you let him go? It would have been a small matter to stop him.”

“Interfering with Cyric’s witness would have been a breach of my promise to Tyr not to interfere with the trial. Besides, Ruha assures me he is not chasing the Cyrinishad.”

“If you are worried about your promise to Tyr, why send Ruha after him in the first place?”

“I did not send her-the truth is, I have been avoiding her. How can Tyr blame me for what she does of her own free will?” Mystra sealed a section of fissure with her magic breath, then raised her gaze. “Are you going to help or not?”

Kelemvor looked toward the citadel’s front rampart, which at that moment was tumbling down into the lava, and shook his head. “If this is Talos’s doing, it is not the place of the God of Death to save the village.”

“What?” This time, both of Mystra’s avatars stopped to stare. “Do you mean these people deserve what is happening?”

“I am saying that it may not be my place to prevent it,” Kelemvor replied. “As God of Death, my concern is with their spirits, not their houses.”

“And that concern prevents you from having compassion?”

The gatehouse collapsed into the courtyard and sloshed a great wave of lava against the wall, causing a section of stone to bow out into the High Road and disintegrate. At once, a slow-moving tongue of molten rock rolled into the breach. Mystra grabbed a handful of burning stone and flung it into the gap, filling it with another glittering portal to the paraelemental plane of magma.

“Kelemvor, if you are not here to help, then why come at all?” The goddess’s avatars returned to filling the fissure.

“I came to tell you …”

Kelemvor had meant to finish by saying “how Cyric drove Adon mad,” but the words caught in his throat. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself standing before his mirror, gazing at the reflection of a tar-covered warrior with sickles of ice in his eyes.

“What?” Mystra swept an armful of cinders into the fissure and did not look up. “You wanted to tell me something?”

Kelemvor closed his eyes, and even he was not sure whether this was in shame or sorrow. “I came to tell you that I need to find Zale.” He drew his sword and probed the molten rock around his waist. “There is something I must ask him.”

Mystra frowned. “And you cannot do that in your own city?”

“I cannot wait that long.” Kelemvor continued to probe the lava, and he was careful not to look up at Lady Magic. “Zale will travel through all of the elemental planes before his spirit stops burning, and I need to talk with him now.”

Mystra shoved an armful of cinders down against Kelemvor’s chest. “Then do it quickly. I will not wait to seal this.”

Kelemvor backed away and resumed his probing. Before many moments had passed, he pulled his sword from the molten rock and held it up before him. A flame as red as blood danced on the tip, crackling and wailing as it writhed.

“Zale Protelyus!”

The flame spun on Kelemvor’s sword, then stopped wailing and kneeled on the steaming blade. “Lord Death.”

“Zale Protelyus, why did you allow your foe to drag you into this fissure? Why did you cling to your sword when you could have let go and saved yourself?”

To… stop … the… murderer!” Zale’s words seemed to come with great effort and pain.

“But when you saw that you would die and fail anyway, still you held on. Why?”

“Nothing to fear … in death.” Zale kept his blazing head bowed toward the sword. “Brave man in life … sure to receive reward in death.”

“But you are Faithless! Who will reward you?”

For the first time, Zale raised his fiery head. “You… Lord Kelemvor! Trust your justice … before any god … who demands flattery … and offerings.”

So stunned was Kelemvor that he shrank until his chest sank into the boiling lava. “Can Cyric be right?” His head barely reached the chasm brink. “Have I been too fair?”

It was then that Kelemvor perceived the infinite cunning of the One and All. To win Faerun for himself, Cyric had only to step aside and do nothing. Lady Magic would do half his work, denying the Weave to any force that harmed her beloved mortals, and Talos the Destroyer and the Battle Lord Tempus and Shar the Nightbringer would grow weak and start losing worshipers. Kelemvor would do the rest, treating the spirits of the noble and compassionate with such kindness that many would turn from their gods and trust to his justice instead.

But most critical was this: the brave and courageous would lose their fear of death and sacrifice themselves in foolish causes, as Zale had done. Faerun would be left to the cowardly and the corrupt. And when this was so-when all the other gods had grown weak through the compassion of Kelemvor and Mystra-then would the One rouse himself from his “madness” and call the wicked to his worship, and then would he drive all the other gods from his world.

All this Kelemvor perceived, and he saw that it was happening just as Cyric had planned. Still, he refused to think he had been doing the One’s work. In his folly, he believed that every man strove for bravery and nobility, and he failed to understand that shielding the helpless encouraged laziness and dependence, and that treating the dead with compassion only made life all the more unbearable.

An avalanche of hot cinders crashed down upon Kelemvor’s back. Another splashed down before him and covered his chain mail with hissing beads of molten stone.

“If you are finished there, I have a village to save.”

“I am done in here, but I fear we are far from finished.” Kelemvor lowered his blade and returned Zale to the lava. “I am sorry your journey must be so long and painful.”

“And … my judgment?” Zale’s figure began to melt into the lava. “What will I… find in the City of the Dead?”

“That I will not know until you get there.”

Kelemvor reached beneath the lava to sheathe his sword, then pulled himself out of the rift. Though his chain mail had turned white with heat and molten rock fell from his body in globs, Lord Death hardly noticed. He was as immune to the ravages of fire as he was to every kind of agony, save that of displeasing Mystra.

Cyric’s temple was completely gone, having melted into the lava pool and drained away to the paraelemental plane of magma. Only three small tongues of molten rock had snaked past Mystra’s glittering portals and crossed the High Road, and Kelemvor saw that they would consume no more than a few huts before rolling to a halt. Lord Death could have stopped these flows with little more than a thought, but he turned away and raised his arm, extending his finger to form a perch.

“Avner!”

The seraph’s dark-winged silhouette appeared high in the dusky sky and circled down like a great vulture. His wings were blacker than the night, so that they seemed more shadow than feather, and he was armored neck to foot in leather polished to an ebony sheen. He carried a bow as long as his body, double-curved for power and strung with a golden cord. A quiver of glass arrows hung on one hip, and a naked scimitar gleamed on the other. He wheeled around behind Kelemvor, then spread his wings and landed on the god’s outstretched finger.

“At your command, Lord Kelemvor.” His eyes looked like two steel balls, for they lacked either iris or pupil and were as gray as silver. “I am ready to serve.”

“And so you shall, my seraph. Go and watch men die all across Faerun. When you have witnessed a thousand and ten deaths, return to the Crystal Spire and tell me what you have seen.”

“As you wish, Lord Death.”

Mystra came to Kelemvor’s side. “A handsome herald, Lord Death. Is he the harbinger of your newfound indifference to the helpless?”

“Perhaps. When he returns, we shall see.”

Lord Death raised his hand, and the seraph took flight as silently as an owl. Kelemvor watched his messenger wheel out over the Tun Plain and vanish against the shadowy ground, then took Mystra’s hand.

“I am worried, Midnight.” He spoke without looking at her. “I think we have been making a terrible mistake.”

“Mistake?” Mystra thought of the mistake Kelemvor had made in refusing to help her with the volcano, but she had better ways to let him know about that than just saying so. “What mistake?”

Kelemvor turned to face her, and when he looked into her eyes, he saw the reflection of a tar-covered god. “A-“

Lord Death could not bring himself to say Adon’s name, for he was as much a traitor as ever and valued his own conscience above the welfare of his old friend.

“A what, Kelemvor?” Mystra tore her hand from his. “You know how busy I am. Even as we stand here, Cyric has-“

“A mistake of conscience! And Cyric is at the heart of it.”

Mystra raised her brow. “You have my attention. Go on.”

Kelemvor shook his head. “I can say no more, except there is more to our troubles than we can see, and Cyric is behind them all. He has been behind them all along.”

Mystra grew thoughtful, then locked gazes with Kelemvor. “This is about Adon. You know something.”

Kelemvor nodded. “But I cannot tell you. The secrets of the dead are their own, and I will not betray the sanctity of the grave-not even to you.”

“But Adon-“

“If I find Adon standing before my throne, I will treat him with all the respect he is due.”

“Before your throne? Adon is one of my Faithful. When he dies, you must know I will make a home for him in…” Mystra let the sentence trail off, her eyes growing wide and wild as she perceived the meaning of Kelemvor’s words. “No-I will not allow him to die without Faith!”

Twenty-Five

Becoming a father is always a shock, and this is even more true if a man has not seen his wife in years. I galloped north in a state of astonishment, so stunned I hardly noticed the peaks rising higher and higher around me, nor the great westward bend the High Road took before turning through High Horn pass. I could think of nothing except the unseemly timing of my wife’s conception, and of riding straight home to rebuke her for being so unfaithful!