Prince of Lies (15 page)

The snow and ice had vanished from those hills, replaced by a green and lush carpet of life. Jungle foliage spread in riotous tangles around tranquil fields of gorgeously hued spring flowers. Birds too hearty or sickly to fly south for the winter frolicked amidst suddenly ripe fruits and abundant seeds. Confused badgers and rabbits nosed cautiously from their burrows to wander across the verdant hills, their winter coats stifling in the springtime warmth.

Then, without warning, the mock spring fell away, and the Frostmaiden’s cruel fingers spread winter across the land once more. Birds plummeted from the sky, killed by the slash of icy winds sweeping across the fields. Flowers bowed beneath ever-deepening snowdrifts. Vines and trees and hedges withered under a cloud-filled iron-gray sky. Animals cowered against the gale, their homes hidden from them by a thick carpet of sleet.

The cold wind intensified, even beyond Auril’s wont, and shrieked across the hills like a grief-maddened banshee. In an instant, the trees and shrubs and every other hint of spring were swept from the land. The stiff corpses of birds were blown up into the sky. The blast stripped the fur and flesh from the rabbits, leaving tiny ice-limned skeletons huddled in the shadows of snow mounds.

Such was the way of wild magic.

“I can’t believe it has been ten years,” Adon said sadly. “We watched the Goddess of Magic die here a decade ago. Who’d have thought it would cause all this?”

The cleric pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, though there was little need. The globe of magical energy surrounding him and his companion kept out the cold and shielded them from the wind. “It really seems like yesterday,” Adon murmured. “Though I suppose you don’t notice the passing of time the same as you used to…”

Mystra neither turned nor spoke, and the comment fell away unanswered. The current Goddess of Magic stared out at the blizzard and watched the plants and animals die. She gritted her teeth as the magical chaos threatened to warp even her sorcery, but the wave passed, leaving her shield intact.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Adon chattered on to fill the silence. “Still, the land has healed quite a bit since then. Used to be bubbling tar pits as far as the eye could see - well, mortal eyes anyway.” He laughed boldly. “Does Helm realize how much spite went into naming this place the Helmlands? I suppose he only thought he was doing his job, killing Mystra and all.”

“Helm sees the world as nothing but some vague prize to be protected from an even more vague adversary,” Mystra said.

“That would have to be Mask, I suppose. Who would the God of Guardians hate more than the Patron of Thieves?”

Slowly Mystra turned blue-white glowing eyes on her patriarch. A decade ago, when he first met the mortal mage named Midnight, Adon had been a dashing young priest of Sune Firehair. Barely twenty and untutored in the harsher lessons of life, he joined Midnight, Cyric, and Kelemvor Lyonsbane on an adventure that quickly became a quest to find the gods-wrought Tablets of Fate. His faith in himself and the unpredictable Goddess of Beauty shattered when he was scarred by a lunatic. The man who became the high priest of the new Goddess of Magic was much more worldly, much more wise than the vain young dandy who first left Arabel scant months before.

The Lady of Mysteries could see that worldliness in everything about her old friend. His brown hair was shot with harsh streaks of silver. Tiny wrinkles surrounded his green eyes. His cleft chin had kept its strength, his features their sharpness. Only Adon’s scar had faded. Once an angry red streak running from eye to jaw, the trail of the old wound was now a puckered line, pale against his tanned face. It was as if the priest’s acceptance of the wound had healed it just a little.

“Cyric will be sending more assassins,” Mystra noted. “You must take care.”

Adon nodded, his hand straying to the mace that hung from his belt. The worn patch on his leggings told any observant man the priest rarely traveled without the weapon. “They’ve tried before, Lady. Besides, the ring you crafted has done an admirable job in warning me of their presence.”

“Cyric’s planning to strike against the church,” Mystra said darkly. “Your death would be a prize to him second only to finding…” The words trailed into silence.

“He’ll be sorry if he ever finds Kel,” the priest said. Brushing a lock of raven-black hair from Mystra’s brow, he looked into her inhuman eyes. “Somehow Kel has kept himself hidden all these years. For all we know, he’s safe somewhere, plotting revenge against Cyric.”

“The sentiment’s appreciated, Adon, but I’m no love-struck child to be consoled by such hopeful fancies,” Mystra chided, though she smiled just the same. “I can only hope one of the other gods is hiding Kel’s soul, waiting to barter with me for some favor.”

Adon shrugged. “Kel tricked Bane into removing the Lyonsbane curse from him when he was alive. If he’s clever enough for that, he may have his revenge yet.” He caught the sadness crossing Mystra’s delicate features, like storm clouds over a sun-bathed rose garden, and unsubtly changed the subject. “The church in Tegea is doing fine,” Adon offered. “The village is thriving, and we’ve gone a long way in reversing the duke’s curse. Corene-“

“I know how my church fares, Adon. You are doing an admirable job, and your protégé has become an outstanding cleric in her own right.” Mystra paused and looked out at the blizzard. “She’s quite beautiful, and she cares a great deal for you.”

“Midnight,” Adon said, the name full of his devotion and respect. “You didn’t bring me all the way out here just to talk about Corene.”

The goddess smiled sadly. “No. I brought you here for a more important reason. I thought seeing this place would help you to understand what I want to tell you.”

Her gossamer robes flowing around her like moted sunlight, Mystra began to pace up the hill. The protective globe moved with her, and Adon fell into step at her side. “I need someone to talk to,” she began.

“I’ll try to help,” Adon said softly. “But another god might see-“

“That’s the very heart of the problem, Adon. The other gods can’t see anything but their own narrow visions of the world.”

The Lady of Mysteries gestured idly to the hillside, buried now beneath a mountain of snow. Even as she pointed, the ice and snow melted away, revealing a plain of black rock. The icy skeletons of rabbits and foxes shuddered to life. Howling in agony, they began to battle like crazed knights at tournament.

“I’ve never told you why the Helmlands are like this, why wild magic acts the way it does, have I?” The goddess continued without awaiting an answer. “In some places, where the avatars did the greatest destruction in the Time of Troubles, the very cloth of reality was worn thin. And here, where Mystra’s dying energy blasted the land like a million Shou cannons, that fabric is the thinnest of all.”

“What does this have to do with how the other gods see the world?” Adon asked.

“Where the fabric is so thin, the Balance is unstable,” Mystra explained. “The land swings back and forth between the powers, letting each have dominance over the area for a brief while. The verdant spring we saw was the work of Lathander. Then Auril took the land back. Now -” she looked out over the battling skeletons on the featureless field of rock “- this could be the work of Cyric. Or Talos.” Sighing raggedly, the goddess closed her glowing eyes. “And the gods never know that they’re doing harm. They can’t see how plunging the world from winter to summer might destroy everything.”

“Can’t you show them? If you can see the danger-“

“That’s just it,” Mystra said, anger making her eyes flash. “The gods see the world as if it were merely a field to be won or lost. But each is playing a different game. Talos seeks to destroy everything, while Lathander plots and schemes to bring about rebirth. They only notice the others in the pantheon when they get in the way.”

Adon shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lady, but I just don’t understand. I mean, they’re gods, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Mystra said ominously. “They’re gods. But that doesn’t mean all that you believe, all that the priests propose in their sermons and tracts. I’ve been inside their minds. I’ve -” She paused, studying the mad battle taking place on the stone field. “Perhaps there’s another way to show you…”

Mystra gestured subtly, and they vanished from the Helmlands. But when the goddess and her patriarch appeared an instant later at their destination, the scene around them was no less chaotic.

“Where’s the light, Gareth? Don’t leave me in the dark with them. They’re crawling over everything… Ai, get them away from my eyes!”

The angels have fangs. The angel have fangs!”

The Serpent took them all! She swallowed all my dreams…”

Adon cupped his hand over his mouth and pinched his nostrils shut. The stench of the place was horrible. He glanced around frantically. Piles of damp, dirty straw lay everywhere. Some of these makeshift beds were occupied by dozing lunatics, others by rats or roaches or worse. In the shadowed corners of the large, dim room, vaguely human figures squatted or brawled or howled. Many inmates had huge cages strapped to their heads or thick wads of cloth wrapped firmly around their hands. The rest were clad in rags, though the place was cold enough for breath to turn to steam.

But what Adon would remember most from that hellish place was the high-pitched, terrified screeching of the madmen.

“The angels have fangs!” A thin half-elf with long brown hair and a pale beard reached out for Adon with trembling hands. “You must warn everyone. The angels have fangs.”

Mystra turned the half-elf toward her. “Sleep, King Trebor,” the goddess soothed, passing her thumbs lightly across his eyes. He slumped to the ground, though the shudders that wracked his frame showed that slumber provided no escape from his troubled thoughts.

“You know him?” Adon gasped. “Where are we?”

“I know all these unfortunates,” Mystra said. “They are as much my children as the mages and scholars who flock to the temple in Tegea. Magic brought them all here.” The goddess turned to her patriarch. “This is an asylum, Adon. It’s run by the Golden Quill Society in Waterdeep. The bards have taken pity on these men and women, sorcerers warped irrevocably by magic gone awry. They put them here and care for them as best they can.”

“Gods, better to kill them than this,” Adon said. He had to shout to be heard over the keening.

Mystra shook her head. “Cyric’s realm awaits most of them, those who hadn’t devoted themselves to a god before magic warped their minds.” To the unasked question in Adon’s eyes, the goddess added, “I take all those I can, but Ao proclaimed at the beginning of time the gods may reward only their faithful with paradise.”

“Magic did this?” the patriarch mumbled, staring at a poor, cowering wretch with neither mouth nor eyes.

“Necromancies and thaumaturgies should never be cast lightly,” Mystra replied, “for the power of the weave can destroy as well as create. And even my hands cannot heal their minds, though I have spent hours upon hours here trying to comfort them.”

Anger began to show in Adon’s eyes. “If you wish to prove the gods can be heartless, you’ve wasted the lesson,” he shouted. “Sune abandoned me when I was scarred, remember? I have no illusions about the world, Midnight. Either tell me how to help these men or take me away from here.”

The Lady of Mysteries turned away and walked toward a grizzled old man hunched beneath a thickly barred window. A few of the lunatics quieted as she passed, as if her presence offered them a glimpse of sanity. As soon as the goddess moved away, though, they resumed their howling.

“Come here, Adon. I want you to meet Talos,” Mystra called.

Still tense with anger, the patriarch stalked to Mystra’s side. “Have you lost enough of your humanity to make light of these wretches?”

“Hardly,” Mystra said, her blue-white eyes snapping fire. “Look again, Adon. I know you’re bright enough to understand this.”

The madman was naked, his hair long and unkempt. With blue eyes narrowed in suspicion, he watched the patriarch closely. All the while, he plucked the beard from his chin one whisker at time. He dropped the hair onto the floor around him, which was already crowded with the unraveled threads of his blanket and the cloth shreds that had once been his clothes.

“Go ahead, Adon,” Mystra said softly. “Try to stop him.”

The patriarch reached out and stilled the man’s hands. The lunatic trembled, watching Adon with watery eyes.

After a moment, when he thought the inmate had calmed, Adon released him. The bony fingers flew to the offending beard and tore at it again, neither faster nor slower than before.

Mystra laid a gentle hand on Adon’s shoulder. “What does he see when he looks at you?”

“Someone stopping him from plucking his beard out. Maybe not even a person. Maybe I’m just some huge paralyzing shadow or a set of chains…”

“So now you’ve met Talos,” Mystra said flatly. “Or one very much like him. This poor man destroys whatever clothes or bedding they give him. No one can figure out why. His mind is set on it, and if they keep him chained too long, he stops eating, stops sleeping. They let him out like this now and then to tear something up. And like the gods, he’s only aware of anyone around him insomuch as they help or hinder his mad view of the world.”

“But surely the gods-“

Mystra shook her head. “Their minds are more expansive, but just as limited in perception.”

“Then how can they communicate?” Adon asked. “If they’re madmen, they shouldn’t be able to agree on anything.”

“Something in their consciousness must translate what the other gods say,” Mystra replied. “They’re all looking at the same reality, but seeing it in myriad ways. Talos can see nothing but a world that must be destroyed.” She swept manically across the chamber to a man with his knees pulled up tight to his chest. Bloody tears streamed down his sunken cheeks. “And this is Ilmater, who sees only the suffering of Faerun. His cell mate is Gond, the Wonderbringer, whose mechanical marvels will spread across the world like a clockwork army.” Mystra gestured to a bald dwarf busily constructing a tower from shattered chains and fractured servings bowls.