Prince of Lies (33 page)

Cities will burn and rivers run crimson with the blood of those too foolish to see the truth. Pyres of unbelievers will color the sky yellow with their greasy smoke, and the wind will carry the stench of death to every corner of the globe. But those who follow me will build new cities upon the ruins of the old, places where anyone can be king - so long as he has the temerity to take up a blade against his brother and demand everything owed him by the world…

Though the warp and weave of Cyric’s brutish tapestry stayed with Rinda, she’d distanced herself from his foul vision with a firm belief that civilization wouldn’t fall so easily. After all, she herself had taken a stand against the death god. And there were others battling Cyric - both mortals and immortals. Once they distributed The True Life of Cyric, perhaps even more would flock to their banner of Truth and Freedom.

As she pushed open her front door, the scribe was wondering what Oghma had in mind for The True Life. Like the death god’s tome, the Binder’s history had been completed on the Day of Dark Oracles.

All thoughts of the God of Knowledge and The True Life of Cyric fled to the deepest, most guarded part of her mind when she saw the two men awaiting her return.

“My dear,” said Cyric. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost” He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me one of my minions followed me from home.”

“N - No, Your Magnificence,” Rinda stammered. She adopted the facade of unquestioning, somewhat dimwitted loyalty she used whenever she was in Cyric’s presence. “It’s just that - uh, one of my neighbors was murdered - I mean, he was marked as a heretic and-“

“Yes, the fletcher,” the Prince of Lies drawled. “His son is an exemplary citizen, don’t you agree?” He waved the question away. “Of course you do. You know you really shouldn’t be surprised to find people in your living room, not when you leave your door unlocked in a neighborhood like this.”

“So I’ve been told,” Rinda said numbly.

The death god turned to the other man in the room. “I didn’t tell you to stop reading, Fzoul.”

The red-haired cleric looked up at Rinda, fear making his hard mouth twitch. He sat at her desk, a thick volume open before him. The lantern at his side cast long shadows across his features, masking his eyes and mouth with dark bands. “The woman deserves an explana-“

Cyric tapped Fzoul sharply with Godsbane, as if the sword were a pointer and he a stern lecturer at some temple school. “I’ll decide what the woman deserves,” he murmured.

“The illuminators and binders finished your book already?” Rinda asked. She wavered for a moment on the doorstep then decided it would be foolish to run. She closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room.

“It’s your book, as well, my dear,” the Prince of Lies said. “And yes, it’s complete. I had the other craftsmen working on the pages as you completed them.” He smiled wickedly. “I’m just fulfilling an old promise to Fzoul here, allowing him to be the first mortal to read the finished draft.”

“The first mortal?” Rinda asked. She slipped her cloak off and let it drop carelessly to the floor. “Have you read it, then?”

Cyric resumed his nervous pacing around the cramped room. “From cover to cover,” he replied breathlessly. “A magnificent job. You captured my brilliance on every page.”

The Lord of the Dead dragged the tip of Godsbane along the floor as he walked, scoring a deep furrow in the creaking boards. “We need the illuminations for the rubes who can’t read, of course, but the drawings have never been much of a problem. We had them right after the third or fourth version.”

Cyric paused when a floorboard rattled loose, and Rinda’s heart skipped a beat. The manuscript of The True Life was hidden on the ground there, wrapped tightly in leather. The Lord of the Dead didn’t bother to look into the crack, though. He pushed the board back into place with a boot heel and stomped it tight.

“But you’ve been the only one to get the words down well, at least that’s the way it seemed to me after I read it. Fzoul here will be the real critic.”

Rinda fought back the urge to call out in her mind for Oghma, to send a silent prayer to the God of Knowledge. Cyric would surely hear any such plea and deal with them harshly. Besides, the Binder knew the death god had her trapped, at least he did if he were still watching over her.

“Where were you?”

The scribe looked up, only to find Cyric standing at her side. His red cloak flowed around him like flame, swirling and dancing on the cold eddies that shot up from the floorboards. The lantern light made his eyes glitter. His breath held the slightest hint of brimstone as he whispered, “Aiding the church in their hunt for traitors, perhaps?”

Rinda felt the color drain from her face. “Food,” she blurted. “I was looking for food.”

“But you came back with nothing? Ah, yes: wartime shortages.” Cyric spread his hands wide as the realization came to him. “Sieges are like that. The rich eat venison, and the poor eat each other.”

At a gesture from the death god, a mound of food appeared on a table: a jug of sweet cider, a steaming leg of lamb, piles of strawberries, and a still-warm loaf of bread. There you are,” the Prince of Lies said. “You only need to ask.”

Her stomach rumbled and tightened at the sight of so much food. There was little enough gruel and stale water to be had in the Keep, especially in the slums, and this was a feast suited to a nobleman’s table. Rinda glanced at Cyric, who nodded his patronizing approval.

As Rinda ate, the death god continued to pace around the room. He idly chipped away at furniture with Godsbane and thumped the rafters, sending rats scurrying for better cover. The vermin seemed to recognize the God of Strife. They paused and deferentially nodded their mangy, pointed snouts to him before scampering off.

The scribe finished eating quickly. A few mouthfuls of bread and a strawberry or two filled her to contentment, and she fell to watching the Lord of the Dead. After every few steps Cyric would look anxiously at Fzoul or gift Rinda with a deprecating smile. There was a tension in his movements Rinda hadn’t seen before, a tick at the corner of his mouth when he forced away the grim scowl.

So focused was Rinda on watching Cyric that Fzoul’s piercing scream made her leap to her feet. The jug of cider rolled from the table. Its sharp crash underscored the priest’s long wail of despair.

“Please,” Fzoul cried. He pushed away from the desk and got to his feet. “Don’t make me finish it. I can feel the words eating into my brain.”

Fzoul lurched drunkenly toward Rinda. “Stop him,” he whispered. The priest’s knees folded beneath him, and he collapsed. His nose broke as his face slammed into the floor.

“Set him back at the desk,” Cyric said. “But use one of those rags to clean him off first. We wouldn’t want him leaving his blood all over the pages. No, I’d better take care of that…” He gestured at Fzoul, and the blood stopped gushing from his nose, disappeared from his hands and face.

Rinda helped Fzoul to his feet. The priest’s nose bent awkwardly at the bridge, and bruises circled both eyes like a highwayman’s mask. At first he accepted the scribe’s help. When he saw the pity in her eyes, though, Fzoul savagely shoved her away. Alone, he staggered the last few feet to the desk.

“He’s always been an ungrateful lout,” Cyric said as he gently lifted Rinda from the floor. He turned to the red-haired priest. “And don’t think of skipping a single word,” he rumbled.

Petulantly Cyric lashed out with Godsbane. The flat of the blade struck Fzoul on the ear; the short sword pulsed brightly, hungrily, then calmed to its normal rosy hue. “He’s not for you, my love,” the Prince of Lies cooed as he sheathed the blade. “Not unless the book fails to convince him of my greatness.”

Fzoul had a single gathering left to read, the section devoted to Cyric’s final vision of the world. The panic had fled his features, replaced by a stoic resignation to his fate, like a cobra mesmerized by a charmer’s pipes, he began to sway as he read the tome’s final words: This is the immutable word of Cyric, Lord of the Dead and Prince of Lies, long may he reign on earth and in Hades.

The priest slumped forward onto the book, bringing Cyric to his side in three hurried steps. Fzoul didn’t resist when the death god pulled him from the chair. His eyes seemed unable to focus, and he returned Cyric’s intense stare only vaguely. Yet that pall slipped from Fzoul’s face almost as swiftly as it had settled there. It was as if he had recognized the Prince of Lies for the first time.

“Your Magnificence,” Fzoul cried, dropping to his knees. He folded his hands together in supplication and bowed.

Cyric rubbed his chin for a moment, skeptically eyeing the prostrate form before him. He raised Fzoul up with a firm hand then stared once more into the priest’s eyes.

Rinda watched, horrified but fascinated, as Fzoul shuddered in Cyric’s grasp. The death god was probing his convert’s mind, looking for some hint of dissent, some pocket of resistance trying to hold out against the book’s hypnotic spell. “Well, well,” the Lord of the Dead murmured after a time. “You aren’t lying, are you?”

Casually Cyric released Fzoul and turned to the scribe. “You’ve done your job well. One final boon and your work will be complete.” He gestured for her to join him at the desk.

As the Prince of Lies closed the Cyrinishad, Rinda saw the covers for the first time. Golden clasps and hinges held the book together, along with a lock wrought of some brightly polished metal the scribe couldn’t identify. These stood out sharply against the raven-black leather, which the binders had stamped with hundreds of tiny holy symbols, all grinning skulls and dark suns. Weird patterns warped and flowed across the rest of the leather. At first the designs seemed random, but the longer Rinda looked at them, the more clearly she could see the horrible scenes of torture and grief hidden in the chaos of lines and shapes.

A skull the size of a child’s fist dominated the front cover, staring out of the closed book through dark, lifeless sockets. Cyric ran his fingers tenderly over the bones. “Now that the critic has spoken, we must protect the Cyrinishad from tampering - by mortals or gods.”

He held out his hand, and a dagger appeared, balanced by the tip on one slender finger. “Don’t worry, my dear. This will hardly hurt at all.”

Striking as swiftly as a serpent, Cyric grabbed Rinda by the wrist. He drew the blade across her palm before she could react then positioned the wound over the closed book.

The scribe’s blood dripped onto the cover, the sizzle of the crimson liquid on the leather masking her hiss of pain. Then Cyric spoke a single arcane phrase, and the skull stirred. Its mouth creaked open. Eagerly a long black tongue darted out to lap up the blood.

“With this blood I set my wards. This book cannot be altered in shape or content. Neither can it be removed from the mortal realms,” the Lord of the Dead intoned then turned to the grinning skull. “You are my guardian. Your life is borrowed from me, and I will suffer you to live only so long as my book is safe. Do you understand?”

The skull clacked its teeth together, as if chewing on the words before uttering them. “Of course, Your Magnificence. I exist to do your bidding.”

Rinda shrank back in horror. The tiny skeletal face spoke with her voice.

“You look shocked,” Cyric said as he ran his hand along the scribe’s cheek. “You shouldn’t be. Your blood animates the book’s guardian. Think of it as your lock on immortality. That’s what most authors want, right - to live on in their works? I’m afraid, however, that the Cyrinishad is the only book you’re going to be writing.” With a flick of his wrist, the Prince of Lies tossed the dagger to Fzoul. “Kill her.”

Rinda’s hand came up in a block an instant too late. The mesmerized priest slammed the knife into her stomach, burying the blade to the hilt. Rinda gasped once at the pain. That was all she had time to do before Fzoul twisted the dagger and shoved her to the floor.

“Did you think for an instant I wouldn’t find out you were plotting behind my back?” Cyric shouted. “Especially after one of my inquisitors killed a heretic on your damned doorstep?” The Lord of the Dead stood over Rinda, and the short sword at his side pulsed in time with the blood flowing from her wound. “Did you think I wouldn’t realize the Binder would try to counter my book?”

He glared at Fzoul, his face contorted with fury. “I know you’re in on this, too, priest. And now that you’ve come to see my greatness, I think you should explain what Oghma had in mind.”

Rinda felt her strength flowing away, and with it went her voice. She could only listen mutely as Fzoul Chembryl explained how Oghma had contacted him and other members of the underground in hopes of starting a revolt against the death god. The focus of this uprising would be The True Life of Cyric, a history meant to discredit the malevolent book being crafted by the Prince of Lies. Because Rinda was a scribe and not devoted to Cyric, the Binder felt obliged to protect her mind from the baleful influences of the Cyrinishad. He recruited her, intending to have her finish the text so it could be copied and distributed through Cyric’s churches.

With two slashes of Godsbane, the Prince of Lies shattered the floorboards covering the leather-wrapped gatherings of the The True Life. “This would be the Binder’s book, I suppose.” He tore away the wrapping and paged through the parchment, pausing now and then to laugh at some passage or another. Finally he scattered the gatherings into the air. “The text isn’t even magical!” he hooted. “I don’t believe it. The Binder thought the truth would undo me!”

The Prince of Lies walked to Rinda’s side, coming to stand just at the edge of the spreading pool of blood. “It looks like the knife hurt more than I told you, milady. But, then, I knew it would.” Smiling, he crouched to look into her face. “I lied, you see. I do that.”

Cyric toed the pool of blood, staining the tips of his boots crimson. “I wasn’t lying about your fate if you betrayed me, though,” he said with enthusiasm. “I’ve got a horrible place all ready for you in Hades. Even now my denizens are waiting for your soul to arrive.”

Rinda watched the room grow vague around her. The shapes and colors blurred together, the sounds melded into a nagging murmur. Occasionally one image would leap into focus - the beady eyes of a rat from its vantage in the rafters, the flutter of a manuscript page as it settled to the floor, the food Cyric had conjured turning to maggots - then a wave of unconsciousness would drag her away. Each time, she felt herself drawn farther and farther from her home, her body…