Prince of Lies (5 page)

This was all the stuff of history, and in the decade since the Time of Troubles, dozens of treatises had been written to explain the calamitous events. Bevis had even illuminated one, five years back. Yet something about this telling drew his interest. He felt strangely compelled to read on. Collecting the gatherings before him, Bevis sorted them into a ragged-edged pile.

The Theft of the Tablets - well, that goes before the section I just read, he thought. The Betrayal of the Guild - this history isn’t limited to the Time of Troubles. It’s about Cyric before he became a god! A Childhood in the Shadows. Kelemvor and the Ring of Winter. The Knightsbridge Affair…

Breathless, Bevis scanned the first page of each gathering. An illumination showed Cyric in his days as a young thief, sneaking up on an unsuspecting guard atop the black walls of Zhentil Keep. The next entry told of his first meeting with Midnight, the sorceress who would quest for the Tablets of Fate alongside Cyric, the cursed warrior Kelemvor Lyonsbane, and a vain priest named Adon. Little did Cyric or Midnight suspect that first night in Arabel they would recover the tablets and be rewarded by Lord Ao with a place among the gods.

A violent miniature bright with the sheen of gold caught Bevis’s eye as he turned to the next gathering. The artist had created a ghastly scene of slaughter in a halfling village. Zhentish soldiers spitted small women and children on pikes. The houses and barns burned in gold foil while severed heads with ink-black eyes looked on. And in the center of the carnage stood Cyric, a rose-red short sword clutched in his bloody hands. A halo of darkness foretold his future divinity.

The display script next to the gory scene proclaimed its topic simply: Black Oaks and Godsbane.

So it came to pass that Cyric freed himself from the company of the whore Midnight, the preening Adon of Sune, and the cursed swordsman Kelemvor Lyonsbane. He gathered around him, in the days that followed, a small force of Zhentilar and made them prophets of his ascension. He crossed the Heartlands with these soldiers, striking down any who challenged his vision of a world free from the hypocrisy of Law and Honor.

The blood of doubting kings stained their blades the brains of foolish sages spattered their armor. Yet each shattered skull or riven heart recruited twin heralds to Cyric’s cause. In the mortal realms, the corrupting corpses reneged their challenges to his greatness with silent screams and faces frozen with terror. In Hades and the other heavenly realms, the newly liberated souls arrived with a proclamation: Make ready, for a god comes who will take all the vast universe for his domain.

Once his message had spread and the people realized that freedom could only be earned through Might, Cyric found himself welcomed as a conquering hero by many cities and towns. They hung garlands around the necks of his men and presented lavish feasts in his honor.

Yet some isolated hamlets - like the halfling village of Black Oaks - remained blind to Cyric’s glory. The stunted creatures that dwelled in Black Oaks shunned him and threatened to call down the wrath of the feeble icons they worshiped. Even then, a month before his ascension from the top of Mount Waterdeep, Cyric knew someone of his stature could not tolerate such insults.

With fire and steel, he scourged Black Oaks from the map of Faerun. As his Zhentilar burned the squalid houses, Cyric herded the halflings together and beheaded them one by one. The heads were set in neat rows, like gawking, bloody cabbages awaiting harvest; Cyric then cursed the bloated lumps of bone and flesh to an unending living death. To this day, the ravaged skulls speak to all who look upon them, decrying their foolishness.

Because his blade had been so dulled by his tiresome work upon the halflings, Cyric sought another to replace it. He liberated a powerful enchanted sword from the hands of Sneakabout, the greatest warrior in Black Oaks and the only one to escape the village that day. The spirit of the blade had broken the halfling’s will, making him an unquestioning slave. There was no shame in this, for until Cyric held her, the rose-hued sword had been unconquered. Great was the line of soldiers and kings destroyed trying to bend the blade to their purposes, but only Cyric had sufficient will to triumph over her.

The enchanted, rose-hued sword served Cyric well, shielding him against the chill winds of Marpenoth, healing the wounds he received in the fierce battles for the Tablets of Fate. In return, Cyric rewarded her with blood. Like all who serve him selflessly, the sword received that which she desired most.

Fane, a Zhentilar officer, was the first to give his life to the blade. The halfling Sneakabout was next. Yet the essence of these men would prove to be mere scraps before the banquets on which the blade soon feasted.

At Boareskyr Bridge, Cyric slew Bhaal, Patron of Assassins, Lord of Murder. So great was the chaos unleashed at Bhaal’s death that the Winding Water still runs black and poisonous from Boareskyr Bridge to Trollclaw Ford. Every creature that drinks of the river dies cursing those who stand against Cyric, for such resistance is futile, as the poisoned water surely proves.

Bhaal was not the last god unmade by Cyric’s hand. Atop the tower of Khelben “Blackstaff” Arunson, a mage known as a foe of both Zhentil Keep and her agents, Cyric faced his united enemies, for Midnight had allied with Myrkul, the fallen God of Death. Together they had hatched a cowardly plan to place the Tablets of Fate - and thus all the lands of Faerun - into the hands of those gods who worshiped Law and Good above all sense. Cyric slew Myrkul for turning against his worshipers. With a single stroke of his enchanted blade, he sliced the god’s avatar in two. The corpse dissolved into ashes, which rained down upon Waterdeep, melting away buildings and roads.

Kelemvor Lyonsbane died that glorious day atop Blackstaff Tower, too. And the traitorous Midnight would have followed her lover to destruction had she not called upon her magic to flee from Cyric’s wrath. It is because of this cowardice that Lord Ao commanded Midnight to abandon her name when he raised her up to take the place of the destroyed Goddess of Magic. And so it was that Midnight became Mystra.

Thus has the enchanted, rose-hued short sword come to be known as Godsbane, for no other weapon in the history of Faerun has been used to strike down the powers that rule over the mortal realms.

Bevis closed the gathering. Reading in the braziers’ flickering light had given him a throbbing headache, and his mouth was strangely dry. He rubbed his temples and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, hoping to banish the ache, but the grisly illuminations flashed in his mind. The words of the history echoed in his thoughts like a siren song, calling him to read on. Perhaps it was a spellbook of some sort, disguised to appear as a life of Cyric. Or perhaps the clerics had placed a curse on the pages to punish anyone who might read it uninvited.

His heart pounding, Bevis overturned the stack of pages in search of a clue. The scribes’ guild in Zhentil Keep required its members to place a colophon on a manuscript’s final page. Usually these personal notes - written in the guild’s esoteric code - expressed the scribe’s relief at having completed the book, along with a prayer that he be paid well for his efforts. For dangerous tomes, the colophon warned other guild members to browse the text only at their own risk.

The colophon for this volume was longer than most. It started with the common exclamations of relief and complaints of cramped hands then moved on to hopes for a pretty wench and a pint of fine ale. The final section of the colophon had been obscured by hasty crosshatching, which indicated the lines should be scraped from the parchment before binding. The marks made the text difficult to read, but Bevis was not unpracticed in deciphering such puzzles.

From the god’s mouth to my pen, in this, the tenth year of Cyric’s reign as Lord of the Dead. Three hundred ninety and seven versions of this tome have come before. May it please my immortal master not to use my skin for the pages of the three hundred ninety-eighth.

With a cry of horror, Bevis pushed the gatherings away. They fluttered from the table and settled to the floor like vultures dropping around a corpse.

“That’s hardly the way an artist should treat the work of his fellows,” said a voice from the shadows.

Bevis spun around. Someone was there, in the darkest part of the crypt. “P-Patriarch Mirrormane?” the illuminator stammered, cautiously reaching for his penknife.

“Hardly.” The man lurking in the darkness stepped forward. He was young and lean, with a catlike grace that betrayed his training as a thief. Brushing aside his black cloak, he planted a hand dramatically on the hilt of his short sword. The weapon hung from a loop on the man’s belt, its rose-hued blade unmasked by a scabbard. “Did you enjoy my book?”

The illuminator mouthed a reply, but the words wouldn’t leave his throat. The hawk-nosed man stalked closer, his footfalls utterly silent on the crypt’s cold stone floor. He bent down and retrieved a gathering, one that depicted the Lord of the Dead then held the page up next to his face for Bevis to compare. The miniature was a remarkable likeness, right down to the halo of darkness.

“Oh gods,” Bevis managed to gasp as he crumpled to the floor.

Cyric’s cruel smile widened. “No, the only one that matters.”

Bevis hung limp against the stone pillar, blissfully unaware of the three figures gathered around him. The ring of braziers still burned brightly, but they were no longer needed. With only a thought from Cyric, light had filled the catacombs, revealing every inch of the uneven stone floors and low vaulted ceilings.

“I wish Fzoul would hurry up!” Xeno Mirrormane shrieked. The high priest’s silver-white hair curled wildly around his head as he stalked forward, waving the steaming iron rod at Bevis. The priest’s thin frame was hidden by the bulk of his dark purple robes. “I want to get started on this spy before dinner.”

The fat nobleman lounging nearby yawned and held a scented handkerchief to his bulbous nose. “Your departed brother would have been proud of the way you wield that thing, Xeno,” he drawled through his square of patterned Shou silk. “You have taken to your newfound role as patriarch admirably. We are all grateful you could replace Maskul after he passed away so, er, mysteriously.”

“Spare us your innuendos, Lord Chess,” Cyric said. “You know Xeno murdered Maskul. Your spies informed you of the deed even before the dagger found his heart. It shouldn’t have surprised you, though. After all, Xeno serves me, and I am the Lord of Murder, am I not?”

The facade of foppishness slipped, and the ruler of Zhentil Keep withdrew the handkerchief from his face. “Of course, Your Magnificence,” he murmured.

“Tell me, Chess,” Cyric demanded sharply, “do you still pray to Leira for a way to hide your disgusting gut from your courtesans? Illusions only conceal so much, you know.”

Flushing in embarrassment, Chess straightened his bulk against the crypt’s stone wall. When he looked to Cyric for some sign of approval, he found the god’s avatar had wandered away into the cavernous catacombs, leaving him to wonder just how the Lord of the Dead had intercepted prayers sent to another in the heavens.

The crypts had once held the honored dead of Bane - priests and warriors and accomplished statesmen who had dedicated their lives to the former God of Strife. After the Time of Troubles, when Cyric had taken Bane’s mantle, he directed his minions to plunder the places sacred to the Black Lord. They defaced the beautiful marble statues and tombs before they smashed them to rubble. The remains of Bane’s faithful they dumped unceremoniously into the River Tesh.

The Church of Cyric had yet to create enough of their own martyrs to fill the now-desolate crypts, so the space was used for other purposes. A group of church assassins had taken to meditating amidst the rats and spiders and more chilling creatures that stalked the dark catacombs. Apart from them, and the few church wizards who conducted secret experiments in the crypts, the expanse of vaults and chambers remained empty. They wound unused beneath the vast complex of temples and monasteries dedicated to the Prince of Lies.

Cyric paced uneasily across the ragged indentation where a marker had once graced the floor. Perhaps I should let Xeno enshrine the scribes who labored on the early versions of the Cyrinishad, he mused. That would fill this place up soon enough. I might even give the scribes’ bodies back, if the clerics wish to bury what’s left of them.

The Prince of Lies closed his eyes and listened. The unending shrieks of the men and women who had penned the failed tomes filled his ears, even from their place of fiery imprisonment in the throne room of Bone Castle…

A jarring clatter chased the wails of the damned from Cyric’s consciousness. He glanced back at the others; Xeno had dropped the iron into a brazier for reheating. The thought of entombing the patriarch with his murdered brother flashed through the death god’s mind - pleasant repayment for this incessant shrieking and fidgeting - but amusement quickly drowned Cyric’s annoyance.

Cyric had taken on a physical avatar for this visit to Zhentil Keep, something he’d seldom done since becoming a god. He preferred instead to haunt the dreams of his worshipers as a bloody wraith or manifest as a cloud of poisonous smoke before his enemies. He’d forgotten what it was like to perceive the world through senses easily plagued by distractions. The strange feeling was pleasant, in a nostalgic way, and it softened his dark mood just a little.

The echoes of Fzoul’s footfalls preceded him into the crypts. When he appeared at the base of the stairs, he showed no signs of having hurried to answer Cyric’s call. In fact, from the ceremonial dress he wore, it seemed as if the priest had taken the time to array himself for the meeting. The weird radiance lighting the catacombs made Fzoul’s black armor appear slick, like a snake’s scales just after it molts. Once the holy symbol of Bane had graced the breastplate. Now it was blank, a midnight sky devoid of stars. Bands of silver plundered from the centaurs of Lethyr Forest bound his long red hair in a braid and ringed his drooping mustaches.