Tantras (42 page)

“The assassins,” Bane whispered through an evil smile. “The assassins have failed me time and again since the night of Arrival. They failed me in Spiderhaunt Woods, in Scardale, and now in Tantras. For this, all the assassins in the Realms must die to give me the power I need!”

The God of the Dead laughed. “You’ve become as mad as your assistant. The assassins are valuable to me.”

“Are they?” Bane asked, arching one eyebrow. “Why?”

The God of the Dead frowned, and as he did, his cheekbones protruded through his decaying skin. “They provide my kingdom with souls. There is a pressing need-“

“Ah, yes… the Realm of the Dead,” Bane said dryly. “Have you been there lately?” Tarana giggled.

Myrkul was silent for a moment. When he spoke, there was no trace of amusement in his rasping, hollow voice. “I have not come here to listen to you state the obvious. We are, of course, both barred from our kingdoms.”

“Then any measure that could help us to regain our rightful homes in the Planes cannot be deemed extreme or worthless, can it?” Bane noted as he stood.

“Only if the effort is wasted,” Myrkul grumbled as the Black Lord walked toward the hovering image of the God of the Dead.

“I seek to reclaim the Tablet of Fate that I hid in Tantras, Myrkul!” Bane screamed. The Black Lord wished that his fellow god was in the room with him so he could strike him for his insolence. “Powerful forces may move against me - against us - if they discover that tablet. In Shadowdale, I was overconfident, and I paid the bitter price of defeat. I would rather die than face that again!”

Myrkul took a moment to consider the Black Lord’s words. His expressionless, skeletal visage seemed to shimmer and fade for an instant, causing the God of Strife to reel with barely controlled panic. Finally the image resumed its full strength, and Bane relaxed. The Black Lord knew from Myrkul’s eyes that the God of the Dead had decided to aid him even before he spoke.

“If you feel so strongly about this matter, then I will help you to recover the tablet,” Myrkul said, nodding slowly.

Bane tried to act confident. With a shrug, he noted, “I had no doubt that you would aid me.”

“You had every doubt,” Myrkul rasped harshly. “That is the only reason I chose to help you. I am pleased to note that you are no longer blindly stumbling into situations that you know nothing about.” The God of the Dead paused and fixed Bane with an icy stare. “But there is one thing you must consider: You may not have my assistance the next time you need it, Lord Bane.”

The God of Strife nodded, dismissing Myrkul’s threat as so much pointless rhetoric. Then the Black Lord mocked a look of concern and noted, “Bhaal will not be pleased if you kill all his worshipers.”

“I will deal with the Lord of Murder,” Myrkul said, rubbing his hand across his decaying chin once more. “I will contact you when all is in readiness.” The Lord of Bones paused for a moment then added, “Have you given thought to what form you will use to hold the soul energy my spell will channel to you?”

Bane said nothing.

Rage danced in Myrkul’s eyes. “Your human avatar couldn’t handle the strain in Shadowdale, and the rite you wish me to perform will likely yield you far more power than the one I used then!” The God of the Dead shook his head and sighed. “Do you still have the small obsidian statue I used to contain your essence in the Border Ethereal?’

“I do,” Bane said, a look of confusion on his face.

“This is what you must do,” Myrkul told Bane. The Lord of Bones quickly listed a complex series of instructions and forced the God of Strife and his mad sorceress to repeat them several times. Then, as soon as he was satisfied that Tarana and Bane knew how to prepare for the rite, the God of the Dead’s image disappeared in a flash of gray light and a puff of stinking, yellow-and-black smoke.

In a darkened chamber, surrounded by a dozen of his most faithful worshipers and high priests, Lord Myrkul stared at the five-tiered stage that had been set for his performance. Emerald and black marble slabs floating in midair formed a stairway, one step for each of the five ceremonies the Lord of Bones had to perform to kill all the assassins in Faerun and grant Bane the power of their stolen souls.

From somewhere nearby, the God of the Dead heard the tortured screams of souls crying for release. Myrkul shuddered as he listened to the cries and thought of his lost home, his Castle of Bones in Hades. And even though the sounds Myrkul now heard were made by unfaithful worshipers who were receiving punishment and were nowhere near as horrifying as the screeches of those confined to his realm, the Lord of Bones enjoyed them nonetheless.

“Priests, attend me,” Myrkul said as he pushed the memories of his home out of his mind, raised his bony arms, and walked to the first platform. Robed men bearing sharp-ended scepters made of bones approached and placed their offerings in the fallen god’s hands. The robed men then knelt before Myrkul, raising their chins and baring their necks.

The fallen god started to chant in a hollow, rasping voice. In moments he was joined by the robed men at his feet. As their deep voices reached a crescendo, Myrkul used the scepters to tear open the men’s throats one by one. The corpses fell backward onto the floor, their mouths hanging open in wordless protest at the unexpected agony of their final moments.

Far from Myrkul’s hidden chambers, Lord Bane waited in a large abandoned warehouse in the port of Scardale. Tarana Lyr stood behind the God of Strife, and Cyric stood nearby, with five members of the Scorpions, Bane’s new personal guard. Slater stood at the hawk-nosed thief’s side, and Eccles remained close, staring wild-eyed at the fallen god. All of the Scorpions were heavily armed.

At the center of the warehouse, the faceless obsidian statue stood, for all the world, like a child’s toy. A complex series of runes covered the floor around the figurine. The strange, mystical markings wound outward from the statue to fill the entire warehouse.

“Come, Myrkul, I don’t have all the time in the world,” Bane muttered, and a shadow passed across an open window. The Black Lord looked at the statue in anticipation just as a column of swirling green and amber light burst through the ceiling and engulfed the obsidian representation.

“Finally!” Bane cried, raising his fists into the air. “Now I will have true power…”

At that moment, far from Scardale, at the base of the mountains to the west of Suzail, a council of twelve men sat at a long rectangular table that had once been the dining table of the former lord of Castle Dembling. Now, Lord Dembling and his family were dead, murdered by the Fire Knives, a clandestine group of assassins who had sworn to kill King Azoun IV of Cormyr and had seized the small castle near his kingdom as their new base of operations.

The leader of the meeting, a dark-eyed, pug-nosed man named Roderick Tem, was tired of the small-minded bickering that had disrupted all of his attempts to organize his band of assassins into a productive company.

“Fellow assassins, this argument is getting us nowhere,” Tem proclaimed, slamming the handle of his knife on the table to get his comrades’ attention.

Before he could say anything else, Tem’s eyes widened and his body stiffened. A green and amber light exploded from the pug-nosed man’s chest and snaked around the room like a burst of lightning. In just a few seconds, the mystical fire from Tem’s chest had pierced the hearts of each his friends. All the assassins fell over, dead.

Stalking the back alleys of Urmlaspyr, a city in Sembia, Samirson Yarth caught sight of his prey and drew his dagger. Yarth was a hired killer with an impressive record. Not one of his intended victims had ever escaped his blade. Yarth had even taken enough lives to personally warrant the attention of his deity, Lord Bhaal, on more than one occasion.

On this particular day the assassin was enjoying the hunt. His prey was a circus performer suspected of seducing the wife of a high-ranking city official. The purchaser of Yarth’s talents, a seemingly mild little man named Smeds, had offered twice the assassin’s normal fee if he could bring the performer’s heart to him while it was still warm.

As Yarth watched, his victim leaped through the open window of a countinghouse. The assassin followed the young man into the semidarkness. There, he found his victim and saw the fear in his prey’s eyes as the performer realized that he’d been cornered. Yarth raised his weapon.

Suddenly a blinding, green and amber light tore through the assassin’s chest, and the killer’s blade struck the ground a few feet from his intended victim. Samirson Yarth had failed to complete his first contract.

Far across the Realms, in the city of Waterdeep, Bhaal, the inhuman Lord of Murder, was visited by a sensation unlike any he had ever known. An incredible feeling of loss settled upon the God of Assassins, and for a brief instant he actually knew fear. Running from his chambers, the fallen god found Dileen Shurlef, an assassin who served as his faithful servant. Just as Bhaal opened his twisted, bestial mouth to speak, a green and amber flash filled the hallway. Shurlef gasped and cried out as if his soul was being torn from him. With a mind-numbing certainty, Bhaal realized that was exactly what was happening.

At the warehouse in Scardale, the obsidian avatar had grown to a height of over fifty feet, and the expansion of the magical statue showed no signs of slowing down. A large, steady stream of green and amber light poured into the warehouse and filled the black figurine.

Bane stared at the form of what would soon be his new avatar as if he were in a trance. “Myrkul is preparing to step upon the final tier,” the Black Lord whispered to Tarana. The sorceress backed away and gestured for the Scorpions to do the same.

Beside Cyric, Slater cursed her hands for shaking. “Lord Bane is in communion with Myrkul,” Cyric whispered. “This is exactly what he said would happen.”

Before the Scorpions, the God of Strife opened his arms, and a tongue of green and amber fire swirled around him. “After I depart this avatar, its flesh will be weak, its mind disoriented. Tarana, you will stay behind to safeguard Fzoul and protect my interests in Scardale.”

“I would give my life -,” Tarana started to cry.

“I know,” Bane murmured, holding up his hand to stop the madwoman’s oaths of loyalty. “And one day you shall. Take comfort in that, for now I leave you.”

A reddish black cloud burst from Fzoul’s mouth and shot toward the obsidian avatar, trailing a line of green and amber flame. The red-haired priest moaned softly and fell backward into Tarana’s arms. The essence of the God of Strife entered the huge statue and an incredible scream burst forth. The cry echoed across all of Scardale and nearly deafened those who stood in the warehouse.

The statue’s arms slowly raised and Bane’s new avatar clutched the sides of its head and continued to wail, though it still had no mouth. Sharp spikes, similar to those on Durrock’s armor, burst from the arms, chest, legs, and head of the obsidian avatar. Finally the swirling mists stopped flowing into the room, and the roiling colors inside the statue changed from amber and green to reddish black.

An evil, leering mouth and a pair of glowing red eves appeared on the statue’s face. Bane stopped screaming and looked down at his hands.

“Hollow,” he said in a voice that was unmistakably that of a god. “My world is hollow. My body…”

On the ground, Cyric stared up at the God of Strife in disbelief, his heart threatening to burst from his chest. To have such power! the hawk-nosed thief thought. No matter the price, one day I will strive with beings like Bane.

Suddenly the Black Lord began to laugh. A frightening, cavernous roar filled the warehouse. “I am a god. At last, I am once again a god!”

The huge, obsidian avatar of the God of Strife rushed forward, bursting through the front wall of the warehouse as if it were tearing at frail paper. The Scorpions, save for Cyric, helped Tarana carry Fzoul away from the warehouse before the roof collapsed.

The Zhentilar made it to the street just in time to see Bane reach the edge of the port. A vague greenish amber aura enshrouded the God of Strife as he stood on the shore of the Dragon Reach and looked out toward Tantras. The fallen god was sure that nothing could stop him from regaining the Tablet of Fate.

The sudden death or disappearance of all the worshipers of Bhaal who frequented the Dark Harvest - in fact, all the assassins who lived in Tantras - troubled Tenwealth and the other members of the Council of Torm greatly. The assassins had proven themselves to be a considerable asset, despite their blasphemous alignment, and the council members, usually united, were now finding it difficult to locate men willing to rid the city of heretics for a flat fee.

The council had other troubles, too. There had been occasions recently when members had argued that Torm should be made aware of their efforts to unify the city. But as Tenwealth frequently told the council, the God of Duty had only recently taken the body of a mortal; he might not understand the unfortunate measures they had to take to convert most of the population or rid the city of unbelievers. Actually, the council members had stood united in their cause until Tenwealth had recommended that they hire assassins to deal with citizens too unreasonable to convert or leave.

Then, those council members who had failed to see the true value of Tenwealth’s plans were killed, too. The high priest had ordered those murders with the same zeal he’d felt when he’d plotted the harbormaster’s death, as well the demise of several dozen other intractables. And Tenwealth truly believed he was serving Lord Torm throughout all the bloodshed.

In fact, Tenwealth had just received word that some of his men had taken care of the small sect of Oghma worshipers in town when the order to appear before Lord Torm arrived. Leaving his room, the high priest walked to the audience hall with a light step and the knowledge that all he had accomplished over the years had been for the sake of his god. He knew, too, that Torm would eventually thank him for it. After all, the Tablet of Fate was safely hidden in the temple’s vault, and when the city was united behind the God of Duty, the high priest planned to give the tablet to Torm. His god could then triumphantly return to the Planes, an entire city of devoted worshipers behind him.