Sword of the Gods

by Bruce R Cordell

  No. But it wasn’t too much a leap to guess that he was standing within the very “Old Shrine” noted.

  Which would put Airspur—he glanced to the west—over the ridge and some miles that way.

  The dead genasi either were the cult activity described on the map, or they had come out to investigate it.

  He had a goal. Unless everyone was dead there too, he would find some answers in Airspur.

  He rolled up the map, and packed away his trove in the satchels. He collected the armor in a bundle, and examined his borrowed sword. The demonic ichor that had stained it had evaporated just like the dretch. Too bad he couldn’t as easily clean himself. He was covered in mud and blood. Probably not the best appearance to present when he showed up at Airspur’s gates.

  He looked around and spied standing water on the other side of the hollow that wasn’t choked in mud and bodies.

  Demascus walked to the rain pool, removing his borrowed long coat and shirt. He kneeled at the water’s edge to wash, and froze.

  His reflection in the water stared back at him.

  He was tall and slender, and his skin was pale. His hair was a shock of white. Tattoos like ashes leftover from a fire traced a single connected, abstract pattern from his shoulders all the way down to his index and middle finger on each hand. It seemed like the design continued across his back, but he couldn’t angle himself properly to see.

  He blinked. Did he know this face? Maybe. The stark coloration and designs on his skin were similar to a genasi’s only in vague terms. And genasi didn’t have hair, unless crystal spikes and crests counted.

  He ran his hands through his own generous locks, and wondered at its hue. It wasn’t simply white. More like …

  “The light that transfixes the hearts of betrayers,” he muttered. Another memory! From where or when, he couldn’t say, but he had a feeling it was something someone had once told him.

  He studied his own image awhile longer, examining his profile from the left and then the right. It was a fine face, and graceful. It was possible he was biased.

  Demascus snorted, and washed the mud and genasi blood from his skin and clothing. For someone who was apparently a swordsman, his skin was remarkably free of scars. He couldn’t find a single mark to commemorate past conflicts. Even the terrible stomach wound from his second vision had left not the tiniest line or pucker on his skin. It didn’t make any sense.

  Unless … was he a supernaturally fast healer? He reached up and touched his temple where the dretch had raked him—Ouch! He sucked in a breath.

  It wasn’t bleeding freely anymore, but it certainly wasn’t closing in any sort of hurry. He returned to washing.

  When he was mostly clean, he dressed once more, in the clean smallclothes and the leather armor he’d liberated. He feared the armor would prove inadequate for his tall frame, but the material relaxed as he pulled it on, until it fit him just right. Some minor enchantment lay in its stitching. That explained why it had fared better than every other garment amidst the carnage.

  Demascus shrugged back into his coat and slung his packed satchels of salvage over his shoulder. He sheathed the sword at his belt, referred to the map one final time, then packed it up with the rest of his new-claimed belongings.

  Demascus departed the altar and stone ring. He hiked several paces up the slope, stepping around boulders, ducking under low-hanging branches, and getting his long coat briefly snagged in a stand of prickly bushes. Then he paused.

  He turned to gaze back at where he’d awakened.

  Sans most of his memory, the shrine and its surrounding stones inscribed with animals encompassed the entirety of his world. He didn’t want to leave it behind, corpse heap, vanished demons, and all. It was all he could claim with certainty. Departing might mean he’d never see it again. And, what if, once he topped the rise ahead of him, the shrine slipped entirely from his mind, just as his life before he’d woken there had done?

  Another thought occurred to him. What if it all came back to him … but he discovered a host of memories akin to the one where he strangled the priest? What if he proved to be some kind of insane murderer?

  “A tangled skein our fears weave,” he muttered. There was no way to know. Just as there was also no way to know if one of the floating earthmotes above might choose the next moment to hurtle out of the sky and crush him. Nothing was certain. Best just to nod, and see what came next.

  He counted the pillars, three separate times, to fix them in his mind. By the time he verified their number was twelve, he found the resolve to continue on his way.

  “Good-bye, old stones.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANÛL

  THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  A HAND FELL ON DEMASCUS’S SHOULDER. HE LOOKED around into angry eyes the color of heated bronze. A flicker of flames seemed to dance on the man’s brow. A firesoul genasi.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” said the genasi. The odor of liquor stung his breath.

  “Oh, wonderful,” Demascus muttered.

  He hadn’t been in Airspur for an hour and already he’d managed to accidentally walk himself into the worst part of town. He’d hoped, upon entering the marvelous city built on the walls of facing cliffs, that his feet would know where to go, even if his mind didn’t consciously remember. Instead he’d wandered the inhabited cliff faces and flying bridges like someone stupid with sleep or drugs.

  A handful of people stood behind the belligerent firesoul. They looked equally fortified with liquid courage and spoiling for a fight. They’d apparently spilled out of the tavern facing the plaza called the Lantern Inn.

  “Did you hear what I said?” the genasi yelled in his face.

  Demascus said, “Um, what do you mean, I shouldn’t be here? The streets are public—”

  The genasi’s grip tightened and he said, “I know your kind, sellsword. Looking down at common folks, thinking you’re better than us. I want you gone from here! Those who wear the red ain’t welcome in this neighborhood. Scuttle back to your damn Motherhouse.”

  Demascus shrugged out of the firesoul’s grip and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m no sellsword, and I don’t want trouble.”

  Silence greeted his declaration, except for the sound of falling liquid in the fountain at the plaza’s center, which caught a torrent of water falling from the lip of an overhanging earthmote.

  The genasi sneered. “Too bad. Because—”

  “What’s going on out here, Garth?” a new voice interjected.

  A man—a human, not a genasi—emerged from a curio shop opposite the Lantern. He was overweight, and his blue surcoat strained against a gold chain belt. His hair was black with a touch of silver at the ears, and ink stained his fingertips. A hand crossbow of peculiar design rode one hip.

  The firesoul rounded on the shop owner and said, “None of your business, Chant. Get out of here, or you’ll get the same lesson as this dimskull!”

  The man, evidently called Chant, approached until he was only a pace from the genasi. He said, “I’m not going anywhere, Garth. Especially not at the behest of morons in their cups like you. Why don’t you clear out of here before the peacemakers notice and send a detachment?”

  The genasi spit from the corner of his mouth, made as if to turn away, but instead punched the shop owner across the chin. Chant’s head jerked. His eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed.

  The onlookers roared their surprise and approval.

  “Burning dominions,” cursed Demascus as he retreated a step to draw his blade, fighting his atavistic urge to draw a much longer sword that didn’t exist. As he fumbled with his weapon, his toe caught a loose cobble in the street. He failed to draw, stumbled, and only managed to avoid pitching onto his face by grabbing Garth.

  Garth elbowed him in the ribs. Demascus gasped and let go, backpedaling until his calves touched the wide fountain. The overweight human who’d tried to warn off Demascus’s
assailants groaned from where he lay on the cobbles.

  The handful of watching Lantern patrons were emboldened by the firesoul’s antics and shambled closer.

  “I don’t want trouble,” Demascus said again, but only because it seemed the sort of thing to say. Part of him did want trouble …

  Still, his odds of winning a fight with so many were poor. They believed he was part of some group that paraded around in red leather jackets, a group they obviously didn’t think too highly of. “I don’t know who you think I am, I just found this coat.”

  Garth laughed, “Nice try, but who’d be shtuu …” He stopped, then continued, taking care to enunciate his words instead of drunkenly slur them, “Who’d be stupid enough to wear the red down here, if he wasn’t a member of the Firestorm Cabal?”

  Apparently Demascus would be that stupid.

  The rabble advanced. A couple picked up stones. His hand found the hilt of his sword, and the crowd howled like a beast in response.

  It reminded him of …

  A memory fell from nowhere, swamping his senses. He was standing on a gray field of barren rock. He was arrayed in a panoply of silver armor. Golden radiance leaked from a wide metallic band around one finger that contained a single twist. A gargantuan sword with divided red and white runes vibrated in his hands, eager to taste the flesh of the horde advancing upon him. A pale length of fabric was wrapped around the sword’s hilt—the scarf! Trinkets of some sort dangled from tight braids in his hair.

  Shambling corpses, skeletons, and crawling, hopping, slithering bits of animated flesh surrounded him, advancing. He pointed the sword tip high and bellowed, “Look upon your end, foul creatures! Flee back to the shadows forever!”

  The runes on his sword suddenly flashed with a fury brighter than the sun, a purifying light that washed across the advancing mass like a tsunami rolling over a coastal village.

  He blinked, and found himself back in the plaza. He strove to hold onto the memory—

  And lost it when a hurled tankard shattered on the curve of the catchment fountain next to his head.

  Demascus’s borrowed sword was out of its scabbard in the next instant. It was a poor replacement for the rune-scribed artifact of his vision. But something of his memory remained with him. A feeling. A … knowing.

  He swept the blade out in an arc as resonant syllables fell from his lips. The sword left a wake of swirling, golden light. The glow hung in the air like an unfurling curtain. The faint impression of runes flickered across the length of the blade, mere ghosts to those on the greatsword of the memory fragment.

  The firesoul snarled, “A pretty twinkle ain’t going to save your pale hide.” He charged.

  When Garth entered the lingering sword wake, a flash of lightning-bright energy stabbed him multiple times. Garth made an odd sort of “Unk!” noise, then fell to the ground. The light sparked and skittered across the firesoul’s body for several heartbeats. Smoke curled up from fresh burns in his clothing.

  Garth groaned again, but stayed down. The glow in the air faded and the runes on his blade dissipated.

  Demascus raised his eyes to the others. He felt as surprised as they looked.

  No one moved. Demascus took advantage of the pause to move to Chant and help the man to his feet.

  The shop owner touched his cheek where Garth had hit him, wincing.

  Then Chant yelled, “All right, fun’s over. Leave, or maybe all you will find out what that’s like.” He pointed at the recumbent Garth.

  The throng grumbled and and glared, but they dispersed. Demascus was partly relieved and partly … disappointed. Something in him silently urged the Lantern patrons to make the wrong choice and fight! Except that was crazy, he thought. He wasn’t entirely clear on the effect he’d called up, or if he could do it again. He took a deep breath and sheathed his sword.

  “Thanks,” he said to the human.

  “You’re welcome. I thought some of Raneger’s goons were out here stirring things up. Raneger didn’t send you, did he?”

  “Uh. No, I don’t who that is. I was just wandering through …”

  The man started to say something else, then his eyes widened. He said, “Hold on, I remember you!”

  Sudden hope made Demascus’s heart beat faster. “You do?”

  “Of course! You’re Denarus, right? No, that’s not it … You’re … Demascus! That’s it, isn’t it? Of course it is!”

  “I think … yes, I’m Demascus. And you’re Chant? You know me?” His veil of anxiety parted. Finally, he would get some answers.

  The man laughed. He said, “No need to be coy. When I give my word, I follow through. Usually.”

  Demascus studied the human. But no—even with a name, the large frame didn’t seem the least familiar.

  “Now that you’re here, even as amazingly late as you are, I can only assume it’s to take care of business. This way.” Chant motioned for Demascus to follow him into his shop.

  The sign over the door read “Pawn & Curio.”

  The shop’s display window revealed a gold-plated hunting horn, playing cards depicting dragons, several daggers and swords, a spyglass, and more oddments, all beneath a layer of dust years thick.

  He followed Chant inside.

  The smell of books and metal polish assaulted his nose. Shelves stuffed with musical instruments, weapons, cookware, and a hundred other things made the small space even closer. A single counter hugged the back wall, and stairs so steep they nearly constituted a ladder led up into a loft.

  I’ve been here before …

  A large cat popped up from behind the counter. Its fur was a ragged mix of white, orange, and gray. It glanced at Demascus disinterestedly, then meowed at the shop owner. The sound was loud and strident. Chant petted the cat’s head.

  The animal leaned into the hand and loosed a rumbling purr.

  The pawnbroker said, “I still have what you gave me. I kept it safe all this time, like we agreed.”

  “Oh, that’s good. Good news …” Demascus was at a loss. He didn’t want to reveal the gaping hole in his memory, either purposefully or accidentally, at least not until he knew a little more about his situation, and about the pawnbroker. Though the way Chant had tried to break up the fight outside suggested he was a stand-up sort of fellow.

  “You’re here to retrieve it?” asked Chant. “Waukeen’s empty purse, stupid even to ask, of course you are.” Then, “Get down, Fable; we have a guest!”

  The man shooed the cat, but the feline sitting on the display case stubbornly refused to budge. His cheek twitched in a half smile, then he squatted down to rummage beneath the counter.

  At length the pawnbroker straightened. He was holding a scarf. A long, pale scarf that resembled an unraveled scroll of exceptional length.

  Damascus’s stomach dropped. The scarf was the murder weapon of his vision. It embodied the one memory he didn’t want back. He croaked, “Why do you have this?”

  The cat, apparently called Fable, hunkered lower, as if preparing to jump at one end of the wrap.

  Chant gave him an odd look, but decided to play along. He said, “You paid me to keep it for you; said you’d be back for it either in a couple days or in a year, two at the outside. That was four years ago. You’re lucky I didn’t sell it off.”

  “Four years!” It felt like someone caught him with a punch to the stomach.

  “Yeah, just about, give or take a few tendays.”

  Demascus’s eyes were pinned on the pale length of fabric. Part of him wanted to snatch it from Chant. Another part wanted to run from the evidence of his crime. And what had he been doing during the last four years? His mind was like a snowy plain, hiding everything beneath a cold white blanket.

  “Are you all right?”

  Demascus realized he’d been standing slack-jawed. He closed his mouth with a click of teeth.

  “Ah, yes. I didn’t think I’d ever see this again …”

  “You paid me to hold it. Which means it was saf
e, just like … Wait, did someone say something? What did they say? Was it Raneger?” Chant emphasized his questions with expansive gestures, and the loose end of the scarf swayed back and forth, following the man’s hands. Fable finally made her move and leaped for one end, missing it only by a hairsbreadth.

  “Careful!” Demascus said.

  “Hmm?” The pawnbroker finally noticed the cat’s antics. He wrapped the loose ends up and said, “You didn’t answer me. Has someone been spreading rumors about me?”

  “No, nothing like that. I told you before, I don’t know anyone named Raneger. I’m sorry, I’ve had a long day like you wouldn’t believe, and I’ve … been sick.”

  Demascus debated coming clean with the pawnbroker, who obviously remembered him. The man could be the key to all his lost memory. He wanted to tell someone, to relieve the burden of his plight.

  On the other hand, merely because the man knew him from a past business dealing didn’t make him an ideal confidant.

  Chant said, “Well, do you want this thing or not?”

  “I do! I just …” He didn’t say that the last time he remembered touching it, he was strangling someone with it. “Say, I’ve got an idea. Since you’re closing up, what do you say to heading over to that inn across the way, the Lantern, for dinner and ale? My way to say thanks for holding onto my property for so long.”

  The man pursed his lips, considering.

  Demascus said, “Not to mention that since I’ve been … sick, I’ve fallen somewhat behind on current events. I need someone willing to answer a few questions for me.”

  A grin split the pawnbroker’s face. “My specialty! If something’s going on in Airspur, I know it, or can find it out. For the right price of course.”

  “I’ve got coin to spare,” said Demascus, patting the satchel containing all the silver and gold coins he’d looted from the fallen.

  “Well, I am hungry. It takes a lot of effort to run a business like mine.” Chant ran his free hand over the bulge of his stomach. “It’s a deal. Let’s go. I hear the Lantern is roasting up bluestream squid tonight. One of my favorites.”