Sword of the Gods

by Bruce R Cordell

  “Now where?” Riltana said.

  Their choices included walking straight into a gaping catacomb mouth or ascending to the island’s higher elevation via a narrow, wandering stair in the cliff face.

  One end of the Veil animated, and threw a beam of light from the tip. In a manner almost like a human’s extended finger, it pointed to the stairs.

  “We go up,” Demascus said.

  The stairs provided a relatively easy climb to the top of the cliff. From there, a jumble of smashed gravestones, tilted memorial spires, rusted plaques, and half-collapsed mausoleums stretched away across the island.

  “Sharkbite, it’s cold up here,” said Chant. The man’s breath steamed out in great puffs of gauzy white. Demascus was acutely aware that such a vast difference in temperature between the rest of the cavern and the island couldn’t be “natural” in any good sense.

  The Veil’s animated end scanned the tableaux a moment, then directed them down a cobbled lane lined with a crumbling columbarium wall. Displaced urns from the wall lay shattered and askew across the way. Dark ashes spilled from some.

  “A whole lot of disturbed graves,” said Chant, his tone worried.

  “But is there any sign Kalkan came this way?” Riltana asked.

  Chant kneeled to the cobbles. He carefully examined the stone, then rose, nodding. He said, “Something came this way recently, wearing boots. Scrapes along the paving stones are far enough apart to indicate whoever it was either was unnaturally tall, or more likely, that he was in a hurry.”

  “Be on your guard, either way,” said Demascus, his own breath a waterfall of white. He stepped forward. His boot came down on a loose funerary urn. The sound of it cracking beneath his heel was loud as a bombardier’s detonation. Oops …

  Sure enough, something stirred in response. Demascus pulled his sword free and ignited the imaginary glyphs along its edges, as greenish luminescence coalesced from the shattered urns. The glow swirled into a blot, and became a vaguely humanoid shape of terror.

  “A specter!” barked Chant, his voice a full octave higher than normal.

  The ghostly creature’s swirling, ethereal tatters feathered across him, and Demascus’s nose hairs froze and his fingertips went numb. He slashed, but his blade passed right through the specter as if it were only a dream.

  Then it screamed. A barrage of horror sleeted through him, potent as a shot of whisky and sharp as a scalpel. He fell on his face, and his sword spun away from his nerveless grip.

  “Lords of light!” he croaked, and scrambled for his weapon on hands and knees that suddenly didn’t want to function.

  His hand found the hilt, and he regained his feet, barely. Where was the specter? He couldn’t see it. Was it gone? No. Unlikely it would appear just to say “Boo!” then run off.

  The pawnbroker lay on his back, and Riltana perched on a grave marker a full ten paces away.

  “Chant, are you all right?” he asked.

  The man groaned.

  The specter, quick as an eye blinking open, reappeared. It hadn’t gone anywhere, it had just turned invisible.

  Its insubstantial claw glided straight through Demascus’s leather armor and drew a tear across his soul. Strength poured from him, and it was all he could do to not go down again.

  His first instinct was to step away through a lane of shadow. But … that would probably only make him even more vulnerable to the creature’s attacks. It was the light he required. Light like what had blazed in the temple of Oghma, when he’d stood before the avatar of knowledge …

  Some measure of his strength returned as a half-real glyph on his sword brightened. He summoned the temple light of his vision and set his sword afire with it. The specter came on, oblivious, until he swept his sword through the insubstantial undead. Golden light outlined the specter.

  Features resolved above the undead’s ill-defined and vaporous torso for a single heartbeat: a man’s face, teeth gritted in ageless hate. Demascus laughed, and his voice broke strongly across the lane, “Your reign of terror ends here, lost one.” A wild exultation fired his limbs and his mind, a side effect of the glorious light. But he didn’t care. He reveled in it.

  The specter retreated, flickering as if attempting to fade from sight again, but the radiant glow prevented it from slipping away from mortal eyes.

  “Destroy it, while the gods’ light pins it!” Demascus yelled.

  Chant rolled to his feet and sent three metal-tipped shafts through the undead’s swirling form, tearing great rents in the ectoplasmic flesh. Riltana popped up opposite Demascus, and shoved her short sword directly into the torso, where a living being would have kept its heart. Her blade took fire from the radiance still surrounding the specter. The short sword found the knot of animation keeping the undead bound to the world, and severed it.

  The specter dispersed like mist in a sudden wind. A mournful cry faded to nothing, and the unbearable cold went with it.

  The light faded, and the exhilaration leaked away, leaving him feeling almost empty.

  “Nice job, Demascus,” said Riltana.

  He merely nodded. “Everyone all right?”

  “Thanks to what you just did,” she replied. “So … When you summon that kind of glow, it almost seems divine, like something Carmenere might manage. Which god did you call for aid?”

  Chant glanced over, his eyebrows high with interest.

  Demascus glanced around, noting the location of each broken urn and gravestone. The immediate threat seemed over, so he sheathed his sword. Finally, he answered Riltana, “No god in particular. More like … all of them, I guess. Or whichever one is paying attention.” He felt vaguely embarrassed as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

  “Hmm. That’s scarily disturbing,” she replied. “Still … I like it better when you call the light. When you shroud yourself in shadows, you seem almost like a specter yourself.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t have a response. He didn’t want to tell her that he wasn’t necessarily consciously choosing which abilities to employ. It was more like the abilities were choosing him.

  He wondered if using light more than shadow, or the other way around, could be setting him up for some kind of consequence he didn’t know enough to avoid. Another reason to recover his sword: maybe it would give him the context to judge his actual situation, and put an end to the guesses.

  They continued down the lane, until they came to a plaza. Black iron rails fenced off the surrounding graves-cape, though great rents made the barrier meaningless. The leaning tombstones surrounding them almost looked like stalking beasts in the ambiguous light, curled and ready to spring the moment no one was looking.

  A hole plunged into darkness at the plaza’s exact center.

  Chant examined the edges of the shaft, running his finger along the lip. He nodded to himself. “See these scratches? Someone went over the side and climbed down here. Someone with, um, claws, it looks like.”

  Demascus peered downward. It wasn’t completely dark as he’d first thought: a glimmer of reddish light shone somewhere below, perhaps a reflection off a pool of liquid. He wrinkled his nose. Stagnant water, by the smell of it.

  “Does anything seem at all familiar?” asked Riltana.

  “If this leads down to Demascus’s tomb, he’s not likely to remember it,” said Chant, as he uncoiled a length of rope from his pack.

  Demascus said, “Chant’s right. I don’t even know where this cavern is in relation to Airspur.”

  Chant glanced at the distant shore where they’d arrived, then said, his voice raised, “I’ve been assuming we could return the way we came in. If we’re lost down here, you’re going to see a grown man throw a fit. I promise you, it’ll be like nothing you’ve experienced in any of your incarnations.”

  Demascus said, “I’m sure there’s a way out. Either way … now you’ve got me curious, what kind of fit does a grown man throw?”

  Chant burst out laughing.

  “Shush!” said Ril
tana. “You’ll warn anyone below we’re here.”

  “It’s not pretty,” said Chant, still grinning.

  Demascus chuckled. He decided that, if he lived through whatever was waiting for him in his tomb, he would laugh more.

  Chant tied rope to the iron fence, and dropped the rest of the coil into the well. He said to Demascus, “Do you know how to go down a rope?”

  “Uh … just shimmy down?”

  “Hmm. In a pinch, but, here …” Chant showed him a clever method of wrapping the rope so that he sat into it, which allowed the rope to support his weight even as it played out. He leaned back and jump-walked down the shaft.

  The hole magnified the sound of his boots against the curved wall. The rope rasped on his palm and fingers, making him grateful he didn’t have farther to descend.

  The shaft dropped him into a mausoleum tiled in black stone. The light came from flames burning from iron candelabra in each corner.

  Demascus dangled in a shadowed space, scanning for his nemesis. Kalkan wasn’t there. Or if he was, he was hiding. He wondered if Kalkan had lit the candles, or if they simply had magically burned alone and untended for years in silence.

  The mausoleum floor was dominated by a shallow pool. Clear water revealed several fish skeletons lying still on the bottom. Demascus half expected to see them flit around beneath the surface.

  A tunnel mouth provided an exit from the funerary space in one wall. Opposite it, across the pool, a massive sarcophagus crouched. The wan candle’s magical light silhouetted it, giving the enigmatic carvings a stuttering life sketched out in flickers.

  Except for the sound of his own breath and heart, it was noiseless. The stone tomb was his own. Seeing it, his earlier resolve to get his sword and more of his memories faltered. Demascus felt frozen in the utter quiet like a fly in amber.

  “Well?” came Riltana’s voice down the hole in the ceiling, shattering the silence with a riot of echoes. “What do you see?”

  “A sarcophagus!” he called back up. He let go of the rope and dropped to the floor next to the shallow pond. “Come down!”

  The sound of rushing wind preceded Riltana’s rapid descent. She landed, absorbing what would have been a fatal impact for him with a ringing slap of boot heels on stone.

  “Show-off,” he said. Riltana shrugged. Her eyes were fastened on the stone coffin.

  The dangling rope jerked, and Chant slid down it with practiced ease. Demascus would have been impressed if he hadn’t just seen the windsoul drop fifty feet.

  He approached the sarcophagus. The designs were so thick that newer symbols overlaid older etchings. Gauntlets, shields, leaves, orbs, eyes, stars, anvils, skulls, moons …

  “These are all symbols of the gods!” he said.

  “They might be,” said Chant. “But if they are, I don’t recognize half of them. Like this one.”

  The pawnbroker pointed to a symbol that might have been a raven’s head. “Or this.” His finger moved to a symbol that looked sort of like a stylized eye.

  “There are more worlds than just Toril,” Demascus said. “And more gods too.”

  “What do you mean?” said Riltana.

  “I can’t quite put it in words … I just know that all these symbols are legitimate divinities, somewhere.”

  “Amazing,” said Chant.

  Riltana said, “What about this?” The thief pointed to several lines inscribed on the stone face.

  Chant read, “ ‘Agent of Fate, Emissary of Divine Judgment, Cutter of Destiny’s Thread. You died as you lived, and will live again. Demascus, Sword of the Gods.’ Sharkbite! Does—”

  “Let’s stop wasting time. Help me get this gods-cursed thing open!” Demascus said. He put his shoulder to one side of the stone lid and heaved.

  “Wait,” said Chant. “We should check for traps.”

  Demascus repositioned his feet, and pushed harder. The stone groaned its displeasure as the heavy lid slid three inches, revealing a sliver of darkness.

  “No traps,” he said, and pushed again. The lid slid farther open, revealing a cavity two handspans wide.

  Chant and Riltana bent to help. The next heave pushed the lid nearly all the way off.

  The Veil, wrapped around his arm, took light. Its glow revealed a body nestled in the square cavity. Funerary wrappings swaddled it, and it was shrunken with decomposition. A smell like dried daisies dusted the air. They all gazed into the sarcophagus for a handful of heartbeats. Demascus felt not the least stir of recognition. It couldn’t possibly be the previous version of himself.

  “Well?” said Riltana.

  “It … It’s just a dead body,” Demascus said. “Less than that—rags and dust. It could be anybody.” He hadn’t expected this sad display. Disappointment hollowed his chest. No rings adorned the corpse, and—

  “Get the sword,” said Riltana, peering over his shoulder.

  He’d missed it at first; a huge blade did lay along the side of the wrapped remains, but was covered in a fine layer of silver-gray dust.

  Demascus reached in, then pulled the greatsword from the tomb. It was nearly as long as two normal blades laid end to end.

  The weapon quivered, shaking the dust from its length. For a moment, a newcomer stood in the mausoleum with them. Was it Kalkan? … no. It was a woman, with eyes like distant storm clouds, glaring at him as if he’d broken some kind of promise, as if he’d done her a wrong so grievous that no apology could ever make amends. Regret, sharp as a knife, whirled into him with the force of a tornado.

  Demascus gasped and—

  The woman was gone, as if someone had pinched a candle flame.

  “What is it?” said Chant.

  He shook his head, deciding it would be impossible to provide a meaningful explanation. The woman had been a memory fragment, jarred loose when he’d grabbed the sword, was all. He hoped. He gave one last glance at the empty space where she’d just stood, then examined the weapon in his hands more carefully.

  A series of alphabet-like runes, blood red down one side, porcelain white down the other, obscured the blade’s shimmering pattern weld. He knew those runes—every time he picked up any sword, an imperfect memory of those runes formed, quasi-real recollections of the real thing he held in his hand.

  The sword’s edge was beveled, and its fine edge was free of nicks and notches—the sign of an enchanted blade. Its balance was exquisite; despite his one-handed hold of the massive piece of metal, it seemed no heavier than a sword a quarter its size. The crossguard was an intricate affair of two opposing styles, as if the weaponsmith had managed to forge two weapons into a single whole.

  “The Sword of the Gods,” he breathed, and the Veil twitched. Words appeared in its weave:

  The blade is Exorcessum. It is not the the Sword of the Gods; you are.

  A coin-sized object dislodged from a crossguard. He caught it in his free hand. It was a metallic charm shaped like a scroll. He recognized it immediately—Oghma’s symbol.

  The charm flashed, and a new memory unspooled in his mind. Demascus realized he’d been wrong all along.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  AIRSPUR

  THE YEAR OF THE FINAL STAND (1475 DR)

  I’M MISSING SOMETHING IMPORTANT,” DEMASCUS SAID TO Tarsis.

  “What do you mean?” asked the sandy-haired priest standing beside him at the ship’s railing. A shadow from a floating earthmote darkened the air between them.

  “I’ve read all the scrolls provided by your temple. I’ve scanned the tomes. I’ve even consulted the Veil of Wrath and Knowledge. But I’m afraid I still don’t understand Akanûl. So … tell me something pertinent about this place all those matter-of-fact documents left out.”

  Tarsis gazed out over the hundreds of watercraft crowding the Bay of Airspur. The man snorted and said, “What makes you think I know? I met exactly two genasi before we sailed here. Moreover, I can barely distinguish an Akanûl merchantman from ships sailing from High Imaskar or Tymanther. Though I r
ecognize the flags of a few.”

  The priest pointed to a couple of vessels with square-rigged masts. “All the way from Impiltur. And that one’s from Sembia. That one over there …” He pointed to a triple-masted ship called Green Siren II captained by a fellow in a flamboyant wide-brimmed hat. “Actually, that one, I have no idea.”

  “You’re a native here. This place must have some resonance with you.”

  “Demascus, I’m a native of Toril. This is the first time I’ve visited the southern coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars. And besides; Akanûl is almost as much a stranger to Faerûn as you are.”

  Demascus grinned. “Well, I suppose that’s perfect. If you, a leading disciple of the Binder of Knowledge, haven’t got the first clue why Undryl Yannathar might have come to this far shore, Landrew is probably equally flummoxed.”

  “I’d say he’s more than flummoxed; I expect he’s down in his cabin right now casting stones, trying to contact his master, failing to do so, and wondering who’s betraying who.” Tarsis chuckled.

  Demascus said, “He’s played the part of a true cleric of his faith perfectly. If the Veil hadn’t revealed his secret allegiance, I’d never have guessed that Landrew answers to Undryl.”

  Tarsis’s amused expression faded. He said, “I wouldn’t have guessed it either. I’ve known Landrew for half a decade. Nor can I scarcely credit that Undryl is still alive. He retired from the Oghmanyte Church in Exile twenty years ago, at least. If the avatar hadn’t named him …”

  “He’s alive. Or animate at least.”

  “What, undeath? Do you really think it’s gone that far?” Tarsis asked. “I mean, we’re all servants of Oghma, whether you want to call us namers or lorekeepers. Both factions believe they serve their lord in the proper fashion, and that the opposing faction is the one who has wavered from true faith.”

  “They’ve had more than a century to make nice,” Demascus said. “I’ve seen fanaticism play out like this before.”

  “And now it’s come to this,” said Tarsis, shaking his head. “If only we’d found some way to compromise.”