by James Lowder
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.…
“Another job well done,” Cyric sighed as he gathered up his book. “There won’t be time for anyone else to read this by morning, but I want you to take it to the main temple for safekeeping. At the dawn service, you are to read the final section to the faithful.”
Fzoul bowed as he took the heavy volume. “As you wish, Your Magnificence.”
“Yes, fine,” the Prince of Lies said, irritation creeping into his voice. “The reading will be the final part of the ceremony, and you must be finished by sunrise.” Cyric paused and stared at the top of Fzoul’s bowed head. “This is hardly the sport it once was. I almost miss your futile anger. Ah, well. Can’t be helped.”
With a final glance at Rinda’s corpse, the Lord of the Dead readied himself to leave. “Burn this place to the ground,” he said as his incarnation faded from view. “Use the Binder’s book to start the blaze.”
No sooner had Cyric disappeared than Fzoul tossed the Cyrinishad onto the desktop and rushed to Rinda’s side.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the book shrieked.
A silver chain appeared around the tome, filling the skull’s mouth like a gag.
“You didn’t need to hurt her so badly,” Oghma snapped as he appeared in the center of the room. He glanced at the Cyrinishad to be certain his enchantment was holding, then turned back toward Rinda. “Can you save her?”
Fzoul smirked. “I know how to gut-stab someone so they’ll take hours to die,” he said, though the voice coming from his lips was now the Shadowlord’s sibilant hiss. “But I need to get rid of this ham-fisted disguise first.”
The priest’s shadow darkened, grew more substantial, as if Fzoul’s lifeforce were pouring from his body into the blackness. It rose then, towering over both the priest and the fallen scribe. Shadows from around the room flowed toward Mask. They merged around him to form his ever-shifting cloak. “Are you keeping your shield up over the place?” the Shadowlord asked.
“If he bothers to look, Cyric will see Fzoul preparing to set the building ablaze,” the Binder said. “What about Rinda’s shade? Cyric said his denizens were waiting.�
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“Already taken care of,” Mask said smugly. He pushed Fzoul out of the way and kneeled by Rinda’s side. At a touch of his hand, the bleeding stopped and her chalk-white face began to show a little color. “I sent an old friend of Fzoul’s in her stead. You remember Lord Chess, don’t you? I think he’ll rather enjoy being a woman for a while—well, he might have if Cyric hadn’t planned such a nasty reception for Rinda.” His eyes narrowed, and a hint of true concern slipped into his voice. “She’d better hope she never falls into his hands.…”
“She won’t,” Oghma said. Gently he lifted Rinda from the floor and carried her to a table, which transformed into a padded couch as he lowered her toward it. “And you, Fzoul, how do you fare?”
The priest now lay on his back, hands pressed tightly on his temples. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I can’t tell if this pounding in my head is going to stop or not.”
“It will,” Mask said. “I had to let you feel some real pain or Cyric might have caught on. Human screams are tough to mimic convincingly.”
“Give me the knife back and we can practice on you for a while,” Fzoul said. He sat up with a groan, then fell to examining his broken nose.
“You’re just fortunate I set up that construct to save your mind,” Mask noted. “The book would have made you another of Cyric’s mindless drones.”
Oghma looked again at the tome. The skull was trying to spit the chain from its mouth, intent on calling its master. “We have to destroy it somehow.”
“Not now, we don’t,” Mask said. He seemed to float as he came toward the Patron of Bards, buoyed by the intrigue of the day. “Cyric set some powerful wards on the thing, too powerful to be broken in any simple fashion. No, it would be best to get the book out of the city and worry about it later—after the battle.”
“What battle?” Fzoul said. “You said yourselves Cyric doesn’t intend to let the giants attack the city.”
“But we do,” the Shadowlord replied. “Those brutes are going to stomp this place flat—and you’re going to open the gates for them, Fzoul. In a manner of speaking, anyway.”
The priest snapped his nose back into line, then shook his head violently to drive away the tears of pain coursing down his cheeks. “I suppose I have no choice in the matter?”
“You always have a choice,” Oghma said.
Mask leaned over the priest’s shoulder. “Of course you do,” he whispered. “In this case, you either go along with us or we let Cyric know the book didn’t work on you. I’m certain hell get it right the second time around.”
Sighing, Fzoul got to his feet. “What do I do?”
“You’ll address the faithful tomorrow, just as Cyric wants,” Mask began. He circled Fzoul as he spoke, an owl waiting for a field mouse to twitch in the dark. “Except you’ll read them the final section of Oghma’s book. It tells how our Prince of Lies intends to dupe the city. When everyone hears how Cyric created the menace in the first place … well, more than a few people will be sorely disappointed in their would-be savior.”
“That won’t bring the giants down on the city,” Fzoul rumbled. “That’ll just get me killed. Don’t you think Cyric will be listening to this ceremony?”
“We know he will not—indeed cannot—pay careful attention to what you say, Fzoul Chembryl.” Oghma had begun to gather up the scattered pages of The True Life. He handed a bundle to the priest. “Cyric needs the city’s desperate worship to power a spell. That’s the point of the dawn ceremony, to focus that power. But to use it, he must meditate, point all the facets of his mind to the grail of his quest.”
“Lyonsbane’s soul,” Fzoul murmured.
“Exactly,” Mask said. “In other words, when you give your little lecture to the masses, Cyric will have his eyes closed.”
Fzoul straightened the gatherings and set them on a chair. “And that’s when you start the revolt in the City of Strife.” He drummed his fingers nervously on the pages from The True Life. “I’m still not happy about moving into the open.”
“I’ll be there to protect you,” Mask offered with exaggerated deference. “If you take up my holy symbol, Fzoul, I’ll serve you well. After all, Bane has been dead the past ten years, and you still mourn him. Isn’t it time you got on with your life?”
“Perhaps,” the priest said, then pushed past Mask to pick up the last of the scattered gatherings. “Let’s see where we stand at sunset tomorrow, Shadowlord.”
“That still leaves the matter of the Cyrinishad,” Oghma noted, the chords in his voice somber.
“I’ll take it,” Rinda said softly. “I wrote the damned thing, I should be the one to deal with it now.” She struggled to sit up, one hand pressed against her stomach to ease the throbbing.
Fzoul scowled. “That’s absurd. How are you supposed to guard it?”
“You’d be a better choice, I suppose?” the scribe snapped. “Oghma, you can’t let this powerful an artifact fall into the hands of the Zhentarim. They’d try to twist it to their purposes, and we both know it can only be used to destroy true knowledge.”
“I think the matter is settled,” the God of Knowledge said, and Mask did not contradict him.
The Binder held out a glittering holy symbol to the scribe. The small scroll was wrought of a single pure diamond and fit comfortably into the palm of her hand. “You are now guardian of the Cyrinishad,” Oghma said solemnly. “This holy symbol will mark you as such to all of my faithful. My churches and monasteries will provide safe haven for you, and my loremasters will give you food and money if you are needy.”
“Your clerics won’t be able to hide her from Cyric,” Fzoul said snidely. “And unless you intend on destroying him in this little revolt, he’ll come looking for his book sooner or later.”
Oghma nodded. “That likelihood has been foreseen, as well. So long as you wear this holy symbol and remain in the mortal realms, Rinda of the Book, you and the tome will be invisible to all the gods and their divine minions.” At the concerned look in her eyes, the Binder nodded. “Even to me. It’s best that way.”
The scribe got to her feet. “Thank you,” she said. Tentatively, she reached out for the god’s hand. Oghma let her grasp his dark fingers, but then raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “A place of honor will await you in my palace.”
After he slipped the chain around Rinda’s neck, Oghma turned to Mask. “Come, Shadowlord. We’ve much to do.” With that he was gone.
Mask lingered a moment longer. “Remember all I’ve told you, Fzoul. I’ll be there tomorrow if you call upon me.”
The priest stepped forward boldly. “You can’t allow the Binder to throw the book away.”
“Throw it away?” the Shadowlord asked. His red eyes glittered playfully.
“She couldn’t turn aside a simple knife,” Fzoul said, his face flushing beneath his blackened eyes. “How will she protect herself against an assassin’s blade? Cyric is Lord of Murder, after all. All the assassins in the world answer his call.”
Mask glanced around the room, astonished to find he could see neither the scribe nor the book. “The knife that struck her a moment ago was wielded by a god, Fzoul, not a mortal. Even then, she very nearly blocked the strike. Could you do the same?”
The priest was not so easily deterred. “The next blade she faces could be Godsbane. Cyric killed two gods with that sword. What chance does a scribe have against that? At least I’d have my spells to protect me.”
Mask paused, suddenly baffled. “Only two gods?”
“Bhaal and Leira,” Fzoul said. “What others?”
“Oh, er, none,” the Shadowlord said abruptly. He gestured vaguely around the room. “If you want the Cyrinishad so badly, Fzoul, then you should try to take it. Wait until the ceremony’s over, though. If she kills you, you’d be hard to replace with such little notice.”
Mask slipped into the priest’s shadow and vanished.
As still as a statue, Rinda stood in the center of the room. She’d wrappe
d the Cyrinishad in rags and tied them tightly with some frayed rope. In all, the bundle looked no more or less important than any other beggar’s pack. When Fzoul took a step toward her, she raised a hand to ward him off, but kept her eyes fixed on the priest’s shadow, where Mask had disappeared.
“Don’t worry,” Fzoul said. “I think Mask’s right. We’ll leave things be for now, but after the battle—”
Rinda merely continued to stare.
“What’s wrong?”
“You heard him. Mask knows Cyric didn’t kill Bane and Myrkul, as the Cyrinishad claims. But he almost disagreed with you.” The scribe held the ragged bundle away from her, as if it were crawling with venomous spiders. “Cyric made the book so its enchantment works on gods, too.”
XVII
GIANTS ON THE DOORSTEP
Wherein Gwydion the Quick is offered the magical sword that started him on the road to Hades, Xeno Mirrormane receives his just reward for serving the Prince of Lies, and a book of truth brings down the walls of Zhentil Keep—with considerable help from an army of monsters.
“He’s a lunatic,” Adon said. “Honestly. Cyric belongs in here more than some of the inmates.” He gestured to an empty bed. “Maybe we can find room for him, though I’m pretty certain the others wouldn’t like him very much.”
Mystra smiled at her patriarch’s fervor, at the anger in his eyes as he mulled over the death god’s plot to unify Zhentil Keep. “Right now, Cyric’s plans don’t seem as mad as ours,” the Lady of Mysteries sighed. “For the uprising in the City of Strife to have the slightest chance of success, the giants and dragons must sack the Keep. We’ve got to make certain the monsters win, which means innocents will suffer. That’s what’s troubling me.”
Adon kneeled to wipe the face of the wild-eyed man Mystra had named Talos. “Can’t sleep again, old fellow? It’s past midnight you know.”
Since the Goddess of Magic had first brought Adon to the asylum, more than a month past, conditions at the House of the Golden Quill had improved greatly. The priest had devoted much of his time—and more than a little of the church’s wealth—to improving the place. From his efforts, the reeking, lightless pit had been transformed into a comforting home for those whose minds had been twisted by misfired enchantments. The asylum remained cold and drafty, to be certain, and the rats clung obstinately to their secret nests. Still, clean beds and warm clothes had become the norm, and kindhearted novitiates from the local Church of Mysteries had volunteered their services as nurses for the inmates.