Crucible

by Troy Denning

  Of course, this was an impossible oath. But I had yet to understand my affliction, and I did not realize Mystra’s magic had caused it. I knew only that Rinda’s journal made as much sense as the Dark Truth, and that her sacrileges explained what I had observed with my own eyes: namely, that the One’s Church was tearing itself apart, and that Cyric had to be a lunatic to send a humble merchant such as me after the Cyrinishad. These thoughts were a great shame to me and more a reflection of my own craven nature than fact, yet they were as persistent as a hungry beggar, and it was to them I credited my obsession.

  Ulraunt returned from the brazier with his glowing iron and held it before my eyes. I hardly gave it a glance, for my gaze was locked on the journal across the room, where the First Reader Tethtoril and Ruha stood with qualmish looks on their faces.

  My inattentiveness angered the Keeper. “Look at this!” He slashed the iron back and forth before my eyes. “Do you know what I can do with this?”

  “Nothing to me.” By now, I knew this to be true, for I had not suffered a single bruise or blister from all the beatings I had taken before Ruha captured me. “I am under Tyr’s protection.”

  “Tyr does not protect murderers! Hold his head!”

  Though the rope binding my hands was as sturdy as a camel tether, Ulraunt’s assistants were reluctant to release my arms, no doubt on account of the fierce reputation I had gained during my capture. One of the men slipped around behind me and locked his hands behind my elbows, and only then did the other guard release his own grasp and put me in a headlock. He was very large and strong; it would have been futile to resist, and I did not try.

  Ulraunt waited to be certain his assistants had me securely, then stepped forward and brought the iron close to my face, so that I could see nothing but the glowing tip. He moved the poker forward, until it was so close my eyeball itched from the heat.

  “I’ll ask twice more, and each time you lie, I’ll burn an eye out. I’m told it hurts very much.”

  “Ulraunt, this is not necessary,” said Ruha. This was one time I was glad for a Harper’s meddling. “He has already answered, and your own priest said he was not lying.”

  “This worm is immune to truth magic!” yelled Ulraunt. Such was the Keeper’s anger that his own priest had left the room for fear of witnessing the torture of a helpless man. “No one can swim that moat. It will boil lamb!”

  Ulraunt brought his iron close to my eye, and I saw that he meant to keep his vow and blind me. I wondered how Tyr would protect me from this, then the shaft of the poker turned as white as the tip. There was a low sizzling and the odor of burnt flesh.

  Ulraunt cried out, then dropped the poker and grasped his hand. “How did you do that?”

  I could not answer, for his big assistant was squeezing my neck so tightly that I could not move my jaw.

  Ruha grabbed Ulraunt’s shoulder and pulled him back. “You have had your chance. Now let me try.”

  Ulraunt scowled, then looked at his blistered fingers and shrugged. “If you like. But my patience is at an end. If he doesn’t tell the truth, we’ll execute him for what he did to Rinda and Gwydion.”

  The witch waved the assistants away, then watched as my gaze swung back to the journal. With each moment that passed, my compulsion to read grew twofold—and not only because of Mystra’s spell. Rinda’s claim about the cause of Cyric’s madness was a terrible burden upon my soul, for I could not forget the cold nausea that had come over me when I touched the Cyrinishad’s box. Could the scribe be right? Could the Dark Truths of the sacred tome be so powerful they had overwhelmed even the godly mind of the One and All?

  This horrid doubt was more than I could bear. I had to recover the journal and find the lie in her words and dismiss this blasphemous misgiving before it made me as mad as Cyric!

  After watching me stare at Rinda’s journal for several moments, the witch picked it up and brought it over, stopping just out of my reach.

  “I will make you a bargain, Malik.” She had already made me admit to my true name. “For every question you answer truthfully, I’ll let you read a page from Rinda’s journal.”

  “I must do the reading!” I blurted. Tethtoril cocked an eyebrow and Ulraunt frowned, and before either of them could object, I added, “I will tell you anything.”

  Perhaps this promise can be excused by recalling that I knew nothing of Mystra’s spell. I perceived only that I had been seized by a strange compulsion to keep reading Rinda’s journal; to my knowledge, I could lie as well as I ever had.

  The witch nodded, then asked, “Did you come after the Cyrinishad, or this?” She raised the journal.

  “The Cyrinishad.” There seemed no harm in admitting this much, as they had certainly guessed it already. “Cyric sent me to recover it for him, because he needed it for his trial, and Oghma’s enchantment still prevents him from finding it himself.”

  This explanation seemed to spill from my lips of its own accord. I attributed my lack of self-control to my obsession and did not concern myself with it.

  Ruha raised her brow. “Trial?”

  I shook my head. “Page eight.”

  “Answer!” Ulraunt ordered, but the witch waved him off and turned to the proper page and held it up for me, and I read:

  “ ‘As for what became of the True Life Of Cyric, I have heard that Fzoul Chembryl still keeps it in a safe place near the ruins of Zhentil Keep. Although I wish it were in the hands of a more trustworthy caretaker, I pray this is true. The True Life is the only way to unchain minds imprisoned by the Cyrinishad’s lies, and I fear the day will come when its plain truths are needed to save all of Faerûn. Gwydion and I are only human; someday, the Cyrinishad is bound to fall into the wrong hands.’ ”

  Ruha lowered the journal, for the writing ended there, less than halfway down the page.

  “Not fair!” I was nearly in a panic, for the passage had sparked the curious notion in my head that I might better serve Cyric by recovering the True Life and curing him of his madness, and I was anxious to find something to disabuse me of this thought before it became another vile obsession. “That was only half a page!”

  “But everything written on it.”

  The witch closed the book and met my eyes, preparing to ask her next question. For the longest time she stared at me and said nothing, as though considering her words. Not once did she blink. I observed how silent the chamber had grown; there was not the sputter of a torch flame, nor the rasp of a boot upon the stone floor, nor even the hiss of someone taking a breath. Ulraunt and Tethtoril stood as still as the Harper. My body grew damp.

  “Mighty One?” I gasped. A foul taste coated my tongue.

  The air chilled. A shadow oozed up between the stones of the floor and took the shape of an enormous man. He had a grinning skull’s face and two balls of black fire where his eyes should have been, and his body was a mass of sinew and vein.

  “Malik, you have failed me.” He spoke in a thousand rasping voices, all edged with bitterness and anger. “You brought the wrong book.”

  “I—I could not lift the Cyrinishad,” I explained. “It lay in an iron box, and I am only a humble merchant—”

  “I know what you are! Do you still know where the Cyrinishad is?”

  Truly, I did not want to tell him where they had dumped it. “More or less, Mighty One. They moved it, but I believe it is still in—”

  “Do not tell me,” the One snarled. He stepped over and braced his foot on the basalt block holding my feet, then grasped me by the throat. “We have one more chance, Malik.”

  With that, he began to lift. I grow longer and thinner, and also my chest, my abdomen, and even my legs, and I swear I grew as tall and lean as a gnoll.

  “Please, O God of Gods, I am about to snap!”

  “Nonsense, Malik. I could not hurt you if I wanted to.”

  The One jerked my neck up. An alarming crackle sounded from the floor, and as bones are weaker than basalt, I feared the worst. Then my knees
sprang straight up and struck my belly so hard I coughed.

  I opened my eyes and looked down. To my relief, I still had two feet hanging at the ends of my stout legs.

  “You are under Tyr’s protection.” Cyric continued to hold me by my throat, so that my toes dangled above the floor. “And that is why my plan will work this time.”

  “This time?” My voice was but a gurgle, for the One’s grasp had all but closed my throat “You still want me to read the Cyrinishad to your fellows?” Truly, I was astonished.

  “See? Perhaps you are not so stupid after all. And now you have plenty of time. The trial resumes in a tenday.”

  And now I perceived that my god was madder than I had thought. “But the gods will never permit me—!”

  The One closed his fist, pinching my voice off in the middle of my sentence. “Of course they will. Tyr has seen my glory. He is a True Believer now.”

  A shudder ran through my body, for I knew Our Dark Lord was deceiving himself. Tyr was determined to conduct a fair trial, but that was a far different thing than worshiping the One. If Cyric could not see this, he was doomed, and all True Believers with him. The passage I had just read in Rinda’s journal returned to my thoughts, and with it the curious notion that the true way to help the One was not to recover the Cyrinishad, but to trick him into reading the True Life Of Cyric! If I could only return him to his right mind, he would not need the Cyrinishad—or anything else—to crush the other gods and bend them all to his will!

  I perceived at once that this was what the Fates had always meant me to do and that I had interpreted my vision of the book too literally. My destiny was to unite the Church of Cyric not by recovering the Cyrinishad, but by finding a different book and curing the One of his madness! I cried out in joy, and Cyric, thinking me excited about Tyr’s alliance, set me down.

  I avoided looking in the direction of Rinda’s journal, fearing that the One would guess my secret plan, but my compulsion won out. Before I knew it, I had gone over to the motionless witch and taken the journal from her hands.

  I began to read aloud.

  Cyric covered the page with a bony hand. “Must you?”

  When I looked up to answer, it was with more shame than I have ever felt in my life. “I cannot seem to help myself.”

  Tongues of black flame shot from Cyric’s eyes, but he did not chastise me in any manner. “Mystra’s spell—damn her!” He glared at the book for several moments, then shook his head. “There is nothing for it but to let you read the thing through. Destroying the ledger would only make you a greater idiot.”

  In response, I read a few lines describing how General Vrakk helped Rinda escape the destruction of Zhentil Keep. Then I drew the witch’s curved dagger from the sheath on her belt and raised it over her heart, thinking to honor the One and rid myself of my bane in the same stroke.

  Cyric’s cold hand caught my wrist, then wrenched the blade free and tossed it into a corner. “Not now! I have enough to worry about without letting Oghma and Mystra know I am inside their precious citadel.”

  As the One said this, he pulled all the clothes off the Harper and pushed them into my arms, leaving her as naked as the day she was born. I will not tell you what passed through my mind then, for no man should have such thoughts about his enemies.

  “Put these on.”

  I obeyed at once, placing the open journal on the table and reading about Rinda’s dangerous journey through the Dales as I dressed. It is a fortunate thing that the witch wore her robes loosely and that she stood a little taller than I, for the extra cloth did much to hide my girth. The One himself wrapped the hag’s scarf around my head and covered my face with her veil and lined my eyes with kohl from her pockets, but her silver belt was too small to clasp about my waist

  “No matter,” said I, pausing after an account of how Rinda escaped a band of marauding frost giants. “As it is, the disguise will do well enough to help me escape.”

  “Escape?” echoed the One. “You need not escape. Just find the Cyrinishad and call me, as you did before.”

  I picked up the book and pushed open the dungeon’s ironclad door. “Of course, Mighty One.”

  And that is where I meant to leave matters, for I knew that escaping Candlekeep would be easy once I was outside. Disguised beneath the witch’s head scarf and heavy veil, I could simply walk out the main gates and no one would think anything of it But as I stepped out of the dungeon into the narrow stairwell, I felt the truth welling up inside me, and before I knew it, my foolish mouth was blurting it out

  “I will do everything to help you, Mighty One.” Even as I said this, I slammed the dungeon door and dropped the drawbar in its locks. “But recovering the Cyrinishad will only make you more sick. I am going to cure you.”

  The One hit the door with such a terrific impact that it dented the iron and bounced me five steps up the stairway, yet the drawbar only bent and did not break. I snatched up Rinda’s journal and ran up the curving stairs, and even then, with my frightened heart high in my throat, my obsession compelled me to read the story of how Rinda had awakened one morning to find Gwydion standing guard over her camp.

  At last, a square of bright light appeared at the top of the stairs. I bounded up another step and paused to flip a page, and when I looked up again, a bloody wraith blocked my way.

  Cure me, Malik? This time, Cyric’s voices came from within my own head, for he had no wish to draw attention to his presence. I am the God of Gods—if someone needs curing, it cannot be me.

  I stopped on the spot and let out such a shriek that my throat went raw.

  Why so frightened? The wraith drifted a step toward me. You know I cannot hurt you—not until the trial ends.

  I fell to my knees and touched my forehead to the cold step. “Please, Mighty One,” I whimpered. “Let me explain—”

  “Ruha?” Though this voice was familiar, it did not belong to the One. “Let me help you.”

  I looked up to see Oghma’s priest rushing down the stairs in his white trousers and shirt. Although there was no sign of the One, the priest stopped two steps above me and gave a shiver.

  Ten days, Malik. The One’s thousand voices rasped inside my head. The trial will be over in ten days, and then you are mine again.

  My belly turned cold and queasy, and my jaws began to ache with that terrible feeling that comes just before vomiting. Then I felt the priest’s hand beneath my arm.

  “Is Ulraunt actually torturing that poor beggar?” he asked.

  My only answer was the sickly groan of someone battling his own stomach. I turned away and clasped my hand to my veil.

  “No need to be embarrassed. Torture affects me the same way.” The priest pulled me to my feet and began to guide me up the stairs. “Perhaps we’d better take you out to the eyrie for some fresh air.”

  Twelve

  Gwydion the Quick squeezed free of the crowded anteroom, then strode across the empty Judgment Hall and knelt before Kelemvor’s crystal throne. A red scar smiled upon the dead knight’s throat, but this disfigurement was as nothing to the shame in his eyes.

  “Rinda is dead.” His gaze fell to the floor. “I let Cyric’s assassin kill her in her sleep.”

  “You saved her a hundred times before that,” said Kelemvor. “Look me in the eye, Gwydion. You have no cause for shame.”

  Gwydion raised his head and met Kelemvor’s gaze, but his expression remained shameful. “It was that filthy little beggar! I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

  “How could you know? If you had killed everyone who might have been Cyric’s agent, you would have slain hundreds for the sake of punishing the guilty few. Do you think that is why I let you return to Faerûn?”

  Gwydion shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “Good.” Kelemvor smiled sadly. “Then at least I can make this decision without doubting myself. You have performed your duty true and well, Gwydion, and so it is not my place to sit in judgment over your soul. Yet, be
fore I release you to seek your place with Torm the True, I would ask a boon of you.”

  Gwydion nodded. “Of course.”

  “Rinda’s soul lies somewhere outside the City of the Dead, lost among the masses wandering the Fugue Plain. Oghma cannot find her while his amulet remains around the neck of her body, but if it is removed, Cyric will find the Cyrinishad.”

  Gwydion rose. “You want me to find her.”

  “And escort her to Oghma’s palace,” Kelemvor said. “He will not know of her presence, but I think Rinda’s spirit will find comfort in the House of Knowledge.”

  Gwydion smiled, and now his customary pride chased the shame from his face. “It will be done.”

  Lord Death motioned with his hand, and Jergal’s wraithlike form manifested itself next to Gwydion. “My seneschal will guide you to Oghma’s palace and back to the Fugue Plain. Torm will come as soon as you call. I wish you a happy afterlife in his castle.”

  “Thank you, Lord Death.” Gwydion bowed and then, with Jergal floating at his side, turned and departed.

  But Gwydion left his shadow behind, lying upon the crystal floor. Lord Death started to call him back, then thought better of it and sat back, scowling and tapping his fingers upon the arm of his crystal throne. At length, a pair of white eyes appeared in the shadow’s head; then it peeled itself off the floor and stood on two legs.

  “I am glad to find you in a favorable mood, Lord Kelemvor.” The shadow’s limbs filled out and took the shape of a gloom-cloaked elf. “Perhaps you will receive my request as kindly as you treated Gwydion.”

  “I doubt it. I do not care for thieves.” Kelemvor regarded the intruder with a hostile glare. Mask could pick any lock and steal even the most carefully guarded treasure, and for that reason he was never welcome in any god’s palace. “Jergal!”