by Troy Denning
Ruha scowled, though Zale could not see it behind her dark veil. “If we wait, we will never catch that murderer. Already, he is pulling ahead.”
“I know,” said Zale. “And I want to catch him too—but not if it costs me Silvercloud. Capturing that little beggar won’t bring back Rinda and Gwydion, or the man at the farm.”
At this, a flash of sheet lightning erupted inside the distant storm, and a clap of thunder pealed across the sky, shaking the ground beneath their feet. Silvercloud screeched and spread his great wings and flattened himself against the grass. The glare he fixed on Zale made clear what hippogriffs thought about weathering storms in the open.
Another mournful howl sounded from the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but Ruha paid it less mind than she had the thunder. “Zale, all you say is true, but Malik is no ordinary thief. When Pelias brought him into Candlekeep, he looked as though a lion had mauled him, yet he swam across a boiling moat and climbed the Keeper’s Tower. Then he killed Rinda and Gwydion both—something a hundred of Cyric’s assassins have not been able to do.”
“I know.” Zale rose and went to hold Silvercloud’s reins, for a constant rumble of thunder had begun to roll across the plain. “And then there’s his escape from the dungeon.”
This brought the heat to Ruha’s cheeks, for Bedine women were not in the custom of showing their faces—much less their naked bodies, which she had been greatly abashed to find on display. It was on account of this embarrassment that she was so determined to avenge the deaths of the Cyrinishad’s bearers, but that is not what she told her companion.
“Zale, this murderer is being helped by Cyric. That is the only explanation for all we have seen. And if he is being helped by Cyric, then there must be a good reason for what he is doing.”
“What reason?”
Ruha shook her head. “I do not know, but he would not turn his back on the Cyrinishad without good reason. If we do not discover it soon, I am certain we are not the only ones who will regret our failure.”
The witch did not tell Zale of her vision of me, for she had long ago learned that few people understood her curse. Either they blamed her for the ill foretold by her mirages, or they grew angry when she failed to warn them of some other catastrophe.
The mournful howl echoed again from the wood, and this time it sounded closer. Silvercloud raised his head and opened his great beak to hiss at the forest. Zale tightened his grasp on the reins and pulled the hippogriff’s head back down.
“You may be right, but what difference does it make? Even if we risked the flight, we can’t follow a trail in the dark.”
Ruha raised her brow. “But you would take the risk if we could see the trail?”
Zale glanced at the approaching thunderclouds, then nodded. “I’ll do it—but let’s get on with it”
“You are a brave man, Zale.” Ruha went over to him. “May I borrow your flint and steel?”
Zale dug the items from his saddlebags and gave them to Ruha, and she went over to stand before the hell horse’s trail. She closed her eyes and sparked the steel, at the same time uttering the incantation of a fire spell.
The world flashed silver; then a deafening clap of thunder blasted her off her feet. The witch found herself sitting on the ground, her temples throbbing and her nostrils filled with the smell of scorched grass. A curtain of white spots danced before her eyes. Her ears rang with the clanging of a thousand bells, and she could not stop her muscles from quivering. The air seemed unbearably hot and full of smoke.
“Ruha!” Zale’s voice was barely audible above the ringing in the witch’s ears. “Are you hurt?”
The rider grabbed her beneath the arms and dragged her across the ground. The silver spots began to disappear, as did the quivering in her muscles and the ringing in her ears, and she saw the reason the air seemed so hot and full of smoke: her spell had shot a pillar of flame straight down the hell horse’s trail!
The fiery column had set the forest ablaze on each side of the path. Now, two huge curtains of flame were tearing through the forest in opposite directions. The sky above the wood had turned black with escaping birds, and the air was filled with the crash and rustle of animals fleeing blindly through the undergrowth. Another mournful howl echoed out of the forest, closer and more eerie than before.
“Zale, what happened?” gasped Ruha.
“A lightning bolt,” the rider replied. “It came down when you cast your spell.”
“I did this?” The witch grabbed Zale’s arm and pulled herself to her feet, then pushed him in the direction of his skittish hippogriff. “Quickly, get me some water!”
As the rider moved to obey, a woman’s voice came from within the burning forest “Do not trouble yourself, Zale.” The words were both comforting and commanding, as powerful as thunder and as soft as a caress. “The fire will take care of itself.”
A dark-haired woman of unimaginable beauty stepped from the smoke, her skin pale and radiant, her eyes as lustrous as ebony. She wore a simple gown of heavy black silk, clasped at the bodice with Mystra’s sacred web. Ruha and Zale fell to their knees at once, their mouths gaping in awe.
Before they could utter a word, the woman said, “Speak no names. We do not wish to draw our enemy’s attention, do we?”
Ruha and Zale glanced at each other and said nothing at all.
A mournful howl echoed out of the forest. The woman cast a worried glance over her shoulder; no matter what shape the Shadowlord assumed or which god he pretended to be, the Chaos Hound was never far behind.
Mask stopped before the pair and motioned Ruha to her feet. “Our enemy has set his pet after me,” the Shadowlord said, still speaking in Mystra’s voice. “I cannot spare much time, but know this: what I have given you tonight, I have given you for good reason. Though it destroys a whole kingdom, you must never hesitate to use it. There is more in the Balance than you can imagine, and whatever you annihilate will be nothing to what you save. Do you understand?”
“Yes, My—”
Mask pressed his womanly finger to Ruha’s veil, for he did not want the witch to draw Mystra’s attention. “No names.”
“Yes, milady.”
“Good.”
A savage growl sounded from just within the burning forest. Then there was a terrible crashing, and a huge, shapeless shadow came bounding out of the smoke. Mask laid one hand on Ruha’s shoulder and the other on Zale’s, then pushed them both toward Silvercloud.
“Go!”
The two mortals raced to their mount and leapt onto his back, and a terrible snarling broke out where they had been standing the moment before. Even before Zale had given the command, Silvercloud raised his wings and sprang into the air. Ruha pulled a pebble from her pocket and summoned to mind the words of a sand spell, but when they circled back toward the burning forest, she saw that Mystra had vanished as though she had never been present.
Now a huge mastiff occupied the spot, clawing and howling at the ground. The beast was as large as a draft horse, with a coat of slithering maggots and rot-crusted teeth as black as jet. Its yellow eyes gleamed with a profanity beyond human understanding, and ribbons of bubbling green poison ran from its lolling tongue.
“The goddess was right,” Zale remarked. “Our enemy is a horrible one.”
“And that is only a pet,” said Ruha. “May the goddess forgive me, but I am glad it is chasing her and not us.”
Nineteen
Mystra stood in the anteroom outside Adon’s bedchamber, looking through a window at the placid waters of Hillshadow Lake and studying the reflection of her new temple. Though still six months from completion, it was already a sparkling edifice of alabaster spires and silver cupolas and crystal buttresses that did her great glory. When it was finished, she would ask her patriarch to make it his home; the lives of mortals were not endless, and Adon had already spent most of his spreading her worship from one end of Faerûn to the other.
Mystra turned from the window and found a handful of people
kneeling on the marble floor, their hands clasped in supplication. Two men wore the scale mail of the Maces, Elversult’s city guardsmen, and most of the others wore the simple robes of her own church. Only one man had not fallen to his knees; he had the yellow skin and black hair and slanted eye-folds of the Shou race, and he was dressed in a wide-sleeved silk tunic his people called a maitung.
He gave Mystra a slight nod, but made no other sign of obeisance. He was Prince Tang, eldest son of the Third Virtuous Concubine to the Emperor Kao Tsao Shou Tang of Shou Lung, and he did not bow to any god but those of the Celestial Bureaucracy. Mystra let the matter pass and stepped toward Adon’s door, for she had no interest in explaining the Plurality of Being to the prince.
Tang intercepted her, placing himself before the great copper-gilded doors that protected Adon’s chamber. “Please let Adon rest.”
“What?” Mystra did not disguise her irritation. “You dare—”
“I gave the honorable patriarch a potion to help him sleep,” the prince explained. “He was most disturbed.”
“Disturbed?” Mystra remained unaware of events in House Bhaskar, for her attention had been turned elsewhere when Adon called out, then he had actually closed his mind to the thought image she sent. She wondered if Tang’s potion had caused the patriarch’s strange behavior. “What did you give him?”
“Lasal-leaf potion. It stops troubling thoughts from—”
“I am aware of what lasal leaves do, Prince Tang.” Mystra perceived the qualities of every herb or spice on Faerûn, and so she knew that lasal leaves were used to numb the mind. She also knew they caused confusion and trembling muscles, and that when used too often or too strongly, they destroyed the mind instead of numbing it. “I warn you, if you have harmed my patriarch—”
“I have helped him!” Tang insisted. “Adon is mad. He thinks you hate him, and he has even murdered a sick man.”
“Adon? Adon is no murderer!”
Prince Tang continued to meet Mystra’s stern gaze. “With my own eyes, I saw him kill Nadisu Bhaskar.”
The goddess scowled, then looked to her kneeling acolytes. “Is this true?”
The oldest, a red-haired woman named Chandra, nodded. “There were a hundred witnesses. Nadisu was dying, and everyone expected the Rites of Joy—”
“This man asked a hundred people to witness his death?”
Chandra paled at her goddess’s disapproval. “His wife did, and Adon was the priest …” She looked toward Prince Tang, then back again. “Well, even Vaerana Hawklyn says the patriarch went mad and smashed poor Nadisu’s head with no reason.”
“There is a reason, Chandra.” Mystra’s face grew as fierce as a sandstorm. “His name is Cyric.”
The goddess stepped straight through Tang, which caused the prince to cry out, then went into Adon’s bedchamber without opening the copper-gilded doors. The room was as majestic as the rest of the temple, with a ceiling of coffered oak and alabaster walls decorated with bas-reliefs of Mystra’s miracles. But the bed in which the patriarch lay was as humble as that of any man, with only a plain wooden frame and a thin straw mattress covered by a blanket of gray cotton. It sat on the far side of the room, turned so that Adon could look out across his balcony and see the purple waters of Hillshadow Lake glimmering between the balusters.
The patriarch lay thrashing beneath his blanket, mumbling gibberish and trembling from the effects of the prince’s potion. Mystra looked into his mind and found herself lost in a swirling lasal-leaf fog. She maintained contact with his thoughts and started across the room, gliding over the cool marble floor as silently as a djinn.
“Adon.”
The patriarch’s head snapped around to look at her. His red-rimmed eyes grew as large as saucers, then his sunken cheeks paled and he gave a piercing scream. Someone outside the room started to open the doors, but Mystra locked them with a thought and continued toward Adon.
He threw off his blanket and stood on the bed, pointing at Mystra as though his hand were a crossbow. She saw that the finger that had once worn her star ring was now a charred stick. Her heart sank, for she knew that only Cyric himself could have caused the gold to grow so hot.
“Stay away, hag!”
Inside Adon’s mind, the goddess saw nothing but the swirling lasal fog. This raised her ire against Prince Tang, for the haze made it difficult to see what was wrong. “Adon, there is no reason to be frightened. This is me, Midnight.”
“Midnight?” Adon lowered his hand.
“Yes. It is still me.” Mystra gave him a reassuring smile.
Adon squinted, then rubbed his eyes. “Fangs!”
The goddess shook her head. “No, Adon. I have no fangs.” She reached out to embrace him. “Let me hold—”
Adon pointed at her hands. “Talons!”
The patriarch bolted onto his balcony, his head swinging to and fro like a wild animal seeking escape. He found none. The porch hung above the lakeshore twice the height of a giant, and there was nothing between it and the ground except air.
Mystra opened her hands and displayed her fingers. “Adon, I have no talons. Cyric is deceiving you.”
“Fire! Poison!” Adon turned to fling himself over the rail.
Before he took a step, Mystra manifested a second avatar in his path. The patriarch slammed into her at a full sprint, but the impact did not even rock her onto her heels. She caught him up like a child, paying no heed to the blows he rained down on her avatar’s face.
“This is Cyric’s doing, and I forgive you for it”
Mystra carried Adon back into his chamber, and that is when she saw the blood bubbling up between her fingers. A half-dozen long gashes, each as deep and straight as any knife wound, had opened up where she grasped his shoulder and thigh. The goddess saw at once that her avatar’s hands had caused these wounds, though she did not understand how. She laid patriarch on the bed. He shrieked and tried to fling himself from the mattress, and she pushed him down. Where her hand touched his chest, four jets of blood spurted up.
At that moment came a prayer from the Harper witch Ruha, asking for guidance in the use of her newfound powers. Too distressed by Adon’s strange condition to give the matter much thought, Mystra noted only that Ruha begged a sign about whether to use all her magic against the killer of Rinda and Gwydion. The goddess cast a star down from the heavens to make plain she wished the witch to use every means at her disposal, then gave the matter no more thought, for she knew nothing of the lightning bolt that had blessed the meddling Harper with the power of destruction.
And as Mystra did all this, she sent her first avatar to the door of Adon’s room to call for help. Prince Tang rushed in, followed closely by the guards and the acolytes, whom the goddess instructed to hold the patriarch’s arms and legs.
“What happened here?” Tang asked, his gaze shifting between Adon and Mystra’s two avatars. “Did he do this to himself?”
“No, I think I caused it.” Mystra’s second avatar left the patriarch’s bedside and melded with her first, which was standing out of Adon’s sight near the door. “I have become some kind of monster to him.”
Tang furrowed his brow. “I do not understand.”
“Neither do I.” Mystra motioned the prince to her side. “The lasal potion prevents me from seeing inside his mind.”
Tang stopped three paces from the goddess and eyed her suspiciously. “I apologize for the honest misfortune, but I did not know that you were coming, Venerable Goddess. I was only trying to be of service.”
“You will be, Tang.” As Mystra said this, she turned as translucent as a ghost and was suddenly standing at the prince’s shoulder. “I assure you of that.”
She began to slide into the prince’s body, much as a person slips into a new cloak.
“No! This is not permitted.” Tang tried step away, but Mystra only continued to invade his body. “I am an Imperial Shou—”
The last scrap of the goddess’s robe vanished from sight, and the pr
ince fell silent. He blinked several times, then stretched his arms as person does when rising in the morning.
“This will do.” The voice was Tang’s, but the words belonged to Mystra. She walked the prince’s body to the bedside and bent over Adon. “Now, my dear friend, let us see what Cyric has done.”
Adon eyed the prince’s body suspiciously, but made no attempt to escape the acolytes restraining him. The two guards stood close by, cradling their maces and looking uncomfortable. Vaerana Hawklyn had told them to strike Adon down if he tried to escape, but they were loath to do this with the Goddess of Magic standing there.
Mystra took a diamond ring off Tang’s finger and pressed it between his palms. When the prince saw what she meant to do, he cried out inside her mind, No! That is a magic Ring of Chameleon Power!
Mystra continued to grind, believing in her arrogance that any magic was hers to give or take as she pleased. The diamond crumbled into powder, producing an acrid smell and a shrill chirp and a brilliant flash. The goddess ran her hands over Adon, covering him from head to foot in twinkling diamond dust; this was to dispel the magic Cyric had used to drive him mad.
“Poison!” Adon screamed.
His skin turned red and blotchy, then blisters of white ichor rose wherever the powder had touched. Adon wailed in agony and flailed about, tearing an arm and leg free. The two guardsmen raised their maces and rushed over.
Mystra glanced in their direction, and their weapons turned to smoke. She motioned the pair to Adon’s side.
“Help hold him,” the goddess commanded. Then she turned to the acolyte Chandra and said, “Wash him off, quickly!”
Chandra grabbed the water pitcher from the patriarch’s dressing table and poured it over his body. Adon stopped screaming, but he stared at Prince Tang’s body as though looking at his own murderer. His skin remained red and blistered, and he began to shake uncontrollably.
No one dared to ask what had happened, which was well with Mystra, as she had no answers. Adon’s condition could not be magical in origin, or else her spell would have removed it—in such matters, only Ao had the power to defy her. She found herself growing angrier with Prince Tang about the lasal potion. It prevented her from seeing what was wrong, but attempting to clear the haze from Adon’s mind would also destroy a good portion of his memories. Still, she was not ready to quit.