Crucible

by Troy Denning

  Buorstag glared at her, trying to unnerve her, but Ruha was accustomed to such games and returned his gaze in kind. The Bron looked away first, reaching down to seize Rinda’s journal.

  “What is this? Your diary?” He flipped the page and began to read. “ ‘As for what became of the True Life of Cyric, I have heard that Fzoul Chembryl still keeps it in a safe place in the ruins of Zhentil Keep.’ ”

  “Of course!” Ruha gasped softly.

  Buorstag paid her no attention and continued to read, still searching for some pretext to seize her. “ ‘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 the minds imprisoned by the Cyrinishad’s lies, and I fear the day will come when its plain truths are needed to save’—”

  Here, Buorstag quit reading. “What is this blasphemy?” And now his voice quivered with anger, for he was a loyal devotee of Cyric’s temple in Voonlar. “Sacrilege is against the law here!”

  Ruha did not answer, for she was too stunned by what she had perceived. Clearly, her quarry was on the road to Zhentil Keep; that much was obvious. But could it be that the crafty little spy meant to recover the True Life of Cyric, that he actually intended to cure Cyric’s madness? The witch’s mouth fell open, for she was much awed by the brilliance of this plan.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Buorstag repeated. “This book is against the law in Voonlar!”

  “Then you may confiscate it. It belongs to Malik.”

  This confused Buorstag for a moment.

  Ruha started toward the door. “If you will excuse me—”

  “Wait a minute! I know that voice.” Buorstag reached across the table and jerked the veil from Ruha’s face. “You!”

  The witch tucked her lip beneath her teeth and whistled again, then feinted toward the door. At once, Buorstag and his deputies moved to cut her off. She spun around and rolled over her table, then leaped onto the next one and bounded across the room from tabletop to tabletop.

  “Stop, Harper!” the Bron yelled. “Stop her!”

  His command came too late. Ruha was already diving through the window and calling for Silvercloud. She hit the street and tucked into a roll, and when she returned to her feet, the hippogriff was flying over the stable gate. The witch did not command the beast to land, but threw up her arms and let him catch her in his talons. By the time Buorstag came scrambling out into the street, the pair was already sweeping over the temple of the Dark God Reborn and making for Zhentil Keep.

  Thirty-Four

  A line of dark ramparts rose up from the distant horizon, blocking the road ahead. The umber ribbon of the River Tesh oozed down from the west, and the gray Moonsea swept out to the east, and a pall of yellow haze hung low over the battlements, just as Rinda had described in her journal. At last, I had reached my mecca, the great Zhentil Keep.

  I would have urged Halah into a gallop, save that she was already flying up the road at her customary dead sprint, and it was all I could do to keep from bouncing off her back. My long journey was over, yet the hardest part of my quest remained ahead. Now I had to steal the True Life of Cyric from Fzoul Chembryl and convince the One to read it, and I had only four days before the trial.

  As Halah carried me nearer to Zhentil Keep, I saw that the One had punished the city terribly indeed for its betrayal. He had allowed the dragons and giants to reduce the barbicans and watchtowers to jagged ruins, and long stretches of pale stonework marked the many repairs necessary because of their attacks on the ramparts. Of all the city’s buildings tall enough to rise above the walls, only a few retained their highest stories, and fewer still had roofs. It was difficult to tell more from a distance, for a huge round knoll stood on the far side of the river, and the details of dark shapes vanished against the craggy face of this strange hill.

  When Halah and I drew close enough to see a cluster of shacks outside the gate, I realized Zhentil Keep was not the vast city Rinda had described in her journal. The whole town stretched but a thousand paces from east to west, and it could hardly have been a tenth that broad without spilling into the River Tesh, which separated it from the rounded knoll beyond. Such a tiny hamlet might have seemed a city to eastern barbarians, but it was barely more than a crossroads to a worldly merchant from Calimshan!

  I reined Halah to a trot, then noticed that the hill across the river was made entirely of broken stone. It resembled a rubble pile, for among the rocks were many large slabs of mortared wall, which seemed carelessly tossed; had the mound not been so many times larger than Zhentil Keep itself, I would have thought it some sort of dump.

  Halah trotted into the midst of the shanties outside the gate, and the strange hill passed out of sight behind the city ramparts. The gate stood open; two guards stepped out of the gatehouse and crossed their halberds across the road. Each was as large as a harem eunuch, and over their chain mail they wore black tabards emblazoned with the emblem of Zhentil Keep: a white, gauntleted fist surmounted by a jewel.

  I tugged on Halah’s reins, bringing her to a stop beneath the portcullis. At once, a mob of beggars filled the street beyond, ready to assail me the instant I was granted entry. Two men also emerged from the shacks behind me; one held a flimsy map in his hand, and the other was leading a rag-swaddled youth, whom he no doubt intended to pass off as a guide. Fearing Halah would make a meal of the boy, I waved these three away and fixed my attention on the guards before me.

  “May I enter?”

  “State your name and business in Zhentil Keep,” commanded the oldest. From behind him came the acrid smell of burning peat and the gentle murmur of a city at work. “And show your coin, so we’ll know you can afford to pay your way.”

  Now, any merchant who has visited as many cities as I have knows better than to show his money at the gate. If the guards are not thieves themselves, then they are certainly working with thieves, and even if they are honest, they are only trying to decide how much of a tariff to charge.

  I made no move to show him anything. “Perhaps it would be better if you told me how much it costs to enter Zhentil Keep, and I will decide whether or not I can pay.”

  The guard studied my tattered aba and my magnificent mount, trying to decide whether I was a stealer of horses or the victim of highway robbers; his only interest in the matter was that he could charge the thief more than the victim. Halah snorted black vapor and eyed the two soldiers, and I prayed she realized how hard their chain mail would be on her teeth.

  At last, the oldest guard decided I looked more the victim than the thief. “The tariff is a silver piece.”

  “A silver piece!” I cried. Having accumulated a small coin reserve from Halah’s victims, I could have afforded ten times the price. But my father had taught me the wisdom of making any venture profitable, and so I shook my head. “I will be sleeping in the streets! I can give you this, and nothing more.”

  I reached into my aba for a copper, but Mystra’s magic compelled my hand into the pocket where I kept my silver pieces, and it was one of these I flipped to the guard. He caught it and smiled in surprise. It was all I could do to stifle a cry of disappointment, as I felt certain he would have let me in for no more than three coppers.

  I nudged Halah forward. She took two steps, then came nose-to-blade with the crossed halberds and bared her sharp fangs. The guards raised their brows, but not their weapons.

  “Now state your name and business,” said the younger of the guards, and I could tell he enjoyed this part of his duty more than his fellow enjoyed collecting the tariff. “We don’t want no bad elements in Zhentil Keep.”

  “My name is Mu—” Here, Mystra’s accursed spell caused me to choke on the lie I had meant to utter. “My name is Malik el Sami yn Nasser, and all you need to know of my business is that it is a private affair involving a resident of your city,” and the Harlot’s spell also compelled me to add, “Fzoul Chembryl.”

  I knew at once this was a terrible misfortune. The mapper an
d the hired guide retreated to their shacks, and the beggars vanished into alleys, leaving only a straw-haired crone and two old men to assail me. I cursed the Harlot’s magic for a pox, since I hardly wanted it known I had come to find Fzoul Chembryl.

  Yet the oldest guard reacted calmly, lowering his halberd and motioning his companion to do the same.

  He stepped to my side. “You’d be wiser not to mention the High Tyrannar’s name too loud.” As he whispered this, Halah casually swung her head around as though to watch the man, and had he not been cautious enough to move his halberd between his shoulder and her teeth, he would surely have lost an arm. “Fzoul’s on Lord Orgauth’s short list for the block.”

  “I see.” Hoping to make the best of a bad situation, I leaned down to ask, “Can you tell me where to find his palace?”

  “Palace? In Zhentil Keep?”

  “Then perhaps the temple of Iyachtu Xvim. I have come such a long way—”

  “You’re one of the Faithful?”

  The guard raised his palm and blinked twice with both eyes, and I, being accustomed to buying goods from certain people who use secret symbols, discerned the signal at once. I repeated it myself and nodded, thinking myself safe from the Harlot’s magic as long as I resisted the urge to speak.

  But then my mouth opened of its own accord, and these words spilled out: “I am Faithful to Our Lord Cyric, the One and All.”

  “A Cyricist?” The guard stepped away as though I were a leper. “A stinking, filthy Cyricist?”

  Having been on the road for so many days, I was certainly all those things and more, yet I did not need to hear this from a lowly sentry. I kicked him in the chest and slapped the reins, and Halah sprang past the younger guard into Zhentil Keep. Now, in any other city, the guards within the gatehouse would have launched a flurry of quarrels after us, but instead it was only a single stone that came sailing over my shoulder.

  “Cyric worshiper!” cried someone behind me.

  I glanced back to see the young sentry and his older companion gathering more stones, and then a swarm of rotten turnips came sailing out of the gatehouse and landed wetly upon me. It would have been better if they had fired their crossbows, as then Tyr’s magic would have protected me and I would not have been coated in rank-smelling slime.

  The gate guards launched their stones. “Cyric lover!”

  Puzzled by the strange alarm the guards were raising, I turned forward and saw the beggars rushing from their alleys. They began to fling all manner of garbage at me, and they were joined in this by well-dressed citizens throwing stones, and by masons hurling trowels of mortar. Someone in a high window even tossed out a full chamber pot, which shattered over Halah’s head.

  This was too much for such a proud beast. She reared up and snorted black steam from her nostrils, then whirled on our attackers and began to strike them down with her hooves. There was nothing I could do except keep my fingers twined in her soiled mane and hold on. I felt Cyric’s heart grow angry in my breast, and soon my blood was slurping in my ears so loudly I could barely hear the insults of the crowd.

  Halah’s flashing hooves sent a burly mason crashing through the wall he was repairing, and I pointed at his bleeding head. “Fools! That is what awaits those who insult the One!”

  Halah whirled on a silk-robed merchant and sank her teeth into his shoulder, then flicked her head and sent him sailing across the street.

  I traced his arc with my finger. “Such is Cyric’s wrath!”

  At last, the crowd began to back away, leaving me a moment to look around. We were on a busy cobblestone boulevard lined by large, official buildings of gloomy-looking stone. Many were swaddled in scaffolding and surrounded by piles of rock, as the masons were still laboring to repair the damage done the last time Zhentil Keep insulted the One. At the far end of the avenue, which was no more than five blocks away, another gate hung open, revealing a half-constructed bridge arcing across the River Tesh to the strange rubble mound I had observed earlier.

  The tramp of running boots brought my respite to a quick end. I glanced back to see a host of black tabards rushing out of the gatehouse. Although Tyr’s protection would shield me from their halberds and crossbows, it would do little to free me from their dungeon if I let them catch me. I urged my mount toward the river gate, and that is when the straw-haired crone leapt into Halah’s path. She was one of the beggars who had not vanished into the alleys when I mentioned Fzoul Chembryl’s name.

  The crone raised her hands. “Wait!”

  Halah snorted black steam and reared up, and the beggar woman cringed and covered her head.

  “Spare me if you love Cyric!”

  Halah’s hooves came down beside the crone, and the crossbows clacked behind me. Two quarrels struck me full in the back, but became entangled in my filthy aba and caused me no harm.

  The crone’s jaw fell. “In the name of the One and All!”

  “Old woman, what do you want?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw the guards less than ten paces away. “I have no time.”

  “Then help me up.” The crone raised her arm. “You’ll be safe in the temple.”

  I grabbed her hand and pulled her up and spurred Halah into a gallop. “Cyric has a temple in this blasphemous city?”

  “Turn left” The crone pointed down a side alley, then added, “There are those of us who know Zhentil Keep deserved the Razing. We are not popular—as you have seen—but Lord Orgauth fears the One’s wrath and protects our temple.”

  We galloped twenty paces down a squalid lane so narrow my legs scraped the walls on both sides. In the space of that distance, Halah leapt two sleeping beggars and bowled over another, then the crone let go of my waist and pointed down another gloomy lane.

  “Turn right.”

  We skidded around the corner, galloped another dozen paces, and burst onto a boulevard even larger and more crowded than the one by which I had entered the city.

  “Left.”

  As I guided Halah around the corner, the mare made a detour to a street vendor’s cart and smashed his chicken cage and snatched up a crowing rooster, which she devoured feathers and all as we galloped down the avenue.

  Over my shoulder, I asked, “Can you help me find Fzoul Chembryl?”

  “Of course. But you shouldn’t have asked for him at the gate. He keeps spies there just as we do, and now he’ll be watching for you.”

  “It couldn’t be helped,” I answered, and this was as true as anything I said that day.

  After no more than a hundred and fifty paces, the crone guided me down a short side street, to the courtyard of a squat black building. Its condition was no better than most structures in Zhentil Keep. It lacked much of its second story and roof, and the city’s blasphemous residents had defiled its walls with all manner of profanities blaming Cyric for the Razing.

  Given the sacrileges I had witnessed so far, the One had shown the city more mercy than it deserved.

  The crone slipped off Halah’s back and began to pound on the copper doors of the temple. “Friar Fornault, this is Sister Svanhild!” She motioned me forward. “Open the doors and quickly! The One has sent us a savior!”

  Thirty-Five

  In a place as vast as Faerûn, many hundreds die each day, and so the Seraph of Death required but a short time to observe the final moments of a thousand and ten, as Lord Kelemvor had commanded. Now Avner stood in the Crystal Spire, recounting all he had seen. Lord Death sat slumped in his crystal throne, his face weary and dark as he listened to the report

  “In the Swamp of Nether,” Avner continued, “a black dragon rose up beneath a punt in which Goodwin of Haywood was riding. The instant the wyrm opened its mouth, Goodwin drew his sword and leapt into its jaws.”

  Kelemvor raised his sullen eyes. “To what purpose?”

  “None. The punt was already sinking, and his companions were either drowned or swimming for safety. There was no question of saving the treasure, and Goodwin might well have spared himself
by diving into the water.”

  “And perhaps one of his drowning companions as well?”

  “Yes. He was a good swimmer, and lightly armored.” The Seraph of Death paused a moment, studying his god’s stormy mood, then said, “Goodwin’s death was the thousand and tenth. Shall I go and observe more?”

  Lord Death gave no answer, for there comes a moment when even the blindest fool perceives the mistake of his ways. Kelemvor saw that he had made a poor God of Death—especially compared to Cyric, who knew in his infinite wisdom that humans are weak and selfish creatures who will always seek the easy way to do anything, except when they fear some incredible pain or anguish. On this account, the One had made his realm a place of bitter sorrows, to prevent the Faithless and the False from seeing death as an escape from their harsh and vulgar lives, and also to prevent the Faithful from turning their backs on their own gods. All this had Cyric done for the good of Faerûn’s mortals, like a stern father who loves his children well enough to give them a harsh upbringing.

  Kelemvor perceived these things at last, and he sat sulking for many long minutes; like any jealous child, it angered him that his rival should be right when he was wrong. He kept thinking the matter over and over, until at last he convinced himself that his error was due to a laudable concern for Faerûn’s mortals, whereas Cyric’s reign had been but the accident of a brutal and selfish nature.

  When he had finally convinced himself of his righteousness, the God of Death fixed his gaze on Avner. “You could watch ten thousand and ten deaths. It would change nothing. If worthy men do not fear dying, they will leave life to the unworthy—and all Faerûn will suffer.”

  The Seraph of Death’s black wings sagged. “But surely, it is not wrong to be fair to the dead?”

  “It is not my place to be fair.” Kelemvor shifted his gaze to the empty air beside Avner. “Jergal!”

  The seneschal’s shadow-filled cloak appeared at once, his yellow eyes glowing beneath the hood. “I am here for you, as always. How may I serve?”