by Troy Denning
Ao looked at the thief without approval or disapproval. “Yes,” he said, stacking the tablets together. “And here is what it amounts to!” The overlord of the gods crushed both tablets in his hands and ground them into dust.
Midnight cringed, expecting the heavens to come crashing down. Adon cried out in grief and astonishment. Cyric watched the dust fall from between Ao’s fingers, an angry frown creeping down his face.
Helm jumped to his feet. “Master, what have you done?” the god asked, his voice betraying his fear.
“The tablets mean nothing,” Ao said, addressing all of his gods, no matter where they were. “I kept them to remind you that I created gods to serve the Balance, not to twist it to your own ends. But this point was lost on you. You saw the tablets as a set of rules by which to play juvenile games of prestige and pomp! Then, when the rules became inconvenient, you stole them …”
“But that was—,” Helm began.
“I know who took the Tablets of Fate,” Ao replied, silencing Helm with a curt wave of his hand. “Bane and Myrkul have paid for their offenses with their lives. But all of you were guilty, causing worshipers to build wasteful temples, to devote themselves so slavishly to your name they could not feed their children, even to spill their own blood upon your corrupt altars—all so you could impress each other with your hold over these so-called inferior creatures. Your behavior is enough to make me wish I had never created you.”
Ao paused and let his listeners consider his words. Finally, he resumed speaking. “But I did create you and not without purpose. Now, I am going to demand that you fulfill that purpose. From this day forward, your true power will depend upon the number and devotion of your followers.”
From one end of the Realms to another, the gods gasped in astonishment. In far off Tsurlagoi, Talos the Raging One growled, “Depend on mortals?” The one good eye of his youthful, broad-shouldered avatar was opened wide in outrage and shock.
“Depend on them and more,” Ao returned. “Without worshipers, you will wither, even perish entirely. And after what has passed in the Realms, it will not be easy to win the faith of mortals. You will have to earn it by serving them.”
In sunny Tesiir, a beautiful woman with silky scarlet hair and fiery red-brown eyes looked as though she were going to retch. “Serve them?” Sune asked.
“I have spoken!” Ao replied.
“No!” Cyric yelled. “After all I went through—”
“Quiet!” Ao thundered, pointing a finger at the thief. “I do not care to be challenged. It makes me fear I have made a poor choice for my new god.”
Cyric’s eyes went blank and he stared at Ao in shock.
“It is the reward you sought, is it not?” Ao asked, not taking his eyes off the thief.
Cyric stumbled up the stairway. “It is indeed!” he exclaimed. “I will serve you well, I swear it. You have my gratitude!”
A deep, cruel chuckle rolled out of Ao’s throat. “Do not thank me, evil Cyric. Being God of Strife, Hatred, and Death is no gift.”
“It isn’t?” Cyric asked, furrowing his brow in puzzlement.
“You desired godhood, control over your destiny, and great power,” Ao said. “You will have only two of these—godhood and power—to exercise as you will in the Realm of the Dead. And all of the suffering in Toril will be yours as well, to cause and inflict as you wish. But you will never know contentment or happiness again.”
Ao paused then and looked at Midnight. “But the thing you have desired most, Lord Cyric, will never come to pass. I am your master now. You serve me … and your worshipers. I believe you will find that you now have less freedom than you had as a child in the alleys of Zhentil Keep.”
“Wait,” the new God of Strife cried. “I don’t—”
“Enough!” Ao boomed, turning his palm toward Cyric. “I know you will perform your duties well, for they are the only thing you are suited to.”
Midnight’s heart sank. With Cyric ruling the Realm of the Dead, she could never keep her promise to rescue Sneakabout.
“Forgive me,” the mage whispered, turning away from the stairway. “Some promises cannot be kept.” She feared Cyric had been right about the nature of life. It was a cruel, brutal experience that ended only in torment and anguish.
“Midnight!” Ao called, turning his attention to the magic-user.
At the sound of her name, Midnight slowly turned to face the master of the gods. “What is it?” she demanded defiantly. “I’m injured and fatigued.. I have lost the one man I loved. What more do you want from me?”
“You have something that has no place in the Realms,” Ao said, pointing a long finger at her.
She immediately knew he meant Mystra’s power. “Take it. I have no further use for it.”
“Perhaps you do,” Ao responded.
“I am too weary for riddles,” she snapped.
“I have lost many gods during this crisis,” Ao said. “As punishment for their theft, I will leave Bane and Myrkul dispersed. But Mystra, Lady of Mysteries and grantor of magic, is also gone. Even I cannot restore her. Will you take her place?”
Midnight looked at Cyric and shook her head. “No. That was not the reason I recovered the tablets. I have no interest in corrupting myself as Cyric did.”
“What a pity you view my offer that way,” Ao replied, gesturing at Cyric. “I have taken one mortal for his malevolence and cruelty. I had hoped to take another for her wisdom and true heart.”
Cyric snickered. “Waste no more breath on her. She lacks the courage to meet her destiny.”
“Accept!” urged Adon. “You must not let Cyric win! It is your responsibility to oppose him—” The cleric stopped, realizing that Midnight had more than fulfilled any responsibilities she had. “Forgive me,” he said. “You are as brave and as true a woman as I have ever known, and I believe you would be a worthy goddess. But I have no right to tell you what your obligations are.”
At the mention of obligations, Midnight thought of her promise to Sneakabout, then of the faithful souls waiting for deliverance in the Fugue Plain. Finally, she imagined her lover’s spirit wandering the vast white waste with millions of other dead souls. Ao’s offer might give her the means to spare Kelemvor that eternal misery, to rescue the Faithful from their undeserved torture, even to keep her promise to Sneakabout. If so, Midnight knew Adon was correct—she did have a duty to answer the overlord’s call.
“No, you’re right,” the mage said, turning to Adon. “I must go. If I don’t, the deaths of Sneakabout and Kelemvor will have meant nothing.” She took the cleric’s hands and smiled. “Thank you for reminding me of that.”
Adon smiled in return. “Without you, the future of the Realms would be very dark.”
Ao interrupted their conversation. “What is your decision, Midnight?”
The mage quickly kissed Adon on the cheek. “Good-bye,” she said.
“I’ll miss you,” the cleric replied.
“No you won’t,” Midnight said, a smile crossing her lips. “I’ll be with you always.” She quickly turned and stepped onto the stairway, which had become a path of diamonds, and went to stand opposite Cyric.
Addressing Ao, she said, “I accept.” Then she turned to Cyric and added, “And I’m going to make you regret your betrayals for the rest of eternity.”
For an instant, Cyric was afraid of Midnight’s threat. Then, the thief remembered that he knew the mage’s true name, Ariel Manx. He smiled weakly and wondered if that would have any power over Midnight now that she was a goddess.
Ao lifted his hands. The Celestial Stairway and everything on it disappeared in a column of light. The brilliant pillar blinded Adon and the thousands of citizens who had been looking at the top of Mount Waterdeep in that instant.
In sunny Tesiir, Tsurlagoi, Arabel, and in a hundred other cities where the gods had taken shelter, similar pillars of light flared and rose into the heavens. Finally, in Tantras, where the God of Duty had fallen against Bane, the s
cattered shards of Torm’s lion-headed avatar rose off the ground and drifted back together. A golden pillar of light shot out over the sea, then rose into the heavens, and Torm also returned home.
“So, this is where you’ve been hiding!”
Blackstaff’s voice brought an abrupt end to Adon’s uneasy slumber. Though still unable to see, the cleric knew he was lying in the eyrie’s mess hall, alongside a dozen more suffering men. Shortly after Ao’s ascension, Blackstaff’s restorative potion had worn off and Adon had collapsed. Some of the riders had brought him into the tower and laid him out with their wounded.
“We’ve been looking for you for—well, for a few minutes anyway,” Blackstaff said sheepishly. It had been over six hours since he had parted company with Adon and Midnight. At the Pool of Loss, the young wizard had found Elminster inside a prismatic sphere, besieged by denizens on both sides of the gate to the Realm of the Dead. Since Blackstaff had exhausted himself fighting in the streets, it had taken a while to free his friend.
“We might have known a malapert lad like ye wouldn’t wait for us before returning the tablets,” Elminster added, feigning irritation.
Blackstaff laid a hand on Adon’s shoulder. “Well done, Adon!” he said. “Come, let’s go to my tower, where I’ll see that you’re cared for properly.”
Blackstaff and Elminster transferred Adon to a litter, then started across the mess hall.
“Make way!” Blackstaff boomed.
Eventually, the cleric’s bearers reached the other side of the crowded room and stepped into a brisk night wind. It carried the promise of snow, as it should at that time of year.
Blackstaff started to turn to the right, but Adon stopped him. “I’d like to pause in the fresh air before we go back to the city.” Although he was happy the Realms had been saved, Adon’s heart was heavy with Kelemvor’s death and Midnight’s absence. The cleric wanted to take a peaceful minute to pay tribute to his friends.
Adon lifted his head toward the heavens and a tear rolled down his scarred cheek. The night wind stole the drop from his face and blew it toward the sea, where it would join a million other tears and be forgotten.
Perhaps that was for the best, Adon thought. It was time to forget the pain of the past, to forgive the neglect of the old gods. Now was the time to look to tomorrow, to forge stronger unions with the gods and shape the Realms in a better, more noble image.
As Adon contemplated the future, a circle of eight points of light appeared before his eyes. At first, he thought the lights were a blind man’s fancy and tried to make them go away. But they didn’t fade. In fact, they grew stronger and brighter, until at last he recognized them as stars. In the center of the ring, a stream of red mist continually bled toward the bottom of the circle.
“Midnight!” Adon said, realizing that he was seeing the new goddess’s symbol. A wave of tranquility rolled through his body, filling his heart with a deep sense of harmony. A moment later, he felt strong enough to sit up in his litter.
“What’s wrong?” Blackstaff asked, turning to Adon.
The cleric could see Blackstaff’s tall form clearly. Behind the mage, one drunken griffon rider was leading another from the stable toward the tower.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Adon said. “I can see again.”
“Ye also seem much stronger,” Elminster commented.
“Yes,” Adon sighed, pointing at the circle of stars overhead. “Midnight cured me.”
Blackstaff looked at the stars. “That’s one of the new constellations,” he said. “It appeared this very evening. Do you know what it means?”
“It’s Midnight’s symbol,” Adon replied. “And I swear by its light and the name of Lady Midnight that I’ll gather a host of worshipers to honor it!”
Blackstaff studied the stars. “Then let me be your first.”
One of the drunken riders stumbled into the wizard, nearly causing him to drop Adon’s litter.
Blackstaff whirled on them. “Watch where you’re going, dolt! Can’t you see we have an injured man here?”
“Sorry, sir,” said the first rider. “He’s blind.”
“Bring him closer,” Adon murmured, motioning at the blind man. He laid a hand on the man’s eyes. The cleric silently called upon Midnight to restore the soldier’s vision.
The blind rider shook his head several times, then blinked his eyes twice. Finally, he looked Adon over from head to foot, as if he could not believe what he saw. “You cured me!” he cried, falling to his knees beside Adon’s litter.
Elminster frowned at the rider. “We’ll have none of that, now,” the sage said. “Adon’s just doing what he does best.”
Blackstaff smiled. “It appears life is returning to normal.”
The dark-haired sage was correct. With the gods back in the Planes to resume their duties, life was returning to normal all over the Realms. On the river Ashaba, which had been running with a current so swift no man would brave it, a fisherman pushed his boat out onto the gentle, slow currents he remembered. With luck, he would return at dawn with enough trout to feed his family for a week.
In Cormyr, an army of sycamore trees that had been besieging the capital city suddenly retreated. They marched back into the forest from which they had come, each tree searching for the particular hole from which it had ripped its roots.
But not everything in the Realms went back to the way it was before the night of Arrival. North of Arabel, where Mystra had fallen against Helm, great craters of boiling tar dotted the countryside, making travel through that region a twisting, worrisome experience. Where Midnight had rung the Bell of Aylan Attricus and Torm had destroyed Bane, the northern quarter of Tantras and all the fields around it remained inert to magic, much to the delight of those who had offended vengeful mages. Below Boareskyr Bridge, where Bhaal’s avatar had fallen to Cyric’s blade, the Winding Water ran black and foul. No living thing could drink from the river’s polluted waters between the ruined bridge and Troll-claw Ford, over a hundred miles to the south. These scars and a dozen others would remain for generations, grim reminders of when the gods walked the world.
But Toril was not the only place to change as a result of Ao’s wrath. In the Fugue Plain, god after god appeared in the air, ready to search out and call home the spirits of the Faithful. First came Sune Firehair in a blazing chariot of glory. The Goddess of Beauty had a rosy complexion and scarlet eyes, with long crimson hair that waved in the breeze like a banner. She wore a short, emerald-green frock that complemented her generous figure and provided a colorful contrast to her ruby visage. Sune’s chariot swooped low over the endless plain, dragging great tails of flame behind her. As she passed, her faithful grabbed hold of the flaming tails and were carried along with the goddess, basking in the fiery radiance of her beauty.
Then Torm arrived, garbed head to foot in gleaming plate armor, his visor raised to reveal his sturdy countenance and steady gaze. The God of Duty charged across the plain on a magnificent red stallion, calling for his faithful followers to fall in behind him. Soon he was riding at the head of an army greater and truer than any that ever walked the Realms.
Next came snowy-haired Loviatar, dressed in a gown of white silk, with a pinched mouth and cruel fiendish eyes. Her chariot was drawn by nine bloody horses, which she drove with a barbed whip of nine strands. Beguiling Auril, Goddess of Cold, followed in a coach of ice, irresistibly alluring despite her blue skin and aloof bearing. Then, with her green, seaweed hair and the face of a manatee, came Umberlee, followed by all of the other gods who had abandoned their duty for so long.
As the deities collected their faithful from the Fugue Plain, a small, matronly halfling walked through the confusion toward the city where the Faithless and False languished. She had gray hair, sprightly eyes, and moved with a determined gait. The woman was Yondalla, provider and protector of all halflings. At the request of a fellow god, she was going to the city of suffering to investigate the case of a halfling named Atherton Cooper who had lost
his way and been trapped there.
Finally, after all the other gods had collected their faithful, came the Wounded Lady, the new Goddess of Magic. Although her long sable hair and the sublime features of her face remained unchanged, Midnight seemed even more alluring and enchanting than she had been as a mortal. Her dark eyes were more secretive and enigmatic, flashing now and then with hints of both great sorrow and implacable determination. The Wounded Lady rode upon an alabaster unicorn that left a translucent, glittering trail in his wake. When Mystra’s faithful stepped onto the sparkling path, they were whisked along behind the Goddess of Magic.
At last, when all the Faithful had been gathered from the Fugue Plain, the gods returned to their homes with their charges. Midnight and her mount went to the Plane of Nirvana, that place of ultimate law and regimented order, where there were always equal parts of light and dark, heat and cold, fire and water, and air and earth.
As they approached Nirvana, Midnight’s faithful saw an infinite space filled with circular subplanes hanging in the air. The subplanes were arranged in every direction, locked to each other at the edges like the gears of a clock. Each planar level rotated slowly, and its revolution was transferred to adjacent levels through its gears, so that the entire plane spun in unison. Midnight’s mount turned in the direction of the largest subplane, carrying his mistress and her faithful toward their new home: a perfectly symmetrical castle of tangible magic.
In another castle, very different from Midnight’s new home in Nirvana, Lord Cyric sat in silence, brooding. His defeated denizen army swarmed about him, and the cries of the damned in the wall around his city drifted to his ears. The new God of Strife and Death liked his new home, though he found his master, Lord Ao, troublesome. Perhaps given time, Cyric mused, I will find a way to revolt against the overlord of the gods.
As Ao watched Midnight and the other gods return home with their faithful, he felt a deep sense of relief. At last, his gods might start fulfilling the tasks for which they had been created.
The overlord was sitting cross-legged and alone, surrounded by a void so vast that not even his gods could comprehend it. Of all the states of being he could assume, this one was his favorite, for he was at once in time and disconnected from it, at once the center of the universe and separate from it.