Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad (25 page)

At any other time, this would have caused me to raise my head and curse the Harlot. But now, I could think only of my wife’s good name, and of the many indignities she would suffer on account of this miracle. Not even the prince’s favor would spare her reputation-or my business, since prudent men never associate with scandal. I slammed my forehead against the table.

The Harlot’s insolence is beyond belief.” growled the One, though of course he was speaking about Mystra and not my wife. “She ordered Kelemvor to keep my dead here on Faerun, and then she snarled the Weave around all my temples.”

I glanced at Cyric and saw him wave a pair of spider’s legs toward the roaring fly outside.

“Now my Faithful are plagued by giant insects and cascades of boiling tar and singing rodents!” The One scuttled closer, then clacked his mandibles before my eyes. “Never involve yourself with a woman, Malik. You will be sorry every time.”

“Indeed.” I returned my gaze to the dark surface beneath my face. “Miracles are terrible things.”

Twenty-Three

Ruha and Zale rode hard to catch up, and by dusk they were crouching in the shelter of a murky alley, peering out at Cyric’s temple in the Storm Horns. Their mount remained tethered outside the village because of the green fly circling the citadel. Silvercloud had refused to go anywhere near the ugly creature, for hippogriffs looked upon anything with wings either as something they could eat or something that could eat them.

“That is where the little man went?” Ruha whispered, asking the question of a haggard man with red-rimmed eyes. When she and Zale had entered the village and asked after a pudgy rider on a horse from hell, the oaf had volunteered at once to lead them to the temple. “You are sure he is still inside?”

The man shook his head. “Can’t be sure. There’s too many sally ports and secret tunnels.” His whisper was raspy and slow. “But no one’s seen him or his horse come out, and that’s the way he went in. You can still see my nephew’s blood.”

The peasant pointed to a patch of dark ground in front of the portal. Ruha studied the spot long enough to tell that it was covered with swarming flies, then glanced up at the gatehouse. An old priest was standing watch as motionless as a statue. Four more sentries stood watch in the corner towers.

“Do they always post so many watchmen?” Ruha asked.

The peasant shook his head. “Only the gate guard, and he usually sneaks off to sleep.”

“They’re protecting something,” hissed Zale. “And I’ll wager it’s our little friend.”

“You are friends of this murderer?”

“Only in the sense that we know him well,” Ruha said. “But you may be certain we are as eager to catch him as you are.”

“I’m not eager at all!” said the peasant. “I have a wife and three children! But I would be happy if you killed him.”

“That will be easier said than done.” Zale looked to Ruha. “What do you think, Lady Witch? Sneak Silvercloud around the village and set an ambush on the road ahead?”

“It would be better to catch him sleeping. If we can keep him away from his horse, he will have less chance to escape.”

Zale frowned. “We’d have to use magic to bypass the guards.”

He did not need to say more, for every time Ruha cast a spell, she also spawned a whirlwind or earthquake or lightning storm, and the more she used her magic, the worse these disasters grew. Her last enchantment had sparked a downpour of hailstones that had leveled half the farmhouses outside Iriaebor.

As Ruha contemplated what even a simple spell might do to the village, Zale’s visage suddenly blurred before her eyes, then grew round and pudgy, with thick fleshy lips and eyes that bulged from their sockets like a bug’s. She knew at once whom she was seeing, for she had seen this handsome face in her visions a dozen times since the deaths of Rinda and Gwydion. As she watched, the bulging eyes grew as black as coal and began to burn with a fire as cold as the void. A long tongue of night-blue flame rippled from between the fleshy lips and began to wag, flinging little drops of sizzling poison in every direction.

Ruha closed her eyes and began to tremble, for she had never suffered so many visions in such a short time. Their frequency had to be a sign of her mission’s great urgency, but in her exhaustion, the mirages were taking a toll on her nerves.

“Ruha, what’s wrong?” demanded Zale. Though he had seen her gaze grow distant many times, she had never explained to him what she was seeing, and so he could not guess at the cause of her trembling. “You go rest; I’ll keep watch.”

Ruha shook her head. “We must attack now, Zale. You heard the goddess. Nothing is more important than catching our quarry.”

Zale shook his head. “Not if there’s-“

“Whatever you do, you’d better hurry.” The peasant pointed at the gatehouse. “Look.”

The guard was gone.

Ruha turned to the peasant. “Tell everyone to leave the village at once.”

The man frowned. “Leave? But it’s almost dark!”

Before Ruha could say more, Zale grabbed her arm. “Maybe the guard just went to relieve himself.”

“And maybe he saw us and went to warn Malik! We cannot take the chance. If Malik escapes now, will Silvercloud have the stamina to catch him again?”

Zale shook his head. “It’s a wonder he carried us this far.”

Ruha turned to the peasant. “Go! Tell the others to leave, if they want to see the morning.”

She pushed the man down the alley, and Zale drew his sword. They watched in silence until they heard the man banging doors. The citadel guards came to the front of their towers and peered out over the village. When none of them left to report what was happening, the witch knew the gate sentry had gone to alert her quarry.

Ruha gathered a handful of pebbles. “Do not waste your effort trying to slay Malik.” She began to shake the pebbles, “Kill the hell horse if you can, and leave the rest to me.”

The witch uttered a sun spell and hurled her pebbles. The stones streaked away in a golden flash and blasted the gate into splinters, and even Ruha did not expect what followed.

A deafening blast shook the dust from the citadel walls, and then a geyser of yellow steam sprouted in the center of the courtyard. The vapor was as foul as burning brimstone and so hot it scalded the flesh of any creature it touched. In less than an instant, the courtyard was filled with blistered rats and giant toasted crickets and screaming Believers-who quickly fled into the far corners of the temple and disappeared.

Ruha and Zale rushed across the street. By the time they reached the gate, the yellow vapor was billowing out in a great cloud. One whiff of the stuff caused the witch’s throat to close and her eyes to water. A stream of rats, all bleeding from their eyes and nostrils, began to drag themselves out into the road. The giant green fly roared down out of the sky and hovered over the gate, glaring down at the witch and her companion with one of its bulging black eyes.

Zale ignored it and kicked at the fleeing rats. “Why aren’t the Cyric worshipers coming out with the rest of the vermin?” He peered into the yellow fog, then said, “They must be leaving by the sally ports-and Malik with them!”

Zale pulled his tunic over his face and, before Ruha could stop him, vanished into the burning fog. The witch slipped her hands up beneath her veil and filled them with her breath, then uttered her spell.

This time, her magic shook the entire village. The gatehouse swayed, and the cobblestones in the courtyard clattered. From the streets behind her came the muffled crash of falling crockery and the strident cries of fleeing peasants.

Ruha turned her palms toward the courtyard and blew. A ferocious wind howled through the gate to carry away the poisonous steam. On the far side of the spewing geyser kneeled Zale, perhaps five paces from the stable. The yellow vapor had turned his cloak into a tattered rag, and wherever his skin was exposed, it was covered with yellow sores. He took a long breath of fresh air, then struggled to his feet and staggered toward the stable’s open door.

Ruha started after him.

The geyser belched up a clap of thunder, and the yellow steam changed to fire, splitting the courtyard down the center. Zale glanced back; then a curtain of ash and molten rock gushed out of the fissure to separate him from the witch.

Ruha took her waterskin from around her neck and pulled the stopper, and at that moment, the green fly came over the wall and descended in front of her. The witch retreated, backing up a set of narrow stone stairs attached to the gatehouse.

And in the time it took this to occur, the fissure spewed out such a quantity of ash and fiery rock that when Halah and I burst from the stable doors, we found our way blocked by a wall of burning stone. Already the ridge stood as high as a man, with a frothing spray of molten rock spewing up behind it. I could see nothing on the other side except the wall of the citadel and the Harper witch on the gatehouse stairs.

“A pox upon that hag!”

I had been sound asleep when the gate guard roused me to report that someone was watching the temple, and I had gathered my things in a flurry and rushed to the stable half-awake, and so I was still clutching Rinda’s journal in my hand as I turned to look for another way out of the courtyard. I did not even notice Zale until Halah reared and gave a menacing snort, and it was only out of fright that I brought Rinda’s book around to shield myself.

Zale’s sword bit halfway through the ledger.

Halah sprang forward, and the journal nearly slipped from my grasp, as it had trapped my foe’s blade the way a log sometimes traps an axe. I dropped the reins and squeezed my mount with my legs and grabbed the book with both hands, and I found myself staring down the length of Zale’s sword into his yellow-blistered face. He snarled a curse upon my father’s name and tried to jerk me from the saddle, but Halah was dragging him across the courtyard. It was all he could do to keep his feet, and all I could do to keep hold of the journal.

The side of Zale’s body suddenly turned as red as a tomato, and a searing heat stung my face. I glanced forward and saw Halah’s head rising as she galloped up the ridge toward the frothing curtain of molten rock.

Why my foe did not release his sword is a mystery to me even greater than how I kept my seat when Halah sprang across the fissure. I saw the fire rush up Zale’s legs; I smelled his charred flesh and heard his agonized scream. Then he became an orange flame and I saw the fires of Kelemvor’s worst hell boiling in the chasm below. It took only an instant to cross, but it seemed an eternity. My skin burned. My eyes stung. My head ached, and my stomach turned, and my tongue swelled in my throat.

Halah landed on the other side and streaked toward the gate, her hooves burning as she splashed down a stream of molten rock. Zale’s sword drooped over and fell out of Rinda’s journal, but that did not prevent the pages from catching fire. I slapped the book against my chest and succeeded only in igniting the witch’s aba. For a moment I sat there burning, holding a flaming book in my hands, wondering what to do. Then I heard Halah’s hooves clattering on solid cobblestones and looked up to see the gate ahead, with the meddling Harper on the stairs above the giant green fly.

I saw the witch rub a pinch of dust off the gatehouse wall, and this frightened me out of my wits, as she had already proved that she could capture me. I pressed myself close to Halah and grabbed her neck with both arms, and the heat of my flaming robe made her gallop twice as fast as before. We were halfway to the gate before I realized I had dropped Rinda’s journal.

Needless to say, I did not turn around. There were other ways to find Zhentil Keep.

Ruha raised her hand to cast her spell, but the giant green fly reared up to block her magic.

“What have you done here?” the fly demanded.

Though the insect remained as large as an elephant, its black eyes melted and became a pair of human eyes as dark and soft as the night. The long feeding tube shrank into a narrow nose, and the ugly mandibles came together to form a slender jawline, and the wings folded over the back to become a cascade of flowing black hair. Then its body slimmed into the figure of a shapely woman, and the air around it coalesced into a simple robe closed by a web-shaped bodice clasp.

“Goddess!”

Ruha dropped to her knees, but she could not help peering around Mystra’s avatar to see what had become of the discarded ledger; perhaps the book contained some hint of her quarry’s destination.

To her relief, the journal’s pages had stopped burning when it hit the ground. It now lay smoldering just inside the gate, less than a dozen paces from the advancing tide of molten rock.

“Pay attention to me, Ruha!” Mystra said. “Answer my question-what have you done here?”

Ruha looked back to the goddess. “I was trying to stop Malik, as you instructed.”

“I did not instruct this!” Mystra waved at the curtain of fire behind her. “You have knocked down a quarter of the village, and this lava flow will destroy the rest.”

“But you said what I annihilate will be as nothing to what I save! You said I should do whatever is necessary to stop Malik-even if it means destroying a whole kingdom!”

Mystra’s eyes grew dark with ire. “Do not be insulting. I would never say such a thing.”

Shocked by her goddess’s reaction, Ruha lowered her gaze and noticed that the journal now lay only nine paces from the advancing lava. “I thought you wanted me to stop Malik. I prayed for a sign, and you sent a shooting star.”

This caused Mystra to fall silent, for she remembered both the prayer and what she had been doing when it came. “I sent the sign, yes-but that does not give you leave to destroy a whole village. What were you thinking?”

Ruha gave the only answer she could. “That you wanted me to catch him at any cost.”

“That I wanted this? There can be only one thing that would excuse …” Mystra paused and grew thoughtful, then asked, “Is that it, Ruha? Did Malik recover the Cyrinishad after all?”

Ruha shook her head. “No goddess, it is still safe in-“

“Do not say it! There might not be much of this temple left, but it still belongs to Cyric.”