Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad (34 page)

The prayer droned on, proclaiming the loyalty of Mystra’s Faithful and the feats of each, and before five wonder-workers had been named, the patriarch saw the heralds of a dozen other gods appear and retrieve their worshipers. Of all the deities of Faerun, only Lady Magic seemed content to ignore the pleading of her worshipers, to leave them gathered upon the Fugue Plain like a lost herd of cattle.

Adon ran over to the crowd. “Stop it!” He pushed his way to the center. “Mystra won’t come! She cares nothing for us!”

The throng fell silent, and all eyes turned to stare at him.

“Forgive me.” Adon turned in a slow circle. “Mystra deceived me, and so I have deceived you.”

An enchantress as beautiful as any woman on Faerun stepped close and looked the patriarch up and down, then shook her head in sadness and turned away.

“It is nothing,” she said. “Only poor Adon.”

Adon grabbed the woman’s arm. “I have seen Mystra’s true face! She is an evil hag! If she cared for us, why hasn’t she sent a herald for us?”

“She will,” answered another spirit, this one a tall black-bearded wizard. “We must believe she will.”

“Why?” Adon cried. “Don’t you see she has deceived us?”

“Poor Adon.” The enchantress reached up and touched his cheek. “Poor, mad Adon.”

Adon pushed the enchantress’s hand away. “Listen to me! Mystra’s eyes burn with hatred! Her mouth is filled with poison and fangs-“

“Enough!” The black-bearded wizard slammed a palm into Adon’s chest, knocking him to the ground. “If we listen to the patriarch’s madness, we will suffer his fate. He is Faithless!”

“Faithless!” gasped Adon.

“We must leave him.” The enchantress backed away, forcing the other spirits behind her to do the same. “His madness will destroy us all.”

As one, the throng drifted away, leaving Adon alone on the Fugue Plain. He watched them go, and when they were so far away he could no longer hear their prayers, he rolled onto his knees.

He clasped his hands before his chest and looked toward the heavens. “O Kelemvor, Lord of the Dead and Judge of the Damned, heed this, the call of your dead friend Adon….”

Thirty-Seven

The Believers of Zhentil Keep were the strangest group of Faithful anywhere on Faerun. All seventeen lived in the same hall of cold stone, and slept in the same crib of straw, and washed themselves in the same baths, and ate from the same wooden basin, and shared among themselves everything they owned without rancor or enmity of any sort. They said they did this on account of the many privations of their city and especially of their temple, but any fool could see they liked matters as they were. As we sat on the barren floor passing the gruel bowl from hand to hand-they did not own a single spoon-there was much joking and laughing and warm touching, and no one ever complained when he emptied the bowl and had to go refill it from the kettle.

Svanhild was standing by the fire, describing my entrance into the city. “And Malik said, ‘I am Faithful to Our Lord Cyric, the One and All.’ He didn’t care whether the guard or anyone else knew he was a Believer!”

Svanhild no longer looked the crone, having washed her grime off in the temple baths. She had done the same for me-as I said, the Believers of Zhentil Keep share everything-and supplied us with the same flaxen robes worn by everyone in the temple. Hers fit just tightly enough to prove she was no more than half the age I had thought at the gate, but of course I had already seen this in the baths.

“He kicked the guard aside-” Svanhild pulled up her robe and raised a well-shaped leg to demonstrate “-and rode into Zhentil Keep as proud as Lord Orgauth himself. Then, when the Believer’s Shower started, Halah reared and began cracking heads, and Malik yelled, That is what awaits those who insult the One!’”

Svanhild pointed her finger at the floor and spoke in a voice deeper than my own, which drew many loud guffaws from her fellows. They were not laughing at me, but at the blasphemers whose skulls had been split by Halah’s hooves.

” ‘Such is the wrath of Cyric!’ he yelled, and the guards fired their crossbows.” Now Svanhild fixed her gaze on me, and i have never seen such devotion in the eyes of a woman. The bolts didn’t even scratch him. You should have seen the guards’ faces!”

I felt the heat rise to my cheeks, for Svanhild had already hinted she wished to attend me after dinner. In truth, her advances had been so bold they filled the heart in my breast with a sense of godly due, and it was a wonder I had not enjoyed her already-especially after so many seasons away from my wife. Yet what were women to me when the True Life was at hand? I could think of nothing but stealing the book and curing the One’s madness, and of saving myself from the City of the Dead, and of the great reward Cyric would bestow on me after he won his trial. Of course, I also thought of the four short days left to do all this, and of the difficulty of finding Fzoul Chembryl in a city as strange as Zhentil Keep, and of the chance that he no longer had the True Life of Cyric. But most of all, I thought of the terrible consequences for the One’s Church if any part of my plan failed, and it was on account of this that I felt little interest in eating the temple’s gruel or sleeping in its crib of straw, and certainly not in sporting with its women.

“Malik?” Svanhild shook my shoulder; I had been so lost in my thoughts I had not noticed her leave the fireplace. “Friar Fornault asked what spell you used.”

“Spell?” I shook my head clear, then looked across the circle to Fornault Blacksun. The Friar, as they called him, was a snake-eyed man of fifty, as gaunt as his acolytes and far too ready with that lizard’s grin of his. On his index finger, he wore an iron starburst-and-skull signet. “I know no spells.”

Fornault creased his slender brow, and somehow that smile remained upon his thin lips. “You’re not a cleric?”

“No, I am the Finder of the Book.” I had told Svanhild about finding the Cyrinishad as she scrubbed my back. As there had been several other people in the bath, these events were already known throughout the temple. “I have never needed magic to serve the One and All.”

Fornault’s smile drooped at the corners. “So I have heard, but the Great Annihilator’s spells are more powerful than my own.” The Friar and his acolytes called Fzoul Chembryl the Great Annihilator, as he was the one who had read the True Life on the morning of the Razing and ruined Zhentil Keep’s faith in Cyric. “You will forgive me for finding it strange that the One would send someone with no magic to punish our enemy.”

The heart in my breast grew cold and spiteful, and I was seized by the urge to pull my dagger and strike this fool dead. I resisted this temptation, and not only because I feared his acolytes would never let me reach him. According to Svanhild, Fornault Blacksun was the only person in the room who knew where to find Fzoul Chembryl, and he had not yet parted with this knowledge. I forced myself to return the Friar’s smile and tried to conceal my anger.

“I only asked you to help me find Fzoul Chembryl.” I picked my next words carefully, on account of Mystra’s truth spell. “I did not say the One sent me, or that I came to punish Fzoul.”

Fornault’s eyes flashed with anger, but his smile remained intact. “But you did not say otherwise. Perhaps you should tell us what you do want with the Great Annihilator.”

Knowing I could not lie, and that neither Fornault nor his acolytes were likely to approve of my plan to cure the One, I clenched my jaw and said nothing. But neither did I look away, for the cold anger in my breast was making me bolder than I should have been.

The lizard’s grin vanished from the Friar’s face. “I am not comfortable helping just anyone find the Great Annihilator.” In any other temple of True Believers, such an explanation from the high priest would have been an unthinkable sign of weakness; in Zhentil Keep, it seemed as natural as the bricked-over windows. “A foolish attack is sure to bring swift retribution, and Lord Orgauth would simply stand by and watch. Nothing would please him more than to be rid of our temple without risk to himself, as only fear of the One’s wrath makes him tolerate our presence.”

Svanhild was quick to leap to my defense. “Malik is hardly some bumbling neophyte. He has touched the Cyrinishad, and he has spoken face-to-face with the One!”

“Or so he says.” Fornault’s eyes grew as dangerous as a cobra’s, and he did not take his gaze off me. “But we have only his word. How do we know that he isn’t … exaggerating?”

It was a strange temple indeed where Cyric’s Faithful hesitated to call each other liars.

Svanhild thought for only a moment, then answered, “We know by what I saw at the gate. Crossbow quarrels do not bounce off the backs of normal men.”

“And we also know because of Halah,” added another sister of the temple, a raven-haired beauty called Thir. She pointed to the far corner, where my magnificent horse was devouring the temple’s only milk goat. “How many horses eat flesh and exhale black fog?”

“That is a good point,” replied a sister named Oda, and then a brother called Durin added, “I believe him.”

This occasioned a general course of head-nodding and agreement. As I looked around the circle, I saw that all the sisters of the temple, and several of the brothers, were looking at me with the same expressions of yearning I had already noticed in Svanhild’s eyes. No doubt this adoration had more to do with the god’s heart in my chest than seeing my stout figure in the baths - at least, in the case of the men, I hoped so.

Fornault’s expression flashed from shock to outrage to cunning, then settled on benign acceptance. This countenance looked as false on his face as a mask of brutish ferocity would have appeared on mine.

“Well then, it seems the matter is settled.” The Friar clasped his hands together and rose. “Why don’t I get a little surprise I’ve been saving? Then we’ll sit by the fire and plan our vengeance on the Great Annihilator.”

Svanhild frowned. “Surprise?”

“You’ll see,” Fornault replied. “Wash out the chalice, and I’ll be right back.”

Fornault lit a torch from the fireplace, then crossed the barren hall and disappeared into a dark stairwell. Though clearly troubled by the Friar’s offer, Svanhild took the chalice off the fireplace mantle and went up to wash it out in the roof cistern.

As soon as they were gone, Thir came to sit at my side. She slipped her arm beneath mine, brushing the hilt of my dagger beneath my robe, and nestled up close. She brought her lips near to whisper in my ear.

Before she had a chance to embarrass herself, I patted her hand. “Forgive me, Thir, but Svanhild has already asked to attend me later.” Here, the Harlot’s accursed magic compelled me to add, “And even with her, I fear I am too consumed with Fzoul Chembryl to enjoy any sport - besides which I am a only recently widowed.”

Thir frowned at this. “Widowed? What does that have to do with anything?” Then she leaned a little away from me. “Oh - look, I know you’re one of the Chosen, but that’s not what I - “

Fornault’s steps rang out from the stairway, and Thir fell silent. She continued to hold my arm, but I could tell she was reluctant to make the Friar jealous, as she no longer pressed herself quite so tightly to my side. Svanhild returned from the cistern an instant later. She showed no irritation at seeing another woman sitting so close to me, but only came over and sat on my other side and pressed herself as close as Thir. What a pity my thoughts were so consumed with Fzoul Chembryl!

The Friar stepped into the middle of the circle and displayed his prize, a dusty bottle of scarlet liquor. I noticed at once that he had exchanged his signet ring for another, as no merchant with an eye as keen as mine would mistake tarnished silver for cold iron.

The finest Mulmaster port money can buy,” Fornault proclaimed. “Or should I say that a quick hand can steal?”

This drew nervous laughter from the acolytes, who seemed equally split between avoiding my gaze and casting furtive glances in my direction. Perhaps they thought I was selfish not to send either Thir or Svanhild away, or perhaps they knew something about the Friar’s relationship with Thir I did not

Fornault came over and made a great show of uncorking the bottle, then reached down to Svanhild. “The chalice, my dear.”

Svanhild glanced at me.

“Sister Svanhild, hand it to me.”

Her hand was trembling. She cast her eyes down, as if she might be jealous of Thir after all, then passed the chalice to Fornault. As he filled it, I leaned closer to Svanhild.

“You have nothing to worry about,” I whispered.

Svanhild looked up with surprise in her eyes. “No?”

Fornault drank from the chalice and made a great show of swishing the port around in his mouth.

“I have already told Thir,” I whispered. “I am too consumed with my mission for any sport tonight.”

Svanhild wrinkled her brow, betraying her disappointment, and she hissed, “But, Malik-“

The Friar smacked his lips and pronounced, “A fine bottle!”

He refilled the chalice quickly, then swirled the contents around and passed it to me. Svanhild intercepted the cup.

“Svanhild!” the Friar said. “Don’t you think we should let Cyric’s Chosen drink first?”

Svanhild looked from me to her fellow acolytes. They all averted their eyes at her shameful behavior, yet she did not release the chalice. A bitter coldness began to fill my breast at this strange affront, for I had not tasted a drop of port, fine or otherwise, since leaving Calimshan.

Thir reached across my chest to take Svanhild’s hands. “Let him drink.” She took the cup and passed it to me, and I saw that her hands were trembling just like Svanhild’s. “What harm can a little port cause someone as mighty as Malik?”

Now, had I not already raised the chalice to my lips, I might have thought twice about drinking. But as it was, the port was already upon my tongue and halfway down my gullet before I realized what her words implied. Even then I doubted them, for the port did not bear the slightest hint of bitter taste or mordant smell. Indeed I was not certain the Friar had poisoned the drink until my stomach grew strangely full and the soft mass in my chest began to gurgle and race.