Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad (42 page)

I looked toward the witch and found my view blocked by the massive figure of the High Tyrannar, who had turned his attention from me to Ruha. I rose and rattled forward to glare at the meddling Harper.

“You lying sow spawn!” If this realization seemed a long time in the coming, it was only because of all I had endured in Fzoul’s temple; otherwise, I am always most astute. “You black-eyed deceiver-“

“No more of your insults!” Fzoul whirled on me and made a pinching gesture with his thumb and forefinger, at the same time uttering the name of Iyachtu Xvim. “I have heard enough!”

The High Tyrannar twisted his wrist as though ripping out my tongue, and when I tried to explain that my insults had been directed at Ruha and not at him, my voice did not work. Fzoul ran his hands through his long hair and looked from me to Ruha and back again, then shook his head in disgust. He took a chain of keys from around his neck and passed it to Thir.

“Go fetch the True Life from my chamber.” The High Tyrannar took hold of Ruha’s arm. “The offering won’t be as sweet as I promised, but perhaps the New Darkness will forgive us if there is twice as much.”

“Offering?” Ruha tried to pull free, but Fzoul’s grasp was too tight. “What do you mean, offering?”

Fzoul snatched her up. “What do you think I mean?”

I barely heard the exchange, for my ears were filled with the sloshing of the curdled mass in my chest, and my eyes were fixed on Thir. She was going after the book. Instead of leaving by the same tunnel as the guard, Thir took a torch from the wall and started across the chamber. I longed to follow, but even if Fzoul did not stop me, my shackles made me anything but quick or stealthy.

Still, the shadow of a hope began to flicker in my chest.

Behind me, Ruha screamed as she splashed into the eel tank. I kept my gaze fixed on Thir. She stopped on the far side of the altar and placed her torch in an empty sconce, then took the keys and lifted them to the wall. A trapdoor swung down from the ceiling, and she reached up to withdraw a sliding ladder.

“You’ve seen enough, Malik.” Fzoul hooked my throat with his wooden pole and jerked me toward the copper tank. “Or would you care to join the Harper in a bath?”

I opened my mouth to assure him I did not, but no sound came out, for he had stolen my voice. I merely shook my head.

Fzoul laughed. He returned his attention to the eel tank’s frothing water and used his wooden hook to fish out Ruha’s head. Her veil had come off, but she did not look pretty. She had bitten her tongue, and her teeth were bloody and clenched, and her eyes had rolled up so that only the whites remained showing. And yet to me this was a beautiful sight, for the witch had fallen unconscious, just as I had the first time in the tank. My shadow of hope began to grow.

Fzoul pushed Ruha back into the tank and watched her thrash about. I waited. Cyric’s heart sloshed madly, as if it sensed the clever treachery I had in mind.

By the time Thir returned to her master’s side bearing a large leatherbound book, Fzoul was done with his fun. He hooked Ruha under the arm and backed away from the tank, dragging the unconscious witch half out of the water.

I ducked under the pole and thrust my hands into the water. At once, two eels slithered around my wrists. A terrible jolt shot up my arms, and my fingers dug into the creature’s slimy flesh. My elbows locked, and my teeth clacked together, and the taste of almonds filled my mouth-but I did not fall unconscious.

“Malik!” Fzoul yelled. “What are you doing?”

I pulled my arms out of the tank, still clutching the eels in my hands. I swung first at Thir, and the slimy things caught her square in the face. The torch and the book slipped from her hands, along with Fzoul’s keys, and her mouth opened as if to scream-yet no sound came. Thir’s knees buckled beneath her, and before she hit the floor, I pivoted toward Fzoul.

The High Tyrannar dropped his pole, leaving Ruha draped over the edge of the tub. My arms kept swinging, bringing the eels against his flank. He went rigid and crashed to the floor and smashed his nose, spraying blood across the stones. I shook my manacles over his body until the eels slipped free and entwined themselves around his limbs.

Thir began to groan and struggle toward her knees. I thrust my hands back into the tank and caught another pair of eels, then shook them loose on her body. She fell silent at once. I had no idea how long the eels might live out of water, but I did know from my own experience that even a short jolt would leave Fzoul and Thir too shocked to move for several minutes.

I turned to find the witch still draped over the tub. By her quivering, I knew that at least one eel remained twined about her legs in the water. After all the trouble she had caused me, I should have pushed her back and left her to drown, but we have a saying in Calimshan: “The enemy of my enemy is my Mend.”

I decided to leave Ruha in the tank, confident that when Fzoul and Thir awoke and found me gone, they would torture the witch in ways even more horrid than those I had known.

I snatched the book up from beside Thir’s dancing limbs. It was a huge gathering of pages bound in black leather, with dozens of dark suns and grinning death’s-heads surrounding a sacred starburst-and-skull. The adornments seemed strange for a tome of Oghma’s, but Rinda had written in her journal that the decorations had been necessary so Fzoul could sneak the foul volume past Cyric’s priests. Still, I had a knack for stealing the wrong book, and so I opened the cover to make certain this was the one.

As I had hoped, the first pages were blank. Being an unskilled storyteller who did not know how to stretch a simple sentence into three or four paragraphs, Oghma had written a version of the One’s life as short as it was false; to make the True Life look as similar to the Cyrinishad as possible, Rinda had filled the first part with blank pages.

In my hands, I was holding the object of my sacred pilgrimage, the relic for which I had endured so much: the True Life of Cyric!

Forty-Seven

I could have called Cyric down at once, right there before the altar and symbol of Iyachtu Xvim, and attempted to cure the One’s madness on the spot. But such an insult to the temple’s proprietor would not go unnoticed. The Godson of Bane despised Our Dark Lord, and while Xvim’s powers were paltry in comparison, a god is a god, and an angry god is worse. I did not need this complication, for even in the best of circumstances, it would be a delicate matter to trick the One into reading Oghma’s book.

I snatched Fzoul’s keys off the floor and removed my manacles and shackles, but I did not steal any clothes to cover my nakedness, as I had no wish to tangle with the eels twined around my enemies. Leaving Ruha to splash in the copper tank and Fzoul and Thir to thrash about on the floor, I extinguished all the torches in the room, save one that I kept to light my own way, and turned toward the passage by which the witch’s guard had left the temple.

No sooner had I started down the tunnel than I heard a distant chanting and the sound of many footsteps coming my way. Now, while Xvim’s followers were all fools in their Faith, most were cunning enough to stop a naked man carrying a book such as the True Life. I retreated at once to the ladder Thir had pulled from the ceiling, then climbed into the rocky tunnel that led to the High Tyrannar’s private room.

This was no easy thing. I had to cradle the True Life in the crooks of my elbows and hold the rungs with one hand and the torch with the other. More than once I slipped and had to hook my arm around the ladder, bringing the torch so close that its flame singed the hair off one side of my head. Only Tyr’s protection spared my face a terrible scorching. I soon reached the top of the shaft and thrust my head up into a dark, musty-smelling room.

My flickering torch revealed a chamber of stone walls and rough-hewn floor planks, with a bed and a desk and some other furnishings lurking in the shadows. The only sound was the sputtering of my torch, and the room had the leaden chill of a place that never sees light. I laid the True Life aside and clambered onto the floor, then rose to seek a door.

To my dismay, I did not see one. While an old doorway lay just beyond the desk, the opening had been bricked over. I stared back down the ladder, thinking I might simply jump and take my chances in the other passage, but there was still the problem of the temple guards.

Then Fzoul began to groan softly in the chamber below. Whether the eels had slithered away or died for lack of water, it was too late to go back. I shut the trapdoor and secured it with a drawbar. Then, without a thought to my own nakedness-are we not all naked before the gods?-I opened my mouth and exclaimed, “Cyric, the One, the All!”

Not a sound greeted my ear.

The next thing I mouthed was just as silent, though much more profane. I had forgotten the spell Fzoul had cast to silence my tongue. The heart in my chest dropped. How could I call the One if I had no voice?

I fell to my knees and clasped my hands before me. Surely, Cyric would hear my silent prayer-he was, after all, a god!

Cyric, Prince of Murder, Lord of Strife!

Nothing happened, except that Fzoul’s groans grew louder. A tide of anger rose up inside my chest. By what right had the Fates taken notice and turned their favor against me, a helpless mortal who was but a flea in the affairs of the gods?

I began to clank around the room, searching for some means with which to signal the One. I discovered a chest of clothes, but I hardly bothered to rifle through them. Even if the garments had not been too large, I had no time for niceties! Fzoul groaned again, then the witch moaned too. This gave me some hope; when Fzoul came to his senses, she would occupy him for at least a moment or two.

I shuffled toward the writing desk and found a quill and an inkwell beside a sheaf of parchment. Atop the parchment lay a dagger with an ebony hilt fashioned into Iyachtu Xvim’s sacred palm-and-eyes symbol. I pushed the disgusting talisman aside and thrust my torch into a wall sconce, then dipped the quill in the inkwell and scrawled a note upon the clean parchment: Cyric, the One, the All!

Fzoul’s voice rumbled up through the trapdoor, calling for Thir and vowing vengeance upon me. Ruha responded with something groggy, and Thir began to moan as well.

I scanned the room’s dark corners for the ghoulish figure of the One and saw nothing but murk and gloom. I would have written his name in my own blood if that were possible, but thanks to Tyr I no longer bled. I dipped the quill back into the ink and wrote, Cyric, Highest of the High-another dip, Lord of Three Crowns! At the same time, I let these words echo through my head, shouting them the only way I could.

The chamber remained as empty as before, and Cyric’s heart filled my chest with cold burning.

Fzoul and Ruha began to yell; I could not comprehend what they were shouting, but several thuds and sharp slaps vibrated up through the trapdoor.

I felt a terrible sinking, but I could not believe Destiny would drive me this far only to abandon me now. I grabbed the torch and rounded the fringe of the room, searching for some small passage that I might have overlooked. If I could escape, I would seek shelter in the Ruins until the High Tyrannar’s spell wore off, and then I would call upon the One until my voice grew hoarse from screaming.

The only exit was the bricked-over door behind the desk. One glance at the ceiling dispelled any thought of leaving that way; the rafters were sagging beneath some great weight. My chest burned as though I had been drinking vinegar.

Ruha cried out and abruptly fell silent, then the High Tyrannar began to chant in a mystic tongue. He had the witch under control, and now he was preparing to find me. I returned to the desk and snatched up the dagger to defend myself.

The instant my hand gripped that vile hilt, I knew how to capture the One’s attention. I thrust the torch back into its sconce, then pressed the dagger’s ebony hilt directly over the One’s heart.

The curdled mass twisted into a knot of cold, searing anguish as terrible as it was unworldly. A wave of bile bubbled up to scald my throat, as though the mere touch of Xvim’s holy symbol had burst the One’s putrid heart. I thought my breast would explode. I collapsed backward onto the desk, and it was all I could do to keep the dagger hilt pressed to my chest.

“Malik!” cried the One’s thousand voices. “What are you doing?”

Before I could lift my head, Cyric grabbed my neck and jerked me off the desk. He held me up before his skull’s face and fixed those black burning suns on my naked chest, and only then did I realize I was still holding Iyachtu Xvim’s holy symbol over his heart. I opened my hands and let the dagger drop to the floor, and the pain in my chest faded at once.

“Well, Malik? Have you betrayed me?” He stepped on the ebony hilt and ground it to dust beneath his bony heel, and this caused such a rumble that I heard Fzoul cry out in astonishment. “You have but to deny it-I know you cannot lie.”

No! I mouthed the word, but no sound came out.

Then you cannot deny it?” Cyric’s grasp tightened, and only Tyr’s protection kept my head joined to my shoulders. “Even you, Malik? First Tempus betrays me, then Talos and Shar, and Tyr next, and now you? Faithless cur!”

The One flung me at the bookshelf, which splintered beneath the impact of my pulpy body. I tumbled to the floor amidst a cascade of tomes, then looked up to see Cyric stomping across the room. With every step, the chamber trembled, and a stream of dust sifted down from the ceiling.

“You think the verdict will go against me?” Cyric kicked Fzoul’s bed aside and gave me no chance to shake my head. “You think Iyachtu Xvim will come for you on the Fugue Plain? How can you be such a fool, Malik?”

A beam cracked over his head, but Cyric did not appear to notice. “When the Harlot escaped Helm’s prison, she sealed her own doom-and the Usurper’s too!” He raised his skeleton’s claw and curled his bony fingers. “Without Mystra’s lies ringing through the Pavilion, I have the Circle in my grasp. They will bow down before me. They will kiss my feet, they will beg my mercy….”

These words filled me with the same hollow sickness as the first time I heard Cyric speak them. His vision was born of his madness, for even I knew the gods would level Faerun before they bowed down before the One. I gathered myself up and crawled across the floor, trying to reach the True Life, which I had left lying just beyond the trapdoor.