Sword of the Gods: Spinner of Lies

by Bruce R Cordell

  Demascus’s throat tightened as anger kindled. “No, that’s not true. I’m the Sword, or will be again soon. Who are you, angel, to gainsay me? I’m Demascus! And I determine my own fate!” He stopped talking because the charm had ceased glowing. It lay like a piece of faux jewelry on a floor which no longer seemed to tilt and upon which the ordinary light of day now lay in thin slats of dust motes. He blinked a couple of times as realization washed over him. The ritual had failed. Oghma, or an angelic minion, had terminated it before he could ask his questions.

  “Burning dominions!” yelled Demascus. “What is this? Have I been denied?”

  Yes, he had. His bid to find answers had been unceremoniously nixed.

  It … it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair! When the gods needed something, usually something terrible and secret, they contacted him, no matter the issue. Plucking him from wherever he was and whatever he was doing, no matter its importance. To help them. But when he needed help, nothing. A tremor sifted through him.

  It wasn’t just. Why did people worship, if not for hope of aid in a time of need? By all that was holy and sovereign, this was his time of need! Damn it all, he couldn’t even figure out how to recharge the dimmed runes on Exorcessum!

  Then it came to him why Oghma hadn’t answered his plea.

  The god of knowledge—like all the others—considered him a mere tool. Powerful and potent once, but a tool all the same, easy to discard once dulled or broken. And lacking the Whorl of Ioun, this was probably an apt description of his current state.

  “I’m more than the Sword,” he whispered, “I’m me. And I’m not a contrivance or a pawn.” The golden scroll in the floor appeared dull and common. He leaned over it. “I’m not a plaything!” he yelled, directing his fury at the trinket. “I’m Demascus!”

  He picked it up from the floor with unsteady hands. He should lock it away, throw it into the Sea of Fallen Stars … Or maybe feed it to a drake.

  “It might be time to renounce my service to the gods,” he told it. The scroll shivered, ever so slightly, in his grip—

  Someone knocked on the door. “You all right in there, Demascus?” came Riltana’s muffled voice. “We heard yelling.”

  Demascus went to the door and jerked it open. Riltana was there, and Chant. Down the hall in his living room he saw only Jaul’s dusty boots, propped up on his battered coffee table.

  “I’m fine,” he said, trying to modulate emotions that stretched him tight as a lute string.

  “That’s good,” said Riltana, “Because we have a visitor. And she’s furious.”

  “Who is it? Is it … Madri? Has she—”

  “No, it’s the queen. She can’t believe it’s been almost three days and we haven’t visited the mine yet. You’re in the shit, my friend.”

  THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANÛL

  19 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  MADRI DANCED WITH THE THUNDER ON FLICKERING steps, following the storm north. Out where the lightning split the sea, she watched the coast. Golden sun rays broke upon the cliffs like hope. But on the face of the wine-dark water, the stabbing light mirrored her fury. If she could’ve directed the jagged brightness into Fossil’s smooth facade instead, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

  Fossil! She despised the gods-abandoned thing. Ordering her around like a slave, threatening her with a return to nothingness should she fail to enact its least dictum … As if she wouldn’t have alerted the Norjah vampires to Demascus’s location anyway! Anything to trouble the deva, trip him up, and inflict him with loss. It galled her. If not for Fossil, she wouldn’t have any existence at all. If not for Kalkan’s slowly reanimating shell, she’d have no purpose. If not for …

  Wait. Hold on. The angel was a servant of Cyric. How could she believe anything it said? In fact … Her snarling grimace faded. Fossil, in trying to confuse her with half truths and battling lies, had once implied she was a ghost it raised. Then later it said she was formed by Demascus’s memories of her; that she was just a “figment.” Which sounded implausible, except for one salient point—she’d felt the twist in the core of her being when Demascus’s sword had split. Which suggested she didn’t owe her existence to Fossil or to Kalkan. Her spirit would have returned regardless, drawn across the years by her psychic residue released by Exorcessum. The only thing Kalkan had accomplished was to foresee her appearance, then guide her vengeance.

  A vengeance she would’ve pursued without any direction. Thus her alliance with Kalkan’s will and the all-too-active Fossil seemed perfect. On paper. In reality, though, she was done. Done working with the angel, done following the Swordbreaker’s plan. Her resolution brought a new pang; if she went her own way now, how would she make Demascus pay?

  The last salvo of the receding storm shivered the water like the echo of some unimaginable weapon. “I wish I had such a weapon,” she said. Then she smiled. Because, by all the spells of Halruaa, she did.

  Flicker.

  The secret crypt was silent. The mask was gone again, or hiding. If the latter, her plan would fail before it was begun. After all, maybe Kalkan had foreseen her eventual rebellion, too, in which case her actions were already calculated into Fossil and the Swordbreaker’s plan. She froze with indecision, one hand reaching for the Necromancer’s covering shroud. Madri remembered her last conversation with the mask. What had it said? Something about Kalkan’s prophecy being uncertain whether Exorcessum would split or not? Normally, divinations of the future blurred only a few hours forward, because nothing can anticipate all outcomes. Random acts cause event ripples, and ripples beget more ripples. Eventually, even a god’s ability to model possible outcomes failed.

  Fossil’s admission hinted that moment was fast approaching. Madri flipped the cover from the Necromancer’s face. “How can I most easily destroy Fossil, who is an undead revenant of an angel?”

  The painted regard shivered like a hive of wasps on the verge of disgorging its stinging colony. She swallowed down the imaginary contents of her stomach. “It is not within your power as you currently exist.”

  “So Fossil can’t be destroyed?”

  “I did not say that. It is a spirit tied to a physical relic of its prior existence. Sever that tie, and the animation ceases.”

  Madri wanted to punch her fist through the painting. For all the good that would likely do—she was immaterial. She squashed the urge and said, “If I can’t do it, who can?”

  “I could, if bidden. It’s only a matter of—”

  An acid voice overtopped the Necromancer’s papery revelation, “What are you doing, Madri?”

  Madri whirled. The mask hovered a foot from her, its empty eye slots an accusation.

  “Fossil! You … you startled me. I was just making sure the Necromancer was all right,” she said. Her words sounded like a child’s lie even to herself. She’d been caught, no two ways about it.

  “You were conversing with the Whispering Child. Which I expressly forbade you. You’ve grown headstrong, Madri, even more so than Kalkan feared. Unacceptable. And dangerous. It’s time—”

  “Aren’t you curious what the Necromancer told me?” she said, her voice high with nervous energy. The mask ceased speaking to study her. Though it moved not an inch, she imagined she could detect its conflict.

  Finally the mask said, “Anything you say is suspect. So let’s find out straight from the source, shall we? Madri, remove the cover.”

  The shroud obscuring the portrait had fallen back into place. Oh, gods, how was she going to get out of this? Should she flicker away? Could she, with the mask watching her? Its attention seemed to pin her manifestation in place. Maybe if the Necromancer distracted the angel, she could make a break for it.

  “Now!” commanded Fossil.

  She twitched the painting’s cowl away. Unlike before, the Necromancer was already very much awake—the textured lines of its brutal features seemed to breathe.

  “What were you telling this sad haunt, Necromancer?” said F
ossil.

  “Confidential,” answered the painting. “Only with permission will I disclose my dealings with any previous viewer.”

  Flicker.

  Nothing changed—she hadn’t gone anywhere.

  Flicker.

  Now she stood next to the heap of earth under which Kalkan lay. But she was still in the crypt with an irate angel fragment. Once more—

  The mask tilted its regard to her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  It wasn’t lying. Her ability to wink between moments was gone. But she convulsively tried to trigger it anyway, over and over.

  “Tell the Necromancer to tell me what it whispered to you, or your time is up.”

  “You’re going to destroy me, anyway.”

  “I can do it painlessly. Or in such a fashion that your soul is sliced away over the course of a thousand years in an Abyssal pocket plane. Which would you prefer?”

  “Necromancer,” she said with a shaking voice, “I bid you to demonstrate to Fossil what we last discussed.”

  The painting’s illustrated mouth puckered into what might have been a smile, though it just as easily could have been a contortion of torment. “Listen then, Fossil. This is a secret few know.”

  It started to chant. The words were unfamiliar to Madri, but their guttural tones suggested some kind of arcane tongue, or a language spoken by proto-beings of ancient ages. As each chanted couplet finished, its sound didn’t die away. The words remained in the background, drawn out in a long hum. Layer upon layer of words grew on the initial scaffold of sound, creating a texture of noise that she could almost see. The construct of ominous resonance reminded her of a gate.…

  Fossil stared raptly into the widening aperture, oblivious of its peril. Then the Whispering Child spat out the keystone—it sounded like the death throes of a wounded beast.

  The “gate” swung open. Only then did Fossil realize the demonstration was real, that it was the focus of the chant. “Necromancer, I command you to—”

  A skeletal hand three sizes larger than a human’s reached through the gap. The hand fumbled about the chamber as if feeling around inside a satchel for a spare coin.

  The mask screamed, “No! Not possible! Not—” Fossil should have kept quiet. The reaching fingers snatched the floating facade. A blast of radiant energy tinged with a nauseating swirl of necrotic mist enveloped Fossil. In that fell light, the mask blackened, bent, and broke into two pieces.

  The hand retracted. The fragments of Fossil clattered to the floor—two half masks, split in a jagged line down the center.

  The last echoes of the chant died away. No remnant of the “gate,” the skeletal hand, or Fossil’s cruel demeanor remained in the vault.

  Madri glanced sidelong at the painting, eyes half-lidded just in case the portrait’s regard was turned on her … but no. The Necromancer had apparently exhausted itself, and its painted eyes were closed.

  “Well, Kalkan Swordbreaker,” she said after many silent moments, “I bet you didn’t foresee that. Next time, pick better minions.” Whether “better” meant less rebellious or less dictatorial, she wasn’t sure.

  But the pile of soil had no answer for her. She suspected the rakshasa wouldn’t be thrilled that she’d destroyed Fossil. On the other hand, she supposed she’d still go through with Fossil’s plan to use the Necromancer to hurry the rakshasa’s passage through death and on to his next incarnation. In which case the Swordbreaker would be in her debt.

  “But first things first,” she said. “When I’ve finished with Demascus, he’ll wish he’d never been reborn.”

  THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANÛL

  20 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  CHANT MORVEN WATCHED WAVES BREAK ON THE SHIP’S prow and collapse behind the speeding vessel. An hour out of the Bay of Airspur and already the Akanûl coast was a haze across the southern horizon of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

  The pawnbroker squinted, for the dozenth time, at the elaborate wooden sculpture below the bowsprit. The figure’s shimmering green scales did nothing for its modesty, though he supposed any ship called Green Siren deserved just such a fantastic figurehead.

  But a painted and lightly enchanted piece of wood couldn’t hold a candle to the very much alive and angry queen standing at the ship’s prow. The queen’s stained leather armor and cape weren’t royal finery, but they bespoke martial competence and elegance in one go. The cape flared in the wind of the ship’s passage, cracking with occasional tiny lightning sparks. The ship’s captain stood near the queen, playing with his pipe and yelling occasional directions to his crew.

  Leaning along the rail, Jaul and Riltana traded off-color jokes. Riltana obviously had a far larger wealth of material to draw upon than poor Jaul. As for Demascus, he alternated between staring out at the sea and frowning at Arathane’s profile. Chant shook his head. If he’d been the recipient of the regent of Akanûl’s recrimination, he’d do more than frown. He’d cry.

  When the queen had appeared at Demascus’s home, she’d been seething. Chant imagined she’d had to restrain herself from slapping the deva when he finished his ritual and emerged from his chamber. She made an acid comment about how she hoped Demascus’s sleep had been restful, because the Four Stewards were drawing up war declaration documents against Tymanther for lack of any alternate intelligence on the mining disruption! Ouch.

  The deva didn’t offer any excuses about pursuing vampires, about the Demonweb, or about a ghost of a past victim doing who knew what with a necromantic artifact. He’d merely said, “Now that the storm is blown over, the ship I chartered can take us out to the mine.”

  Electricity rolled down the queen like water. “I’m going with you.”

  “That would—” began Demascus.

  “Because otherwise, how will I know you’ll actually go to the island? You might get distracted by a big fish or a boat race on the way.”

  Chant saw Riltana wince. The queen wasn’t the master of colorful invectives like the thief, but Arathane’s barbs dug deeper.

  Demascus’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. We can use another sword.”

  Spear, not sword, thought Chant as he looked at the queen’s armament. But he’d learned a long time ago that wry observations are not always appreciated in the spirit in which they’re offered.

  Thankfully, Jaul remained too awestruck by the ruler’s presence to offer up any witty repartee of his own. He was like Chant that way, but less practiced with the tact. So they raced across the sea, sails straining and resentments simmering. Onward to an uncharted place Arathane called Ithimir Isle.

  Captain Thoster cleared his throat. “Anything in particular I should be on the lookout for, Your Royal Highness?”

  The queen sighed. “Be ready for anything. Every force we’ve sent to investigate has failed to return.”

  The captain grunted, as if in surprise. He looked at Demascus. “Did you mention that? I think I’d have remembered if you mentioned that. We may need to renegotiate terms.”

  “Captain,” said Arathane, “I’m not unreasonable. Trust me that you’ll be justly rewarded for your aid. But now is not the time. Ithimir Isle is before us.”

  She pointed starboard. Chant and everyone else looked to the right of the prow, straining to locate what the queen indicated.

  “I don’t see anything,” complained Jaul.

  Neither did Chant, but he held his tongue.

  “No?” said the Queen. She hummed a few off-key notes, then said, “How about now?”

  “I … Yes!” said Jaul.

  Chant heard gasps spring up across the deck. A stretch of water peeled away, revealing a stone spur striated with a craze of chalky lines. The spur emerged from the sea at an angle, as if leaning. Chant guessed it wasn’t a natural island. More like some foreign chunk of bedrock cast into the sky that fell back to the world far from its origin. If so, it hadn’t happened long enough ago for the pounding waves to break the shear lines of the spur into a coast.

 
; “Where’s it from?” said Chant.

  The queen glanced back at him. “Very perceptive, Morven. Indeed, Ithimir is not a formation native to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Or even Toril. It came from Abeir, in the aftermath of the Year of Blue Fire.”

  “Ah.” Of course. Chant nodded. Like the genasi three generations ago. The people of Akanûl had become part of Faerûn’s economic and social fabric only since their arrival. And so, apparently, had Ithimir Isle—the economic fabric, anyway. However, a mysterious force of drow lusted after the same mineral hidden inside the stone spur that Akanûl so valued.

  Chant supposed that, given half a chance, he wouldn’t mind becoming a broker for such a valued substance himself. In truth, it hardly seemed fair, from a purely mercantile point of view, anyhow, that the state had claimed the entire mine, thus precluding all the potential profits to middlemen from arambarium sale and distribution.

  Once they finished here, perhaps he’d see if he could somehow ease his way into the operation. After all, he was on a first-name basis with the queen herself. Well, almost.

  A small port protruded from one sheer side of the isle, supported by dark pillars. A single extended pier was heavy with shadow. No activity stirred the port. A half-scuttled ship listed to one side of the pier.

  “Lay anchor!” commanded the captain. The dull clunk of running sea chain chipped the air.

  “What, here?” said Arathane. “We’re still a half mile off.”

  “You think I’m daft enough to risk this ship by putting into a port that’s already eaten at least two other expeditions? This ain’t my first ship, Your Royal Highness. I lost the first, and it made me careful. I don’t want to be out the coin to build Green Siren III. We’ll send you over in a skiff, and remain safely anchored here. Or maybe even farther back, now that you got me thinking about it.” The captain walked down the deck and called for his crew to make the skiff ready.