by Troy Denning
I went to the window and peered around the heavy drape. To my great relief, the moon still bathed the citadel in its pale glow, and the stars still burned in the purple sky. I studied the constellations to learn the time, then surveyed them again. Only an hour remained before dawn!
Hastily I looked out over Candlekeep, trying to guess where the book might be hidden. Below my window lay the fortress’s great ward, ringing the entire span of the citadel. Along its outer edge rose more buildings than I could count—stables, temples, workshops, sleeping quarters—all standing tight against the massive outer walls, all crammed full of Flaming Fists, Hellriders, and other defenders of thieving Oghma’s monks.
In the center of the citadel rose an outcropping of dark basalt, terraced into many levels and mottled with thickets of trees, and laced by winding paths and cascades of steaming water. Here rose the fabled towers of Candlekeep, scattered hither and thither across the hill, each at the end of its own path, each as tall as a titan. And atop the mount stood the mighty Keeper’s Tower, surrounded by a curtain of steam and looming above all the other spires.
At once, I knew where I had to go—not because the Keeper’s Tower was the safest place to guard the Cyrinishad, and certainly not because Ruha had gone there only moments earlier—I had no wish to follow that woman anywhere. I had to go because a soft, sinister rustling was hissing down from the great spire, filling my ears with a murmur as relentless as it was gentle. The Cyrinishad was calling; the book was a living, sentient thing, and it could sense that I was near.
As I watched, a wedge of yellow light appeared at the base of the Keeper’s Tower and shot across a drawbridge, silhouetting the veiled figure of the witch. She stopped to speak with the guard, and I remembered the token Pelias had offered her. Though the distance was too great to see if she displayed the emblem, I felt certain that only those bearing such wards were allowed inside the Keeper’s Tower.
I returned to Pelias’s side and rummaged through his robe until I found a small disk of bronze. My dear friend had served me yet again! I pulled the cloak over my head, then sliced away the bottom to avoid tripping on the hem, and then I felt the blood-soaked wool clinging to my stomach.
My hopes vanished in a breath. What sentry would let me pass with such a stain on my frock? And even if Tymora favored me and I somehow avoided the door guard, Ruha and Ulraunt would soon discover my escape and raise the alarm. And even if I found the Cyrinishad before they caught me, there would be Gwydion to deal with. Surely, he slept beside the book like a dog by its master. The moment I touched Cyric’s prize, he would leap up and slice me in half and send my poor soul on its way to Kelemvor!
Yet, I had no choice except to try. My desperation became my friend, for a hopeless man can try anything and lose nothing. I left with no clearer plan than this: to go to the Keeper’s Tower in all haste, slip through its halls in complete silence, and deal with anyone who challenged me just as I had dealt with Pelias. If at all possible, I would find the Cyrinishad and do as the Prince of Madness commanded.
I left the building by a side-window and crept a third of the way around the ward, slinking warily through the shadows beneath the outer wall. Then I thrust my dagger into its sheath and started up one of the many paths that meandered toward the Keeper’s Tower. Here I moved without hesitation; if someone observed me from a window, they would see only a monk walking along a trail.
Halfway up the hill, the path I had chosen bent in the direction of a lesser tower and ended there. I left the trail and went into the trees, and here the climbing grew much slower by virtue of the broken ground and the gloom beneath the low-hanging branches. A brook trickled across the hill, and in the confounding darkness I could not see whether it flowed left or right, or why it seemed to traverse the slope instead of rushing straight down. At once I lost all my bearings, and the world spun in the darkness. It tipped on its side, so that what had been up became merely forward and what had been steep became level, and the trees stood all about me at a slant, as though a stiff wind had battered them all their lives, and I remembered Cyric’s mad words at the Low Gate: “It depends on me, of course.… Nothing is certain until I have beheld it and set it in place, until I have placed myself above it or below, before it or after,” and I understood.
Then my feet grew light, and I rushed through the darkness, and not once did I trip or lose my wind. No longer was I climbing a hill. Now I was running across ground as flat as a beach, and I saw that this was a gift of Cyric’s words, and that his words had also given me another gift far greater: the means to reach the Cyrinishad from an unexpected approach. Whether this was his plan I did not know, but it braced me up; I felt as fleet as a gazelle and as strong as the bull that had gored me.
I broke out of the trees and saw the Keeper’s Tower looming up before me. At my feet lay a steaming moat, so hot that a flood of sweat poured down my brow and stung my eyes. The channel stank of brimstone and iron, and down beneath its white mantle I heard the water hissing like snakes.
I grew frightened, and the moat grew as wide as a river. The tower loomed like a mountain before me, its dark windows rising a thousand hands above my reach. I withdrew my dagger and felt Pelias’s token in my pocket—perhaps it would be best after all to cross the drawbridge and seek admittance from the door guard.
From down in the ward came the witch’s distant voice. “Alarm! Alarm!”
My dilemma vanished like smoke, for even with the token, no guard would let me pass now. I tucked my dagger back in its place, then closed my eyes and recalled Cyric’s words once more.
“It depend on me, of course …”
I imagined the world as he had described it, standing on its side. I pictured the plain and the sea as one great precipice. The tor beneath my feet became a long, jagged spur upon the cliffs face—a nose, as it were. Then I imagined the moat as a ring of white clouds encircling the end of this nose, and the Keeper’s Tower I perceived as a wart hanging on the tip.
When I opened my eyes, I saw what I had imagined. I grew dizzy and crouched down, clinging to the ground. My head whirled, for now the “ground” was the face of a cliff. To reach the tower, I would jump outward and down toward its curving walls, as if leaping onto a bridge whose end was anchored in a misty vale below. And then I would simply walk across that bridge! I pushed away from the cliff and dropped.
But I was not the One.
Everything did not depend on me. Indeed, all matters seemed entirely certain of themselves, regardless of how I beheld them. In an instant the steam became so thick I could not see my own flailing hands. My skin itched and burned in the caustic mist, and the hissing of the water drowned out the rustling of the Cyrinishad’s dark truths. I was astonished to hear my own voice howling out, and more so because the name I called belonged not to Cyric, but to my wife. Then I splashed into the moat.
I could scream no more.
The water scalded me from head to foot, and no words can describe the pain. My skin turned crimson and peeled away in great sheets. Weeping blisters rose over my entire body, which puffed up and grew as tender as a rotten tooth. My lips cracked and bled, my eyelids swelled and burst, and surely I would have died but for the strength that had been mine since Cyric poured that swill down my throat.
In the next moment I found myself clinging to a dark wall, with no recollection of how I came there. I tried to blink and found my eyelids fused open, though one side of my face remained so swollen from Cyric’s blow that I still could not see out of my right eye. My arms were red and blistered, and dotted with bloody patches. My hands were swollen and raw, with bits of skin hanging loose. My fingers were wedged between two blocks of basalt, and my feet were frantically scraping at the dark wall below. I bent my legs and felt my toes catch in a seam, and only then did I look up and see the high wall that soared into the heavens.
The Keeper’s Tower.
Had I been able to speak, the word could not be repeated here. My luck had turned from foul to grievous. Below me, the tow
er wall dropped straight into the hissing moat. From above came the incessant rustle of the Cyrinishad, filling my head and drowning out all other sounds. I had no choice but one.
I placed my dagger between my teeth, then wedged my fingers in the next higher seam. And then I began to climb, moving one trembling limb after the other, never trusting my weight to a hold until its security was certain. When I reached a seam too narrow to welcome my fingers, I used my knife to scrape the mortar away, then continued on.
Thus I proceeded, driven by terror, pain, and a madness that most certainly matched my god’s. A distant clamor rose in the ward as the monks and warriors answered Ruha’s alarm. I dared not look down for fear I would grow dizzy and fall. Nor did I worry that an archer would pluck me from the wall, for the shadows on my side of the tower were as thick as ink.
When I had ascended to a height twice that of a fire giant, I stubbed my fingers against the underside of a sill. With great rejoicing, I grabbed the window and pulled my chest over the bottom edge. My head became tangled in a heavy woolen curtain, but I barely noticed. For many moments, I could do nothing but lie in darkness and feel my heart pounding against the ledge.
From the far side of the tower came many muffled voices. A valiant party was rushing up to save the Cyrinishad’s bearers from my murderous blade, but what did it matter? Gwydion would slay me the instant I neared the sacred book, and I was sure enough of my own abilities to know he would need no help.
Had there been any safe place to hide, I would have gone there and forsaken the command of my mad lord. But hiding was futile. My enemies were pounding across the drawbridge even now, and they would search the citadel stone by stone until they found me. Moreover, I had made it this far, into the very heart of Candlekeep, with nothing but my own wit and the strength of Cyric’s elixir. Only a fool would have quit now!
I pulled the drape from my head and peered into the room beyond. It was black as a grave. I turned my good ear toward the gloom, trying to hear whether someone lay sleeping within.
Instead I heard the book, calling from above. The rustle of its dark truths grew louder, filling my head with the drone of a thousand hungry locusts. The stench of its ghastly parchment permeated my lungs; then a strange fever came over me. Nothing mattered but the book.
At once, I backed from the window and resumed the climb. A less truthful chronicler would claim that he chose this desperate path himself, knowing he would meet no one on the wall, while the stairs inside were packed with guards. I thought nothing of the kind. I only climbed, drawn upward by my obsession, and each time I pulled myself higher, the Cyrinishad’s touch grew more certain. My ascent became hurried and careless. Twice I slipped and caught myself with one hand, dangling by my fingers with my heart in my throat. Yet each time I pulled myself up and climbed even faster, determined to reach Gwydion’s chamber before the warriors arrived to wake him.
I came to two more windows. Sensing that the Cyrinishad lay higher still, I climbed to a third. Here the book’s stench was beyond compare. I reached for the curtain, and at once the rustling in my ears grew as loud as all the rasping throats in the City of the Dead begging for water. I drew the cloth aside so carefully that my heart beat a dozen times before I was done.
In this chamber, a candle sat flickering upon a table. By its light, I saw I had reached a small sitting room. There was a chair beside a table, and a shelf filled with books and fresh parchments. On my right, a small archway led into a second chamber, presumably reserved for sleeping. And beside this arch sat the Cyrinishad, still bound in its iron lockbox.
The Cyrinishad’s rustling quieted to a whisper, and I heard a small clink across the room. Gwydion himself stood facing the chamber door, staring at its latch! Perhaps the alarm had just reached his ears and he was not certain of what he heard, yet he already wore his full armor, down to his helmet and gauntlets, and I saw no sign of weariness in his bearing.
This puzzled me greatly—did the man never sleep? The answer, of course, was that he did not. I did not know this at the time—or I would never have entered the room—but Gwydion the Quick had been returned to life to watch over Rinda and the Cyrinishad. To assure the success of his mission, Kelemvor had blessed him with no need of sleep or of many other things required by common men.
I set my feet upon the floor and crossed the room as silently as a thief—or so I hoped. Gwydion heard nothing and reached down to open the door latch. I raised my dagger to strike, and he did not sense me until the last moment, when he glimpsed a strange shadow in the flickering candlelight.
He brought up one arm to defend himself and reached for his sword with the other. I leapt onto his back and, wrapping my legs around his waist, grabbed his chin from behind, pulling it high to expose his neck. My blade slipped up beneath his raised arm and found his throat, slicing at an angle down across the front. I pushed deep, cutting the many veins and arteries in his neck, opening the passage that carries air to the lungs and severing the strong muscles that hold the head in place.
A great rasp gurgled from Gwydion’s throat, then he went limp and tumbled backward onto the floor. Though there was a small jingling of armor, my body cushioned the fall and the noise was not as great as it might have been.
From the next chamber came a woman’s drowsy voice, still thick with slumber. “Gwy—Gwydion?”
The woman! Though I had expected some propriety, of course the trollop shared her chambers with the warrior.
“A thousand pardons.” I made my voice as deep as a well. “I am an ox.”
“Mmmmf.”
I lay still for a time and listened. Through the door came the distant murmur of voices and the tramp of boots running up the stairs below, but the woman’s room was quiet. I slipped from beneath the guardian and placed my dagger in my pocket, then lowered the drawbar across the chamber door. If I failed to notice that no blood had spilled from Gwydion’s wound, it was only due to my elation. I had found the Cyrinishad, and now I would redeem myself in the eyes of my god!
I went to the iron box and laid my hands upon its lid.
At once, a vision flashed before my eyes. Inside the chest I saw a tome of raven-black leather, embossed with grinning skulls and dark sunbursts. From the center of the cover glared a head the size of a child’s fist, with a stout silver chain stretched across its lipless mouth. The jaw began to work. A long black tongue darted out between its jagged teeth, but there was no sound. The book spoke in a way I alone could hear, by rustling its pages, rubbing them back and forth to beckon me near and release its terrible stench of decay.
The summons was almost more than I could bear. My knees trembled and my gorge rose until I could hardly breathe, and a terrible hysteria welled up inside me. My hands grew as numb as stone; tears poured from my eyes like rain, and, as a lamb before lions, I felt a wild urge to flee.
Then a sacred darkness hissed from the box and rose up to engulf me. The Flame of Knowledge burned my eyes, and the Dirge of Despair rang in my ears, and my tongue throbbed with the Perfect Anguish of Enlightenment. An icy fever coursed through my body, and I was struck by the full might of the Dark Truth, which is more than any mortal can bear. The marrow in my bones grew chill, and my stomach filled with cold nausea. I was seized by a dreadful revulsion, as though I had touched the living entrails of a man, and I grew so flushed and sick I nearly fainted.
This was hardly the rapture I had expected, but what did it matter? My god had commanded me to find the Cyrinishad, and now I had. All that remained was to deliver it.
I looked out the window and found the sky growing gray with the twilight that precedes dawn. Cyric’s trial was only minutes away, but I needed only a moment to take up the iron chest and fling myself through the window, and less time than that to call the Dark One’s name. I wrapped my arms around the box, which was as big around as a horse’s belly, and lifted with all my might.
A great pop sounded between my shoulders.
Thinking someone had slammed a sword p
ommel into my back, I spun around at once, and this twisting only doubled my anguish. I collapsed onto the box and bit my tongue to keep from crying out. Only then did I perceive that no one was behind me, that I had caused this injury myself. A great knot of pain formed in the middle of my back, then spread around my chest in a band as wide as a sword belt and made every breath an agony.
The guards on the stairs sounded nearer every moment, and somewhere below them, the witch began to shout orders.
Seeing that I would never lift the iron box, I realized that I would have to open it instead. Biting my tongue against the pain, I rose and went over to Gwydion and searched his purse for a key to the locks.
There were only coins. Though I had once loved them as much as my wife, they meant so little to me now that I flung away the silver and copper and kept only the gold. Then I took the candle from the table, pulled my dagger from my robe, and crept into the other room.
The woman’s chamber was a twin to the first, save that it had no door to the hall. The table had been moved to the window. On its surface lay a large book with a stiff leather binding, and also a fresh quill and an inkwell. There was no key.
The woman lay sleeping on a pallet in the far corner, squirming beneath her blankets. Her clothing hung beside me on a wall hook. I set the candle on the table and went in silence to search her garments. On my honor before the One and All, I swear I did this only to save time, and not because I was reluctant to murder her. If my hands trembled as I searched, it was only because Ruha’s muffled voice echoed up from the tower below, calling out for Gwydion.
When I found no key in the clothes, I turned toward the woman. A long bare leg had slipped from beneath the covers, and a silver chain encircled her neck, disappearing into the shadowy cleft beneath the blanket’s edge. I crept to her bedside and kneeled down beside her. Her dark, silky hair was spread around her head with beguiling abandon, and at that moment she smiled—perhaps she had sensed my presence in her dreams and took me for Gwydion. It occurred to me it might be wiser to let her live, as there could be some trap on the box she could warn me about.
