Prince of Lies Read online

  Gwydion licked his lips nervously. “I’ve heard stories of Alban Onire, but—” He glanced at the sparkling armor, the peaceful expression on the corpse’s features. “But he died centuries ago.”

  “This place has been made holy in honor of Alban’s great deeds,” Torm said. He, too, turned to gaze on the fallen knight. “His soul is at rest, but his body will not return to dust until someone worthy comes forward to take his place as bane to giants and dragons.” Slowly he held a hand out to Gwydion. “Once you were blessed in my sight. You can be again, but only if you shake off your cowardice and take up the burden of Alban’s legacy.”

  The sell-sword tried futilely to keep his surprise from his face. At first he couldn’t imagine why Torm would choose him. His mind raced, searching for some reason for this great honor. He’d fought bravely as a Purple Dragon, facing death a dozen times on the crusade alone. Perhaps that was enough. Stories of other blessed warriors flooded his mind, tales of men and women empowered by the gods to be their agents in Faerun. It didn’t take long for those visions of glory to overwhelm his doubts.

  “Lord, I am not worthy,” Gwydion said, though he was now certain he deserved whatever honors Torm might heap upon him. He solemnly fell to one knee in a show of humility.

  Torm gestured with his own rose-hued short sword. “Rise, heir to Alban’s greatness, and claim your blade. Some bards call it Titanslayer, and with good reason. No giant may harm you so long as you wield this sword. One touch of its enchanted steel will topple the mightiest titan. Use it well.”

  Gwydion moved to the edge of the bier, lifted the scabbard, and drew the sword. The weapon was weighted perfectly, its grip solid and reassuring in his hand. He slashed the air. The blade moved like an extension of his arm or even his very soul. He smiled and held Titanslayer up so he could watch the light dance up and down the keen edges of the silver-white blade. With this sword, he could carve a wide place for himself—for Torm, he corrected hastily—in the history of Faerun.

  “Thank you, O holiest—” He swallowed the remaining words and looked around in shock.

  Torm was gone. So was the body of Alban Onire. Gwydion stood alone in a small dark cavern, the only light in the place coming from the chute to the surface. He reached out with chill fingers for the bier, finding a rough outcropping of stone that held a few ancient bones and some rusted pieces of armor. I’ve allowed Alban to go to his rest at last, the mercenary thought proudly.

  He gripped the sword and, feeling reassured by its weight, strode to the chute. A circle of dim light marked the top—sunlight, the sell-sword realized with a start. The God of Duty and the sharp blade of Titanslayer had captivated him far longer than he’d imagined.

  Bracing his legs against one wall, his back against the other, Gwydion struggled up the incline. Trickles of water slicked the stone, making the climb perilous. He slipped twice. Both times the accident sent him back a few feet before he managed to stop his descent Once, Titanslayer slid from its scabbard, but he caught the hilt before the weapon tumbled back into the darkness. As he gently replaced Titanslayer in the scabbard, the sell-sword had a fleeting vision of Torm’s wrath. It took him a long time before he could still his trembling enough to continue.

  Finally he scrambled out of the chute, into the fissure that had first sheltered him from Thrym. Gwydion felt fatigued from the long climb, but anticipation of the fight to come gave him renewed strength. He peered out of the rocky scar and spotted his foe.

  Thrym lazed against the cliff, dozing in the early morning sunshine. The few crows left in the clearing hopped along his arms and legs, feeding on the insects in his filthy clothing. A mouse peeked out from under the giant’s breastplate, causing a flurry of activity. The crows darted after the rodent, but Thrym started awake at the hungry cawing. He swatted at the birds, and they scattered into the sky. Only when Thrym’s rumbling snores once again shook the yew shrubs and drowned out the murmuring river did the crows land and renew their feast.

  “In the name of Torm, stand and face me!”

  Slowly the giant opened his ice-blue eyes and stared down at the little man standing before him. After a moment, he rubbed his entire face with one beefy hand. When Thrym looked again, much to his surprise, the thief was still there.

  “It is my duty as a knight of Torm to allow you the chance to surrender,” Gwydion said.

  The giant lurched to his feet, and the sell-sword had to fight the urge to flee back to the hole in the ground. Instead, Gwydion tapped the long-unused well of his courage. He felt the cold waters of resolve still his trembling soul, douse the ember of panic burning in his breast.

  “I should warn you,” Gwydion announced grandly, “I wield Titanslayer, bane of all evil giants. You cannot harm me while I have this sword.” He held the weapon high, marveling at how the sunlight played off the blade.

  Thrym narrowed his eyes in confusion. He reached for his axe, which lay against the cliff like a toppled tree, and hefted it to strike. “Mad as a tarrasque,” he muttered and brought the axe down.

  Gwydion saw his sword arm hit the ground an instant before he felt the giant’s axe cleave his shoulder. The limb convulsed, and the fingers released the long, blackened bone they held so desperately. There was no Titanslayer, no gift from the gods. Then the pain shrieked through the sell-sword’s chest, along with the dim realization that he was lying in the snow, covered in his own blood.

  “Torm,” Gwydion whispered as the giant brought his axe down for the killing blow.

  I

  LIFE UNDERGROUND

  Wherein an unexpected journey leads Gwydion the Quick to the maker of his doom, and the mighty Torm dutifully attempts a defense of the dead man’s honor.

  Fervent voices filled the air. Cries of joy, hopeful whispers, and murmurs thick with a desperate longing for salvation merged to become a blanket of sound over the Fugue Plain. The tangled weave of voices held a certain weird power, soothing in its constancy, exciting in its boundless optimism. Such were the prayers of the recently dead.

  “Silvanus, mighty Oak Father! Gather me into the great circle of trees that is the heart of your home in Concordant!”

  “We are the Morninglord’s children, born again into his eternal care. Let us rise, Lathander, like the sun in spring dawning, to renew our spirits at your side!”

  “O Mystra, divine Lady of Mysteries, this servant of your great church asks humbly to be shown the secrets of magic, to be taken into the weave of sorcerous power that enfolds the world!”

  In the clear sky over the endless, chalk-white plain, a burst of light announced the arrival of a god’s herald. The hulking, golemlike creature was a marut, carved from a block of onyx as large as any castle in Cormyr, ensorceled to do the bidding of its divine creator. It hovered above the throng and studied the assembled souls with a pair of eyes that burned like sapphires in its round, stony face. Wide plates of armor and intricately carved bands of hammered gold could not hide the marut’s broad shoulders or thick-muscled arms. Its aura of resolute power, of unyielding strength, likewise could not mask the glint of wisdom in its steady gaze.

  The souls crowding the endless plain looked expectantly up at the marut The herald presented one massive hand in a sign of benediction. As it spread its blunt fingers wide, a blue-white nimbus appeared against the marut’s dark palm. The soft glow grew, forming a circle of stars. Red mist flowed in a thin stream from the circle’s center.

  The shades recognized the holy symbol. From all parts of the Fugue Plain, a cry went up: “Mystra!”

  Jagged shafts of light erupted from each of the thousand stars and seared the plain in a sudden hail of lightning. The bolts struck the worshipers of the Goddess of Magic, blasting away the cares and concerns that had hardened like shells around their souls in their years of mortal life. The servants of Mystra cried out joyously. Bathed in the power and love of the Lady of Mysteries, they stretched their arms wide and floated up toward the circle of light. One by one, Mystra’s faithful
became like glittering stars. When all had been lifted from the crowd, the herald closed its hand and disappeared.

  As one voice, the souls on the Fugue Plain resumed their chants: “Hear my sword upon my shield! I summon you, O Lord of Battles, and demand my commission into your great army in Limbo. My victories in your name are legend, the host sent to this field of the dead before me without number. Astolpho of Highpeak fell to my ever-sharp blade, and Frode Silverbeard. Magnes, son of Edryn, and Hemah, foul knight of Talos.…”

  Gwydion the Quick stared at the armor-clad man as he hammered his sword against his riven shield. The warrior bellowed a seemingly endless list of names, pausing only to shout for Tempus to rescue him from this dull place. Gwydion had stumbled across other worshipers of the war god on the Fugue Plain. They were all the same—boastful of their victories and anxious to join the god’s army, where they could spend the rest of eternity in glorious, unending combat.

  The sell-sword mournfully shook his head and shuffled away. On every side, men and women sent up prayers to their patron gods. Bards and rangers dedicated to Milil formed huge choruses, chanting their praise of the Lord of All Songs. A solitary devotee of Loviatar moved through the throng, scourging himself with a barbed whip, oblivious to all around him. The bards momentarily parted for this frenzied shade, discord overwhelming their song. The interruption soon passed, however, and the praise of Milil floated once more into the air, born aloft on harmonies so perfect they soothed even the savage minions of Malar the Beastlord.

  And in the midst of this tapestry of sound, Gwydion the Quick found himself mute.

  He’d appeared on the Fugue Plain some time ago, though he found it hard now to tell how long. At first the sell-sword dared to hope he’d dreamed his death. After all, his body seemed solid enough. His sword arm was attached to his shoulder again, the other fatal wounds miraculously healed. The fur-lined cloak he’d bought for the trip to frigid Thar was free of bloodstains. Tunic and breeches and high leather boots all seemed perfectly new.

  But images of his severed arm lying on the frozen ground and Thrym’s bloody axe descending for another blow still dominated his memory. Gwydion need only call these vivid scenes to mind to know his fate had been sealed. He had passed beyond the realms of the living, into the lands of the dead.

  The notion neither frightened the sell-sword nor awed him. From the instant he’d found himself standing in the midst of the teeming throng, a thick shroud of indifference had clouded his thoughts. He moved in a fog, taking in the strange sights and sounds as if they were no more unusual than those to be found in any marketplace in Suzail.

  Gwydion understood just enough theology to identify the crowded expanse around him as the Fugue Plain. Long ago, in his days as a Purple Dragon, he’d guarded a diplomatic caravan to Bruenor Battlehammer, dwarven lord of Mithril Hall. A traveling priest of Oghma had bored him witless during the trek north with complicated explanations of the route a soul took on the way to eternal peace. Now, Gwydion would have given almost anything for a lecture on what lay in store for him beyond the Fugue Plain.

  Turning his back on the worshipers of Milil, the shade tried once more to call on Torm. The words came out as a horrible croak, just as they had each time he’d attempted to pray—to Torm the True or any other god. He couldn’t even form the litany in his mind. In vain he fought to remember the prayers, but the words simply vanished from his thoughts before he could focus on them.

  One of Milil’s bards paused in her song to stare at Gwydion. When the sell-sword met her gaze, she looked away, but not before he noted the terror clouding her eyes.

  That fear proved contagious. A softly glowing ember, it flared in Gwydion’s mind and burned away the shroud of uncaring still fogging his senses. What if Torm has taken my voice as the price of failure? A chill ran down Gwydion’s spine. No, he reminded himself. I was tricked. Some mage—some very powerful illusionist—led me to my doom.

  He shrieked and whimpered, but not a single word escaped his lips. The ember of fear burst, showering fragments of panic across his thoughts. He was cursed. Whoever had cast the illusion had stolen part of his soul.…

  Gwydion felt burning tears well up in his eyes, but when he tried to blink them away, he found he couldn’t close his eyelids.

  The shades of the Faithful jostled Gwydion as he broke into an aimless run, their souls as tangible as his own strangely physical form. Some prayed more fervently as the gibbering sell-sword shambled by. Others turned their unblinking eyes on the lost soul. They were struck by the sorrow etched on Gwydion’s face, but fearful to cease their own murmured prayers to comfort him, lest they, too, be cut off from their gods.

  Gwydion stumbled through the milling crowd. The faces blurred before his eyes, and the prayers became a meaningless cacophony. He grabbed a young woman wearing a silver disk of Tymora and shook her roughly. Someone had to lift the curse! In reply to his gurgled plea, the woman knocked Gwydion’s legs out from beneath him with a sweep-kick, then backed away.

  “He looks like one of ours,” came an inhuman voice.

  “Nah. Just another of them cracked doommasters. Beshaba attracts that sort of trash.”

  The coarse, profane voices jarred against the sacred prayers, startling Gwydion out of his frenzy. He leaped to his feet and spun around, only to come nose to stomach with the most horrifying creature he’d ever seen. Its head had belonged to a huge wolf at one time, but the rest of its grotesque form had been patched together from a dozen other animals. Striped fur bristled in a mane that ran from between its pointed ears down its hunched ogre’s back. Bright red scales plated the rest of the thing’s body. It had a pair of human arms ending in hands that were little more than claws. These the creature rubbed together nervously. Four enormous spider legs waved and clutched the air beneath the other arms. Serpentine coils supported the monstrous torso, writhing and twisting beneath its bulk.

  “You’re cracked, Perdix,” the beast said, saliva drooling from his wolfish jaws. “This one’s for the city. It’s obvious! Look at his face. He’s been crying.”

  Perdix folded his leathery wings and hopped closer to Gwydion on a pair of skinny legs that bent backward at the knees. Rubbery yellow skin covered his body, which was as thin and wasted as that of a drought-starved child. With the single blue eye in the center of his wide face, Perdix looked up at Gwydion. “Well?” he asked impatiently, thin tongue flickering over gleaming white teeth. “Get praying, slug.”

  Frantically Gwydion tried to shove the little creature out of the way, but two sets of spider legs closed around his chest and pulled him backward. The wolf-headed thing glowered down at the sell-sword and placed clawed hands to either side of his head. “You heard Perdix,” he hissed. “Let’s hear your best holy day shout”

  As before, a pitiful croak escaped Gwydion’s lips when he tried to call on Torm.

  Perdix shook his head. “For once you’re right, Af. I was certain he was a doommaster. They’re always getting into rows with Tymora’s lot.” He held out a set of night-black manacles. The iron rings clicked open, revealing sharp spikes pointed inward. “Now let’s not have any trouble from you, slug.”

  One glance at the shades nearby told Gwydion he was alone in this. The others had turned their backs on him, leaving him to his two hideous captors. The Faithful close by formed a wide circle. They had their faces turned to the sky, their hands clenched together in white-knuckled devotion or crossed devoutly over their unbeating hearts.

  Gwydion cursed them wordlessly and struggled against Af’s implacable grip. His panic had subsided to a slow-burning dread, allowing him to think a bit more clearly. The endless hours of drill on Suzail’s parade grounds came back to him then, his training in hand-to-hand combat. He laced his fingers together and pounded Af in the jaw. At the same time, he drove both heels down on the creature’s snaking coils.

  Af growled in annoyance at the blows, but silently reminded himself there would be trouble if he twisted the prisoner�
�s head off. Instead, the denizen bit down on Gwydion’s hands as he raised them to strike again, clamping his jaws just hard enough to pierce the flesh.

  In that instant, Gwydion realized the giant’s axe hadn’t liberated him from pain.

  “Tsk. Isn’t that always the way?” Perdix sighed. “No matter what I say, you slugs try to fight anyway.” He hopped high off the ground and clamped the manacles onto Gwydion’s wrists.

  As the iron rings clanked shut, their spiked interiors bit into flesh. Then, as if the taste of the shade’s essence had suddenly woken them from rusting slumber, the spikes twitched to life and burrowed deeper still. They dug into bones, twisted sharply, and shot straight up Gwydion’s arms. Blinded by the pain, the shade screamed a long, yowling wail of agony.

  For the first time since Gwydion’s arrival on the Fugue Plain, the sounds from his throat rang clear and true.

  * * * * *

  When the haze of pain cleared from his eyes, Gwydion found himself in a noisy crowd gathered outside a great walled necropolis. His whole body ached terribly, but the manacle spikes seemed to have stopped driving into his arms. Af had a clawed hand clamped on one of Gwydion’s elbows. Perdix held the other in cool, webbed fingers. A charnel house stench hung over everything. Gwydion found tears streaking down his cheeks, not from the pain in his wrists, but from the choking smell of death and decay seeping into his nose and mouth.

  The gates towering before him would have dwarfed Thrym or any other giant in Faerun. Dark and foreboding, they reached up into a sky swirling with red mist. To either side, past the hulking gatehouses, high, pale walls stretched to the horizon. He was too far away to be certain, but Gwydion thought the walls were moving. It was almost as if each brick were shifting constantly, writhing as though it were alive.

  All around the sell-sword, the crowd of whimpering, bawling shades pushed closer to him. Each had been bound at the wrists by manacles, and, like a reluctant steer before a slaughterhouse, every damned soul was herded along by a pair of monstrous denizens. The creatures were kin to Perdix and Af, but only in their sheer grotesqueness. They’d been formed by insane mixings of animals and men, plants, or even gems and metals. They flew, slithered, and crawled along, prodding their prisoners with suckered fingers or jabbing them with sharp spines.