Bruce Cordell: Spinner of Lies

“That’s preposterous.”

“Is it? The pantheon of Toril faced enough problems-the last thing they needed was an assassin whose power, at its height, might be sufficient to remove a god from the holy rolls. Or whose intimate knowledge of their private vendettas could be used to shake up earthly temples.”

Demascus shook his head. He couldn’t imagine that a version of himself could ever be so powerful that the gods would fear him. Although …

In several visions of former incarnations, he had to admit he’d felt … calm, sure, and at peace with what was essentially an unstoppable capacity to harm others. He’d been more than human, like a demigod given mortal form. His pale skin, marked with jagged patterns, set him slightly apart from others, but the grace and certainty that suffused his every word, his every movement, might as well have been … divine. When he was moved to action, godlike power had flowed through him to smite his foes, and sometimes it felt as if the eyes of a god looked out from inside his skull …

“They’re using you, Demascus!” pressed Fossil. “They don’t care about you. You’re a tool to them, one they deliberately keep blunt. They don’t deserve your service.”

He recalled his attempt to contact Oghma, and how he’d been rebuffed. Already angry, new resentment burned like a fire in his belly. “What’re my options?”

“Don’t listen to it!” Madri protested. “It’s a servitor of the Prince of Lies!”

Prince of Lies? That was dramatic. The name sounded familiar, though. But she’d had her chance to tell him herself. She hadn’t. “I’ll hear it out, nonetheless.”

Madri gave an exasperated sigh. “Don’t be an idiot, Demascus!”

Jaul smiled. “Your best option,” said Fossil’s voice, “the most ethical option, really, is to learn all the terrible things the gods of Toril have asked you to do over the centuries. I am the doorway through which you can gain that knowledge. All you must do is join me. Do you think murdering Madri was the worst thing you’ve done in the name of divine justice? You’d be wrong, Demascus. So very wrong.”

A chill ran across Demascus’s limbs and some of his anger evaporated. “Join you? What does that entail?”

Demascus reflected that the mask probably didn’t have his best interests at heart. Its very first act in the deva’s presence had been to mentally dominate Chant’s son. And the title, Prince of Lies … something about that name swam forward in his memory, trying to break to the surface. Something to do with skulls.

“It’s simple, really. You’re a deva. When a deva decides to seize his own destiny and break free of the moral shackles that so many bear, he gains a great boon. Such a deva takes on a new, fiercer visage.”

Demascus felt his jaw literally drop. He knew what Fossil was getting at: when a deva renounces his moral code, at his next incarnation he returns as a fiend, not a man. He comes back as a rakshasa!

“More important,” continued Fossil, “such a deva finally remembers all his previous lives, all his triumphs, and all the abilities he’s learned through the ages. If you join me, Demascus, I’ll give you all your memories back and all your power. Kalkan will no longer be your nemesis but your ally. And you’ll be able to take your vengeance on the gods who’ve reduced you to such a sad, forgotten cinder of your former glory.”

Demascus slowly nodded …

“Why’re you nodding?” Madri said, her tone incredulous.

“Actually, I just remembered where I’d heard the title ‘Prince of Lies’ before,’ ” he said. “The Prince of Lies is the formal title for a god named Cyric.” The floor seemed to drop beneath his boots.

The painting stirred again. “Cyric, the Prince of Lies, god of Strife, seeks to court your next death … Just as his deceits caused you to kill where you would not have otherwise …”

Madri interrupted. “You killed me because of a lie, Demascus.” Her eyes shimmered with unwept tears.

Oh, no. It would be nice to think the Necromancer was mistaken. But that was the logic of a three-year-old. Close your eyes and hope the scary things go away. He tried one more time, anyhow. “Fate is a power greater than the gods.” Wasn’t it?

The painting kept speaking. “… you imagine gods and men writhe in equal futility against Fate’s decree … but Fate is only inertia … one may always change one’s own destiny, or another’s, if one tries hard enough …” And then the Necromancer’s awful tones faded to nothing. Was it possible? Could Cyric have denied Fate by contracting the Sword to slay Madri with a lie? Was such a thing possible, even for a god? Maybe not all gods, but possibly one whose sphere of influence was duplicity. A liar god could probably bluff the universe itself …

Demascus felt raw and sick with the sudden certainty of it. All the lives he’d ended, all the bodies discarded to rot-how many had been true selections of Fate? And how many had been murders he’d been duped into committing? His brain convulsed around the name: Cyric. He saw a jawless skull on a purple sunburst. Then another piece of former knowledge surfaced: The Prince of Lies was trapped!

He protested, “Faerun’s pantheon imprisoned Cyric in his throne. He’s bound. How can he lie to me, or to anyone?”

The Necromancer’s tombstone voice rang out again. “Demascus killed Madri a lifetime ago, before the Prince of Lies was so chained … Cyric foresaw his own captivity … he set in motion a plan to forge a key, a weapon with powers that eroded in each cycle of death, powers so deadly even a god might fear its reach … Cyric sought to turn you to his own ends and make the Sword of the Gods that weapon with a lie …”

“That’s one way to look at it, painting; the wrong way,” said Fossil. “But sometimes a lie is a tool, a means to an end. In this case, it was a gift. A gift designed to return to you all your forgotten power and full self-knowledge. The lie made you kill Madri unwittingly. But now you know. And if you embrace what you’ve done, now that you possess full knowledge of the significance, you can cast off your manacles.”

Horror made Demascus’s scalp tingle. He knew what Fossil was going to suggest. It was terrible. And yet …

“Claim the act, make it your own without remorse! Then return in your next incarnation as a rakshasa, with power beyond imagining, knowing all the gods’ secrets in this world and in others. Join Cyric, and you’ll shake the foundations of the cosmos!”

The raw power Fossil offered woke something in Demascus: the echo that lived like a splinter in his soul. The Sword had heard the angel’s offer. It wanted to return in full measure, clothed in its old glory but not yoked by the Whorl of Ioun to the gods’ will. He was halfway there already-he’d already lost the Whorl. All he had to do was to embrace his dishonorable deeds. A rush of grim joy sparked up his spine, and he grinned. His eyes fastened on the heap of earth. Under there lay the seed of the Swordbreaker’s new body.

“What of Kalkan?” he said.

“Having achieved his end, he’ll trouble you no more.” said Fossil.

“You can’t be considering his offer!” accused Madri.

Demascus ignored her. He-or was it the Sword of the Gods? — wouldn’t allow Kalkan to get off so easily. The rakshasa had killed him more times than he knew. And once Demascus regained all that had been stripped from him, he’d remember every death. He doubted he’d be feeling generous toward the Swordbreaker then. His grin stretched wider. Then he imagined the furred, bestial monstrosity of Kalkan. And of the bodies Riltana had once shown him upstairs, stripped of flesh, hanging to rot as if in a madman’s larder.