Трой Деннинг - Prince of Lies

Numbly Gwydion turned his head to look out over the City ofStrife. The wall of writhing bodies encircled the hellish place, reaching high into the air. Denizens crawled or flew to the high ramparts. The bestial creatures carried screaming souls to be stacked atop the wall like so much cordwood. As far as Gwydion could see, he was the only one being taken down.

Inside the Wall of the Faithless, ramshackle buildings clustered in decaying boroughs. All these structures had been built on the same pattern: ten stories with square windows and a flat red roof. They only differed now in how ruined they were. In some places, huge fires engulfed whole blocks. In others, denizens tore the buildings down brick by brick, creating huge piles of rubble. Other denizens bombarded the boroughs from the air with javelins of lightning; these darksome beasts soared over the necropolis on massive wings of flame that cut through the choking shroud of fog like shooting stars.

And in the center of this destruction stoodBoneCastle. From this distance, the pointed white tower seemed to be nothing more than a distant church spire, a haven of law and peace that might be found in any city in the Heartlands. Yet Gwydion knew that, within its protective curtain of diamond and moat of black ooze,BoneCastleharbored the most dangerous agent of chaos. Thoughts of Cyric and the madness he'd glimpsed in the god's eyes haunted Gwydion the rest of the uncomfortable way down the wall.

"Awright," Af said. "End of the line." The denizen shrugged and unceremoniously dumped the shade onto his face.

Gwydion pushed himself up from the base of the wall, spitting a mouthful of dust. Here, the Faithless were quiet, having long since been crushed into immobility by the thousands of others atop them — and thereby conquered by the mold holding them in place. The sell-sword shuddered as he found himself leaning against the fungus-eaten features of a shade. Only the man's staring eyes remained free from the green mold covering him.

"Well," Perdix asked lightly, "now that we've got our ward, where do you want to start? The marshes on the far side of the castle?"

Af wrinkled his wolfish snout. "Nah. How about the Night Serpent's lair? She gets fed about now, and it'll be easier if we try to talk to her after she's eaten."

"She frightens me," Perdix said bluntly.

"But we have to see her sooner or later, right?"

"I suppose," Perdix sighed. "We'll do the marshes after that"

The two started away from the wall, Af slithering, Perdix hopping on thin legs. After a few steps, both denizens turned around. "Well?" Perdix asked. "You don't have any choice in this, slug. Come on." The denizen's tongue darted out between each word, punctuating the command.

Gwydion shuffled forward. There was no point in resisting; the denizens were Cyric's agents, and the Lord of the Dead had already proved to the sell-sword how completely he owned the souls in his domain. As he fell into step with Af and Perdix, Gwydion picked away at the mold that had worked its way into his matted blond hair and the rags that had once been warm winter clothes. The shackles had been removed from his wrists when they put him in the wall, yet Gwydion still found his hands incredibly clumsy. His fingers felt no more agile than stumps of wood.

The trio passed through dark alleys, where souls with indistinct yellow-gray faces and expressionless gray eyes huddled in doorways. Sputtering lamps set on windowsills cast sickly yellow light into the gloom, along with fetid black smoke that made Gwydion's eyes sting and his skin burn. Denizens passed in pairs, rousting the faceless shades or moving into the buildings themselves. These other denizens always gave Af a wide berth. Surprisingly, most of them nodded respectfully to Perdix, as well, offering solemn greetings to the diminutive creature.

"These shades all look alike," Gwydion observed dully after a time. His voice was a rasping whisper from screaming for release from the wall.

Deftly Af slithered to the top of a pile of broken stone that blocked the alley. "Yeah. So?"

"So how do we recognize Kelemvor when we find him?"

With two leaps, Perdix hopped over the mound. "Oh, we'll know him all right. There are only three sorts of beings in the City ofStrife: denizens, the False, and the Faithless. All the denizens — souls like me and Af here, who used to worship Cyric — are transformed when we arrive here into forms that'll be more useful in our new line of work." The yellow-skinned denizen flapped his wings proudly. "Makes it easy to tell the jailers from the inmates, too.

"Anyone stupid enough not to believe in the gods is stuffed into the Wall of the Faithless," he continued, "so we know where that lot can be found." Perdix folded his wings again and sighed. "That just leave slugs like you — the False, the people who didn't make the list for any god's eternal reward."

The alley emptied into a small plaza surrounded by more buildings. A shade wearing drab gray rags moved away from the denizens as they approached neither hurrying nor tarrying. Perdix gestured at the faceless soul. The False who came here before Cyric took over are easy to spot — they're the ones that look like this sorry slug. The old Lord of the Dead used to think it was the worst thing possible to forget your Me and your identity once you came here." The denizen laughed. "The new lord of the dead is a lot more creative than that. Anyone who arrived after Cyric claimed the throne retained his own appearance and has marks on his wrists from the shackles."

Gwydion nodded. "So Kelemvor will look like a shade, but he won't have any scars on his wrist."

"And he'll be roaming about, which is getting more and more rare," Perdix added. "Cyric's started locking the False into unique tortures created to punish whatever bad things they did in their life — like that slug there."

Gwydion followed Perdix's gaze to a spot in the center of the plaza. There, a soul stood chained to a statue of a river spirit. The scantily clad stone nymph held a jug from which poured a steady stream of water. Iron bands kept the soul's head and legs rigid against the stone, and his arms ended in blackened, scarred stumps too short to reach the sparkling liquid. The water rained down before the red-haired shade, fell to the parched ground, and evaporated.

Torture helps you slugs remember why you're here. The pain reminds you of every misstep you took that led you away from the truth of the world," Perdix noted as he hopped up to the shade bound to the fountain. "Like old Kaverin here. He thought he could outlive Cyric and outsmart him, too."

The red-haired shade opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out were wisps of blue flame. Kaverin's lifeless eyes grew wide as Perdix hopped beneath the water. The little denizen threw back his head and gulped mouthful after mouthful of the cool, clear liquid. Af soon joined his partner, and the two tormented the prisoner by soaking themselves.

"No drinks for you today," Perdix taunted.

Kaverin thrashed against his bonds frantically. His screams were gouts of fire.

"Yeah. None for you today," Af repeated, then gestured to Gwydion. "But you can take a drink if you want."

When the denizens stepped aside, Gwydion walked slowly toward fountain. A small silver cup lay at the statue's base, well out of Kaverin's reach. The sell-sword glanced at the denizens, but they merely watched without comment as he took the cup and filled it. He hesitated for a moment then brought the water to Kaverin's parched lips.

The red-haired shade flailed madly, knocking Gwydion onto his back. Over the laughter of the denizens, the sell-sword heard Kaverin curse vilely. "You bastard," he hissed, thin rivulets running down his chin. He spit the rest of the water at Gwydion. "They start all over again now — five years wasted! I didn't want the water. I didn't want your help. You'll pay-"