Prince of Lies - James Lowder [111]
To either side of the patriarch stood huge marble statues of Cyric. With heroically chiseled features and grandly carved robes of stone, the twin gods scowled at the gathered throng. Now, both marble deities were slowly drawing short swords carved of solid ruby from diamond-studded sheaths; the sound was like the earth splitting open across the entire horizon.
"No one in Zhentil Keep has served our lord well," the statues shouted in unison. They turned cold eyes on Xeno. "No one."
The patriarch stammered a prayer for mercy, but the statues had already returned their unblinking gazes to the gathered priests. "Know you all that the Lord of the Dead has withdrawn his beneficence from this place – until such a time as the entire city proves itself worthy of his most divine favor."
Stiffly the statues raised their swords. All across the nave, the silver bracelets worn by the priests to symbolize their enslavement to Cyric opened and dropped to the black stone floor. "You no longer serve the God of Strife and Master of Tyranny," the statues proclaimed in dead men's voices.
Some priests wept at the sentence; others merely stared in shock at the silver shackles lying open before them. They'd worn the bracelets for a decade, as the bands of pale, chafed flesh on their wrists showed. They could no more imagine moving without them than they could losing an eye or a hand.
"Please," Xeno Mirrormane shrieked as he tried in vain to fit the cuffs back over his wrists. "There must be some way for us to prove our worthiness."
The statues stepped off their ebon bases. They turned to either side of the temple and walked with ponderous steps from the apse to the aisles. There they each raised their swords once again, this time gesturing to the huge stained glass windows that ran along either wall. "There is one way, and one way only," the marble deities chanted. "Obey these commands before the army of his wrath descends upon you, and salvation may yet be yours."
All along the walls the tracery began to glow with a sickly crimson hue, as if the ruby swords had lit the decorative stonework around the windows on fire. Then light bled away from the dark stone, running down the stained glass like blood. The liquid fire burned away the gorgeously twisted images captured there – scenes of slaughter and strife perpetrated by the Prince of Lies and his minions – and replaced them with written rituals to be performed in Cyric's name. Each of the six gruesome rites demanded a different list of gory components and detailed a sinister use for the gathered tongues and eyes and hearts.
"This is your only hope." With that, the statues stomped back to their pedestals, sheathed their swords, and became stone once more.
Xeno Mirrormane broke the heavy silence in the temple with a hymn to Cyric's glory, and soon the whole congregation had joined him. Their god had turned away from them, but there was still a chance to win back a place in his kingdom. And regain the death god's patronage they would, even if it meant slaughtering everyone else in Zhentil Keep.
XVI
MIND GAMES
Wherein Rinda and the Prince of Lies have their
final meeting – at least in the mortal realms -
and Mask outsmarts everyone, even himself.
A chorus of fifty priests shuffled down the center of the twilight-shrouded street, croaking out a hymn to Cyric. They strained to form the words as best they could, but the charred stumps of their tongues choked them with every syllable. Their eyes, glazed with pain and rimmed red with exhaustion, stared blankly at the squalid surroundings. Xeno Mirrormane had allowed the priests little rest in the past three days, but such were the demands of the Fourth Service: Maim the voices of two score and ten of my faithful and send them to sing my praises along every alley, every path in the city that would be my holy refuge.
Rinda shook her head and continued down the street, away from the chorus. Gruesome spectacles such as this had become commonplace in the Keep since the Day of Dark Oracles, as Xeno Mirrormane and his priests struggled to