Prince of Lies - James Lowder [139]
A realization struck Kelemvor, a thunderbolt of hope. Perhaps the gods had finally mounted the uprising in the City ofStrife!
Kelemvor raised both fists to the sky. "Justice!" he shouted, the cry echoing in the wails of the doomed souls, "We will have justice!"
A huge book, as wide as a castle gate, burst from the ooze. The Cyrinishad, the title proclaimed in blood-red letters.
The cursed tome grew straight up into the mist, raining a shower of muddy droplets as it rose. Kel covered his face with a muscled forearm and cursed. When he looked up again, he saw the holy symbols carved into the black leather binding, the grinning death's-head in the center of the cover. The skull transformed, taking on Cyric's lean, hawk-nosed visage. The face of the death god looked out upon the befouled landscape and the myriad souls swirling through the air, but it was clear he could see nothing.
"Believe," the Prince of Lies intoned. "Believe."
Cyric repeated the word over and over. The chant echoed through the corrupted void, growing louder and more insistent with each repetition. A vortex formed in the air around the book, and it drew in the captive shades. The souls struck the book one after another. Their ghostly forms scattered into thin wisps of fog, which drifted like dead leaves to the mire. Godsbane shuddered as each soul settled into the ooze, their essence lost to her forever. Their cries lived on after them, ringing faintly through the mist.
The death god's image began to laugh.
Kelemvor stalked forward and lashed out with a fist. His blow scraped his knuckles raw, but also knocked a hole in the book's cover. Kel glanced up, certain he would see the death god's face contorted with anger. Instead, flakes of dried ink showered down around him as the wall quivered and shook with Cyric's mirth.
This is what's twisting Godsbane, Kel realized. The book is warping her somehow, causing all this chaos in her mind.
Bracing his feet as best he could, Kelemvor pressed a shoulder against the massive Cyrinishad. The monolith teetered for a moment then toppled backward like a door knocked from its hinges. The air displaced by its fall drove the mist away, so Kel had a clear view as Cyric's face struck the ooze.
The book shattered on impact with the mire. Some pieces floated for a time. Most were swallowed quickly by the mire. Cyric's cruel mouth remained intact, laughing until the ooze flowed in to choke off the grating sound. Kelemvor tried to gather some of the larger shards together in hopes of creating a makeshift raft, but each time he tested the platform's strength, it broke apart under his weight.
"You bastard, Cyric," Kel grumbled. "Couldn't even leave me that much, could you?"
Spattered with slime and grimy with dirt, Kelemvor trudged off. The cries of the annihilated souls echoed faintly over the quagmire. Yet the wailing didn't frighten him; it only made him that much more impatient to join the battle against Cyric, to make the Lord of the Dead and his treacherous blade pay for all the injustice they'd heaped upon him and the prisoners in the City of Strife.
When the ball of blue-white light appeared on the horizon, filling the sky with its brilliance, burning away the ooze and the ever-present blood-red mist hanging in the air, Kelemvor was certain he was seeing the fiery face of his doom.
"Midnight," he whispered. "I-"
The rest of the vow was lost, drowned out by Kelemvor's scream and the roar of the inferno as it engulfed him.
* * * * *
Cyric retreated to the massive slab of onyx that served asBoneCastle's main door. He backed against the stone, swinging Godsbane furiously. The short sword cut a gory path through a shade, but gained no sustenance from the soul. Despite all the carnage, she remained as pale as a bleached skull, her voice thin and rasping in the death god's mind. The