Prince of Lies - James Lowder [14]
The Wrath of Ao, the page before him declared in grand, noble letters. The section described how the overlord of the gods, angry at the theft of the Tablets of Fate, had banished the deities of Faerun from their eternal palaces in the heavens. The gods-made-mortal were forced to walk the world in mortal avatars until the tablets were returned. In their wakes, chaos and strife erupted. Magic became unstable, clerics could no longer call on their heavenly patrons to heal the sick, murder and violence seized even the West's most civilized nations and city-states.
This was all the stuff of history, and in the decade since the Time of Troubles, dozens of treatises had been written to explain the calamitous events. Bevis had even illuminated one, five years back. Yet something about this telling drew his interest. He felt strangely compelled to read on. Collecting the gatherings before him, Bevis sorted them into a ragged-edged pile.
The Theft of the Tablets – well, that goes before the section I just read, he thought. The Betrayal of the Guild – this history isn't limited to the Time of Troubles. It's about Cyric before he became a god! A Childhood in the Shadows. Kelemvor and the Ring of Winter. The Knightsbridge Affair…
Breathless, Bevis scanned the first page of each gathering. An illumination showed Cyric in his days as a young thief, sneaking up on an unsuspecting guard atop the black walls of Zhentil Keep. The next entry told of his first meeting withMidnight, the sorceress who would quest for the Tablets of Fate alongside Cyric, the cursed warrior Kelemvor Lyonsbane, and a vain priest named Adon. Little did Cyric orMidnightsuspect that first night in Arabel they would recover the tablets and be rewarded by Lord Ao with a place among the gods.
A violent miniature bright with the sheen of gold caught Bevis's eye as he turned to the next gathering. The artist had created a ghastly scene of slaughter in a halfling village. Zhentish soldiers spitted small women and children on pikes. The houses and barns burned in gold foil while severed heads with ink-black eyes looked on. And in the center of the carnage stood Cyric, a rose-red short sword clutched in his bloody hands. A halo of darkness foretold his future divinity.
The display script next to the gory scene proclaimed its topic simply: Black Oaks and Godsbane.
So it came to pass that Cyric freed himself from the company of the whoreMidnight, the preening Adon of Sune, and the cursed swordsman Kelemvor Lyonsbane. He gathered around him, in the days that followed, a small force of Zhentilar and made them prophets of his ascension. He crossed the Heartlands with these soldiers, striking down any who challenged his vision of a world free from the hypocrisy of Law and Honor.
The blood of doubting kings stained their blades the brains of foolish sages spattered their armor. Yet each shattered skull or riven heart recruited twin heralds to Cyric's cause. In the mortal realms, the corrupting corpses reneged their challenges to his greatness with silent screams and faces frozen with terror. In Hades and the other heavenly realms, the newly liberated souls arrived with a proclamation: Make ready, for a god comes who will take all the vast universe for his domain.
Once his message had spread and the people realized that freedom could only be earned through Might, Cyric found himself welcomed as a conquering hero by many cities and towns. They hung garlands around the necks of his men and presented lavish feasts in his honor.
Yet some isolated hamlets – like the halflingvillageofBlack Oaks- remained blind to Cyric's glory. The stunted creatures that dwelled in Black Oaks shunned him and threatened to call down the wrath