Prince of Lies - James Lowder [140]
Cyric cursed the thought of the goddess as he slashed another shade across the face.
The diamond walls had been taken, the denizens routed from their posts by spectral night-terrors. Even now the death god's bestial minions writhed in pitiful fear before the phantasms. Denizens cowered in every corner, hid beneath anything that could offer them shelter. It did them no good; the nightmares slipped into their minds, driving the valor from their corrupted hearts.
These are Dendar's brood, Jergal said as he floated to Cyric's side. A shade charged the seneschal, but he opened his cloak wide to embrace the attacker. The damned soul vanished into the darkness with a short gasp of surprise.
"Of course they're Dendar's!" Cyric snapped. "Why shouldn't she be in on this conspiracy, too?"
The Prince of Lies held his left hand out and spread the fingers wide. A sudden gale blew across the bailey, the wind stripping the flesh from both armies. One of the armored shades, leading the battle from atop the wall, tumbled backward at the blast. He sank into the Slith, where the creatures lurking there drew him out through the slits in his helmet, one piece at a time.
Cyric slumped back against the door, momentarily weakened by casting the powerful spell. He had no doubt that the war proceeded as Mystra and the others had planned. His worshipers in Zhentil Keep were deserting him in droves – just as he needed their devotion most to drive the damned from the gates ofBoneCastle. And through it all, Cyric's other churches, the needy faithful of all his disparate offices, tugged at his mind. Their calls for aid and guidance threatened to draw too much of the death god's fragmented consciousness away from the City ofStrife, but to deny their prayers would be to risk sacrificing their worship.
The battle quickly swelled to fill the bailey once more as denizens retreated from the damned. When they saw their master, Cyric's minions did not rally. They stumbled toward him, over the windswept bones of their brethren. "Save us, great lord!" they cried. "The Chaos Hound is loose in the city! Kezef fights on the side of the False!" Come, my lord, Jergal said.
The seneschal dared to lay a gloved hand on the god's form. When Cyric didn't object, Jergal guided him away from the battle, into the castle's entry hall. The drow-spun tapestries fluttered nervously against the bone walls, as if they could sense the threat to their fragile hideousness. The darksome things that lurked below the crystal floor cowered at Cyric's passing. During their eternal captivity, they'd witnessed the downfall of other gods; now they could see the blade of doom poised over the Lord of the Dead.
"Ah," Cyric muttered. "The gods show their true colors now, forging pacts with Kezef." He began to howl with sudden fury. "They wear facades of purity and honor, but underneath they've got the faces of assassins."
Godsbane stirred weakly in his mind. Yes, my love, but you will reveal them for what they truly are.
The soothing words passed into the tangle of Cyric's thoughts unnoticed. His mind was caught up in a firestorm of rage, which blew from one fragment of his consciousness to another, turning them away from their vital tasks. Bloody revenge was all Cyric could consider. Mystra and Mask, Torm and Oghma, they would all be forced to grovel before him. He'd turn the Circle against them, have them humiliated, stripped of their offices – and then he would murder them one by one…
As the Prince of Lies lingered in his fancies of divine carnage, cracks began to snake across the crystal floor, and the walls of bone began to tremble and sway. Jergal hurried Cyric through the skull-lined judgment hall, only to find the Rolls of the Dead tumbling from their carefully ordered places. The parchment scrolls, upon which the seneschal had recorded the fate of every soul imprisoned within the City ofStrife, crumbled to dust before his unblinking eyes. The doorway to the throne room,