Prince of Lies - James Lowder [29]
Jergal shook his head. No, Your Magnificence. I examined them myself. They are simple contraptions of metal and wood, like everything else the Gearsmith builds. The only thing unusual about the gifts is that the bearers had strict orders from the Shadowlord himself to present them to you in this room.
Face rigid with concentration, Cyric paced away from his throne and down the length of the long audience hall. Chained to the pillars along either wall were three hundred and ninety-seven souls that burned without diminishing – the scribes who had failed in creating the Cyrinishad. One other shade writhed in fiery torment: Bevis the Illuminator. He hung from the ceiling halfway between the throne and the doors, suspended spread-eagle by chains of red-hot iron. As they entered the hall, supplicants would hear Bevis's whimpers. The other Burning Men had long since screamed themselves mute.
Muttering incoherently, the Lord of the Dead stalked through the long shadows warping across the hall. He glanced up at some of the other trophies as he passed them, his mind veering wildly from his consideration of Mask's strange gifts. Here was a ghastly canvas painted by a worshiper of Deneir, the red and brown pigments nothing less than the blood of her children. Next to it hung an axe used to enforce the judgments of a mad king who ruled in the name of Tyr. A glass case at the base of one pillar held a single silver nail with which a man devoted to Sune had blinded himself after receiving a vision of the goddess, convinced he would never see anything so beautiful again.
In fact, much of the hall had been dedicated to displaying badges of other gods' shame. Cyric had meant these trophies to unnerve the deities when they visited, but in his isolation, they served only to remind the Lord of the Dead how easily worship could be twisted.
The greatest symbol of that truth was Cyric's throne itself. The Prince of Lies had built the hulking, grotesque chair from the bones of men and women who died mistakenly believing themselves saints – a worshiper of Chauntea who slit his wrists thinking his blood would make the crops grow faster; a druid devoted to Eldath who drowned everyone who wandered near a certain secluded pool because they upset the peace of the place; a knight of Torm who tortured anyone he caught in even the most insignificant lie…
As he approached his throne once more, Cyric stopped and stood absolutely still. Amongst the other relics was the hand of a Gondish ironsmith. The man had bled to death after lopping off his left arm in hopes of replacing it with a mechanical limb built from blueprints he'd dreamed the night before. As his lifeblood drained away, the smith raved about an army of unstoppable mechanical warriors, men in living Gondish armor greater than any artifact wrought by magic. The idea of Gond's machines making Mystra's weave superfluous was near to Cyric's black heart, and one he had discussed many times with Mask.
"Greater than magic," Cyric whispered. "Of course."
The Prince of Lies smiled and gestured to Jergal. "Pen and parchment," he said impatiently. He took the items that appeared in the seneschal's gloved hands and scribbled a lengthy note. "Take this to Gond," he told the phantasmal creature when he'd finished. "No one else is to know of this message. Make it clear to the Gearsmith this is so. Tell him I'll pay whatever price he asks, but the consignment is to be kept secret. See that the emissaries are killed before you go, but keep one of the arquebuses. That will be answer enough for the Shadowlord."
Bowing deeply, Jergal took the parchment and backed away, keeping his bulging yellow eyes fixed on the floor until he reached the doors.
The Shadowlord is a worthy Lord of Intrigue, Godsbane said once the seneschal had gone. A novice could learn much from him.
Cyric settled back in his grisly throne. "Actually, I was just thinking how much he's learned from me…"
A flutter of light appeared somewhere in a remote part of