Prince of Lies - James Lowder [49]
Cyric remained in Sembia for two more years. Astolpho's business faltered, his social connections withered. Subtle shows of disdain became open displays of scorn. When Cyric, now at an age when he should have been learning his father's trade, confronted his parents about his origins, they offered no excuses for their actions – though they noted more than a little regret at having taken a Zhentish child into a civilized home. When Cyric threatened to leave, Astolpho and his wife didn't raise a hand to stop him.
Servants from Astolpho's house found the bodies of the vintner and his wife the next morning. From the small, muddy footprints around their beds, it appeared that someone had crept into the room and murdered them in their sleep. Such was Cyric's blooding, a cowardly strike against an elderly rich man and his overfed wife.
In the days that followed, Cyric made his way north, through Sembia, toward the black walls of Zhentil Keep. There, he thought, the murder of his parents might buy him acceptance. Yet the young man had little experience in surviving outside the tapestried walls of a merchant's home; within a tenday, he was at the edge of the Dales, close to starvation and delirious from fever.
What happened next may have been Tymora smiling on the unfortunate boy, or Beshaba raining more hard luck on him. Whether good fortune or ill, the Zhentarim agents that happened on Cyric in the wilderness saved his life. They also put him in chains in preparation for the slave markets at their final destination – Zhentil Keep.
So it was that Cyric returned to the place of his birth, once more bound in chains, once more at the mercy of slavers and merchants…
VII
PANDEMONIUM
Wherein Mystra and her patriarch debate the
limitations of godhood, and the Prince of Lies
demonstrates the true power of chaos.
With her grip of ice, Auril the Frostmaiden had plunged Cormyr into the coldest days of a long and bitter winter. Snow lay thick over the entirekingdomofAzoun IV. There would be no sight of green for months to come. The country, like much of Faerun, slept under death-white cerements – except for the gutted shell of Castle Kilgrave and the lands that surrounded those stony ruins.
The snow and ice had vanished from those hills, replaced by a green and lush carpet of life. Jungle foliage spread in riotous tangles around tranquil fields of gorgeously hued spring flowers. Birds too hearty or sickly to fly south for the winter frolicked amidst suddenly ripe fruits and abundant seeds. Confused badgers and rabbits nosed cautiously from their burrows to wander across the verdant hills, their winter coats stifling in the springtime warmth.
Then, without warning, the mock spring fell away, and the Frostmaiden's cruel fingers spread winter across the land once more. Birds plummeted from the sky, killed by the slash of icy winds sweeping across the fields. Flowers bowed beneath ever-deepening snowdrifts. Vines and trees and hedges withered under a cloud-filled iron-gray sky. Animals cowered against the gale, their homes hidden from them by a thick carpet of sleet.
The cold wind intensified, even beyond Auril's wont, and shrieked across the hills like a grief-maddened banshee. In an instant, the trees and shrubs and every other hint of spring were swept from the land. The stiff corpses of birds were blown up into the sky. The blast stripped the fur and flesh from the rabbits, leaving tiny ice-limned skeletons huddled in the shadows of snow mounds.
Such was the way of wild magic.
"I can't believe it has been ten years," Adon said sadly. "We watched the Goddess of Magic die here a decade ago. Who'd have thought it would cause all this?"
The cleric pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, though there was little need. The globe of magical energy surrounding him and his companion kept out the cold and shielded them from the wind. "It really