Prince of Lies - James Lowder [6]
One of Milil's bards paused in her song to stare at Gwydion. When the sell-sword met her gaze, she looked away, but not before he noted the terror clouding her eyes.
That fear proved contagious. A softly glowing ember, it flared in Gwydion's mind and burned away the shroud of uncaring still fogging his senses. What if Torm has taken my voice as the price of failure? A chill ran down Gwydion's spine. No, he reminded himself. I was tricked. Some mage – some very powerful illusionist – led me to my doom.
He shrieked and whimpered, but not a single word escaped his lips. The ember of fear burst, showering fragments of panic across his thoughts. He was cursed. Whoever had cast the illusion had stolen part of his soul…
Gwydion felt burning tears well up in his eyes, but when he tried to blink them away, he found he couldn't close his eyelids.
The shades of the Faithful jostled Gwydion as he broke into an aimless run, their souls as tangible as his own strangely physical form. Some prayed more fervently as the gibbering sell-sword shambled by. Others turned their unblinking eyes on the lost soul. They were struck by the sorrow etched on Gwydion's face, but fearful to cease their own murmured prayers to comfort him, lest they, too, be cut off from their gods.
Gwydion stumbled through the milling crowd. The faces blurred before his eyes, and the prayers became a meaningless cacophony. He grabbed a young woman wearing a silver disk of Tymora and shook her roughly. Someone had to lift the curse! In reply to his gurgled plea, the woman knocked Gwydion's legs out from beneath him with a sweep-kick then backed away.
"He looks like one of ours," came an inhuman voice.
"Nah. Just another of them cracked doommasters. Beshaba attracts that sort of trash."
The coarse, profane voices jarred against the sacred prayers, startling Gwydion out of his frenzy. He leaped to his feet and spun around, only to come nose to stomach with the most horrifying creature he'd ever seen. Its head had belonged to a huge wolf at one time, but the rest of its grotesque form had been patched together from a dozen other animals. Striped fur bristled in a mane that ran from between its pointed ears down its hunched ogre's back. Bright red scales plated the rest of the thing's body. It had a pair of human arms ending in hands that were little more than claws. These the creature rubbed together nervously. Four enormous spider legs waved and clutched the air beneath the other arms. Serpentine coils supported the monstrous torso, writhing and twisting beneath its bulk.
"You're cracked, Perdix," the beast said, saliva drooling from his wolfish jaws. "This one's for the city. It's obvious! Look at his face. He's been crying."
Perdix folded his leathery wings and hopped closer to Gwydion on a pair of skinny legs that bent backward at the knees. Rubbery yellow skin covered his body, which was as thin and wasted as that of a drought-starved child. With the single blue eye in the center of his wide face, Perdix looked up at Gwydion. "Well?" he asked impatiently, thin tongue flickering over gleaming white teeth. "Get praying, slug."
Frantically Gwydion tried to shove the little creature out of the way, but two sets of spider legs closed around his chest and pulled him backward. The wolf-headed thing glowered down at the sell-sword and placed clawed hands to either side