Prince of Lies - James Lowder [77]
Kelemvor was tempted by the reassuring touch of the woman's hand against his shoulder, the solid feel of the stone floor beneath him, but he didn't give in to the seduction. "You needn't have bothered," he said. After pushing himself to his feet, he made a precise half turn and counted his steps to the corner of his imagined room. "What I create with my mind is just as real as what you're offering – but I never confuse it with reality. I wonder if you can say the same?"
He didn't wait for an answer, wouldn't have heard Godsbane if she'd bothered to parry the insult. Eyes fixed straight ahead, Kelemvor began to mark out the walls of his prison. The steady rhythm of his steps echoed through the void like the solid strike of hammer and chisel against stone, cutting grave markers for the souls swallowed by the chaos.
XI
INQUISITOR
Wherein Gwydion the Quick dons the god-forged
armor of an unholy knight of Hades, and the
Prince of Lies unleashes his clockwork
inquisition upon the mortal realms,
with frightful consequences for Rinda
and her fellow conspirators in Zhentil Keep.
Gwydion had lost all sense of pain long ago, after the workmen had stripped each and every muscle out of his back. By the time the metal spring replacements had been hammered into his spine, the agony had become so great the shade had passed beyond the threshold of his senses. Now his mind had separated from his undying form. He watched the inhuman smiths pound away at his body from a vantage just above the long, dirty trestle table where he was laid out. To either side of his disembodied, floating essence, the ever-burning bodies of failed scribes hung suspended as ghastly chandeliers. The flickering light from the Burning Men cast weird, flowing shadows over the bustling operation below.
A clockwork golem, bronze and burnished like a princess's favorite mirror, leaned over Gwydion's body. The mechanical smith slid iron pincers into the flayed forearm and locked them onto the last bone buried beneath the flesh. With a tug, he wrenched the bone free. A smaller golem, wrought of silver instead of bronze, took the gory bone and tossed it into a pile of similar trophies.
This is the last of the core parts," a burly man mumbled through a beard as tangled as Cyric's mind. He studied the gold bar in his hands, running greasy, callused fingers over it with affection. "From here it's easy stuff – aligning the limbs, setting the outer plates…"
The master smith slid the metal rod into the spot left by the bone then ratcheted it in place. The bolts secure, he dropped the ratchet and drew a more delicate tool from his stained and tattered apron. With this he carefully slipped the gears into play at the elbow and wrist. Finally he stepped back, gesturing for his clockwork assistants to hook up the last of the spring-muscles and close the incisions.
"I suppose I should be honored to be here," the burly workman said. His voice seemed hollow and metallic, almost as if he were talking inside a steel-walled box. "I hear tell you haven't invited a fellow god into your throne room in quite some time."
Cyric gave Gond his best deprecating smile, certain the God of Craft would never notice the slight. The Wonder-bringer was very much like his worshipers – long on strength and a certain cunning when it came to things mechanical, but short on the sort of devious intelligence the death god found challenging. "I thought you should be the one to put the armor together," the Prince of Lies said.
"I don't think any of my minions could have done the job properly."
Grunting noncommittally, Gond turned his attention to a wickedly horned helmet. He detached the rounded top from the bevor and set about adjusting the thin needles that lined the inside of the helm's lower half. A sudden clatter of metal on the stone floor brought a flush to his sooty cheeks and a spark of anger to his iron-gray eyes. "Careful with that, you stupid walking safe!" he snarled. One of the golems – a box with long arms and four thin legs – bowed a stiff apology and hefted the fallen