The Diamond - J. Robert King [25]
"You say what she was, and I believe you. Her mind spell nearly killed me, and yet…" He turned the grisly trophy over and over in his grasp. "I cannot shake the sense that what I met in the world of the dead was no false lady… no malicious trickery."
The change in his face was so subtle that no one there could have ascribed it to a shifting crease or a widening pupil. But all of them felt the silent agony underlying it. Piergeiron drew in a long, shuddering breath, and said, "To me, she was not a monster. To the people of Waterdeep, she was none other than my bride. She's gone, so what does it matter what she really was? To me, to the people, let her remain a vision of good."
Miltiades gazed down at his boots, clearly shocked and not knowing what to say. Rings and Belgin stood in respectful silence. Aleena looked at Khelben, back beside his kettle. Noph's eyes met the Open Lord's, and in the young hero's gaze dawned understanding and admiration.
"Hold," Khelben said gently. "Before this gem-bearing hand can be laid to rest, the soul within must be dispersed. I anticipated the truth of this diamond. There's only one sort of gem a doppelganger would cling to so strongly."
He took the severed hand from Piergeiron and held it up, his eyes glinting back its reflected light. "Now that we've all had at least a sip of the tea I brewed-a pleasant drink and protection against soul possession-it should be safe to discover just what Eidola might have to say for herself."
The company fell back to give the wizard room. A wide-eyed Miltiades lifted his now-cool cup and downed it to the dregs.
Khelben's hand began an intricate dance in the air about the jewel. Purple and green mists trailed his fingers with each arcane gesture. Then dark and menacing words came from his lips. Mists swirled around the stone. The incantation sounded again by itself, the words seeming to echo with the vicious barbed edges of ancient evils brought into the light of a new day.
Up from the mists swirled a cloud of smoke that shivered, rippled, and became a feminine face, eyes closed, high cheekbones almost too beautiful.
"Shaleen!" Piergeiron gasped in sudden hope.
The vision's eyes opened. Her pupils were vermilion slits, glowing with hatred. "All you wanted was me, Piergeiron. All I wanted was all you had. We could have done very well for each other."
"Begone, vile beast!" Khelben growled. "Let only the memory of your outward virtue remain!"
In the moment before Eidola's soul dissipated forever into the bright morning breeze, her humanity melted away. A gray-skinned, dull-eyed, wholly inhuman something stared hatefully at them all.
Interlude
Musing and Madness
I'm no longer dead, but on some level I must be mad.
Mad with loss, first for my Shaleen, and now for my Eidola. It's the privilege, perhaps the responsibility, of survivors, especially mad survivors, to remember the dead always, to reassemble them not out of trivial facts but eternal verities.
If we must all die-and we must, of that I'm sure-at least let what remains of us in the hearts and hopes and dreams of friends be what was best and brightest. Death can have the rest.
Perhaps I am mad, Miltiades, but let me mourn. Perhaps I am heroic, Noph, but do not overindulge me. Perhaps I am both mad and heroic, for what are humans but those who know they'll die and go on living, madly heroic? Whatever I am does not matter. Whatever she was does not matter. Judge if you wish and come to your own conclusions, Water deep. I ask one thing only…
Mourn with me.
Chapter 5
Having Met the Open Lord on Two
Previous Occasions,
Death Drops by for One Last Visit,
Delivers a Housewarming Gift, and
Heads Off to Other Engagements
Khelben watched from his all-too-accustomed spot in the balcony of the renovated chapel. There were solemn acolytes, of course, and glauren and all groaning their way through yet another dirge. This