Spinner of Lies

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

19 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

Madri danced with the thunder on flickering steps, following the storm north. Out where the lightning split the sea, she watched the coast. Golden sun rays broke upon the cliffs like hope. But on the face of the wine-dark water, the stabbing light mirrored her fury. If she could’ve directed the jagged brightness into Fossil’s smooth facade instead, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

Fossil! She despised the gods-abandoned thing. Ordering her around like a slave, threatening her with a return to nothingness should she fail to enact its least dictum … As if she wouldn’t have alerted the Norjah vampires to Demascus’s location anyway! Anything to trouble the deva, trip him up, and inflict him with loss. It galled her. If not for Fossil, she wouldn’t have any existence at all. If not for Kalkan’s slowly reanimating shell, she’d have no purpose. If not for …

Wait. Hold on. The angel was a servant of Cyric. How could she believe anything it said? In fact … Her snarling grimace faded. Fossil, in trying to confuse her with half truths and battling lies, had once implied she was a ghost it raised. Then later it said she was formed by Demascus’s memories of her; that she was just a “figment.” Which sounded implausible, except for one salient point-she’d felt the twist in the core of her being when Demascus’s sword had split. Which suggested she didn’t owe her existence to Fossil or to Kalkan. Her spirit would have returned regardless, drawn across the years by her psychic residue released by Exorcessum. The only thing Kalkan had accomplished was to foresee her appearance, then guide her vengeance.

A vengeance she would’ve pursued without any direction. Thus her alliance with Kalkan’s will and the all-too-active Fossil seemed perfect. On paper. In reality, though, she was done. Done working with the angel, done following the Swordbreaker’s plan. Her resolution brought a new pang; if she went her own way now, how would she make Demascus pay?

The last salvo of the receding storm shivered the water like the echo of some unimaginable weapon. “I wish I had such a weapon,” she said. Then she smiled. Because, by all the spells of Halruaa, she did.

Flicker.

The secret crypt was silent. The mask was gone again, or hiding. If the latter, her plan would fail before it was begun. After all, maybe Kalkan had foreseen her eventual rebellion, too, in which case her actions were already calculated into Fossil and the Swordbreaker’s plan. She froze with indecision, one hand reaching for the Necromancer’s covering shroud. Madri remembered her last conversation with the mask. What had it said? Something about Kalkan’s prophecy being uncertain whether Exorcessum would split or not? Normally, divinations of the future blurred only a few hours forward, because nothing can anticipate all outcomes. Random acts cause event ripples, and ripples beget more ripples. Eventually, even a god’s ability to model possible outcomes failed.

Fossil’s admission hinted that moment was fast approaching. Madri flipped the cover from the Necromancer’s face. “How can I most easily destroy Fossil, who is an undead revenant of an angel?”

The painted regard shivered like a hive of wasps on the verge of disgorging its stinging colony. She swallowed down the imaginary contents of her stomach. “It is not within your power as you currently exist.”

“So Fossil can’t be destroyed?”

“I did not say that. It is a spirit tied to a physical relic of its prior existence. Sever that tie, and the animation ceases.”

Madri wanted to punch her fist through the painting. For all the good that would likely do-she was immaterial. She squashed the urge and said, “If I can’t do it, who can?”

“I could, if bidden. It’s only a matter of-”

An acid voice overtopped the Necromancer’s papery revelation, “What are you doing, Madri?”

Madri whirled. The mask hovered a foot from her, its empty eye slots an accusation.

“Fossil! You … you startled me. I was just making sure the Necromancer was all right,” she said. Her words sounded like a child’s lie even to herself. She’d been caught, no two ways about it.

“You were conversing with the Whispering Child. Which I expressly forbade you. You’ve grown headstrong, Madri, even more so than Kalkan feared. Unacceptable. And dangerous. It’s time-”

“Aren’t you curious what the Necromancer told me?” she said, her voice high with nervous energy. The mask ceased speaking to study her. Though it moved not an inch, she imagined she could detect its conflict.

Finally the mask said, “Anything you say is suspect. So let’s find out straight from the source, shall we? Madri, remove the cover.”

The shroud obscuring the portrait had fallen back into place. Oh, gods, how was she going to get out of this? Should she flicker away? Could she, with the mask watching her? Its attention seemed to pin her manifestation in place. Maybe if the Necromancer distracted the angel, she could make a break for it.

“Now!” commanded Fossil.

She twitched the painting’s cowl away. Unlike before, the Necromancer was already very much awake-the textured lines of its brutal features seemed to breathe.

“What were you telling this sad haunt, Necromancer?” said Fossil.

“Confidential,” answered the painting. “Only with permission will I disclose my dealings with any previous viewer.”

Flicker.

Nothing changed-she hadn’t gone anywhere.

Flicker.

Now she stood next to the heap of earth under which Kalkan lay. But she was still in the crypt with an irate angel fragment. Once more-

The mask tilted its regard to her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

It wasn’t lying. Her ability to wink between moments was gone. But she convulsively tried to trigger it anyway, over and over.

“Tell the Necromancer to tell me what it whispered to you, or your time is up.”

“You’re going to destroy me, anyway.”

“I can do it painlessly. Or in such a fashion that your soul is sliced away over the course of a thousand years in an Abyssal pocket plane. Which would you prefer?”

“Necromancer,” she said with a shaking voice, “I bid you to demonstrate to Fossil what we last discussed.”

The painting’s illustrated mouth puckered into what might have been a smile, though it just as easily could have been a contortion of torment. “Listen then, Fossil. This is a secret few know.”

It started to chant. The words were unfamiliar to Madri, but their guttural tones suggested some kind of arcane tongue, or a language spoken by proto-beings of ancient ages. As each chanted couplet finished, its sound didn’t die away. The words remained in the background, drawn out in a long hum. Layer upon layer of words grew on the initial scaffold of sound, creating a texture of noise that she could almost see. The construct of ominous resonance reminded her of a gate.…

Fossil stared raptly into the widening aperture, oblivious of its peril. Then the Whispering Child spat out the keystone-it sounded like the death throes of a wounded beast.

The “gate” swung open. Only then did Fossil realize the demonstration was real, that it was the focus of the chant. “Necromancer, I command you to-”

A skeletal hand three sizes larger than a human’s reached through the gap. The hand fumbled about the chamber as if feeling around inside a satchel for a spare coin.

The mask screamed, “No! Not possible! Not-” Fossil should have kept quiet. The reaching fingers snatched the floating facade. A blast of radiant energy tinged with a nauseating swirl of necrotic mist enveloped Fossil. In that fell light, the mask blackened, bent, and broke into two pieces.

The hand retracted. The fragments of Fossil clattered to the floor-two half masks, split in a jagged line down the center.

The last echoes of the chant died away. No remnant of the “gate,” the skeletal hand, or Fossil’s cruel demeanor remained in the vault.

Madri glanced sidelong at the painting, eyes half-lidded just in case the portrait’s regard was turned on her … but no. The Necromancer had apparently exhausted itself, and its painted eyes were closed.

“Well, Kalkan Swordbreaker,” she said after many silent moments, “I bet you didn’t foresee that. Next time, pick better minions.” Whether “better” meant less rebellious or less dictatorial, she wasn’t sure.

But the pile of soil had no answer for her. She suspected the rakshasa wouldn’t be thrilled that she’d destroyed Fossil. On the other hand, she supposed she’d still go through with Fossil’s plan to use the Necromancer to hurry the rakshasa’s passage through death and on to his next incarnation. In which case the Swordbreaker would be in her debt.

“But first things first,” she said. “When I’ve finished with Demascus, he’ll wish he’d never been reborn.”