Spinner of Lies

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SOMEWHERE IN THE ASTRAL SEA

A LONG TIME AGO

The peak shivered beneath a sky of endless silver.

The mountain was a divine domain, an island of tranquility adrift in the Astral Sea. A god’s benevolence suffused each new day with peace. Or once had. Trouble had come to this particular paradise. A devilish entity determined to claim godhood for itself assaulted it.

The summit shuddered as if waking from sleep. It groaned as if finally letting go of a burden carried for too many years. Then the mountain roared in full-throated agony. As a wave breaks, the pinnacle broke, and an avalanche of snow and stone splashed downward, enrobing the mountain in a lengthening garment of roiling mist.

Not nearly far enough down that slope, Demascus fought. Golden light leaked from the Whorl of Ioun on Demascus’s left thumb. Exorcessum flashed in his grip. The Veil wrapped his left forearm, and a dozen god-given charms dangled from his braided hair. He was the Sword of the Gods. His role was to terminate those who had been selected by gods and fate to die.

However, that day his burden was not to slay; it was to save.

Demascus stood beneath the lintel of a silver gate that opened into the mountain’s heart. The gate trembled with the domain’s turmoil. But while he stood in its mouth, the gate could not collapse. The arch-shaped charm he wore in his hair prevented it. The gate had already suffered a dozen voracious assaults from lesser cataclysm dragons roused by devilish pacts. And he had broken each new attack on the length of his blade.

Terrified souls streamed from the gate’s mouth. Dressed in sheer robes of white and gold, and having spent uncounted years in the warm embrace of their divine benefactor, they were unprepared for cataclysm. Yet they grasped at even the smallest chance for survival. Demascus was providing that opportunity. As the refugees reached the gate, they were pulled up into the sky by servitor angels and ferried away like a cloud of dandelion seeds in the wind. Most would escape. But only if Demascus proved his worth.

A louder roar pierced all the others. The deva’s eyes rose to the tumbling line high above. The distant avalanche was approaching with alarming speed, for it contained another cataclysm dragon-on an order of magnitude more dangerous than those he’d so far reduced to rubble. It writhed within the mountainside on the move, a part of the greater disaster surrounding it. Its wings were the vanguard of pounding stone, its voice the bellow of suffocating rock, and its lashing tail the enveloping pall of dust that would eventually settle on the defeated. Draconic only in broad outline, it was an animate collection of jagged stone, snow, and packed ash. The dragon’s eyes, fangs, and claws were diamond crystals, flashing with static discharge.

“Lords of light and shadow!” said Demascus. Even for one such as him, who had seen so much, this enemy was something unique. Despite the fact that he stood half in light and half in shadow, completely wrapped in his power, the deva knew a moment of disquiet. The creature was more than cataclysm-it was final apocalypse. The Veil of Wrath and Knowledge revealed its name: Nebiru the Falling Star. The Whorl of Ioun provided the rest in windings of quick recollection. Nebiru was an apocalypse dragon-a catastrophic wyrm who’d lived too long and grown too powerful.

Somehow Nebiru had been persuaded to leave its lair of lightless hollows that composed creation’s debris. Which meant that no matter what he did, Demascus was fated to lose this fight. And the god whose subjects the deva was charged to protect … were as good as dead.

“Whorl of Ioun,” he said. “Remember.” The ring on his finger became like ice as it pulled in fragments of moods, scenes, and, most important, abilities that Demascus had unlocked in his latest incarnation. It was an imperfect vessel of all his previous selves. Nearly half of his personal memories were lost in each transfer. But the rest survived. The ring was the bridge to becoming himself again.

“Exorcessum, find me when I fall so we’re reunited again in a future far from here.” Though he didn’t have to command his sword-his implements would find him again regardless-he had flashes of recollection of other objects that had occasionally turned up every few incarnations: a silver belt, a cape of shade, and sometimes a dull metal strongbox with a relief of skulls and flower petals. Those hadn’t appeared this time. Why? Impossible to know. Just like he didn’t know how, or even remember who had first given him his panoply of weapons and items, or why he’d been selected to receive them. They were simply part of him. They came with his office: Sword of the Gods.

The runes of his blade glimmered as the avalanche of the apocalypse above thundered closer. Each time he took a divine commission, the runes were renewed. Which was convenient-at least, it would be to the version of himself that would next wield Exorcessum.

The evacuation was half complete when Nebiru fell on Demascus. He accepted his lot-his task had been to try, not to succeed. The refugees exiting the silver gate screamed as they, their angel porters, and Demascus their protector were covered in a mountain’s worth of glacier, crushed rock, and ash exhaled from the maw of an apocalypse dragon.

Demascus opened his eyes on darkness. Images of animate stone and sliding snow chased around his mind like maddened gnats. Without connection, without context, and without any clear relationship to anything, the images accumulated and drifted across his consciousness …

He coughed up grit. He tried to spit, but his mouth was too dry. Why was it so dark? He shook his head to clear his brain fog. Where was he? More important, when and who was he? He remembered fighting a drow matron and … an unbeatable end-of-days dragon. Both had dropped a death-dealing amount of rock on his head. But … which one was most recent? In which incarnation was he? His heart thudded as he wrestled with the fear of being unmoored from himself. He couldn’t see anything. Something pinned his legs. The air was thick, not just with dust, and each breath felt like a foot on his chest. It was going bad, he realized. If he didn’t escape, it would be academic which incarnation he was …

The fact that he was still alive told him a great deal, actually. And the nature of the stone around him was revealing; it wasn’t rearing up, animate and hungry to smother him. Which argued that his memory of the mountaintop was a fragment recollection only. Memories of Akanul unfolded in his mind’s eye. Chant, Riltana, the city of Airpsur and its stormy queen … Yes. He sighed in relief, then coughed. No wonder he was confused; Chenraya had dropped a cavern roof on him! His subconscious had matched it up with an earlier incarnation’s similar experience. He pushed away the unwanted memories of trying to save flashing, angelic beings blowing into a silver sky. It wasn’t him. It happened a long time ago. Just a dusty recollection. And one where he’d died in a rock fall.

That’s not going to happen here, he thought. I’m going to live.

He tried to move his legs again. Nothing doing. Merciful lords, please don’t let that be what happens here. Demascus concentrated on his heartbeat. Still too fast, but it was proof that life still clung to this shell. And he wasn’t helpless. Far from it. And …

“Veil of Wrath and Knowledge,” he said, his voice cracking with thirst. “Are you with me?” A glimmer ran through the threads of fabric wrapped around his left forearm. “More,” he urged it. The wrap brightened like a turned-up lamp wick, until golden light spilled across Demascus.

He was in a cramped space. The ceiling was a mass of boulders. They were lodged against a massive stalagmite that’d fallen next to him. The entire cavity was probably only five feet in diameter, and half that tall. One of Exorcessum’s hilts was just visible, protruding from a drift of gravel, just beyond his reach. And …

His legs were caught under the same stalagmite that had partially shielded him. But he had light. Which meant even the shadow of his own reaching hand could serve him.

He slipped into the crack of dimness the shadow offered. Quick as blinking and he’d shifted a half pace. His legs were free! But he still couldn’t feel them. He thrashed, and they moved. He bent down in the cramped space and slapped his thighs, hard. He imagined curling and uncurling his toes. A faint tingle came first, which heralded the onslaught of tiny daggers. He smiled, not minding the pain. It meant his legs had only gone to sleep under the weight of the fall, not been crushed to pulp.

“Now … lords of shadow, how am I going to get out of here?” He pulled himself over uneven rubble, staying clear of an ettercap’s splayed arm. The greater part of the creature’s body was beneath an oblong boulder. He didn’t feel sorry for it. He might soon be joining the thing. At least it had died quickly, probably instantly. He might linger for hours, gasping at the bad air, until he passed on.

Demascus assumed Chenraya had stayed well clear of the collapse. If she triggered it, then she’d undoubtedly done so only to trap him. She’d known they were coming, or that someone like them would investigate. More important-was he close enough to the edge of the fall to dig himself free? He couldn’t use shadow to escape; he had to see where he was going to travel between discontinuities of light. His bubble of stale air was completely sheathed in stone.

He probed the boulders making up the boundary of his confinement, looking for anything promising and hoping the prodding wouldn’t bring the whole thing down. He made a complete circuit of the tiny enclosure but located nothing. Worse, he was having a harder time catching his breath. He was quickly losing air. Better not think about that. Yes, if he died, he’d return in a few years-but everything he’d learned in this life would be gone.

If only he had that ring. The twisted band appeared in so many of his past-life flashes of memory. Apparently the Whorl didn’t contain every detail of his life, but it did hold all the Sword’s powers and skills. Discovering why, of all his implements, the ring had failed to show up this time around was something he should probably figure out. Assuming he lived through the next hour. If he didn’t, he’d start back at square one. The thought was almost physically painful.

He grabbed the single visible hilt of Exorcessum and pulled it from the grit. It was the blade with white runes. The runes brightened and lifted slightly from the blade, save for the two that remained dark. Knowledge of where the other blade lay under the detritus seeped into him, becoming a certainty when he dug with his free hand and found the red-runed blade’s hilt. He pulled it free. Demascus crossed the two blades before him so they lightly touched. Then he gazed at each rune in turn on both blades, hoping to understand their significance. A few came clear to him like blurry memories of childhood haunts-the runes of the red blade were chilly spells of sharp death to foes. The remaining white runes were mostly concerned with relieving various hurts of body and soul. None were capable of relieving him of the condition of asphyxiating under a rock fall.

“How about you?” he asked his scarf. The Veil of Wrath and Knowledge retained its ember-like glow. But it did not offer a single word in the threads of its weave. The length of fabric was best used for strangling, not succor.

Strangling … Madri’s final moments swam before him, her eyes wide with hurt betrayal. He hadn’t used the Veil to end her existence, but the Veil’s silent complicity must have urged him onward. The Veil was supposed to give Fate’s sanction to each contract the gods awarded him. Presumably, it had not opposed his previous self when he was contracted to slay Madri … though he had no memory of asking it if Madri was a legitimate target. He couldn’t even recall the crime she’d committed, even though it must have been heinous if a divine being would require her death because of it. Were he put in a similar position in his latest incarnation, would he do it again? Would he, if directed by Oghma or Corellon or some other god of Toril, kill … Arathane?

“No,” he said, and blinked in surprise. He wouldn’t. He knew it with complete certainty. Even if he was caught up in an echo of his former power, he wouldn’t slay a friend. Especially a friend who might one day become something more. But … he’d slain Madri.

And Madri had meant far more to him, his memory fragments hinted, than he could possibly ever hope from a queen of Akanul. What was different between then and now?

The difference was himself. He was changed. It was more than merely a hope. It was the simple truth. After who-knew-how-many lifetimes spent as a vessel of divine revenge, a pitiless enforcer of the gods’ will, had he finally grown a conscience? Yes.

He guessed losing the Whorl of Ioun made that possible. But here he lay, breathing up the last hours of air remaining, on the cusp of losing this life.

Demascus didn’t doubt he’d be reincarnated again, dragged back into bone, flesh, ache, and anxiety, a prisoner on the endless wheel. He’d find himself washed to some new shore, or perhaps his secret mausoleum, several years hence. Probably some subset of his implements would be gathered to him by some ancient congruence he didn’t understand. Perhaps next time around, the golden ring would come back to him, too. And bridge him with all his previous selves, leaving his current existence cut out. The ring wasn’t with him now. It wasn’t able to record even a fraction of his current experience and newfound consciousness. Which meant the “him” thinking these thoughts would be as dead as any mortal being whose memories were ground to dust on eternity’s mill wheel.

Demascus shivered. He wished one of those angels from his unwanted vision would appear. He’d petition it to ferry him to breathable air and a silvery sky. Maybe a former version of him would have even known how to call such an entity. But he was fresh out of recipes for angel bait. His last attempt to contact the divine showed the gods wouldn’t help him, anyway.

With nothing better to do, Demascus toyed with his swords. He scissored the twin blades of Exorcessum so they lined up. Then he released his grip on the hilts. He imagined them falling together, fusing, becoming like the sword it had first-

Exorcessum joined into a single blade with a boom that momentarily deafened him. The blade was identical in size to the massive thing it’d once been. An almost ludicrously large broadsword. He smiled. He wondered how many configurations the sword-

“Demascus,” murmured a woman’s voice at his ear.

“Burning dominions!” he swore, jerking in shock. Pain stabbed him where he knocked his knee on a rock.

Madri was there! The low ceiling didn’t allow her to stand; she lay as if reclining, next to him. Her gown was pristine, as was her hair and skin-unmarred by the grime and dried sweat coating him. Her eyes caught his, and held him motionless for a dozen heartbeats. It took him that long to accept that she was really there with him and not an aberration of his air-starved mind.

Finally he ventured, “You … you’ve come back to haunt me for what I did?”

She raised an eyebrow. Was she a ghost? Or something else entirely? She didn’t seem the least bit ethereal. The air hadn’t chilled with her appearance. He decided to proceed as if she was a rational being, not a grave-born revenant.

“I’m sorry. I would never harm you. I … I’m not the same Demascus you knew,” he said. “In fact, I hardly remember you, only a couple of fragments.”

Her brows drew down and her dark eyes flashed. She said in a throaty, completely unghostly voice, “You killed me, you bottom-feeding louse! For a contract. A damn contract with some god-you chose your office over me. And now you don’t even remember who I am?” She slapped him. His face burned with the unexpected contact.

“What are you?” he said.

“Does it matter? It won’t change what you did, you bastard.”

“I suppose not. I do remember … that. But I’m not the person who took that contract.”

“What kind of dragon dung are you trying to shovel, Demascus? You’ve got the same sword, the same scarf, the same face, even the same eyes.”

“I’ve even got a few of the same memories,” he said. He wiped his face. His stomach roiled, and his voice shook. “But I’m a different incarnation. The me who killed you died, too. I am not the one who betrayed what you had with … the old me.”

As the words passed his lips, he knew what they sounded like: a particularly lame excuse. Nothing better suggested itself, though. Besides, it was the truth. His words to Madri were a variation on what he’d been telling himself. If the blame truly was his, he wouldn’t even try to explain himself. He’d accept her scorn unchallenged.

She laughed. “You’re unbelievable. Here you are, with less than a bell’s worth of air left before you asphyxiate, and you still won’t own up to your crime.”

“I know how it looks. I know you can’t forgive me. And you probably shouldn’t. For what it’s worth … I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do what he did to you.”

“Liar.”

He thought she might slap him again. But she closed her eyes as if surrendering to exhaustion.

What had she been up to? Then he remembered how Kasdrian Norjah had accused Madri of taking the Necromancer. He should ask. The question lay on his tongue like a rotten almond. Instead, he said, “Madri … How can you be here? You’re dead, maybe a century or more in the grave. I don’t understand.”

Her posture softened. She opened her eyes. Some of the hate was gone, replaced by a hint of vulnerability. His hand, almost of its own accord, cupped her face. Her cheek was warm. She leaned her head into his palm and murmured, “I’ve missed you, Demascus.”

He considered replying in kind-but he didn’t recall enough of their relationship for that to be true. This wasn’t the time to start lying, he judged, though her remark screamed for some kind of answer.

Finally she filled the silence. “I don’t know for certain how I’ve returned. You’re partly responsible, or your sword. And your enemies. They’re waiting for you to make a mistake. Or rather, for prophecies to deliver you into their service …”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Demascus tried to pull away, but she clasped his hand. Then she leaned in and kissed him.

The feather warmth of lips transported him. They were like velvet.

He knew her perfume: orange-peach with undertones of cedar. Her scent was a window in his mind. He saw how she’d been, before, as they’d walked the plazas of a faraway place called Halruaa. He’d thrilled at her mastery of a magical metropolis whose architecture equaled divine domains. She’d been a person of importance, someone who’d mattered. And someone who’d taken an interest in him. She was enchanting. He pulled her close. She melted into his arms. She wasn’t anything like a ghost. Madri gazed into his eyes as if searching for something.

“I don’t know how it’s possible you’re here, but … do you believe me? Life’s too short to spend in revenge.”

Madri pulled away. “I don’t know, Demascus. Maybe life’s too short for regular people. But we’re both here, together again. Which means there’s always time for retribution. You killed me. I can’t forget that. So now I’m going to leave you, even though I could probably save you.”

“You can get me out of here?”

“Maybe. But I won’t. I’m leaving you to die. As you killed me … I’m killing you. How does it feel?”