Spinner of Lies

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

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

Fragrant smoke greeted Demascus as he entered the Copperhead. He’d learned it was a tavern that specialized in tabac, not ale. Either way, it seemed like an odd place for a ghost to haunt.

He wondered if his friends had misunderstood Madri.

He scanned the hazy chamber. Scents of apple, cedar, jasmine, and tabac swirled above the gurgle of bubbling water. Relaxed expressions softened the faces of the patrons. It was all somehow familiar to Demascus. As if he’d been here before. Or someplace remarkably similar. Madri, however, wasn’t here.

“Sir?” said a young earthsoul. “If you step over here, I can fit you with a pipe. Have you ever-”

“I’m looking for a woman. A human. Her name is Madri,” said Demascus.

The server blinked as if seeing the deva for the first time. “I have a message for someone answering to your description.”

“What?” Demascus felt his face grow warm.

The server held up a placating finger, then pointed to an empty table along the wall. “Only this-if someone fitting your description shows up, that you should have a seat and wait right there.”

“For how long?”

“Until Madri shows up.”

“Do you know her?” said Demascus, stepping closer.

The server’s eyes widened and his hands went up. Demascus realized he’d raised his voice. But he didn’t much care.

“Answer me,” he said.

“I don’t! She … she comes here sometimes! Sort of just shows up, you know? Last time I saw her, she gave me this message. That’s all!”

“When did she give it to you?”

“Two days ago. I haven’t seen her since. I swear!”

“I believe you. I just … haven’t seen my friend for a while.”

The server looked at him, then flicked his gaze to the sword scabbards on the deva’s belt. The kid was worried Demascus was going to draw on him. Great. He’d just guaranteed himself terrible service henceforward at the Copperhead. He took a seat where the server indicated and waited.

No one came by to offer him a water pipe.

Three days had passed since Chant had relayed Madri’s message. Sealing the portal by collapsing the cave had come off without a hitch, thanks to the skills of a cadre of earthsoul sappers. Demascus was pretty sure no drow or other fell influence had seeped through before it was shut. Hopefully for good.

Arathane had explained that the arambarium relic had been remanded to a vault beneath Airspur Palace. When asked if anyone in the queen’s court had managed to convert it back to its original shape, the monarch had replied that they were still working on it.

Then Arathane had handed Riltana a scroll. She said it was a copy of what she’d sent to a mutual friend in High Imaskar. Riltana broke the seal and visually devoured the contents in moments. Then she hugged the queen.

Riltana later joked that the peacemaker bodyguards had nearly shat themselves upon witnessing such physical familiarity with Her Royal Highness by someone they’d been told was a “messenger.”

Of course the Stewards had not launched a preemptive attack on Tymanther. The queen returned from the Demonweb in time to quiet the drumbeat to war with evidence of Akanul’s true enemy in hand.

The next day, Chant had engaged his network of secret gatherers to locate the Copperhead. Airspur was a large city. If you didn’t already know an establishment, a name by itself was just the first clue to tracking it down.

And just what was the situation? Madri had seemed intent on making him pay for what he’d done to her. But when she had the chance to let this incarnation die in the mine collapse, she’d saved him. He needed to find out why. He also needed to uncover her connection to Kalkan, how she’d come back from death, and what she intended to do with the Whispering Child called the Necromancer.

“I see you’ve managed to scare the waitstaff witless.”

Demascus jumped. “Madri!”

“Last time I checked.” She sat down across from him. She hadn’t been in the room a moment earlier, but she didn’t look the least bit like a ghost.

“I got your message,” he finally managed.

She nodded. “Remember the last time we were in a water pipe lounge, Demascus?”

“Um, not really.”

She frowned.

“But seeing you here, Madri, and smelling the tabac-it’s like a word on the tip of my tongue that I can’t quite place.”

“You might be telling the truth. You might be lying. I expect it’s the latter, based on how things ended for me back in Halruaa.”

Demascus cast his gaze down at the table. They’d been through all this under the rock fall. Madri wasn’t inclined to believe he was different. Still …

“Then why’d you save me?” he asked. “You could’ve had your revenge. A life for a life.”

Madri smiled for the first time. His breath caught. He remembered this woman, if only in flashes and moments. And he had loved her.

“It wouldn’t have been my revenge, would it? I wasn’t the one who tried to crush you under an island.”

“So you saved me, just so you could personally kill me?”

She smirked, then shook her head. “No, I’m joking. The old you would have gotten it. Maybe you are telling the truth, Demascus.”

“I swear by all the gods of light and shadow, I’m not the same person who murdered you. I could never do that.”

Madri stared at him. Demascus measured the time in uneasy heartbeats. What was she thinking? Probably that he was a no-good lying sack of rat feces. Or that-

“All right, Demascus.”

“All right? Does that mean you believe me?”

“Let’s just say … I’m willing to peel back my hate enough to try and believe you. Though your words are not the reason why I’m willing to give you even this much of a chance. Come with me?” She stood up. “I’ve got something to show you.”

Madri made for the exit. Demascus clambered to his feet.

“Something to show me?” he repeated stupidly.

“It’s back at my place. I think you’ll find it … illuminating. I did.” Madri walked out. The large oaken door slammed in his face.

He pushed it open and rushed out into the light. He was relieved to see she was waiting for him on the street. Demascus cleared his throat. “This has all the hallmarks of a trap.”

She shrugged. “You’ll never know unless you come see. Besides, give me some credit. I think I could whip up something a little less obvious, don’t you?”

“I suppose,” he allowed. Except that if she was planning on leading him to his demise, subtlety clearly wasn’t necessary.

They walked side by side through the city. Madri seemed utterly real, as solid as the cobbles below and the towers on either side. But people failed to see her, or if they did notice, their gazes slid from her like water off a greased skillet. Demascus thought about taking her hand, just to see if she was as solid to the touch as she looked. But her rigid posture and frowning demeanor made him think better of it. Either his hand would sink through her because she was a ghost or she would slap him. So he settled on worrying about what she had planned for him.

They didn’t make good time. Madri hesitated at street corners, and looked around a lot as if she was constantly losing her bearings.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Normally I just appear where I want to go. I was terrified when it first happened. But it’s turned out to be pretty handy.”

“I bet.”

“So this is the first time I’ve had to walk anywhere in this crazy place. What brought you to Airspur anyway, Demascus?”

“The choice wasn’t entirely in my hands.”

He related how he’d found himself in the country of Akanul, sans any real memory of his past, as they wound their way through the cliff-face metropolis. He explained how his enemies had been very much aware of him, and how close he’d come to becoming just one more incarnation in a long line that’d been killed by someone called Kalkan Swordbreaker.

“Kalkan,” said Madri, nodding. She stopped at the front gate of a manor house walled in white stone. The mansion was ostentatious enough to be a noble’s residence. Indeed, it looked exactly like …

“This is a trap!” he yelled, jumping away from the wall. The manor house was where they’d run Kalkan to ground last time. He drew Exorcessum in its lone-blade configuration and put some distance between himself and Madri. A carriage driver who’d been making his way down the street at a leisurely pace saw the deva with the naked glowing rune blade. The driver pulled sharply on the reins and turned his conveyance around.

Demascus shifted his gaze from the wall-top to the retreating carriage, and then to the opposite side of the street. If Kalkan was waiting in hiding, the ambush was blown. He was ready.

“No, Demascus, I told you. It’s not a trap.”

“You’re in league with Kalkan,” he accused. “This used to be his home. He hunted Airspur citizens for food from here. And hunted incarnations of me from here, too.”

“Well, all right. Yes, I began as an unwitting ally of Kalkan. True. But I didn’t think I had a choice. When I realized differently, I quit. I saved you, didn’t I? And I’m done following Kalkan’s script. From here on out, I make up my own future.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her voice had started low; now she was nearly screaming. “It means that I don’t like being manipulated. I did something about the one who tried to chain me with lies. But you, you’re such a trusting fool, you’ll accept whatever a random divine avatar tells you, without wondering whether you’re doing good or ill. No, the Sword of the Gods operates above such ordinary constraints, right? It’s what you must tell yourself so you can sleep at night!”

Demascus frowned. Madri was right. That was exactly how the Sword operated. His fragmented memories told a tale of privilege and power, one that didn’t involve too much reflection. As if his station automatically lent his decisions legitimacy. He’d been caught up in his glory, his own importance. Lying to someone like that would probably be easy …

Madri might be telling the truth. “All right, let’s not get distracted by my shortcomings. Believe me, I’m well acquainted with them. Tell me more about why you were working with Kalkan. You’re claiming you were, what, brought back into the world by the rakshasa? Kalkan called forth your spirit to do his bidding?”

She shrugged. The tension went out of her shoulders and face. “Something like that. Because of our connected past, and because you killed me, we share a psychic connection-maintained or at least influenced by Exorcessum. The first time you changed its configuration, I felt it. The … mental shackles Kalkan used to chain my spirit fell away. I became myself again. That’s when I decided it was time to do things my own way.”

“Was that before or after you stole the Necromancer from the Norjah gallery?”

She gestured to the house. “Come find out.”

“Burning dominions,” said Demascus. What should he do? He didn’t seem to have much of a choice. Shaking his head at his own gullibility, he followed her up the walk to the entrance. One of the two massive oaken doors was ajar.

Madri said, “I normally don’t enter this way-I can flicker in and out of the cellar with a thought. But I’m pretty sure that this door is usually closed.”

Gouges around the lock showed where the door had been forced. “Someone’s broken in,” he said, pointing out the marks. “Recently.”

Madri flickered and was gone.

Demascus charged through the door, hyperaware of the possibility of an ambush as he crossed the threshold. The last time he’d been there, he’d followed Riltana up the grand stairs to a second-floor suite. They’d found evidence of Kalkan’s crimes laid out in maddening detail in a collage of sketches, skinned genasi corpses, and a magical gate to a secret mausoleum, which proved to be Demascus’s own grave. Exorcessum had waited there for him, too. And ultimately, Kalkan himself, who’d crowed about leading the deva around by the nose through a series of incarnations.

Demascus had killed the bastard rakshasa, even as Kalkan Swordbreaker laughed about how everything was all going according to plan.

Kalkan should still be dead. But … with the Necromancer in play, all bets about death, reincarnation, and the circle of life for mortals, devas, and rakshasas alike were up in the air.

Nothing attacked him. The house remained quiet as a grave. Where to? The suite upstairs had been thoroughly cleaned by peacemakers months ago, and the portal stones removed and stored in his own domicile. And Madri had mentioned a cellar.

He hustled through a series of mostly empty rooms on the ground floor until he found the door to the basement. He thudded down the stairs. Below, things were even more abandoned looking. But calling the series of rooms a “cellar” would be a stretch.

Then Demascus saw a door-shaped hole in one foundation wall. Flinders of broken wood littered the floor around it. A maul lay discarded to one side. He crept to the opening. Crooked stairs plunged down a narrow shaft. A sour smell wrinkled his nose. Down he went, taking the steps three at a time.

Madri was in the lantern-lit chamber at the bottom. But so was …

“Jaul?” said Demascus.

The youth stood at the edge of a pile of damp earth. A painting draped with red velvet was clamped under one armpit. In his free hand he held a burned and half-broken mask.

“Demascus!” said Jaul.

“By all that’s holy and sovereign, what’re you doing here?” said Demascus.

“You gotta help me!” Jaul pleaded.

The deva looked at Madri. Confusion made his tongue feel thick.

“He’s trying to make off with the very thing I was going to show you, the thing that could tell you how you’ve been duped! And that dirt pile your friend is standing on … is dangerous. It’s strung round with defensive wards. I’m surprised the little idiot hasn’t already triggered one.”

Jaul looked from Madri to Demascus with fearful eyes. His arm clamped tighter on the painting under his arm. “The painting isn’t hers-she stole it first!”

Tensions in the low-ceilinged chamber were too high for Demascus. He sheathed his sword. “Everyone calm down. Let’s not rush into anything one of us might regret later. I just want a few answers. Starting with you, Madri. The kid’s got a point. You stole that painting from House Norjah.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t really care about the painting, only its knowledge. It knows things things you need to hear, Demascus.”

“Such as?”

“Such as what happened to me, and to you, when I was alive.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“You need to hear it directly from the Necromancer’s lips. That’s why I asked you here. And now this thief is trying to make off with the painting.”

“Well, we did agree to return it to House Norjah,” Demascus admitted. Though he was still confused how Jaul had managed to track down the painting so quickly. It didn’t make any sense.

“How’d you find this place, Jaul?”

Jaul swallowed and glanced around the room as if looking for another exit. An odd reaction, to be sure.

“Jaul, where’s Chant? Is he part of this?”

“ ‘Part of this?’ ” repeated Jaul. The young man’s eyes darted between Demascus and the exit.

“Yeah, returning the Necromancer to Kasdrian. I can’t figure how you beat the rest of us to the painting, but I assume that’s why you’re down here?” He let the question dangle, like a fishing line.

“Right! Right. I was … I just thought I’d get a jump on things, you know?”

The scroll charm braided into Demascus’s hair shivered. Great-a lie. Why was the kid telling tales? They’d already caught him red-handed. Maybe that was all it was-Jaul was worried he’d be reprimanded for acting on his own. It didn’t seem like a nicety the kid would care about, but he’d underestimated Jaul in the past.

“He’s not taking the painting anywhere,” Madri said. “At least … not until the Necromancer tells you what it knows, Demascus.”

“You’ll allow us to take the painting? If I agree to talk to it first?”

Madri slowly nodded. Demascus was surprised. He wondered if the Necromancer itself was a trap Madri had prepared for him. Maybe she’d primed the entity trapped in the canvas to cast a death spell or steal his soul with a whisper. Who knew what was possible for a demigod? Certainly Madri had reason enough to get revenge. It could even be why she’d saved him from the mine collapse-so she could deliver him to her true retribution here in this hidden cellar, in the very house where Kalkan once plotted against him.

“And it’s going to tell me what?” Demascus asked.

“It’s going to tell you how your precious office has been manipulated. How fate itself was denied-altered-for the selfish gain of an evil entity. And how you were the instrument of that alteration.”

Goose bumps swept his arms. That was a considerable claim. “Someone manipulated me? Who? Just tell me!”

“You won’t believe me.” She folded her arms.

Demascus realized he wasn’t going to escape the cellar without speaking to the painting. It might be a setup, sure. But he had to know.

He looked around to Jaul. “Well, how’s that sound? Are you willing to let me have a look at that thing before you cart it back to House Norjah?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course!” Palpable relief loosened the muscles of the young man’s face. He began to set the painting down.

“Get down from that first, why don’t you?” said Madri. “It’s dangerous.” She pointed at the small hillock.

Jaul sidled forward, leaving a clear boot print in the dirt. Demascus wondered what had Madri so spooked about heap of soil. She wasn’t telling him something. Which was worrying. Maybe he’d ask the Necromancer about that, too. A bonus question.

Jaul leaned the painting against the cellar wall. He played with the broken mask in his hands, nervously transferring it from hand to hand. Madri raised a hand and opened her mouth as if to tell Jaul something, but Demascus was already uncovering the canvas. The portrait was made up of disparate scenes stitched together with embalming thread. Each pane was a tiny vista of undeath, agony, and sundered sanity. And the scenes made up a terrible face. Mismatched eyes swiveled to meet his. The painted mouth heaved against the canvas, as if it vainly sought breath in an airless void.

The Necromancer’s regard was a psychic kick, as Madri had warned. Demascus sucked in a breath. He, or at least his former incarnations, had parlayed with avatars of gods, and perhaps even gods themselves. Though the entity staring at him was the scion of the Binder of Knowledge and a demigod, it was trapped in paint. It wouldn’t cow him.

“Necromancer. What does Madri want you to tell me?”

The two-dimensional mouth squirmed. The painting whispered, “… the Sword is vulnerable to those who can bend Fate, or deceive it with a tapestry of interlocking lies …”

“Explain,” he said, annoyed the Necromancer didn’t just get to the point. What was it about artifacts that made them babble most of the time? The painting was hinting at something monstrous, but hints could be interpreted any old way, depending on the desires of the listener.

“… sometimes a lie can shift reality, forcing Fate to adjust, instead of the other way around …”

“Yes, yes. That sounds very fancy. Just tell me: who’s lying?”

“I can tell you that, Demascus,” said a new voice, one whose depth and clarity sent shivers down his spine. “Turn, face me.”

Demascus looked round.

Madri had clapped her hands to her mouth and was pointing at Jaul.

The boy wore the burned half-mask.