Disappointment on Chant’s behalf stabbed Demascus. It was plausible … and explained how Jaul had found his way here. Raneger’s sizable criminal network had supplied the address. The little snot had betrayed them. And now Jaul had been snagged by something even worse than Raneger.
“Fossil, let Jaul go!” Demascus said.
“Fossil isn’t doing anything I don’t want it to do,” said Jaul. “I’m the one wearing the mask, you dolt.”
“Try to take it off then, and we’ll see who’s got who.”
“You think I’m that stupid? Go piss in a dragon den.”
Demascus had hoped Jaul would at least try. He edged forward. If he could jump the kid, maybe he could wrench the mask off him …
“Hey, watch it. With this thing on my face, I don’t miss a thing. And I can tell you’re going to do something stupid. Don’t, or you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry how?”
“Sorry that you didn’t learn all the secrets this relic mask knows about you because you made me too angry to share. Fossil said it could see into my head? Well, I can see into what passes for its mind, too. And you figure prominently.”
Jaul raised his hands in a gesture of reconciliation. “I know things you need to know.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the true origin of …” Jaul cocked his head, as if trying to recall a half-forgotten fact. “… of Kalkan Swordbreaker. He wasn’t always your nemesis, you know. He was created after you manifested in Toril.”
“How do you know that name?”
“Fossil knows,” Jaul said, smiling like the drake who ate the cat.
Madri murmured, “Demascus, Fossil is a liar and works for a liar. Anything he says might be-”
“Created by whom?” interrupted Demascus. Madri scowled at him. Anger made him not care about her feelings-she should have warned him about the mask!
“By the gods,” said Jaul … but the voice was no longer that of Chant’s son. The intonation had returned to that of the relic angel. Fossil continued, “They feared you, a creature with a mortal’s mind-set from another continuum. An entity who’d been granted more power than a being of your station should ever possess. So they fashioned a keeper, one who could manage you, and then snuff you out whenever your power grew too great. To reset you, as it were, and rub out any particularly embarrassing memories you might carry that could implicate even a god.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Is it? The pantheon of Toril faced enough problems-the last thing they needed was an assassin whose power, at its height, might be sufficient to remove a god from the holy rolls. Or whose intimate knowledge of their private vendettas could be used to shake up earthly temples.”
Demascus shook his head. He couldn’t imagine that a version of himself could ever be so powerful that the gods would fear him. Although …
In several visions of former incarnations, he had to admit he’d felt … calm, sure, and at peace with what was essentially an unstoppable capacity to harm others. He’d been more than human, like a demigod given mortal form. His pale skin, marked with jagged patterns, set him slightly apart from others, but the grace and certainty that suffused his every word, his every movement, might as well have been … divine. When he was moved to action, godlike power had flowed through him to smite his foes, and sometimes it felt as if the eyes of a god looked out from inside his skull …
“They’re using you, Demascus!” pressed Fossil. “They don’t care about you. You’re a tool to them, one they deliberately keep blunt. They don’t deserve your service.”
He recalled his attempt to contact Oghma, and how he’d been rebuffed. Already angry, new resentment burned like a fire in his belly. “What’re my options?”
“Don’t listen to it!” Madri protested. “It’s a servitor of the Prince of Lies!”
Prince of Lies? That was dramatic. The name sounded familiar, though. But she’d had her chance to tell him herself. She hadn’t. “I’ll hear it out, nonetheless.”
Madri gave an exasperated sigh. “Don’t be an idiot, Demascus!”
Jaul smiled. “Your best option,” said Fossil’s voice, “the most ethical option, really, is to learn all the terrible things the gods of Toril have asked you to do over the centuries. I am the doorway through which you can gain that knowledge. All you must do is join me. Do you think murdering Madri was the worst thing you’ve done in the name of divine justice? You’d be wrong, Demascus. So very wrong.”
A chill ran across Demascus’s limbs and some of his anger evaporated. “Join you? What does that entail?”
Demascus reflected that the mask probably didn’t have his best interests at heart. Its very first act in the deva’s presence had been to mentally dominate Chant’s son. And the title, Prince of Lies … something about that name swam forward in his memory, trying to break to the surface. Something to do with skulls.
“It’s simple, really. You’re a deva. When a deva decides to seize his own destiny and break free of the moral shackles that so many bear, he gains a great boon. Such a deva takes on a new, fiercer visage.”
Demascus felt his jaw literally drop. He knew what Fossil was getting at: when a deva renounces his moral code, at his next incarnation he returns as a fiend, not a man. He comes back as a rakshasa!
“More important,” continued Fossil, “such a deva finally remembers all his previous lives, all his triumphs, and all the abilities he’s learned through the ages. If you join me, Demascus, I’ll give you all your memories back and all your power. Kalkan will no longer be your nemesis but your ally. And you’ll be able to take your vengeance on the gods who’ve reduced you to such a sad, forgotten cinder of your former glory.”
Demascus slowly nodded …
“Why’re you nodding?” Madri said, her tone incredulous.
“Actually, I just remembered where I’d heard the title ‘Prince of Lies’ before,’ ” he said. “The Prince of Lies is the formal title for a god named Cyric.” The floor seemed to drop beneath his boots.
The painting stirred again. “Cyric, the Prince of Lies, god of Strife, seeks to court your next death … Just as his deceits caused you to kill where you would not have otherwise …”
Madri interrupted. “You killed me because of a lie, Demascus.” Her eyes shimmered with unwept tears.
Oh, no. It would be nice to think the Necromancer was mistaken. But that was the logic of a three-year-old. Close your eyes and hope the scary things go away. He tried one more time, anyhow. “Fate is a power greater than the gods.” Wasn’t it?
The painting kept speaking. “… you imagine gods and men writhe in equal futility against Fate’s decree … but Fate is only inertia … one may always change one’s own destiny, or another’s, if one tries hard enough …” And then the Necromancer’s awful tones faded to nothing. Was it possible? Could Cyric have denied Fate by contracting the Sword to slay Madri with a lie? Was such a thing possible, even for a god? Maybe not all gods, but possibly one whose sphere of influence was duplicity. A liar god could probably bluff the universe itself …
Demascus felt raw and sick with the sudden certainty of it. All the lives he’d ended, all the bodies discarded to rot-how many had been true selections of Fate? And how many had been murders he’d been duped into committing? His brain convulsed around the name: Cyric. He saw a jawless skull on a purple sunburst. Then another piece of former knowledge surfaced: The Prince of Lies was trapped!
He protested, “Faerun’s pantheon imprisoned Cyric in his throne. He’s bound. How can he lie to me, or to anyone?”
The Necromancer’s tombstone voice rang out again. “Demascus killed Madri a lifetime ago, before the Prince of Lies was so chained … Cyric foresaw his own captivity … he set in motion a plan to forge a key, a weapon with powers that eroded in each cycle of death, powers so deadly even a god might fear its reach … Cyric sought to turn you to his own ends and make the Sword of the Gods that weapon with a lie …”