Errand of Mercy (8 page)

“I knew you would not welcome the news,” said Garkim with disdain. “I was unsure of your reaction and wished to err on the side of caution. After all, your holy church of Tyr brought evil into our land. I did not know if you would do the same.”

“Lord Garkim speaks the truth,” said the room-filling voice. No one turned to look for it. “Patriarch Justarvis, High Avenger of Tyr’s Church of the Southern Clave of the Moonshaes, fell in with the priests of Tempus, the depraved Count Boarswic, and the rapacious Northmen. Justarvis was convinced to take vengeance on every ship and town that would not offer their plague-stricken ships refuge and healing. The patriarch and his followers looted and burned and murdered, calling their acts righteous and deserved punishments for their victims. For his many foul deeds, the patriarch was rewarded by your god Tyr with a hideous death, caught in the arms of a kraken and dragged screaming with his bodyguards into the depths of the Great Sea, mere hours before our shores were sighted and the Right Armada landed.”

“That’s a lie!”.screamed Jacob, wild-eyed, looking at the black wall. His grip on his huge two-handed blade tightened. “The gods damn your lying tongue!”

There was silence for the space of three heartbeats.

“That was no lie,” said the voice. “And we are damned already.”

A low rumbling rolled through the room, coming from the shiny black wall. It sounded less like an earthquake than the stirring of a great amount of water.

Miltiades whirled, facing the wall. His face held a strange look upon it. “Get away from that wall!” he roared. Everyone but Garkim backed up a dozen steps, their eyes locked on the blackness.

“What’s happening?” asked Noph, his voice shaking. He was trying to get the hunting knife from his boot, but couldn’t make his fingers stop trembling long enough to untie the straps.

Kern made the sign of the hammer over his face and chest with his left hand. The rumbling was louder, resounded now like thunder within the chamber. “Could it be an earthquake?” he called to Miltiades. “Tyr save us, what’s going on?” He stopped backing away and hefted his hammer uncertainly, as if readying to cast it at the wall.

“Lower your weapons!” Garkim shouted at Kern, uncrossing his arms. Desperation filled his words. “You will kill everyone if you attack! The wall is all that separates us from the emperor! Lower your weapons! You cannot attack him without killing us all!”

The lights dimmed further, and the surface of the wall appeared to grow more transparent. Something moved within it. A thick, snakelike shape with yellow scales as large as plates rolled into view, pressed briefly against the opposite side of the wall, then pulled back into the darkness. It was as wide across as a man is tall.

Everyone but Garkim fell back several paces.

“It’s a water tank!” shouted Trandon. Shock and horror radiated from his features. “The wall is glass! Don’t break it, or well drown here!”

“Tyr guide me and give me strength,” whispered Miltiades through bloodless lips. He swallowed as his eyes drank in the ghastly sight.

Another snakelike tentacle, coiling in the black water beyond, appeared and pressed itself to the wall. This time the tentacle remained, its scaly skin covered with cancerous wounds. Peeling, rotting skin trailed in the water around it. Noph felt a terrible urge to flee as another tentacle appeared to the right and pressed against the glasslike wall.

A hand with fingers as big around as tree limbs appeared out of the darkness. The fingertips brushed the glass with a rough thump, then retreated and vanished. Another great stirring of water rumbled through the walls and floor.

A vast, faint object, oval in shape, appeared beyond the wall. It drifted forward until everyone in the room could see it clearly.

Jacob nearly dropped his great sword. He staggered back, his eyes the size of moons. Kern and Miltiades froze open-mouthed, warhammers raised and arm muscles tight. Trandon shielded his eyes and crouched down, his quarterstaff rolling away on the floor.

Noph choked on his terror. He could not look away from the beautiful, inhuman face that almost touched the far side of the wall.

“We are here,” said the voice in the room. “We are the emperor of Doegan.”

“You are a monster,” said Miltiades, breaking the awful silence.

“We are the emperor,” said the voice in the air. The thin lips of the yellow-gray monstrosity on the other side of the wall did not move. Enormous round eyes, black as shiny onyx and as large as windows, stared out at the group. The nose was broad, the nostrils each an arm span across. A pattern of scales ran over the face but did not mar its strange, ghastly beauty.

The reptilian coils at the bottom of the black wall twisted slowly around, ever in motion.

“Lord Garkim informed you that the bloodforges made certain alterations in those who used them,” said the voice. “It is said that all kings of Doegan are fond of the sea. Our spiritual kinship with the sea, beginning even before the building of the Right Armada, has gradually taken on physical form. We can speak with the use of magic from our bloodforge, but such time is limited by the nature of the device. We will not be able to communicate with you much longer this day. We must take pains to be concise.”

“We will not deal with evil!” shouted Noph, swiftly gathering heart. “We sense your true nature, and we reject you!”

“Noph!” roared Miltiades in warning.

“You know nothing of my true nature,” said the voice. “I am not evil, as you know it.”

Noph glanced at Miltiades, who looked back but did not confirm or deny the emperor’s last statement. “He’s lying, isn’t he?” Noph shouted, pointing. “You said he was a monster! Look what the bloodforge did to him! How do we know he isn’t going to kill or eat us?”

Miltiades swallowed but managed a grim smile before looking back at the awful, beautiful face. “We do not,” he said. “Please forgive the young man. He is foolish and inexperienced.” Noph slumped angrily and half-turned away.

“Let’s talk about the Lady Eidola!” called Kern. “Tell us where she is right now, or I’ll plant this hammer in your forehead and find her myself!”

“The water in our dwelling is poisonous, Kern of Phlan. It is excreted by our skin, and it is hostile to all living things. Should the wall between us be broken, you would swim in liquid death. It would eat the flesh from your bones while you screamed and choked. Your own wife would not recognize your remains.”

Silence fell again for a few moments.

“Tell me where Lady Eidola is,” Miltiades repeated, only slightly subdued.

“She has been captured by the forces of Ysdar of the Fallen Temple,” said the voice. “We believe she is being held somewhere here in our own city, but is so warded that not even we can detect her location. You are right in your belief that the power that prevents outsiders from spying upon us with magic is generated by our bloodforge. It is an invisible shield woven by ourself. We will not take it down. Fiends and bloodforge armies would fight over the rubble of our empire within a decade were we to lower our defenses. There are more crucial issues for our city and our land than your quest for a petty noble’s fiancee. You will hear us out on this matter, then make your choice.”

Kern, Jacob, Trandon, and Noph looked at Miltiades for his reaction.

“Speak,” the warrior growled, forcing the word out. “We will hear you out, but we promise you no more than that.”

“The bloodforge generates an enormous degree of magical potential, which can be harvested by its user and converted into actual magical ability. We were not born a wizard, Miltiades of Phlan. We were born a normal man, destined to rule like our father, who was also a normal man, though the bloodforge had already altered him so that he was forced to spend the better part of each day bathing in a tub to keep his skin moist. We were changed more than he, because we learned early in life how to unlock the full potential of the bloodforge, and so took on more of its alterations than our ancestors.”

“You took on its curse,” corrected Miltiades.

“Our body is not our bloodforge’s true curse, Miltiades of Phlan. Our bloodforge gathers its magical potential from the land around it. This ancient land is soaked in magical power. Our bloodforge drains the magic in the earth, buried under the soil, rock, and water, and offers it for our use. But as the magic drains from the land, it drains too from a great barrier-ward that was placed upon this region ages ago, by the ancestors of the Mar. The barrier-ward has weakened from long use of the bloodforges by all the reigning lords and kings, and it barely separates our world from that which it was meant to seal off. The curse of the bloodforges, Miltiades of Phlan, is that they have left us vulnerable to outworld horrors who would feed upon us as hungry magpies feed on worms. Their use has nearly bred our ruin.”

Kern blinked. The reflections of himself and his allies in the polished black wall had for a moment seemed to blend with the great tentacles of the monster-emperor visible on the wall’s other side. He thought he had seen himself and his party caught in those slowly twisting coils.

“I cannot imagine any outworld horror worse than yourself,” Kern muttered darkly.

“Then you have a very poor imagination, Kern of Phlan. Lord Garkim will show you documents and bring you sages that confirm the truth of our words. Two months ago, we took pains to ward our city against attacks by tanar’ri from the Abyss, which were given knowledge of our bloodforge by Ysdar’s agents. As we now speak, our city is slowly becoming besieged by fiends and monsters that lurk in the savanna and jungle around us, looking for a way past our walls to wrap their clawed fingers around our bloodforge and carry it away. The human debris that bows to Ysdar creeps past our gates, and the Fallen Temple grows stronger in our realm with each sunset. Our doom is truly at hand.”

“Tanar’ri,” said Trandon, getting to his feet. Though pale, he had gained control of himself again. “We fought tanar’ri, big vulturelike vrocks, at the gate in Undermountain that brought us here.”

“They were doubtless among the first of the army that is arrayed against us, an army that is strengthening by the hour. There is but one course left to us all. You cannot destroy our bloodforge merely to allow Khelben Arunsun to see you through his crystal ball. Your gate to Undermountain is destroyed, and you are trapped within these walls with the rest of us. Our enemy is your own. You must work with us against our mutual foe.”

“We did not come here to fight your wars,” said Miltiades in abrupt dismissal. “We came to find Lady Eidola and open the way for her to go home, and no more.”

The gigantic face in the black wall shifted, turning slightly to look directly down at the silver-armored warrior with its empty black eyes.

“We feel no pity for you, Miltiades of Phlan,” said the voice. “You choose your own path in life and proudly bear the consequences. But we feel great sorrow for Lady Eidola, who is now in the hands of Ysdar’s agents. She is no doubt becoming very familiar with the peculiar ways of Ysdar, the secret lord of the Fallen Temple, that creation of Tyr’s justice-loving priests who contaminated our empire with their holy filth two and a quarter centuries ago. Is it not ironic that the righteousness of Tyr’s paladins now throws her forever into the claws of cannibals and torturers who were themselves once among Tyr’s chosen?”

“Liar!” roared Kern. His hammer arm whipped over and down.

“No!” shouted Miltiades. Garkim uttered a strangled cry, leaping forward as if he thought he could fly through space and seize Kern’s hammer as it spun through the air at the mage-king’s impassive face.

The hammer slammed into the wall directly between the mage-king’s eyes. It rebounded with an ear-splitting crash, flying back to smash into the stone floor behind the crouching Trandon. Dust filled the air. Stone chips rang from metal armor.

Breathless, everyone stared at the hammer, then at the black wall. There was no mark on it.

The gigantic beautiful face had not once changed expression.

“Lord Garkim,” said the voice. “You must forgive us for not mentioning to you long ago that this wall, though transparent like glass, is impervious to all physical forces. You would then have been able to warn our guests of this and thus prevent embarrassing mishaps.”

Garkim stared at the hammer on the floor, too stunned to speak.

“My time grows short,” the voice said. “Miltiades of Phlan, we challenge you to ask your god if you and your comrades should join forces with such as us. Our wards do not prevent communication with divine powers. The fate of our empire and your lady, if not the city of Waterdeep as well, hangs by a thread this day. Pray to your mighty Tyr and see if you will sever that thread or save it.”

Miltiades glared hard at the empty black orbs. He was a fool to even think about this. The choices were so obvious. The mage-king was not to be trusted. Miltiades should lead his force out of this trap and set about escaping from the palace, then use the necklace to locate Lady Eidola. Nothing was simpler.

And yet…

Distrusting the mage-king, Miltiades cleared his mind and closed his eyes.

His comrades nervously watched as he did, glancing back and forth from him to the mage-king’s face. A half-minute passed.

Miltiades opened his eyes. He lowered his weapon, seeming to relax. Then he stood stiffly straight and began tying his hammer to his belt by its strap.

Kern’s mouth fell open in astonishment. Trandon, Jacob, and Noph looked at one another in confusion. Lord Garkim frowned, clearly surprised.

When Miltiades finished, he looked up at the beautiful face.

“We will destroy the enemies of Doegan,” he said to the face, “and we will find Lady Eidola. On this you have my word.” Then he turned and walked toward the doors. The doors thumped as he reached them. The paladin put his hand on a handle and pulled one of the two doors open with ease. He looked back at the others. “Well, come along,” he said, as if speaking to children.

Kern retrieved his hammer. He and the others silently followed the paladin out, leaving only Lord Garkim behind. Miltiades looked back at Lord Garkim before he left with a curiously calm expression, then shut the door.