"What?" Cyric roared. He held the blade up to his eyes, as if he could look inside its steely depths. "You cannot 'allow' me?"
There is a traitor at your side, my love, but it's not Jergal. Godsbane's voice quavered, straining to form each painful word. Not everything is as it seems.
Jergal hovered close. Please, Your Magnificence. Rest yourself in the throne for a time. Gather your thoughts so you can drive the-
"Get out!" Cyric shouted. He spared the seneschal a brief, anger-filled glance. "Now!"
I will see to the defense of the entry hall. Jergal bowed formally and retreated from the throne room.
The Prince of Lies stared at the short sword, turning it over in his hands, examining it from every angle. "What have you been keeping from me, Godsbane?" he rumbled. "The identity of the traitor?"
Yes, the spirit of the blade replied. Her voice had become more masculine, slick with sibilants. I see now how wrong I was to do so, but I've helped the other gods plot against you.
"Impossible," Cyric shouted. "I broke your will after I stole you from Black Oaks. I was only a mortal then, and I defeated you in mental combat. You couldn't turn against me."
You never bested me.
"Lies!" Cyric held the sword high over his head, one hand on the hilt, the other on the tip. With a scream of anger, he snapped Godsbane in two.
A blue-white ball of light formed around the break in the blade. For an instant, the glow hovered like faerie fire in front of Cyric, dancing along the sword's edges. Then it swelled, filling the throne room with its brilliance. The explosion crushed the death god's trophies to dust, splintered his throne of misguided martyrs.
When the light subsided, a shadow-wrapped figure lay before the Prince of Lies, its back broken, tears welling in its rose-red eyes. "Ah, my love, I was a fool to betray you." Cyric dropped the sundered blade. "You." The black mask had fallen away from the Shadowlord's face, revealing features that shifted and warped like the cloak of darkness that hid its form. A soft, feminine visage coarsened into a man's. An aquiline nose blunted into bulbousness, flattened, then narrowed and turned up daintily at the end. Only two features on Mask's face remained constant: the god's glowing red eyes and the pale fangs extruding from his lips. "If I had read the Cyrinishad sooner, realized your greatness before it was too late." The Shadowlord slumped to the floor. "I never would have kept him hidden from you." Mask's form melted away into a pool of darkness, which merged with the death god's own shadow. The voices of Cyric's myriad selves shouted out their dismay, chorused their anger. The Prince of Lies stared, unseeing, at his shadow, trying to make some sense of the bizarre scene. He couldn't. There were too many things clawing at his thoughts, hoarding bits of his attention. In Yulash, an assassin offered up a half-hearted prayer to the God of Murder, her words as empty of devotion as her heart was of pity. A peddler, down on his luck and starving amidst the opulence of Waterdeep, bitterly cursed the God of Strife. His insults flew up like arrows into Cyric's mind. And then there were the Zhentish. Thousands of women and men shrieked Cyric's name, as if that act alone could earn his aid. Their pleas streamed across the death god's consciousness, scattering his thoughts in their wake. He was lost, his consciousness torn in a million directions at once. The blow caught Cyric in the face. He barely noticed the physical pain, but the surprise dragged his attention from the maelstrom of racing thoughts back to his realm in Hades. The Prince of Lies looked out on the ravaged throne room, but what he saw there only confused him more.
The Burning Men, loosed from shattered chains, writhed across the floor in pain, unable to douse the fires consuming them. The explosion from the attack on Godsbane — no, Mask — had charred the walls and scorched a huge hole in the carpet. Cyric's throne had been shattered, the bones strewn about. All these things seemed right somehow, appropriate to the setting. Yet there were other objects, other people in the room as well, bits and pieces from all the vistas taken in by Cyric's incarnations. They all superimposed themselves over the reality ofBoneCastle, creating a strange jumble of images.
Liquid shadows played upon the columns, blackened and broken, from the temple in Zhentil Keep. Near the fragments of the throne, a young novitiate to Cyric's church in Mulmaster kneeled in prayer. The silver bracelets signifying his enslavement to the death god reflected wan torchlight; his blue-black robes smelled of sweet incense. Assassins crept along the walls, silently stalking unseen quarries. Three Zhentilar soldiers huddled near the door, just as Cyric was seeing them in the Citadel of the Raven. Standing but an arm's length away from the death god, Kelemvor Lyonsbane raised a martyr's bone like a war club…
Some part of Cyric's mind shrieked a warning, and he lashed out. The back of his left hand snapped the makeshift weapon from Kel's grasp as the palm of his right connected with the shade's chin. Grunting in pain, Kelemvor flew backward. To the Lord of the Dead, the shade seemed to pass right through the devout young priest in Mulmaster, coming to rest at the feet of a dark-cloaked assassin.
"Capture him!" Cyric shouted madly. With twitching fingers, the Prince of Lies gestured at the phantom murderer, directing him toward the bruised and grimy shade rising up before him. When the assassin continued to skulk along the wall, the death god smiled. "Are you a nightmare, then? Has Dendar dispatched you to haunt me like those feeble terrors that attacked my denizens on the walls?"
Kelemvor brushed the dust from his tunic. "You're going to wish this were a bad dream, you backstabbing cur." He rushed forward, roaring like a bear.
Cyric called an enchantment to mind, but the undertow of his thoughts sucked the incantation away. Another part of his mind suggested he transform to avoid the blow. The Prince of Lies willed himself into the guise of a poisonous cloud, but he remained in that form for only an instant before a purring voice demanded he take on his rightful shape again, the form described in the Cyrinishad. The Lord of the Dead found himself trapped in his mortal-seeming avatar when Kelemvor struck.
They tumbled together, Cyric flailing wildly to defend himself, Kelemvor landing blow after blow with his hammerlike fists. When they came to a stop, the death god shrugged off his attacker and struggled to his feet. For the first time in a decade, Cyric felt pain. Though the ache came from nothing more profound than a blackened eye and cracked ribs, he found himself trembling.
The pantheon must have given Kel some power, the death god decided. Mystra and the others must be animating him with their might, just like one of the Gearsmith's mechanical men. The shade couldn't harm me otherwise.
The voices in Cyric's head murmured their agreement: Better to flee such a direct battle. Strike from the shadows until your strength returns, until you discover what strange spell Mystra has placed on you to dampen your strength.
Kelemvor gripped the hilt of Godsbane and started toward Cyric again. "This'll do to cut out your black heart. That'll be my trophy. The rest I'll leave for these poor souls."
With the broken blade, Kel gestured to the Burning Men. The scribes crawled with painful slowness toward the death god. They moaned and clutched the air with sizzling fingers as they dragged their agony-stiffened bodies across the throne room.
Cyric backed away from Kelemvor, toward the center of the room. He kicked one of the Burning Men out of his way and ducked the awkward lunge of another. "I'm a god, Lyonsbane. And if I killed you when I was mortal, think of the agony I can put you through now."
"So why are you running?" Kelemvor murmured.
Cyric didn't answer. He attempted to focus his mind on teleporting away from Hades, but too many things were drawing his consciousness away from the enchantment. The voices in his head had become a chorus of discord offering five dozen opinions on even the slightest matter. And there were his faithful all across Faerun, of course, invoking the death god's name to resolve every petty conflict in their lives. InBoneCastle, Cyric could hear the sound of battle ringing out in the antechamber and the soft tread of Kelemvor's boots as he stalked closer.