What lay beyond was a very small chamber in comparison to the wonders Adon had witnessed just moments before. There were no walls to this room, though, and all around it vast and intense flames leaped to the sky. Soft, billowing curtains protected the cleric's eyes from the roaring flames and set the boundaries of the room that lay in the heart of beauty's eternal fires.
"A drink?"
Adon turned and the Goddess of Beauty herself, Sune Firehair, stood before him. Glasses filled with a rich, crimson nectar waited in each of her glowing hands. As Adon took one of the glasses, he saw that his flesh started to blaze with the same amber light as Sune's flesh.
"Goddess," Adon said, and fell to his knees before her, spilling not a drop of the drink in his hand.
Sune laughed and brought him to his feet with one of her powerful hands. Adon felt his breath freeze in his lungs as she touched him, a power undreamed of flooding through his limbs as he stood before her.
Breath. I'm still alive, Adon thought, rejoicing at the knowledge.
Sune seemed to read his thoughts. "You have not died, foolish boy. Not yet. I have brought you here for the most basic of reasons: I am in love with you. You, above all my worshipers, are all that I desire."
Adon was speechless, and so he brought the chalice to his lips and felt the sweet nectar run its course through his body. "Goddess, surely I am not worthy — "
Sune smiled and disrobed before him, shedding a fiery silk robe and allowing it to fall to the floor and vanish. Adon looked down and saw rolling clouds beneath his feet.
"I am beauty," Sune said. "Touch me."
Adon walked forward, as if in a dream.
"Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Embrace me and the answers to all your unspoken questions will be made clear."
From somewhere Adon heard a voice cry out in warning, but he ignored it. Nothing could be more important than this moment. He took the goddess in his arms and brought his lips to hers.
The kiss seemed endless. But even before Adon opened his eyes, he felt Sune changing. Her gentle lips had become fierce, demanding. An endless series of sharpened pincers seemed to move from her elongating jaws, seeking to rend the flesh of the cleric's face. Her fingers had transformed into vicious snakes that latched onto his flesh as they threatened to tear him apart.
"Sune!" Adon cried.
The creature laughed as the snaking tendrils of its fingers wrapped themselves around Adon's throat. "You are not worthy of the goddess," it said. "You have sinned against her and you must be punished!"
Across the open, central courtyard of Castle Kilgrave, Midnight, Kelemvor, and Cyric stared as the cleric fell to his knees in absolute terror, driven to this position by something that only he could see.
"Goddess forgive me!" Adon cried. "I will do anything to win your forgiveness. Anything!"
"We have to get to him quickly," Midnight said.
"You will do nothing!" a thunderous voice rang out, its echoes filling the courtyard. "You will do nothing but die by the hand of Bane!"
Suddenly the trio was bombarded by illusions. In the span of a dozen heartbeats, Kelemvor was sent into the dream world of his childhood books: he lived an epic love story wherein he was a foreign prince sent to marry a lovely but heartless princess, and he forsook his very kingdom to run off with a peasant girl. Midnight saw herself as a powerful queen, saving her kingdom from poverty and want. At the same time, images of a free and unfettered life passed before Cyric's eyes, along with offers of gold and priceless artifacts. But the images of heroism and power and freedom held no sway over them. As one, the heroes charged to the center of the courtyard.
The challenges occurred more rapidly as the heroes moved on: Sunlar appeared before Midnight, daring her to a magical duel. Her entire class lined up behind the teacher, anxious to try their skills against her. Cyric faced the ice creature that stood guardian over the Ring of Winter. He watched helplessly as the monster reached out for him. Kelemvor faced the executioners who took the life of his grandfather, but now they had come for him. He looked down to find that he was now old and tired. His attempts to find a cure for his condition and salvation for his withered soul had been a failure.
But still the heroes pressed forward to the center of the courtyard and Adon's side.
Still on his knees, Adon stared as paradise tore itself apart and was reordered. The demon creature that had pretended to be the goddess had left him, but Sune's kingdom had changed. The death and punishment of its charges was now the mainstay of its existence, as robed figures enslaved and tormented Sune's faithful.
"This is a lie!" Midnight screamed as she got close to Adon.
The cleric turned, wide-eyed, and saw someone who looked just like Midnight standing beside him — but she wore the robes of the Sunites' tormentors.
"But… it was so beautiful!" Adon said, angry at Midnight's words.
"Look about you," Midnight said. "This is reality!"
Adon looked and saw the goddess Sune chained to a huge slab. The robed figures were lowering the slab into a river that ran scarlet with the blood of Sune's followers.
And each of the robed figures wore a pendant, exactly like Midnight's.
"The pendant!" Sune shouted. "It is the source of their power! Take it and I will be free!"
Midnight grabbed Adon by the shoulders. "Damn it, listen to me!"
"No!" Adon screamed, and before Kelemvor or Cyric could react, the cleric lunged at Midnight with a ferocity she had not expected. Adon's hand closed over Midnight's dagger, and he pulled it away from her. Feet together, Midnight kicked the cleric in the midsection, sending him flying backward, the dagger still clutched in his hand. There was a sharp crack as Adon's head struck the ground. Then the cleric lay in a heap, stunned by the blow.
Midnight began the movements and the chanting that would release a spell to dispel the magical assault. As she prayed that the spell would not go awry, the tiny fires upon the pendant crackled. There was a blinding flash of blue-white light as Midnight's spell released a maelstrom of magics that enveloped the courtyard.
Bane fell back, crying out as the water of the scrying pool became a scalding torrent of blood that erupted in a geyser as the pool exploded. All around Castle Kilgrave, the spells Bane had used to transform the ruins into a minor reflection of his home in the Planes were shattered by Midnight's magic.
Bane's temple, his New Acheron, was crumbling. The fantastic gateways he had opened were now closing. The corridors and chambers that so cleverly held replicas of Bane's former temple in the Planes lost their tenuous hold on reality and burned away.
In moments all that was left was the ruined remains of a mortal's castle. Bane fell forward, sobbing, and part of his mind marveled at discovering another new sensation these humans lived with every day of their short existence:
Loss.
New Acheron was gone.
When at last he turned and summoned the hakeashar so he could gather the power to kill Mystra's would-be rescuers, the Black Lord was shocked to find the mystical chains that held the goddess empty.
Mystra had escaped.
VII
Midnight was on her knees, recovering from the shock of her spellcasting, when Adon appeared beside her. The courtyard of Castle Kilgrave displayed no vestige of the battle that had taken place in its confines.
"It's gone," Adon said. "Sune's kingdom is gone, as if it never truly existed."
Midnight looked up at him. When she spoke, it was in a comforting tone. "I'm sure it exists somewhere, Adon. When the time comes, you will find your way there."
Adon nodded, then he and Cyric helped Midnight to her feet. A few yards away, Kelemvor coughed twice and slowly came around. "What happened?" Kelemvor said, holding his wounded shoulder.