Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad (10 page)

“She means by accident, Mukhtar.” Pelias stepped into the light, his chain mail jangling beneath his robe. “You were having quite a fit. The straps are merely to keep you from lashing out and falling off the litter.”

I looked away, as though mention of the fit caused me great embarrassment, but in truth I was hiding my relief. His warm tone meant the witch had not read my dreams-or told him if she had. I saw that I lay in a scribe’s chamber, lit by the flickering light of an oil lamp and sparsely furnished. Two chairs had been positioned at the ends of my litter to hold it aloft, and on a desk in the corner sat Pelias’s helmet and a copper water pitcher. The room also had a deep window seat, though the heavy curtain over the casement blocked my view outside. My heart began to beat faster, for I feared that dawn had come and I had awakened too late to find the Cyrinishad.

Pelias squatted beside my litter and laid a hand on my shoulder. There’s no need for shame, Mukhtar. How do you feel?”

“Well enough that there is no need for these.” I raised my hands and pushed against the leather strap across my hips. I saw that with a little careful effort, I might pull my wrists up and free my hands. “And I am so very thirsty.”

Pelias reached forward to release my bonds.

Faster than a lizard could dart, the witch caught his hand. “Leave him until we are certain the fit has passed, Pelias. Perhaps you should go find the Keeper. Did he not say to fetch him when Mukhtar awoke?”

“No, Pelias!” I shouted. If I was to have any chance of finding the Cyrinishad, I had to escape quickly-a thing that Ruha would certainly make more difficult. “If you love Oghma, don’t leave me with the witch! I beg you!”

Ruha’s brows came together. “Are you afraid of me, Mukhtar?”

I ignored her and fixed all my attention on Pelias. “She will kill me as I lie here helpless and bound!”

Pelias shook his head and took the woman’s arm. “This is Ruha.” He held her hand out toward me. “She won’t hurt you.”

I looked away from them both.

“Mukhtar,” said she, “why are you afraid? I have caused you no harm.”

I swung my head around so fast that I slammed my temple against the litter frame. “Then why did you throw sand in my eyes? And why I am tied here against my wishes, with a head that feels as if it could hatch an eagle?” With every word, I sprayed spittle from my mouth, hoping they would think me ready to have another fit. “Pelias, she has tried to kill me once already, and if you leave her alone with me, she will do it!”

Pelias wiped the spittle from his face and turned to the witch. “It would be better if you fetched Ulraunt.”

Ruha’s eyes grew narrow, and she studied me for a long time, and when she spoke, her voice was sharp with anger. “My spell did him no harm, Pelias. That dog has no cause to fear me!”

Pelias took her arm and led her a few steps away, but even with one bad ear and the rustle that filled my head, I knew what he whispered to hen “He needs no cause, Lady Witch. He’s mad.”

I felt her dusky eyes upon me and knew she was not entirely fooled by my pretense. Yet, neither did she understand what I was doing, and this made her as nervous as my words made her angry.

“As you wish, Pelias. I’ll go for the Keeper.” She made no pretense of whispering, but spoke loudly enough so I could hear. “But you mustn’t untie him. This beggar plays a bigger role than we understand. It is best to consider him as dangerous as Cyric.”

“As you wish, Lady Witch.” Pelias probed a pocket in his robe. “You will need this token to enter the Keeper’s Tower.”

“I have my own. That is where I am staying.”

With that, the witch left the chamber, making no mention of the vision in which she had seen me with a book. It was her custom to keep such things secret, for she had learned through unwelcome experience that most people would rather blame her visions for their trouble than thank her for warning them against it. Perhaps this stupidity is why the fear I feigned offended her so; this I cannot say, only that she was the first woman who ever took such an instant dislike to me.

After the door closed, I forced myself to count a hundred heartbeats. I was eager to begin my search, but I had to remain patient, lest my friend heed the witch’s warning. Nor did it calm me much that it was Pelias who guarded me, for my escape would bring an avalanche of troubles down upon his head. I would have been a better friend to let him go for the Keeper and have the witch take the blame, but Ruha was more than my match. If I was to have any chance of avoiding Kelemvor’s torments, Pelias would have to do me this one last service.

When I finished the count, I turned to Pelias. He sat upon the corner of the desk, watching me. The dagger I had given him was still tucked in the front of his sword belt.

I wrinkled my face to form a pitiful expression. “I am most uncomfortable, my friend. Won’t you please undo these straps?”

Pelias shook his head. “If Ulraunt finds you loose-“

“What do you care of Ulraunt, my dear friend? He has already decided to make your life here most unpleasant If you had any sense, you would leave and go home with me to Calimshan.”

“Calimshan?”

There was no danger in what I had said. Though several companies from Calimshan had been conspicuous during the siege, I knew Pelias would discount my words as the ramblings of a madman. This allowed me to soothe my conscience with a genuine offer of assistance. “I am a personal friend of the Caliph of Najron,” I boasted. “I could arrange a house for you, and fill it with women who suit your desires.”

At this, Pelias laughed. “I am a monk, Mukhtar. I have all I desire here in Candlekeep.”

“But not for long, I fear.”

“Ulraunt is not so petty as you think. He’s a wise man.”

“Perhaps, but wisdom is not kindness.”

Pelias’s answer came more slowly than before. “All the same, if I can’t have it in Candlekeep, I don’t want it at all.”

“And nothing can change your mind, Pelias?”

He laughed, as though we had been making jokes. “Nothing.”

“Ah, well.” I sighed wearily. “Then would you give me a drink?” On the side of my litter opposite Pelias, I bent my wrist back. “That terrible stench is making me sick.”

“Stench?” Pelias frowned. He picked up the copper water pitcher. “What are you talking about?”

“Your nose is not offended?” Truly, I was amazed. Then you must leave Candlekeep at once-you have been here too long.”

Pelias laughed and brought the water to me. “The only thing that smells here is-well, never mind, my friend.”

“Indeed? You cannot smell it? It is the fetor of the grave, rotting corpses and mold.”

Pelias grimaced. “I think I’d notice.”

I scowled. “And what of the insects? Does their rustling not drive you mad?”

Pelias raised his brow. “Insects? We don’t allow them in Candlekeep, Mukhtar. They damage books. There are magic wards to keep them out”

“Indeed!” I gasped. Then it came to me where I had heard a similar rustling before, and smelled a similar odor the night Gwydion and the woman had arrived with the Cyrinishad “No insects at all?”

“Not enough to rustle, certainly.” Pelias leaned down to hold the pitcher to my mouth. Had my arm been free, I could have plucked my dagger from his belt. “Are you thirsty or not?”

I raised my head and saw that I had enough freedom to do as I planned, and then some. Pelias tipped the pitcher to fill my mouth with water, but I closed my throat and spat it all back at him and made a terrible coughing. At the same time I jerked my left hand from beneath the middle strap, freeing my arm to a point just above the elbow. Pelias placed a hand behind my head to support it, then poured again. “Swallow, Mukhtar!”

This I did. I also reached across my chest and grabbed Pelias by the shoulder. Through his robe, I gathered a knot of chain mail and jerked him down upon my body and when his head came close to my face I seized his ear with my teeth and bit down as hard as a camel. “Mukhtar!” He tried to pull away.

I held fast. Pelias couldn’t free himself without tearing his own ear from his head. I jerked my right hand free of the strap, then reached up and fumbled at his sword belt until I felt the hilt of my dagger.

“Mukhtar, what are you doing?”

But Pelias knew what I was doing; this was obvious by the fear in his voice and the fierceness with which he struggled He ripped half his earlobe off trying to pull free of my teeth and he dented the copper pitcher on my head. Had he but known how this pain fueled my strength! He fought mightily to free himself and grab my dagger, and with only one hand and my jaws to restrain him, it was a difficult thing to hold him near. My blade scraped back and forth across his abdomen finding no weak links in his chain mail. Still, the advantage was mine; he was fighting only to escape death, and I was fighting to escape damnation. Even as his torn ear poured blood over my face, I turned my dagger and drove the point through the jangling armor.

It plunged deep into his stomach. I worked the blade this way and that, twisting and turning, as did the Caliph’s assassins to ensure that their victims grew too weak to give battle. Pelias howled; I pushed him away, and he collapsed to the floor, leaving me drenched in glistening blood.

Thus I repaid the kindest friend I ever had: with treachery and injury and agony. My heart should have been glad, for nothing delights the One like the betrayal of a friend, which is always a veneration of the day he killed Kelemvor. But I felt empty and unclean, a leper inside and out. At that moment I counted myself Faithless, and in my despair, I could not pay Cyric his due.

I cut myself free and went to Pelias’s side. I removed his robe and his armor and bathed his wound in water, then bandaged it with a dressing torn from the hem of his robe. He suffered greatly, but he lived, and this was some small consolation. I filled his mouth with a gag and bound him securely, though I knew he was in too much anguish to move. I spoke soothing words, telling him that he would survive until the witch returned to save him. Whether he heard me or not I cannot say, for his eyes were closed and his breathing was fast and shallow.

In his Glorious Wisdom, Our Lord of Murder chose to overlook this insult and did not strike me dead on the spot. Certainly I deserved it. Aside from mocking the One, I was wasting time.

I went to the window and peered around the heavy drape. To my great relief, the moon still bathed the citadel in its pale glow, and the stars still burned in the purple sky. I studied the constellations to learn the time, then surveyed them again. Only an hour remained before dawn!

Hastily I looked out over Candlekeep, trying to guess where the book might be hidden. Below my window lay the fortress’s great ward, ringing the entire span of the citadel. Along its outer edge rose more buildings than I could count-stables, temples, workshops, sleeping quarters-all standing tight against the massive outer walls, all crammed full of Flaming Fists, Hellriders, and other defenders of thieving Oghma’s monks.

In the center of the citadel rose an outcropping of dark basalt, terraced into many levels and mottled with thickets of trees, and laced by winding paths and cascades of steaming water. Here rose the fabled towers of Candlekeep, scattered hither and thither across the hill, each at the end of its own path, each as tall as a titan. And atop the mount stood the mighty Keeper’s Tower, surrounded by a curtain of steam and looming above all the other spires.

At once, I knew where I had to go-not because the Keeper’s Tower was the safest place to guard the Cyrinishad, and certainly not because Ruha had gone there only moments earlier-I had no wish to follow that woman anywhere. I had to go because a soft, sinister rustling was hissing down from the great spire, filling my ears with a murmur as relentless as it was gentle. The Cyrinishad was calling; the book was a living, sentient thing, and it could sense that I was near.

As I watched, a wedge of yellow light appeared at the base of the Keeper’s Tower and shot across a drawbridge, silhouetting the veiled figure of the witch. She stopped to speak with the guard, and I remembered the token Pelias had offered her. Though the distance was too great to see if she displayed the emblem, I felt certain that only those bearing such wards were allowed inside the Keeper’s Tower.

I returned to Pelias’s side and rummaged through his robe until I found a small disk of bronze. My dear friend had served me yet again! I pulled the cloak over my head, then sliced away the bottom to avoid tripping on the hem, and then I felt the blood-soaked wool clinging to my stomach.

My hopes vanished in a breath. What sentry would let me pass with such a stain on my frock? And even if Tymora favored me and I somehow avoided the door guard, Ruha and Ulraunt would soon discover my escape and raise the alarm. And even if I found the Cyrinishad before they caught me, there would be Gwydion to deal with. Surely, he slept beside the book like a dog by its master. The moment I touched Cyric’s prize, he would leap up and slice me in half and send my poor soul on its way to Kelemvor!

Yet, I had no choice except to try. My desperation became my friend, for a hopeless man can try anything and lose nothing. I left with no clearer plan than this: to go to the Keeper’s Tower in all haste, slip through its halls in complete silence, and deal with anyone who challenged me just as I had dealt with Pelias. If at all possible, I would find the Cyrinishad and do as the Prince of Madness commanded.

I left the building by a side-window and crept a third of the way around the ward, slinking warily through the shadows beneath the outer wall. Then I thrust my dagger into its sheath and started up one of the many paths that meandered toward the Keeper’s Tower. Here I moved without hesitation; if someone observed me from a window, they would see only a monk walking along a trail.

Halfway up the hill, the path I had chosen bent in the direction of a lesser tower and ended there. I left the trail and went into the trees, and here the climbing grew much slower by virtue of the broken ground and the gloom beneath the low-hanging branches. A brook trickled across the hill, and in the confounding darkness I could not see whether it flowed left or right, or why it seemed to traverse the slope instead of rushing straight down. At once I lost all my bearings, and the world spun in the darkness. It tipped on its side, so that what had been up became merely forward and what had been steep became level, and the trees stood all about me at a slant, as though a stiff wind had battered them all their lives, and I remembered Cyric’s mad words at the Low Gate: “It depends on me, of course…. Nothing is certain until I have beheld it and set it in place, until I have placed myself above it or below, before it or after,” and I understood.