Mask’s intrigues and the battle with Cyric had brought Oghma unknowingly to the limits of his domain, to a place where decisions about art and knowledge in the mortal realms couldn’t be made with any surety. One wrong step, one act that destroyed more knowledge than it preserved, and he would step across the brink. And from the void that lay beyond, there would be no return, not even for a god.

  From the back alleys of Zhentil Keep, harsh words being spoken to another of Oghma’s incarnations rippled across his consciousness. His mind latched onto the admonitions, drawing back from the void. Here, at least, was a problem he could solve…

  Rinda rocked back and forth, her arms clasped firmly around her knees, her head bowed. She’d been perched in the same position for hours now, though the ache in her back and the cramps in her legs didn’t seem to register in her fear-clouded mind. “No hope,” she whispered. “No hope.”

  Her house had become a prison, the only place her patron had deemed safe from Cyric’s inquisitors. Apart from the times the Lord of the Dead summoned her to the parchmenter’s shop to work on his book, she stayed at home, under the magical shield erected to hide The True life of Cyric from the death god. Rarely eating, never sleeping for more than an hour at a time, Rinda had become a gaunt shadow of her former self.

  They’ve been captured, came a familiar voice. The inquisitors will stalk the Keep no longer.

  The harmony in the multitoned words was meant to be comforting, but Rinda found no solace in the sounds. She turned green eyes, bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles, toward the ceiling. “Did you do it?” she asked.

  No. It was one of the other gods. Cyric has many enemies.

  “I should’ve figured you wouldn’t do anything so direct.” The scribe rested her head on her arms, listening to the cold wind whistle through the cracks in the walls. “Who’s left?” she murmured after a time.

  Fzoul Chembryl and General Vrakk. And you, of course.

  Rinda sighed. So Ivlisar was gone now, too. She’d thought as much. The elf hadn’t come to see her in days, almost since Hodur’s murder. “Will Fzoul or Vrakk be coming to meet with me again?”

  It’s unlikely, Rinda. Cyric has regained the use of magic, so I must focus my power on maintaining the shell around this dwelling. You must be protected-

  “This isn’t about me,” the scribe said bitterly. “It’s about the book. You just want to be sure it stays hidden from Cyric. If I happen to live here, it’s just my good fortune.”

  She stood and stalked to a large knothole in the wall. From there she gazed out at the street. Snow fell in great white flakes, covering the grimy buildings and the frozen street in a shroud of alabaster lace. A woman, bent nearly double by age or sickness or both, shuffled along, a shawl clutched about her shoulders. A pack of ragged children charged past her. The boys split into two uneven groups and began pelting each other with snowballs; the smaller gang, which was quickly overwhelmed by a hail of snowy missiles, shouted their surrender then dashed off again. They left one small child bloody and crying in their wake.

  Rinda fought back the urge to go out and help the child, to stanch his bleeding and still his sobs.

  It would be best for you to stay inside, the god said. Though the inquisitors are gone, Cyric will be undoubtedly unleash new terrors on the city to search for traitors.

  “Get out of my head,” Rinda snapped. She focused her thoughts on the most sacrilegious, profane things she could imagine, just in case he had lingered there.

  Fzoul and Vrakk have found a way to go about their lives, Rinda. You should strive to do the same.

  “Oh really?” She planted her hands on her hips. “They became part of this plot willingly. I didn’t. Both you and Cyric simply strolled in and demanded my cooperation.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Finally, the voice spoke: I’m doing this for you and all the other mortals who would suffer under Cyric’s rule.

  “So you say,” Rinda murmured, her voice as cold as the winter twilight settling over the Keep. “But I’ve got no reason to believe you, not when you won’t even tell me who you are.”

  That knowledge would be dangerous for you. If Cyric discovered your duplicity-

  “Stop it. If Cyric discovers The True Life, he’ll drag me off to Hades whether I know who I’m working for or not.” She ran a hand through her dark curls, trying to rein in her growing fury. “And you wouldn’t lift a celestial finger to help me, would you? Of course not. Then you’d be on the front lines, instead of skulking around behind the scenes.”

  Enough, Rinda. You’re becoming irrational.

  “Why shouldn’t I be irrational?” she shouted then laughed hysterically. “I’m being volleyed between gods like a shuttlecock! And no matter who wins the match, I’ll be the one punished for it!” Rinda picked up a mug and dashed it against the wall. “That’s it. I’m not going to play at this any longer…”

  The scribe hurried to the desk where she worked on The True Life of Cyric. She scattered the books she’d stacked atop the pages then shredded the silk wrappings that guarded the priceless gatherings. Before she could tear the parchment, though, a dark-skinned hand grasped her wrists.

  “Enough,” the god said. He gently turned the scribe to face him. “I cannot let you destroy that knowledge.”

  Rinda stared at the avatar. His slight frame was draped in a monkish robe, austere save for the ermine trim on the hood and sleeves. Dark eyes full of infinite wisdom returned her gaze. There was something else in those eyes, too, a powerful sadness. She felt an urge to bow, but her anger dispelled the inclination before she had a chance to act on it.

  “I am Oghma,” the god said, “Patron of Bards, God of Knowledge. The other powers call me Binder, though I rather dislike the name. It makes me sound too rigid, too unyielding.”

  Rinda’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Then the question finally found its way from her throat. “Why?”

  “As I said, I’m doing this to protect the mortal realms from Cyric. His book would sow ignorance, spread it like a plague to everyone who reads the lies you have penned in his name.”

  “No,” the scribe said. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Why reveal yourself to me?”

  Oghma smiled. “Because you reminded me that sometimes the best path to travel may not necessarily be the safest, especially if one intends to be true to oneself.” At the confusion in Rinda’s eyes, the Binder pointed to the stack of parchment. “You knew that being trapped in this intrigue was denying your calling, and you would have destroyed these pages to set yourself free. It would have been a mistake, but a rather heroic one, all things considered.”

  The God of Knowledge patted her hand. “Mortals understand that better than we gods - making choices, I mean.”

  “I thought you meant mistakes.”

  They’re the same thing.” Oghma said. “At least in part. Anyway, you have questions about our plans, and it’s time I guided you to the knowledge you seek… After you see to the child, of course. He still needs your help, and I know how pointless it would be to try to detain you.”

  Rinda had already tossed her cloak over her shoulders and opened the front door.

  XV

  Oracles of War

  Wherein many strange and supernatural events

  trouble the people of Zhentil Keep, the Prince of

  Lies musters a powerful army to unify his

  holy city, and Thrym the frost giant learns

  that not all gods are created equal.

  Elusina the Gray dumped a handful of grubby chicken bones from a porcelain bowl and waved her hands slowly over the resulting mess. She murmured a nonsensical string of phrases, half words, half musical notes in a decidedly somber key. The fake incantation complete, she began to sway back and forth violently. In summer she cut this part out of the show; now, in the clutches of Nightal, the activity kept the cold from freezing her old joints solid.

  Once she felt sufficiently warmed, the old woman turned bloodshot eyes on the Zhentilar officer sitting across the table from her. “Just as the basilisk’s eye can turn men to stone, their bones can petrify a man’s fate. Here, Sergeant Renaldo -” she gestured to the tangled pile “- here is the shape of your future.”

  Rubbing his gloved hands together anxiously, the young officer glanced around the tiny, garishly decorated room, as if someone might sneak in and steal the secret of his future. When finally he looked at the bones, though, disappointment stole across his handsome features. “Oh, that’s it then? What does it, er - what does it mean?”

  Elusina held one clawlike hand out, palm up. “It’s dangerous to spy upon the future, Sergeant. For me to risk the wrath of the spirit world, I’ll need more… incentive.”

  The Zhentilar cursed vilely. His commander had told him the old woman was a gifted mystic, but these were the tactics of a sideshow huckster. He drew a dagger from his boot top. “If anything from the spirit world drops by to complain,” he said, “I’ll be here to protect you.”

  With bony knuckles, Elusina rapped three times on the table. The thick curtain of beads behind her parted, and a brawny man stepped through. He crossed well-muscled arms over his chest and glowered at the soldier. He was as tall as an ogre and just as ugly, with beady eyes and a nose that had been broken three or four times. From the dented and bloodstained cudgel hanging at his belt, he’d clearly repaid the assaults in kind.

  “Brok here protects me,” Elusina murmured. “You’re supposed to pay me enough to keep him around.” She extended her hand again, waiting patiently until the soldier dropped a silver piece and a half-dozen copper into her palm.

  The old woman cackled and deposited the coins one by one into a strong box at her feet. They jingled against the cache like a gypsy’s tambourine. In troubled times like these, providing glimpses into the future was a profitable business - even for thieves like Elusina, who could no more see a man’s fate than walk through a stone wall.

  Still, the old woman provided a bit of a show for the men and women who came seeking her advice. She’d been an actress at one time, a lesser light in a decidedly disreputable troupe that toured the Cormyrian countryside. Elusina’s skills as a pickpocket had been honed vigorously by the master of the ragged band, but she’d managed to acquire a fair sense of the dramatic along the way.

  “Oh, there is much danger in store for you, Sergeant,” she began, hovering once more over the chicken bones. “Traitors and heretics lurk everywhere, and it will be your task to route them from the city.”

  The Zhentilar scoffed. “Everyone knows what the army’s job’ll be, now that the church is running the Keep. Tell me something you haven’t heard on the street.”

  “You will be promoted soon -” Elusina jabbed at two bones set apart from the rest, crossed like blades in a battle “- before the end of the year. You’ve been seeking an important post, and it will soon be yours.”

  That claim caught the soldier’s attention, and the look of suspicion began to drop from his features. “How? I mean, what happens to the dolt who’s in that spot now?”

  Elusina stared at the bones a moment, formulating an answer clear enough to keep the soldier intrigued, but vague enough to keep hidden the fact she had no idea what post he wanted. Like most military men, the young sergeant was ambitious. She’d recognized that the moment he walked into the parlor, swaggering like a victorious general, or Xeno Mirrormane himself…

  “The patterns are not clear,” she murmured, stalling for time. The old woman cursed herself for drinking so heavily at the Serpent’s Eye earlier in the afternoon. The aftereffects of the gin was clouding her thoughts. “Let me look more closely.”

  As Elusina ran her withered fingertips over the smooth curves and sharp ends of the scattered bones, her mind suddenly went blank. The parlor fell away, the imitation Shou carpets and tasseled lanterns swathed in red silk fading into mist. In their place she saw only the tangle of chicken bones, as large as Cyric’s temple, glowing more brightly than the morning sun. And for the first time, she recognized a clear meaning in the jumble.

  “Death awaits you,” Elusina said. Her voice was hollow, like something calling from the Realm of the Dead. “The city will fall, and all its defenders will be slaughtered - ground to dust beneath the heels of dragons and giants, pierced by the arrows of goblins and gnolls.”

  When she came to, Elusina found the Zhentilar officer shouting at her, angrily demanding his money be returned. Brok had taken up a post behind the sergeant. He looked to the old woman, watching for the nod that would mean it was time to throw the client into the street. But Elusina merely reached down into her strong box and grabbed a handful of coins. She emptied these onto the table without counting them, then rose silently and shuffled into the back room.

  She saw no more customers that day or ever again. Elusina had been granted a glimpse into the future. She’d seen the face of death in the seemingly senseless pattern of the bones - not just the Zhentilar’s death, but the doom of thousands upon thousands living in the Keep.

  No matter how hard she tried, the seeress couldn’t banish the image from her mind. The cold clarity of it, the immutable certainty of the city’s destruction clung to Elusina’s thoughts and smothered her spirits like ancient cerements. And with that certainty came the realization that even now, as she huddled in her small, dirty room, grim events were unfolding that would speed the present toward that terrifying, unavoidable future.

  The dragon’s corpse hung upside down in the catacombs beneath the Church of Cyric. As General Vrakk had guessed that day in the marketplace, the young wyrm hadn’t survived long after the procession. Beatings had left welts and scars along its snow-white hide, while days without food had drawn the dragon’s stomach into a hollow curve beneath its ribs. Grief struck the blow that finally killed the beast, an overwhelming sorrow at being separated from its brethren in the icy wastes to the north.

  Ever eager to fill the church coffers, Xeno Mirrormane had sent word through the black market that pieces of the corpse could be had for magical endeavors, but only for a sizable donation to Cyric’s temple. The dragon’s eyes had gone the first day, sold to the wizard Shanalar as fodder for some dark experiment. Claws and tongue went next, along with most of the armorlike scales from its stomach. Now, less than a tenday after its demise, the wyrm looked much like a warrior’s corpse left for the carrion crows after a battle.

  Still, enough remained of the dragon for Xeno Mirrormane to post a guard in the catacombs. Every bone, every sinew from the wyrm would be sold eventually. No need to leave the thing unprotected and tempt the wizards who couldn’t afford the high prices.

  “And I thought guarding the merman in the damned parade was boring,” Bryn mumbled, prodding the coals in the brazier squatting at her side. “This’ll teach me to salute Ulgrym faster next time, though, won’t it?”

  She unsheathed her sword and scratched a crude drawing onto the dirt-strewn floor before her camp chair. She’d sketched the same scene - a nasty little imbroglio involving her Zhentilar commander and various farm animals - six times since beginning her watch, though she completed less and less with each attempt. Even now she lost interest and found herself wiping away the sketch with a worn boot heel.

  A sudden creak of bones brought Bryn to her feet, sword held defensively before her. In the wavering light from the brazier, she could see the dragon’s corpse shudder. One of its wings slipped from the bindings and unfolded slowly, stiffly.

  Icy fingers of fear danced up Bryn’s back. The shivers gathered at her neck, tensing her shoulders and choking off the scream that had begun to well in her throat.

  The bindings dropped away from the wyrm’s other wing, and it, too, unfurled languidly. Bryn’s years of training in the Zhentilar helped her throw off the fear-born paralysis holding her in place. Yet this was no dalesman, no renegade goblin she faced. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t still the trembling in her hands or swallow the lump in her throat. The best she could do was force a tentative step forward.

  The corpse remained still, wings spread to its side like some monstrous bat awakening with the nightfall.

  The soldier and the corpse remained motionless for a time, locked in that weird tableau. Finally Bryn gathered the courage to prod the dragon; the blow simply made the wyrm swing back and forth on its rope.

  “Damn civilians,” she muttered, sliding her sword tip over the loose ropes. “Can’t even tie knots right.”

  As Bryn leaned forward to bind the corpse’s wings again, its head shot up. Eyeless sockets regarded the Zhentilar for an instant. Then the undead dragon snapped its jaws closed on her neck. It enfolded the woman in its wings like a vampire in a melodrama sliding his cloak around the swooning heroine. The leathery embrace muffled Bryn’s gasp of surprise and the single shriek she managed before the dragon tore out her throat.

  The soldier’s bloody corpse slipped to the floor with the dull sound of leather armor striking stone, and the wyrm turned its attention to the rope wound around its tail. It tried in vain to struggle free from the sturdy hemp, but Xeno’s thugs had done a much better job on the knots there than the ones that had held the dragon’s wings. After a few moments, it grew impatient. Three savage bites severed the bonds - and the end of the wyrm’s tail, as well.

  The dragon, long past feeling any mortal pain, dropped to the ground and padded into the darkness of the catacombs. Its slithering trek led to the Keep’s sewers, down to the befouled water of the River Tesh. From that murky swell the dragon rose, phoenixlike, to deliver a message of vengeance to its clan.

  On broken, ice-rimed wings the wyrm took to the midnight sky over Zhentil Keep. In only a few days it would be home. There, the challenge would be delivered to the dozen fully grown white dragons of the clan. The plea for revenge had no words, could have no words, since the young wyrm’s tongue even now bubbled in a mage’s elixir.