The Trial of Cyric the Mad by Troy Denning

Author:Troy Denning [Denning, Troy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Believers of Zhentil Keep were the strangest group of Faithful anywhere on Faerun. All seventeen lived in the same hall of cold stone, and slept in the same crib of straw, and washed themselves in the same baths, and ate from the same wooden basin, and shared among themselves everything they owned without rancor or enmity of any sort. They said they did this on account of the many privations of their city and especially of their temple, but any fool could see they liked matters as they were. As we sat on the barren floor passing the gruel bowl from hand to hand-they did not own a single spoon- there was much joking and laughing and warm touching, and no one ever complained when he emptied the bowl and had to go refill it from the kettle.

Svanhild was standing by the fire, describing my entrance into the city. "And Malik said, 'I am Faithful to Our Lord Cyric, the One and All.' He didn't care whether the guard or anyone else knew he was a Believer!"

Svanhild no longer looked the crone, having washed her grime off in the temple baths. She had done the same for me- as I said, the Believers of Zhentil Keep share everything-and supplied us with the same flaxen robes worn by everyone in the temple. Hers fit just tightly enough to prove she was no more than half the age I had thought at the gate, but of course I had already seen this in the baths.

"He kicked the guard aside-" Svanhild pulled up her robe and raised a well-shaped leg to demonstrate "-and rode into Zhentil Keep as proud as Lord Orgauth himself. Then, when the Believer's Shower started, Halah reared and began cracking heads, and Malik yelled, That is what awaits those who insult the One!'"

Svanhild pointed her finger at the floor and spoke in a voice deeper than my own, which drew many loud guffaws from her fellows. They were not laughing at me, but at the blasphemers whose skulls had been split by Halah's hooves.

" 'Such is the wrath of Cyric!' he yelled, and the guards fired their crossbows." Now Svanhild fixed her gaze on me, and i have never seen such devotion in the eyes of a woman. The bolts didn't even scratch him. You should have seen the guards' faces!"

I felt the heat rise to my cheeks, for Svanhild had already hinted she wished to attend me after dinner. In truth, her advances had been so bold they filled the heart in my breast with a sense of godly due, and it was a wonder I had not enjoyed her already-especially after so many seasons away from my wife. Yet what were women to me when the True Life was at hand? I could think of nothing but stealing the book and curing the One's madness, and of saving myself from the City of the Dead, and of the great reward Cyric would bestow on me after he won his trial.

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