Bruce Cordell - Spinner of Lies

THE CITY OF AIRSPUR, AKANUL

16 LEAFFALL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

One rainy evening, while Demascus was playing a game of tiles on his rooftop balcony, the memory of killing his lover returned. He was studying a game board that spelled out improbable actions, fiery emotions, and especially dubious curse words. The latter were courtesy of his absent opponent. He nodded thoughtfully, then laid down several square playing pieces, each carved with a single letter, to spell the word conspire across a space marked with crossed wands. That multiplied the value of his play by two and he realized hed just catapulted into the lead! When Riltana sees this, he thought, shes going to curse me out as a rat-hearted cheater. He grinned.

Riltana had a flare for laying down high-scoring words, probably thanks to the windsouls colorful vocabulary. Hed discovered her talent a few months ago when shed decisively beat him at a game that she said he might find interesting. Since then, theyd set up each game on the roof. It was convenient for Riltana; she could drop in and make her play whether he was home or not.

Demascus was fascinated by tiles, despite the fact that Riltana trounced him five times out of six. It wasnt only that he enjoyed a challenge and anticipated the day his skill would rival his friends. No, the real reason he couldnt get enough was because sometimes the words on the board unlocked splinters of memory.

For instance, CONSPIRE. That was a word to conjure with. The two syllables suggested a wanton trespass, a meeting high above an unsuspecting-

A gust of wind sprayed cold rain in his face. His chain of thought collapsed. Shadow take it, he muttered. He rubbed water out of his eyes. And just like that, the world went gray, as a recollection flung him somewhere else.

A woman stood in a hallway, her features soft in trembling candlelight. Her shoulders were bare and her eyes smoldered like distant storm clouds. Her name was Madri, and Demascus loved her.

He stood a few paces from her, and he wore only loose trousers, baring his elaborate ash-gray designs. The marks ran down his arms and across his back like the ghosts of tattoos. His bone-white hair was wet and his pale skin tingled from the bath.

Coming to bed? she asked, winding a curl of hair around one finger in languid circles.

His blood surged higher. It pounded in his temples like a drum. I cant go through with this, he thought. I cant

Whats wrong? Youve been quiet all night. Its not like you, Demascus. Madris impish expression wavered.

I took a new commission, he said, his voice dull as a worn blade. One I wish for all my lives I hadnt accepted. If only Id known who

You accept commissions without knowing the target?

Sometimes. Because whomever the gods choose always deserved death. And when had he ever refused? Never. Even

Oh, Madri! What secrets do you keep? How awful they must be.

Youre not frightened, surely, she said, misreading his reticence. If Im to believe a quarter of your stories, even demigods fear your name, if theyre unlucky enough to learn it. She laughed and came to him. Her scent, a sort of orange-peach fragrance with undertones of cedar, was solace. He breathed it in for the last time. Then he took her supple shoulders in his hands.

Its not that Im afraid, Madri. Im paralyzed by grief. And I regret that its come to this. Her arms went around his waist to draw him close. He slid his hands up from her shoulders, tracing the line of her neck until he cupped her head. Im sorry, he said. Even as she gazed at him with incomprehension, he gave a savage twist.

Pelting rain brought Demascus back to the rooftop patio. Water streamed down his hair, under his collar, and saturated his smallclothes. He was standing beyond the protection of the awning with no memory of having moved. And his throat was sore, as if hed been screaming. The city lights were nebulous beneath the sleeting downpour, and the wind tugged at him with icy fingers. A few more steps and hed pitch over the roofs edge. From somewhere below, a wailing child cried for its mother.

Burning dominions, he whispered. What in the name of all the gods of shadow had he just witnessed? That woman-Madri-hed seen her before. Images only, flashes of memory with no context. In each of these, shed glared at him with naked animosity. Now he knew why.

One of his former incarnations had been snakehearted enough to kill his own lover. By all thats holy and sovereign, he thought, Im a monster. I

No, no-Im not-thatwasnt me! That was an earlier incarnation of me, not me. Id never do that. He shook his head in accompaniment with his denial. The atrocity of the recollection was not his to claim. Hed never even imagine it!

Except except he must have. Hed done more than consider committing such an atrocity. And if the reasons were irrefutable, whos to say hed been wrong? Especially if a lord of creation commanded him. Disposing of those selected by the gods had been his purpose. He was an instrument of fate, as hed discovered when he pulled his blade from the mausoleum of his last life. What he had become, however, with his reduced abilities and incomplete memory, was disputable. If any of his former selves felt gnawing remorse over the vision of Madri, he doubted they could have long claimed the title Sword of the Gods.

The cold rain still streamed down. Rain dripped under his boot cuffs and pooled around his toes. Whatever else, he thought, Im not the person who did that! That person shared my name, thats all. If I believe otherwise, Im only a stumble away from the sanatorium. Its time to stop rooting for memories. It cant be worth this.

Except that was a lie. Necessity required he continue striving to remember his previous lives. Learning all hed once been, and everything hed once done, was the only way to protect himself from a potential cavalcade of enemies he didnt even remember making. Enemies his previous selves had made, he corrected himself. That distinction mattered, if only to him. Unfortunately, the events of a few months ago had revealed that his enemies would continue to pursue him, life after life, incarnation after incarnation.

They werent after his life; they were after his soul.

He stared up into the rain, as bleakness settled over him. Even if he jumped and smashed himself along the cliffside city below, it would be no escape. Ill just reform into a new mortal shell somewhere in a few years and lose all the progress Ive gained this time around. Which was maybe what his worst enemy-his nemesis-intended. The Madri recollection might be the very thing Kalkan had manipulated him into recalling, thanks to the rakshasas unholy knowledge of the future. The rakshasa, though dead, had proved to be the ultimate puppeteer. Perhaps Kalkan foresaw hed kill himself in a fit of despair and so seal the fate of Demascuss next incarnation. Kalkan wanted to turn Demascus into an unforgiving fiend exactly like himself. Why? But Kalkan would be out of the picture for a few more years, until the rakshasa returned to renew his blasted purpose

Demascus glanced once more into the night, then stepped back from the edge. He gasped, after releasing a breath he hadnt realized hed been holding. His hands trembled as he recalled the touch of the womans shoulders and the trust in her tumultuous eyes. Madri Who were you? Is this awful vision all I will ever know about you? Probably. Youre long dead, and have been for who knows how many years

I need to leave Airspur. Maybe find someplace in Faerun where none of my previous selves ever visited. Throw away the Veil, the sword, and start over completely-