terrible face. Mismatched eyes swiveled to meet his. The painted mouth heaved against the canvas, as if it vainly sought breath in an airless void.
The Necromancer’s regard was a psychic kick, as Madri had warned. Demascus sucked in a breath. He, or at least his former incarnations, had parlayed with avatars of gods, and perhaps even gods themselves. Though the entity staring at him was the scion of the Binder of Knowledge and a demigod, it was trapped in paint. It wouldn’t cow him.
“Necromancer. What does Madri want you to tell me?”
The two-dimensional mouth squirmed. The painting whispered, “… the Sword is vulnerable to those who can bend Fate, or deceive it with a tapestry of interlocking lies …”
“Explain,” he said, annoyed the Necromancer didn’t just get to the point. What was it about artifacts that made them babble most of the time? The painting was hinting at something monstrous, but hints could be interpreted any old way, depending on the desires of the listener.
“… sometimes a lie can shift reality, forcing Fate to adjust, instead of the other way around …”
“Yes, yes. That sounds very fancy. Just tell me: who’s lying?”
“
Demascus looked round.
Madri had clapped her hands to her mouth and was pointing at Jaul.
The boy wore the burned half-mask.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
'Hello,” Jaul said. “I never get tired of it, how vivid the world is through living, mortal eyes.” The mask’s mouth was moving, but the voice was not Jaul’s.
“Fossil?” said Madri, her voice quavering. “Is that you?”
“Just so,” Jaul’s mouth quirked, in perfect lock step with the half-mask’s rubbery contractions.
Madri whirled to fix a scared gaze on him. “Demascus, the mask was a dead angel; I thought I destroyed it!”
Jaul-no, Fossil-shook its host’s head. “You almost did. But you should have destroyed
“What’ve you done with Jaul?” Demascus asked. If anything happened to Chant’s son … Demascus didn’t want to think about it. His friend would never forgive him.
“Jaul?” said Fossil. “He’s not far, nor as pure as you assume. I can see right into his mind.” A hand rose and tapped Jaul’s forehead. “In fact, why don’t I let him tell you what he’s been up to?”
Jaul spoke again, but this time in something much closer to his regular voice. “Hey, Demascus. Yeah … I’ve been sort of a bad boy.” Then he giggled.
It sounded like Jaul … but a Jaul hyped up on about five kettles of tea. “Take off the mask!”
“Nah. I don’t think so. I’m seeing things a whole new way.”
“Because you were stupid enough to put an evil relic on your face. It’s messing with your perception. Take it off!”
Madri interrupted, “Jaul, what did Fossil mean when he said you’re not so pure?”
Jaul laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Fossil meant the Necromancer. I wasn’t actually going to return the painting to House Norjah. I just said that because you caught me. No, I’ve been keeping Master Raneger apprised of everything you’ve been up to. See this tattoo?” Jaul pointed with one hand at a tattoo on his opposite wrist, depicting a dagger suspended in a crashing wave. “It’s Raneger’s sign. Means I’m pledged. I told Raneger about the Whispering Children while you were off chasing drow in the Demonweb. He was
Disappointment on Chant’s behalf stabbed Demascus. It was plausible … and explained how Jaul had found his way here. Raneger’s sizable criminal network had supplied the address. The little snot had betrayed them. And now Jaul had been snagged by something even worse than Raneger.
“Fossil, let Jaul go!” Demascus said.
“Fossil isn’t doing anything I don’t want it to do,” said Jaul. “
“Try to take it off then, and we’ll see who’s got who.”
“You think I’m that stupid? Go piss in a dragon den.”
Demascus
“Hey, watch it. With this thing on my face, I don’t miss a thing. And I can tell you’re going to do something stupid. Don’t, or you’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry how?”
“Sorry that you didn’t learn all the secrets this relic mask knows about you because you made me too angry to share. Fossil said it could see into my head? Well, I can see into what passes for its mind, too. And you figure prominently.”
Jaul raised his hands in a gesture of reconciliation. “I know things you need to know.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the true origin of …” Jaul cocked his head, as if trying to recall a half-forgotten fact. “… of Kalkan Swordbreaker. He wasn’t always your nemesis, you know. He was created after you manifested in Toril.”
“How do you know that name?”
“Fossil knows,” Jaul said, smiling like the drake who ate the cat.
Madri murmured, “Demascus, Fossil is a liar and works for a liar. Anything he says might be-”
“Created by whom?” interrupted Demascus. Madri scowled at him. Anger made him not care about her feelings-she should have warned him about the mask!
“By the gods,” said Jaul … but the voice was no longer that of Chant’s son. The intonation had returned to that of the relic angel. Fossil continued, “They feared you, a creature with a mortal’s mind-set from another continuum. An entity who’d been granted more power than a being of your station should ever possess. So they fashioned a keeper, one who could manage you, and then snuff you out whenever your power grew too great. To reset you, as it were, and rub out any particularly embarrassing memories you might carry that could implicate even a god.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Is it? The pantheon of Toril faced enough problems-the last thing they needed was an assassin whose power, at its height, might be sufficient to remove a god from the holy rolls. Or whose intimate knowledge of their private vendettas could be used to shake up earthly temples.”
Demascus shook his head. He couldn’t imagine that a version of himself could ever be so powerful that the gods would fear him. Although …
In several visions of former incarnations, he had to admit he’d felt … calm, sure, and at peace with what was essentially an unstoppable capacity to harm others. He’d been more than human, like a demigod given mortal form. His pale skin, marked with jagged patterns, set him slightly apart from others, but the grace and certainty that suffused his every word, his every movement, might as well have been … divine. When he was moved to action, godlike power had flowed through him to smite his foes, and sometimes it felt as if the eyes of a god looked out from inside his skull …
“They’re using you, Demascus!” pressed Fossil. “They don’t care about you. You’re a tool to them, one they deliberately keep blunt. They don’t deserve your service.”
He recalled his attempt to contact Oghma, and how he’d been rebuffed. Already angry, new resentment
