Free Prince of Lies by James Lowder

began, “I denied him the use of magic to create it on his own. Oghma denied him the services of the eternal scribes to complete it in the heavens. This left him to call upon his worshipers to create the Cyrinishad. These sanctions worked, did they not? The book remains but a dark grail for him.”
    “I would not discount the possibility of one of his mundane servants writing the tome he desires,” Oghma warned. “As you should well know, Mystra, mortals can accomplish a great deal given the right motivation.”
    The Goddess of Magic nodded, but the resolve in her glowing blue-white eyes never faded. “Nevertheless, we have forced him to work within the code the rest of us follow. We can do so again with the imprisoned souls -” she paused and scanned the faces of the assembled powers “- and we can do so with the disappearance of Leira.”
    The gods shifted nervously at the mention of the missing goddess. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” Oghma suggested. “The mistreatment of the shade Torm saw-“
    “Cyric’s crimes against the Balance are the true matter at hand,” Mystra hissed. When no one disagreed, she pressed on. “Leira hasn’t shown herself since the Time of Troubles. It’s obvious to me that she’s gone. Someone destroyed her.”
    “Leira is the Goddess of Deception,” Oghma noted. This wouldn’t be the first time she obscured her whereabouts from us, simply to prove her power to hide outstrips our ability and patience to seek.”
    After yawning loudly, Talos dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. “Someone’s answering the prayers of her faithful. That’s all that matters.”
    “And if that someone is Cyric?” Mystra asked. “He already has the power of three gods. Do any of you wish to see him take the power of a fourth?”
    A subtle shift in Talos’s expression told Mystra that even the Destroyer trembled at the prospect of confronting Cyric about Leira’s disappearance.
    “Someone must be aiding him if he’s kept the crime hidden this long,” Torm offered boldly. “Mask, perhaps?”
    Tyr nodded sagely and ran gnarled fingers through his long white beard. “The Lord of Shadows would have much to gain from an alliance with Cyric. As God of Intrigue, Mask could bury all clues of Leira’s murder so deep even a god’s eyes might miss them.”
    “Perhaps,” Mystra said. “But if Cyric destroyed Leira and took on her worshipers, he’s added God of Deception to the rest of his titles. He might not need Mask’s help to hide his crimes.”
    An uncomfortable murmur broke out in the pavilion, and Oghma turned pleading eyes on the Goddess of Magic. Mystra ignored him, though, and said, “I call upon my right as a member of the Circle. I demand Cyric and Mask be brought before Lord Ao for judgment.”
    The response to this proclamation was instantaneous; the gods sent countless incarnations winging across the planes to summon the two errant deities. A burst of darkness and a sickening stench of brimstone heralded Cyric’s arrival in the Pavilion of Cynosure. His robes glowed almost as brightly as Mystra’s, crackling around his thin frame like a cloak of fire. But brightest of all was the enchanted sword at his side. The rose-hued blade burned with such magical radiance Mystra found it difficult to look at it for long.
    Cyric sneered at the other gods, his face twisted with hatred. His dark eyes glittered malevolently as he turned to Torm. “You’ve whined loudly enough to get an audience, I see. That’s not so surprising, I suppose - though I can’t imagine why the rest of you have bothered to call me here.”
    “To answer certain charges,” Tyr said stiffly.
    “Charges!” Cyric scoffed. “If Torm the True told you I’m guilty of breaking some cosmic law, you’d be fools not to believe him. He can’t lie, the dolt, and I’m not going to waste my time trying to get you to believe otherwise.”
    “Then you admit to impersonating other deities,” Torm