Free The Diamond by J. Robert King Page B

holds her soul. Fearing the Unseen might use it
    to create Eidola again, we bring it to you for Khelben to deal with.”
     
    Vapor from Piergeiron’s teacup spun lazily around the lord as he gently took Eidola’s hand in his
    own. For a moment, gazing at the thing, he seemed to see the grasping octopodal tree of his
    dream.
     
    “You say what she was, and I believe you. Her mind spell nearly killed me, and yet
    ” He turned
    the grisly trophy over and over in his grasp. “I cannot shake the sense that what I met in the
    world of the dead was no false lady
    no malicious trickery.”
     
    The change in his face was so subtle that no one there could have ascribed it to a shifting crease
    or a widening pupil. But all of them felt the silent agony underlying it. Piergeiron drew in a long,
    shuddering breath, and said, “To me, she was not a monster. To the people of Waterdeep, she
    was none other than my bride. She’s gone, so what does it matter what she really was? To me, to
    the people, let her remain a vision of good.”
     
    Miltiades gazed down at his boots, clearly shocked and not knowing what to say. Rings and Belgin
    stood in respectful silence. Aleena looked at Khelben, back beside his kettle. Noph’s eyes met the
    Open Lord’s, and in the young hero’s gaze dawned understanding and admiration.
     
    “Hold,” Khelben said gently. “Before this gem-bearing hand can be laid to rest, the soul within
    must be dispersed. I anticipated the truth of this diamond. There’s only one sort of gem a
    doppelganger would cling to so strongly.”
     
    He took the severed hand from Piergeiron and held it up, his eyes glinting back its reflected light.
    “Now that we’ve all had at least a sip of the tea I brewed—a pleasant drink and protection against
    soul possession—it should be safe to discover just what Eidola might have to say for herself.”
     
    The company fell back to give the wizard room. A wide-eyed Miltiades lifted his now-cool cup and
    downed it to the dregs.
     
    Khelben’s hand began an intricate dance in the air about the jewel. Purple and green mists trailed
    his fingers with each arcane gesture. Then dark and menacing words came from his lips. Mists
    swirled around the stone. The incantation sounded again by itself, the words seeming to echo with
    the vicious barbed edges of ancient evils brought into the light of a new day.
     
    Up from the mists swirled a cloud of smoke that shivered, rippled, and became a feminine face,
    eyes closed, high cheekbones almost too beautiful.
     
    “Shaleen!” Piergeiron gasped in sudden hope.
     
    The vision’s eyes opened. Her pupils were vermilion slits, glowing with hatred. “All you wanted was
    me, Piergeiron. All I wanted was all you had. We could have done very well for each other.”
     
    “Begone, vile beast!” Khelben growled. “Let only the memory of your outward virtue remain!”
     
    In the moment before Eidola’s soul dissipated forever into the bright morning breeze, her
    humanity melted away. A gray-skinned, dull-eyed, wholly inhuman something stared hatefully at
    them all.
     
    Interlude
     
    Musing and Madness
     
    I’m no longer dead, but on some level I must be mad.
     
    Mad with loss, first for my Shaleen, and now for my Eidola. It’s the privilege, perhaps the
    responsibility, of survivors, especially mad survivors, to remember the dead always, to reassemble
    them not out of trivial facts but eternal verities.
     
    If we must all die—and we must, of that I’m sure—at least let what remains of us in the hearts
    and hopes and dreams of friends be what was best and brightest. Death can have the rest.
     
    Perhaps I am mad, Miltiades, but let me mourn. Perhaps I am heroic, Noph, but do not
    overindulge me. Perhaps I am both mad and heroic, for what are humans but those who know
    they’ll die and go on living, madly heroic? Whatever I am does not matter. Whatever she was does
    not matter. Judge if you wish and come to your own