The Truth Finally Came in Treason (I)

Death: the cessation of all vital functions. The state of being no longer alive. The cause or occasion of loss of life.

There were many other definitions and interpretations of the term: a cause of ruin, extinction, even the passing or destruction of something inanimate. Paradoxically enough, however, Bhaal's portfolio didn't cover them at all, at least not inherently. Abstract reinterpretations seemed to be a thing of mortals, with some of the alternative definitions rather counterintuitively being classified as completely different portfolios held by other Powers. Talos and Gruumsh were gods of destruction, Tempus was the god of war, Bane was the god of hatred and tyranny. All those things were waged or enforced at least partly via death (murder, execution, starvation, accidents, collateral, etc.) and/or destruction in practice. But the portfolios were bizarrely considered separate nevertheless. There was some crossover in terms of power and spells between the deities, with most or all of them possessing the "destruction" spell domain if nothing else, but the portfolios nevertheless seemed to be designated as nearly or entirely distinct.

Perhaps a case could be made for gods seeing things more "clearly," unencumbered by the lack of perspective or insight that made mortals think in terms vague enough as to give rise to such things as philosophy, but considering that gods like Oghma and Deneir existed and encouraged such things, Cyrus doubted it. More likely the reverse was true.

It all seemed suspiciously contrived.

Ironically, it also meant that Cyrus developed the way he did precisely because he did not have to think along the specific lines that the portfolio demanded. The simple matter was that the Bhaal remnant, as much as he liked to pretend he didn't, no longer held the portfolio of death, or even the sub-section of Murder. Cyric did. Bhaal's divine essence worked as if it still did, but that was more because Bhaal had been the god he'd been for so long that he'd forgotten how to be anything else.

As he hung in the centre of the Gimbal of Three-Fold Unity, Cyrus Anwar wished he could allow himself a moment to appreciate the irony of Bhaal's plan. Had the vestige's plan to take him over worked, the would-be god would have been blinder than a bat. The reason was simple really: the academic definition of death notwithstanding, Cyrus considered death as a synonym for destruction and entropy equally valid as definition. It was why the things he traced broke down to pieces and dust. It was why he saw lines of death on people and objects alike. Far from the death and murder as defined by the god's own domain.

Perhaps Bhaal would have still managed to see things normally, or kept the perception of hearts, blood and everything else anatomically likely to cause death if assailed. Perhaps he would still have seen souls. Either way, the ability to inflict entropy on things and people regardless of where vitals were placed would not have worked for him. That was entirely Cyrus' accomplishment.

The dwarf smiled grimly as he assimilated the Bhaaltaint, turning it from murder/death/kill to quiet/stillness/peace and from bleak/dark/nothing into calm/bright/anything. All his life he'd been subconsciously changing the nature of the essence, the domain if the term even applied, according to his view of things. It was a bitter irony that his full BELIEF in his interpretation of destruction as death actually worked in Bhaal's favour. Allowed him the hold it did, the level of influence on him despite Cyrus' active rejection of the intruder for all those years, remembered or not.

Maybe that was why Bhaal had seemed so eager to assimilate him as well, rather than keep trying to cast him aside after the first few tries failed? The new perspective?

Torm had effectively devoured the souls of a whole settlement in order to slay Bane during the Time of Troubles, so the idea was not without precedent. Torm had gone for the brute force approach, granted, but considering what mortals could do to souls, with magic or just mere fists and words, the hypothesis was actually quite likely. Those scattered mentions and rumours about the Thay Academy of Shapers and Binders came to mind.

Well, no more. Cyrus knew what he had been doing now. He wasn't going to stop or leave before he did to that ocean what he subconsciously did to the trickle of essence that made it to his waking self as Bhaal kept pushing his own essence into his soul with that dagger of his, for half-again a decade.

His grip on said knife refused to falter as he sensed the vestige marshalling its will for another attack, but the shock of the collision, for lack of a better term, never came.

Instead, the vague awareness of the waking world gave him the strange and worrying impression that his body had just ruptured at random all over. Minor lesions at best, even on the skin or softer organs, and his bones hadn't been harmed in the least, but for it to occur at all...

The dwarf glared and willed even harder, clamping down on the advantage of the steadily rising divinity he had under total control to accelerate the conversion rate.

Bhaal attacked him in the waking world again. Then again. Then twice more. Each time the effects worsened. Marginally, but the severity stacked to the point where even the passive regeneration that resulted from Elminster's Wishing spree was overcome. Cyrus could understand what the dead god was doing, or trying to: distract him, force him to split his attention between the essence conversion and wresting mastery of the link to the Prime. Failing that, he wanted to at least harm him in the waking world to the point where he had to make a choice between continuing the absorption or being severely harmed, perhaps even crippled or killed. The odds of the latter weren't likely but…

Bhaal struck again – rage, outrage, spite, hatred I'll rip you to pieces! – and Cyrus' physical self lurched in place as his muscles and skin tore in a myriad of different places.

Cyrus snarled. He could see it now, the dead thing's plan. Hit him in the real world to the point where he has to break off the conversion and reassert control of the link or die outright. Cyrus would wake up and go on to live a number of days, weeks, months or years of having to do this again every night, hoping during waking time that Bhaal didn't manage to convert all of the essence back. Did the Vestige think the three Planar tides would leave him in the meantime? Did he plan to whisper sweet seduction in his ears? What?

Bhaal attacked him in the Prime again, only for the damage and all the prior injuries to be healed right after.

Gorion.

Implacable. Fearless.

Not at all hidden behind cover, unlike the two Archmages who'd made barricades out of the furniture and were fruitlessly trying to convince Gorion to get into cover as well.

Father.

Using the Staff of Healing for all it was worth. How many charges were even left anyway?

The dead god howled without howling – it was strange to perceive things in that place, whatever it was – but attacked again, and again and again, each time more desperate even as Cyrus continued to convert bleak/dark/nothing into calm/bright/anything while failing to restrain his grin every time the damage to him was undone.

Go dad.

The next moment wiped the grin off his face.

Half the reason was Bhaal suddenly ceasing any and all resistance against his essence conversion, which sent him mentally reeling from the sudden progress and resulting lapse in control over the existence of ten times the prior amount of converted divinity.

The other half was Bhaal switching all that will and attention to the Prime. Or, rather, what it resulted in.

Cyrus' bones creaked, muscles tore, skin burst open all over as bleak/dark/nothing poured out into the world like sick smoke that somehow glowed a green unlight amidst the spray of blood. That alone would have been bad enough, but the dead madman then hurled it all outward – connection too thin, will stymied, quantity greater than control, result? Success regardless due to nature of Bhaaltaint to seek and claim lives of others – and managed to shape part of it like a whip of smoke that lashed Gorion across the front.

The man tried to dodge but didn't quite manage.

Cyrus' conversion of essence stalled at the momentary, startlingly clear view of his father swaying sideways, looking surprised as his left arm came apart at the shoulder.

Then the dwarf released the first scream of his own since his soul was ripped into when he was five – lash out, self-might shaped to spear through the murk and deny before that happened a second time – and clamped down on the link to the Prime, slamming his will against the dead thing's just as his hand lashed out in the waking world and grabbed onto the smoke-mist cord the moment it was about to plunge into Gorion's forehead.

Father fell the rest of the way to the ground, two walls came between him and the arrested tendril of spite, each of hard, pure diamond as real as anything else in the world – Elminser Aumar. Khelben Arunsun. Spell of Major Creation. No magic to make still or rip open like in the past – but not before Imoen hopped over the wizard's fallen form and slipped through just as the diamond walls surrounded Cyrus entirely, trapping her in there with him.

Then the crazy lady smacked the evil smoke thing with her lute as if she was disciplining a puppy with a rolled-up paper.

What.

The Bhaal tendril reared back in stunned shock which was mirrored perfectly in wherever-they-were. Cyrus didn't blame the mad thing seeing as he himself wasn't much better. Even though he barely got vague notions of the Prime from all the way across the Planar boundary, he glimpsed more than enough to figure out what was happening. In no small part due to Imoen working on her end of the link herself, not realising the effect she had on him, as usual.

Imoen started a beat on the – entirely whole and spotless – lute belly while she strummed the cords eight times, then tossed the instrument away – it came to a slow hover and continued to play the beat alone as it floated languidly – then brought her sharn to her lips and started to play that instead, going through a short medley once, then a second time before tossing the sharn off as she did her lute.

Then she started to skip around and sing.

She came to me one morning

One lonely Sunday morning

Her long hair flowing

In the midwinter wind

I know not how she found me

For in darkness I was walking

And destruction lay around me

From a fight I could not win

Ah ah ah a-a-ah a-a-ah

Ah a-a-ah a-a-ah

Ah ah ah a-a-ah a-a-ah

Ah a-a-ah a-a-ah

Cyrus Anwar suddenly didn't understand anything.

She asked me name my foe then

I said the need within some men

To fight and kill their brothers

Without thought of love or god

And I begged her give me horses

To trample down my enemies

So eager was my passion

To devour this waste of life

Hope was little sister prancing, skipping from one foot to the next as she dodged half-hearted swipes by the bewildered Bhaaltaint. Hope was little sister as she sung words pulled from of nowhere, as was usual whenever she did something completely outrageous and wanted to get out of it. Hope was little sister flirting with death literally while singing blatant lies.

But she wouldn't think of battle that

Reduces men to animals

So easy to begin

And yet impossible to end

For she's the mother of all men

Who counselled me so wisely that

I feared to walk alone again

And asked if she would stay

Hope was a dancing star of sunfire gliding and hopping here and there as her music followed her from both outside and inside the diamond cage they both were in. Music that she suddenly didn't feel was good enough, so she pulled her fiddle out from under her cloak, cancelled the shrinking spell on it and added its tune to the other two.

Bhaal suddenly panicked – Realisation? Epiphany? Confusion? What? – and started pelting the inside of that diamond sphere all over, smoketaint lashing, breaking and flying every which way, missing her every time despite that she looked like she was just skipping or swaying randomly. Gracefully too. It was like watching that hapless monk of several years back do his best to take off all his clothing layers one by one after falling afoul of the Spork of Flaying.

Oh, lady, lend your hand outright

And let me rest here at your side

"Have faith and trust in peace," she said

And filled my heart with life

There is no strength in numbers

Have no such misconception

But when you need me

Be assured, I won't be far away

It… Bhaal was blinded. Imoen was just too bright so he couldn't even begin to guess where she was at all. And Imoen had no way of knowing that. She'd just jumped in like... like…

Thus, having spoke, she turned away

And though I found no words to say

I stood and watched until I saw

Her black cloak disappear

My labour is no easier

But now I know I'm not alone

I'll find new heart each time

I think upon that windy day

Her cloak was pink, and what was this about labour? At this point neither Bhaal nor Cyrus were… doing… anything.

Oh Imoen, you wonderful, wonderful madwoman!

She came to me one morning

One lonely Sunday morning

Her long hair flowing

In the midwinter wind

And if one day she comes to you,

Drink deeply from her words so wise

Take courage from her as your prize

And say hello from me

The lyrics trailed off along with the tune itself and Imoen was right in front of Cyrus, looking down at the mass of bleak/dark/nothing that hovered like a lobotomised cloud all around him. Bhaal had all but forgotten to try and bother shaping it into anything coherent at this point, stuck as it was in the deepest throes of what's this I don't even-

"I've decided!" She proclaimed. Her self-light shone brightly, filling him and his immediate vicinity entirely. So entirely that it reached and filled the interior of his three-fold globe of protection, even there within those depths. "Stumpy here won't be the only one getting the benefits of eating you, mister Sir Snarls-a-Lot." She lifted her fiddle bow high above her shoulder as her other hand slowly reached out with grasping fingers towards the essence. "Come to momma!"

Bhaal reared back so suddenly and so filled with disgusted horror that not only did the smoketaint disappear from Realmspace entirely, the mad sliver of a dead god drew in on itself in that place as well. It would not have been inaccurate to say that the vestige was more horrified of the idea of Imoen absorbing him than the idea of Cyrus doing it. Never mind that she was completely incapable of doing such a thing, or even thinking up ways to do it.

Cyrus knew, now.

The Truth.

Hope was completely insane.

And she was also a distraction!

The perfect distraction, because her stunt had made the unhinged dead god forget about him and their pitched battle of will entirely, for a moment. Probably because Cyrus had completely forgotten as well. Forgotten about converting the essence of even fighting Bhaal's will in the Prime. For the last six stanzas.

Had he been anyone else the dwarf would have wasted time being embarrassed, allowing Bhaal to get over its episode of being completely cut off from outside and inside reality while gibbering in horror at the thought of being Imoen-ized. It would have led to the two of them resuming the earlier situation, only without any outside healing this time and possibly a dead sister by the end of it, provided Cyrus didn't decide to fold and resign himself to an indeterminate amount of time of dream fights. It wasn't like he could leverage Wishes any more than he already had.

Fortunately, he'd had a whole 15 years to get used to acting logically and without hesitation, and as it happened Bhaal was not exerting any will on that ocean at all.

Well then.

Embody the Madness.

The Slayer reeled and slanted drunkenly as it suddenly found itself fully embodied and limited in power and will to that single body, if only for a moment.

That was fine, Cyrus only needed a moment. A moment to will himself into being right in front of the dead thing, duck under the startled swing of the pseudo-avatar and stab Bhaal in the heart with his own knife.

Cyrus Anwar felt himself take control of the entirety of that blood ocean for the very first time.

"I suppose this is the part where I'm meant to say something pithy." He wasted no time forming the three-fold sphere, though he switched it from protection to containment. There. He wasn't trapped there with Bhaal anymore. Bhaal was trapped there with him. "I am strongly tempted to do it too. Having a full range of emotion to call my own now, I find myself actually understanding why people indulge in the impulse to monologue." The Tides answered him immediately, as they'd done previously. "But instead, all I am going to say is this." He grabbed the corpse-looking thing by the throat with his free hand and willed the knife to drink. "For all that you have done, let JUSTICE be done at last."

Those words having been said, Cyrus decided to follow his Father's example in the noble art of solving problems.

Which was to say, he set everything on fire.

Metaphorically of course.

And he did mean everything. The essence, the rings, the inside of the rings, the outside of the rings, Bhaal's vestige, even himself. Everything all the way to the edges of what he now recognised as a demiplane drifting alone in the Astral Sea. It was a beautiful thing, the perfect evocation of Hope's sunfire made personal through the process inadvertently shown by Khelben Arunsun when his alignment changed so very spontaneously yet not spontaneously in the least. All of which would have been impossible, unwanted even, if the dwarf hadn't had a reason to try for it, or anything at all. A reason to follow when doing anything.

It was rather charming, really, how the word "reason" could mean two entirely different things but for both meanings to have equal relevance for his situation as they had had for all his actions in the past.

Bhaal's sliver struggled. Of course it did, and it even wounded Cyrus severely, fatally even, several times – pull self-essence inward, replenish soul and spirit after each damaging retaliation, rinse and repeat – before its efforts faltered and the Slayer succumbed to the inevitable with a wheezing roar that tapered off into an oddly thick, low wail that shook the entire demiplane before there was nothing left of the foreign will at all, or the Slayer itself. Merely specks and swirls of black and green unlight that burned and changed like everything else. Then even those disappeared, transformed into quiet/stillness/peace coloured all shades of calm/bright/anything.

The three halos dispersed around him – scattered like snowspray with the echoes of tinkling laughs – and Cyrus Anwar was left drifting, not quite capable of believing…

There was only him, finally. Him and an ocean of fire that burned without flame.