PROLOGUE

SOMEWHERE IN FAERÛN
YEAR OF LIGHTNING STORMS (1374 DR)

THE CANDLES IN THE SECRET MAUSOLEUM FLICKERED, throwing monstrous shadows across the granite walls. Kalkan’s own wavering profile still surprised him. The silhouette of his head revealed an extended muzzle, rough fur, exaggerated catlike ears, and two curls of horn. If anything, the dreadful outline fell short of revealing the true horror of what he’d become.

But the shadow of his companion refused to resolve at all, except as a gloom of phantom skulls, swirling and mouthing lies. The fluctuating shape seemed to have little in common with the slim youth with dark eyes and pale skin. But Kalkan knew better.

“He’s in there?” asked the youth.

“His shell is,” answered Kalkan. “It’s moldering away to dust, as if he were mortal. But even as we speak, the nexus of his spirit drains toward its next incarnation.”

“Minus the memories of what he’s done,” said Kalkan’s companion, anger making his voice tight.

“Just so,” said Kalkan, and waited for his companion to get to the point. The youth knew perfectly well who lay in the stone grave. The epitaph chiseled on the sarcophagus spelled it out:

A prickle ran up Kalkan’s spine. The epitaph was no boast. Demascus was a terrifying force when operating at the height of his powers. Kalkan recalled all too well the first time he’d tracked down Demascus.

Kalkan had spent tendays lying low in a small cave near the ravine where the abomination laired.

Waiting, at turns bored beyond belief, then terrified that the abomination had sniffed him out.

One day, a lighting bolt shattered the sky, and the thunder that followed threatened to pummel Kalkan senseless. From the charred spot where the lightning had touched, Demascus stepped forth. The man had bone white hair, bloodless skin, black eyes like pits, and elaborate designs like ashen streaks tattooed down both arms, as if charred into his skin.

Demascus didn’t notice Kalkan; the man’s entire attention was reserved for the creature that rose from the ravine at his feet. The creature was the monstrous offspring of a god and demon that should never have been. Demascus was there to make certain no one ever learned of a god’s indiscretion.

The thing undulated like a dragon in flight. Its scabbed head was wreathed in flailing crystal knives and its clawed hands seemed large as houses. Mist poured from it, hiding its lower expanse in a bank of roiling fog lit with a ghoulish flickering.

When Demascus and the beast came together, the resulting blast bowled Kalkan over. He mewled into the renewed crash of thunder, wondering just what he’d gotten himself into—there was no way he could ever hope to “handle” Demascus, as he’d agreed to. The man was so far beyond his power it was laughable to even think …

Quiet reclaimed the clifltop. Kalkan pulled himself upright and peeked around the new rubble of boulders, still hot from the blast that had plucked them from the ground and thrown them about like marbles.

The demi-demon’s head lay dripping in gore on the rock. The lower portion of its body was gone, apparently having fallen away into the misted ravine.

Demascus’s massive sword was thrust through the creature’s head, entering at the left eye, punching through all the way back behind the skull, and down through the rock.

The creature’s slayer, however, had fared no better. The man must have charged straight into the skin-flaying crystal knives to cut the demi-demon’s head free of the body, then nail it to the earth. In so doing, he’d sacrificed his life in a particularly grisly fashion. All the man’s famous implements and abilities hadn’t been enough to save him. Even as Kalkan watched with eyes wide as saucers, Demascus’s sword released a pulse of golden radiance, sweet as the sunrise.

As the glow faded, so too did the sword, the man, and all his storied magic artifacts.

All that had remained behind was the body of the thing Demascus had slain, and Kalkan.

Kalkan blinked away the memory, and curled his lip into a silent snarl. Here was where Demascus’s body had come to rest, as it did every time his deeds surpassed his frame. If only finding Demascus’s latest living incarnation was as easy as locating the failed husks.

“He had a free hand before he came to this world,” mused Kalkan’s companion. “No one watched over him. He gained more power than a being of his station should ever have been allowed.”

“But not on Toril,” said Kalkan, and bared his fangs.

“No, not here,” the youth agreed. “Thanks to you, Kalkan Swordbreaker, and the oath you swore. But it galls, doesn’t it? Your new … hungers? Your acceptance of the gods’ appeal has transformed you into something bestial and fiendish.”

Kalkan growled, half in anger, but partly with desire that brought saliva to his mouth, even as that yearning sickened what remained of his former self. A self that diminished a little more each day. The reality of what the gods required of Kalkan still burned like acid. Unlike Demascus, Kalkan remembered each of his deaths. It was a side effect of his … change.

“The gods made me this,” he huffed, his voice like a hunting tiger’s growl.

“And they name me guilty of crimes I did not commit! Life’s not fair, Swordbreaker. But we don’t have to just accept it. We can strike back at the ones who’ve wronged us. I promise you this—turn Demascus to the dark, and our reward will be sweet vengeance against the gods, and more.”

Kalkan nodded. “Does this mean you’ve decided to stop leading me along and give me the aid you promised?” He was taking a chance in addressing the youth so impertinently. When he saw his companion’s eyes narrow, he figured he’d just crossed the line.

But instead of blasting him to nothingness, or worse, banishing him to a millennial prison in some forgotten cyst, the youth held out his hand palm up. On it lay a slender metallic disk attached to a leather strap.

“This,” said Kalkan’s companion, “is called a damos. Only a few remain from the time of their fashioning in ancient Imaskar. It produces a poison of uncommon virulence. Which is just a side effect. The residue that collects within the disk’s cavity is the condensation of the future, distilled by the mind of an entity or principle even I don’t fully comprehend. To taste of it is to see hours or days forward. To drink it is to hear the far future described to you by the Voice of Tomorrow—but taking that much is lethal poison to mortal and god alike. Nothing can survive it.”

Kalkan took the damos. It was cold against his finger pads, and rough. He met the youth’s eyes. Instead of irises, tiny black skulls stared out of each white orb. But he smiled at his patron. “Death is hardly a problem for someone like me. If the limits of this damos are as you describe—”

“It has no limits other than its user’s resistance to poison.”

Kalkan tapped the disk. It opened like a dilating eye, revealing a cavity filled with oily fluid. He dipped a claw into the reservoir, barely wetting it, then licked off the clinging beads. It tasted like blood.

His cheeks warmed and sweat broke through the fur on his brow. The mausoleum was blotted out by a roar of light and noise. His eyes fluttered, beyond his conscious control. He collapsed, his breath suddenly coming hard.

A whisper broke from the cacophony. It was a voice, just on the edge of incoherence. The voice spoke of the future.

And as his life dwindled to a cinder, Kalkan listened.