Faces of Deception

CHAPTER 1

Perhaps they thought ugly ears could not hear.

The celebrants sat scattered throughout the half empty temple, men with cleft chins and women with doe like eyes, all strikingly handsome or ravishingly beautiful, dressed in silken elegance and bathed in exotic perfumes. They were reclining on velvet love couches and resting on marble settees, murmuring in soft distress as they waited for Atreus Eleint to walk the Aisle of the Adorer. Some thought it blasphemy to let him drink from the Pool of Dreams. Others claimed his presence had already ruined attendance. They all agreed that today would spell the end of the Church of Beauty in Duhlnarim.

"What you waitin' for?" whispered Yago, looming over Atreus from behind. "I thought you wanted this."

The ogre was dressed in his best ceremonial armor, filling the marble entryway with a ten-foot wall of burnished leather and gleaming bronze. He had a raw, heavy-boned face with the sloping forehead, jutting jaw, and wart-covered hide typical of his race, but even this brutish visage drew less comment than Atreus's.

"I do," said Atreus, "but I'm nervous."

"What's to be nervous about?" Yago thumped Atreus's back with a hand the size of a buckler. "Go on."

Atreus nodded and started up the aisle, his arms spread wide to display the brocade inside his cape. The pattern depicted the tail of the sacred peacock, fanning out to either side of Atreus's body. Though a master weaver had embroidered the design from thread of gold, it drew no more ovation than his velvet doublet or silk leg cannons. Even the: finest clothes could not mask Atreus's singular shape; the hunchbacked form with the lopsided hump and jutting neck, the oversized arms, the bowed legs and one pigeon toed foot.

Atreus stopped at the Show Ring and executed a graceful pirouette, spinning as lightly upon his deformed toes as any dancer. The celebrants covered their mouths and fell to tittering. No one clapped, even when he folded his arms in front of his chest and brought the two edges of his cape together, displaying the golden likeness of Sune Firehair. After today, he would be a celebrant in the Church of Beauty, and they did not consider that worthy of applause.

Atreus swallowed his disappointment, pasted a shad-lipped grin on his mouth, then executed a deep bow. If most of the celebrants grimaced and turned away, he did not blame them. His face was a gruesome, misshapen thing covered with lumps and swellings, laced with red veins, so abhorrent to look upon that he could not pass a mirror without shuddering himself. But if his appearance offended the worshipers of Sune Firehair, his wealth did not. They had been happy enough to accept the new couches upon which they reclined and the gurgling fountains and marble statues that decorated their temple's new garden.

Atreus turned toward the silvery dais in the front of the chamber, where three heartwarders stood waiting. Like all of Sune's priests, they were incredibly attractive. Their faces had that balance of symmetry and proportion that was the foundation of human beauty, a certain natural harmony that did not strike the eye so much as simply please it. By comparison, Atreus's own features were grossly imbalanced, with some parts much too large and others not large enough and nothing quite where it belonged. Had someone divided a portrait of his face down the center (not that he had ever asked an artist to paint such a hideous work), it would have been impossible to tell that the two halves belonged together.

"Atreus Eleint, through your devotion you have earned the right to look into the Pool of Dreams," said Heart-warder Julienne, the founder of Duhlnarim's Church of Beauty. "Will you avail yourself?"

"I will." From the seats behind Atreus came a chorus of disapproving groans that Yago quickly silenced with a muted growl. The three heartwarders pretended not to notice the exchange, flashing smiles as lustrous as they were practiced, Unlike the celebrants, who were guests of the temple and therefore free to behave however they wished, etiquette required the heartwarders to make every worshiper feel welcome. Of course, good manners had not prevented Julienne from broaching the subject of a nice silken hood, but Atreus had politely declined, citing Sune's sacred exhortation to "hide not away." Besides, if he had to have such a hideous face it did not seem unfair to ask others to look at it. Julienne extended her hand.

"Then come."

Her assistants, a hazel-eyed beauty and a handsome young man, descended the stairs to take Atreus's gangling arms. Though the lightness of their touch betrayed their revulsion, Atreus's grin broadened into a heartfelt smile. Julienne grimaced at the sight of so many gray, snaggled teeth.

Leaving Yago at the base of the stairs, the assistant heart-warders escorted Atreus up to the Pool of Dreams. It was a raised oval basin about twice as large as a bathing tub, with silver sides embossed in a tangled pattern of intertwined lovers. Atreus kneeled beside the basin and kept his gaze fixed on Julienne, reluctant to shatter the joy of the moment with a glimpse of his own reflection.

"Why are you looking at me, Atreus Eleint?" Julienne cast her emerald eyes upon the water. "What you seek is in the pool."

Atreus took a deep breath, then lowered his gaze and gasped in astonishment. There was no reflection, only still black water as deep and dark as a rainy night. Remembering Julienne's words, he kept his eyes fixed on the glassy surface. A scarlet halo appeared far down in the depths, growing brighter and larger as it rose toward the surface.

Behold, Adorer, the Face of Beauty. The voice was at once breathy and dulcet, and so soft that Atreus could not tell whether he heard it with his ears or his heart. Hear, Worshiper, the Voice of Love.

The halo became a flowing mane of flaming hair, and then a woman's face appeared inside the ring. She was impossibly beautiful, with sapphire eyes and a tiny nose and lips as red as fire.

"I–I hear, O Goddess!"

The face hovered just beneath the surface of the water, shimmering and staring up at Atreus with no sign of revulsion or distaste. The rest of the temple darkened around him. and he lost all sensation of place and time. To Atreus it seemed he was floating in the night sky, hovering face-to-face with Sune Firehair herself.

The goddess pursed her lips in an almost mortal way, then asked, "Atreus Eleint, what are we to do with you?"

Atreus's answer was quick, for he knew exactly what should be done. "Take away this face, Goddess. Make me handsome."

"Take away your face?" The goddess furrowed her brow, and even her scowl was radiant. "How can I make you handsome? Beauty comes from within."

Atreus's heart fell. He grew so dizzy with anger he thought he would fall into the pool. How many times had he heard that same cliche from some well-meaning matron or sanctimonious priest?

He had expected more of a goddess, but he knew better than to say so.

"If beauty comes from within, then only a demon could look like this." Atreus ran a set of spindly fingers down his cheek. "What have I done to deserve such a face?"

"What have you done that you don't?" Sune asked. "From the time you were a child, all you have thought of is your face, of how fate cheated you. Perhaps you would have preferred your mother had let you die?"

Atreus fell silent, afraid to admit how many times he had wished just that. He knew little of his true family. According to Yago, his entire clan had perished during the Ten Days of Eleint, when the peasants of neighboring Tethyr had risen to massacre their nobility. Atreus had survived only because the family sorcerer had disguised him as a baby ogre and entrusted him to the care of his mother's loyal Shield breaker bodyguards. Yago, the captain of those guards, had taken the newborn back to Rivenshield to raise as best an ogre could, faithfully safeguarding the enormous inheritance sent along by the child's mother.

Unfortunately, the spell that had saved Atreus as an infant became a curse as he matured, altering his life essence so that he grew into the ugliest young nobleman in Faerun. He had tried everything to change his appearance, using his wealth to seek out mighty wizards, famous miracle workers, and theatrical make-up artists, even surgeons. Nothing worked, and in some cases the efforts left him uglier than before.

Nor could Atreus seek help from the wizard who had cast the spell in the first place. The entire Shield breaker tribe claimed to have forgotten the identity of Atreus's family. Considering the mental capacity of ogres, this seemed just barely possible, but Atreus suspected they had other reasons for their silence. Over the years he had tried hundreds of times to cajole Yago into telling him more. The ogre always maintained that he could recall nothing except the month of Atreus's birth, the month that had provided Atreus with the only family name he'd ever known. In the end, Atreus had no choice but to accept Yago's word and continue his quest with no knowledge of the magic that had made him ugly in the first place. Finally a perplexed sage had suggested joining the Church of Beauty, in the hope that the goddess would take pity on him and use her divine powers to make him handsome.

Atreus had immediately rented a small villa in Duhlnarim and dedicated himself to the worship of Sune Firehair, Goddess of Beauty and Love. Now he was kneeling before her Pool of Dreams, hardly able to believe the platitudes with which she was repaying nearly two years of faithful devotion.

"If I have felt sorry for myself," Atreus said, "it is with good reason. My failings are no worse than those of most men."

"Perhaps." Sune's face rose closer, breaking the surface of the pool. "But only you can change what you are."

Her sapphire eyes grew bright and cold, and Atreus sensed that she was waiting.

"Then tell me how to change, and I will do it."

A slight smile crept across the goddess's lips. It was a flirtatious smile, such as beautiful women have always used to entice favors from willing men.

"There might be something you can do." Her sapphire eyes darted to their corners, as though she had only at that moment thought of what she would ask. "You could bring me a vial of sparkling water from the Fountain of Infinite Grace."

"The Fountain of Infinite Grace?" Atreus echoed.

"In paradise," Sune explained. "A place called Langdarma."

Before Atreus could ask where Langdarma was, the goddess's face rose completely out of the water. The visage turned vertical and hung in the air before him, its fiery hair hissing and crackling. The celebrants gasped, and the heartwarders folded their hands over their hearts. Yago merely grunted, unimpressed by what seemed to him a face too dainty to be attractive.

"Remember," said Sune. Her beautiful face dissolved into smoke and flame. "The water must be sparkling."

The temple remained as still as a painting. Never before had the goddess manifested herself at the Rite of Dreams, and Atreus could feel the gazes of the astounded celebrants on his back. Whether they had heard what passed between him and Sune he did not know, but he could tell by their stunned silence that he had become something more to them than an unpleasant joke.

"Look!"

The male heartwarder pointed into the Pool of Dreams, where a ragged parchment had appeared, floating on top of the water. On the scrap were drawn hundreds of mountains and dozens of long, snaking valleys with exotic names such as Gyatse and Yamdruk. And on the eastern edge, lying at the foot of three mountains marked the "Sisters of Serenity" was a valley called Langdarma.

Yago, who was so tall he could see over Atreus's shoulder without stepping onto the dais, peered into the Pool of dreams. "Don't tell me that's a-"

"Map!" Atreus confirmed.

Yago groaned. He could see what was coming next, and were not ones to place their faith in a piece of parchment scratched with a few lizard tracks.

Atreus snatched the map from the water and started down the steps, forgetting in his excitement to bow to Julienne. "Come on, Yago," he said. "We're going to Langdarma!"

"Langdarma?" Yago grumbled. He turned to follow Atreus down the Aisle of the Adorer. "Never heard of such a place. It's probably clear up by Arabel or something."

"Or something," Atreus agreed. He glanced down at his map. "Ever hear of the Yehimals?"

The ogre shook his head, and the celebrants began to close in around them, babbling congratulations and trying to sneak a look at the map. A few of the less squeamish even slapped Atreus's disfigured back or squeezed his round shoulder. The pair soon found themselves being swept along by a jabbering swarm of well-wishers.

Once the crowd had carried them out of earshot the assistant Heartwarders turned to Julienne.

"Do you think this will work?" asked the hazel-eyed beauty.

"Of course." Julienne's smile was small and a little heartless. "The Yehimals are far, far away, and Langdarma is difficult to find… very difficult to find."