Waterdeep

Epilogue

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding!”

Blackstaff’s voice brought an abrupt end to Adon’s uneasy slumber. Though still unable to see, the cleric knew he was lying in the eyrie’s mess hall, alongside a dozen more suffering men. Shortly after Ao’s ascension, Blackstaff’s restorative potion had worn off and Adon had collapsed. Some of the riders had brought him into the tower and laid him out with their wounded.

“We’ve been looking for you for—well, for a few minutes anyway,” Blackstaff said sheepishly. It had been over six hours since he had parted company with Adon and Midnight. At the Pool of Loss, the young wizard had found Elminster inside a prismatic sphere, besieged by denizens on both sides of the gate to the Realm of the Dead. Since Blackstaff had exhausted himself fighting in the streets, it had taken a while to free his friend.

“We might have known a malapert lad like ye wouldn’t wait for us before returning the tablets,” Elminster added, feigning irritation.

Blackstaff laid a hand on Adon’s shoulder. “Well done, Adon!” he said. “Come, let’s go to my tower, where I’ll see that you’re cared for properly.”

Blackstaff and Elminster transferred Adon to a litter, then started across the mess hall.

“Make way!” Blackstaff boomed.

Eventually, the cleric’s bearers reached the other side of the crowded room and stepped into a brisk night wind. It carried the promise of snow, as it should at that time of year.

Blackstaff started to turn to the right, but Adon stopped him. “I’d like to pause in the fresh air before we go back to the city.” Although he was happy the Realms had been saved, Adon’s heart was heavy with Kelemvor’s death and Midnight’s absence. The cleric wanted to take a peaceful minute to pay tribute to his friends.

Adon lifted his head toward the heavens and a tear rolled down his scarred cheek. The night wind stole the drop from his face and blew it toward the sea, where it would join a million other tears and be forgotten.

Perhaps that was for the best, Adon thought. It was time to forget the pain of the past, to forgive the neglect of the old gods. Now was the time to look to tomorrow, to forge stronger unions with the gods and shape the Realms in a better, more noble image.

As Adon contemplated the future, a circle of eight points of light appeared before his eyes. At first, he thought the lights were a blind man’s fancy and tried to make them go away. But they didn’t fade. In fact, they grew stronger and brighter, until at last he recognized them as stars. In the center of the ring, a stream of red mist continually bled toward the bottom of the circle.

“Midnight!” Adon said, realizing that he was seeing the new goddess’s symbol. A wave of tranquility rolled through his body, filling his heart with a deep sense of harmony. A moment later, he felt strong enough to sit up in his litter.

“What’s wrong?” Blackstaff asked, turning to Adon.

The cleric could see Blackstaff’s tall form clearly. Behind the mage, one drunken griffon rider was leading another from the stable toward the tower.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Adon said. “I can see again.”

“Ye also seem much stronger,” Elminster commented.

“Yes,” Adon sighed, pointing at the circle of stars overhead. “Midnight cured me.”

Blackstaff looked at the stars. “That’s one of the new constellations,” he said. “It appeared this very evening. Do you know what it means?”

“It’s Midnight’s symbol,” Adon replied. “And I swear by its light and the name of Lady Midnight that I’ll gather a host of worshipers to honor it!”

Blackstaff studied the stars. “Then let me be your first.”

One of the drunken riders stumbled into the wizard, nearly causing him to drop Adon’s litter.

Blackstaff whirled on them. “Watch where you’re going, dolt! Can’t you see we have an injured man here?”

“Sorry, sir,” said the first rider. “He’s blind.”

“Bring him closer,” Adon murmured, motioning at the blind man. He laid a hand on the man’s eyes. The cleric silently called upon Midnight to restore the soldier’s vision.

The blind rider shook his head several times, then blinked his eyes twice. Finally, he looked Adon over from head to foot, as if he could not believe what he saw. “You cured me!” he cried, falling to his knees beside Adon’s litter.

Elminster frowned at the rider. “We’ll have none of that, now,” the sage said. “Adon’s just doing what he does best.”

Blackstaff smiled. “It appears life is returning to normal.”

The dark-haired sage was correct. With the gods back in the Planes to resume their duties, life was returning to normal all over the Realms. On the river Ashaba, which had been running with a current so swift no man would brave it, a fisherman pushed his boat out onto the gentle, slow currents he remembered. With luck, he would return at dawn with enough trout to feed his family for a week.

In Cormyr, an army of sycamore trees that had been besieging the capital city suddenly retreated. They marched back into the forest from which they had come, each tree searching for the particular hole from which it had ripped its roots.

But not everything in the Realms went back to the way it was before the night of Arrival. North of Arabel, where Mystra had fallen against Helm, great craters of boiling tar dotted the countryside, making travel through that region a twisting, worrisome experience. Where Midnight had rung the Bell of Aylan Attricus and Torm had destroyed Bane, the northern quarter of Tantras and all the fields around it remained inert to magic, much to the delight of those who had offended vengeful mages. Below Boareskyr Bridge, where Bhaal’s avatar had fallen to Cyric’s blade, the Winding Water ran black and foul. No living thing could drink from the river’s polluted waters between the ruined bridge and Troll-claw Ford, over a hundred miles to the south. These scars and a dozen others would remain for generations, grim reminders of when the gods walked the world.

But Toril was not the only place to change as a result of Ao’s wrath. In the Fugue Plain, god after god appeared in the air, ready to search out and call home the spirits of the Faithful. First came Sune Firehair in a blazing chariot of glory. The Goddess of Beauty had a rosy complexion and scarlet eyes, with long crimson hair that waved in the breeze like a banner. She wore a short, emerald-green frock that complemented her generous figure and provided a colorful contrast to her ruby visage. Sune’s chariot swooped low over the endless plain, dragging great tails of flame behind her. As she passed, her faithful grabbed hold of the flaming tails and were carried along with the goddess, basking in the fiery radiance of her beauty.

Then Torm arrived, garbed head to foot in gleaming plate armor, his visor raised to reveal his sturdy countenance and steady gaze. The God of Duty charged across the plain on a magnificent red stallion, calling for his faithful followers to fall in behind him. Soon he was riding at the head of an army greater and truer than any that ever walked the Realms.

Next came snowy-haired Loviatar, dressed in a gown of white silk, with a pinched mouth and cruel fiendish eyes. Her chariot was drawn by nine bloody horses, which she drove with a barbed whip of nine strands. Beguiling Auril, Goddess of Cold, followed in a coach of ice, irresistibly alluring despite her blue skin and aloof bearing. Then, with her green, seaweed hair and the face of a manatee, came Umberlee, followed by all of the other gods who had abandoned their duty for so long.

As the deities collected their faithful from the Fugue Plain, a small, matronly halfling walked through the confusion toward the city where the Faithless and False languished. She had gray hair, sprightly eyes, and moved with a determined gait. The woman was Yondalla, provider and protector of all halflings. At the request of a fellow god, she was going to the city of suffering to investigate the case of a halfling named Atherton Cooper who had lost his way and been trapped there.

Finally, after all the other gods had collected their faithful, came the Wounded Lady, the new Goddess of Magic. Although her long sable hair and the sublime features of her face remained unchanged, Midnight seemed even more alluring and enchanting than she had been as a mortal. Her dark eyes were more secretive and enigmatic, flashing now and then with hints of both great sorrow and implacable determination. The Wounded Lady rode upon an alabaster unicorn that left a translucent, glittering trail in his wake. When Mystra’s faithful stepped onto the sparkling path, they were whisked along behind the Goddess of Magic.

At last, when all the Faithful had been gathered from the Fugue Plain, the gods returned to their homes with their charges. Midnight and her mount went to the Plane of Nirvana, that place of ultimate law and regimented order, where there were always equal parts of light and dark, heat and cold, fire and water, and air and earth.

As they approached Nirvana, Midnight’s faithful saw an infinite space filled with circular subplanes hanging in the air. The subplanes were arranged in every direction, locked to each other at the edges like the gears of a clock. Each planar level rotated slowly, and its revolution was transferred to adjacent levels through its gears, so that the entire plane spun in unison. Midnight’s mount turned in the direction of the largest subplane, carrying his mistress and her faithful toward their new home: a perfectly symmetrical castle of tangible magic.

In another castle, very different from Midnight’s new home in Nirvana, Lord Cyric sat in silence, brooding. His defeated denizen army swarmed about him, and the cries of the damned in the wall around his city drifted to his ears. The new God of Strife and Death liked his new home, though he found his master, Lord Ao, troublesome. Perhaps given time, Cyric mused, I will find a way to revolt against the overlord of the gods.

As Ao watched Midnight and the other gods return home with their faithful, he felt a deep sense of relief. At last, his gods might start fulfilling the tasks for which they had been created.

The overlord was sitting cross-legged and alone, surrounded by a void so vast that not even his gods could comprehend it. Of all the states of being he could assume, this one was his favorite, for he was at once in time and disconnected from it, at once the center of the universe and separate from it.

Ao turned his thoughts to Toril, the young world that had consumed so much of his attention lately. Surrounded by a hundred planes of existence and populated by a variety of fabulous beings both sinister and benevolent, it was one of his favorite creations—and one that he had come close to losing, thanks to the inattentiveness of its gods.

But in two of its inhabitants—Midnight and Cyric—Ao had found the fabric of the Balance, and he had called upon them to right the world. Fortunately, they had answered his call and bound the fulcrum back together, but it had been a dangerous time for Toril. Never again would he allow his gods to threaten the Balance so severely.

Ao closed his eyes and blanked his mind. Soon, he fell within himself and entered the place before time, the time at the edge of the universe, where millions and millions of assignments like his began and ended.

A luminous presence greeted him, enveloping his energies within its own. It was both a warm and a cold entity, forgiving and harsh. “And how does your cosmos fare, Ao?” The voice was at once both gentle and admonishing.

“They have restored the Balance, Master. The Realms are once again secure.”