"How?" demanded the matron. "By staying here yourself?"
The patriarch shook his head. "My duties in Arabel-"
"Then I suggest you return to Arabel right away. Just leave us to our troubles," said the thin woman, moving forward. "Now stand aside so I can fill my bucket."
Corene blocked her path. "You don't understand. This failure was mine, not Mystra's."
"Our Lady of Mysteries is the patroness of magic itself," Adon explained. "No mortal's spell can withstand her power."
A deep voice boomed across the plaza. "But your goddess is not here, and I am!"
A hulking, leather-clad figure lumbered out of the lane. Although he had a hunched back and a gnarled frame, he stood half again taller than any normal man. His legs were thin and so badly bowed that he seemed to scuttle rather than walk. One gaunt arm hung so low that his knuckles dragged on the cobblestones, while the other was twisted and held to his chest at an awkward angle.
The newcomer had a face as horrible as any Adon had ever seen. It was impossibly haggard and covered with cracked, black skin. The figure's brow jutted out so far that it cast an impenetrable shadow over his eyes. His nose was as narrow as a dagger blade, his cheekbones were grotesquely misshaped, and a pair of yellow tusks curled up from beneath his lower lip.
Behind the figure stood Broka, wearing his fur-trimmed cape and purple cummerbund. His face remained covered with boils, and his swollen nose and black eyes suggested that he had suffered a harsh beating after returning to Castle Gorgias last night.
As the women began to scurry for their homes, the seneschal yelled, "Stay! The duke wishes you to see what passes here."
The crowd stopped moving instantly, leaving a wide swath of open plaza between the gruesome figure and the patriarch. Adon stepped away from Sarafina. "Lord Gorgias?"
The duke tipped his head in acknowledgement and scuttled forward. "I've come to thank you for the change in my seneschal," he, said, waving his gangling arm at Broka's ulcerating face. "He's much more interesting to look upon."
"Perhaps to you," Adon allowed.
The duke stopped a dozen steps away. "And now that I have expressed my gratitude, you and your novice must go," he said. "Had you called at my castle when you arrived, you and I might have had an interesting debate regarding the Church of Mysteries-with a few hours on the rack to help you think clearly. As it is, however, I cannot allow you to spread your lies among my villagers."
Adon shook his head. "We won't leave while your curse remains on Tegea."
"Curse! Do you think I would curse the woman I love?" demanded the duke, gesturing in Sarafina's direction. "I'm broadening her sense of beauty, so that she'll appreciate the subtle elegance of my form."
"It's not your form that repulses me!" Sarafina snapped. "I loathe what you are inside."
"And what am I-inside?"
"A tyrant, as cruel as you are vain," said Sarafina. "I'd rather die alone than marry you!"
A forked tongue flickered between the duke's lips. "I wonder if the other women of Tegea share your feelings?"
"No!" screamed several of the women in the square.
"Go with him now, or you'll make widows of us all," ordered the matron, stepping toward Sarafina. Others moved to back her up, but Corene quickly drew her flail and blocked the women's path.
Adon pulled a pinch of yellow brimstone from the pocket of his cloak. He uttered a silent prayer to Mystra, begging her to look favorably on the spell he was preparing to cast, then said, "Lord Gorgias will kill no one."
"Perhaps not-if you're gone by dusk," said the duke, fixing his shadowed eyes on the cleric. "But if you're still here after highsun, every man in this village will die. Mark my words."
"If you threaten others, I've no choice but to strike you down in Mystra's name!"
As the patriarch raised his arms to cast the spell, the women screamed in alarm and fled the plaza. The duke merely smiled while a fiery breach opened in the sky above his head. A pillar of flame crackled down toward his face. He watched it come, laughing wildly.
When the first tongue of flame licked his bony brow, the fiery shaft stopped descending. The blaze fizzled away, and the crimson rift abruptly closed, leaving nothing but a column of gray fumes behind. Within moments, the smoke had disappeared in the breeze. No sign of Adon's spell remained in the sky.
"He worships Cyric!" Corene gasped. "Only someone under the Lord of Strife's protection could withstand Mystra's magic-and do this to a woman's face!" She touched her fingers to her deformed cheek.
"Don't be foolish," scoffed the duke, stepping toward her and Adon. "Your pitiful gods don't interest me. The only being worthy of my adulation is me."
Corene leaped forward, swinging her flail at the duke's ribs. "For the women of Tegea!"
Lord Gorgias allowed the blow to land. It glanced off his leathery hide. Then he grasped Corene by the wrist and uttered an incantation. A soft coat of downy fur immediately sprouted all over her body. Her arms and legs suddenly curled backward against the joints, becoming gnarled, pitiful things that could not even support her weight. She collapsed to the ground, screaming in agony.
Adon wasted no time making another attack, this time drawing his mace. Calling Mystra's name, he leaped forward and swung his weapon toward Lord Gorgias's face. As though transfixed, the duke watched the flanged head arc toward his nose and the patriarch dared to hope he would strike his enemy down with a single blow.
Moving so fast that Adon saw nothing but a blur, Lord Gorgias intercepted the mace and plucked it away. He tossed it aside, then clamped a powerful hand on the patriarch's throat, lifting him off his feet.
"Enough of your foolishness," hissed the duke.
Adon glimpsed Sarafina's lithe form approaching from the side. She was using both hands to swing Corene's flail at the duke's leg. The blow glanced harmlessly off the knee.
"You ally yourself with this stranger against your future husband?" he demanded, glaring down at Sarafina.
She raised the flail and struck again. The duke hardly seemed to notice. Gorgias looked back to Adon. "How did you make Sarafina love you?"
"What she feels for me isn't love," Adon gasped. "It's gratitude for trying to help her."
The duke looked down at the girl. "Is that true?"
She glared back up at his misshaped face. "What I feel for this man is not your concern."
Lord Gorgias turned his shadowy eyes on Adon. "I would kill you now, but I fear that would only make you dearer to Sarafina's heart," he said. "I give you until highsun to show yourself for the coward you are. If you have not left my village by then, Sarafina becomes my wife whether she wishes it or not-and I'll honor my promise to kill every man in this village."
"I'll throw myself into the sea!" Sarafina threatened.
"I think not," the duke replied, glaring down at her. "I will have a woman from your house as a wife. If not you, then your mother."
With that, Lord Gorgias threw Adon into the pool. By the time the cleric had struggled back to his feet, his foe had scuttled halfway across the plaza, Broka's fawning figure trailing a step behind. Sarafina helped the patriarch out of the pool, and they went to where Corene still lay in the street. With her limbs twisted backward and her pained eyes staring straight into the sky, the novice looked more like a fur-covered crab than a young woman. Adon kneeled at her side and once again prayed to Mystra.
"Corene has not failed you," he whispered. "If you are angry, be angry with your patriarch alone! Let me undo the damage I have caused this poor woman. Let me show this village that I am your true servant!"
Adon closed his eyes, laid a hand on Corene's trembling brow, and spoke his incantation.
The novice remained in monstrous form.
Looking skyward, Adon cried, "Why, Mystra? Why did you send me here if you intended to abandon me?"
"Your goddess hasn't abandoned you," Sarafina said, covering her face with her veil. "She can't hear you."