That’s not fair! The horse stomped and whuffled agitatedly. You would have been nothing but orc fodder yesterday if I hadn’t reminded you about the Staff of Power.
“You’ll be orc fodder if you don’t give me a chance to wake up in peace!”
Hmph! The very idea! …
“There’s a deep, dark pocket just waiting for you, Cerulean.”
Is that an order, Mistress?
“It will be if you don’t get out of my brain—now!”
The horse hung its head and retreated to a corner of the room.
“And please, Cerulean, don’t sulk! It doesn’t become you at all.”
The big horse lifted its head and switched its tail. Switch. Switch. Switch. He whickered quietly as he eyed the ceiling and pawed the floor gently. Not a whisper of mental communication jarred Shal’s throbbing head as she carefully brushed her leathers and then took time to meditate and memorize her spells.
Much later, she ordered Cerulean into one of the pockets and took him out to the stable, where she let him out again and fed him apples and carrots. Finally she began to brush his coat to a high sheen. “How well did you know Ranthor, Cerulean?” Shal asked, electing to speak aloud as long as she was alone in the stable, except for a half dozen or so other horses.
How well do you know anyone? He summoned me when he was an apprentice—younger than you, even. I used to help him memorize his spells. I begged him to take me along to the tower of the red mage, but he could be a stubborn old goat. I’ll bet now he wishes he had listened to me.
Shal laughed. “I’m sure if he wishes anything, he wishes he had taken you.”
The horse stamped and shook its mane, obviously pleased by her apparently improving spirits.
“Cerulean, what do you know about the Wand of Wonder? Ranthor didn’t tell me much. I suppose you know what he said.”
He got the wand as a gift some time ago, Cerulean answered. I don’t keep track of years, but he was much younger then. Still danced regularly—
“Danced? Ranthor?” Shal looked dubious, with one eyebrow raised in surprise.
He loved to dance. Never went anywhere in those days without a woman on each arm. But as I was saying, he got the wand as a gift. Used it three times, as I remember. The first time, he was deep in the Deadwood Forest, hunting secil. It’s a rare fungus he needed for a spell component. He was in quite a huff that day—swore I was stepping on every mushroom in sight—and he finally insisted I keep a good distance away from where he was working. Working—ha! Scrounging around on his hands and knees like some pauper, brushing dust into a bag. I, on the other hand, was exploring the area with dignity when I found the clump of secil. Did I step on it? No. I—
“The wand, Cerulean. What does this have to do with the Wand of Wonder?”
I was just getting to that, Mistress. Must you be so impatient? Anyhow, I didn’t step on it. I quite understandably happened to miss seeing another clump of insignificant fungus. It was brown, and spores puffed up everywhere when I stepped on it. The air was thick with the stuff, and it didn’t feel at all healthy. I could hardly breathe, and as far away as I was from Ranthor, he was still affected. He coughed and coughed, doubled over so bad he couldn’t even catch his breath to cast one of his spells. Finally he just pulled out the wand and managed to mutter a word or two.
“And?”
And all of a sudden bubbles started floating up everywhere—sticky ones that splattered icy water when they burst. The spores didn’t stand a chance. The ones that didn’t stick to the bubbles were doused to the ground when they burst, and the magical cold killed the fungus.
Naturally, Ranthor got his secil in the end, and he was quite pleased with the wand.
“You said you remember three times. What about the other two?” Shal asked.
The second time was just as successful. He was trapped between an umber hulk and a dragon—horrible things, umber hulks; look like giant beetles that walk upright. Anyway, one of his hands was hurt—Ranthor’s hands, I mean—so he couldn’t cast a spell, and that was before he had the Staff of Power. When he used the Wand of Wonder, the dragon suddenly sprouted huge worms all over its body. Well, the umber hulk simply went wild, what with worms being its preferred diet. It tore right past Ranthor and me and started attacking the dragon with its big pincers. Needless to say, we beat a hasty retreat.
“So why did Ranthor worry so much about using the wand?”
As I said, there was a third time. I was galloping with godspeed, with a foul wizard, one of Ranthor’s most powerful foes, chasing us on one of those flying carpets. Instead of just asking me to go faster, Ranthor whips out the wand, points it at the wizard and says, ‘Turtle speed.’ Before I could blink, I was the only thing going turtle speed, and the wizard was zooming by overhead. If there hadn’t been a tree in her way, we’d have been dead.
“Huh?” Shal waited for an explanation.
I slowed down so fast she overshot us. She tried to turn, but the carpet was still going at full speed, and she slammed into a tree. Wonderful old tree. Burned to a crisp when her acid blood spilled all over it and ignited the thing. Of course, the wizard went up—poof!—right along with it.
“Then that was still a positive effect, wasn’t it? So why should I worry about using the wand?”
As I said, Mistress, I was the one going turtle speed. Ranthor pitched over my head and flew almost as far as the other wizard. He swore that was when his rheumatism set in.
“Oh.” Shal couldn’t help but wonder if the wand wouldn’t be less dangerous if Ranthor had a different familiar.
I resent that!
“Sorry.” Shal hadn’t meant for Cerulean to “hear” that. She tried to change the subject. “Are you ready to go?”
“You’re asking the horse?” Ren had entered unnoticed and stood within a few feet of Shal. She almost fell into the feed trough at the sound of his voice.
“How did you get in here without my hearing you?” she demanded.
He reached for her hand and pulled her gently away from the feed trough and the dung gutter. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just practicing my thieving skills. They’ve gotten a little rusty in the last year.”
“It seems to me they work just fine,” Shal said, a little defensively. “I guess I was concentrating on what I have to do today.”
“It could be tougher than you think to get into Denlor’s tower,” Ren said. “I went there to scout it last night, and the place is a regular fortress of magical traps. Even most of the creatures that gather outside the walls at night seem to be kept at bay by some force.”
“What do you mean, you went there last night?” Shal’s green eyes blazed, and she pushed Ren’s hand away. “You were supposed to get some rest so you’d be fresh for today.”
“Could you have slept with that stinking poultice on? I laid there till the stars came out, and then I got up and scrubbed myself with salts and lye and anything I could think of until I finally got rid of that stench. I couldn’t go anywhere undetected smelling like that. And I sure couldn’t hope to get very close to you.”
Shal blushed and turned to continue currying the horse. “Your girl friend … Tempest … must have been very special.”
Ren cocked his head, surprised that Shal would bring up the subject of Tempest.
Shal answered his unspoken question. “I know you’re only attracted to me because I remind you of her.”
Ren swallowed hard and was about to say something when Tarl entered the stable. He quickly took a step away from Shal.
“You’re moving easier than you were last night,” Tarl said to Ren.
“Yeah. That poultice helped, but I think the workout I got washing it off probably did almost as much good.”
“Now, that’s a fine thank-you,” Tarl said with a smile. He turned to say good morning to Shal, but she spoke first.
“Look, I don’t want to be rude, but I’d really like to get going.” Shal related the events of her dream the
previous night and her sense that Ranthor’s soul was not at rest. “Are you sure you still want to come?” she asked when she was finished.
Ren’s acknowledgement was simple. He led out a roan mare from three stalls down and began to prepare her tack.
Tarl just looked up at Shal and said, “Can I ride with you?”
The streets of Phlan were mostly straight, and Ren led the way. In the heart of town, where the Laughing Goblin Inn was located, the streets bustled with activity. At every corner, peddlers touted their wares. As was his custom, Ren took in everything, watching for anything out of the ordinary. The closer they came to the outer walls of the civilized portion of the city, the sparser the crowds grew and the more wary Ren became.
Tarl wasn’t nearly so watchful, at least at the start. He gladly wrapped his arms around Shal’s waist and leaned his head gently against hers as they cantered to the farthest end of Civilized Phlan. What made a woman smell so good? he wondered, able for the first time that day to focus on something besides Anton and his own failings. Tarl had spent every ounce of healing that remained in him yesterday on Anton, and he knew his brothers continued to do the same daily, but if Anton had made any progress, it was measured in mustard grains.
Denlor’s tower and the high walls surrounding it were built of red brick, which stood out in bright contrast to the gray-black fortress at the edge of the city. From a distance, the tower appeared friendly and inviting, a testimony to the wizard’s benevolent character. But as they came closer, they could see that whole sections had been hammered away or blackened from repeated fires.
Ren reined his horse into the midst of a small grove of annonwood trees that paralleled one dilapidated wall of the keep, motioning for Shal to follow. More bushes than trees, the orange-leafed annonwoods made up the thick border of a small park at the farthest corner of the city. “I found this place last night when I scouted the tower,” Ren said in a hushed voice. “It has a sort of natural peace about it. It’s the peace of living things, not death like so much of Phlan. We can leave the horses here in safety and move under cover to the outer gates—”
“You may leave your horse if you want,” said Shal, interrupting, “but Cerulean is coming along with us. He was my master’s magical familiar, and now he’s mine. He can be of help to us while we’re trying to get through the magical barriers that guard this place.”
Ren’s first inclination was to argue the difficulties of trying to move inconspicuously with a huge war-horse tagging along, but Shal’s tone left no room for argument. Shrugging, Ren dismounted and led the way to the tower, working slowly and silently through the border of annonwoods until they reached the stretch of wall that marked the edge of Civilized Phlan. Again and again, he glanced behind him and off to both sides, as he had when they were riding, sure but not sure that they were being followed. He noticed nothing, not even a whisper or a misplaced scent. There was just an occasional shimmer of ocher light vanishing from the corner of his eye each time he turned. It could be the sun, it could be his own lack of sleep, it could be nothing at all. Ren glanced behind himself one final time before they dashed under the vine-covered arch that led to the grounds of the tower. Still he saw nothing.
Nothing alive, at any rate. All around the tower lay the charred and rotting bodies of dozens of kinds of monsters and other marauders. Shal sucked in her breath at the sight and smell of the carnage, remembering the panic Denlor had shown in the vision through the crystal as hordes upon hordes of creatures converged on his tower, many of them gaining entrance by the force of their sheer numbers. In a fashion atypical among such creatures, those that lay at the walls had sacrificed themselves by diminishing the tower’s magical energies so that others could enter and invade it.
Tarl dropped to one knee and waved his hammer in the air to form the sign of the balances. He, too, wondered what manner of evil force could convince so many humanoids and monsters to go willingly to their deaths.
Shal wasted no time in contemplation. She picked her way around the corpses that lay on the faint path. To either side of the door, bodies were heaped like cordwood, many of them decapitated, some otherwise mutilated from battle. Most showed signs of burning. Some were rotting with age, while others may have died within the last few days.
An icy spur of fear pulsed through Shal as she approached the door to the tower. It was a great brass door, its surface marred by numerous scratches, exactly as she remembered it from the images Denlor had projected through the crystal. She shuddered involuntarily, knowing that Ranthor’s death, too, must have been just as she had seen it in the large clear globe. She reached out a tremoring hand toward the gate.
“No!” Ren hissed, grabbing her arm. “That door has a charge that will knock a person flat.” He reached in front of her and touched the metal lock with a piece of deadwood. Instantly the stick shot from his hand. Were it not for his gauntlets, his hand would have been badly cut by the sheer force of it. “This whole place is buzzing with magical energy. The side doors are also magically guarded, but I’ve brought my thieving tools along. I think that with time and care, I can get us in.”
“Ren, your tools aren’t needed here.” Shal explained how in his message, Denlor, the red mage, had left her with the “keys” to passage into and within his tower. Shal held her hand out toward the door as she had started to a moment ago and uttered two magical words. The lock began to glow a cherry red, and the door swung open. Ren and Tarl exchanged surprised glances and were about to enter cautiously, but it was Shal’s turn to hold up a hand in warning. She repeated Ren’s earlier safety measure, picking up a twig that lay on the path and tossing it into the open doorway. A crimson arc of energy illuminated the area immediately in front of the door. It wasn’t clear whether the twig ever reached the floor. There was a loud crackling noise, and flame erupted where the small stick had struck the arc, incinerating it in an instant.
Shal stood silent, obviously concentrating, and in a few moments Cerulean stepped forward, past Tarl and past Ren, and entered the tower. Brilliant red sparks erupted all around the horse’s hooves as each touched the floor. The others peered in as the big horse paraded in a circle before the doorway. In his movements, Cerulean showed no sign whatsoever of pain or discomfort, but his hide began to glow an iridescent blue, the deep, almost purple blue of a grackle’s head, and the glow intensified with each step.
Shal spoke softly. “He’s absorbing the power of Denlor’s red lightning with each step he takes. It should be safe for us to walk across the magically charged floor in a minute.”
Ren and Tarl looked on in awe as the floor continued to crackle with sparks at Cerulean’s footsteps. Ren looked to Shal, wondering if it was safe to enter yet, and when she nodded, he eased gingerly, silently into the room. By the time Tarl and Shal entered, Cerulean was glowing like a fiery beacon, but there were no more sparks.
So bright was the light from the horse’s body that they didn’t need to bother with a lantern. The door shut silently behind them before Tarl could reach back to close it. They stood inside a great rhombus-shaped room, obviously a meeting hall, with solid, heavy benches set three rows deep in a horseshoe shape. A broad, low, ornately carved rosewood lectern stood at the opening of the U. Bizarre trophies, heads of beasts not even Ren had ever seen alive, were mounted along the room’s walls.
“I didn’t know that Denlor was a teacher,” said Shal. “Ranthor always spoke of him as—”
Suddenly, from all around the room, came whispers of the name “Denlor,” as though each bench were occupied by a row of students, whispering their teacher’s name. As the whispers began to die, a red robe whisked into the room from the doorway opposite the lectern. It, too, seemed to be whispering, but in an exaggerated, breathy whisper that made it distinct from and more chilling than the others. “Denlor … I am Denlor,” it breathed. The tattered robe was draped over nothing but blackness, a blackness that defied the brilliant blue light from Cerulean that bathed the room. The robe flutt
ered menacingly toward them. Tarl’s hammer shone like Cerulean, as did Ren’s dagger.
“Don’t touch it!” said Shal, her tone icy. “Denlor’s spirit does not rest; he guards his tower even in death. As long as we do no damage here, he will do us no harm, but touch that robe and you’re dead.”
Tarl and Ren lowered their weapons so they were at the ready but not threatening. Both were already convinced that Shal possessed a mastery of the magicks of this place that was beyond their understanding.
“I think Ranthor was killed in a spell-casting chamber, upstairs somewhere. It’s strange and frustrating—from Denlor’s vision, I know where everything in this building is, but my only image from Ranthor is of his death.”
“I don’t mean to be gruesome, Shal, but we’ll find the place of his death soon enough,” Ren said. “For our own safety, we need to check out every room. There are signs of struggling and scuffling all over this place. Look at the way those benches are misaligned there, the broken door frame over there.” Ren went on, pointing as he spoke. “See the bloodstains on the floor … there and there? We don’t know who or what’s been here, or when, for that matter.”
Shal nodded. Her every instinct was to press up the stairs fearlessly and find the murderous beast still lurking near her master’s body, as it would happen in some stilted morality play of the type traveling thespians used to perform in the streets when she was a child. But she knew that somewhere upstairs she would find Ranthor’s days-old body and, only if she was lucky, some sign of the creature that killed him. “That doorway off to the left.” She pointed. “We can look in there first.”
Shal continued speaking but in a hushed tone, her words no longer addressed to Tarl or Ren. “What do you mean, you’d rather not go in there? … So what if they occasionally served horsemeat? It wasn’t yours. Go on, scoot! We don’t want to fry on these high-energy floors.”
The horse stepped forward, somewhat indignantly, Tarl thought, if horses can be indignant, but the floor of the kitchen he entered was normal, and the horse’s brilliant blue light started to fade almost as soon as it had passed through the doorway.
Pool of Radiance Page 14
