Pool of Radiance

by James M. Ward

  “Neat trick,” Ren commented, still nervous about watching Shal reach into the lion’s mouth.

  Shal felt relieved. She knew that if the words had been spoken incorrectly or if her concentration were broken, she could have lost her arm or worse. She knew from the cold knot wrenching ever tighter in her stomach that she was near the place of Ranthor’s death. The room behind the bronze door was obviously an equipment chamber, not unlike the one she had been working in when Ranthor sent his message through the crystal. Shal didn’t stop to look around the room but proceeded straight across it, knowing that Ren and Tarl would follow.

  The door on the opposite side of the room, beyond the racks and shelves full of vials and beakers, was of plain wood. Shal knew it contained the most insidious death trap of all.

  “Cerulean, I need your help on this one,” Shal said, working a spell of enlargement to return the horse to his original size. Then she backed away from the door and took position behind a row of shelving, motioning for Tarl and Ren to follow suit.

  Cerulean didn’t need to be told what to do. He began to paw the floor and snort. Folding his ears tight against his head, his white coat began to glow, much as it had downstairs, but this time the glow radiated around him like a shield. Finally he moved up to the door, reared on his hind legs, and kicked the wooden door in with his front hooves.

  Immediately the door burst into thousands of splinters, each tipped with red—poison, Shal knew. The splinters sparked crimson against the horse’s blue shield, creating flare upon flare of purple fire so intense the three could hardly look on.

  When the flames finally died down, Cerulean stood immobile, looking spent, in the open doorway. Shal emerged from her hiding place behind the shelf and went to him quickly. She patted the horse’s withers gently, feeling an appreciation and affection for the big animal she had not felt before. “Well done, Cerulean! Ranthor would be proud of you.”

  Ranthor is gone, Mistress. Cerulean nodded toward the room with his head. I hope you are proud of me.

  Shal patted the familiar again, then stepped past him into the spell-casting chamber.

  Ranthor’s body lay crumpled behind the casting stand. Crystal fragments littered the room, many glued to the floor in Ranthor’s blood. As Shal knelt beside her former master, her shoulders and then her whole body began to shake as she felt the tears come. She had held on to the faintest, most minute hope that what she had seen in the globe was a vision only and not reality, that the chill she had experienced at her teacher’s passing was only a reaction to a vivid nightmare. Now the truth lay before her. It was irreversible. And so she wept.

  Tarl knelt behind Shal, encircling her in his arms, his head bowed. Silently he prayed, both for his friend and for the man he had not known. There were no words, he knew, to comfort Shal, any more than there were words that would make him feel better about Anton or Sontag or Donal or any of the others.

  Ren didn’t share Tarl’s talent for offering comfort. His mind thought in terms of action. He walked silently past his two friends and leaned over the body, then turned the stiff corpse over and examined the wounds. What he found made him recoil. Ranthor had been stabbed in the back, over and over again, with a dagger that would have killed with the first scratch, for it was tipped with the same green acid poison that had killed Tempest. From the angle and the profusion of the wounds, Ren knew that Ranthor’s murderer was taller and probably less skilled than the assassin who had killed Tempest, but unfortunately no less deadly.

  Mistress … Cerulean’s gentle call penetrated Shal’s grief. Mistress, I will bring Ranthor with me into the darkness of the cloth. Once you have sealed this tower, I will take Ranthor on one last ride to put his soul to rest It will be my final duty as his familiar.

  But can he truly rest if his murderer remains unpunished? Shal communicated mentally.

  In the back of her mind, Shal heard Ren relating his theories about what he had found in his examination of the body, but it was Cerulean’s answer that Shal listened to. Ranthor will be at rest, Mistress. It is you who will not.

  Shal stood and quietly explained the familiar’s bidding to Ren and Tarl. They lifted the rigid mage’s body onto the horse’s back and watched as Cerulean reared up, then disappeared into a small pocket of the indigo cloth. After being witness to an entire day of magical wonders, they barely thought twice about the horse’s unique method of departure.

  Though near exhaustion, Shal moved through the tower hurriedly, sealing door after door, making sure all was as they found it. She spoke her assurances to the robe as they reached the second floor, but the ghostly garment continued to follow them as they removed the bodies of the cook and the servant. Finally it stood hovering inside the front door as Shal closed it and sealed it by reversing the same utterance she had used to open the great bronze door.

  As they reached the park where Ren’s mare was tethered, Tarl and Ren strapped the two bodies across the roan’s broad back. Shal called Cerulean forth from the Cloth of Many Pockets. The horse leaped from the cloth and straight into the air with the grace of a unicorn and flew upward. Shal watched, misty-eyed, as it left a blue Stardust trail behind it. She could just barely make out Cerulean’s message: See you soon, Mistress.

  Deceived

  Porphyrys Cadorna held in his hands the official proclamation from the council making him Fourth Councilman. It praised him for “prudent judgment in the matter of assigning punitive tasks for the betterment of the community.” It commended him for recognizing the caliber of the three barroom brawlers and for immediately acting on the information they provided by arranging to add new shipping lanes in and out of the harbor. Advisors to the council were suggesting that the resulting influx of newcomers to Phlan would double its present population and ensure further expansion into the uncivilized portions of the city.

  Cadorna sat in his personal study, admiring the piece of parchment. It was written in the elegant script of the town’s head scribe, a man known throughout the Moonsea area for the elegance of his calligraphy. Cadorna made a mental note to make the man his personal scribe when he became First Councilman.

  “Finally, some credit for a Cadorna’s talents.” Porphyrys spoke aloud as he stared up at the portrait of his father that hung on the wall opposite his desk. “To think that simply because you had dealings with dragons they could assume that you were somehow responsible for the Dragon Run! That’s like saying that because I send bits of useless information to the Lord of the Ruins, I must be in league with him. The fools just don’t recognize the importance of maintaining connections … of fending first and foremost for yourself!”

  Cadorna shook the parchment at the portrait. “But here, finally, is some credit. It’s still not what we deserve … what I deserve. It was Second Councilman Silton whose incompetence was exposed by my proficiency. It is his seat I should have assumed, but the council in its “wisdom” opted to advance the Third and Fourth Councilmen ahead of me.” Cadorna rattled the parchment once more, then set it on his desk. “However, I won’t spend forever waiting for—”

  A stiff rap on the door interrupted Cadorna in midsentence. “State your business,” Cadorna called.

  “Gensor reporting, Honorable Fourth Councilman.”

  Cadorna strolled to the door and lifted the bolt that secured it. “Enter, mage. What news do you have?”

  “I followed them from the inn to—”

  “I instructed you to follow them; of course you followed them! I asked you what news you’ve gathered.”

  “They—”

  “Remove that hood in my presence. I like to look a man in the eyes when he speaks.”

  The mage’s face was hidden deep within his black hood. “You think you control me because you are Fourth Councilman? You wish to look me in the eyes? So be it.” Gensor reached up and pulled back his hood.

  Cadorna blenched at the sight of the man’s face. Gensor’s skin was shriveled and ashen, an unnatural gray that gave him an almost corpselik
e appearance. His eyes were the color of a steel blade, and they seemed to bore straight into Cadorna as he spoke, his voice like ice. “I have no need of your reimbursements, Councilman. I work for you because, like you, I desire to know certain things.”

  Cadorna said nothing. There were ways of taking care of ingrates, even magic-users, when they got out of line. He returned Gensor’s stare with a cold look of his own.

  “They went to the tower of the red wizard—Denlor, to those of us who know him.”

  “Yes, I knew Denlor,” said Cadorna.

  “Knew him? I’ve no doubt,” said Gensor. “The woman’s mentor died there, as I gather did Denlor. I listened in on the party’s conversations until they reached the tower itself, but I did not follow them in. My cloak of invisibility would not have functioned within those magicked walls.”

  “Spare me the details of your ineptitude, mage! What else did you learn?”

  Gensor glowered at Cadorna until the councilman took a step backward, and then he proceeded. “Her master was murdered—by a beast, she believes.”

  “Her master? Who—”

  “A wizard named Ranthor. She knew something of Denlor’s death and of the siege on his tower by creatures from the outside.” Gensor paused for a moment, looking inquisitively at Cadorna. “And her steed is magical, a familiar inherited from her dead master.”

  Cadorna stepped closer at this news. “A familiar? What are its powers? Can anyone control it?”

  “A familiar is a mage’s helpmate. A good one offers advice, warning, sometimes even protection from attack. Some are practically useless, but she insisted on taking the horse with her into the tower, so I expect the animal has some power to dispel magic.”

  “Are those powers someone else could harness?”

  “A good familiar is loyal to the death and will serve another only at its master’s bidding. Even I couldn’t control the horse unless its master wished me to do so. You’d never be able to control it. Familiars communicate telepathically, by virtue of their spiritual tuning with their masters.”

  “Cursed magic-users! You intentionally exclude yourselves from the rest of us!”

  “Yes, Councilman, that we do. And even though I don’t have any use for the Cormyrian woman’s naivete or her righteous friends, I still recognize her as a growing force within my profession, a force to be worked with … or reckoned with.”

  “Or taken advantage of,” said Cadorna, twisting his face into a smile.

  At this, Gensor smiled, too—an equally corrupt smile—and then chuckled, a muted, synthetic sound. “What did you have in mind, Councilman?”

  “You, of course, know my interest in those three, my belief that they may be able to help me recover the legacy due me from my family.”

  “Yes …”

  “She seeks her mentor’s murderer, does she not?” Cadorna asked, his narrowed eyes glinting.

  “Yes. So?”

  “It just seems to me that one of the gnolls that have overrun the Cadorna textile house may have had something to do with his murder. I mean, I’m sure I could make her think that was the case and get her to go there … don’t you?” Cadorna was obviously calculating as he spoke. “My idea, of course, needs some refining, Gensor, but I’ll certainly let you know when I can use your services again. In the meantime, since you don’t need my monetary reimbursements, perhaps you’ll take this for your efforts.” Cadorna held out the magical dagger from Sokol Keep. It gleamed even in the daylight.

  “How strange, Gensor. By its glow, this knife tells me that you are dangerous.”

  “Or that you are, Councilman.” Gensor accepted the knife, turned, and left the study, closing the double doors firmly behind him.

  “You remember how Cerulean used to have a bluish tint to his coat?” Shal asked, setting down her mug of ale.

  “Yeah,” answered Ren. “He does have a little bit of a blue tinge to him, even when he isn’t collecting sparks from the floor.”

  “Well, since he returned this morning from putting Ranthor to rest, his coat has just the slightest hint of purple to it.” Shal looked up with a grin of pure delight, obviously expecting Ren to comprehend her excitement. But he simply returned a puzzled stare.

  “Don’t you see?” asked Tarl, plunking down his own mug for emphasis. “Purple is Shal’s color, not Ranthor’s. The wizard has truly been put to rest, and the familiar is wholly Shal’s.”

  “Purple is Shal’s color? How would you know?” Ren appeared puzzled and looked to Tarl for some kind of explanation.

  “I asked,” Tarl said simply, and he locked eyes with Shal for just a moment before adding, “because I wanted to know.”

  “Well, thanks, Tarl. What a pal!” Ren said sarcastically. “Why don’t you just come out and accuse me of being unobservant?”

  “I wasn’t suggesting—”

  Tarl didn’t have a chance to finish. The doors to the inn were flung open wide, and two trumpeters entered. They took position on either side of the double doors and began blasting their horns so loud that Sot’s collection of rare glass liquor bottles rattled in their rack behind the bar. Sot grabbed his cudgel and seemed likely to throttle the two, but at that moment a herald entered the inn, stepped between them, unfurled a long scroll, and began reading:

  “The Honorable Porphyrys Cadorna, Fourth Councilman of the City of Phlan, requires the presence of Tarl Desanea of Vaasa, Ren o’ the Blade of Waterdeep, and Shal Bal of Cormyr directly in front of these premises immediately.”

  “Fourth Councilman now, eh?” Tarl noted. “I guess we’d better see what he wants.”

  “I don’t get the impression we have much choice,” said Ren, rising from the bench.

  The herald exited, and the trumpeters stood holding the doors open until the three followed. Outside the inn, a gleaming white carriage, drawn by two white horses with braided tails and manes and feather plumes, pulled up in front of the inn just as the three came out. After calming the spirited horses, the herald opened the carriage door and dropped to his hands and knees before it. Cadorna stepped from the high carriage onto the man’s back, then down to the street.

  “Ah, I see you’re all looking well.” Cadorna waved his hand toward the three with a flourish. “Recovered from your mission to Thorn Island?”

  “Recovered, and all ready to tend to our own unfinished business,” said Ren, a slight edge in his voice.

  “Not before assisting me with a small project, I hope,” said Cadorna, his tone mirroring Ren’s. “I believe my request will be of particular interest to the cleric, if not to the two of you. I assume that, in your concern for the cleric’s best interests, you would consider accompanying him.”

  Shal wasn’t anxious to enter into a discussion with any man who stepped on the flesh of others, but she did want Tarl to know he had her support. “Please state your request, Fourth Councilman,” she said.

  “I will … in the privacy of the inn,” said Cadorna.

  “The privacy of the inn?” Shal repeated. She and the others looked at him curiously until he instructed his herald and trumpeters to enter and clear the tavern.

  Within a matter of minutes, the customers were emerging through the doorway. Sot’s angry complaints coming from within could no doubt be heard for blocks.

  Chuckling quietly, Ren suggested that Cadorna allow the feisty innkeeper to stay, noting that he was a friend and, after all, the owner of the inn. To his surprise, Cadorna agreed.

  In fact, as the newly appointed Fourth Councilman began to describe his family’s demise at the time of the Dragon Run, he pointed out Sot as an example of the type of businessperson his parents and grandparents were—hardworking, indefatigable, and possessing a kind of street sense that kept their business alive when others failed. “That’s why I’m sure the family fortune, or at least a portion of it, must still be intact,” he said.

  “As you can see,” Cadorna continued with uncharacteristic humbleness, “I’m no fighter. I’ve recently received w
ord from a half-orc spy I employ that the Cadorna textile house is now the dwelling place of a particularly disagreeable band of gnolls. Twice I have dispatched parties in the hope of recovering what is rightfully mine, but both times they failed to return.” Cadorna paused for a moment, shaking his head. “Imagine being defeated by anything as lazy and unobservant as a gnoll!”

  “Lazy and unobservant, perhaps, but big,” Ren noted. “Not to mention completely amoral.”

  “Yes … well, be that as it may, they certainly don’t compare to the likes of the beasts you defeated at Sokol Keep, though I have heard some rather ugly rumors about the gnoll leader….” Cadorna paused a moment, watching them closely. “What I’ve heard is that he’s a half-breed, the product of some poor woman’s misfortune at the hands of a raiding band of gnolls….” He gave the others time to express their revulsion, then took out a piece of yellowed parchment.

  The map Cadorna produced was tattered from age and repeated folding. It showed the entire city, before it ever became separated into the civilized and uncivilized segments. Businesses were identified with notes about their ownership and their relative success. Cadorna didn’t need to point out the location of his family’s textile house; it dominated a large corner section of the city, and expansion plans had been sketched in on the map. When Cadorna was certain they knew the location of his family’s business, he turned the map over. A crude sketch, obviously not the work of the cartographer who had drafted the city map, filled the other side.