Look! Shal exclaimed. The ships down there. They look like toys.
I know the scenery is breathtaking, Shal, but concentrate on the spell, Evaine warned. We're vulnerable to attacks now that we've left our physical selves behind. There are creatures that dwell-and feed-solely in the spirit realm.
Evaine felt a mental shiver emanate from Shal's presence.
Having your spirit eaten-that's not a very comfortable thought.
Evaine laughed wryly. I imagine it's not a very comfortable feeling!
Holding hands as they sped on, the two sorceresses left the expanse of the Moonsea behind. Soon an eerie, disturbingly familiar shape loomed in the twilight before them.
The ruins of the red tower. Here Phlan had been captured by the Red Wizard Marcus twenty-two years earlier. The sorceresses swooped down to circle about the tower. The ruin looked like a jagged tombstone in the fading daylight.
Can you feel it? Shal asked in disgust.
Yes, there's still evil there, Evaine thought back. Powerful evil.
She could feel it radiating from the ruins in hot, nauseating waves. Something lurked down there, deep in the shadows below the tower, something eternally hungry, oozing with maleficence.
You need to think about Kern, Shal. We need to discover if this is the source of the evil that is directed toward him.
I'll try, Evaine.
Shal's thoughts were silent for several moments as they both concentrated. Suddenly, Evaine caught sight of a thin trail of inky darkness arcing back across the Moonsea, toward Phlan.
That's it! came Shal's thought. I can sense the evil reaching out toward Phlan. Her tone become hard. Whatever is down there, it loathes Kern.
And fears him, Evaine added after a moment. She gently probed the spindly trail of darkness. It felt oily to her ethereal fingers, but she couldn't detect any traces of active magic in the pool they had destroyed two decades before.
I don't think this is the source, Shal. Something is down there, all right. Something powerful. But not a pool. I don't think this is the source of the fiends, or the foe we seek. Let's head toward Phlan and try again.
They raced across the deepening sky. The orb of the moon, Selune, lifted above the horizon, igniting the surface of the Moonsea with its cool, pearly fire. Soon they drifted over Phlan.
Evaine could see countless signs of the city's decay in the pale light of the moon. She'd had no idea Phlan had deteriorated so badly.
All right, Shal. Once more, I need you to focus all of your thoughts on Kern. Every last bit of your energy.
Evaine scanned in every direction, hoping to spot even the faintest clue. There! she thought excitedly.
What is it?
What we were looking for. She concentrated, helping Shal to see what Evaine had already noticed. A dull, metallic-looking streak rose up out of the city and reached away into the night, toward the northwest. There's something odd about the magic I'm sensing. It must be from a pool, yet it's like none I've ever dealt with before.
Is it a pool of radiance or darkness?
Evaine concentrated, then frowned. Neither. She gave up. We must follow it to its source.
The two sorceresses flew toward the distant peaks. The feeling of magical power intensified as they went. As the dark, jagged silhouettes of the Dragonspine Mountains loomed before them, the evil emanations grew stronger yet.
Suddenly, Evaine felt the attention of another consciousness pass over her like a searing beam of light. There was someone-something-ahead, and it had sensed them coming!
Shal, you've got to break the spell.
Why? the wizard replied in confusion. What's wrong?
Please don't argue, Shal.
Evaine could sense the attitude of the mysterious being change from surprise to anger. It must be a guardian of some sort, Evaine realized. They were in grave peril!
You've got to-
Too late.
A blast of magic ripped through Evaine's mind. The guardian of the pool was assailing them with all of its dark power.
Evaine! Help me! came Shal's terrified plea.
Evaine tried to reach out, but her friend's presence became lost in the swirling maelstrom of magic.
Pain coursed through the core of Evaine's being. She felt her spirit being torn apart. In a moment there would be nothing left. She had to try something, but the roar in her mind made it so hard to think.
She heard one last faint cry from Shal. With every last shred of willpower, Evaine lunged for her friend, reaching out blindly with her ethereal fingers. She felt something brush her hand. She couldn't be sure it was Shal, but she had no more time. With her last spark of consciousness, she managed to gasp the word that broke the spell.
A shriek of pure malevolence rose from the very depths of the mountains. Then the enchantment shattered, and Evaine plunged down into unending darkness.
Waking was like swimming up through a cold, dark, bottomless sea. Finally, Evaine broke through the surface. She felt something warm and rough against her face. Gamaliel's tongue. She was alive!
She opened her eyes and smiled weakly. Gamaliel gazed at her with concern.
I almost lost you, he chided her. His tone was aloof, but Evaine knew he was afraid because his whiskers were twitching furiously. Do not do such a foolish thing again.
"Shal…?" she managed to gasp. Then she was racked by a painful fit of coughing.
You must lie still. Gamaliel's tone was stern. I do not know about your wizard-friend. Your mirror shattered when the spell ended. Her loved ones will have to help her. My concern is for you.
"Just put me to bed, Gam," she managed to whisper hoarsely between agonizing breaths. She felt as though she had just lost a fight with a dozen angry ogres. "I need… I need to rest. But you must do something for me in the meantime. Go to the Valley of the Falls. Ask Ren o' the Blade to come here as soon as he can. There's a pool somewhere in the Dragonspine Mountains, and no one knows that territory like Ren does. I must talk to him."
I can't simply leave you, the cat replied indignantly.
"I've lived through worse, Gam," she gasped, though she wasn't certain that was strictly true. "Now please. You've got to find Ren. I'm begging you."
Begging does not become you, Evaine, Gamaliel answered wryly. Very well, I will go. But remember, sorceress, you owe me one!
6
A Test of Worthiness
The dreamstalker approached the sleeper's chamber. The tower was surrounded by layer upon layer of magical wards and alarms, but they had caused no difficulty for the bastellus called Sigh. They were designed to keep corporeal foes at bay. They were useless against the dreamstalker.
The door to the sleeper's chamber was locked, but the darkness of his being slipped like black, oily smoke through the cracks around the door. The dreamstalker drifted silently toward the bed.
The sleeper was a young man with a broad, honest face and short red hair. Yes, he was the one. The wizard's spawn. Sigh's mistress, the sorceress Sirana, wanted him for her own. It was a simple enough task for the dreamstalker. He would slip into the young man's dreams and weave nightmares in his mind that would drive him to the brink of madness. It would be easy enough to brand the mistress's message in the sleeper's susceptible brain. Soon, the boy's only thought, his only desire, would be to become Sirana's willing slave.
Sigh hovered above the bed. The young man's brow was wrinkled. A low moan escaped his throat. He was already caught in the throes of a nightmare. Excellent, the bastellus thought. Most excellent. This would make his task easier yet. A smile of shardlike ivory teeth appeared in the haze.
Sigh reached out hands full of countless fingers, like dark, spindly twigs. He prepared to plunge into the dreamer's psyche, to revel in his victim's subconscious, and to feed upon his spirit. The twig-fingers brushed the young man's troubled brow.
The dreamstalker screamed in soundless, ethereal agony.
He had been burned! He looked down in astonishment to see that
several of his dark, beautiful fingers had been transformed into a sticky mass of blue cobwebs. The bastellus writhed in pain. He had never known such a sensation before. Somehow the young man was immune to his touch.
Sigh shrank away from the hideous, vile human that had caused him pain. Blast Sirana! She could seduce the wretched creature herself. Sigh would have nothing more to do with this task.
The bastellus drifted quickly out the window and into the night, cradling his wounded hands. He would find another victim to feed upon, one with sweet, delicious dreams that would not harm his shadowy form.
Alone once more, the young man groaned in his sleep. Despite the bastellus's passing, the dreamer's nightmare-sent by the guardian of the hammer-had only just begun.
This time Kern knew he was dreaming.
Come, Hammerseeker! the dry, dusty voice spoke from the shadowed nave. Come, meet your doom!
Kern shook his head dizzily. He stood once again in the cavern of death. The skeletal spectators of the coffin walls jabbered and jeered at him in a gruesome cacophony. Bone splinters and broken teeth rained down. He gripped his battlehammer with a gauntleted hand. Somehow he knew he had to resist. To venture any closer was to die.
"Come out and face me!" he shouted to the darkened archway. Fear clutched at his heart with talons of ice. The thick, turgid shadows swirled angrily in the nave.
You show yourself for a coward, Hammerseeker, the ancient voice sneered.
The watchers in the coffin walls rattled their bones and clattered their teeth in a hideous mockery of laughter. Every instinct told Kern to run, but he planted his boots on the hard basalt floor. He was a paladin. He would stand firm.
"I will face you where I can see you!" Kern shouted.
Oh, you do not wish to look upon me, youngling. Believe these words I speak. Better for you that I cloak myself in shadow.
For a passing moment, the darkness of the nave lessened. Kern caught a glimpse of long-impossibly long- yellowed bones and, attached to these, a sinuous shape ending in a stiletto-sharp point. An eerie clicking sound issued from the nave, an insect noise that turned Kern's stomach. Then the curtain of blackness thickened. The guardian of Tyr's hammer was invisible once again.
Kern shook his head. The fetid air seemed to be weighing down upon him, pressing him toward the floor to smother him. His knees were on the verge of buckling, but he raised his hammer high.
"By Tyr in all his might, you will not have me!"
You are wrong, youngling! the voice shrieked with unholy rage. Dead wrong. An ear-shattering crack sundered the air of the cavern, a sound like a giant's bones breaking. The floor lurched wildly under Kern's feet. Suddenly a jagged rift appeared in the stone beneath him. It opened in the floor like a vast, stony maw, a void of darkness ready to swallow him alive.
You will never have the hammer! Never!
Kern's arms flailed wildly as he tried to catch his balance, but to no avail. The gap opened wider yet. With a scream, he went tumbling down into thick, suffocating blackness.
Yes, join us! the mummified spectators screeched and cackled, their voices echoing after him. Embrace the bottom of the pit, Hammerseeker, and join us in death!
Another scream ripped from Kern's lungs. Shreds of darkness rushed by him as he fell. He knew there was nothing to break his fall except for the jagged rocks waiting at the bottom. And they were only heartbeats away.
If it hadn't been for Listle, Kern would have died. Of that he had no doubt. The wounds he had received in his previous dream had been real enough. If he had struck the jagged rocks at the bottom last night…
But he hadn't hit the bottom, he told himself for the tenth time already that morning. Listle had breezed into his room and woken him up just in time.
"I think you saved my life, Listle," he'd said breathlessly after telling the elf about his dream.
"That's all right, Kern," she had replied flippantly. "Something tells me it won't be the last time." Despite her casual demeanor, fear had shone in her silver eyes.
Kern had made a resolution to himself, then. The next time he was plagued by a nightmare, he was determined to fight back and take control of the dream.
Clad in his usual gray tunic and breeches, Kern made his way down the spiral staircase in the center of Denlor's Tower. This last day had been a difficult one. Yesterday, Shal had ventured on a spirit journey with the sorceress Evaine, hoping to learn something about the enemy behind the attack on the temple. But something had gone wrong. His mother had cried out in shock and then fell into a deep unconsciousness from which she had not woken. She lay now in her chamber, pale, silent, and terribly still.
Patriarch Anton had come to visit Shal three times already, but so far none of his healing spells had been successful. His diagnosis was grim. If Shal could not be awakened, she might eventually waste away. Already, dusky shadows had gathered in her cheeks and on her temples. There was only one thing that might have the power to wake her. The Hammer of Tyr. That made Kern's task all the more urgent.
Kern had decided to leave on the morrow. He found his father in the tower's main chamber. The two discussed preparations for the journey, but Kern did not tell Tarl about last night's disturbing dream. Shal's illness was burden enough.
"One last thing, Kern," the white-haired cleric of Tyr said. His face was haggard, his voice hoarse. He had stayed up all night, watching over Shal and sending prayers to Tyr, pleas that had gone unanswered. "You're going to need a new weapon."
Kern nodded. His hammer had been destroyed in the encounter with Slayer, the abishai.
"Could I choose one from your armory?"
Tarl shook his head. "I think not. I'd be happy to give you anything I have, but I don't know that a mundane warhammer-no matter how good-will be of much use to you. I fear that many of the foes you'll be facing will be magical in nature, and for that you will need a special weapon."
"But where am I going to find an enchanted hammer by tomorrow?" Kern asked in dismay.
'That's where I come in," said a silvery voice. With a shameless lack of decorum, Listle rose right up through the stone floor to stand between Tarl and Kern. Her teardrop-shaped ruby pendant flashed brilliantly for a moment on the end of its silver chain. "Now come on, Kern. We don't have all day, you know."
"All day for what?" he demanded in exasperation.
"Haven't you been listening?" The elf rolled her eyes in exaggerated frustration. "We're going to get you a warhammer, you oaf."
An hour later found Kern and Listle on horseback, the city of Phlan outlined in shadow on the horizon behind them.
"You never told me you had friends who lived near Phlan, Listle." Kern sat astride a handsome white palfrey, and Listle rode a delicate dappled gray mare.
"You never asked," she replied glibly.
"Now how did I know that was what you were going to say?" Kern grumbled.
The late autumn day was gray and dreary, heavy with a shroud of mist. Their mounts picked their way along a twisting trail in a forest a few leagues east of Phlan. A few drab brown leaves clung to the skeletal branches of the trees, rattling like bones in the chill wind. All this did little to improve Kern's mood.
"Actually, Kern," Listle went on more seriously, "I never mentioned my friends before because they're a rather secretive lot. And, as a rule, they don't particularly care for humans."
"Well, that's just marvelous," Kern said in a pained voice. "Where did you meet these friends, anyway?"
"Oh, in Evermeet," Listle replied. "Hey, look there," she said suddenly, pointing to the sky. A glistening white hawk wheeled in the mist above them. "Do you think that's your father's work or Patriarch Anton's?"
Kern shrugged. "It could be the work of either, or possibly both. They're obviously keeping an eye on us."
It was a short while later that Kern noticed the change in the forest. The trees became green with leaves, and pale, sweet-scented wildflowers dotted the ground. It was as if they had abruptly left the advent of winte
r behind them, stepping through a doorway into spring. He looked at Listle in wonder.
She laughed brightly. "We're almost there. Now behave yourself, and let me do the talking."
A few minutes later they stopped at the roots of a huge, hoary old oak tree. It was truly a king of the forest, a massive giant that it would take a score of men with arms linked to encircle. Kern let out a whistle of amazement. The tree was at least a thousand years old.
Listle and Kern dismounted, looping the reins of their horses around a tree branch. The elf picked her way among the tree's gnarled roots, then rapped smartly three times on its rough bark. Before Kern could ask what she was up to, a high, reedy voice spoke.
"Who goes there?" the voice piped. Kern searched around for the speaker-then his jaw dropped.
A bumpy knot on the tree's trunk had transformed itself into a small gnarled face. Its lumpy nose ended in a small twig, and its eyes glowed caterpillar green. Listle appeared completely unsurprised.
"You know perfectly well who I am, Whorl," Listle humphed. "Now open up. I'm here to see Primul."
Whorl squinted suspiciously. "How do I know you're really Listle Onopordum?" the knot said in a splintery voice. "Look! You've got an axe-bearing tree-cleaver with you."
Kern cleared his throat nervously. "Actually, I don't have an axe with me, er, Whorl." He wasn't really accustomed to talking to bumps on trees.
"Hmmm, well now," Whorl mused. His twig-nose twitched in agitation. "You could be hiding an axe, waiting until I let my guard down to start chopping away at the old oak."
Listle's eyes flashed dangerously. "I'm getting tired of this, Whorl. Now open the door or…" Her ruby pendant sparkled as she plunged a hand deep into the wood of the tree directly beneath the knot. "… or I'll squeeze off your supply of sap."
"You wouldn't dare!" Whorl squeaked in horror.
"Try me." Listle's tone was serious.
"Primul will hear of this!"
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