Cerulean was glowing purple with fury and magic. Three times he reared and stomped on the grotesque creature in front of him, and three times it managed to claw the flesh of his forelegs as his hooves came down. The magical nature of his attack protected Cerulean from the wight's life-sapping force but not from the pain of the wounds.
Each time the wight's claws combed Cerulean's flesh, blood ran freely, and at the same time, brilliant violet sparks flew, singeing the wight and causing it to cry out in a ghastly screech. It wasn't until Cerulean reared for the fourth time that he caught the wight square on the head and smashed the creature's brains into the ground.
Tarl's spell worked instantly. The spirit of the dead, trapped in the wight, burst from the creature's chest like a great puff of steam. The spirit was free at last, and the wight's hideous body crumpled in front of Tarl like a discarded shirt.
The three would have preferred to take a minute or two to recover. Tarl might even have had the opportunity to notice the blood trickling down Cerulean's legs and do something about it. But the moment of silence following their small victory was broken by the muffled sound of shouts and chants. The voices were eerie, distant, and inhuman, painful and chilling to listen to. They also seemed to have no source. There were no people, no humanoids, no undead visible. Cerulean's ears pricked up, and the horse whinnied and stepped forward past the vault that had concealed the wights. He stopped in front of a small wooden stake that marked a fairly large open area, when his coat began to glow again, this time a soft amethyst.
A trapdoor, Cerulean advised Shal, marked by Ren's blood. I can smell it.
"No!" Shal gasped the word.
It's fresh, Cerulean assured her. Very fresh. He may yet be alive.
"What is it?" whispered Tarl.
Shal could see the blood herself as she got closer, and she pointed it out to Tarl. "Ren's down there, underground."
There was no more to say. Carefully they removed the sod and canvas, which hid a narrow wooden stairway. The stairs were steep, almost ladderlike, and they led down into darkness. With no coaxing from Shal, Cerulean entered the Cloth of Many Pockets. Tarl clasped his holy symbol and started down the stairs. He whispered a prayer as he descended, a selfish wish that the bottom of the stairs would be unguarded. He met no guards. Yet, even had any been present, he wouldn't have been able to see them, for he was in total darkness. He reached up to help Shal through the entry, and then they stood together in the blackness. Shal didn't want to reveal their presence by using her light wand if she didn't have to, so they waited for their eyes to adjust and find some source of light, however small.
They were guided only by the sound of voices, the same strange chanting and shouting they had heard from above, but it was much closer now. A door, the only one they came upon in the dark, opened to a huge underground cavern. There seemed to be precious little light there, as well, but Tarl and Shal could make out figures-scores of them-in the dim, blue, twilightlike rays of light that barely illuminated the room.
The rays were fractured as they were blocked by zombies, absorbed by the blackness of the wraiths, captured and held in the eerie cloudlike presences of the specters, or fragmented by the bones of skeletons. The effect was the surreal look of a nightmare of the kind in which the haunted dreamer runs and runs through bluish mists and suddenly plummets to terrified wakefulness. Smells of mildew, dust, decay, and death made the dank underground air almost unbreathable, and the devilish chanting of the scores of undead set Shal's and Tarl's teeth on edge.
Suddenly a murmur started rippling from the back of the room, quickly spreading to the front. Creatures began to stir and then turned around in waves, causing the bizarre cold, blue light to fracture in new directions, revealing the undead in the cavern in even more horrible detail. Nausea clutched Tarl's stomach, and he was overwhelmed by unadulterated terror. He knew that Shal's presence, let alone his own, could not be a secret to these creatures.
Suddenly the light shifted again as the roomful of graveyard horrors shifted and parted, leaving an aisle between the two human intruders and the front of the room. At the far end of the aisle stood the vampire. Tarl sensed as much as saw him. "Very goooood," Tarl heard the creature say, and its spooky, condescending voice made his flesh crawl. The vampire lifted the source of the blue light high into the air. Tarl knew before he ever saw it that it was the holy Hammer of Tyr, but its power and its light had been subverted. Half the hammer radiated blackness, while the blue light that remained was barely a reminder of what it once had been. Tarl shuddered as another wave of nausea and fear passed through his body.
The vampire turned toward Tarl and Shal but didn't acknowledge them in any way. He merely twisted the hammer so its dim light shone on the space directly in front of himself. Shal's gut twisted with the hammer when she saw the figure illuminated by the light.
"Ren!" The name choked in Shal's throat as she saw her friend, prostrate before the gruesome creature of Tarl's nightmares. Even from where she and Tarl stood at the opposite end of the room, they could tell that Ren's clothing and armor were in tatters and that his blood was spilling on the ground.
"Welcoooome, huuumans," said the vampire, and then he laughed the sick, uncontrolled cackle of a maniac amused by his own unthinkable deeds. An uncountable number of bony fingers suddenly began prodding Tarl and Shal, nudging and pushing them forward. Tarl fought the gut-wrenching sensation that there was no way out of this pit now that they were inside. He tried desperately to concentrate on the sacred hammer, tried to visualize how and when he could snatch it from the hands of the blasphemous creature at the front of the room.
When more skeletal fingers touched Shal, she incanted the words to a spell and began touching every bony hand, wrist, or arm with which she could make contact. Electricity surged from her hands, splintering and shattering every skeletal arm she grabbed, and she charged forward, trying to reach Ren. Before the skeletons could regroup, she cast another spell, and frigid wind blasted through the room as sheet upon sheet of sleet showered down on almost half of the room. The undead caught in the storm were blinded by it, and Shal could hear the age-old elbows and hips of countless skeletons shattering as they lost their footing and slipped on the ice-coated limestone. Zombies and wraiths shrieked and swore as well, as they, too, slipped and fell on the treacherous coating of ice.
Shal plunged forward through a break in the bodies and was almost to Ren when dozens more undead stepped over their fallen counterparts and pressed closer to her and to Tarl, who had followed close behind. The skeletons were no longer prodding and poking gently. Now swords and other weapons glimmered in the dull light.
Tarl lashed out with his hammer, slamming at every creature within his reach, trying to create an opening so he and Shal could get through. When he managed to find some room to spare, he raised his holy symbol. "Leave us, undead vermin!" he shouted. "In the name of Tyr, leave us!" A blue light flashed. Creatures that looked at it dropped to the ground, screaming.
Shal lifted her hands and began the incantation to another spell.
"Enough!" The vampire's devil voice echoed in the room. "I will have no more of this!"
Shal extended her fingers in his direction and cast a Lightning Bolt spell. A brilliant bolt of electricity X-rayed the room, blinding many of the undead and forcing even the vampire to raise one arm over his eyes as a shield from the awful light. But the bolt never reached its target, the vampire's chest. Instead, the energy of the lightning bolt was deflected by the subverted hammer. Shal never knew what hit her. In the same fraction of a second it took for the bolt to reach the hammer, it also returned and caught her solid. Her body jolted into the air like a tossed sack of flour and came down with the same sick thwack.
"No!" Tarl screamed. "No!" He was horrified. He would gladly have died ten times to save Shal.
The vampire roared in delight. "It's just you and me now, booooy!" He gloated over the words. "I'm going to have your blood-and theirs-for dinner!"
Tarl was forced to stagger backward.
"Now, now. There is noooo reasonnnnnn to be soooo testy. Deny that foooolish god of yours. Jooooin my army, and I'll see that your friends are given safe passage oooout of here."
"So they can be living vegetables like Anton? No way, devil spawn!" Tarl took a precious few seconds to collect his thoughts so he could attempt to turn the undead vampire. He spoke a hurried prayer, calling for the force of Tyr to rise up against the creature. But Tarl's effort was strangled, stifled by the hammer, just as the light from the medallion had been.
The vampire tipped his head back and laughed, a grating, wicked laugh. "Fooool! I grow tired of these games. Jooooin my army, now, or die!"
"Never!" shouted Tarl.
"Kill… him!" The vampire said the two words separately, distinctly, and each reverberated the length, breadth, and height of the cavern.
Before Tarl could lift his holy symbol or cast another spell, a dozen wraiths and twice that many specters circled him. Just one touched him, and he felt his body freeze up as though he'd spent hours naked on the great glacier. He tried desperately to lash out with his hammer, to run, to move, anything, but his body had lost its ability to react. All around him, the wraiths' deadly nonmaterial fingers were reaching toward him. If he could force himself to move, he could stop one, two, maybe more before they killed him, but he could never hope to stop them all.
The vampire's laughter rang out again, and Tarl did the only thing he could do. In one stiff movement, he dropped to his knees and called on the full power of Tyr. In less than the time required for a simple prayer, he had to accomplish what had taken him hours at the temple- a complete cleansing and baring of his innermost self to his god, the purging of all fear in exchange for total confidence. In one mental picture, he had to devote his entire being to selfless concern for Shal, Anton, Ren, and the Hammer of Tyr.
On bended knee, Tarl did not even see the workings of his faith. The Hammer of Tyr erupted with the light of the sun. One horrible, bloodcurdling scream escaped the blue lips of the vampire before he and his light-hating minions turned to dust. And then the brilliant light from the hammer bathed the room, shedding the pure, healing power of Tyr on Tarl, Ren, and Shal.
12
The Pool of Radiance
"Incompetent clods!" Cadorna shouted. "What does the city pay you for?"
The fifteen assembled soldiers of the Black Watch stood mute before Cadorna in the council chambers.
"Didn't any of you at least see where they went?"
Finally one of the men responded. "I did. Eight of our soldiers pursued them in a small schooner. I was the only one to make it to shore after the wizard-woman sank our boat in a maelstrom-"
"Congratulations, soldier," said Cadorna, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "So you live! I'd expect that from a child. But what exactly do you know?"
"They didn't go straight south into the Moonsea. They skirted the mouth of the Barren River and made their way along the shoreline beyond the eastern edge of the city."
"How far beyond? Where exactly did they get off?"
"I didn't see, sir."
Cadorna threw up his hands, then turned to where Gensor stood beside him. "What do you think, Gensor? Do we have any way of tracking them?"
"Not that I know of," answered the mage, shaking his head. Then he lowered his voice and whispered, for Cadorna's ears alone, "Dismiss the others. Have them wait out in the hallway. We need to talk."
Cadorna looked at Gensor curiously for a moment, then did as the mage suggested.
When the two men were alone in the council chambers, Gensor began to speak, enunciating slowly and deliberately for emphasis. "You have no way of knowing where the three are-or where they are going."
"Correct." Cadorna's eyes widened and his voice raised agitatedly as he spoke. "And who knows what Yarash may have told them? It's absolutely imperative to catch all three of them. But how? You yourself said that there's no way to track them."
"Councilman, I hate to be so blunt, but you're missing the point. It's not what they know that you need to worry about. It's what the Lord of the Ruins might get from them. Think about it… Remember your plan to get their two stones and complete the figure of power yourself? If the Lord of the Ruins should catch up to those three and get the two ioun stones they carry, you will lose your chance to usurp power. You will never have the opportunity to rule all of Phlan, civilized and uncivilized alike." Gensor leaned in close to Cadorna and spoke emphatically to make his point. "Honorable First Councilman Cadorna, as your advisor, I urge you to make your move against the Lord of the Ruins now, or you may never have another chance."
"You mean attack the Lord of the Ruins to get his ioun stones and then find the thief, cleric, and mage to get their two?" asked Cadorna.
"Exactly," Gensor said. "Even if you don't get their stones immediately, you should still have as much power as the dragon has now, which is considerable."
"Right you are," Cadorna answered slowly. His eyes gleamed brightly, and he clenched his hands in excitement. He didn't need to wait for Gensor to go on. Immediately he commanded the soldiers of the Black Watch back into the chamber. With Gensor's help, Cadorna explained to them that there was a certain bronze dragon he wanted killed, a very powerful bronze dragon that made its lair at the heart of Valjevo Castle, in the northernmost part of Phlan. "I'm giving you a chance to redeem yourselves," he said to the soldiers. "You stand to earn an unprecedented reward, but be forewarned, I won't tolerate cowardice or stupidity!"
"I'm sure I speak for the others, First Councilman," one of the soldiers at the side of the room called out. "You can count on us."
The mercenaries made hasty preparations for their mission, and just two hours after dawn, under Cadorna's direction, they arrived at the gates to Valjevo Castle.
Silence hung thick in the cavern, like spiderwebs. The stone floor was covered with thick dust. Shal opened her eyes and saw the gentle blue light that filled the room. She did not know what had happened. She was not even sure at first that she was alive. She pressed the heels of her hands into the dust and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Tarl was nearby, kneeling, his hands lifted skyward, an expression of awe and innocence on his face. His silvery hair glowed almost blue in the soft light. The Hammer of Tyr hung suspended in the air just above him, its steel head shining with the vibrancy of molten metal. Shal could also see Ren, still lying facedown near the front of the cavern. Quickly she pushed herself to her feet to run to his side, but before she got there, he was already rousing himself up from the floor.
"Hell of a party," Ren said thickly, rising slowly to his feet. "What happened to our hosts?"
Tarl rose to his feet and joined the others, his face still bathed in light from the Hammer of Tyr. "Gone," he said simply. "Vanquished by the power of Tyr, the same power that saved and healed the three of us." He reached out his arms and pulled his friend and his beloved close.
Tears of relief welled in his eyes and in Shal's and Ren's. Though thoroughly shaken, all three felt strangely rejuvenated and infinitely grateful for their own survival.
They stood together silently, arm in arm, for several minutes. It was Tarl who finally broke the silence. "I feel an incredible sense of relief. Now that the vampire is vanquished, Anton can be healed and I can return the Hammer of Tyr to the temple in Civilized Phlan. I'm not even worried about the guards around the city. It's Tyr's will that the hammer be returned, and nothing's goin
g to stop me from doing it."
Tarl reached out for the floating hammer, but the holy symbol quickly scooted away from his outstretched hand, the way one magnet moves away from another. He reached for the hammer again, and again it moved just out of reach.
Tarl wondered for a moment if perhaps somehow his motives were not right and so the hammer would not come to him. But when the hammer started to float away, he was gripped by a sense of dread, fearing the hammer's power was somehow being subverted again. Maybe the vampire wasn't really gone. Once more Tarl tried to catch the holy artifact. It floated to the front wall of the cavern, precisely above the spot where the vampire had hovered just a short time before. For one terrible moment, Tarl thought the hammer's light was darkening, turning black, but then its blue glow surged strongly and a blinding ray of light flooded the cavern.
Suddenly a blue oval was outlined against the wall behind the hammer. The stone surface within the oval began to shimmer like water under moonlight. As if wielded by some unseen but steady hand, the hammer cocked back and then forward, striking the calm, fluid center, sending out ripples as would a stone tossed into a quiet pool. Concentric rings of water spread from the center to the edge of the oval outline for several seconds.
As the ripples dissipated, so did the shimmering surface, and they could now see that the oval framed a doorway.
The hammer's light illuminated a small interior room beyond the oval doorway. Tarl quickly made for the door, with Shal and Ren right behind. When they could see inside the small room, Ren said, "Teleporter, just like the one Yarash used."
"And obviously I'm supposed to use it," said Tarl, the magical Hammer of Tyr finally settling into his outstretched hand.
"Obviously we're supposed to use it," Shal corrected him.
Tarl nodded, and together the three entered the small chamber. Once again the hammer blazed blue in Tarl's hand, for a moment blinding all three, and when its light diminished, they found themselves standing under an archway of strange-looking, sharply spiked shrubbery.
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