Pool of Radiance

by Carrie Bebris

  With a snap of her wrist, she sent the weapon hurling through the air at eye level. Dozens of darts came flying from the wall in rapid succession, shooting out of the holes on one side and into the holes opposite. The others gasped in surprise. Durwyn let out a low whistle.

  Kestrel herself was so startled by the profusion of mis­siles that she almost forgot to catch Loren's Blade as it returned to her. "The darts flew too fast for me to see, but I'll wager they're spiked on both ends," she said. To prove her point, she threw the dagger again, with the same results.

  "A perpetual trap," she explained. "There's no need to reset it once it's sprung. The darts can cross the room over and over until doomsday." Though Kestrel forced herself to adopt a nonchalant all-in-a-day's-work demeanor, inwardly she cursed every person under four feet tall who'd ever lived in this city. She admired the dwarves' engineering prowess—not one dart had missed its cham­ber—but damn, they made her life more difficult.

  Durwyn rubbed the stubble on his chin. "So how do we get past the trap?"

  On a hunch, Kestrel flung Loren's Blade across the room once more, this time four feet off the ground. Noth­ing happened, except that her weapon clanked against the wall and boomeranged back to her hand.

  That was the secret, then. "The trap's designed to strike nondwarves—people taller than them." She addressed Durwyn primarily but extended her gaze to include the others. "As long as we stay close to the ground, we should be all right."

  The party crawled single file through the booby-trapped chamber and made it to the other side safely. Cor­ran started to speak, but Kestrel hushed him as she examined the steps for more unpleasant dwarven sur­prises. Though he bristled under the rebuke, the paladin held his tongue. She cast a discerning gaze at each tread and riser, running her fingers along the cold, smooth stone. Though she found no evidence of additional traps, her sensitive ears detected a faint shuffling sound above.

  "Wait here," she advised the others. She silently crept up the stairs, stopping before she reached the top. From this vantage point, she could peer over the second-story floor and see most of the room while remaining hidden in the stairwell.

  This level of the tower comprised a single room with shelves full of scrolls. Wooden cases similar to wine racks lined the wall, with each diamond-shaped opening holding its own roll of paper. The documents merited only a cursory glance, however—it was the dozen or so orogs in the chamber that arrested her attention. They occupied the center of the room, effectively blocking the stairs to the third story. The humanoids stood in perfect formation, their eyes blankly staring straight ahead. She studied the unit for a leader but didn't discern one.

  A fly buzzed past Kestrel's ear, landing on her forearm. She brushed it off, but the pesky thing buzzed around her face again. "Shoo!" she whispered, batting it aside. The fly finally got the message and sped off to bother someone else.

  She observed the orogs for a few minutes longer. The guards stood so still they didn't seem to breathe. They merely gripped their short swords, ready for combat. As she watched, the fly that had irritated her flew into the midst of the orogs and landed on one humanoid's snout, where it proceeded to dance around the creature's nos­trils. Just watching the insect made Kestrel's own nose itch, but the orog didn't so much as flinch. He continued to stare straight ahead.

  Kestrel returned to the group. In a hushed voice, she reported what she'd seen.

  "Maybe we can parley with them as we did with those other orogs guarding the cult sorcerer." Jarial glanced up the stairs. "Do you think they would be willing to talk?"

  "I'm not even sure they're alive," Kestrel responded. "I mean, the whole thing with the fly—"

  "They might be under the influence of a charm," Ghleanna said. "Or in a state of suspended animation."

  Corran rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his fingers stroking the rough stubble of the past three days. "If that's the case, can we figure out a way around them? We need to reserve as much of our strength and resources as possible for the cultists in the Room of Words."

  "You all think too much." Durwyn grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow. "We waste time. We can handle a dozen orogs." He mounted the stairs.

  Kestrel stared after him, surprised by his assertive­ness. "Wait for me!"

  The others followed close behind. As soon as Durwyn rose high enough in the stairwell to sight the orogs, he stopped and let the arrow fly. Another shaft quickly fol­lowed. Both arrows found their targets, felling a pair of humanoids.

  The rest of the orogs started forward. Kestrel maneu­vered around Durwyn and hurled her twin daggers at two of the creatures. Behind her, she heard Ghleanna utter the words of a spell.

  Kestrel's first dagger struck an orog in the throat. He sank to his knees, then slumped over. Her second dagger, thrown with her right hand, hit its victim in the side. Though the blade had buried itself in his flesh, the crea­ture's face didn't register the slightest discomfort. He con­tinued his advance as if nothing had happened.

  Ghleanna's incantation also had no effect. "These are no ordinary orogs," the sorceress said. "That spell should have put two of them to sleep."

  The orogs closed in. Their movements lacked fluidity. Though they moved quickly, they jerked and lurched, as if they were marionettes on strings and someone else con­trolled their steps.

  Kestrel hurled Loren's Blade at her wounded oppo­nent. The magical dagger struck him in the chest. As the weapon returned to her hand, the orog kept coming. He was so close now that she could see the yellow stains on his long, canine teeth, smell the stench of the matted, coarse hair covering his unwashed body. Though the crea­ture had been injured twice, his pale eyes retained their vacant stare.

  She hadn't enough distance to throw Loren's Blade at him again. She reached for her club and hastened to one side so as not to be forced backward into the stairwell. A snap of her wrist extended the baton to its full length, but a simultaneous blow by the orog knocked the club out of her hand. It scudded across the floor among the clawed feet of the other orogs.

  She gripped Loren's Blade tighter as her foe raised his sword for another strike. She'd have to parry with the dag­ger until she found another melee weapon.

  Jarial released a spell. A fan of flames shot out from his hands, seriously burning the four creatures closest to him and singeing the hides of several others. Kestrel had hoped the fire would distract her opponent long enough for her to sink her dagger into him again, but he didn't so much as blink. None of the creatures did.

  "Tyr preserve us," Corran muttered. Pathfinder in hand, he battled two orogs at once. The first lunged at the paladin with its blade. Corran's gleaming weapon easily disarmed the humanoid, sending the orog's short sword flying. It landed a few feet from Kestrel.

  She retrieved the weapon and assumed a defensive pos­ture just as her foe struck again. Sword fighting was not her forte, but the orogs didn't have to know that. She par­ried the humanoid's blows, giving herself a chance to become accustomed to the weapon before shifting to an offensive stance. Her opponent was strong and towered over her by at least a foot. When the opportunity arose, she would have to press her only advantage—superior agility.

  Meanwhile, Durwyn's swinging axe caught her periph­eral vision. The warrior had already defeated one oppo­nent and now fought two more. Make that one more—another orog succumbed to his powerful strokes. The unfortunate mercenary, already burned by Jarial's spell, lost an arm to Durwyn's axe. He dropped to the floor with­out a sound.

  So had all the fallen orogs, Kestrel realized suddenly. Except for her own companions' grunts of exertion and the clang of metal on metal, this was the most quiet battle she'd ever experienced. The humanoids fought and died without so much as a groan—a far cry from their usual whoops and calls of war.

  More comfortable with her newly acquired weapon, Kestrel darted to one side. The movement forced her opponent to twist his body awkwardly to continue coun­tering her strikes. The creature fought hard but mechani­cally,
its swings and parries more the product of rote than battle fervor.

  That blank stare was really starting to give her the creeps. There was definitely something wrong with these creatures.

  Ghleanna swung her staff and hit Kestrel's opponent in the head, providing the opportunity the rogue had been looking for. Kestrel thrust her blade at an upward angle, catching the humanoid in the throat. The orog sank silently to the ground, its face never losing the blank stare.

  When Kestrel glanced around, she saw that Durwyn had just dispatched the last of his trio of foes. Corran also had defeated three orogs with his new magical blade. As she watched, he lunged to catch another one—who had turned on Jarial—in the back. The creature remained standing, still as death, for a full minute, as if it hadn't real­ized it had been killed. Then it dropped as its comrades had.

  As everyone caught their breaths, Kestrel retrieved her weapons. She studied the bodies of the orogs she had slain, then swept her gaze across all the orog corpses.

  Not one of the creatures had bled.

  "Uh, guys? Have you noticed—"

  "No blood," Corran said as the realization hit him as well. He bent down to examine one of the orogs more closely. "The cult somehow drained the blood and life out of these creatures, leaving them animated corpses. Soul­less."

  Kestrel shuddered involuntarily. The more she learned about the Cult of the Dragon, the more she wished she could just walk away from this whole quest. Only the vision of all humanity wandering around in the orogs' soul­less state kept her from making the suggestion. Instead, she turned her gaze to the stairs the bloodless humanoids had been guarding. At the top, the Room of Words waited. The Ring of Calling was only feet away—along with the cult sorcerers who would fight to the death to keep it.

  The party burst into the Room of Words so suddenly that the sorcerer holding the Ring of Calling dropped the skeletal arm in surprise. He recovered quickly, his fingers and lips immediately moving to form an incan­tation.

  Kestrel's dagger prevented him from ever finishing it.

  Once she saw the light of life leave his eyes, the thief didn't spare the dying cultist another glance. One down, five to go, and good riddance to the chump on the floor. She gripped her second blade and scanned the room for her next target

  Beside her, Durwyn released an arrow. The shaft whistled past her ear to embed itself in the heart of another cultist. The evil sorcerer's eyes widened beneath his leather hood. He gripped the shaft with his clawed hand and tried to yank the arrow from his chest, but his clumsy struggle only caused more blood to ooze from the wound. As the cultist gurgled something unintelligible, his gaze met Durwyn's—then took on the glassy stare of death.

  Meanwhile, both Jarial and Ghleanna managed to unleash spells before the cultists could prepare any sor­cery of their own. The half-elf's magic rendered one hooded sorcerer blind, while Jarial's sank an acid-laced arrow in the stomach of another. The wounded sorcerer screamed in agony as the smell of burning cloth and flesh filled the air. Tendrils of greenish smoke wisped from the hole in his gut. He stared at Jarial, his features forming a mask of hatred. His lips curled to spit out a foul-sounding, arcane curse. Then he began weaving a spell of his own.

  Kestrel's heart pounded as the scarred sorcerer spun his retaliatory enchantment. The element of surprise had enabled the companions to kill or handicap four of the six cultists in the chamber. Though their odds had improved, victory still wasn't assured. Now they would have to rely on their wits and the strategy Corran had devised just before they entered the chamber. According to plan, the paladin would identify the band's most pow­erful sorcerer and—cloaked by Jarial's invisibility spell—disable him.

  There was no sign of Corran yet, and the two unharmed cultists had overcome their surprise. One, the youngest-looking cult sorcerer she had yet seen, nerv­ously stumbled over the words of an evocation that sent a burst of dark energy flying at Durwyn. The black flames struck the warrior in his bow arm. He dropped his bow and clutched his arm. "To the Abyss with your hellfire!" he cried. Pain flashed across his face, but for only a moment. His axe arm was still good, and with the discipline of a trained fighter he concealed his suffering and reached for his favored weapon. Axe in hand, he strode toward the wizard who had injured him. The scrawny young man backed up as the massive warrior neared.

  When Kestrel's gaze landed on the other uninjured cultist, she caught him sneering at her. Judging from his more elaborate tattoos and the size of his claw, she guessed him to be the highest-ranking sorcerer of the group. The leader unleashed four black-flamed missiles. All at Kestrel.

  She tumbled to the floor, but the sorcerous darts fol­lowed her. Pain ripped through her stomach, then her already-injured leg, with intensity that brought tears to her eyes. She curled into a ball in a half-coherent attempt to shield her chest and gut from the remaining missiles. The strikes seared her right arm, nearly forcing her to drop the dagger she still gripped in that hand.

  "Bastard!" she spat as pain rocked her body. Her arm burned as if flames consumed it. She could barely control her hand.

  The hooded cultist waved mockingly with his own mutated right hand. "Having a little trouble?"

  Through an act of sheer will, Kestrel rolled to prop her­self on her injured right arm. The smug sorcerer thought he had disabled her throwing hand. Arrogant troll—she'd show him. She blocked out the agony coursing through her limbs and transferred the weapon to her dominant hand. Then she met his baleful gaze. "Not as much as you." She hurled the dagger.

  The blade should have struck his foul heart. Despite her injuries, her aim had been true. To Kestrel's despair the weapon fell short of its mark, instead sinking into his left calf. The wizard acknowledged the hit with no more than a hissed curse, then moved his hands in the sinister gestures of another spell.

  She tore her gaze away from the evil sorcerer long enough to glance wildly about the chamber. Where in the Abyss was Corran? She saw no hint of the invisible paladin. Apparently he'd left Kestrel to battle the chief sorcerer by herself. "Damn you, Corran D'Arcey," she muttered.

  An eerie babble of voices filled the air as all the spell-casters in the room uttered arcane words of individual incantations. Even the sightless mage was in the process of casting a spell—Mystra only knew where that magic would land. Durwyn, who had killed the hapless appren­tice, appeared to have chosen the blind wizard as his next target. She only hoped the warrior's axe struck before the sorcerer's spell.

  Jarial was locked in a spellcasters' duel with the acid-burned sorcerer. In the few seconds that Kestrel watched, the injured cultist released a retributive gout of flames at Jarial. Ghleanna and Jarial had agreed to avoid fire-based attacks out of concern for the many ancient books, scrolls, and maps in the chamber, but apparently the cultists had no such qualms.

  Kestrel heard Jarial's cry as the flames licked his skin but had to return her attention to her own adversary. Cor­ran had abandoned her. She would have to face the sor­cerous leader alone. She still had one more dagger, Loren's Blade. She reached for its hilt at her waist.

  And blinked. Was pain making her head swim? The sor­cerer suddenly appeared blurry. Kestrel squinted and stared, but could not discern a steady outline—the cultist seemed to waver before her eyes. She gripped the magical dagger, eager to hurl it at the wizard but unable to fix a target.

  The smell of burning paper met her nostrils as smoke drifted toward her. In trying to injure Jarial, the foolish cultist had set an enormous old tome ablaze. Its wrought-iron stand probably would keep the flames from spread­ing, but the book and the knowledge it contained were now lost forever.

  The smoke obscured the cult leader's image even fur­ther. His shifting form seemed to be preparing yet another spell to aim at her. Kestrel groaned, her body already aching beyond anything she'd ever experienced. Despite the poor visibility, she couldn't just stand here offering the wizard target practice. She peered through the dense air and grasped her weapon, preparing to throw. She
would have to trust her instincts.

  Just as she was about to toss the blade, a familiar voice penetrated the haze. "By the hand of Tyr!" The wizard yelped and doubled over. Corran materialized, his new blade wet with fresh blood.

  "About damn time!" she shouted.

  With a cry of rage, the evil sorcerer released the spell he'd prepared for Kestrel onto Corran instead. His image still blurred, he appeared to touch Corran's arm for only a split second. Corran immediately staggered backward two paces, his face ashen and somehow drained of vitality.

  With an evil grin the wizard straightened, now scarcely bothered by the wound Corran had opened in his gut

  A cold chill passed through Kestrel. The sorcerer had stolen some of Corran's life force! What other evil could this necromancer wreak?

  They could not afford to find out. She flung the dag­ger. It soared through the air and struck him squarely in the chest. Corran followed the strike with one of his own as Loren's Blade flew back to Kestrel's hand. The sor­cerer's eyes widened in pain and hatred, but he still did not die. Instead he began to utter the words of another incantation.

  Kestrel prepared to hurl the magical blade again. Though the cultist's wavering image became increas­ingly hard to discern through the smoke, she thought she saw him glance at the floor off to one side. She fol­lowed the direction of his gaze. There, forgotten in the fray, lay the skeletal arm bearing the Ring of Calling. The chief sorcerer seemed to be moving toward it as he avoided another of Corran's blows.

  Kestrel glanced at her companions. Jarial unleashed an incantation on his rival, sending another acidic arrow through the air to silence the sorcerer for good. Ghleanna also appeared in the process of casting a spell, this one at the leader. She squinted through the smoke, trying to fix her sight on him. Durwyn had just finished off the blinded mage and stood not far from the skeletal arm.