Pool of Radiance

by James M. Ward

  Shal looked wide-eyed at Ren and Tarl. “First Councilman?”

  Ren’s reaction was instant. “We’ve got to get this ship turned around.”

  “But we have evidence against Cadorna,” argued Tarl in a low voice. “When we present it to the rest of the council, they’ll—”

  Tarl stopped in midsentence as he saw Shal and Ren both shaking their heads. They knew there would be no council meeting, no hearing that would result in Cadorna’s conviction. In fact, with Cadorna now in the First Councilman’s seat, they knew that the only conviction would be their own. “Didn’t you read the sorcerer’s notes?” Ren hissed. “Cadorna knows about the ioun stones. He’s behind all of this!”

  Ren didn’t wait for Tarl to agree. Quickly he turned away from Shal and Tarl, hurried to where the captain stood at the stern, and placed a knife tight against the man’s neck. “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want to hurt you.” Ren spoke softly and smoothly. “I just want you to turn this boat around. Now!”

  Tarl needed no more convincing. He loped to the bow and grabbed for the mooring rope the captain had tossed out. One of the soldiers of the Black Watch had hold of it, and the other three were approaching to help him haul it in. A fifth had joined the original four and was reaching for a gangplank.

  “Ahoy on shore!” Shal shouted, facing the mercenaries and waving her arms in a circle to draw their attention. As soon as they all looked up, she tossed a handful of dust and hurriedly incanted the words of a Sleep spell.

  The closest man was overcome immediately. He blinked, nodded, swayed forward and back, dropped his hold on the rope, and slumped forward off the pier and into the water. Two nearby mercenaries shouted an alarm to shore, and one of them bellyflopped onto the dock to grab for the mooring rope, which had been pulled into the water. The rope was still barely within reach, but just as he caught hold of it, he too was overcome by sleep. His eyes fluttered for a moment, and then his head drooped over the side of the pier.

  Tarl continued to haul in the line, but the boat hadn’t turned yet. The captain wasn’t cooperating with Ren. Instead, the feisty sailor jerked his head down and away from the knife, jabbed his elbow hard into Ren’s ribs, and staggered forward. Ren lunged to gain a fresh hold on him, but as quick as a flash, the captain pulled a dagger from his belt. Ren quickly drew his own knives and was beginning to circle cautiously, when suddenly the captain spun and hurled his dagger toward the front of the boat.

  Ren turned and watched the blade’s rapid flight. Poised on the end of the dock, a mercenary stood with a knife upraised, about to launch it at Ren. The captain’s blade lodged itself deep in his chest. Desperately he dropped his own knife and yanked the dagger from his chest. Blood gushed from the wound with each beat of his punctured heart, and he clutched his chest in a futile attempt to quell the flow of blood.

  “You’re—you’re with us?” Ren asked wide-eyed.

  “Aye. And if ye’d stopped to ask, ye’d have known a good deal sooner. Now get outta my way and keep those devils offa my ship so I can turn her around.”

  Ren reached Tarl’s side at the bow just as the fourth and fifth soldiers began to charge up the gangplank. “Hold it right there!” Tarl shouted threateningly, his hammer raised.

  But the soldiers ignored the warning. When they reached the end of the gangplank, they vaulted over Ren and Tarl, then pivoted immediately to face their adversaries. One wielded two short swords, as Ren did, and he and the ranger immediately faced off against each other, one mirroring the movements of the other. The other soldier faced Tarl. In his left hand, he wielded a dagger. In his right, he brandished a vicious-looking whip. Quickly he cracked the whip at Tarl. It smacked with the sharpness of close thunder a mere hairbreadth from Tarl’s shoulder, and Tarl instinctively jumped back. Once again the whip snaked out, this time at Shal, who was busy incanting a spell. She never finished it. She tried to dodge, but she wasn’t nearly as fast as the uncoiling weapon. The black leather cord of the whip whisked round and round her wrist. Its metal-tipped ends bit cruelly into the flesh of her hand. With one hard jerk, the mercenary yanked Shal off balance. She staggered to one side, and before she could recover, he retracted the whip and brought it down again. It ripped through the chimera leather of her sleeve, and the tips flayed the flesh of her shoulder.

  At Shal’s cry of pain, Cerulean burst onto the deck, his nostrils flared wide, his ears pressed back flat against his head. The mercenary turned quickly to face the new threat and snapped his whip viciously at the big animal. But Cerulean was oblivious to the danger. He pawed the air with his great, sharp hooves. His muscles rippled as he reared to an awesome height above the man, and his hooves came down like hammers on the mercenary’s shoulders.

  The man slashed up at the horse with his dagger, even as he toppled backward. His eyes bulged as he saw the huge horse rise up above him once more, and he scrambled and crab-crawled backward, terrified, searching desperately for any nook or cranny that would offer safety from the pummeling hooves. Again the horse’s hooves came down, this time on the man’s bent legs. They buckled under him, and he rolled to get away.

  “Enough!” shouted Tarl, and he braved Cerulean’s wrath to try to help the soldier to his feet.

  “Don’t … need … your … help!” The man’s eyes flared in rage as he screamed each word, slashing wildly with his knife. Tarl leaped back out of reach.

  Cerulean reared and stomped on the soldier again, but his hooves did not stop the slashing motion of the soldier’s hand, and the big horse took a wicked cut that stretched from his cannon to his fetlock.

  Before Cerulean could rear again, Tarl darted in once more. He slammed the knife from the man’s hands with one swing of his hammer, then cracked the man’s skull with his next swing.

  Tarl glanced up to see six more soldiers storming the gangplank, headed straight for Shal, who had scrambled to her feet to face them. Tarl reached her side just as the first leaped toward her. The warrior-cleric released his hammer with a snap, and it slammed into the soldier’s forehead with explosive force that drove his head and neck backward. At exactly the same moment, Shal completed a Phantasmal Force spell, and the soldier and his companions were driven back as if by a tremendous gale. Two landed in the water, while the other four fell to the dock. At the same time, the captain was finally able to bring the ship around hard to starboard to catch the wind he needed to pull the vessel away from the pier.

  Ren was within handshaking distance of his adversary, with sword pressed against sword. Suddenly the soldier gained the advantage, forcing Ren back against the cargo hold. Now the mercenary’s swords flashed with the speed of adders’ heads—in and out, in and out—jab, thrust, parry. It was all Ren could do to fend them off. At that moment, Cerulean, head down, with all the fury of the pain he shared with his mistress, charged. The horse thudded into the soldier’s side with enough force to send him staggering sideways, and Tarl hit him from the other side with his shield. Ren finished him off with a hard thrust through the ribs.

  Tarl, Ren, and Cerulean stood still for a moment, and then they heard Shal, hissing the rapid breaths of a mantra for pain control. Sitting awkwardly, she was pressing a rag to the gashes on her shoulder, but blood was seeping through. Her wrist was already purpling where the tips of the whip had wrapped tight around it. Ren and Tarl rushed to her aid. Cerulean limped to her side, whinnying plaintively, blood welling the length of the slash on his lower leg.

  “Look!” shouted Ren, pointing back at the pier. “More soldiers are coming!”

  The captain had gotten the small ferry scudding along at a fair clip in the brisk breeze, but a small group of the Black Watch had commandeered a small schooner, and they were preparing to cast off the line.

  “Can you outrun them?” Tarl hollered back to the captain. “I need time to heal these two!”

  “I can try!” the captain shouted back. “How far are ye goin?”

  “The other side of the river,” Ren called back qu
ickly.

  Tarl looked to Ren for some sort of explanation.

  “No matter where we go, they’re going to come after us, but they’ll think twice about following us into the graveyard.” Ren paused. “That’s where we were planning to go next, isn’t it?”

  For a moment, Tarl didn’t say anything. Then he nodded quickly and said, “Go help the captain. I’ll take care of Shal.” Tarl felt trapped. He was fleeing a boatload of pursuing soldiers to return to a place where he knew he would have to face an army of undead. He did his best to quell thoughts of Valhingen Graveyard and focus on what he must do right this minute for Shal.

  He started to work on her shoulder first, cleansing her wounds with a wet cloth. Shal sucked in air through clenched teeth each time he dabbed at the stinging wounds. When he had cleansed her wounds, Tarl put his hands on her shoulder. The lacerations were inflamed and painful-looking, but they weren’t especially deep. The energy that flowed through Tarl’s fingertips was strong, and he could feel the skin beginning to heal at his touch. Then suddenly the smooth tingle of the healing force was interrupted. Tarl realized that one of the whip’s tips had bared an earlier wound of Shal’s. Tarl remembered it well: Sokol Keep … the axe wound. Tarl’s faith had not been so strong at that time, and neither were his skills. He had given his best effort, but he realized now that the wound had not healed completely.

  Tarl withdrew his hands from Shal’s shoulder for a moment as he called for special power from Tyr. Then he placed his hands on her shoulder once more and held tight. Tingling energy surged between him and her as he focused on the deeper, older wound. He could feel the energy purging, expunging the decay, and then he could sense the mending, that wonderful warmth of regenerating tissue. As always, he felt a very special exchange of spirit with Shal. When he was done, the only sign of either the old wound or the new one was the rent leather of her tunic. He said a silent thank-you to Tyr for granting him the ability to heal Shal.

  Because of the swelling and bruises, Shal’s hand and wrist looked bad, but the cuts appeared to be shallow, abrasions really. It was not until Tarl squatted beside Shal and clasped her wrist in his hands to heal it that he realized that the tails of the whip had buried grime and dirt beneath the skin for the length of the cuts. He said nothing to Shal. She smiled up at him as he worked. Tarl felt the exhilaration of healing one more time, but he also felt a slight drain from using his clerical powers twice in rapid succession.

  What about me? Cerulean’s question jogged Shal’s awareness.

  “Tarl, look!” Aghast, Shal pointed at the horse’s leg. A pool of blood had formed beside one hoof, and blood was matted the length of Cerulean’s foreleg. “Can you help him?” She stood up and put one arm around the big stallion’s neck, marveling at the speed and totality of her own recovery.

  Without hesitation, Tarl cleansed the gash in the horse’s leg. Blood that had started to clot freed up, and fresh blood pulsed down the foreleg, adding to the puddle by Cerulean’s foot. Tarl pressed his hands over as much of the wound as he could. As healing energy left him for the third time, Tarl started to sway, and as the wound began to close over, he had to catch his balance with one hand to keep himself from slumping down onto the deck in a faint.

  “Tarl!” Shal scrambled to his side. “What’s—what’s wrong?” she asked, anxiously steadying him with her strong arms before he swooned.

  “Just … tired,” he said in a puff of breath. “Need rest … no time …”

  “Shhhh.” Shal pulled Tarl close and whispered the words of a cantrip that would double the intensity of Tarl’s rest. Then she turned back to the horse. Are you okay? she probed.

  It still hurts. He didn’t quite finish, but it’s stopped bleeding—

  “The schooner’s getting closer!” Ren’s shout carried from the other end of the boat. “Tarl! Shal! Can you help with that sail?”

  “In a minute!” Shal shouted back. She laid Tarl down gently on the deck and removed her own healing potion from the Cloth of Many Pockets. Quickly she applied a drop to each of his temples in hopes that its powers extended to rejuvenation as well as physical healing.

  In the meantime, Cerulean had made his way to the flapping sail Ren had pointed to and was trying to get hold of it by grasping the untied end with his teeth. He had probably pulled the stay loose when he tried to trample the mercenary, and now he was doing his best to make up for his clumsiness.

  Not waiting for Tarl to respond to her treatment, Shal went to Cerulean’s aid. She was no whiz at knot-tying, but she did her best to secure the sail. Just as soon as she got it pulled taut into place, the whole sail filled with a gust of wind, and the small ship shot forward. Looking back, Shal could see that the Black Watch’s schooner had indeed gotten closer. In fact, it was rapidly approaching arrow range despite the ferry’s increased pace.

  Shal glanced quickly at Tarl. He hadn’t moved. By the gods, she hoped he’d be all right—and soon. For the moment, she did her best to focus her thoughts on the approaching vessel and the magic she would need to stop it. The Weather spells were still the freshest in her mind. She let her body sway gently with the slight rocking motion of the boat. Then she let herself feel the uneven surging and gusting of the southern crosswind. Finally, with a gesture and the mouthing of a spell, she caught the unexpelled force within the gentle wind in the space between her two hands, expanding the force and channeling it away from herself. She directed it to push at the waters surrounding the approaching schooner. Restless waves rolled up from the calm surface of the water, and the entire expanse of sea between the schooner and the ferry began to roil and churn.

  Shal pushed with her left hand and pulled with her right, pushed with her left hand and pulled back with her right, over and over again. She watched as the schooner began to spin involuntarily, in the beginnings of a whirlpool. A feeling not unlike electricity tingled up and down Shal’s spine, and she relished the sensation of power. Magical power, her magical power, was controlling the very wind and the waves, causing a whole boat to turn round and round. She continued to push with one hand and pull back with the other, push and pull back, faster and faster. She started to repeat the words of the spell, saying them even louder so she could hear herself over the whining wind and the distant screams of the men on the schooner.

  Then she felt strong hands grab her from behind, and Tarl’s shout broke her concentration. “No! Stop!” He pulled her around to face him. “Don’t kill my brothers! There’s no need to kill them!”

  Shal stared at him, taken aback by his regained strength, but not comprehending his message at all.

  Cerulean nosed in and blocked the cleric, pushing him back with his body. Shal took up the spell where she had left off. The waters hadn’t stopped swirling. A few movements of her hands and the water was churning with renewed ferocity. The schooner swirled crazily and within minutes disappeared nose-first into the growing spiral. The whirlpool swallowed the boat like a giant maw gulping down an insect. Then the swirling stopped, but the water continued to froth and boil.

  Shal spun around and quickly ran to Tarl, who was sitting on the deck behind Cerulean. She squatted beside him and held his face in her hands and made him look at her. “Are—are you okay, Tarl? Do you know where you are?”

  “I’m … sorry,” said Tarl, rubbing his head with both hands. “I was dreaming … about the graveyard. It was so real…. The vampire was standing right there.” Tarl pointed at the rail along the stern, where Shal had been standing only moments before. He killed them … my brothers, one after another. He wouldn’t stop killing! I’m … sorry.”

  “Hey, it’s all right, Tarl. Are you sure you’re okay now? Really okay?”

  “I … I guess I am.” Tarl held his hand out to Shal and started to stand. “I feel completely rested, as if I hadn’t used my clerical powers in days. I’m just jittery from the nightmare. Is your shoulder all right?”

  Shal didn’t get a chance to answer because both she and Tarl turned as
one when the captain shouted, “Sail’s loose again!” and they leaped like a team for the wayward piece of cloth. Unfortunately the winds were wilder than they had been, stirred even at this distance from the whirlwind force Shal had generated, and the sail flapped high, slapping loudly against itself. It slipped teasingly down and then flapped up again before they could catch it.

  It took several tries before Shal caught hold of the sail. Tarl retied the knot, and they went to the bow of the boat, where Ren was securing another guy wire at the captain’s direction. As before, once the sail was secured, it filled gloriously, and the small ship scudded forward at a brisk pace.

  The captain had steered wide to avoid the still-blackened waters at the mouth of the Stojanow River, and now the ferry was finally approaching the opposite shore.

  “You’ll be wantin’ to debark in a hurry,” said the captain, addressing Ren. “You can be certain if a ship of the Black Watch goes down, there’ll be more followin’. There’s no way I can anchor. I’m afraid that horse is gonna break a leg tryin’ to make it down to the water. How’d it get on here, anyhow?”

  “The same way he’ll get off,” answered Shal, pointing to the cloth at her belt.

  I’ll try the gangplank, the horse argued.

  And what? Dive off it? Shal pursed her lips, stared him down, and pointed once more. With no further complaints, Cerulean dove in.

  “Well, I’ll be!” The captain looked in awe at Shal. “I thought that little storm ye whipped up was pretty fancy, but makin’ a horse disappear into your belt—well, that’s some magic!” He wagged a finger at the three of them and said, “Now, get off a my boat while the gettin’s good. The water here should be about ten foot deep, so its safe to dive.”