Pool of Radiance hop-1

by James M. Ward

  "You're moving easier than you were last night" Tarl said to Ren.

  "Yeah. That poultice helped, but I think the workout I got washing it off probably did almost as much good."

  "Now, that's a fine thank-you," Tarl said with a smile. He turned to say good morning to Shal, but she spoke first. "Look, I don't want to be rude, but I'd really like to get going." Shal related the events of her dream the previous night and her sense that Ranthor's soul was not at rest. "Are you sure you still want to come?" she asked when she was finished.

  Ren's acknowledgement was simple. He led out a roan mare from three stalls down and began to prepare her tack.

  Tarl just looked up at Shal and said, "Can I ride with you?"

  The streets of Phlan were mostly straight, and Ren led the way. In the heart of town, where the Laughing Goblin Inn was located, the streets bustled with activity. At every corner, peddlers touted their wares. As was his custom, Ren took in everything, watching for anything out of the ordinary. The closer they came to the outer walls of the civilized portion of the city, the sparser the crowds grew and the more wary Ren became.

  Tarl wasn't nearly so watchful, at least at the start. He gladly wrapped his arms around Shal's waist and leaned his head gently against hers as they cantered to the farthest end of Civilized Phlan. What made a woman smell so good? he wondered, able for the first time that day to focus on something besides Anton and his own failings. Tarl had spent every ounce of healing that remained in him yesterday on Anton, and he knew his brothers continued to do the same daily, but if Anton had made any progress, it was measured in mustard grains.

  Denlor's tower and the high walls surrounding it were built of red brick, which stood out in bright contrast to the gray-black fortress at the edge of the city. From a distance, the tower appeared friendly and inviting, a testimony to the wizard's benevolent character. But as they came closer, they could see that whole sections had been hammered away or blackened from repeated fires.

  Ren reined his horse into the midst of a small grove of annonwood trees that paralleled one dilapidated wall of the keep, motioning for Shal to follow. More bushes than trees, the orange-leafed annonwoods made up the thick border of a small park at the farthest corner of the city. "I found this place last night when I scouted the tower," Ren said in a hushed voice. "It has a sort of natural peace about it. It's the peace of living things, not death like so much of Phlan. We can leave the horses here in safety and move under cover to the outer gates-"

  "You may leave your horse if you want," said Shal, interrupting, "but Cerulean is coming along with us. He was my master's magical familiar, and now he's mine. He can be of help to us while we're trying to get through the magical barriers that guard this place."

  Ren's first inclination was to argue the difficulties of trying to move inconspicuously with a huge war-horse tagging along, but Shal's tone left no room for argument. Shrugging, Ren dismounted and led the way to the tower, working slowly and silently through the border of annonwoods until they reached the stretch of wall that marked the edge of Civilized Phlan. Again and again, he glanced behind him and off to both sides, as he had when they were riding, sure but not sure that they were being followed. He noticed nothing, not even a whisper or a misplaced scent. There was just an occasional shimmer of ocher light vanishing from the corner of his eye each time he turned. It could be the sun, it could be his own lack of sleep, it could be nothing at all. Ren glanced behind himself one final time before they dashed under the vine-covered arch that led to the grounds of the tower. Still he saw nothing.

  Nothing alive, at any rate. All around the tower lay the charred and rotting bodies of dozens of kinds of monsters and other marauders. Shal sucked in her breath at the sight and smell of the carnage, remembering the panic Denlor had shown in the vision through the crystal as hordes upon hordes of creatures converged on his tower, many of them gaining entrance by the force of their sheer numbers. In a fashion atypical among such creatures, those that lay at the walls had sacrificed themselves by diminishing the tower's magical energies so that others could enter and invade it.

  Tarl dropped to one knee and waved his hammer in the air to form the sign of the balances. He, too, wondered what manner of evil force could convince so many humanoids and monsters to go willingly to their deaths.

  Shal wasted no time in contemplation. She picked her way around the corpses that lay on the faint path. To either side of the door, bodies were heaped like cordwood, many of them decapitated, some otherwise mutilated from battle. Most showed signs of burning. Some were rotting with age, while others may have died within the last few days.

  An icy spur of fear pulsed through Shal as she approached the door to the tower. It was a great brass door, its surface marred by numerous scratches, exactly as she remembered it from the images Denlor had projected through the crystal. She shuddered involuntarily, knowing that Ranthor's death, too, must have been just as she had seen it in the large clear globe. She reached out a tremoring hand toward the gate.

  "No!" Ren hissed, grabbing her arm. "That door has a charge that will knock a person flat." He reached in front of her and touched the metal lock with a piece of deadwood. Instantly the stick shot from his hand. Were it not for his gauntlets, his hand would have been badly cut by the sheer force of it. "This whole place is buzzing with magical energy. The side doors are also magically guarded, but I've brought my thieving tools along. I think that with time and care, I can get us in."

  "Ren, your tools aren't needed here." Shal explained how in his message, Denlor, the red mage, had left her with the "keys" to passage into and within his tower. Shal held her hand out toward the door as she had started to a moment ago and uttered two magical words. The lock began to glow a cherry red, and the door swung open. Ren and Tarl exchanged surprised glances and were about to enter cautiously, but it was Shal's turn to hold up a hand in warning. She repeated Ren's earlier safety measure, picking up a twig that lay on the path and tossing it into the open doorway. A crimson arc of energy illuminated the area immediately in front of the door. It wasn't clear whether the twig ever reached the floor. There was a loud crackling noise, and flame erupted where the small stick had struck the arc, incinerating it in an instant.

  Shal stood silent, obviously concentrating, and in a few moments Cerulean stepped forward, past Tarl and past Ren, and entered the tower. Brilliant red sparks erupted all around the horse's hooves as each touched the floor. The others peered in as the big horse paraded in a circle before the doorway. In his movements, Cerulean showed no sign whatsoever of pain or discomfort, but his hide began to glow an iridescent blue, the deep, almost purple blue of a grackle's head, and the glow intensified with each step.

  Shal spoke softly. "He's absorbing the power of Denlor's red lightning with each step he takes. It should be safe for us to walk across the magically charged floor in a minute."

  Ren and Tarl looked on in awe as the floor, continued to crackle with sparks at Cerulean's footsteps. Ren looked to Shal, wondering if it was safe to enter yet, and when she nodded, he eased gingerly, silently into the room. By the time Tarl and Shal entered, Cerulean was glowing like a fiery beacon, but there were no more sparks.

  So bright was the light from the horse's body that they didn't need to bother with a lantern. The door shut silently behind them before Tarl could reach back to close it. They stood inside a great rhombus-shaped room, obviously a meeting hall, with solid, heavy benches set three rows deep in a horseshoe shape. A broad, low, ornately carved rosewood lectern stood at the opening of the U. Bizarre trophies, heads of beasts not even Ren had ever seen alive, were mounted along the room's walls.

  "I didn't know that Denlor was a teacher," said Shal. "Ranthor always spoke of him as-"

  Suddenly, from all around the room, came whispers of the name "Denlor," as though each bench were occupied by a row of students, whispering their teacher's name. As the whispers began to die, a red robe whisked into the room from the doorway opposite the lectern.
It, too, seemed to be whispering, but in an exaggerated, breathy whisper that made it distinct from and more chilling than the others. "Denlor… I am Denlor," it breathed. The tattered robe was draped over nothing but blackness, a blackness that defied the brilliant blue light from Cerulean that bathed the room. The robe fluttered menacingly toward them. Tarl's hammer shone like Cerulean, as did Ren's dagger.

  "Don't touch it!" said Shal, her tone icy. "Denlor's spirit does not rest; he guards his tower even in death. As long as we do no damage here, he will do us no harm, but touch that robe and you're dead."

  Tarl and Ren lowered their weapons so they were at the ready but not threatening. Both were already convinced that Shal possessed a mastery of the magicks of this place that was beyond their understanding.

  "I think Ranthor was killed in a spell-casting chamber, upstairs somewhere. It's strange and frustrating-from Denlor's vision, I know where everything in this building is, but my only image from Ranthor is of his death."

  "I don't mean to be gruesome, Shal, but we'll find the place of his death soon enough," Ren said. "For our own safety, we need to check out every room. There are signs of struggling and scuffling all over this place. Look at the way those benches are misaligned there, the broken door frame over there." Ren went on, pointing as he spoke. "See the bloodstains on the floor… there and there? We don't know who or what's been here, or when, for that matter."

  Shal nodded. Her every instinct was to press up the stairs fearlessly and find the murderous beast still lurking near her master's body, as it would happen in some stilted morality play of the type traveling thespians used to perform in the streets when she was a child. But she knew that somewhere upstairs she would find Ranthor's days-old body and, only if she was lucky, some sign of the creature that killed him. "That doorway off to the left." She pointed. "We can look in there first."

  Shal continued speaking but in a hushed tone, her words no longer addressed to Tarl or Ren. "What do you mean, you'd rather not go in there?… So what if they occasionally served horsemeat? It wasn't yours. Go on, scoot! We don't want to fry on these high-energy floors."

  The horse stepped forward, somewhat indignantly, Tarl thought, if horses can be indignant, but the floor of the kitchen he entered was normal, and the horse's brilliant blue light started to fade almost as soon as it had passed through the doorway.

  Tarl didn't notice, however. He was lost in a muttering conversation with himself over Shal's behavior with Cerulean. "Right. Familiars do talk to their masters, I suppose. And their masters must talk to their familiars and not to their friends." He followed almost aimlessly behind Ren, who was following Shal. It wasn't until he felt the gentlest hint of a chill brush his back that he realized that the red robe was fluttering along behind him like some misplaced shadow. "By my oath, I wish I didn't feel so powerless when I'm with this woman," Tarl muttered, then shook his fist at the ghostly cloth. "Get back a few feet, will you? You give me the creeps. I'd gladly try some clerical magic beyond my means if I thought it would make you flap away."

  The phantom obediently backed off a few steps, and Tarl felt a little better when he turned to resume following the others. Ren was already scouting the huge mess-style kitchen, examining the implements and foodstuffs left out on the cutting block and beside the great baking oven, silently opening doors to a pantry, a storage room, and a root cellar.

  "I think I've found the cook," called Ren from the root cellar. "I need some light."

  Cerulean's glow was fading fast, and he wouldn't have fit down the tight staircase anyhow, so Shal pulled out her light rod, which immediately began to glow with a constant blue-amethyst light. She held it high at the top of the stairs, then started down herself. "Here… can you see?"

  "I can see fine now," answered Ren. "She was murdered, all right, about three days ago, I'd say. That's a burn mark from a cord that was pulled taut around her neck. It's the work of someone proficient, if not a pro."

  Ren came up the stairs carrying the dead woman, a small figure with the dark coloring found in the far southwest reaches of the Realms. He laid her already stiff body on a long counter in the kitchen. "From what I can see, she was pushed down the stairs after she was killed. There's still a ladle in her hand. My guess is she never even saw her murderer. We're talking about a really brave assassin here." Ren felt like spitting to clear the bile that rose in his mouth at the thought of the kind of vermin that would kill with so little cause.

  "From the way things are laid out there," Ren went on, pointing to an assortment of dishes, cooking utensils, and foodstuffs, "I'd say she had already finished preparing a meal for her master and guests and was working on food for the servants, if that matters any."

  Tarl spoke a prayer for the woman, soliciting Tyr's aid in helping "… another victim of the darkness that rules the outskirts of this city" to find her peace.

  "The way those rope marks pull up on her neck doesn't look to me like the work of a kobold or anything else that short," Ren mused.

  "Whoever or whatever killed her, may Tyr help her find the solace of her patron god."

  They left the woman, agreeing to return and bury her when they left. The door across the hall led to what were apparently servants' quarters. There were two beds, and beside one they found a young man, dead. He'd obviously seen his attacker and struggled with him-or it. He had fallen victim to repeated stab wounds to the chest. Once again, Ren noted the nature of the wounds and suggested that the killer was tall, perhaps as tall as Tarl.

  "I grieved only for my teacher," said Shal. "It never occurred to me that others died with him." She was near tears and stood clenching and unclenching her fists as she stared down at the bloody corpse. She spoke to no one in particular, pausing between words. "When Denlor sent his message in the crystal, he was completely overwhelmed by monsters and humanoids. But Ranthor and this poor young man and the cook… you're suggesting they were killed by another human being. I–I couldn't see the attacker, you know-only an arm, stabbing over and over. I just-just assumed it was a hobgoblin or one of the other beasts that were attacking the towers."

  "Shal, I'm not saying for sure that it was a man," said Ren quietly. "I'm saying I think it was. But at any rate, they wouldn't be any less dead if it was a hobgoblin or a kobold that killed them."

  "I know that!" Shal shouted. "Don't you see? Monsters and humanoids kill on whim alone. Men kill for reasons-however distorted. A kobold I could kill and be done with it, with no regrets. A man I'll hate…"

  Tarl put an arm around Shal. "And you will probably be right in that feeling."

  Shal gently removed Tarl's hand from her shoulder, squeezing it firmly before letting go. "I need to find Ranthor," She turned to leave the room.

  "Wait!" called Ren, quickly reaching for Shal's arm. "Don't you think it would be better for Tarl and I to lead? We can't be sure that everything within these walls is dead."

  "No, but we do know that almost everything within these walls is magical. Tarl was the right person to lead us at Sokol Keep. I'm the right person to lead us through the red mage's tower."

  Once again Shal left no room for question. She turned again and went through the meeting hall to the door from which the red robe had emerged. The horse, the two men, and the red robe followed.

  The door opened into a splendid, almost palatial landing at the foot of a great, broad soapstone staircase. The floor was inset with tourmaline, amber, amethyst, aventurine, and other semiprecious stones. A brilliant light beneath the stones shone through their translucent surface, creating a glorious speckling of many-hued rays that colored the walls in a dazzling display. The whole party stopped for a moment to admire it.

  When Shal finally started up the stairs, a ruby-colored cloud, in the image of the red mage himself, formed on the staircase.

  Tarl didn't recognize Denlor. The only contact he'd had with such cloudlike visages had been with the wraiths that had killed so many of his brothers in the graveyard. He charged past Shal and would h
ave challenged the ghostly vapors had not Shal caught hold of his armor and used all her recently acquired strength to stop him.

  "Poison! It's poison, Tarl!" shouted Shal, hauling him back. "It's a poison image of the master of this tower!" Tarl looked sheepish, and she softened her voice. "I'm sorry, but I must insist that you let me go first. I welcome your company, and I can use your help, but as I said to Ren, this is my mission."

  Even as Shal spoke, the cloud expanded, spreading its deadly haze down the stairway. Both Shal and Tarl started to cough.

  Shal held her breath and concentrated, then spoke the words she'd heard from Denlor. "Lysiam calentatem, Denlor."

  The cloud dissipated immediately, and the wide soap-stone stairway once more stood vacant. Shal started up again but stopped when she heard Cerulean's whimper inside her head.

  She spun around, very nearly bumping into Ren and Tarl, who were following close behind her. "What is your problem?" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing.

  Tarl and Ren, who were both feeling less and less comfortable about their roles in this venture, looked up at her and started stammering in unison.

  "No!" Shal shook her head furiously and pointed down the stairs in disgust. "Not you-him! He's whimpering in my ear like some sick child!"

  Surely you can see that I could slip and kill myself on this treacherous staircase, Mistress!

  "Stairs don't come any broader or shallower than these, Cerulean," Shal answered in a tone that was decidedly lacking in patience.

  The horse continued to stand at the bottom of the stairs, shaking its head and whickering and stamping one front hoof. Bathed in the colorful lights from the stone floorway, he looked like some child's giant stuffed toy.

  Shal pulled the indigo cloth from her belt and started down the stairs, holding it out in front of her.

  No, not that! Cerulean pleaded. You may need me. Just make me small and carry me up.

  Shal's eyes glinted for a fleeting moment. "If I make you small, will your voice be small, too?" She didn't wait for a reply. She concentrated for a moment and said the words for a Reverse Enlargement spell. A cat-sized Cerulean instantly appeared, looking pathetic at the bottom of the stairs, overshadowed by the hovering robe. Shal strode down the stairs, slapped her hip a couple of times, and called, "Here, boy! Here, boy!" as if she were calling a dog.