Graal’s sword was halted in mid-arc but the strength of the orog’s blow slapped Corin’s remaining sword out of his metal hand to clatter on the ground. Without pausing, the orog raised his blade for the killing blow and brought it down again on his weaponless opponent. Corin threw his right arm up over his face in a vain effort to protect himself.
The dark blade sliced down in a mere blur, powered by the fury of the orog’s bloodlust. Yet for Corin, all was still. The black sword hung motionless in the air. The White Shield could see the individual etchings on the surface of the foul weapon, shimmering with an obsidian glow. The deadly arc of Graal’s weapon would lop off his prosthetic arm. The blade would continue unabated, slicing through Corin’s shoulder and diagonally across his torso—a sure kill.
But to Corin’s awareness, time had stopped. Frozen in the moment with the dark blade hovering inches above him, the warrior’s mind flashed back to a night three years ago—the night of Igland’s death, the night the White Shields were betrayed, the night Corin lost his hand.
The surrounding light and shadows of the cavern dissolved into the black of a storm-filled night. The far-off cries of doomed men in distant corridors and the faint scuffling of the unseen denizens of the tunnels became the sounds of his fellow White Shields battling Graal’s companions. The warm blood soaking Corin’s clothes and covering his face became the cold, viscous mud of the Trader Road mixing with the pelting raindrops of the raging tempest above. Corin felt his knees sink into the ground beneath him, as if it were soft earth rather than unyielding stone.
His world had come full circle, back to where he was two years ago. Helpless once again beneath the savagery of Graal’s dismembering blade.
But this time something was different. He could no longer hear the screams of his comrades dying around him. There was only silence, and knowledge came to Corin.
His companions were alive.
Unlike Igland, Lhasha and Fendel would survive this night—even if Corin did not.
The storm vanished, replaced by the surroundings of the smugglers’ tunnels once again. The sinister blade still hung frozen above the gleaming silver of Corin’s prosthetic arm, poised to continue on its lethal path.
This time Corin was unafraid.
The eternal moment was over, and Graal’s blade came down upon Corin’s arm. The forged metal of the enchanted blade struck the metal alloy of the prosthetic—and Graal’s blade erupted! Corin was blinded by an explosion of darkness, disintegrating into a shadowy cloud of dust that covered both men like a venomous mist. Each jet black piece of Graal’s evil sword now oozed swirling magical vapors. The smoky tendrils swam toward each other in a gathering tornado of power that had been unleashed from the broken blade. The tornado whirled in a frenzy until Corin could no longer follow the motion with his eyes. Then nothing.
The following explosion hurled Corin back, slamming his body hard against the floor. The spot where Graal had delivered what should have been a death blow was now a smoking crater. Huge chunks of irregular stone littered the corridor, torn loose from the walls and floor by the concussive force.
Corin struggled slowly to his feet, only partially aware that his prosthetic was undamaged by the blow. The dark cloud of dust from Graal’s blade made it difficult for Corin to see and almost impossible to breathe. His ears still rang with the echo of the catastrophic explosion reverberating throughout the labyrinth.
Graal lay on the floor near the epicenter of the blast, his body jammed up against the stones of the crusher trap. A crack in the rock and a bloody smear marked the spot where the orog’s massive form had been slammed against the granite blocks. Graal lay motionless, the hilt of his now vaporized blade still clutched in one mighty paw, blood trickling from his lip like drool.
A sprinkle of dust and pebbles from the ceiling above wafted down on the orog’s unconscious form, drawing Corin’s attention upward. The explosion had ripped the tunnel roof apart above the sight of the blast. Huge cracks snaked their way along the ceiling, spreading outward like a spider web woven into the rock.
Too injured and weak to stand, Corin began to crawl back down the tunnel, away from the unstable ceiling. Small bits of debris rained down on the back of his head, and when he glanced up he noticed the entire structure quivering as if it would collapse at any moment. As he inched ever closer toward safety, Corin couldn’t help casting continual glances back over his shoulder at Graal. The orog still lay on the ground, though his body was twitching slightly now.
From head to toe, Corin was coated in the noxious cloud of black dust expelled when Graal’s blade had exploded. He breathed it in through his lungs, it seeped in through his pores. He felt it congealing in his blood, and leeching into his bones. Poison, disease, death—the taint of pure evil—swallowing him whole.
He tried to will himself forward, but his body refused to answer. With his last ounce of strength, he rolled onto his side to look back down the tunnel at Graal once more.
The orog struggled to his knees. The beast shook his mighty head and dropped the now useless hilt of his once-fearsome blade to the floor. Graal’s head moved slowly from side to side as he scanned the rubble until his gaze came to rest on Corin’s prone form lying nearly fifty feet away.
The orog let out a roar that Corin’s still deafened ears couldn’t hear and took a single step toward his helpless foe.
Corin watched an avalanche of rock and earth bury Graal as the tunnel caved in above his head. Corin’s ears popped as the air around the two was driven down the narrow corridor, instantly displaced by tons of stone. A cloud of dust and dirt billowed up from the spot of the cave-in. It crawled across the floor, enveloping Corin.
Corin knew no more.
Lhasha and Fendel found him later, spread unconscious not twenty feet from where the ceiling had inexplicably collapsed, covered in a sticky mess of dirt, dust, and blood.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fendel resisted the urge to glance back as the door to the bedroom built onto the back of his workshop closed behind him. He knew the scene well enough already.
Corin rested fitfully beneath the blankets bundled tightly around his shivering body. His head rocked constantly from side to side, the beads of perspiration on his brow reflecting the single candle burning at the side of his sick bed. Occasional spasms caused his arms to twitch and his legs to thrash, kicking the covers onto the floor.
Each time this happened, Lhasha would silently pick the tangled sheets up from the bed, and gently tuck them around Corin’s body. Otherwise, the half-elf kept a silent vigil at his bedside, slumped forward in a chair by the bed, her elbows on her knees and her head resting in her hands as she fought to stay awake so she could watch over Corin.
Fendel knew she was exhausted. He was too. Neither of them had rested since they had found the unconscious man in the tunnels only yards clear of where the tunnel had collapsed.
Somehow they had managed to get Corin’s unconscious form back to Gond’s temple. But any faint hopes either Fendel or Lhasha might have harbored for their friend’s quick salvation had been dashed immediately by the High Artificer. He had placed his hands on Corin’s brow, then withdrawn them hastily, his nose crinkling in revulsion.
“The stench of death is on him, a curse so evil it burns at my touch,” Elversult’s ranking cleric of Gond had declared. “I am truly sorry, but I do not have the power to free him from its grasp.”
With that, Lhasha had collapsed into the chair Fendel had brought into the room. She shed no tears, said no words. There was no point in crying or speaking. She was beaten, devastated. With no hope, she merely sat down to be with her friend when he finally succumbed, trying simply to make his last hours as comfortable as possible.
That was how Fendel left her. He gave her no explanation as he slipped away. There was no point in giving her false hope. He doubted she would even notice his absence, for the time being. There was one other place the gnome could go for help, an authority higher than the
Artificer. Someone who might, just possibly, have the power to save Corin. But the gnome had no idea if she would even deign to hear the plea of a simple cleric of Gond.
Fendel weaved his way through the streets of Elversult, the early morning sun casting the shadow of Temple Hill across the sprawling city. The Churches of Lathander and Waukeen reflected the light of the dawn, shining like radiant beacons atop the mount.
The gnome turned his back on them and continued on his way. There was no help to be found there. The House of Coins was nothing more than a shrine to a dead god. They had no power to save Corin.
The Tower of the Morn seemingly offered some promise, but Corin’s bitter experiences in the past with Lathander’s church merely confirmed what the gnome would have suspected anyway. The Dawnbringer’s priests were healers, but they had little experience with the foul, sinister magic that had infected the one-armed man.
Fendel knew there were those who had fought against such dark sorcery for generations, those who had spent centuries defending Faerûn against necromancy and similar evils.
The Harpers. They alone might be able to offer some remedy for Corin’s affliction.
“You better make this quick,” Vaerana Hawklyn snarled. “Just because I agreed to see you doesn’t mean I’m in a good mood.”
“Surely you weren’t still sleeping?” Fendel replied, his tone mocking.
“I haven’t slept a wink in nearly two days!” She seemed generally offended by the suggestion. “Something big is going down with the Cult of the Dragon, and our agents haven’t been able to find out a thing! I don’t have time to sit and chat with old friends who’d rather spend their days tinkering with foolish gadgets than serving the cause of justice. We haven’t all retired, you know.”
“This isn’t a social call,” Fendel snapped back. The brash ranger always brought out the worst in him—just one of the reasons he had left the life of a Harper behind, deciding instead to retreat to the peaceful confines of Gond’s church and raise a young, orphaned half-elf. “This concerns the Cult of the Dragon.”
Suddenly, he had Vaerana’s full attention. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she said, her voice slightly more civil than before.
Fendel hesitated, then took a deep breath. “You won’t believe this …” He recounted the events of the past few days in detail—the Cult of the Dragon plot, the death of Azlar and the medusa, the existence of Xiliath the beholder.
The leader of the Elversult Maces didn’t say anything, but the look on her face was one of obvious skepticism and disbelief.
“I wasn’t working alone,” the gnome explained. “I had some help. Lhasha, for one.”
“That orphaned half-breed?” the ranger laughed. “She had a hand in this?”
Fendel cast Vaerana a sour look. “There’s more to Lhasha than meets the eye. And she had a friend with her. Corin.”
“The one-armed thug who nearly caused a riot in the Fair,” Vaerana said. Seeing the surprise on Fendel’s face, she added, “Did you really think I didn’t know about that? I knew he’d gone to see you, and I figured you’d straighten him out. That’s the only reason he wasn’t arrested.”
“Well … thanks, I guess.”
“Don’t say I didn’t do you any favors,” Vaerana replied before adding thoughtfully, “It’s a good thing all our enemies hate each other at least as much as they hate us. Half the time I think that if the Harpers disappeared for a few years, everyone we’re fighting against would just wipe each other out. Then we could all have the luxury of retiring to pursue our hobbies.”
Fendel ignored the verbal jab. “You still need to deal with Xiliath,” he reminded the Lady Protector of Elversult. “His power base is gone, but the eye tyrant’s still floating around in those tunnels somewhere.”
“I’ll get some patrols together to go hunt the beholder down. Or at least drive him out of Elversult,” Vaerana assured him. “I appreciate everything you’ve done Fendel. It’s too bad your Harper pin’s collecting dust somewhere in a drawer. You really knew how to play the game.”
The gnome blushed slightly at the compliment. Any praise from the ever-demanding Vaerana Hawklyn was high praise indeed. But he still hadn’t come to the real reason for his visit.
Noticing the wrinkled man had made no move to leave, Vaerana sighed. “Something else, gnome?”
“The Purple Masks. They’ve got a death sentence out on Lhasha. I know you’ve got Harpers high enough up in the guild to get it rescinded.”
“We’re not about to risk years of working our agents into positions of power just to protect one poor orphan girl!” Vaerana protested. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”
“C’mon, Vaerana. Be reasonable. Don’t you owe her something after all this?”
The ranger considered his words for a few seconds before nodding. “All right, you win. The Harpers are always good to those who serve the cause—whether willingly or not.”
“There’s something else. The one-armed warrior, Corin. He’s hurt. Or sick. He’s wasting away. I doubt he’ll live until tomorrow.”
“So get one of your Gond buddies to help him. That’s what you clerics do, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t some ordinary wound. It’s … I don’t know what it is, but even the High Artificer can’t help him.”
“What makes you think the Harpers can help?” Seeing the look Fendel gave her, Vaerana relented. “Fine. I’ll see what we can do. But I’m not making any promises.”
Lhasha was still sitting in the chair by Corin’s bedside. Her muscles were so stiff and sore, she had given up trying to find a comfortable position. So she sat motionless, helplessly waiting for her friend to die.
Fendel had left several hours ago and had not returned. The half-elf imagined he was praying to Gond for guidance, or possibly respecting her privacy in the final hours she would share with Corin.
The end was close now. Lhasha could see his condition rapidly deteriorating. His body no longer lay still but thrashed about in the throes of violent and unrelenting seizures. His head snapped from side to side with such force that acrid beads of perspiration flew from his fevered brow. Between clenched teeth he muttered and groaned incessantly, nonsensical babbling frequently punctuated by wracking coughing fits.
Despite Corin’s suffering and her own discomfort, Lhasha found it a struggle to keep her eyes open. She had long since given up on her efforts to keep the covers over her friend’s shivering body; as soon as she put them on, he would kick them off. She was too tired to continue the pointless effort of bending down to retrieve them. Her exhaustion was fighting a pitched battle against her concern for her friend, and at long last her exhaustion was winning. Lhasha felt her eyelids closing, but she could do nothing to resist.
She was awakened from her fitful doze by the feel of a cold blade pressed against her throat. The unseen assassin leaned in close to whisper in her ear. Lhasha tensed in her chair, her eyes scanning the room for Fendel. The gnome was still nowhere to be found.
“The Purple Masks hold your life in their hands now, half-elf,” the voice hissed. Lhasha braced for the expected sensation of the razor-sharp blade slicing across her throat, but the assassin’s blade never moved.
“You have dealt a serious blow to the Dragon Cult,” her assailant continued. “By exposing the eye tyrant, a potential rival of the guild is no longer a threat. The Masks are grateful for your aid, whether intentional or not. For that, we shall let you live.”
Lhasha’s breath came out in a rush. She hadn’t even been aware she was holding it. The knife was still jammed against her throat.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking we have gone soft,” the voice warned. “Your life is spared, but you are out of the burglary business. Retired. Permanently. Perform even one job in Elversult and your life is forfeit once again.”
The blade was pressed harder against her throat, drawing a single drop of blood.
“Do you understand, my pretty
little ex-thief?”
She nodded with a barely perceptible tilt of her head, afraid of giving a more visible response lest her own movements drive the cold steel deeper into her skin.
“Count to ten before turning around,” the voice warned. “Speak of this to no one.”
The knife blade was gone. Lhasha was not so stupid as to jump up and try to catch a glimpse of the unknown messenger. She stayed motionless in the chair, counting slowly to ten before rising to her feet and walking over to lock the door.
Her heart was pounding, her hand shaking as she fumbled with the latch. Every fiber tingled with nervous adrenaline; she was conscious of even the slightest sound. Even so, she didn’t notice the two robed figures—one man, and one woman—who materialized magically behind her, stepping into the room through a shimmering door in the very fabric of space itself.
The female waved a hand, and Lhasha collapsed to the floor instantly, snoring softly.
The male stepped over to the bed, and began to examine Corin. “We can do nothing about his missing limb. The wound is too old. The curse has settled in too deeply.”
“But can we save him?” the female asked.
Her companion nodded, and they each drew a small powder case from their belts. The male’s case was bright red, like the fine particles inside. The female’s was a dark green. They sprinkled the dust over Corin’s writhing form, chanting softly as they did so.
When Lhasha came to, the intruders were gone. She wasn’t even aware they had been there at all. She ran to Corin’s bedside to make sure he was all right. For the first time since they brought him to the workshop, Corin was sleeping peacefully.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Fendel paused at the door of the Glowing Staff’s tavern, his eyes seeking out his friends. He saw them sitting at a table in the corner, his eye caught by the bright turquoise of Lhasha’s blouse, and the aquamarine sash thrown over her shoulder. Corin was dressed far more conservatively, wearing a simple gray woolen shirt. In the warrior’s left hand he held a quill, and a parchment was spread out before him.
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