The fighter pushed his way through the crowd and was soon talking to the priestess, whose name was Phylanna.
"I need a place to stay," Kelemvor said.
"You'll need more than that," the priestess said, "judging from your injuries. Are you a follower of Gond?"
Kelemvor shook his head.
"Then we have something to talk about as our healer tends to your wounds." Phylanna turned and beckoned for him to follow. "I sense you have suffered greatly these past few days." She did not wait for his reply.
Phylanna brought him to a small stairway, which led down to a cramped chamber. There they waited until the high priest, now finished with his tirade against the town's wavering faith, entered the room. Phylanna closed and locked the door as the priest entered.
"You must never tell anyone about what you are going to witness," Phylanna said as she helped Kelemvor lay back upon the room's single cot.
"I am Rull of Gond," the priest said, his voice harsh and cracking from his prolonged sermon. "Are you a worshiper of the Wonderbringer?"
Before Kelemvor could answer, Phylanna held her hand to the fighter's lips and said, "It does not matter if he worships Lord Gond in this time of trouble. He needs our help, and we must give it."
Rull frowned, but then nodded in agreement. The priest closed his eyes and took a large, red crystal from a chain around his neck. He waved it over the fighter.
"It is a miracle you find yourself walking and of clear mind. A lesser man might have died from the infections you carry," Rull said as he examined Kelemvor. The fighter looked at the crystal and noticed a strange, burning glow in its interior.
"Kelemvor is proud," Phylanna said. "He bears his injuries without complaint."
"Not entirely true," Kelemvor grunted as the high priest went to work.
Phylanna seemed concerned as Rull performed the ritual to heal the fighter, but the priest's skills as a healer became obvious as his deft fingers worked in the air and the black welts that surrounded the fighter's wounds were slowly flushed with blood. The priest was sweating, his voice raised in supplication to Gond. Phylanna cut anxious glances to the door, fearing others might blunder in and interrupt the priest's efforts.
The splinters left by the arrow points rose to the surface of Kelemvor's skin, and Phylanna assisted Rull in removing them with her bare hands. Kelemvor cursed himself as he winced at the pain.
Then it was over. Rull's body relaxed, almost as if he had been completely drained of energy, and Kelemvor slumped forward on the cot. The fighter's wounds were no longer tender, and he knew that his fever had lessened.
"Rull's belief is strong, and so he has been rewarded by the gods," Phylanna said. "Your belief must be strong, too, to survive that kind of wounding."
Kelemvor nodded. He saw that the light within the crystal had become a slight flicker.
"Foolish and stubborn, perhaps, but still very strong," Phylanna said.
Kelemvor laughed. "You're lucky I'm flat on my back, woman."
Phylanna smiled and looked away. "Perhaps."
Though both Phylanna and Rull asked Kelemvor about his business in Tilverton and his religious beliefs, he told them very little about himself. But when the fighter spoke of payment for the priest's efforts, Rull said nothing and departed.
"I meant no offense," Kelemvor said. "In most places it is customary — "
"Material concerns are the least of our worries," the priestess said. "Now about your lodgings…"
Kelemvor glanced around the tiny, windowless cell. "I have an aversion to closed-in spaces."
Phylanna smiled. "The Flagon Held High may have an open room."
Kelemvor swallowed. "I have… an aversion… to that particular inn."
Phylanna folded her arms across her chest. "Then you'll have to stay with me."
There was a loud crash and angry voices erupted from the stairway leading to the cell. Kelemvor sat up quickly and reached for his sword. Phylanna put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head.
"There is no need for that in the Wonderbringer's temple. Now, lay back and rest until I return."
"Wait!" Kelemvor called.
Phylanna turned.
"When Rull is finished, please ask him to return," the fighter said. "I would like to apologize."
"I will bring him at the end of his next sermon," she said.
"Alone," Kelemvor said. "I need to speak to him alone."
Phylanna seemed puzzled. "As you wish," she said and hurried from the small room.
Kelemvor rested in the cell for an hour, growing more uncomfortable in the small room as his condition got better. The crowd of commoners in the Temple of Gond were noisy, and the fighter entertained himself by listening to their cries, which mixed in with Hull's sermon.
"Tilverton will perish!" someone screamed.
"We should all go to Arabel or Eveningstar," another voice cried.
"Yes! Gond doesn't care about us, and Azoun will protect Cormyr before he protects us!"
Rull's voice rose over the shouting, and he launched into another tirade against the people who had fallen away from their worship of the Wonderbringer. "Tilverton will certainly be cursed if we give up hope! Lord Gond has left me with healing spell, hasn't he?" the priest cried, and Rull continued to yell over the crowd for a few minutes. Then the sermon was over, and Kelemvor heard footsteps upon the stairs again. He reached for his sword.
The fighter put his weapon down as Rull entered the room, obviously exhausted from his shouting matches with the people in the temple. "You wished to see me," the priest said as he slumped to the floor.
Without sitting up on the cot, Kelemvor turned toward the priest and sighed. "I am grateful for what you've done for me."
Rull smiled. "Phylanna was right. It really doesn't matter that you do not worship Gond. It is my responsibility as his cleric to use the spells he gives me to cure anyone who needs my help."
"And the good people of Tilverton really seem to need your help badly," Kelemvor added.
"Yes," Rull said. "They are losing faith in Lord Gond. I am the only one who can bring them back to his flock."
"If you fail?"
"Then the town will perish," the priest said. "But that won't happen. Eventually they will listen to me."
"Of course," Kelemvor said, "if the people of Tilverton knew that Gond had forsaken you, too, and your healing magic was taken only from the stone you carry, they would listen to you even less than they do now. They would all turn away from Lord Gond for good."
The high priest stood up. "The healing magic is mine. It is a gift from the Wonderbringer to show the good people of Tilverton that he still cares. I will — "
"You will do what I ask of you, Rull," Kelemvor growled. "Or I will expose you to the people of Tilverton. Even if I'm wrong, they'll believe me."
Rull hung his head. "What do you want of me?"
Kelemvor sat up on the cot. "I need you to help someone who is injured far worse than I was. I made a promise to keep him safe, and I have to uphold it."
"I don't suppose he worships the Wonderbringer by chance," Rull said. "But then, that really doesn't matter, does it?"
Kelemvor gave Rull a description of Cyric and sent him to the Flagon Held High. The priest was just leaving the temple when Phylanna returned to the cell. "I'm here to take you to your accommodations for the evening, brave warrior," she said, grasping Kelemvor's hand and leading him from the room.
Adon wandered the streets, trying to find someone to talk to. The heavy storms had abated, and the thought that perhaps he was unsafe on the streets at night, that he might fall victim to robbers or cutthroats, did not occur to him. Even after the cleric learned that there had been a number of bloody murders in the last week, he continued to roam Tilverton. He had important matters to attend to.
Beginning with the young man who had lain outside the inn, oblivious to the heavy rain and hail that had fallen, the reactions to the cleric's inquiries about the town's problems
were uniformly apathetic. The eyes of the Tilvertonians had been closed to all but their own inner suffering.
The worship of the gods was meant to uplift the soul, Adon thought as he walked through the streets. And worship was a higher calling than any other the cleric could think of. Still, that same calling had been turned into a fountain of pain and bitterness from which the people of Tilverton had drunk freely, and it cost them all sense of joy and reason.
As Adon stalked the streets of Tilverton, talking to anyone he could find, the words that had been spoken in the darkened chambers of Castle Kilgrave returned to him.
Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Embrace me, and the answers to all your unspoken questions will be made clear.
There was beauty in truth, Adon knew, and he worshiped the Goddess of Beauty. So he spent the night desperately trying to return the light of truth to the eyes of the poor wretches he found. Just before dawn, a woman had looked up into his eyes, a faint glimmer sparking in her eyes as he spoke his sermon, and Adon's heart filled with hope.
"Good woman, the gods have not deserted us. Now more than ever they need our support, our worship, our love. It is in our hands to bring about the golden age of beauty and truth in which the gods will again grant us their favor. Now, in this dark time when our faith is put to the test, we must not falter. We must find solace in our belief and forge ahead with our lives. For in so doing we will pay a greater tribute to the gods than even the strongest prayer can achieve!
"Sune hasn't sought me out, but I haven't given up the hope of one day standing in her presence," the cleric told the woman. As Adon held her by the shoulders, he was tempted to shake her, just to see if it would help her to understand his words.
The old woman stared at the cleric, a wellspring of tears threatening to flood from her eyes. Adon was pleased that his words had touched the old woman, that she seemed to understand.
And then she spoke.
"It sounds as if you're trying to convince yourself," she said bitterly. "Go away. You're not wanted here." Then she turned from the young cleric and covered her face with her hands as she lay in the street, sobbing.
A single tear ran down Adon's cheek as he walked from the woman and lost himself in the darkness.
Kelemvor awoke and found Phylanna gone. The side of the bed where she had slept was now ice cold. He thought of her gentle kisses and the strength he had found in her embrace, but the thoughts soon became clouded as his mind returned to the same topic again and again.
Midnight.
Ariel.
His debt to her had been fulfilled, but he could not forget her.
Kelemvor knew that Rull would have visited Cyric by this time, and he hoped Cyric would be ready to ride from Tilverton with Midnight come morning, even though he would not be accompanying them.
There was a noise at the end of the corridor outside the bedroom. Kelemvor slipped his mail frock over his head, lifted his sword from its sheath, and rose from the perfumed bed of the priestess. She had brought him to her rooms on the top floor above her brother's shop, leading him up a winding back stairway. No words were passed between them; no words were necessary. Meetings like this had their own subtle language, and Kelemvor knew that in the morning he would leave Tilverton and not think of the woman again.
He was fairly certain she would view their night of passion in much the same way.
Kelemvor opened the bedroom door and drew back as he saw Phylanna standing al the end of the corridor. The huge window had been opened, and the moonlight bathed her naked form, lighting an aura around her as she spread wide her arms and allowed the billowing curtains to caress her as she danced in the cool night wind.
The fighter was about to close the door and return to bed when he heard the voice of a man from the hallway, singing in some strange tongue. Kelemvor stepped out in the hallway and stopped as he saw the silver-haired man from the temple standing near Phylanna.
The man who had called him "brother," then vanished.
Phylanna danced with a lilting, graceful quality. Her eyes were open, but she did not seem to see Kelemvor as he approached. The silver-haired man continued to sing to her, although his gaze was now fixed on the fighter. The silver-haired man's blue-gray eyes blazed despite the darkness that shrouded his features, his form a silhouette against the bright moonlight.
The man stopped singing as the fighter got close to Phylanna. "Take her," he said "I mean her no harm."
Phylanna collapsed in Kelemvor's arms, and he gently laid her down in the hallway.
"Who are you?" Kelemvor said.
"I am known by many names. Who would you like me to be?"
"It's a simple question," the fighter snapped.
"With no simple answers," the man sighed. "You may call me Torrence. It's as good a name as any."
"Why are you here?" Kelemvor gripped his sword tightly as he felt something dark and heavy churn within his gut.
"I wished to draw you out, that you might join in my banquet. Come. Look."
Kelemvor stood at the window and looked down to the street. The girl who had been at the silver-haired man's side in the temple lay in the alley below, her clothes shredded, although she did not appear to have been harmed.
Yet.
Torrence shuddered, and the fine white hairs that covered his flesh grew thick. His clothes fell away, gently floating to the ground, as his spine crackled and lengthened. His face became bestial, his jaws extending outward as he emitted a guttural moan of pleasure. His entire body changed. He bent his limbs back and forth, the bones creaking. Huge fangs lined his open snout. His fingers ended in razor-sharp claws.
"A jackalwere," Kelemvor gasped in astonishment.
Phylanna awoke. She looked up at Kelemvor, confused. She did not see the monster standing next to the window. Kelemvor looked back to Torrence.
"Come, my brother. I will share with you."
Kelemvor fought against the rising tide within his breast. Abruptly Phylanna saw the jackalwere and rushed to Kelemvor's side. "Gond help us!" she screamed.
"Yes, bring her closer," Torrence said. "We may feast on them both."
"Get away!" Kelemvor shouted as he slammed the priestess against the far wall and raised his sword. The look of fear in her eyes was almost more then he could bear. "Now!" he screamed as he felt the familiar agonies begin to play upon his soul.
He was saving Phylanna from the jackalwere, but he was receiving nothing for the heroic act.
"I have erred. You are not one of my kind. You are accursed." Torrence glanced at Phylanna, then returned his gaze to Kelemvor. "You cannot save her, cursed one. She will pay for your trickery with her life!"
Kelemvor slowly turned, his skin dark and crawling with black, twisting hairs. He dropped his sword and stripped off the mail frock. His arms were still caught above his head when his flesh exploded and the great beast he held within him leaped at the jackalwere, pushing it out the window. The silver-haired creature howled as the beasts met in midair and plummeted to the ground.
Dawn was breaking, and Adon was shocked from his introspection by the screams of the dying.
The cleric approached the source of the screeches with growing apprehension; the screams he heard were not the sounds a human would make. And as he drew closer, he saw that many townsfolk had been drawn by the noise, as if the sounds had pierced the veil of lethargy that hung over them, allowing awareness to sear across their minds. The commoners stood staring at a nightmare.
The watchers were at either end of the alley, and Adon could only glimpse an occasional blur of movement from the area beyond — a flash of glaring white; a huge black form darting forward, then retreating as it let out an inhuman roar. There were two figures locked in some obscene dance of death.
Adon pushed forward, past the onlookers. Neither of the combatants was human, although one stood on its crooked hind legs. Its face was that of a jackal, but there was human intelligence in the gray-blue eyes, which registered alarm at the crowd that had
gathered and at the warm sunlight breaking from above. The creature was covered in soft, matted hair, and it bled profusely from the score of wounds that had been opened in its hide.
The other beast was all too familiar to Adon: the sleek, black, rippling body; the piercing green eyes; the savage, bloodied maw; and the manner in which it stalked its prey. They all served to remind Adon of the impossible scene he had witnessed not so long ago in the mountains beyond Gnoll Pass.
The creature was Kelemvor.
At the feet of the dueling horrors was the prize for which they fought: a dark-haired girl who lay unmoving, her clothes shredded. Adon saw that she was still breathing and her eyelids fluttered from time to time.
The panther rose up on its hind legs as it engaged the jackalwere. They fell away from one another, sliding on the slick reservoir of blood that covered the street beneath them. Blood splattered in the face of the sleeping girl.
Adon turned and addressed the people. "We must bring low the jackal and save the girl!"
But the people merely stared.
"One of you must have a weapon of some sort — anything!"
Adon cursed himself for having left his war hammer behind, and took a step toward the creatures. The animals suddenly stopped and stared at him. Then the panther that had been Kelemvor took a swipe at the jackal and the hostilities were renewed. Adon backed away, through the indifferent crowd that viewed the spectacle with mild interest, and bolted toward the street.
He shouted two names as he ran down the street toward the Flagon Held High.
XI
The Shadow Gap
"He's been attacked?" Midnight said. "By some kind of beast?"
"Yes! A silver-furred jackal that walks like a man!" the young cleric screamed.
"And the townspeople merely watched?"
"You've seen the way they are. We must hurry, Kelemvor's a beast, too."
"Kelemvor's a what?" Midnight cried.
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