Pool of Radiance (27 page)

Ren carved at Shal’s wound and sucked and spit the poison as fast as he was able to, but he could see the vein of green pushing its way toward her heart, and he wept openly as he carried her to the waiting cart, where Sot had already laid Tarl. Cerulean whinnied and whickered and stamped furiously, and none but Ren dared to hitch him to the cart, but the moment the harnesses were secure and Ren had clambered aboard, the great horse bolted away and galloped with a speed no other horse could match.

“Make way! Make way!” Ren shouted at the top of his lungs as they reached the temple gates. “Wounded aboard!”

The clerics at the gates hurried to lift the latch as priests in their studies flocked outside to see what the commotion was about. Cerulean charged through the gates and straight toward the central temple. He didn’t slow until he reached a circle of priests waiting at the temple stairs.

Ren spoke so rapidly that he jumbled his words, and it was only the clerics’ experience in dealing with distraught people that helped them to catch the words “poison” and “bleeding.” Two of the brothers held Ren as the others carried Tarl and Shal inside the temple.

“Our brothers will do everything they can for them. There is nothing more you can do, ranger. Go, find your peace where you can, and return in the morning.”

Ren stared at them numbly, tears still welling in his eyes. “You can’t let them die! If there’s anything I can do … anything at all … I’ll be … I’ll be at the Laughing Goblin Inn, or maybe … maybe at the park, the one by the wizard’s tower on that end of town.” Ren pointed absently and walked dejectedly toward the gates.

“Don’t forget your horse!” one of the clerics called.

But Ren only muttered, “No. It’s hers,” and walked on.

Ren didn’t remember passing anything between the temple and the park. He didn’t even have any idea how much time had passed. He had been at one place, some time ago, and now he was at another. The storm had cleared before Shal left the rooftop of the Laughing Goblin, but the sky was still cloudy, and it was now pitch dark, the kind of night when only rangers and elves saw well. Ren walked without hesitation through the annonwoods and into the center of the park, where a huge evergreen towered into the darkness.

He gathered pinecones till his hands could hold no more and laid them gently before the tree. Then he piled needles on top of those. Finally, he picked violets that had folded their flowers for the night and laid them atop the pile. He faced the tree and spoke softly. “I want desperately for my new friends to live, and I need somehow, Tempest, to finally accept your death…. You know there’s no one like you. Even Shal, as much as she looks like you, isn’t really like you at all. I’m not… I’m not going to look for your replacement anymore, Tempest. There isn’t one. But you’re going to have to forgive me if I go on now with my life.”

Ren clenched his teeth to hold back tears, then tossed the flowers and the needles and the pinecones, a handful at a time, around the tree. “What is it they say, Babe— ‘from the earth to the earth’? You loved trees and the outdoors, like me, so this is my way of… of…” Ren’s voice cracked, and he stopped until he could speak again. Then he gazed skyward and continued. It seemed fitting that the nearly full moon had broken through the clouds and was shining down on the little park. “This is my way of leaving you where you’d like to be. Okay?”

There was nothing more to say, so Ren simply stood for a while, staring into the night. After several minutes, his melancholy was interrupted by an ear-piercing shriek.

Ren made his way stealthily to the edge of the park closest to the fortress wall. The sounds were coming from the opposite side of the wall. Ren launched his grappling hook high into the air. It caught, but when he tugged, it fell back to the ground. On his second try, the three-pronged hook held firm, and Ren hauled himself steadily to the top of the fortress wall.

Below, a lone warrior was lashing out furiously at an attacking troll. Two other warriors lay nearby, probably dead, the area around them a scrap heap of troll parts. From where he crouched atop the wall, Ren could see the hands, legs, even heads, and other miscellaneous bits of troll beginning to move together, regenerating.

Few creatures in the Realms were as hideous as trolls. Their bodies, even whole, were nightmarish—elongated parodies of giant, emaciated humans—and their faces were morbid caricatures from every child’s worst dreams, with long, wart-covered noses and black, seemingly empty eye sockets. Worse yet, their mutilated bodies refused to die. Even if a fighter were lucky enough to slice a troll to ribbons, its detached hand might claw at his leg and pull him to the ground, or the rolling, moss-covered head might bite and gnaw at his exposed flesh. Given enough time, the pieces would actually scuttle together and eventually form a whole new troll.

But it was the troll’s skin that bothered Ren most. He had seen trolls in daylight, and he knew that their skin was always decaying and rotting, even as the creatures lived—just so much slime, mold, and fungus troweled onto greenish, tarlike flesh. Relieved that the night’s filtered moonlight prevented him from seeing more clearly, he wasted no time dropping his rope over to the other side and swinging down to aid the valiant fighter.

He started by slopping oil from his fire flask on all the troll parts he could see. Flames shot up instantly as the magical fluid made contact with the arms, hands, and legs, and Ren was nearly overcome by the putrid smoke from the burning of wet flesh. Hunched over, fighting a cough that would not stop, Ren pivoted just in time to face the knees of the troll, which was now directing its attention to him. He thrust his short sword out between the troll’s knobby legs and pulled straight up with all the strength he could muster. He ripped through flesh he did not want to think about, then staggered back and fell to the ground, just out of immediate reach of the troll’s gargantuan hands. The nearly bisected creature bellowed with rage and lurched forward toward Ren.

It would have killed him on the spot were it not for the quick action of the warrior, still behind the troll, who swung a huge broadsword, low and level with the creature’s pelvis. Razor-sharp metal, powered by the strength born of terror, ripped through skin and bone, and the troll’s upper body flopped back onto the warrior’s extended arms. Four-fingered hands, tipped with vicious, aquiline claws, reached by instinct alone and began tearing into the fighter’s upper arms. Ren crab-crawled to avoid the amputated legs that were still stalking his way, and then rolled, stood, and dodged beyond them. He leaped forward and immediately began hacking at the creature’s upper body, which was clinging to the shoulders of the enraged warrior. The troll didn’t loosen its grip until Ren severed its arms from its hands, and even then Ren had to yank the clawing hands from the fighter’s shoulders. Again he threw oil, and again there was a terrible stench as the troll flesh burned and smoked.

The warrior collapsed, whether from the wounds or the smoke, Ren wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until Ren reached down to lift the prostrate form that he realized he knew the fighter. Her blonde hair was stuffed into a fighting helm, but he recognized the face as that of one of the women he had jested with just days before at the inn. Jen—what was it? Jensena? Yes, that was it. The other two fighters must be her two companions, he realized. As soon as he had moved Jensena away from the smoldering troll bits and patted the gouges on her shoulders with a blotting powder he carried, he checked the other two. They were both dead. He pulled their bodies up alongside the wall, along with their purses and light weapons. Guards could pick them up in the morning—if they were still intact.

Ren got a good hold on Jensena and started up the rope. While she didn’t rival Tempest, much less Shal, for size, Jensena was still a big woman, and all muscle. Lugging her to the top of the wall was no mean feat, and Ren felt unanticipated relief when she started to rouse as they descended the other side. At first she just coughed and made pathetic squeaking noises as the coughing jarred her wounds. As soon as they reached the ground, Ren held her tight to keep the coughs from racking her body so hard, and when she seemed ready, he offered her some water. Still leaning against him, she tipped her head back and let him pour the water into her open mouth.

When she’d had her fill, she turned her head away. “Salen? … Gwen?”

“I’m sorry,” said Ren softly. “Their bodies … are alongside the wall. In the morning—”

“Damn! Damn!”

Ren pulled the big woman closer and held her as she cried, gently at first, and then in hard, convulsive sobs. He said nothing. What was there to say when someone lost two friends? He surely didn’t know.

Together they made their way slowly to the Laughing Goblin, Ren supporting Jensena. After a quick word with Sot, the two of them helped the woman up to a room, where they eased her onto the bed. To break the tension in the room while he readied a basin of fresh hot water, a sponge, and several strips of clean gauze, Sot joked quietly about the ineptness of Ren’s replacement. Ren appreciated the older man’s thoughtfulness and the room he let him keep above the stable, but he said nothing just then. As soon as Sot left, Ren gently sponged Jensena’s face and hair and helped her remove her chain mail and armor.

In spite of his own numbness, Ren found himself unabashedly admiring Jensena’s impressive figure and musculature as he worked. Apart from wincing as the garments brushed her shoulders, the big blonde woman made no move to stop his efforts. The cloth of her blouse was matted against the bloody skin of her shoulders. When he used a dagger to tear the cloth around the wounds, he ripped the blouse almost down to her waist. Still she continued to watch him in silence. When he began cleaning the gashes in her shoulder, she finally spoke. “In the pouch, under my belt, you’ll find a healing potion.”

Ren let his gaze pass slowly from her shoulders to her beltline, and then he glanced up and met her eyes. Ren’s pulse speeded, and he could feel his face flush. Jensena nodded lightly, and Ren reached for the potion, pausing just long enough to let his fingertips brush her warm, smooth skin. He closed his eyes for a single moment before his hand closed around the small glass bottle.

It was an excellent healing potion. He used it sparingly, but it did the work of a cleric. She reached for Ren’s hands and squeezed them hard. “Thank you. When my pain is less…”

“I’d like that, Jensena … Good night.”

“We’ve slowed the poison, but we haven’t stopped it. I’m sorry. I know she’s a friend of yours.”

Tarl tried to sit up, but he sucked in his breath in pain when the newly mended flesh under his ribs pulled tight. “No! I can’t … I can’t lose her, too. Brother … Brother Tern, you’ve got to keep trying! Surely there’s some antidote for the assassin’s poison!”

“Tarl, we’ve done everything we know. Our clerical spells have done some good, or she’d be dead already. But the poison still burns through her. Her body still twitches like a fish on a hook,…” Brother Tern pointed across the chamber. Two clerics held Shal gently to keep her from harming herself further by involuntary movement. “I… I don’t believe she can last much longer.”

Tarl looked briefly at Shal and then turned away. “I’ll call on Tyr myself to heal her!” Tarl fought the pain that throbbed through his whole body as he tried to stand. “I’ll go to the meditation chamber, to the innermost sanctuary. There can be no reason for her to suffer, too!”

“Few so young dare to attempt to enter the inner sanctuary, but like any of us, Brother Tarl, you’re free to try. Cleanse yourself thoroughly first, though, and mind your attitude and your motives.”

“Thank you, Brother Tern. I shall.”

Tarl gratefully accepted his brother’s help as he bathed his healing body and changed into full battle garb. But when he stood at the door of the meditation chamber, he stood alone.

Tarl knew from his earliest catechisms the nature of the meditation chamber. He would enter the first of four concentric squares clean of body, the second clean of extraneous thoughts, the third with a focus of purpose, and the final one with a focus on his god. While technically open to any worshiper of Tyr, few who were not grounded in the faith through years of clerichood and service bothered to enter, since a spiritual barrier prevented most from passing beyond the first or second square.

Tarl raised his hammer to the entrance of the first square. It glowed blue, and he passed through the curtain into the chamber. The space between the outer square and the inner one was only four cubits, and the ceiling was low and confining. Tarl could feel his breath constrict. He wondered for a moment if he was doing the right thing, but he proceeded as he had been taught. His hammer and shield bared, Tarl walked the inner perimeter of the square, speaking the words of a mantra designed to cleanse the mind of miscellaneous thoughts. After twice around the square, his breathing eased, and he could feel his head clearing. Another time around and he could feel a healing warmth, greater than that from the hands of his brothers, spreading through his body, mending even the soreness brought on by his wound.

After four more times around the square, his hammer glowed blue again, and Tarl entered the second square. This square was of course, smaller, and the distance between the walls of the squares was the same, but the ceiling was easily half again as tall as that of the previous chamber, which gave the second chamber an illusion of a greater size. Once more Tarl felt his breath constrict, and he experienced an intense pressure on all parts of his body, as though the walls of the room were closing in and the air had nowhere to go. Tarl found it impossible to think about the concerns he had planned to bring into the sanctuary. He remembered the advice Brother Tern had offered as he helped him with his robes and armor: “When you can go no further, fight. Find physical balance, and the rest will come. Tyr is God of War and Justice. He seeks focus of purpose and balance.”

Tarl raised his shield and wielded his hammer, pushing and swinging, charging and parrying against imaginary foes that lined the narrow hallway. It was not until his body began to revel in the movement and Tarl found a familiar joy in the control of it that his focus returned. Unconsciously, almost as an afterthought to his physical action, he began to speak and re-speak the concerns that plagued him: Shal, Anton, the Hammer of Tyr. Every time he brought his shield up or swung his hammer, it was for Shal, or Anton, or for the return of the hammer. His focus was so strong, he didn’t even think about the fact that he was now moving without pain.