The Tomb of Horrors (39 page)

Vision, nightmare, or reality—Kaerion couldn’t decide. He sat
on a high-backed chair, its carefully carved frame forming a canopy over his
head, and stared in wonder at the familiar interior of the temple. On both sides
of him stood the comforting mass of statues, weapons raised high, while a long
aisle stretched out before him, leading out toward what he knew to be the richly
appointed narthex.

He was alone—or at least it appeared that there was no one
else in the temple. The deep recesses of the chamber held pools of shadow,
though these didn’t give off a sense of evil. Kaerion breathed deeply, feeling
as if a great knot had been released within his chest. In fact, Kaerion realized
with a start that he no longer felt the oppressive weight of Acererak’s
presence.

But there was more to this feeling than merely an absence of
evil. Separated for so long from his constant connection with Heironeous, it
took him a few moments to recognize the power of his god. It was like that
moment in Rel Mord when Vaxor banished the demon, except the presence was less
concentrated and more pervasive. It was everywhere, flowing through each stone
and marble block of the temple. The very air hummed with the strength of it, and
Kaerion wondered how he could have missed such a Presence when he first arrived
here—wherever “here” was.

“Ahh, I was wondering when you’d get around to noticing me,”
a light voice said from somewhere behind him.

Kaerion whipped around, startled by the intrusion, only to
find himself looming over a young boy. Piercing blue eyes gazed into his.
Kaerion’s knees trembled as he recognized the familiar face. Standing before him
with a cherubic smile upon his face was the object of his nightmares these past
ten years—the boy he had betrayed in the dungeons of Dorakaa.

“W-who are you?” he asked, surprised to hear his voice sound
so firm. Nothing was making any sense.

The boy’s smile faded, replaced by an expression of purest
innocence. “Why, you called upon me,” he replied, closing the distance between
them.

Kaerion shook his head in disbelief. This wasn’t possible.
“You… you can’t be him.”

“And who are you to tell me who I can and cannot be?” the boy
said harshly.

Kaerion could feel the hint of power beneath the child’s
treble, like the sense of a storm’s raging power moments before it unleashes its
fury. He would have cast down his eyes in shame, but the boy—god, really,
Kaerion thought with wonder—stood right before him, not releasing his gaze.

“Where am I?” Kaerion asked, not wishing the moment of
silence to stretch on further.

“You are where you need to be,” the boy said with maddening
vagueness.

“But my friends,” Kaerion replied, unwilling to abandon them
even now, “they need my help.”

The boy-god smiled “Loyalty is a noble trait,” he said. “Fear
not, for if you return to your companions, not a single moment of time will have
passed.”

Kaerion nodded, a little unnerved by the boy’s use of the
word
if.
“Then what do you want of me? Why am I here?”

The boy said nothing, still gazing at him with those bright
piercing eyes. “Why did you not call on me sooner?” the god asked, all trace of
levity gone from his face. Kaerion could hear sadness and a slight tinge of
reproach in the child’s voice.

This time, Kaerion did hang his head in shame. “I betrayed
you—the child—in Dorakaa,” he explained. “I let fear for my life take precedence
over the protection of the weak and innocent.” Familiar emotions churned within
Kaerion’s heart. This time, he did not retreat from them. “I failed you,” he
said finally. “I was not worthy to call upon your name.”

“And you are now?” the boy asked in a chilling tone.

Kaerion had no response. Cautiously, he raised his head to
meet the god’s gaze once more. To his surprise, the boy was smiling. “I want you
to watch something, Kaerion—if you have the strength.” With a wave of his tiny
hand, the air before Kaerion’s face shimmered, gradually resolving into an
image.

It was the very heart of his nightmare. A young boy lay tied
to an altar, while demonic figures cavorted around him. With a muffled curse,
Kaerion realized that he could see himself in the image, emaciated and dirty,
kneeling a few feet from the altar. He fought down a wave of nausea as he
watched his kneeling figure decline the demons’ offer to exchange his life for
the boy’s. Tears were streaming down his face by the time the demons were
finished with their sacrifice.

But Kaerion did not look away. He relived every second of
that event, recalled every sight, sound, and emotion, both through the god’s
power and the strength of his own memory. Still, he found the courage to
experience it all again.

He watched as the demons dragged his sobbing body from the
room, but the image continued. He stared in horror as the boy’s bloodied carcass
writhed and undulated on the altar. Shredded muscle and puckered flesh joined.
The boy’s body elongated. Broken bones knitted together. Kaerion’s horror grew
as the boy’s hands twisted into claws, and scales grew upon his flesh like thick
moss upon a swamp rock. Wings sprouted from the creature’s back, and it raised
itself off the altar with a single thrust of its new appendages.

Kaerion looked at Heironeous’ avatar in disbelief. “What—?”
He couldn’t continue.

The avatar nodded once at Kaerion’s confusion. “Yes, you see
it now. There never was any innocent boy in Dorakaa. You were tricked. Even in
Iuz’s seat of power I protected you. His servants couldn’t kill you unless you
gave yourself to them freely.”

“But even if it was an illusion, I thought it was real,”
Kaerion protested. “I still believed that either the boy or I would die. I chose
to live.”

“No,” the avatar persisted. “You sensed something was wrong,
and even though you were half mad, you wouldn’t let Iuz triumph. Remember?”

“No,” Kaerion said. “No! It was my fault. Mine!”

“Remember,” the avatar said, and this time it was not a
question. The god’s word exploded in Kaerion’s mind, and Kaerion did remember.
It was a thing almost completely forgotten, a recollection buried deep within
the hole that was Dorakaa. He had sensed something wrong, but his guilt at his
own weakness had hidden this from him.

“If I didn’t fail you, then why have I not sensed you these
past years?” Kaerion did not know whether to shout or cry. He was a tangle of
emotions, both new and old.

“My son,” the avatar said in a child’s kind voice, “you
thought that you escaped Dorakaa, but you have carried that dungeon within you
these many years, refusing to be free of it. I could not reach you until you
called out to me for help.”

“But the curse,” Kaerion said, indicating his sheathed holy
sword. “Why did you torment me with Galadorn’s presence?”

The avatar smiled once more. “You know the strength and power
of that sword. Galadorn chooses its own wielder, and not even I will command it
otherwise.” At Kaerion’s blank expression, the avatar continued, “I never cursed
you with its presence. Had I truly condemned you, I would have tried to persuade
it to choose someone else. Fortunately—” the boy’s voice began to deepen, word
by word—“the sword simply refused to leave your side.”

Kaerion would not have believed it if Galadorn hadn’t pulsed
with energy at that moment. All of this was too much to comprehend. He needed
time to think things through.

“Time is what we do not have,” the avatar said, responding to
his thoughts. Kaerion turned at the deep, resonating bass of the god’s voice.
Gone was the wide-eyed, innocent boy. He had been replaced by a muscular warrior
in pure, golden plate armor. The man’s face was handsome, and nobility and
strength flowed from every pore.

“Will you serve me?” the Arch Paladin said, holding a
gleaming silver sword over Kaerion’s head. Without thinking, Kaerion dropped to
his knees, tears streaming down his face. In a voice far sturdier than he would
have thought possible, he accepted the yoke of Heironeous once again.

“Then rise, Kaerion, known as the Whitehart, best and
brightest of my champions,” the avatar’s voice thundered throughout the temple
and, Kaerion suspected, beyond the planes, “and carry my justice to the world!”

Kaerion stood, surrounded by a nimbus of pure white light.
The nimbus intensified, expanding to fill the temple.

And beyond.

* * *

The light faded. In its place Kaerion saw a calloused palm,
fingers hooked like claws, heading straight for his throat. He backed away
furiously, tripping over a mound of gold coins. The avatar had been correct. No
time had passed at all—which meant that he was still too late to save Majandra.
The ache in his heart throbbed at that realization, yet he felt something else
burning within his chest—the power of Heironeous.

With a cry born of grief and triumph, Kaerion unsheathed the
blade that had lain quiescent for a decade. Galadorn burst into life with an
explosion of white heat. The runes running along its blue-steel length flared
with coruscating energy. Raising the sword high, Kaerion called on the
protection of Heironeous. The blade sang with power.

At last, we are reunited!
it shouted within Kaerion’s
mind, sending forth a burst of energy that knocked the monk from his feet.
Already, Kaerion could feel the blade’s holy might pushing back Acererak’s dark
presence.

I ask your forgiveness, Galadorn, for denying you so long,
Kaerion said to the sword.

There is nothing to forgive,
came the reply. It took a
few moments for Kaerion to realize that the sword’s voice in his mind seemed . .
. different somehow. He had little time to think about such oddities, however,
for he felt the righteous anger of his god rising within him. Acererak’s skull
had turned from the battle and now regarded the paladin with a deadly gaze.
Black energy shot out from the demi-lich’s eye—only to be swept away by a single
cut from his holy sword.

The skull’s presence throbbed like a cancerous blight to his
god-enhanced senses. Everything inside Kaerion screamed for the abomination’s
destruction. Breathing deeply, he charged the demi-lich.

“Heironeous lend me strength!” he shouted as he drew nearer.

Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, he felt the
Arch Paladin’s power filling him—white and hot and potent. Every fiber of
Kaerion’s being drank in the holy energy, until his bones vibrated with the
strength of it.

The paladin swung his sword with a cry, barely able to
contain the divine fury that swelled within him. There was a moment of
resistance—and then Galadorn struck the demi-lich. Heironeous’ power rushed out
of him. Fueled and magnified by the holy sword, it detonated against the skull,
causing it to explode in a hail of powder and dust. The roiling darkness of
Acererak’s spirit fled with an unearthly shriek.

“No, you fool!” he heard a voice shout from somewhere near
the vault’s door.

There was no time to explore the source of that voice.
Glancing at his companions, Kaerion could see that the golem had almost
vanquished them. Landra stood before it, bruised and bleeding, barely able to
hold up her sword, while Bredeth charged in and out of the creature’s reach,
slicing at it like a hunting dog might worry the heels of a giant boar.

Gerwyth had retreated a few steps and was firing arrows
repeatedly at the monster. Several had managed to pierce its flesh, but it was
nowhere close to being hurt. Kaerion ran forward, eager to bring Galadorn to
bear on the situation, and was surprised to hear a soft whispering sound coming
from the elf’s bow. He recognized the familiar lilt of Elvish, but, not being
fluent in that language, he could not understand what it was saying. He had
heard Gerwyth speaking to the weapon in battle before, but had never dreamed it
was sentient.

Galadorn’s influence must be allowing me to overhear it, he
thought.

The golem reached out a meaty hand to grab at Landra just as
Kaerion swung his blade at the monster. The force of his blow cut deeply into
the creature’s flesh. Kaerion heard the crack of bones as Galadorn cleaved
through its shoulder, nearly severing the golem’s arm from its body. Through it
all, he could hear the blade’s triumphant song ringing in his head.

Another arrow struck the golem, lodging in the constructs
throat, but that did not slow down its counterattack. Hastily, Kaerion slid to
the creature’s left, raising his shield to block the forearm that threatened to
snap the bones in his chest. The paladin grunted under the impact as his shield
bent awkwardly around his arm. He was about to throw the useless instrument to
the ground when Galadorn shouted,
Kaerion, behind you!

Kaerion turned but was not quick enough to dodge the attack.
He screamed in agony as a black-clad figure thrust a blade deep into his back.
Kaerion cursed at his own stupidity. He had completely forgotten about the thief
that had stolen some of Phathas’ maps during the attack on the inn.

You are badly wounded,
his sword declared—somewhat
unnecessarily, for Kaerion could feel that the damage was extensive. The thief’s
blade had sliced through his kidney and probably punctured his stomach.

I will heal you,
Kaerion’s holy sword said, and the
paladin could indeed feel his wounds knitting together. Strength once more
flowed into his arms. Kaerion threw himself back, unwilling to remain flanked a
second longer.

But you’ve never been able to do that before,
he said to
Galadorn.
This is new.

Indeed,
was the blades only reply—and suddenly Kaerion
realized what was different about the sword’s voice.

Vaxor?
He asked.
Is that you?

We are here,
came the reply.
Thank you for your gift.