Pool of Radiance

12 The Pool of Radiance

“Incompetent clods!” Cadorna shouted. “What does the city pay you for?”

The fifteen assembled soldiers of the Black Watch stood mute before Cadorna in the council chambers.

“Didn’t any of you at least see where they went?”

Finally one of the men responded. “I did. Eight of our soldiers pursued them in a small schooner. I was the only one to make it to shore after the wizard-woman sank our boat in a maelstrom—”

“Congratulations, soldier” said Cadorna, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “So you live! I’d expect that from a child. But what exactly do you know?”

“They didn’t go straight south into the Moonsea. They skirted the mouth of the Barren River and made their way along the shoreline beyond the eastern edge of the city.”

“How far beyond? Where exactly did they get off?”

“I didn’t see, sir.”

Cadorna threw up his hands, then turned to where Gensor stood beside him. “What do you think, Gensor? Do we have any way of tracking them?”

“Not that I know of,” answered the mage, shaking his head. Then he lowered his voice and whispered, for Cadorna’s ears alone, “Dismiss the others. Have them wait out in the hallway. We need to talk.”

Cadorna looked at Gensor curiously for a moment, then did as the mage suggested.

When the two men were alone in the council chambers, Gensor began to speak, enunciating slowly and deliberately for emphasis. “You have no way of knowing where the three are—or where they are going.”

“Correct.” Cadorna’s eyes widened and his voice raised agitatedly as he spoke. “And who knows what Yarash may have told them? It’s absolutely imperative to catch all three of them. But how? You yourself said that there’s no way to track them.”

“Councilman, I hate to be so blunt, but you’re missing the point. It’s not what they know that you need to worry about. It’s what the Lord of the Ruins might get from them. Think about it…. Remember your plan to get their two stones and complete the figure of power yourself? If the Lord of the Ruins should catch up to those three and get the two ioun stones they carry, you will lose your chance to usurp power. You will never have the opportunity to rule all of Phlan, civilized and uncivilized alike.” Gensor leaned in close to Cadorna and spoke emphatically to make his point. “Honorable First Councilman Cadorna, as your advisor, I urge you to make your move against the Lord of the Ruins now, or you may never have another chance.”

“You mean attack the Lord of the Ruins to get his ioun stones and then find the thief, cleric, and mage to get their two?” asked Cadorna.

“Exactly,” Gensor said. “Even if you don’t get their stones immediately, you should still have as much power as the dragon has now, which is considerable.”

“Right you are,” Cadorna answered slowly. His eyes gleamed brightly, and he clenched his hands in excitement. He didn’t need to wait for Gensor to go on. Immediately he commanded the soldiers of the Black Watch back into the chamber. With Gensor’s help, Cadorna explained to them that there was a certain bronze dragon he wanted killed, a very powerful bronze dragon that made its lair at the heart of Valjevo Castle, in the northernmost part of Phlan. “I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourselves,” he said to the soldiers. “You stand to earn an unprecedented reward, but be forewarned, I won’t tolerate cowardice or stupidity!”

“I’m sure I speak for the others, First Councilman,” one of the soldiers at the side of the room called out. “You can count on us.”

The mercenaries made hasty preparations for their mission, and just two hours after dawn, under Cadorna’s direction, they arrived at the gates to Valjevo Castle.

Silence hung thick in the cavern, like spiderwebs. The stone floor was covered with thick dust. Shal opened her eyes and saw the gentle blue light that filled the room. She did not know what had happened. She was not even sure at first that she was alive. She pressed the heels of her hands into the dust and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Tarl was nearby, kneeling, his hands lifted skyward, an expression of awe and innocence on his face. His silvery hair glowed almost blue in the soft light. The Hammer of Tyr hung suspended in the air just above him, its steel head shining with the vibrancy of molten metal. Shal could also see Ren, still lying facedown near the front of the cavern. Quickly she pushed herself to her feet to run to his side, but before she got there, he was already rousing himself up from the floor.

“Hell of a party,” Ren said thickly, rising slowly to his feet. “What happened to our hosts?”

Tarl rose to his feet and joined the others, his face still bathed in light from the Hammer of Tyr. “Gone,” he said simply. “Vanquished by the power of Tyr, the same power that saved and healed the three of us.” He reached out his arms and pulled his friend and his beloved close. Tears of relief welled in his eyes and in Shal’s and Ren’s. Though thoroughly shaken, all three felt strangely rejuvenated and infinitely grateful for their own survival.

They stood together silently, arm in arm, for several minutes. It was Tarl who finally broke the silence. “I feel an incredible sense of relief. Now that the vampire is vanquished, Anton can be healed and I can return the Hammer of Tyr to the temple in Civilized Phlan. I’m not even worried about the guards around the city. It’s Tyr’s will that the hammer be returned, and nothing’s going to stop me from doing it.”

Tarl reached out for the floating hammer, but the holy symbol quickly scooted away from his outstretched hand, the way one magnet moves away from another. He reached for the hammer again, and again it moved just out of reach.

Tarl wondered for a moment if perhaps somehow his motives were not right and so the hammer would not come to him. But when the hammer started to float away, he was gripped by a sense of dread, fearing the hammer’s power was somehow being subverted again. Maybe the vampire wasn’t really gone. Once more Tarl tried to catch the holy artifact. It floated to the front wall of the cavern, precisely above the spot where the vampire had hovered just a short time before. For one terrible moment, Tarl thought the hammer’s light was darkening, turning black, but then its blue glow surged strongly and a blinding ray of light flooded the cavern.

Suddenly a blue oval was outlined against the wall behind the hammer. The stone surface within the oval began to shimmer like water under moonlight. As if wielded by some unseen but steady hand, the hammer cocked back and then forward, striking the calm, fluid center, sending out ripples as would a stone tossed into a quiet pool. Concentric rings of water spread from the center to the edge of the oval outline for several seconds. As the ripples dissipated, so did the shimmering surface, and they could now see that the oval framed a doorway.

The hammer’s light illuminated a small interior room beyond the oval doorway. Tarl quickly made for the door, with Shal and Ren right behind. When they could see inside the small room, Ren said, “Teleporter, just like the one Yarash used.”

“And obviously I’m supposed to use it,” said Tarl, the magical Hammer of Tyr finally settling into his outstretched hand.

“Obviously we’re supposed to use it,” Shal corrected him.

Tarl nodded, and together the three entered the small chamber. Once again the hammer blazed blue in Tarl’s hand, for a moment blinding all three, and when its light diminished, they found themselves standing under an archway of strange-looking, sharply spiked shrubbery.

“Careful,” Ren cautioned, pointing to the archway. “I’ve seen this kind of bush before. The thorns are tipped with a natural poison, and the serrated leaves can make some pretty wicked slashes. Don’t even try to push aside any loose branches. Step around instead. Some bushes of this variety actually send feelers out, like vines do. They can move as fast as a man’s hand, and their touch is deadly. There’s plenty of snake venom in the world that’s tame by comparison.”

Beyond the archway were three narrow paths, one to the right, one to the left, and one straight ahead. All were lined with the same variety of poisonous hedge. Tarl looked to the hammer, hoping to receive some kind of sign or direction, but none was forthcoming.

“Where are we, anyway?” asked Shal.

Ren pointed to a tall, white turret, some distance ahead, the only thing that could be seen above the vicious shrubbery. “Valjevo Castle,” he breathed, his voice hushed. “Probably one of the tallest buildings in the Realms, and according to that party of orcs we ran into on the way to Yarash’s, the home of the Lord of the Ruins. This must have been a teleport the vampire used when he needed to see his master.”

“It’s no coincidence the three of us are here,” Tarl pronounced firmly.

“Nope,” Ren agreed. “Fate and the gods.” He looked to Shal. “If you’re ready to meet the bastard who sent Cadorna to kill Ranthor, I’m ready to meet him, too—and to take a chunk out of his hide for murdering Tempest.”

“I’m ready,” said Shal. “But do we even know what we’re looking for or which way to go?” A glance in any direction along the pathways through the tall hedges showed a series of turns. They were obviously inside a topiary maze, and an elaborate one at that.

Tarl spoke confidently. “We’ll recognize the evil of the Lord of the Ruins when we find him.”

“He’s right. I think we should try going straight ahead,” Ren said. “I have a hunch that if the vampire visited often enough to have a private passageway here, he probably wasn’t forced to go through the whole maze every time he dropped in.”

Ren led the way. The path immediately took a jog to the right, then left, where there were two archways leading off from it. They proceeded on straight ahead, then stopped when it came to a T. “Wait,” Ren said. He sniffed the air, then very carefully touched one finger to the flat of one of the hedge’s thick, serrated leaves. “There’ve been other humans here—recently. They sliced their way through. These bushes are screaming in agony.”

“Bushes screaming?” Shal asked in astonishment.

“There’s a pain scent from the fluids lost when any woody plant is cut. This hedge has been hurt bad, and in lots of places.” Ren looked for a moment like a shaman searching for an aura, his hands outstretched, his nose uplifted to catch scents.

“This way,” he said finally, leading them off to the left. Suddenly he stopped and raised his hand to stop Shal and Tarl. “Blood …” he whispered. “I smell blood.”

Moving even more cautiously, they turned the next corner in the maze. The emblem of the Black Watch greeted them from the chest of a man suspended grotesquely in the hedge. His machete was still in his hand, but it hadn’t done him any good once he’d come in contact with the bush’s thorns. His skin had already taken on an unnatural color from the poison that had worked its way through his system as fast as the blood circulated in his body. His eyes were bulging, but when his mouth began to move, they realized that he was still alive—barely. With incredible difficulty, he gasped, “Cadorna … the bastard … didn’t care … how many of us … died …”

Tarl reached out to try to heal the man, but he was too late. The soldier’s last breath rattled in his throat, and his body hung limp in the thorny hedge. Beyond him lay a companion, another soldier of the Black Watch, also dead, lying facedown with his hand caught up high behind him in the hedge. Across from the two men, the hedge walls had been chopped wide open, wide enough for three or four men to pass through.

“Do you think he meant that Cadorna brought the Black Watch here?” Shal whispered.

Ren nodded. “I can’t think of anybody else paranoid enough to let men die just to get through a hedge. I’m sure he’s here somewhere. In fact, we might have a chance to get the Lord of the Ruins and Cadorna, because I don’t see any sign that anybody’s come back out through these bushes.”

There was no question now which route would lead to the heart of the castle grounds. A nearly straight swath had been cut through at least a half dozen walls of shrubbery, and the two soldiers had died cutting through the final one. Ren wondered how many others had died hacking their way through the hedges. From where he stood, he could see a boot protruding near one hedge wall and a hand sticking out near another.

“Follow me,” Ren declared. “Keep low and to the center of the path, as far away from the branches as possible.”

Once they emerged on the other side of the maze, they found themselves staring up at the central tower. Its lofty walls were of rarest white marble. At another time, Shal thought, the tower must have been beautiful and pristine-looking, a giant monument to all that was good in the land, but now its every feature reflected the same kind of corruption and defilement Shal and the others had been fighting since their first mission for the town council. Runes of the type often used by black mages marred much of the marble surface of the building’s exterior. Despite its light color, the tower appeared to be shrouded in shadow.

Part of the tower had tumbled in on itself. A scaffold had been erected halfway up the damaged portion of the tower, and two ogres lay dead beside it. “That’s one fight we missed,” whispered Tarl. Shal and Ren smiled. They were all feeling excited and obsessed with a growing sense of purpose, but at the same time, all three were as tense as stretched slingshot bands, so the levity, however brief, brought relief.

Tarl pointed to a huge doorway to the left of the scaffolding. Its monstrous wooden door stood wide open.

“I suspect Cadorna and any men he has left went in that way,” Ren said. “Let’s see if there’s another door.”

Cadorna was fit to be tied. The kill fee he would have to pay the Black Watch and the mercenaries’ guild was astronomical. Five soldiers of the Black Watch had been poisoned by the bushes, and four more had died facing a wizard who kept trying to pass himself off as the Lord of the Ruins. When Cadorna finally came face to face with the dragon, he didn’t have enough men left. The six remaining soldiers of the Black Watch had managed to weaken the dragon considerably before getting themselves killed, and Gensor had managed to make a couple of magical attacks, but in the end, Cadorna was forced to flee with Gensor to a nearby room to plan what to do next.

Shal and Tarl followed Ren cautiously as they circled the tower. There was a second door of more conventional size on the building’s opposite side. It was an ebony door with an elaborate carving of a dragon on it, but this door was shut. Shal cast a spell to detect magical traps. When a yellow aura glowed along the door’s perimeter, Shal summoned Cerulean from the Cloth of Many Pockets. As soon as the great horse touched the door with a hoof, a yellow mist puffed from the dragon’s mouth. “No!” Shal bit back a scream as Cerulean bolted backward, snorting loudly. Immediately Shal murmured a cantrip to disperse the poison gas, but the puff of wind did not come soon enough to keep the first of the poison from penetrating the big horse’s nostrils and lungs. Shal tried to calm Cerulean, but he was shaking his head furiously and snorting violently in an effort to get the toxic gas from his lungs.

Tarl pulled a pouch from his belt and tossed some dust at Cerulean’s nose. Immediately the horse began to sneeze, and he kept it up for several seconds. By the time the sneezing finally slowed, Cerulean’s eyes were bleary with water and his nose was running thick and yellow. He snorted once more, but then the fit was over. Shal wiped his nose and eyes with a cloth and patted his neck.

You okay, big fella? she asked silently.

Cerulean nodded. His breathing was still a little uneven, mixed with sniffles, but the poison was obviously no longer a danger.

Meanwhile, Ren had checked the ebony door for mechanical traps. Finding none, he eased it open. Peering inside the door, Ren could see that the chamber inside was completely open, from the full height of the tower to the depths of the subterranean cavern below. The door opened onto a roomy landing, fenced by an iron guardrail. A black grillwork stairway led down. The walls inside the tower and the cavern below all glowed a brilliant golden color.

“I’ve seen this somewhere before,” Ren whispered.

Behind him, Tarl answered softly, “In the gnoll temple … The model looked just like this. He’ll be here, all right. This must be the lair of the Lord of the Ruins.”

“Do come down,” called a warm, avuncular voice from somewhere below. “I enjoy company.”

The three exchanged surprised glances, but it was Ren who creeped out onto the landing and peered down into the great golden vault. He saw no sign of Cadorna or the soldiers of the Black Watch, but from the top of the stairway, he could see a crescent-shaped pool, a full-sized version of the model they had seen in the gnoll temple. It glistened with an unnatural intensity, as if it created its own light source. “The pool!” whispered Ren. “ ‘Tower to the pool.’ That’s it! The blood from the temples is channeled into that pool!”

Beside the pool, partially hidden from view by the landing, stood a great bronze dragon, identifiable by its metallic color as one of the good dragons of the Realms.

“Please come down,” the dragon repeated. Again the voice, which echoed through the golden chamber, seemed friendly and had a genuine warmth to it.

Ren had seen three dragons close up before. Each had seemed bigger than the one before, but this one was easily half again the size of any of them. Electricity crackled along the beast’s gums and teeth each time it exhaled, and its tail switched behind it nervously.

“A bronze dragon,” whispered Ren to Shal and Tarl, behind him. To the dragon, he said, “We seek the Lord of the Ruins.”

“Dead,” breathed the dragon, puffing a wisp of smoke into the air. “A puny man, but with tremendous magical powers of possession. As evil as anything I’ve seen in millennia.”

“Do you live here?” Ren questioned. He had never heard of a bronze dragon choosing a subterranean lair.

“Yes, honorable Ren o’ the Blade. This has been my lair for several of your lifetimes. Greetings to you and your companions, Shal Bal and Tarl Desanea.”

All three were startled that the dragon knew their names. Tyranthraxus, the evil possessor of the dragon’s mind, recognized their concern and immediately spoke to assuage their fears. “Now, now, there’s nothing to fear. You see, your reputation precedes you, and I must say that the length and breadth of Phlan is safer for your presence. In fact, it is your weakening of the power of the Lord of the Ruins that has allowed me to finally free myself of his control. For years, he held me captive here by means of mind control and a form of possession the likes of which I hope died with him. But his rotting body remains here in my lair. I would be indebted to you if you would remove it.”

Ren motioned for Shal and Tarl to follow him, and he started down the stairs. Shal called Cerulean back into the Cloth of Many Pockets, and she and Tarl followed.

As the three stood facing the dragon, they were awed all over again by its size. Shal had never been in close proximity to a dragon, and she felt an unreasonable terror creeping through her body as she stared up at the gigantic beast. She realized as she looked on that her fear was not from the creature’s presence but rather from the thread of a memory that was slowly being drawn across her mind. “… Beware of the dragon of bronze.” It took her a moment to recall the context in which she had heard the words, but then suddenly she remembered. Ranthor had spoken of the dragon! As he fought with Denlor to defeat the masses of monsters and humanoids that scrabbled at the tower’s walls, he had warned her about the dragon of bronze!

At almost the same moment as Shal realized there might be good reason for her fear, Tarl became aware that the Hammer of Tyr, which he was holding at his side, was glowing bright blue in his hand. He could feel more than see the pulsing energy within the hammer, and he caught a glimpse of the dragon blinking as the hammer’s rays reflected in its eyes.

“That thing you’re carrying …” the dragon said innocently. “It’s hurting my eyes. Can you cover it, please?”

Tarl lifted the hammer toward the dragon. “The light of the Hammer of Tyr should be soothing to you or any other good creature of the Realms.”

Ren interrupted before the dragon could reply. “Where’s the body you want disposed of?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, the body,” said the dragon, turning its head away from the light. “It’s here behind me. The Lord of the Ruins died along with several of his minions. Only two escaped.” The dragon shifted its bulk to one side. Behind it were several charred bodies, piled together in a heap like sacks of flour. “I was finally able to break his—”

“The Black Watch!” Ren exclaimed suddenly. Despite the damage done by the dragon’s lightning breath, the chain mail on the bodies remained intact, and those Ren could see bore the sign of the mercenary guild employed by Cadorna. “Those are soldiers of the Black Watch, not—”

“And the dragon is the Lord of the Ruins,” whispered Shal, starting to back away.

Ren shook his head.

“Try to get one of the ioun stones,” Shal whispered. “A good dragon wouldn’t care.”

Ren nodded his head imperceptibly, then turned back to face the dragon. “Which one of the bodies belongs to the Lord of the Ruins?” he asked as he walked to the inner curve of the crescent, the side of the pool opposite the dragon, as if to examine the bodies from that angle.

“He’s at the bottom of the heap,” answered the dragon. “He was the first to die.”

Ren knew at that moment that the dragon was lying. Mercenaries such as those of the Black Watch would go to their deaths in hopes of treasure, but the minute their employer was killed, they had no reason to stick around. Ren also saw, as he came closer, that the necks of the soldiers had been sliced, and their blood was draining into the brilliant waters of the pool. Ren stepped up to the hexagon at the crux of the crescent, noticing that it was just like the one in the diorama on the gnoll altar. Ioun stones were set in place at four of its six corners, while two empty sockets stood gaping, waiting to be filled. “That’s quite a collection of ioun stones,” he said, reaching his hand out toward the hexagon.

In a move of exceptional dexterity for so large a creature, the dragon swiveled its entire body to face the ranger. “Yes … remarkable, aren’t they?”

Ren pulled Right from his boot. “I expect you’ve heard that I have an ioun stone,” said Ren softly.

Avarice spread over the dragon’s previously composed features. “Yes … so I’ve heard.” The change in its manner was not even subtle. There was a definite edge in its voice, a demanding quality. Suddenly the dragon snaked its tongue out at Ren and hissed, “Give it to me … or die!”

The dragon thrust its huge head and neck across the pool toward Ren, its jaws wide open. Ren hurled Right at the creature, diving and rolling before his release was even complete. At that moment, a thundering bolt of electricity shot from the creature’s gaping mouth and exploded against the wall behind where Ren had just stood. At the same time, the dragon bellowed in pain and anger as the dagger buried itself to the hilt in its right eye. Quickly Ren scrambled to his feet and sprinted around the pool to the dragon’s flank, the only place where he might be safe from the creature’s flailing tail.

The dragon spun back toward Ren, pivoting its giant mass of flesh as though it were weightless. Ren hurried to keep close to the creature’s flanks, all the while attacking mercilessly with his short swords, jabbing and chopping at the tenderest flesh on the dragon’s scaly body. Somehow he managed to keep close enough to the dragon that the creature could not use its breath weapons on him for fear of hurting itself.

Shal had not expected the dragon’s reaction to be nearly so quick or so violent, and she was terrified for Ren, who kept scrabbling to keep himself just barely out of the dragon’s reach. Shal had never fought a dragon before, but she knew the lore: Creatures of lightning could not be hurt by lightning. She extended her hands toward the dragon and rushed through the words to a spell she had memorized but never tried before. Instantly a gray-blue cone of bitter cold extended from the palm of her hand to the exposed side of the dragon. Within the radius of the cone’s circle, the dragon’s scales immediately began to turn white, popping and snapping with the extreme cold. The dragon let out a roar and spun to attack the new offender.

Tarl leaped in front of Shal, the Hammer of Tyr extended before him. The dragon’s lightning bolt ricocheted from the hammer to the pool and back again for several deafening, blinding seconds. The dragon roared in frustration as the lightning grew in intensity, still trapped between the hammer and the pool. So strong was its energy that it was all Tarl could do to maintain his grip on the magical artifact.

Suddenly the dragon turned its lightning to the stairway and landing. The timbers immediately burst into flame. Flames shot up and smoke billowed as the exit was destroyed. Then the dragon roared and charged Shal and Tarl, forcing Ren to scramble to keep out of the way of its vicious tail. It was small consolation that the dragon’s lightning wouldn’t work against the hammer. The beast was huge. Its size alone could kill, and it was lumbering right toward them. Tarl hurled the Hammer of Tyr at the beast with all his strength as Shal hurriedly conjured up an ice storm. The dragon was nearly upon them when the hammer slammed into its chest. Blue energy crackled and arced from the point of impact, and the dragon reeled back, shrieking with the pain of the blow. A moment later, sheets of ice plastered over its chest, neck, and the exposed parts of its haunches. It scrabbled awkwardly on the ice, its movements hindered by the energy-sapping cold. It shook like a wet dog to rid itself of the bone-chilling cold and the nuisance pricking at its side, but it got rid of neither, and the glow from the blue hammer, now returned to Tarl’s hand, was piercing its remaining good eye.

The possessor, Tyranthraxus, struggled to keep the dragon reacting with intellect rather than instinct. Intimidation was critical. The attackers must not know the weakness of the body. Under his impetus, the great beast puffed itself up, roared, and launched itself forward again toward the source of its greatest pain. Tyranthraxus could feel and smell the terror of the two as he closed in with the dragon’s body. One more time, he thought—do it one more time, and then this fight will be fair.

Unwittingly, Tarl obliged. He launched the Hammer of Tyr at the dragon again. No sooner had the hammer left Tarl’s fingertips than the dragon thrust its great head forward. Brilliant yellow lightning and the hammer’s blue light shattered the stale air in the dragon’s lair. Even as the dragon staggered back from the hammer blow, Tarl was at the receiving end of a blazing yellow lightning bolt. The cleric’s body slammed backward as though hit by a giant hammer and was driven flat against the wall. The smell of his flesh smoking and burning filled the air, and the Hammer of Tyr fell to the ground as his body slumped limply against the wall.

Shal felt something snap inside her. She screamed loudly, but she did not look back at Tarl. She aimed her fingers straight for the creature’s mouth. Instantly flames jetted from her fingertips. The dragon’s head jerked back as the fire whooshed around its face, its lower jaw fried clear through. Shal cast a special Magical Shield spell and called for the Wand of Wonder even as the dragon shrieked and brought its head back down to launch more lightning.

Ren had never ceased in his attack with his short swords. Again and again, he stabbed deep into the dragon’s tough hide. When he saw Tarl hurled against the wall, his already frenzied attack became even more furious. Working his swords like a mountain climber’s picks, Ren scaled the dragon’s back. The gigantic tail slapped and flailed nearby, and when Shal’s flames sent the dragon’s head snapping back, it was all he could do to hang on and drag himself to the base of the dragon’s neck, where the tail was no longer a threat. His legs clinging to the beast’s broad neck, he used all his strength to plunge the two short swords deep into the tendons between the dragon’s shoulder blades.

The dragon shrieked and roared in agony and rage. Yellow lightning shot from its mouth, only to be reflected off Shal’s magical shield. An instant later, the dragon threw its head back as its own lightning returned and sizzled the flesh of its underbelly. It shrieked once more, flailing its tail and shaking its shoulders violently to try to rid itself of Ren, who had called for Right and was now stabbing with his two magical daggers.

Pain dictating its movements, the creature wagged its head, gulped a mouthful of fluid from the pool, and sprayed a jet of yellow acid breath at Shal through its drooping jaw. “Protect from poison!” Shal screamed, and she raised the Wand of Wonder. A million and more yellow droplets of poison hung suspended in the air for a fraction of a second, and then the cavern exploded with a riot of beating wings, as each droplet became a brilliantly colored butterfly. Under other circumstances, the sight would have been breathtakingly delightful, but now the thousands upon thousands of butterflies served only to reduce visibility to zero.

Ren continued to battle by feel alone, his magical daggers slicing through the dragon’s thick scaly hide as if it were butter. He stabbed and sliced as fast and hard as his arms would move, scooting ever higher up onto the dragon’s neck, hoping to find its jugular. Shal lowered her magical shield and cast another Burning Hands spell, aiming by memory for the dragon’s abdomen, below where she had last seen Ren. Jets of flame shot from her fingers, and thousands of butterflies popped and burst, caught in the magical inferno. The dragon screamed, an almost inhuman scream, as the flames struck and spread across its chest. Just then one of Ren’s daggers ripped through tendon and sliced through an artery in the creature’s neck. It reared high on its hind feet, then pitched itself over in its agony, slamming Ren to the ground beside it. It clambered tentatively to its feet, flailing wildly with its tail at the smell and presence of the ranger. With all the force left within its pain-racked body, the dragon tail-slammed Ren against the nearest wall of its lair.

Shal could feel, could hear, the big man’s bones shatter as his body thwacked hard against the stone wall, and she could see, even through the haze of the remaining butterflies, that he was not moving. She leveled her hands at the dragon again, even as it turned its head to attack her, and let loose with a fireball. Fueled by her fury, the fireball was huge and white. It burst square against the dragon’s already injured face and neck, and flames raged from its snout down its torso.

The creature spun wildly, crazy and blinded from the pain. By instinct or luck, it caught Shal with the tip of its tail as it spun, and she was hurled back against Tarl’s charred body. For a moment, Shal saw only blackness, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She knew she needed to finish the dragon off now, before it finished her, but pain and fear froze her body even after her vision cleared. She remained paralyzed, literally waiting to die, but to her surprise, the hulking creature failed to take advantage of her helplessness. Instead, it scrabbled backward and slid into the crescent-shaped pool. Her heart leaped as she realized the dragon must be retreating, perhaps even dying.

But her revelry was short-lived as she saw the snout come up from the golden water, and the neck after it. The dragon’s jaw was no longer dangling. There were no frostbitten or charred scales, no gaping bloody wounds high on its neck. The dragon was whole once more, perfectly healed, and it was coming up out of the pool toward her. Shal screamed soundlessly. She had no spell, no words. But she heard Cerulean’s cry loud and clear: The ring! Wish it dead!

Shal closed her eyes and wished with everything in her. She wished the damnable creature dead.

With its next lumbering step, the dragon toppled to the ground. It was in the best of health, but its heart stopped cold, and the body was dead in the fraction of a second that it had taken Shal to wish.

When they saw the dragon fall, Cadorna and Gensor came out of their hiding place in the next room. They didn’t know what had killed the dragon, nor did they care. Cadorna would assume power over all of Phlan and more, and Gensor would practice magic to his heart’s content. “Be sure all three are dead,” Cadorna instructed quickly, and he walked up to the dragon to touch it and pay a moment’s respect to its legacy of power.

Before his fingers ever touched the creature’s cold hide, Cadorna screamed. It was the scream Tyranthraxus had heard through the millennia each time he entered a new body. The scream of a being possessed.

To Tyranthraxus, it was a glorious sound. He relished it for a brief moment as he pushed Cadorna’s thoughts of power from his mind and replaced them with his own, which were subtler, infinitely more interesting, and grounded in thousands of years of experience. Tyranthraxus’s immediate desire was to get himself out of range of the mage-woman who had just killed his previous body. If she could kill a dragon, she could undoubtedly kill a man, and Tyranthraxus could not afford to risk another possession so soon. As much as he hated to leave the power he had gathered here behind him, he knew the secret now of the Pool of Radiance and the ioun stones, and it would only be a matter of time before he could possess them again. Without so much as a nod to Gensor, who meant nothing to Tyranthraxus, the possessed Cadorna leaped into the golden waters of the Pool of Radiance, calling on its magical energies to teleport himself and his possessor to a place far away.

“No!” Gensor shouted. Gensor and Cadorna had both seen the power of the magical hammer. They had both watched as the dragon emerged from the waters completely healed, and Gensor was not about to let Cadorna take all the pool’s energy for himself. The mage threw back his hood and dived in after Cadorna. But where golden fluid had boiled with incalculable energy only seconds ago, there was only plain water … deep, icy water. Tyranthraxus had absorbed all of the pool’s magical energies.

Gensor knew nothing of Tyranthraxus. He didn’t even know what had happened to Cadorna. But he did know what was hidden from sight at the bottom of the pool. The mage came quietly to the surface of the pool and uttered a spell to make himself invisible before climbing out of the cold water.

Gensor watched silently as Shal slowly recovered enough to begin to function again.

She turned first to the charred body of the cleric. Tears streaming down her face, she poured the contents of two healing potions on the priest. Much of his flesh mended, but still he did not move. She retrieved his hammer and lifted it in her hands. She screamed her words: “You healed your servant at Valhingen Graveyard so he could die here? You told him to follow me so he could be killed by my enemy?” Shal pointed the hammer at Tarl and cried, “Heal him! Please, heal him!” She dropped her head, lowered her arms, and wept unashamedly. She didn’t even notice as the hammer began to glow. Instead, she felt her arms raise with its power, and then she saw the blue aura. It was a warm, almost turquoise shade, and it bathed the cleric in its gentle light.

Tarl’s first view was of Shal, tears running down her face, the dragon stretched out behind her, and the Hammer of Tyr glowing in her hands, and he knew she had won. He reached up, pulled her close, and held her tight. He closed his eyes to hold back his own tears as healing energy pulsed through him to her bruised body. The exhaustion from having pressed her spell-casting abilities to their limit slowly left Shal as she and Tarl shared a tremendous warming of flesh and spirit. It was several minutes before Tarl opened his eyes again. His eyes fell on Ren, still slumped against the wall behind the pool.

Tarl rushed to his friend. Ren’s body was twisted. There were bends in his legs and arms where there were no joints. No simple laying on of hands would heal the big ranger. The cleric pointed to the hexagon with the ioun stones, and Shal rushed around the pool to get them. With two stones in each hand and the Hammer of Tyr before him, Tarl set out to heal his friend. Each and every healing was a miracle, but Tarl felt an overpowering sense of awe this time as bone melded to bone, tissue mended itself, and flesh and spirit healed, wholly, completely, flawlessly.

The three sat together silently in the cavern until Tarl finally asked what happened. Ren told the story as he had seen it, and then Shal took over, describing the dragon’s final moments and Cadorna and Gensor’s insane plunges into the pool. “I looked for them when I brought you the ioun stones. There’s nothing there. The pool’s energy must have turned against them somehow. They’re gone, and the pool is filled with ordinary water.”

Tarl and Ren went to the side of the pool and looked for themselves. The water was a quiet gray-blue. The surface was completely calm, except for an occasional ripple where a butterfly was struggling to lift itself out of the water. For a moment, Ren thought he felt something, a whisper of movement nearby, but he turned and saw only a whirl of butterflies rising from the cavern floor, as though disturbed by a gentle wind.

“Well,” said Ren, returning to Shal’s side along with Tarl, “are we ready to celebrate? I mean, the Lord of the Ruins is dead. You did it. You killed the real murderer of Ranthor and Tempest. Cadorna’s gone. Tarl has the Hammer of Tyr. What do you say we find a way out of this place?”

“Cadorna and Gensor came from there.” Shal pointed to a doorway that blended into the cavern wall so inconspicuously that a person had to look hard to see it. “But what about returning to Phlan? Aren’t there going to be more Black Watch soldiers guarding the city?”

“Probably.” Ren nodded. “But this time it will be different. Cadorna won’t be there to keep our testimony from being heard. And remember, we still have all those documents from Yarash.”

“Plus the fact that one of my brothers, an elder from the temple, was promoted to Third Councilman when Cadorna became Second. When Cadorna rose to First Councilman, he probably rose to Second,” Tarl added.

“And now, with Cadorna gone, he must be First!” Shal concluded happily.

Tarl kept the four ioun stones from the hexagon for the temple. The hexagon itself was of pure gold, and Tarl and Shal agreed that Ren should take it, since he was no longer thieving for a living, but they found nothing else of value in the dragon’s lair. When they left, the three discovered the body of the wizard Cadorna had killed, and Shal gathered up his spellbooks and notes as she had Yarash’s. A handful of butterflies followed them out, then disappeared into the brightly lit afternoon.

On a whim, Ren went past the two dead ogres they had seen earlier and made sure the door with the dragon head was open. A brigade of butterflies—orange, yellow, blue, and green—flew out through the open door and followed the others into the light of a warm afternoon.

As they passed through the castle and then through the ruins of Phlan, they found signs everywhere of kobolds, orcs, gnolls, and other creatures, but left to their own devices, without the dominating influence of the Lord of the Ruins, the humanoids and monsters were not unified in their efforts, and even the few that did see the three passing had enough memory to know that they didn’t want to mess with the party that even now they still called simply “those three.”

As cleric, mage, and ranger made their return, they talked of the expansion the city would see with the artifacts of Tyr in their rightful place, the Lord of the Ruins vanquished, and the river flowing clean and pure into the bay. Shal hoped to return to Cormyr, to Ranthor’s keep, for things she had left behind. Tarl promised to accompany her on the journey if she would just wait until he was sure Anton was healed, and she spoke earnestly of the possibility of returning to Denlor’s tower and starting up his school again. After all, there was that huge library in the ruins that she had yet to explore….

Shal and Tarl walked hand in hand, and Ren spoke wistfully of Jensena. Ren had asked Sot to keep an eye on her while she continued to recover and to be sure to find out where she was headed if she left. The innkeeper had agreed and even threatened to make Ren stay and scrub tables forever if he didn’t hook up with her. “The woman needs your company,” Sot had reasoned, “what with her friends gone and all.” Ren hadn’t disagreed. And, he felt certain, neither would Jensena….

Back at the pool, Gensor had materialized quickly after the three departed, and his thin, pink lips were turned up in the biggest smile of his lifetime. In the depths of the pool he had found the dragon’s hoard—gold and jewels that would fund his magical endeavors for a lifetime, magical items beyond his wildest imaginings, and spellbooks enough to keep him studying forever—and all magically protected from damage by the water. Who needed Cadorna?