Pool of Radiance

7 Deceived

Porphyrys Cadorna held in his hands the official proclamation from the council making him Fourth Councilman. It praised him for “prudent judgment in the matter of assigning punitive tasks for the betterment of the community.” It commended him for recognizing the caliber of the three barroom brawlers and for immediately acting on the information they provided by arranging to add new shipping lanes in and out of the harbor. Advisors to the council were suggesting that the resulting influx of newcomers to Phlan would double its present population and ensure further expansion into the uncivilized portions of the city.

Cadorna sat in his personal study, admiring the piece of parchment. It was written in the elegant script of the town’s head scribe, a man known throughout the Moonsea area for the elegance of his calligraphy. Cadorna made a mental note to make the man his personal scribe when he became First Councilman.

“Finally, some credit for a Cadorna’s talents.” Porphyrys spoke aloud as he stared up at the portrait of his father that hung on the wall opposite his desk. “To think that simply because you had dealings with dragons they could assume that you were somehow responsible for the Dragon Run! That’s like saying that because I send bits of useless information to the Lord of the Ruins, I must be in league with him. The fools just don’t recognize the importance of maintaining connections … of fending first and foremost for yourself!”

Cadorna shook the parchment at the portrait. “But here, finally, is some credit. It’s still not what we deserve … what I deserve. It was Second Councilman Silton whose incompetence was exposed by my proficiency. It is his seat I should have assumed, but the council in its “wisdom” opted to advance the Third and Fourth Councilmen ahead of me.” Cadorna rattled the parchment once more, then set it on his desk. “However, I won’t spend forever waiting for—”

A stiff rap on the door interrupted Cadorna in midsentence. “State your business,” Cadorna called.

“Gensor reporting, Honorable Fourth Councilman.”

Cadorna strolled to the door and lifted the bolt that secured it. “Enter, mage. What news do you have?”

“I followed them from the inn to—”

“I instructed you to follow them; of course you followed them! I asked you what news you’ve gathered.”

“They—”

“Remove that hood in my presence. I like to look a man in the eyes when he speaks.”

The mage’s face was hidden deep within his black hood. “You think you control me because you are Fourth Councilman? You wish to look me in the eyes? So be it.” Gensor reached up and pulled back his hood.

Cadorna blenched at the sight of the man’s face. Gensor’s skin was shriveled and ashen, an unnatural gray that gave him an almost corpselike appearance. His eyes were the color of a steel blade, and they seemed to bore straight into Cadorna as he spoke, his voice like ice. “I have no need of your reimbursements, Councilman. I work for you because, like you, I desire to know certain things.”

Cadorna said nothing. There were ways of taking care of ingrates, even magic-users, when they got out of line. He returned Gensor’s stare with a cold look of his own.

“They went to the tower of the red wizard—Denlor, to those of us who know him.”

“Yes, I knew Denlor,” said Cadorna.

“Knew him? I’ve no doubt,” said Gensor. “The woman’s mentor died there, as I gather did Denlor. I listened in on the party’s conversations until they reached the tower itself, but I did not follow them in. My cloak of invisibility would not have functioned within those magicked walls.”

“Spare me the details of your ineptitude, mage! What else did you learn?”

Gensor glowered at Cadorna until the councilman took a step backward, and then he proceeded. “Her master was murdered—by a beast, she believes.”

“Her master? Who—”

“A wizard named Ranthor. She knew something of Denlor’s death and of the siege on his tower by creatures from the outside.” Gensor paused for a moment, looking inquisitively at Cadorna. “And her steed is magical, a familiar inherited from her dead master.”

Cadorna stepped closer at this news. “A familiar? What are its powers? Can anyone control it?”

“A familiar is a mage’s helpmate. A good one offers advice, warning, sometimes even protection from attack. Some are practically useless, but she insisted on taking the horse with her into the tower, so I expect the animal has some power to dispel magic.”

“Are those powers someone else could harness?”

“A good familiar is loyal to the death and will serve another only at its master’s bidding. Even I couldn’t control the horse unless its master wished me to do so. You’d never be able to control it. Familiars communicate telepathically, by virtue of their spiritual tuning with their masters.”

“Cursed magic-users! You intentionally exclude yourselves from the rest of us!”

“Yes, Councilman, that we do. And even though I don’t have any use for the Cormyrian woman’s naivete or her righteous friends, I still recognize her as a growing force within my profession, a force to be worked with … or reckoned with.”

“Or taken advantage of,” said Cadorna, twisting his face into a smile.

At this, Gensor smiled, too—an equally corrupt smile—and then chuckled, a muted, synthetic sound. “What did you have in mind, Councilman?”

“You, of course, know my interest in those three, my belief that they may be able to help me recover the legacy due me from my family.”

“Yes …”

“She seeks her mentor’s murderer, does she not?” Cadorna asked, his narrowed eyes glinting.

“Yes. So?”

“It just seems to me that one of the gnolls that have overrun the Cadorna textile house may have had something to do with his murder. I mean, I’m sure I could make her think that was the case and get her to go there … don’t you?” Cadorna was obviously calculating as he spoke. “My idea, of course, needs some refining, Gensor, but I’ll certainly let you know when I can use your services again. In the meantime, since you don’t need my monetary reimbursements, perhaps you’ll take this for your efforts.” Cadorna held out the magical dagger from Sokol Keep. It gleamed even in the daylight.

“How strange, Gensor. By its glow, this knife tells me that you are dangerous.”

“Or that you are, Councilman.” Gensor accepted the knife, turned, and left the study, closing the double doors firmly behind him.

“You remember how Cerulean used to have a bluish tint to his coat?” Shal asked, setting down her mug of ale.

“Yeah,” answered Ren. “He does have a little bit of a blue tinge to him, even when he isn’t collecting sparks from the floor.”

“Well, since he returned this morning from putting Ranthor to rest, his coat has just the slightest hint of purple to it.” Shal looked up with a grin of pure delight, obviously expecting Ren to comprehend her excitement. But he simply returned a puzzled stare.

“Don’t you see?” asked Tarl, plunking down his own mug for emphasis. “Purple is Shal’s color, not Ranthor’s. The wizard has truly been put to rest, and the familiar is wholly Shal’s.”

“Purple is Shal’s color? How would you know?” Ren appeared puzzled and looked to Tarl for some kind of explanation.

“I asked,” Tarl said simply, and he locked eyes with Shal for just a moment before adding, “because I wanted to know.”

“Well, thanks, Tarl. What a pal!” Ren said sarcastically. “Why don’t you just come out and accuse me of being unobservant?”

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

Tarl didn’t have a chance to finish. The doors to the inn were flung open wide, and two trumpeters entered. They took position on either side of the double doors and began blasting their horns so loud that Sot’s collection of rare glass liquor bottles rattled in their rack behind the bar. Sot grabbed his cudgel and seemed likely to throttle the two, but at that moment a herald entered the inn, stepped between them, unfurled a long scroll, and began reading:

“The Honorable Porphyrys Cadorna, Fourth Councilman of the City of Phlan, requires the presence of Tarl Desanea of Vaasa, Ren o’ the Blade of Waterdeep, and Shal Bal of Cormyr directly in front of these premises immediately.”

“Fourth Councilman now, eh?” Tarl noted. “I guess we’d better see what he wants.”

“I don’t get the impression we have much choice,” said Ren, rising from the bench.

The herald exited, and the trumpeters stood holding the doors open until the three followed. Outside the inn, a gleaming white carriage, drawn by two white horses with braided tails and manes and feather plumes, pulled up in front of the inn just as the three came out. After calming the spirited horses, the herald opened the carriage door and dropped to his hands and knees before it. Cadorna stepped from the high carriage onto the man’s back, then down to the street.

“Ah, I see you’re all looking well.” Cadorna waved his hand toward the three with a flourish. “Recovered from your mission to Thorn Island?”

“Recovered, and all ready to tend to our own unfinished business,” said Ren, a slight edge in his voice.

“Not before assisting me with a small project, I hope,” said Cadorna, his tone mirroring Ren’s. “I believe my request will be of particular interest to the cleric, if not to the two of you. I assume that, in your concern for the cleric’s best interests, you would consider accompanying him.”

Shal wasn’t anxious to enter into a discussion with any man who stepped on the flesh of others, but she did want Tarl to know he had her support. “Please state your request, Fourth Councilman,” she said.

“I will … in the privacy of the inn,” said Cadorna.

“The privacy of the inn?” Shal repeated. She and the others looked at him curiously until he instructed his herald and trumpeters to enter and clear the tavern.

Within a matter of minutes, the customers were emerging through the doorway. Sot’s angry complaints coming from within could no doubt be heard for blocks.

Chuckling quietly, Ren suggested that Cadorna allow the feisty innkeeper to stay, noting that he was a friend and, after all, the owner of the inn. To his surprise, Cadorna agreed.

In fact, as the newly appointed Fourth Councilman began to describe his family’s demise at the time of the Dragon Run, he pointed out Sot as an example of the type of businessperson his parents and grandparents were—hardworking, indefatigable, and possessing a kind of street sense that kept their business alive when others failed. “That’s why I’m sure the family fortune, or at least a portion of it, must still be intact,” he said.

“As you can see,” Cadorna continued with uncharacteristic humbleness, “I’m no fighter. I’ve recently received word from a half-orc spy I employ that the Cadorna textile house is now the dwelling place of a particularly disagreeable band of gnolls. Twice I have dispatched parties in the hope of recovering what is rightfully mine, but both times they failed to return.” Cadorna paused for a moment, shaking his head. “Imagine being defeated by anything as lazy and unobservant as a gnoll!”

“Lazy and unobservant, perhaps, but big,” Ren noted. “Not to mention completely amoral.”

“Yes … well, be that as it may, they certainly don’t compare to the likes of the beasts you defeated at Sokol Keep, though I have heard some rather ugly rumors about the gnoll leader….” Cadorna paused a moment, watching them closely. “What I’ve heard is that he’s a half-breed, the product of some poor woman’s misfortune at the hands of a raiding band of gnolls….” He gave the others time to express their revulsion, then took out a piece of yellowed parchment.

The map Cadorna produced was tattered from age and repeated folding. It showed the entire city, before it ever became separated into the civilized and uncivilized segments. Businesses were identified with notes about their ownership and their relative success. Cadorna didn’t need to point out the location of his family’s textile house; it dominated a large corner section of the city, and expansion plans had been sketched in on the map. When Cadorna was certain they knew the location of his family’s business, he turned the map over. A crude sketch, obviously not the work of the cartographer who had drafted the city map, filled the other side.

“This is my father’s drawing of the property, including the family living quarters,” Cadorna explained. “I believe the treasure is here,” he continued, pointing to a wall of an area labeled as a bedroom. “I don’t know if the bulk of the family holdings will be in coins or bullion, but I do have notes from my mother describing several family heirlooms that I expect will be there … if the treasure is still intact.”

“I don’t understand, Councilman Cadorna,” Tarl interrupted. “You implied earlier that I would have some special interest in this….”

“It is my plan, should you recover the treasure, to give a generous portion—let’s say fifteen percent—to the Tyrian temple.”

Tarl leaned forward, his interest obviously piqued. “Why haven’t you made this offer to the warrior clerics from the temple?”

“Simple. I consider the recovery of this treasure a personal matter. I’m not anxious to make this news public until such time as the treasure is actually in my hands,” explained Cadorna.

“You’ll forgive my straightforwardness here, Councilman,” said Ren, “but if I understand you correctly, you aren’t asking us to reclaim the textile house for human habitation.”

“That’s correct.”

“Then if the venture were made in daytime, when most of the creatures outside the walls sleep, what’s the difficulty? Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

Cadorna cleared his throat, and his eyes darted from side to side. “Yes, well … the, uh, the gnoll leader I mentioned … They say he’s as much a hyena in appearance—the mangy mane and yellowed teeth, you know—as any gnoll, but that he behaves like a man. Sometimes strangles his prey … even uses poisoned daggers. Highly ungnoll-like.” Cadorna didn’t wait for that to sink in, but instead plunged ahead. “A creature such as that might explain the, uh, difficulties experienced by the other two parties. With a superior intelligence leading them, the gnolls would indeed be formidable—even in daylight.”

At Cadorna’s words, Shal squeezed her mug of ale so hard that the pewter dented in her hands. Ale flowed over the top of the mug and onto the table. Almost in unison, Ren and Tarl reached over to calm her.

Cadorna pulled back, genuinely startled by her raw strength. When he was sure Ren and Tarl had calmed her down, he spoke to them as though she weren’t there. “What ails the poor woman?”

Tarl answered. “A friend of hers was killed recently … by a poisoned dagger.”

“And two people who were near him were killed by strangling,” said Shal, regaining her composure.

“Really?” Cadorna widened his eyes and reached forward in his best effort at a consoling gesture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was only relating rumors that I’d heard.” He stopped speaking long enough to look Shal square in the eyes. “You don’t think …?”

Shal didn’t respond. Instead, she turned to Ren, as if expecting him to offer some reason why Ranthor could or couldn’t have been killed by the creature Cadorna had described.

“A half-gnoll …” Ren shivered visibly. “I’ve never seen one. Half-orcs are disgusting enough, but I suppose anything’s possible.”

Ren rose to his feet and moved behind Tarl and Shal to face Cadorna with them. He placed a hand on one shoulder of each of his companions. “There seems to be good reason for each of you to do this. You can count me in if you’re of a mind to go.”

“My purpose in coming to Phlan hasn’t changed,” said Shal. “I’ll go.”

Tarl stood and held his hand out to Cadorna. “We’ll all go together, and if there’s treasure within those walls, we’ll bring it back to you.”

Cadorna extended his clammy palm to Tarl, and then in turn to Ren and Shal. That done, he left the inn with as much pomp as when he had entered. As he stepped onto the herald’s back and into the waiting carriage, he reminded himself to make arrangements that would guarantee receipt of the complete treasure upon their return.

It was nearly noon by the time the three of them were ready to leave Civilized Phlan. Ren was mounted atop the roan mare and Shal and Tarl on Cerulean.

“ ’Tis advisable to leave the city by boat if you’re inclined to be returnin’!” shouted one of the four guards from the wall as they approached.

“We have business in the uncivilized parts of the city,” shouted Ren in return. “We’d be obliged if you’d open the gates.”

The guard and one of his companions trudged down the stairway. “A mission for the council mayhaps?” asked the guard, eyeing the two well-armed men and the large young woman.

“A mission for a council member,” Ren answered. “We’ll be returning toward evening by the same gate.”

“Ha! An optimist!” The guard slapped his thigh and chuckled for a moment. “Well, Tymora be with you,” he said, reaching for the latch mechanism that barred the gate. “You just holler when ya come back, and we’ll open the gate for ya. I won’t be holdin’ my breath a-waitin’, though, if you don’t mind.”

“Charming fellow,” Tarl whispered to Shal. “Just the sort you want guarding the city.”

“My hearin’s pretty good, cleric,” said the guard, wagging a finger at Tarl. “If you’re wantin’ inside later, you’ll show me some respect.”

“No offense intended, Captain.”

“None taken, cleric. Say an extra prayer to your god and be on your way. Daylight’s a-wastin’. One word o’ advice, though, before you go. If you don’t go lookin’ for trouble in the old city, you’re less apt to find it.”

Immediately beyond the gates stood some of the worst slums in the Realms—lean-tos, propped haphazardly against the new city’s tall stone walls, shacks waiting for the wind to disperse their pieces like dandelion seeds, long-abandoned buildings in an advanced state of decrepitude. The inhabitants were physical misfits and half-breeds, the only creatures despised enough by both humans and monsters to serve as go-betweens for the civilized and uncivilized parts of the city.

Even the horses lifted their heads high in a hopeless attempt to avoid the stench, high-stepping to keep their feet clear of the refuse that littered the alleyways. Cerulean barraged Shal with comments about the smells picked up by his superior olfactory senses. Shal hushed him by reminding him that horsemeat was undoubtedly a delicacy in these parts.

Unscathed except for the loss of a few copper pieces to insistent beggars, they soon passed into the square that surrounded Kuto’s Well. There was no sign of movement as they entered the ramshackle gateway, and they proceeded quietly past the buildings that lined the large square.

Shal mentally ran through the spells she had memorized that morning. She could feel the hairs on her neck bristle with the sense that they were being watched, and she could tell from Tarl’s tightening grip on her waist that he felt it, too. Ren drew out one of his short swords, and Tarl pulled his hammer from his belt. Behind them rose a loud squeal, and Cerulean instinctively spun around to face the sound. From the other direction came the unmistakable snorts and squeals of orcs. Cerulean spun again, positioning himself and his riders halfway between the two sounds, then backed toward the center of the square. Ren jerked the mare’s reins and followed.

Six orcs, all at least six feet tall where their mangy, manlike shoulders met their piglike heads, emerged from two shabby buildings, wielding clubs and axes and closing in on the three riders.

“Get ’em!” Ren hissed, shifting his weight in the saddle and extending his sword.

“No! Talk to them!” said Tarl firmly. “They must know they’re no match for the three of us. We’ll be able to find out more by talking.”

The orcs pressed forward, shouting in their own crude language of grunts and snorts.

Ren glanced at Tarl as though his head were on backward, but when the orcs came closer, he started to speak first in broken orcish and then in thieves’ cant, which they appeared to understand. “Stop right there,” Ren threatened, “or we’ll bash your heads in!”

The creatures stopped but continued to snort and snuffle and brandish their weapons.

“We’re passing through this way. We don’t want trouble,” Ren continued.

“We kill! No trouble!” grunted the orc closest to Ren.

Ren pointed his short sword at the big orc and said, “I kill you, even less trouble.” Ren bared his teeth and clicked his tongue, readying the mare for a charge.

“We no kill! We no kill!” the ore snorted in panic. “Others kill. You worth much gold.”

Ren rushed the orc and grabbed it by the neck from behind. Then he pulled his blade high and tight under its neck. “Come again?”

“You same party open up Sokol Keep. Lord of the Ruins want you dead. Offer much gold for your heads. We not take. Others take!”

Ren glanced at Shal and Tarl, who were staring uncomprehendingly at the strange exchange. Ren repeated an abridged version of the conversation to them, then pushed the orc away with the flat of his blade. “Leave us alone and we don’t kill you. Touch us or send an alarm, and you die. All of you!” Ren bluffed a charge toward one group, and Shal and Tarl took the cue and charged a short distance toward the other. The orcs fled like kicked dogs into the surrounding buildings.

“They’ll alert every orc in the old city the minute we leave,” said Ren. “And with a price on our heads, you can bet they’ll find enough friends to come back and try again. The only reason they didn’t fight now is that they were scared to death. You can imagine how it must’ve sounded to them when they heard we had handled fifty or so orcs, goblins, and kobolds at Sokol Keep. Even a reward wasn’t tempting enough for just six of them to risk a fight.”

“I’m not waiting around to be fodder for a bunch of orcs,” Shal said. “Let’s get to the Cadorna place and find what we came for.” She spurred Cerulean ahead across the widest portion of the square, past the well site, and across to the opposite gateway.

Ren reined his mare up beside her and cautioned Shal as they reached the gateway. “We’ll find that half-gnoll, if there is such a creature, and we’ll find Cadorna’s treasure, if it exists. In the meantime, we need to move quietly and keep our ears and eyes open.”

“He’s right, Shal,” said Tarl. “Like it or not, the three of us are wanted by the Lord of the Ruins for what we did at Sokol Keep. We’ve got to be ready for anything from these creatures. There’s no sense in announcing we’re coming.”

Shal nodded and made sure Cerulean, too, understood the need for stealth. They passed silently into a portion of the old city that had once served as quarters for scholars. Every city of any size had such a place, but the extent of this one made Shal and the others realize how great a city Phlan must once have been. Small tutorial houses lined one entire wall of the immense square. Students trying to keep up with their studies must have spent countless hours in this place, grilling with other aspiring scholars in an attempt to pass the tests that allowed them to enter their chosen professions. Large schools, colleges, and trade houses filled one whole side of the square. At the center stood a huge building, lined with shuttered windows, only its roof damaged from dragon fire. The design of the building reminded Shal of other libraries she had seen, and there was little doubt that the building was in fact a library, but it was much bigger than the ones in either Arabel or even Suzail, the capital city of Cormyr.

Shal halted for a moment, tempted to explore the tremendous archives that remained within the great building. She knew that Tarl shared her fascination with books and scrolls. Who could tell what secrets might lie within those dusty tomes?

When she mentioned it, Ren stared at her in exasperation. “You’re the ones who have business in the textile house,” he said in a hushed, taut voice. “I haven’t had occasion to steal many books in my time, but I’d be willing to bet there’s some creature lurking among the shelves who’d make mincemeat of you in a second.”

Shal nodded reluctantly, and they continued on, their horses’ hooves barely a whisper on the dry, dusty earth of the streets. When they got closer to the wall that, according to the map, separated the scholars’ square from the ruins of the Cadorna textile complex, Ren reined the mare in behind some sort of school building and signaled for Shal to follow. Ren dismounted and tethered the mare. Shal and Tarl followed suit. Then Shal ordered Cerulean into the Cloth of Many Pockets.

The wall around the textile house showed signs of gnoll habitation. It was fortified with a tall, makeshift log stockade, with jerry-built towers protruding above the logs here and there. Spikes were pounded into the top of the logs that made up the wooden gate, and an assortment of heads in various stages of decay were skewered onto the spikes. Ren pointed toward the guards manning the towers and then whispered to Shal and Tarl. “Gnolls guard everything, but they’re terrible at it. When they aren’t sleeping, they aren’t paying attention, either. Remember, if we should have to fight them, they’re incredibly stupid. They’ll line up like toy soldiers before they attack. Just be careful not to get in the way of one of their clubs. They pack a mean swing.” He pointed at the ghoulish display of heads. “It’s surprising any of those heads are still in one piece.”

“What about the half-gnoll leader?” Shal asked.

“If there is such a monster, he might have enough brains and influence to organize their attacks.” Ren looked at Tarl. “I don’t go for yacking with orcs to get out of a fight, but fighting with gnolls can normally be avoided just by working quietly.”

Ren led them to a point between two guard stations. Then he tossed up his hook and rope, and climbed up for a look. The setup looked perfect. A rooftop sloped down from just below the wall, nearly to the ground. He motioned for Shal and Tarl to follow, then slipped silently over the top. Shal hoisted herself up with an ease that belied her size and for just a moment was thankful for the dignity of not being helpless.

Tarl followed, but halfway up the rope, he stopped and plastered himself tight against the wall. The gnolls in the tower to their right were stirring, and one was looking his way. He couldn’t know that the uneven rooftop where Ren and Shal were concealed housed the mess where the next exchange of guards was finishing up their meal and getting ready for duty. Nor did Tarl know that, even if the gnolls had seen him pressed flat against the stockade, they would have been much more interested in lunch. Tarl clung to the rope, unmoving, till his arms ached. When finally the two tower guards lumbered down the ladder, not even waiting for their replacements, Tarl could barely haul himself up.

“What took you so long?” Ren hissed. Tarl just shook his head. “See that double chimney?” Ren whispered, pointing. He flared his nostrils and sniffed, a look of revulsion spreading over his face. “We’re on top of their mess hall. There’s bound to be gnolls inside, so move slowly and quietly. Taking his own advice, he slipped gently down from the roof to a small catwalk between two buildings. Like everything he was able to see from the rooftop, the catwalk was littered with rubbish. Ren helped Shal and Tarl ease their way down, and then he made his way carefully through the piles of refuse.

“If that map was accurate, one of those buildings over there should contain the bedroom we’re looking for.” Ren pointed across the littered courtyard, where three sentries were dozing with their backs against a timber frame complete with shackles and nails for holding and tormenting prisoners, of which there were none at the moment. “Gnoll justice,” Ren whispered with a sneer.

And then he saw the garden. The map had it marked “cook’s garden,” but instead of herbs and vegetables, there was only corruption and despoilment. Twisted, cracked plants, identifiable as cabbage only because of the color and vaguely overlapping leaves, sapped the soil in one corner of the garden. A tangle of brown, contorted vines, abominable mockeries of thyme and spearmint and other herbs, blighted another. Raised and trained as a ranger, Ren admired natural beauty above all else. The sight of the gnolls’ crude and intentionally vile parody of a garden caused something to snap inside of Ren. It was as though the defiled garden somehow signified the corruption that had led to Tempest’s death. What was wrong with the assassin was the same thing that was wrong with this garden, was wrong with the gnolls that planted and neglected it. Ren was filled with rage of an intensity he hadn’t known since Tempest’s death.

“Look at that!” he said, pointing, fury contorting his face, and then louder, “It’s sick! It’s sick, like everything else in this parody of a world!”

Tarl could appreciate that the garden looked strange, ugly even, and Shal recognized that all of the plants were distorted, but when Ren stalked off toward the nearest open door, they had to assume that he had seen something they didn’t. In his rage, he moved with a speed they couldn’t match.

When they slipped through the doorway behind him, Ren had already crossed the room to the other side of an elaborate set of yellow curtains. He was in the process of strangling a robed gnoll in the crook of his big right arm. With his left hand, he clasped the creature’s hyena jaws so tightly that it couldn’t even scream. At the same time, he mashed the monster’s body downward so it couldn’t flail or struggle. They watched in awe as the body quivered one last time, and Ren silently lowered it to the floor.

Before they had time to react, Ren had passed between two incense stands and through a second yellow curtain and was slitting the throat of another one of the gangling hyena-men. As with the first, he muzzled it, then forced it to the floor so it made less sound in death than it had in life. Shal and Tarl stood dumbstruck. Having no idea what had caused such rage to possess their companion, they followed mutely and watched as he passed through yet another yellow curtain and dispatched a third robed gnoll in a similar fashion.

It wasn’t until Ren had slipped through the fourth curtain that he finally stopped short, and so did Tarl and Shal when they entered the cavernous golden room. Four more robed gnollish priests were kneeling before the dais of a shrine. A fifth, more elaborately attired, stood behind the shrine grunting an incantation over and over, which Ren realized was the same he had heard at Sokol Keep: “Power to the pool! Power to the pool!”

When the fifth figure, who was apparently the head priest, first saw the three, he stood stock-still for a moment, uncomprehending. Then he let out a squeal of warning to the others. The four scrambled to their feet and turned with surprising alacrity for creatures of their awkward proportions. Each produced a short, contorted staff, almost like a cudgel. Their faces were strangely pinched and yellow, almost jaundiced-looking. But their yellow eyes gleamed with fervor, and they charged forward with the conviction of religious fanatics, snorting monosyllabic gnollish equivalents of words like “infidel” and “heretic.”

The burst of crazed anger that had propelled Ren past the first three gnolls was spent as quickly as it had come, but as the snarling, slavering gnolls pressed closer, it returned. Ren rushed the nearest attacker, both short swords drawn. Confronted with a form of worship more corrupt than any he had imagined possible, Tarl responded with a pent-up rage of his own, meeting the swinging club of one gnoll with his shield and slamming another with the broad side of the hammer he had recovered from Sokol Keep.

Shal shared neither man’s sense of purpose. She called for her staff out of fear and used it only when the fourth gnoll crashed through the melee and toward her. Hell-bent on claiming the life of an infidel, the gangling creature charged forward, oblivious to Shal’s extended staff. Even after it impaled itself, it continued to press forward, jaws snapping, club flailing, a yellow glaze burning in its eyes. It wasn’t until the gnoll had pushed forward almost the length of the staff, its entrails pushing out behind it, that it finally jerked in the spasms of death. Shal had never once even moved. Slowly the gnoll’s dead weight pulled the staff to the ground, and the monster started to slide back down the length of the staff. Shal dropped to her knees and covered her mouth to keep from gagging. Only when she heard Ren’s voice saying something in the guttural language of the humanoids did she collect the wherewithal to pull her staff from the body of the dead gnoll.

The three other priests lay dead not far away. Tarl was holding the high priest in a hammerlock while Ren asked it questions. Shal stepped past the bodies and walked numbly toward the shrine. An upside-down T shape, the altar stood a little taller than waist-high. Its mahogany surface was polished to a sheen that struck Shal as highly unusual among the disgustingly dirty gnolls. At the crux of the T was a rounded gray mound. On either side of the altar stood embossed silver chalices, the work of dwarves, if Shal was any judge, but they were dark with rust and somehow corrupt in appearance. At first Shal couldn’t grasp what made such carefully and ornately ornamented pieces seem repugnant, but as she came closer to one of them, she realized what was wrong. Its surface was covered with the contorted faces of the benevolent gods. The faces were those of the same gods carved in relief on Shal’s Staff of Power, but like everything else in the gnoll village, they represented a grotesque permutation of what was natural and beautiful. In a subtly gruesome way, the chalice made a mockery of the staff Shal carried and of everything that was good in the Realms.

She started to reach forward to dash the hideous piece and its companion to the floor, but then she stopped short. The dreadful stink of rancid meat bit into her nostrils before she could lay a hand on the chalice. Mixed with it was the sickening sweet smell of blood, and she saw now, with shock, that the gray lump she had seen earlier was actually the days-old head of a human being, its skin livid and its eyes bulging as if from strangulation. The body stretched out behind it, excoriated as if from repeated blows with some heavy, abrasive object.

Shal slapped one hand to her mouth and drew the other tight against her abdomen to stave off the new wave of nausea that gripped her. Through clenched teeth, she stifled what would otherwise have been an earsplitting scream of horror and revulsion. Unconsciously she tipped her head back, as if that would clear her nose of the fetid stench. When it didn’t help, she lurched forward wildly, slamming the gore-filled chalice nearest to her with the back of her hand and coming back deftly with her forehand to smash the other one. Blood splattered everywhere as the two chalices rocketed end-over-end into the golden walls on either side of the great room.

The captured priest shrieked hysterically and struggled in vain to free himself from Tarl’s viselike grip. “No blood, no power! No blood, no power!” Again and again he repeated the pained cry, failing to stop even when Ren backhanded him hard against his hyena jaws.

“Animal!” Shal screamed, her rage driving her voice to a level loud enough to be heard over the shrieking gnoll. “Animal!” she shouted once more, moving deliberately around the altar, her large hands outstretched toward the creature’s throat.

“No! Stop!” Tarl pushed the gnoll to the floor with one hand and held out the other to stop Shal. “He’s an abomination, and deserves to die, but we must not kill him.”

Shal screamed through her teeth again, then dropped to her knees and pointed up at the altar. When Tarl saw what he had not seen before, he began to pummel the groveling gnoll with his fists. Despite his outrage, he shouted: “We must not kill him! Not yet!”

“That’s right, Tarl … not yet,” Ren said, getting a hold on the gnoll and pushing Tarl gently away. “Both of you, take a few minutes to compose yourselves. I’ll take care of him.”

Tarl dropped down beside Shal and slipped an arm around her. Together they knelt, sobbing tearlessly as they stared at the appalling wreckage of a human being that lay on the altar before them. Tarl uttered a prayer to Tyr to put the unknown soul to rest.

Just then a piercing voice penetrated Shal’s consciousness. A cloth would cover the poor soul’s eyes, Mistress.

Yes, it would. Thank you, Shal thought silently. She called forth a cloth from her Cloth of Many Pockets, then covered the head and body beneath its rich violet folds. Tarl murmured one last prayer and stood beside her.

“Look there,” said Shal, pointing. Beyond the body, at the foot of the T-shaped altar, was a painstakingly detailed diorama of a scene so lifelike that Shal thought if she blinked she might become part of it. A sculpted wall of golden stone rose up like a backdrop for the scene, making it clear that the diorama’s setting was a cave, a mammoth cave with an airy, vaulted ceiling. A perfectly crescent-shaped pool, with waters that reflected off polished surfaces, was the focal point of the miniature scene. Centered along the inside curve of the crescent was an elegantly simple, raised hexagon, with tiny blue gems glittering from four of its six points. The hexagon looked pitiful and incomplete, like a once-magnificent broach with only empty sockets where gemstones should be. Though no more than two fingers wide, the hexagon, with its two missing gems, detracted from the perfection of the entire scene. Perhaps it was Shal’s imagination, but the glistening golden waters of the crescent even seemed at their darkest near the six-sided mounting.

Centered along the outside curve of the crescent was a tiny replica of the T-shaped altar. On it was a minute fountain that was spewing blood-red fluid into the pool. Where the dark fluid hit the golden waters, the pool should have been ocher or orange, but instead it radiated a staggeringly brilliant yellow gold. Like staring into the sun, it caused pain merely to look upon it.

“The focus of the shrine,” said Tarl, explaining the diorama. “It’s a replica of a sacred place—or at least a place sacred to the gnolls.”

“ ‘The Pool of Radiance,’ this guy calls it,” said Ren, moving closer to the altar, the yellow-faced gnoll still in the crook of his elbow. “He says they have to keep up a steady supply of sacrifices to keep the pool yellow and the Lord of the Ruins happy.”

“Sacrifices? This is worse than a sacrifice,” said Shal, pointing at the body that lay under the purple cloth.

“I’m afraid that’s probably the gnoll version of a pretty gruesome practice,” said Ren. “I don’t have any love for orcs or kobolds, but if they have similar altars, you’ll find equally dead bodies but less gruesome.”

Tarl’s face paled visibly, and his hands clutched the edge of the wooden altar. His usually clear, deep voice tremored noticeably as he spoke. “You don’t mean to suggest there are more altars like this? More of these sites of abomination?”

“I’m sorry,” said Ren. “But this priest says it was all done for the Lord of the Ruins. As I understand it, all the creatures in the uncivilized parts of the city worship him.”

“Worship?” Tarl spat and shook his hands as if to shake off some clinging coat of slime. “Worship a creature that is not of the gods? A creature that demands blood sacrifices? What powers does this abominable beast possess that it can demand such horrors?”