Pool of Twilight

2

Weighted down by his heavy armor, Kern hurriedly descended the tower's central staircase. As a paladin-aspirant, tradition required that he don full armor before visiting the temple of Tyr. That included a heavy shirt of chain mail, a breastplate of beaten steel, and greaves to match. Over this he wore the tabard of pure, unblemished white that marked him as a supplicant to the Order of Paladins. At his side hung the worn battlehammer he used for practice.

He tried to adjust his heavy chain mail shirt, but no matter how much he jerked and twisted, the armor still seemed to pinch him under the arms. He found Tarl already waiting for him downstairs, Shal at his side. The two were in the middle of an intent conversation, which was broken off abruptly when Kern entered the room.

Before he could wonder what they had been discussing, Tarl spoke exuberantly.

"The temple's sages have been trying to solve the riddle of the hammer for twenty-two years. Are you as curious as I am, Son, to learn if they have discovered an answer at last?"

Kern nodded. "I'm ready, Father."

"And so am I," a sparkling voice said behind Kern.

He whirled just in time to see Listle step blithely through a wall of solid stone, the ruby pendant she always wore winking brightly.

"Must you do that?" the young warrior asked with a frown.

"Must I do what, Kern?" the elf replied innocently.

Kern gritted his teeth, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of a reply. Listle had the disconcerting habit of stepping through walls and other seemingly solid objects when one least expected it. Shal considered the elf's ability to pass through solid matter a magical curiosity. Kern just considered it a nuisance. He stepped forward, opening the tower's door.

"Be careful," Shal admonished them, her eyes grim. "Remember, Phlan isn't the safe haven it used to be."

The three promised to be cautious and stepped outside.

Denlor's Tower stood on the north edge of Phlan, but the temple of Tyr was located in the central city, so they had a fair distance to walk. It was a chill, gray day. Autumn had arrived early, and winter also promised to be premature. Lately, when Kern looked out of his chamber's window in the morning, he could see a thin white line of ice where the steely waters of the Moonsea met the beach.

Kern firmly gripped Tarl's elbow, guiding his blind father, while Listle bounded ahead with her typical ebullience. They turned onto a narrow street, and the comforting sight of Denlor's Tower was lost from view. Shal had been right to caution them to take care, Kern thought to himself. Over the last several years, Phlan had undergone a steady decline. Everyone knew the mysterious malaise was due to the growing crisis of the lost relic. As surely as the clerics of Tyr were dying, so was Phlan, street by street and person by person.

In Kern's childhood memories, Phlan had been a city of broad, tree-lined avenues, neatly kept stone cottages, and broad cobbled squares centered around clear-water fountains. The Phlan of today was starkly different. Dark, sour-smelling water ran down the center of most streets, their cobblestones cracked and covered with refuse and slime. In places the cobbles were gone altogether, leaving gaping holes filled with foul-smelling muck churned up by the hooves of horses. The trees that arched over the avenues were dead, their brittle branches sagging down like skeletal fingers. Brick smokestacks belched forth black, sulfurous clouds that stained the sky above, turning its once bright azure to an angry iron gray. Now when it rained in Phlan, the rain was gritty and dark, the color of ashes.

As they walked, Kern noted that the houses slumping to either side of the avenue were squalid and filthy. Hard-faced women dumped their dirty dishwater out of second-story windows, heedless of who might be walking below. Shifty-eyed men clad in mud-stained tunics congregated in the doorways of abandoned buildings, watching travelers pass, now and then baring yellowed teeth in smiles that were anything but neighborly. Kern did his best to steer clear.

"Tell me truthfully, Kern," Tarl said as the three of them walked. "How does the city look?"

On his honor, Kern could not lie, though his heart was heavy. He knew how much the city meant to his father. "Worse," the young warrior said sadly. "With all the soot and shadows, it looks more like twilight than midday." He gave wide berth to a tattered pile of refuse lying in the gutter only to realize that it was a corpse, half-eaten by rats, with a rusted knife sticking out of its back. He muttered a quick prayer to Tyr as he hastened past, glad Tarl could not see the foul sight.

A scream echoed in the distance, a man's wordless cry of agony. Abruptly, it was cut short. Wicked laughter drifted down from open windows above, followed by the sound of men fighting. Coarse voices shouted curses so vile they made Kern's ears turn red. None of this, however, seemed to bother Listle, who scampered cheerfully along.

Tarl shook his head ruefully. "This is a dark time, Kern. I'm sorry you've had to grow to manhood during these last years. And I'm sorry that you have come to stay with us at such a black time in Phlan's history, Listle Onopordum. Without the hammer, the temple of Tyr is losing its power. And without the temple, the city will lose its way."

A group of beggars shuffled by, swathed in rancid-smelling rags. Quickly Kern reached for the leather purse at his belt. He distributed what money he had, but there were more hands than coins. The beggars trudged on without a word of gratitude, their listless expressions unchanged. A putrid odor lingered in their wake, the scent of rot and death.

"Why don't the people of Phlan fight to win their city back?" Listle asked. The elf stepped nimbly over an oozing pile of garbage, shaking her head in disgust. "I thought the citizens of Phlan were supposed to be some of the greatest fighters in Faerun. They've been attacked by armies of evil countless times over the centuries-from goblins and orcs to trolls and giants-and never once has the city been defeated. Now it looks as if the Death Gates are going to collapse simply out of neglect. The next army of ogres won't even have to bother breaking them down."

Kern shuddered at the thought.

"We can't blame the people of Phlan for being led astray, Listle," Tarl said reprovingly. "It isn't their fault. The influence of dark magic is everywhere now. I can feel it in my heart like a great black weight. Without the hammer, the clerics of Tyr no longer have the power to protect the people from evil or to banish the darkness from the city. But we should not despair. There are still a few folk in the city who seek the light and ask for the blessing of Tyr. Let us just hope that Patriarch Anton and the others have not solved Bane's riddle too late. If the Hammer of Tyr can be found, the city might yet be saved."

Looking at the grim scene around him, Kern was not so sure. He kept his free hand on the frayed leather grip of his battlehammer as they pressed on.

"By the way, Kern," Tarl continued, "don't let me forget to tell Patriarch Anton about this trait of yours, this unmagic as your mother calls it. I confess, I often wondered why I was never able to catch the slightest glimpse of you, even after placing that enchantment on your armor. Now it appears I have an explanation."

Despite his blindness, Tarl had the peculiar ability to "see" magic. It was a talent that had developed gradually over the last several years. At first, Tarl had only been able to detect a faint glow each time Shal cast a spell near him. Eventually, he began to see magical auras as glowing clouds of light. Now his talent had grown to the point where he could not only detect all sorts of magical energies, he could discern their true natures as well.

So, Kern realized with a start, because of his magical resistance he would always remain invisible to his father. That saddened the young paladin. He gripped Tarl's arm more tightly.

A sly look touched the cleric's face then. "Listle, of course, glows with such a brilliant silver color that I can hardly bear to look at her sometimes. Though the hue is exceedingly lovely, of course."

"Why thank you, Tarl," Listle replied, positively beaming. "That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

The trio passed an unsavory-looking tavern, a place by the cheery name of The Bloated Corpse, if Kern read the peeling, weatherworn sign correctly. Raucous laughter drifted through the portal, along with the stench of cheap ale and blood.

"Next time, dog, if you can't pay with gold, you can pay with your ears instead!" a coarse voice bellowed from inside the place.

Abruptly a small, scroungy man came flying out of the doorway, landing in a heap right at Kern's feet. The young warrior nearly fell backward in an effort not to collide with him. Kern recovered his balance, then reached down to help the man, a mangy, cross-eyed fellow with a face like a rat's, to his feet. He gazed at Kern with an expression of abject terror.

"Are you all right?" Kern asked him.

"By all the bloody gods of darkness, leave me be!" the scrawny man squealed. He squirmed from Kern's grip and dashed away, disappearing down a side alley.

Kern stared in shock. He had never before heard the gods of evil invoked in Phlan.

"Pleasant fellow," Listle noted dryly.

Kern shook his head. "I was only trying to help."

"You can't help him," spoke a husky voice. Kern spun in surprise to see a barmaid leaning against the tavern's doorway. "He sold himself to the gods of evil a long time ago," the woman went on with a hoarse, throaty laugh. "Now he has nothing left to sell to pay off his gambling debts." The barmaid might have been pretty once, but her weary face was smeared with dirt, and the grimy bodice of the ragged gray dress she wore had slipped disconcertingly low.

"I'm sorry," was all Kern could think to say.

The woman eyed him calculatingly. "Well, if you're so interested in helping someone," she crooned, advancing on him, "perhaps you could help me, my handsome warrior."

Listle glared at her. "Come on, Kern, let's get out of here." The elf jerked his arm viciously. Kern and Tarl were practically dragged down the street by the sorceress's apprentice. "I don't think you'd want to give her the kind of 'help' she's looking for."

Kern heard the barmaid cackle behind him, but there was no mirth in the sound.

"Listen to your little friend, warrior!" the woman called after him. "You'd better hurry on to your precious temple. This part of town is no place for the pure of heart. Then again, no part of this town is anymore!"

The three hurried on. Tarl had fallen silent, a pained expression on his face. The city's degeneration wounded the cleric of Tyr deeply.

Finally the thick stone walls of the temple of Tyr hove into view. The massive temple was a welcome sight. It had been built several decades ago, the first step in an attempt to reclaim and civilize the monster-infested ruins that in those days was Phlan. As such, it was as much a citadel as temple. The high stone walls were dotted with arrow slits and topped by machicolations, openings located beneath the wall's crenelations through which hot pitch or other unpleasant substances could be rained down onto attackers. Behind the walls rose the bulk of the temple, a square, utilitarian building of dark stone topped by a single gleaming dome of bronze. Kern allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief as he led the way toward the temple's gates.

Suddenly, four raggedly clad men stumbled out from a side alley. They were laughing coarsely, as if they had just shared a particularly bawdy joke. The men lurched directly in Kern's path. Their laughter vanished in a heartbeat, along with their drunken manner. All four were sober and quite well armed.

A big shaggy man with one eye leveled a rusted broadsword at Kern. "Give us all your gold, boy, and maybe you and your mates here will keep your heads."

Kern moved swiftly in front of Listle to protect her, hefting his battlehammer.

"Kern," the elf hissed in annoyance, "it's nice that you're such a gentleman, but I can't cast a spell if you're blocking my view."

"Looky here," sneered another of the robbers with a leer. "The puppy in the armor has a hammer. Maybe he wants us to use it to pound in some coffin nails."

Kern raised his weapon, inwardly calling upon Tyr for strength. Four to one were bad odds, but he had to do his best to protect Listle and Tarl.

Before Kern could act, Tarl stepped past him.

"Why don't you try me first, ruffian?" Tarl taunted in his booming voice. "Being blind, I can't imagine I'd be much of a challenge for you." Kern stared at his father in horror.

The leader of the cutthroats laughed. "Suit yourself, old man." The robber raised his rusty sword.

With astonishing swiftness, Tarl reached out and grabbed the robber's hand. Deftly, the blind cleric twisted the man's arm behind him. The sword clattered to the cobblestones. Tarl gave a quick jerk and was rewarded with a sharp snap. The robber screamed in agony and slumped to the street, cradling his broken arm. A fierce grin broke across Tarl's face.

"Next?" the white-haired cleric of Tyr inquired.

Apparently there was some confusion as to whose turn it was, for the remaining robbers collided with each other as they swiftly turned tail in order to flee.

"Hey, wait for me!" their leader cried out with anguish, scrambling to his feet to hurry after his confederates.

" 'Old man' indeed!" Tarl snorted, flexing his powerful shoulders. "I don't need eyes to deal with curs like that. My nose works well enough. I don't think that fellow has ever heard of the adage 'cleanliness is next to holiness.' "

Kern gazed at his father with pride. Sighted or not, Tarl was not a man to be trifled with.

They reached the temple's gates without further incident. Two fully armored clerics standing guard allowed them to pass, and they crossed a vast courtyard to the temple proper.

A dozen marble columns supported a facade which was carved with friezes depicting a stern-faced Tyr. The god, who was missing his right hand, was dispensing justice to figures that knelt before him. The pleas of some were answered with riches, those of others with jagged lightning bolts.

"Tyr's a rather gloomy-looking fellow, isn't he?" Listle noted apprehensively as they ascended the temple's steps.

"He's the God of Justice, Listle," Kern replied in annoyance. "Somehow I don't think it would have the same impact on the unjust if he were a kindly old man with a sweet smile and pockets full of candy."

"Maybe not," Listle agreed. "But then, I'm all in favor of candy."

The three passed through a columned portico and found themselves beneath the temple's bronze-gilded dome in a great circular hall of gray stone. The floor was decorated with an intricate mosaic depicting Tyr's symbol: scales resting on a warhammer, with which Tyr weighed the arguments for and against those seeking redemption.

"Tarl!" a deep voice boomed, resounding off the soaring andesite vaults. A burly cleric, with a grizzled, iron-colored beard and wearing a traditional white robe, came striding across the room. "I'm glad you could be here on this auspicious day, Brother." Patriarch Anton, oldest and foremost of the temple's clerics, gripped Tarl's forearms warmly. "You also, Kern. I'm sure you will want to-"

"Ahem. Aren't you forgetting someone, Patriarch Anton?" Listle piped up.

Anton glowered darkly at being interrupted, but after Listle shot a winning smile at the old patriarch, he let out a rumbling laugh despite himself. It was the elf's dimples, of course. It was impossible to be angry at someone with dimples, and Listle's were superior examples. They allowed her to get away with all sorts of impertinences.

"Yes, Listle Onopordum, you are welcome as well," Anton rumbled amiably. "Though I wonder if I would be able to keep you away even if you were not."

Listle thought about that for a moment. "Probably not," she decided.

The patriarch led the three to a group of white-robed clerics clustered about a long mahogany table. It looked as if all the temple's clerics were there, about thirty altogether. Five years ago there would have been three score clerics and a half-dozen young men and women besides Kern wearing the white tabard of the paladin-aspirant. Few new disciples had taken the places of the clerics of Tyr who had been struck down, one by one, over these last years.

"This way, Brother Tarl." Anton led the blind cleric to the table. "Come, hear what we've learned."

In the center of the table, a huge book rested on a cushion of black velvet. Kern had seen it on several prior occasions: a tome five handspans across, bound in the dusky, scaly leather of some unnameable beast. Within its crackling pages of ancient, yellowed parchment were thirteen terrible prophecies written by the dark god Bane himself over a thousand years ago. Its pages foretold in horrible detail some of the suffering and misery that Bane would bring to Faerun. Kern had heard the story of the book, called The Oracle of Strife, and how it came to the temple, many times.

Legend held that long, long ago, the god Bane wished to know how much of the world would one day fall under his evil dominion. He went to his wicked sister, the goddess Shar, mistress of the dark. Shar concocted a potion from the fabric of midnight, the very moment of time between one day and the next, when magic is at its most powerful and the future most easily deciphered. Bane drank the potion, but such was its power that the god was plunged into a delirium. It was in this fevered state that Bane penned the thirteen prophecies included in The Oracle of Strife.

For long centuries, the book was lost to the world. Then, some three hundred years ago, an itinerant cleric of Tyr happened upon the tome in the ruins of a temple of Bane deep in the primeval forests west of the Moonsea. Eventually the book was delivered to the custodianship of the temple of Tyr in Phlan. It was a relic of fearsome evil, and the clerics locked it away under powerful wards to keep it out of the hands of those with sinister intentions.

During the last century, the book had been all but forgotten. But after Bane had heinously usurped the Hammer of Tyr, one of the temple's sages remembered the tome. The book was brought out for study. It was then that the temple's sages discovered that one of the thirteen prophecies concerned the theft of the hammer as well as its subsequent hiding place. After that, long, frustrating years of studying the prophecy ensued. Years that- apparently-had now finally come to an end.

"It was only recently we realized that not all of the prophecies in the tome pleased Bane," Patriarch Anton explained. His gaze moved to a wizened woman with eyes as dark and shining as obsidian. "Why don't you tell them what you have learned, Sister Sendara?" Sendara was the temple's auguress, and an expert on the matter of prophecy.

The ancient cleric nodded. "The key lies in the Time of Troubles," Sendara began. "It has been thirteen years now since that great conflagration shook Faerun, when Bane was destroyed, along with his brethren, the dark gods Myrkul and Bhaal. I now have reason to believe that Bane predicted his own demise in The Oracle of Strife."

A murmur of surprise rippled about the table.

Sendara continued in her rich, strong voice. "As we know, Bane was in a deep trance when he penned the prophecies. I think it is conceivable that he had no control over what emerged. Thus it was that he could not help but foresee his failures as well as his victories. Everyone who has studied the tome knows that the last prophecy is almost illegible. It looks as if Bane crossed it out in anger after he recovered from his delirium. I had always assumed that it was simply because he wasn't pleased with his poetic achievement on that one." Sendara gave a sharp-edged smile. "Bane was quite puffed-up about his poetry, despite the fact that it's dreadful stuff. But from the few words I am able to decipher, I feel certain that this prophecy concerns Bane's downfall. Apparently that is why he tried to deface it. Bane thought if he obscured the prophecy, such a fated thing wouldn't come to pass."

"He was very wrong about that!" Listle whispered to Kern with a snort.

"Hush!" he hissed back, elbowing her for emphasis.

Brother Dameron, a young, round-faced cleric with a rather expansive paunch, joined in the explanation. "Sister Sendara's insights gave me an idea," he told the others. "If Bane had attempted to deface one prophecy that displeased him, wouldn't he have tried the same with others? Perhaps he might even have changed small details that annoyed him. To answer that query, I performed a modest experiment on the prophecy concerning the hammer."

Here Brother Dameron reached out and opened the book on the table to a place marked by a black silk ribbon. Kern noticed that silver holy symbols stood at each corner of the table-wards to keep the evil of the book from tainting those who studied it. Dameron turned to the last page of the prophecy of the hammer.

"If you look very closely, you can just make out a series of fine scratch marks in the parchment, along with a few tiny flecks of ink. They're so faint we did not notice them earlier. Now that I've studied it, there's no mistaking the conclusion." The sage paused dramatically. "Several lines have been scoured from the parchment with erasing sand. There's no reason to believe that it was anyone but Bane himself who did this. And that means the missing lines must say something Bane did not want revealed."

"The hiding place of the Hammer of Tyr?" Tarl asked intently.

"Exactly."

Caught up in the excitement, Kern blurted out without thinking, "But if Bane scrubbed out the lines a thousand years ago, how can we use them to learn where he hid the hammer?"

Immediately Kern realized that he, a mere paladin-aspirant, had interrupted one of the temple's most august clerics. His cheeks flushed crimson.

"I think Brother Dameron has found a solution to that dilemma, my impatient young paladin." There was a note of kindly humor in Anton's voice. "If, of course, you would be so good as to permit him the opportunity to indulge us with the news."

"Of course," Kern managed to sputter despite his mortification. Listle glanced at him smugly.

"Thank you," Dameron said, winking at Kern. He drew a small jar from his pocket. Unstoppering it, he took out a pinch of colorless powder and sprinkled it carefully over the page. Gradually, a faint shine began to creep across the cracked and yellowed parchment. The shimmering grew brighter, forming spidery lines and swirling whorls. Kern gasped. The magical glow had outlined a dozen lines of cryptic-looking runes.

"Bane erased the true ending of the prophecy," Dameron explained. "But as any apprentice scribe copying tomes for his or her master knows, no matter how hard one scours, traces of ink always remain on the paper."

Listle grimaced, nodding. Shal was always giving her stacks of magical books to copy, and the elf's mistress was nothing less than a perfectionist. A stray drop of ink usually meant she had to recopy the entire page.

"The powder I sprinkled on the parchment causes those remaining, almost invisible, flecks of ink to glimmer," Dameron concluded. "And thus we are able to read a part of the prophecy we never knew existed."

"I, too, can read it!" Tarl said in wonderment. Kern looked at his father in surprise. Then he understood. The runes on the page were glowing with magical light. They would be vivid to his father.

"The language is archaic." Tarl's pale eyebrows knitted together as he studied the tome intently. "And you're right, Sendara, the verse is atrocious. But I think I can translate it:

When winter comes with magic wild,

Then must the Seeker go

To a riven tower of magic red,

Where a city was shackled below.

With him must come four heroes,

No less and neither no more

To battle the lurking Warder

For this relic of ancient lore.

Though dark may fall before them,

Their strife has just begun,

For awaiting them still is the twilight pool's

Shadowed guardian."

Tarl looked up from his reading in surprise. "It makes reference to the ruins of the red tower, yes? Where the Red Wizard Marcus imprisoned the city of Phlan twenty-two years ago."

Patriarch Anton nodded, scratching his grizzled gray beard. "That's what we infer. And what's more, this year, in the reckoning of the kings of Cormyr, is the Year of Wild Magic. The prophecy is clear on this point. If we are ever going to retrieve the hammer, it must be now."

Kern looked at Listle excitedly, forgetting her annoying habits for the moment. She returned his look with eagerness.

Tarl drew himself up to his full height. "Then may I formally remind my brothers and sisters of the prophecy of Miltiades, that most noble of Tyr's paladins?"

Murmurs of ascent followed Tarl's request Kern wondered what his father was referring to. All he knew was that Miltiades was a legendary paladin Tyr had once raised from the grave to help save Phlan.

"Before Miltiades was called back to Tyr's halls, he spoke of one destined to be called Hammerseeker."

Kern leaned forward, anxious to hear the lucky cleric's name.

"And who is to be the Hammerseeker?" Patriarch Anton intoned ceremoniously.

Tarl drew in a deep breath. "The name of the Hammerseeker is Kern Miltiades Desanea!" His deep voice reverberated about the temple.

Listle's silvery eyes nearly popped out of her head.

Tarl smiled proudly at his son.

Kern gaped at his father in utter astonishment as all eyes turned expectantly toward him.

"Who?" he blurted in an unexpectedly squeaky voice. "Me?"