The Bloody Eye

20

Calmet's sing-song chant echoed as he spread mud along the back wall of the tunnel and felt his fingers penetrate the rock as easily as if he were a potter working clay on his wheel. Calmet performed this ritual twice per day for the last few days and still they had not managed to open up the chamber that held the sacred shrine. Time was running out. The mineral walls gave way to mud and Calmet watched in rapt appreciation as he pushed his way through the stone. He savored the way his fingers felt as the power coursed through them and allowed him to shape the rock.

Then, something felt different. His fingers were no longer massaging the rock and shaping a passage. They had reached through the stone and touched nothing but air.

The cleric plunged forward. He chanted at a feverish pace. His hands moved as rapidly as possible and soon shaped a human-sized doorway. Calmet tried to motion to the guards that he had broken through into the sacred chamber, but he didn't dare speak lest he unwittingly break the spell. The guards were too stupid to realize what he was indicating, or too unobservant to notice that he had broken through. Calmet continued to widen the passageway as he wondered what they would find on the other side of the tunnel. Eventually, he felt the cavern walls harden and noted that the mineral appearance had returned. He briefly admired the size of the entry he had sculpted, then turned to face the idiotic guards who ignored his gestures and his progress.

"Get the archprelate immediately," ordered the cleric. "He'll want to know. We've found the chamber. We've reached Scaun!"

The guard left immediately, loping up the passage in such a way that Calmet knew he would slow to a walk as soon as he turned a corner and was out of Calmet's sight. The orcs were incredibly frustrating. Calmet and Laud had worked for almost two years to reach this point. Only a few days before it looked as if they might not reach the chamber before the solstice. It had taken brilliant inspiration on his part to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat, and Calmet couldn't wait to share the triumph with his friends and colleagues.

Today is the solstice, he thought, and there is plenty of time to repair and prepare the sanctuary before sunset brings Gruumsh's avatar to life.

Of course, there was only one thing wrong with Calmet's desire to share the moment, to savor the triumph. There was really no one to share it with. Certainly, he could share the moment with Laud, but the archprelate was his superior. He expected success. Laud went through pupils like Balor went through slaves to satisfy his appetite for fresh blood. He might praise Calmet, but the apostate cleric's achievement was really nothing more than Laud expected. That was the problem with the worship of Gruumsh. The one-eyed god taught only the imperative of power, the superiority of strength. Friendship was weakness. Weakness was to be purged.

Calmet had really never thought about it before, but at times he felt cheated. He had been so focused on gaining power and reaching this goal that he left behind the camaraderie of the order. He sacrificed human relationships, friendship, and love on the altar of power as surely as his eye had been sacrificed to Gruumsh. It almost gave credence to that Peloran passage…

"How did it go?" Calmet asked himself. "I think it was something like:

"Though I ascend the highest hill, my failure to touch those in the valley can leave me as a wisp of wind or fleeting breath.

"Though I rule the masses, failure to hear the lowest peasant gives me bombastic speech and meaningless stutter.

"Though I hold the gold of a thousand kingdoms in my hand, unwillingness to staunch the pangs of hunger makes me bile and sputum.

"If I command the use of all weapons such that I win every battle, and know arcana such that I comprehend all mysteries, yet lack compassion, I stand defeated."

Calmet stood on the threshold of his greatest triumph. He had climbed the highest hill, handled the gold of a thousand kingdoms, and won a number of battles. Yet he stood alone. He stood alone and waited for his enemy and mentor to express his approval.

Oh, Pelor, thought Calmet, why did you forsake me?

Waiting on the threshold of his greatest triumph, Calmet almost thought that a voice answered him. A calm, soothing voice seemed to speak directly to his mind.

Why, dear Calmet, did you forsake me?

The apostate touched his empty eye socket and felt tears well up in his other eye. He had forsaken Pelor because the god of goodness, healing, and the sun allowed him to lose his eye. He had forsaken the god who taught love and compassion because that god showed no love and compassion for him. The tender moment passed and Calmet, like an emperor of long ago, hardened his heart.

Laud turned the corner surrounded by a retinue of slaves and the guards chosen to keep them in line. Behind the slaves was another group of guards and two familiar shapes. Laud had brought two of his monstrosities with him. He held his crosier before him, and the staff glowed with the mossy green light of Gruumsh. Laud nodded to Calmet as a token symbol of approval, but rushed quickly past him in order to take in the long-neglected shrine. His light shone around the chamber, and even the archprelate's breath caught as he realized the severity of the desecration that had occurred within.

It looked as if one of the clerics associated with the southern kingdoms had invoked an earthquake in the chamber. A rockslide had destroyed the ceremonial door and filled the passageway that led upward to the little village of Scaun. The southerners had defaced a mural depicting the classic battle wherein the elf god, Corellon Larethian, mutilated Gruumsh's left eye. A pile of colored shards rested on the cavern floor where they had been scraped off the mural. Only the portion showing the bloody eye remained, the desecrators' not so subtle way of showing that the forces of good had once more injured the so-called god of strength. Looking around the carved cornices that once rimmed the top of the cavern, he quickly noticed two places where the desecrators smashed the stone into rubble. Since there was an admonition against weakness carved into the cornice, it didn't take much effort to see that the damage had deliberately excised the name of Gruumsh himself from the carving.

The archprelate turned his attention to the rubble in the center of the room. He reached out with his hand and wiped away some of the loose sand and small rocks from what he suspected to be the statue's head. Seeing the tip of Gruumsh's center eye, he hurriedly brushed more dirt and stone aside. Satisfied, he turned around and shouted instructions to slaves and guards alike. With clean-up operations under way, he turned to speak to Calmet for the first time since the chamber was opened.

"Well done," Laud said with exaggerated enthusiasm. "We'll clean up the rubble immediately. You will climb onto those rocks over there and use your power to shape stone to replace Gruumsh's name in the carving. I will clear the small passageway that opens to the sky."

"As you wish, Your Potency," responded Calmet.

"Then," the archprelate said, glaring at his minion, "you will stand behind my creations and make sure that your pupil and his friends do not disrupt the ritual."

"My pupil?" choked Calmet.

"Your pupil," affirmed Laud. "Jozan and his companions have breached the mouth of the mine and found their way to your inner sanctum. You didn't think I would begin such an important day without scrying the complex, did you? I have sent two of my creations to distract them. If they fail, you will need to hold them off till sunset."

"Till sunset?" asked Calmet.

"Between now and sunset, these slaves will be melting more of the gold ore. My artisan, Fluhrn, will reshape the statue's head to its original condition. At sunset, the light will shine through the center eye, the power of Gruumsh will flow through us, and we shall invoke his avatar. If you hold them off till sunset, we'll let Gruumsh himself destroy the infidels. The revolution will begin."

Calmet tuned out as Laud blathered on megalomaniacally. He was beginning to think that no amount of power could ever be enough for the archprelate. Worse, all of Laud's concern about the defaced idol reminded Calmet of a parable preached by the clerics of Pelor. The Pelorans told a story of a man who carefully selected a tree and carved it into the image of his god. The man shaped it and worshiped it, praying for its protection. Eventually, a foreign army besieged the city where the man lived. Many people had to flee for their lives, hearing of atrocities committed by the army when it conquered elsewhere. The man packed his gold and fled the city in the dark of night. Calmet chuckled as he remembered the final line of the sermon: "Do you really want to seek protection from a god that needs you to protect him?"

Well, interrupted the calm, soft, inner voice he had heard before Laud appeared, do you?