The Sentinel

CHAPTER 5

Ringfinger wharf was creaking and swaying beneath the weight of the refugees packed onto its spongy decking. Despite his height, even Kleef found it difficult to see anything beyond their heads except the masts and bulwarks of ships at berth. There were at least five large vessels moored along the pier, all three-masted caravels or barkentines with lines of passengers still ascending their gangplanks. But at the seaward end was a small gap with a pair of slender masts barely rising above the crowd, and if there was anyone boarding the unseen vessel, the mob in front of it did not appear to be growing any thinner.

Guessing that his charges had hired the small vessel that wasn’t currently taking on passengers, Kleef started toward the seaward end of the wharf. With his own watchmen on his left, and Carlton’s men-at-arms on his right, the crowd parted before him like water before a prow. It soon grew apparent that the throngs were clustered most densely around the gangplanks of the five large ships, where armed members of the ship’s crew stood guard as their officers sold berths.

As Kleef and his companions continued to push forward, an angry din began to build ahead. Soon, they reached the end of the wharf and found a mob of people standing along the edge, yelling down at an unseen vessel, simultaneously offering unthinkable bribes and threatening dire acts of piracy.

Before pushing through the crowd, Kleef paused and turned to Joelle. “Will the captain know you?”

Joelle nodded. “By sight,” she said, “as I will him. But how can you be sure this is the right ship? I haven’t even told you what it’s called.”

Kleef looked around the wharf, confirming that this was the only vessel not yet taking on passengers. “It’s the one.” He motioned Jang and Carlton forward, gesturing for them to clear the way. “We’ll need to board quickly, if we don’t want half the city coming with us.”

Jang led the way into the crowd, bellowing orders to make way for the Watch and shoving aside those who were too slow to obey. But even with more than a dozen armed men helping him, the mob seemed to sense that someone was about to board the vessel and quickly began to push back. Finally, Kleef unsheathed Watcher and brandished the blade above their heads.

“Stand aside now!”

All eyes turned toward Kleef. A hush fell over the area, but the crowd seemed more transfixed than intimidated by the sight of his drawn sword, and no one moved.

Then Elbertina stepped to his side. “I suggest you do as he commands,” she said, speaking in a soft voice. She still carried her weapons, and had slung a leather rucksack she had fetched from the grand duke’s mansion over one shoulder. “This company is on a mission for the Crown, and anyone standing in its way will pay a heavy price.”

A murmur of discontent rolled through the crowd, but it reluctantly opened a path. Kleef led the way forward and soon found himself staring down at the deck of a small ketch. The vessel was manned by only a short, dark-skinned captain with a close-cropped beard and a sharp nose.

Kleef stepped to the edge of the deck and looked down at the gnome, who was standing amidships behind a chest-height deckhouse, resting a peculiar six-armed crossbow on its roof. With six quarrels arranged in vertical firing slots, and six strings tensioned behind them, it was an odd contraption-but one that looked dangerous enough to hold an angry crowd at bay.

When the gnome saw who had stepped to the edge of the wharf, he pivoted the weapon, aiming at Kleef’s chest.

“I’ve done nothing that’s any concern of yours, Kenric,” he said. “Go and bother someone who deserves the trouble.”

Kleef rested Watcher’s tip on the edge of the wharf. “Falrinn, didn’t I tell you what would happen if you ever showed your face in Marsember again?”

“Try that, and I’ll ventilate your chest armor,” Falrinn Greatorm warned. “Besides, I’m not in Marsember. I haven’t set foot off the Lonely Roamer.”

Joelle stepped to Kleef’s side and looked down at the gnome. “Captain Greatorm, I presume?”

Greatorm’s face lit briefly in surprise, then he scowled in Kleef’s direction. “Has this windbag been bothering you, Heartwarder?” he asked. “Say the word, and it never happens again.”

“That’s a very sweet offer,” Joelle said, smiling. “But no. We’re going to need him.”

The gnome glared at her out of one eye. “Why would we need the likes of him?” he demanded. “I have plenty of ballast.” Joelle chuckled. “They told me you were quite the wit.” She sprang across ten feet of open water and landed atop the Roamer’s deck as light as a bird. The gnome scowled at her audacity in boarding his ship without permission, but before he could object, she stepped to his side and placed a hand on the crossbow.

“Kleef is very good with a sword,” Joelle continued. “You’ll be glad to have him along when the Shadovar find us.”

As soon as Joelle mentioned the Shadovar, the crowd began to murmur and back away from the Roamer-and the aggravation in Greatorm’s face changed to reluctance.

“Shadovar?” The gnome shook his head. “No one said anything about shadowalkers when I took this job.”

“Then we’ll renegotiate,” said Elbertina. She pulled a small purse from her rucksack and tossed it onto the Roamer’s deck. “That will be enough.”

“And remember that this is Starmouth Harbor.” Kleef brandished his sword. “And that I have good enough reason to seize your boat.”

Greatorm’s expression grew hard. He glowered over at Joelle for a moment, then finally turned to the purse on the deck.

“That silver in there?” he asked. “Or gold?”

Elbertina closed her rucksack, then flashed him a condescending smile. “It’s platinum.”

Greatorm’s face lit with delight. “In that case, welcome aboard,” he said. “But I can only take eight of you. This isn’t the Queen Filfaeril, you know.”

“Eight is madness!” Malik objected. “The Shadovar have many times that number!”

“Aye, and I was hired to dodge trouble, not look for it,” Greatorm said. “Eight is all I can carry. We take any more, and those Shadovar you’re worried about will run us down before we leave the harbor.”

“Then eight will have to be enough,” Elbertina said.

She gathered herself up and leaped down onto the deck. Though her landing was a bit heavier and less graceful than Joelle’s, she managed to keep her feet and avoid smashing the lyre tucked beneath the flap of her rucksack. Still, Kleef did not jump down behind her. Greatorm was the kind of stubborn smuggler who always thought ahead and never gave up. Kleef actually liked that about him, but he suspected the gnome was just trying to limit the odds he would face when the time came to double-cross them.

Kleef turned to his troop and summoned Rathul, who had spent three decades in the Cormyrean navy before a third ship-sinking finally convinced him to seek a livelihood ashore.

“What do you think?” he asked. “How many can Falrinn take in this boat?”

Rathul studied the ketch for a moment, his rheumy eyes taking it in from bow to stern, then finally shrugged. “I’d say twenty or twenty-five, as long as the day is clear and you don’t leave harbor.” As he spoke, his gaze grew unsteady and his hands began to tremble. “But to go to sea, you need provisions and you need to be ready for heavy weather. I would have said fifteen or so, but you’d better take the captain at his word. He knows his own vessel.”

Kleef glanced at Rathul’s trembling hands. “Don’t worry, Rathul,” he said. “You won’t be coming with us.”

Rathul scowled. “Why not?” he asked. “I have more experience at sea than any man here.”

“You’re volunteering?” Kleef asked, surprised.

Rathul looked confused for a moment, then finally nodded. “I guess so,” he said. “The Shadovar catch you out there, you’re going to need someone who knows how to sink a ship.”

“True enough, but …” Kleef made a point of looking at Rathul’s hands. “Are you sure about this?”

Rathul glanced down, then smiled. “This?” he asked, raising his hands. “Don’t you worry. They’ll be steady enough, once they’re holding a boarding axe.”

“Then, good,” Kleef said. “Thank you.”

He turned to select the rest of the crew and was surprised to find not only Jang but his entire troop stepping forward. And standing next to them were Carlton and his men-at-arms.

Kleef didn’t know what to make of so much unexpected bravery. “Look, coming along won’t be any better than staying here to defend Marsember. In fact, it’ll probably get you killed. The Shadovar are still looking for our friends.”

“Which means you’ll need help protecting them,” Tanner said. He hesitated, clearly as surprised as Kleef by his words, then shrugged. “You deserve better than we’ve given you, Topsword. You’ve been fair, even when we didn’t respect you the way you’d earned. Maybe we just figure we owe it to you to do our duty for once.”

“That’s right,” said Ardul. “I’ll go, too.”

“Well, the boat won’t hold all of us,” Carlton said, stepping to Kleef’s side. “Even I can see that.”

Kleef nodded and turned back to the Roamer, which Greatorm was slowly drawing toward the wharf by means of a windlass connected to both of the ship’s mooring lines. Joelle was standing well forward, ready to grab a boarding ladder fixed to the wharf, while Elbertina was standing behind the gnome, ready to draw her sword if he tried anything shifty. Kleef liked her instincts.

He shifted his attention to the gnome. “How many of us can you take?” he asked. “Truly?”

Greatorm barely looked up. “Eight.”

“Twenty,” Kleef countered.

Greatorm’s head rose, an expression of true fear on his face. “No more than twelve,” he said. “And if the seas turn heavy, you’ll be dumping your armor.”

Kleef looked to Rathul, who gave a curt nod. “At sea, armor is a mixed blessing anyway.”

Kleef turned back to Greatorm. “Done.”

Greatorm let out his breath. Then Carlton picked three of his own men-at-arms to accompany them, and Kleef distributed the merchant’s bribe among the surviving members of his troop. Ten minutes later the Roamer was pushing away from the wharf.

The gnome ducked into a compartment beneath the windlass, then a muffled clunk sounded below decks. The windlass began to rise, drawing beneath it a trio of tall, slender sails mounted around a vertical axis. When the sails reached a height of six feet, another thump sounded, and Greatorm reappeared. He removed a locking pin from the base of the structure, and two of the small sails immediately caught the wind and began to spin. The Roamer began to move forward as though propelled by invisible oars and soon fell into the long line of ships departing Starmouth Harbor.

Kleef took a moment to assign watch zones and order his men and Carlton’s to remain hidden behind the ketch’s bulwarks. Then he stepped to Jang’s side and spoke in a quiet voice.

“All this volunteering doesn’t feel right,” he said, nodding to Tanner and the others. “What are they up to?”

Jang shrugged, then answered just as quietly. “It must be the platinum.” He glanced aft, to where Elbertina and Malik stood near the strange windmill. “I think they smell treasure on the minstrel.”

“Could be,” Kleef agreed. “If anyone gets too interested in that rucksack of hers, discourage him.”

“I will,” Jang said. He glanced down at Kleef’s bloodied limbs. “How are your wounds?”

“Sore,” he admitted. “But I’ll last until we find the duchess. You?”

“Well enough,” he said. “One of the battle-priests saw to me when I reported to the King’s Tower.”

Kleef had thought as much. “Good. And speaking of the Tower, what was the lord marshall’s reaction when you told him there were Shadovar in the city?”

Jang shook his head in disgust. “It wasn’t to send reinforcements,” he said. “He ordered the Tower doors barred and the portcullises dropped. I barely made it out in time to collect the troop and come after you.”

Kleef gave him a bitter smile. “I guess the old marsh buzzard thought he was finally going to be rid of me.”

“Perhaps so,” Jang said. “His eyes did brighten when I told him you had gone after the enemy alone.”

“Well, I guess that’s fair,” Kleef said. “I truly hope he’s alone when he meets the Shadovar.”

Jang chuckled darkly, but stopped when Joelle emerged from below decks carrying a wooden toolbox and a bucket of water. When she caught Kleef’s eye and smiled, the Shou took his leave and went to keep watch over Elbertina.

As Joelle approached, Kleef glanced into the toolbox she was carrying. Inside were dozens of different needles, threads of all thicknesses and materials, and small rolls of canvas that could only be sail patches.

“Expecting a storm?” he asked.

“Soon enough.” Joelle took his arm, then drew him toward the center deck and sat him atop the hold cover. “And I want to be sure you’re patched up before it hits. Let me see how bad your wounds are.”

Kleef eyed the bent, rusty needles in the mending kit. “Not bad,” he said. “I’ll last until we’ve recovered the duchess.”

“I have no doubt.” Joelle dipped a hand in the bucket, and the water inside began to glimmer with a faint silver light. “It’s what comes after that I’m worried about.”

Kleef frowned. “Protecting the Eye of Gruumsh?”

“Exactly.”

“I haven’t said I’d help with that,” Kleef said.

“But you will.” Joelle soaked a piece of cloth in the water bucket. “You’re a good man.”

“That doesn’t mean I can ignore my duty,” Kleef replied. “I’ll do what I can for you, but I’m here to rescue the grand duchess.”

“And we are serving as bait to improve your chance of succeeding.” Joelle looked up and locked gazes with him. “Doesn’t one good deed deserve another?”

She smiled, and Kleef began to feel guilty for being so reluctant. Clearly, she and Malik would be taking extra risks by deliberately allowing the Shadovar to find them, and she was right-that deserved some consideration.

Finally, Kleef nodded. “Within reason,” he said. “Now, tell me why you and Malik stole the Eye of Gruumsh in the first place-and why the Shadovar are so desperate to get it back.”

Joelle thought for a moment, then motioned to the bloody armor covering the main parts of his limbs. “Will you take off those vambraces and cuisses so I can see to your wounds?”

Kleef glanced into the bucket of still-glimmering water. In the absence of a good battle-priest, it was probably better to trust to Joelle’s healing abilities than to do without. He began to undo the buckles on his armor.

“You understand, I promise nothing in return,” he said. “My duty is to Marsember first.”

“How could I forget?” Joelle asked. “But you will not save Marsember by letting Shar give the rest of the world to the Shadovar.”

Joelle smiled again, this time with an expression of forbearance, and Kleef began to feel just a bit foolish. Clearly, he was defining duty a bit too narrowly, guarding only the hand when the foe was striking at the head.

“You have a point,” he admitted, “as long as you’re not exaggerating.”

“I’m not,” Joelle said. “You’ll see that soon enough.”

She had Kleef remove the doublet and hose he wore under his armor and began to clean his cuts with water from the bucket. There were more than a dozen, mostly around his knees and just above his wrists, but none were deep enough to have slashed any tendons or major blood vessels. Still, Kleef was relieved to discover that as Joelle worked, a pleasant numbness overcame the stinging ache of his wounds.

“So,” Kleef said. “The Eye of Gruumsh. Where did it come from?”

“The one you saw came from an orc stronghold in the Stonelands,” she said, not looking up. “Malik and I recovered it from the Hidden Temple of Nishrek in Big Bone Deep.”

Kleef didn’t know whether to be impressed or skeptical. Big Bone Deep was the stuff of legend, home to an infamous tribe of orcs known as the Spleen Eaters. According to folklore, they had lived in the Stonelands since before the Storm Horns were mountains, and they were credited with a hunger for human flesh so ferocious that no human had ever seen their lair and survived to tell about it.

But, incredible as the claim was, that was not what gave Kleef pause. “The one I saw?” he asked. “You mean there’s more than one Eye of Gruumsh?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Joelle dipped her cloth in the bucket and squeezed. Dirt and blood jetted into the water, then vanished without fouling it. “It’s the same Eye, but it can be perceived in different ways.”

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

“You’ve already experienced it,” Joelle said. “When Malik showed you the Eye, first you saw a rock. Then, after a moment, you glimpsed its true nature-I saw the horror in your face.”

“That felt like magic to me,” Kleef said. “Dark magic.”

“What did you expect?” Joelle countered. “That’s how it feels to have a god look at you. Terrifying and magical and mysterious.”

“Maybe,” Kleef said. If there was one thing twenty years of night duty on the Watch had taught him, it was to be suspicious of ready explanations. And Joelle was trying to recruit him-he couldn’t forget that. “Let’s say Big Bone Deep really exists, and that you and Malik actually raided this hidden temple and lived to tell about it.”

Joelle looked hurt. “You don’t believe me?”

“I have a suspicious mind,” Kleef said. “I still don’t see what’s so important about a big ball of quartz.”

Joelle’s smile grew frosty-and Kleef felt crushed.

“I thought I explained that.” Joelle paused, then continued in a tone that suggested she found Kleef a little slow. “The Eye of Gruumsh is a ‘quartz ball’ only in its physical aspect. In its divine aspect, it’s a center of power-the medium through which Gruumsh perceives all of Abeir-Toril.”

“And that’s why you and Malik had to steal it?” Kleef asked, not quite sure why he suddenly felt the need to prove he was smarter than Joelle seemed to think. “To protect the world from orcs?”

Joelle looked confused for a moment. “I suppose ‘protecting’ is how you would perceive our task,” she said. “But it’s more complicated than that. It’s not the orcs we’re trying to stop, and we didn’t actually steal the Eye-at least not the divine one. Luthic gave it to us.”

“Luthic?” Kleef asked. “Gruumsh’s mate?”

“The goddess of caves,” Joelle corrected. “Why do men always assume that when a female beds a male, she becomes his property and loses her identity?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Kleef’s reply came without hesitation, for he had questioned enough scofflaws to know when someone was trying to rattle him. “Why would Luthic give you her mate’s only eye?”

Joelle studied him for a time, then spoke in a soft voice. “There’s no need to make this into an interrogation, Kleef. I’m happy to tell you everything.”

“Thanks,” Kleef said, not changing his tone at all. “Why would Luthic give you her mate’s only eye?”

Joelle sighed. “It’s a gift.”

“For you?” Kleef glanced aft toward Malik. The little bug-eyed man had Elbertina trapped against the port bulwark, engaging her in a conversation she was obviously too polite to end. “Or for Malik?”

“Malik is just the bearer,” Joelle clarified. She set the cloth aside, then began to fish through the sail-mending kit. “The Eye is for Luthic’s lover, Grumbar.”

“Luthic is mating with an earth primordial?” As much as Kleef found himself wanting to believe her, he was growing more skeptical by the moment. Affairs between gods, he could imagine. An affair between a goddess and an earth primordial … well, he didn’t want to imagine that. “Are you sure?”

Joelle looked up long enough to waggle her hand back and forth. “That’s how we Heartwarders perceive it.” She withdrew a hooked needle and a length of sail thread from the kit, then slipped them both in the bucket. “I suspect you Watchers might see the Eye differently-perhaps as a reward for her faithful protector.”

Kleef began to find the explanation a bit more reasonable. “What would Grumbar be protecting her from?”

Joelle shrugged. “From her mate, perhaps. Gruumsh is the god of savagery, after all.” She removed the needle and thread from the still-glimmering water, then added, “But I really wouldn’t know. As I said, that’s how you might see things.”

Kleef frowned. As a follower of Helm’s Law, he had a duty to protect the weak, and the vow was so deeply ingrained that he found himself clenching his teeth in outrage.

“How many ways are there to see this gift?” he asked.

“As many ways as there are faiths,” Joelle replied. “The important thing is that Malik and I are trying to stop the Mistress of the Night.”

“Shar?” Kleef asked. The longer Joelle talked, the stranger this supposed love triangle began to seem. “What does she have to do with Luthic and Gruumsh?”

“You’re forgetting Grumbar.” Joelle began to thread the needle, which had emerged from the water bucket as clean and shiny as a brand new one. “And Grumbar is the key to Shar’s plan.”

She began to close Kleef’s wounds. He watched her sew a cut above his knee for a moment, crisscrossing her stitches in a tight, uniform pattern. To his surprise, her work did not cause him much pain-only a little pressure as the needle pushed through the skin, then a little tugging as the thread was drawn through behind it.

After a moment, he said, “All right. Tell me about Shar’s plan. And maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

“If you like.” Joelle finished stitching the first cut and moved to one on his thigh. “What do you know of the Cycle of Night?”

“Other than the name you just mentioned, nothing.”

“Then perhaps I won’t start at the very beginning.” Joelle spoke without looking up. “But, surely, you’ve noticed that Faerûn is in a time of great change.”

“Hard to miss,” Kleef said. He glanced back toward the now-distant harbor, where waves were breaking over a shoal of warehouses that had been submerged during the Great Rain. “It feels like the whole world is having a nightmare.”

“In a sense, it is,” Joelle said. “Abeir and Toril are separating.”

“So the doomsayers say.” Kleef had stood watch over enough street-corner sermons to know that most sages believed the world was really two worlds that had been separated at the dawn of time, and then forced back together in a great cataclysm of destructive magic a hundred years ago. “I won’t claim to know if they’re right.”

“Then you need to open your eyes and look at the world around you,” Joelle replied. “The earthmotes are falling, the plaguelands are vanishing, and even magic has returned to the old ways. The ground heaves and rolls like a restless sea, lakes freeze one day and boil the next, and Faerûn is at war from Mirabar to Al Qahara. How can you know all that and doubt the truth of what I’m telling you?”

“Because I don’t know all that,” Kleef said. “I know only what I’ve seen with my own eyes, inside the walls of Marsember.”

“But even that must be enough,” Joelle insisted. “I was in the city for less than a day, and I saw buildings shake like drunkards.”

“True enough,” Kleef said. With his own eyes, he had seen three different earthmotes plunge into the Dragonmere, and twice he had been nearly been knocked off his feet when the street suddenly writhed beneath his boots. “But even if the doomsayers are right, that doesn’t explain the wars. If the world is coming apart, why should so many people waste their last days fighting over it?”

Joelle shrugged. “Because mortals are the weapons of gods,” she said. “And the gods are fighting to control the world that comes after. That is certainly true of Malik and me-and if we fail, Faerûn will suffer for it. All Toril will suffer.”

“Because of Shar’s plan?” Kleef asked. “She’s causing the worlds to separate?”

Joelle shook her head. “Taking advantage of it, certainly. But what single god could sunder the worlds?” She waved her hand vaguely skyward, as if the shimmering heavens above could encompass all the upheaval that had seized Faerûn in the last two years. “Were Shar that powerful, the Cycle of Night would never have been stopped.”

“What is this Cycle of Night?” Kleef asked. He was starting to wonder how Joelle-or any mortal-could know all she claimed about the affairs of gods. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it.”

Joelle stopped sewing and looked up. “Oblivion,” she said. “Shar is the Lady of Loss, and her appetite is insatiable. She feeds on her own divine children, and through them gains the strength to devour an entire world. Had her son Mask not tricked her, she would have swallowed all of Abeir-Toril.”

Kleef scowled. “As in, eaten?” he asked. “I’m not sure I believe-”

“You should,” Joelle interrupted. She went back to work, this time closing a cut on his wrist. “You have heard of the Ordulin Maelstrom, I am certain.”

“Who hasn’t?” Kleef said. Once the capital of Sembia, Ordulin had been destroyed a hundred years earlier by a follower of Shar. Since that time, a growing storm of rain and shadow had swirled around an ever-growing void at the heart of the ruins. “What are you saying, that the maelstrom is Shar’s mouth?”

“In a sense, yes,” Joelle said. “Had Mask not stopped her, the maelstrom would have continued to expand until Shar had devoured everything.”

A cold knot formed in the pit of Kleef’s stomach. It was a familiar sensation, the same one he always felt when he caught Tanner or Rathul or another of his men in a lie.

Taking care to keep an even voice, Kleef said, “I don’t see how that can be. Mask is dead.”

“No god is ever truly dead, so long as he lives in the heart of a single worshiper,” Joelle said. She looked up from the wound she was closing on Kleef’s forearm. “You should know that better than anyone else, Watcher.”

Kleef scowled, annoyed by her use of the name once given to Helm’s faithful. “Those are pretty words, but you won’t win my help through lies,” he said. “The Lurking Lord has been dead for a century.”

“And now he is back.” Joelle returned to her work. “As is Lathander, and no small number of other gods-perhaps even Helm.”

“If the Vigilant One has returned, he has not bothered to tell me about it.”

“Hasn’t he?” Joelle asked. She tied off a stitch, then looked up. “You are a fine swordsman. But had you truly been alone today, you could never have held that bridge-not for so long, against so many.”

“I had help,” Kleef replied. “The human kind.”

“Eventually,” Joelle said. “But we both know you should have been killed half a dozen times over before they arrived.”

Kleef thought back to the blue glow that had been shining from the agate in Watcher’s crossguard, then reluctantly nodded. “There may have been some magic,” he allowed. “But that doesn’t mean dead gods are rising.”

Joelle sighed in exasperation. “Then perhaps we should talk about what you will believe,” she said. “Now that Shar has been stopped from devouring the world-however that happened-she has a new plan.”

Kleef glanced aft toward Malik. “One that involves the Eye of Gruumsh?”

“No, that is our plan,” Joelle said. “Shar’s plan is to drive Grumbar away, since his earthly essence is what keeps her Shadowfell separate from the physical world. If she can make him leave with Abeir when the worlds divide, her essence will be free to spill across all of Toril. Shar will become even more powerful than she is now-and master of her fellow gods.”

“And what’s that have to do with Luthic?” Kleef asked. Joelle gave him a look of strained patience, and once again, Kleef suddenly felt the need to prove that he wasn’t the idiot she seemed to believe he was. He took a chance and asked, “Is Luthic what keeps Grumbar on Toril?”

Joelle smiled-and sent a flood of warmth pouring through Kleef. “Indeed,” she said. “Grumbar’s passion for Luthic has no limits. If Shar can overcome that, Toril is hers.”

“Sounds like that might be hard to do.”

“Not as hard as you might think,” Joelle said. “Shar has threatened to reveal their dalliance to Gruumsh One-Eye-and if that happens, the Savage One’s anger will know no bounds.”

Kleef nodded. “That would be bad,” he said. “Kings have been known to go to war over such things.”

“So have gods,” Joelle said. “So Shar has convinced Grumbar that the only way to protect Luthic is to leave her-to depart with Abeir when it separates from Toril. And if he doesn’t, Shar will make certain that Gruumsh discovers their dalliance.”

“And Grumbar buys that?” Kleef asked. “He’s not willing to fight for her?”

“He might be-if Shar hadn’t also planted the idea that Luthic never loved him at all,” Joelle said. “Shar has Grumbar thinking that Luthic was only trysting with him because he was the earth primordial-because his favor allowed her to extend her grottos into every last corner of Toril.”

“Any truth to that?” Kleef asked.

Joelle shrugged. “Enough for it to work,” she said. “Grumbar has just about given up any thought of remaining on Toril. He isn’t even trying to secure the dominion of stone and earth in this plane.”

Kleef fell silent, trying to come to grips with the idea of thinking about gods and primordials on the level of common city folk. Joelle’s description of the love triangle sounded like the trouble behind a hundred house brawls he had been called to break up, and he could not help feeling it all made just a little too much sense.

“How sure are you about all this?” he asked. “It’s hard to believe the gods conduct their lives no better than we do.”

“Because we are seeing them through our eyes,” Joelle said. “We can only understand them in terms of ourselves. To Malik, it probably looks like Grumbar is dying of a broken heart. To you, it might seem that Grumbar is leaving out of honor, because he endangered Luthic by encouraging her to break a vow of fidelity.”

“Vows?” Kleef asked. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Joelle’s explanations all revolved around love. “I thought you said Gruumsh and Luthic weren’t married.”

“I said that Luthic wasn’t property, but they aren’t married either-at least not to my way of thinking,” Joelle replied. “To one of Helm’s Watchers … well, it’s impossible for me to know how you would see their arrangement. But the heart of the matter remains the same-Shar is tricking Grumbar into leaving Toril, and it has fallen to us to change his mind … and that is what the Eye is for.”

Kleef recalled what Joelle had said about the Eye being a gift. “You’re going to give it to Grumbar?”

“That’s the plan: to take it to his temple in the Underchasm,” Joelle confirmed. “Luthic stole it from Gruumsh as a symbol of her devotion-to prove she would rather face the Savage One’s wrath than lose Grumbar.”

“And to tie him to Toril,” Kleef said. “Because now that Luthic has made an enemy of Gruumsh, she’ll need help to hold him off. Grumbar would be duty-bound to stay and support her.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Joelle’s tone was approving. “It will be good to have a Helm worshiper helping us.”

“I haven’t said I’m coming,” Kleef reminded her. “I’m not even sure I believe you.”

“No?” Joelle kept her eyes on her work. “What part do you doubt?”

“The part where you know so much,” Kleef said. “How can you know what the gods are thinking?”

“Is that all that troubles you?” Joelle tied off the last stitch, then finally raised her eyes. “The Lady of Love revealed it to me, of course.”

Kleef lowered his brow, his customary suspicion already turning to disappointment. “Revealed it how?” he asked. “In a dream?”

Joelle’s eyes twinkled. “Something like that,” she replied. “It came to me as revelations from the goddess always do-in a moment of passion.”

Kleef felt the color rising to his cheeks, but pressed on. “That’s not much comfort,” he said. “What did you see? What did she say?”

“See? Say?” Joelle laughed and returned the needle to the mending kit. “Clearly you have never had a divine revelation. I didn’t see anything, and Sune didn’t say anything-at least not that I can remember. She just entered my mind, and I knew.”

“You … knew?” Kleef repeated, scarcely able to believe how close he had come to accepting Joelle’s story. “How am I to trust in that?”

“How can you not?” Joelle countered. “You’ve seen the Eye. You’ve felt its power. Do you think Malik and I could steal that without divine help?”

“Steal it, maybe,” Kleef said. He thought back to the moment Malik had revealed the Eye to him-to the cold terror he had experienced as it awakened and looked into him. “But carrying it into the Underchasm? For that, you will need the help of the gods.”

“Which must be why Helm sent you to us.”

Joelle smiled and touched Kleef’s hand, and he started to see the sense in her words. The earthmotes had dropped, and the Sea of Fallen Stars had risen to its ancient levels. The entire world was at war, and Cormyr was imperiled as never before. Clearly, change was coming to Toril. Joelle allowed her fingers to linger, and Kleef began to realize just how right she was. With dead gods rising and the heavens themselves engulfed in a power struggle, perhaps Helm had returned.

Perhaps he had sent Kleef to protect Joelle on her journey.

Then Kleef realized what was happening and pulled his hand away. “Don’t do that.”

Joelle looked mystified. “Do what?”

“Try to charm me,” Kleef replied. “It’ll never work. I won’t turn my back on my duty.”

Joelle’s voice grew stern. “No one is asking you to ignore your duty, Watchman. Quite the opposite, in fact.” She retrieved the cloth she had used to clean Kleef’s wounds, then dropped it in the bucket and rose to leave. “We’ll remove those stitches in a few hours. Your wounds will be healed by then.”

“A few hours?” Kleef’s head was already spinning from everything she had told him, and he struggled to figure out why she might make such an outrageous claim. “You didn’t cast any healing magic.”

Joelle looked back over her shoulder. “Kleef, I’m a Chosen of Sune,” she said. “My love is healing magic.”