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
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.
