Pool of Twilight

'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