from rot and decay. But would it work on a living being?
“How do you use it?” he asked.
Mercuria smiled. “Just rub it on the body,” he replied, “taking care not to get any on yourself, in the process. That person becomes frozen in time until the unguent’s magic is dispelled. It’s not a cure, but it will keep your ‘nephew’ alive until a cure is found.”
Torrin knew his duty. He’d come here intending to learn if the tiefling was guilty, and if he was, to speak the previously agreed upon word that would summon the Peacehammers to arrest him. But when he thought of Kier, the balance tipped the other way. If the ointment worked as Mercuria had said, surely it was worth risking whatever trickery the tiefling had up his sleeve.
Slowly, Torrin lowered his mace until its head touched the floor.
Keeping his wand pointed at Torrin, Mercuria reached below the counter and brought out an iron hoop. It was a thin belt of black metal, the same size and shape as a barrel hoop. As Mercuria laid it down, the countertop inside the circle blurred, as if seen through a thick, uneven pane of glass.
Mercuria leaned over the hoop, one eye still on Torrin, and whispered. He cocked an ear to the hoop, as if listening, then straightened. “This may take a moment,” he said.
Torrin waited, his stomach in a knot. Was he doing the right thing? There was no turning back The wand was still pointed at his chest, and Torrin would never be able to bring his mace to bear in time.
Torrin smelled sulfur. A tendril of yellow smoke wisped up from the center of the hoop. Suddenly, a greenish, three-fingered hand thrust upward, seemingly out of the counter top. The hand was covered in small spines that wept blood. And it held what looked like a hollow bone, slightly longer than Torrin’s forearm. Its ends had been sealed with red wax and a layer of black lead foil.
Mercuria plucked the bone from the hand. Immediately, the hand opened in a demanding gesture. The tiefling turned to Torrin. “Now it’s up to you,” he said. “Choose your payment.”
“You never said anything about payment!” Torrin protested.
“There’s always a price to be paid,” Mercuria said. “You have two options, either of which will be acceptable to my suppliers. Your weapon…”
Torrin shook his head firmly.
“Or… that,” Mercuria said. pointing at the sending stone around Torrin’s neck. He raised a finger to his lips. “And if it is the latter, I won’t hear a single word of protest, will I? And you’ll maintain that silence for the duration of our negotiations, or the deal is off.” He stared meaningfully at Torrin. “Nod, if that’s clear.”
Suddenly, Torrin didn’t feel as clever as he had when the exchange had begun. Mercuria had been playing with him, all along. By forcing Torrin to hand over the sending stone, the tiefling would ensure he’d get a good enough head start to elude the Peacehammers. Torrin might come up with a clever story to explain how he’d lost the sending stone, but sooner or later, he was certain, it would be discovered to be a lie. The consequences might be severe. But if the ointment really worked as Mercuria said it did…
Without speaking, Torrin lifted the thong from around his neck and handed Mercuria the sending stone. The tiefling took it with a smirk, and let it fall toward the hoop. The hand caught it and disappeared back into the countertop.
Mercuria handed the bone to Torrin.
Torrin took it. The bone felt warm, as though it had just come from an oven. “This had better be the real thing,” he said.
Mercuria glared down his nose at Torrin. “Don’t insult me. And don’t even think of threatening me again.” He raised his hoop. “I have powerful friends.”
“Friends like that are only friends until the day you cross them,” Torrin retorted.
With a chuckle, Mercuria raised the hoop above his head and let it fall over himself. Torrin whipped up his mace, hoping to knock it aside, but it was too late. Mercuria was gone, already teleported away to some foul realm. The hoop landed on the floor with a clatter and vanished; the only trace of it was a round scorch mark on the floorboards.
A wisp of yellow smoke rose from that spot, then vanished.
Torrin dropped a moonflower into the offering font that was already overflowing with white flowers, gems, and silver coins. He murmured a prayer to Berronar Truesilver, the goddess of home and hearth. Following the abrupt closure of Sharindlar’s sacred pools-the reason for which had yet to be revealed to the general populace-it had fallen to the clerics of Berronar to tend to those afflicted by the stoneplague. Her main temple had been turned into a hospice for the dying. Berronar was less commonly associated with comforting the sick, but home in the goddess’s embrace was preferable for those waiting the journey to their next life.
Torrin made his way through the cavern, past the hundreds of mattresses of living moss on which the afflicted lay. The smell was almost overwhelming-a mix of vomit, urine, and stale sweat. Harried-looking Revered Sisters and Revered Brothers bustled back and forth, directing the tallfolk servants who’d been hired to tend the sick. Despite the Lord Scepter having thrown open the treasury for the duration of the crisis, there weren’t enough helpers. The tallfolk not only didn’t have to fear the stoneplague, they didn’t have to face it if they didn’t want to.
Despite Torrin’s discovery that the cursed gold was the cause of the stoneplague, the most renowned of Eartheart’s wizards, alchemists, loremasters, and sages-working in secret, under order from the Deep Lords-had yet to find a way to purge its curse. They had used magic to destroy a large pile of the gold that had so far been recovered, but even though that gold was gone, the curse lingered. Not a single person among the afflicted had responded to a curative spell. Clerics from dozens of faiths had tried to cure the afflicted, but failed.
The Morndinsamman seemed indeed to have turned away from their chosen people. All their clerics could do was comfort the dying.
Likewise, the information Torrin had wrested from Mercuria had proved to be a dead end. The Steel Shields had immediately scoured the streets of Hammergate for Vadyr, but had no success in running the rogue to ground. A squad had departed for Helmstar, to see if he might be found there, but proved futile, too. They had, however, managed to confirm that a human by that name had until recently resided there-a suddenly extremely wealthy human, to no one’s surprise. “Spending gold like copper,” as tavern talk had it.
Eartheart’s wizards had used their magic to scour all the Deeps for Vadyr, but the rogue had so far proved impossible to find. No doubt he was screened by expensive magical wards against scrying, paid for with all that gold.
Despite those disappointments, Torrin still had one nugget firmly in hand-the ointment the tiefling had given him. Sadly, the time had at last come to try it, to see if it would do what Mercuria had claimed, or whether it was just fool’s gold.
He picked his way across the cavern, to the spot where Kier lay. The living carpet had been worn down to bare stone in many places by the constant coming and going; the tiny white flowers in the moss were wilted from lack of watering. Luminescent lichen still sparkled prettily on the ceiling, but the temple’s gemstone-encrusted altars had long since been packed away-not for fear they’d be stolen, but simply to prevent them from being knocked over.
A statue of the Mother Goddess dominated the center of the room. Seated on her throne, with her mace across her lap, Berronar stared with a placid expression at the groaning, weeping, and all-too-silent victims who filled the cavern.
Kier lay propped up with pillows and covered by a blanket. He held his toy dragon in one hand, but wasn’t playing with it. He just stared at the far wall, his mouth slightly open.
“Kier?” Torrin called. “It’s me, Uncle Torrin.”
Kier turned his head slightly. Torrin repressed a gasp at how much the boy had deteriorated. His hands and arms were a solid gray, already calcifying and no longer capable of movement. His eyelids were red and swollen. A mass of brittle gray flakes covered his cheeks and forehead. The salve the healers had spread on his cracked lips had done little good; it glistened moistly but failed to soak into the skin.
“Unh… Ahh…” the boy said. His hand flopped listlessly against the blankets.
Torrin felt sick to his stomach. He caught the attention of one of the Revered Sisters-an older woman with silver hair and dark circles under her eyes. “This is my nephew,” Torrin told her. “I’m taking him home to his own bed. His family will care for him from this point on.”
The cleric nodded absently. By Berronar Truesilver’s grace, it was impossible to speak a lie in the cavern. Nor
