Pool of Radiance

opportunity to rule all of Phlan, civilized and uncivilized alike.' Gensor leaned in close to Cadorna and spoke emphatically to make his point. 'Honorable First Councilman Cadorna, as your advisor, I urge you to make your move against the Lord of the Ruins now, or you may never have another chance.'

'You mean attack the Lord of the Ruins to get his ioun stones and then find the thief, cleric, and mage to get their two?' asked Cadorna.

'Exactly,' Gensor said. 'Even if you don't get their stones immediately, you should still have as much power as the dragon has now, which is considerable.'

'Right you are,' Cadorna answered slowly. His eyes gleamed brightly, and he clenched his hands in excitement. He didn't need to wait for Gensor to go on. Immediately he commanded the soldiers of the Black Watch back into the chamber. With Gensor's help, Cadorna explained to them that there was a certain bronze dragon he wanted killed, a very powerful bronze dragon that made its lair at the heart of Valjevo Castle, in the northernmost part of Phlan. 'I'm giving you a chance to redeem yourselves,' he said to the soldiers. 'You stand to earn an unprecedented reward, but be forewarned, I won't tolerate cowardice or stupidity!'

'I'm sure I speak for the others, First Councilman,' one of the soldiers at the side of the room called out. 'You can count on us.'

The mercenaries made hasty preparations for their mission, and just two hours after dawn, under Cadorna's direction, they arrived at the gates to Valjevo Castle.

Silence hung thick in the cavern, like spiderwebs. The stone floor was covered with thick dust. Shal opened her eyes and saw the gentle blue light that filled the room. She did not know what had happened. She was not even sure at first that she was alive. She pressed the heels of her hands into the dust and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Tarl was nearby, kneeling, his hands lifted skyward, an expression of awe and innocence on his face. His silvery hair glowed almost blue in the soft light. The Hammer of Tyr hung suspended in the air just above him, its steel head shining with the vibrancy of molten metal. Shal could also see Ren, still lying facedown near the front of the cavern. Quickly she pushed herself to her feet to run to his side, but before she got there, he was already rousing himself up from the floor.

'Hell of a party,' Ren said thickly, rising slowly to his feet. 'What happened to our hosts?'

Tarl rose to his feet and joined the others, his face still bathed in light from the Hammer of Tyr. 'Gone,' he said simply. 'Vanquished by the power of Tyr, the same power that saved and healed the three of us.' He reached out his arms and pulled his friend and his beloved close.

Tears of relief welled in his eyes and in Shal's and Ren's. Though thoroughly shaken, all three felt strangely rejuvenated and infinitely grateful for their own survival.

They stood together silently, arm in arm, for several minutes. It was Tarl who finally broke the silence. 'I feel an incredible sense of relief. Now that the vampire is vanquished, Anton can be healed and I can return the Hammer of Tyr to the temple in Civilized Phlan. I'm not even worried about the guards around the city. It's Tyr's will that the hammer be returned, and nothing's going to stop me from doing it.'

Tarl reached out for the floating hammer, but the holy symbol quickly scooted away from his outstretched hand, the way one magnet moves away from another. He reached for the hammer again, and again it moved just out of reach.

Tarl wondered for a moment if perhaps somehow his motives were not right and so the hammer would not come to him. But when the hammer started to float away, he was gripped by a sense of dread, fearing the hammer's power was somehow being subverted again. Maybe the vampire wasn't really gone. Once more Tarl tried to catch the holy artifact. It floated to the front wall of the cavern, precisely above the spot where the vampire had hovered just a short time before. For one terrible moment, Tarl thought the hammer's light was darkening, turning black, but then its blue glow surged strongly and a blinding ray of light flooded the cavern.

Suddenly a blue oval was outlined against the wall behind the hammer. The stone surface within the oval began to shimmer like water under moonlight. As if wielded by some unseen but steady hand, the hammer cocked back and then forward, striking the calm, fluid center, sending out ripples as would a stone tossed into a quiet pool. Concentric rings of water spread from the center to the edge of the oval outline for several seconds.

As the ripples dissipated, so did the shimmering surface, and they could now see that the oval framed a doorway.

The hammer's light illuminated a small interior room beyond the oval doorway. Tarl quickly made for the door, with Shal and Ren right behind. When they could see inside the small room, Ren said, 'Teleporter, just like the one Yarash used.'

'And obviously I'm supposed to use it,' said Tarl, the magical Hammer of Tyr finally settling into his outstretched hand.

'Obviously we're supposed to use it,' Shal corrected him.

Tarl nodded, and together the three entered the small chamber. Once again the hammer blazed blue in Tarl's hand, for a moment blinding all three, and when its light diminished, they found themselves standing under an archway of strange-looking, sharply spiked shrubbery.

'Careful,' Ren cautioned, pointing to the archway. 'I've seen this kind of bush before. The thorns are tipped with a natural poison, and the serrated leaves can make some pretty wicked slashes. Don't even try to push aside any loose branches. Step around instead. Some bushes of this variety actually send feelers out, like vines do. They can move as fast as a man's hand, and their touch is deadly. There's plenty of snake venom in the world that's tame by comparison.'

Beyond the archway were three narrow paths, one to the right, one to the left, and one straight ahead. All were lined with the same variety of poisonous hedge. Tarl looked to the hammer, hoping to receive some kind of sign or direction, but none was forthcoming.

'Where are we, anyway?' asked Shal.

Ren pointed to a tall, white turret, some distance ahead, the only thing that could be seen above the vicious shrubbery. 'Valjevo Castle,' he breathed, his voice hushed. 'Probably one of the tallest buildings in the Realms, and according to that party of orcs we ran into on the way to Yarash's, the home of the Lord of the Ruins. This must have been a teleport the vampire used when he needed to see his master.'

'It's no coincidence the three of us are here,' Tarl pronounced firmly.

'Nope,' Ren agreed. 'Fate and the gods.' He looked to Shal. 'If you're ready to meet the bastard who sent Cadorna to kill Ranthor, I'm ready to meet him, too-and to take a chunk out of his hide for murdering Tempest.'

'I'm ready,' said Shal. 'But do we even know what we're looking for or which way to go?' A glance in any direction along the pathways through the tall hedges showed a series of turns. They were obviously inside a topiary maze, and an elaborate one at that.

Tarl spoke confidently. 'We'll recognize the evil of the Lord of the Ruins when we find him.'

'He's right. I think we should try going straight ahead,' Ren said. 'I have a hunch that if the vampire visited often enough to have a private passageway here, he probably wasn't forced to go through the whole maze every time he dropped in.'

Ren led the way. The path immediately took a jog to the right, then left, where there were two archways leading off from it. They proceeded on straight ahead, then stopped when it came to a T. 'Wait,' Ren said. He sniffed the air, then very carefully touched one finger to the flat of one of the hedge's thick, serrated leaves. 'There've been other humans here-recently. They sliced their way through. These bushes are screaming in agony.'

'Bushes screaming?' Shal asked in astonishment.

'There's a pain scent from the fluids lost when any woody plant is cut. This hedge has been hurt bad, and in lots of places.' Ren looked for a moment like a shaman searching for an aura, his hands outstretched, his nose uplifted to catch scents.

'This way,' he said finally, leading them off to the left. Suddenly he stopped and raised his hand to stop Shal and Tarl. 'Blood…' he whispered. 'I smell blood.'

Moving even more cautiously, they turned the next corner in the maze. The emblem of the Black Watch greeted them from the chest of a man suspended grotesquely in the hedge. His machete was still in his hand, but it hadn't done him any good once he'd come in contact with the bush's thorns. His skin had already taken on an unnatural color from the poison that had worked its way through his system as fast as the blood circulated in his