James M. Ward - The Pool 3 - Pool of Twilight

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Pool of Twilight
Book 3 of the Pool Trilogy
By James M. Ward and Anne K. Brown
Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: November, 7th, 2003
This effort is dedicated to my best friend, Mike Gray, The dude probably won't even read this book, but he's
a good guy anyway.
-J.M.W.
For my grandmother, Adeline Dauska, the treasure in my past; and for my daughter, Emily, the treasure in my
future.
—A.K.B.
1
Dark Dreams
The paladin stood before the shadowed archway, breathing air sharp and acrid with the stench of magic.
The stone ruins about him were dark and strangely dis-torted. The walls of the dank chambers seemed to
be undulating wildly, the leprous colonnades lurching at queer angles, as if the place had been designed by a
mad-man.
The paladin gripped a heavy, combat-worn battle-hammer firmly in one gauntleted hand, and in his other
he held a white crestless shield. Before being granted a symbol of honor, a paladin had to prove his worth.
This was his test.
He stepped through the archway.
Immediately he sensed it. Evil. It lingered on the air, coating him as he passed, leaving what felt like a
thin, noxious layer of rancid oil on his skin. The paladin did his best to ignore it as he journeyed into the
blackness. His shield gave off a faint azure radiance, lighting his way.
Yesss. .. Come to me, Hammerseeker.
The bubbling voice seemed to ooze out of the darkness from all directions, shrill and inhuman.
"Who are you?" the paladin called into the murk. The beating of his heart echoed loudly inside his steel
breast-plate.
Your doom!
Without warning, a pulsing crimson glow burst apart the darkness with violent light, revealing a chamber
of monstrous proportions. Ponderous stone vaults, as huge and misshapen as giants, supported a ceiling lost
in the crimson miasma. The walls were formed of what seemed at first to be huge oblong bricks. It was
only after a moment that the paladin realized what they really were: coffins.
There were hundreds of them. No, thousands. Coffins of beaten gold and worm-eaten wood, of
rune-carved stone and rotting wicker. Many were cracked and broken, their denizens hanging out of them
in a thousand differ-ent states of decay, all leering at him with the ceaseless grins of death.
Come, youngling! Bow to me, before I rend your limbs apart.
Shadows swirled in the lofty nave of the huge chamber. The paladin approached almost against his will.
He barely noticed the heaps of treasure scattered around him. Beaten silver urns shone like enormous
hearts in the pulsing crimson light. Gold coffers lay broken open, their jeweled contents spilling out of them
like guts.
Closer, youngling. Come gaze upon what you have given your brief and pitiful life to seek.
Blue radiance burst into life high in the nave. The pal-adin caught a glimpse of something hovering at the
center of the diamond-hard brilliance, an object of wondrous power. Then the shadows swirled, cloaking the
blessed light
And now, Hammerseeker, you die!
Something moved with terrible swiftness in the dark-ness of the nave. The paladin barely managed to lift
his shield in time to meet the blow. He cried out as pain coursed like lightning up his arm. The white shield
shud-dered, then burst asunder in a spray of twisted shards. The denizens of the coffin-walls jeered at him
in a horrid cacophony of teeth clattering and bone snapping.
The paladin fought down the panic clawing at his chest. "I will stand firm, Tyr!" he shouted to his god.
He swung his battlehammer in a whistling arc toward the darkness.
But his footing was not secure.
His heel skidded on coins scattered across the stone floor. His blow went wild, the hammer spinning off
into the darkness as he fell to his knees. Shrill laughter bub-bled from the alcove as the coffin-walls erupted
in a new chorus of gleeful rattling. The paladin hung his head in defeat. He was no hero.
No, you are not, youngling. You are a fool. And now you will die a fool's death!
Midnight-dark claws slashed out of the darkness. They punched through the paladin's steel breastplate
as if it were parchment. Four streaks of searing fire streaked across his chest. His body arched backward
in agony. Hot blood spattered the dark stone floor. A scream ripped from his lungs.
"No! Tyr, help me! It wasn't supposed to end like this!"
There was no answer to his cry. His god had forsaken him. The shadow-shrouded being stirred again,
readying its final blow. * * * * *
"Kern, come back to us!"
A cry reached through the darkness. The voice was calm and reassuring, but faint, as if coming to him
from across a vast distance.
"He can't hear you, Shal." This voice was deeper than the first, gruffer. Despite its faintness, there was
a distinct edge of worry to it.
"Yes, he can. He can and will." The voice seemed to grow louder, cutting through the darkness. "You're
hav-ing one of your dreams, Kern. Let it go. You have to come back to us."
He struggled to break free, but the darkness was too heavy. It pressed down upon him. He couldn't
breathe. It was no use.
"Kern Miltiades Desanea, come back this instant!"
With all his might he struggled upward, toward a faint light that shone brighter and brighter as he rose.
Just when he was about to give up, he broke through the sur-face, and a ragged, shuddering breath filled his
lungs.
"Mother... Father ..." His voice croaked like an old frog's from a throat as dry as bone dust. "It was the
dream again."
He was lying in his bed in the comfortingly familiar chamber in Denlor's Tower where he had slept
every night of his twenty-two years. A beautiful middle-aged woman smiled down at him. Her hair formed
a flame-colored corona around her face, and her green eyes were so bright as to put emeralds to shame.
An aura of magic seemed to shimmer about her. But then, she was a sorceress.
"It's all right now, Kern," Shal said, smoothing his hair—red hair, just like hers—from his forehead.
"You're back with us now."
He nodded and smiled, the expression suddenly turn-ing into a grimace of pain.
"Shal, what is it?" Tarl asked in concern. A hale, broad-shouldered man, Kern's father was still in his
prime despite his snow-white hair. His sightless eyes stared blankly into the air as he reached out to lay a
hand on his son.
Kern cried out in pain.
Shal's brow furrowed as she threw back the woolen blanket that covered her son. A gasp escaped her
lips.
"Kern, you're wounded!"
Kern stared in astonishment. Four long gashes marked his white nightshirt. Crimson blood soaked the
garment. His chest quivered as he drew shallow, painful breaths. The nightmare replayed itself in his mind.
He remem-bered the shadow-filled nave. Something had lurked there, lashing out at him with midnight-dark
talons.
"But... it was just a dream!" Kern protested. Instantly he regretted his shout as blood oozed from the
gashes.
"How can this be?" Tarl asked. Gently, expertly, his fin-gers explored his son's injury. Tarl had been a
cleric of Tyr for over three decades and had seen and healed more wounds on the battlefield than he could
ever have counted. "You've had the dream a dozen times, Kern, yet this has never happened before."
Shal laid a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Can you heal him, beloved?" Her voice was calm and
controlled, but urgency shone in her green eyes.
Tarl nodded, laying both of his strong hands on Kern's chest. Briefly, the cleric shut his unseeing eyes. A
prayer tumbled from his lips. "May Tyr grant me power in this time of need," he finished. A sapphire
nimbus sprang to life around his hands and spread over Kern's wounds, radiating healing power.
Suddenly the magical glow vanished. Blue cobwebs drifted down in its place, covering Kern and the bed
in a sticky web.
Shal frowned, glancing at her husband. "When was the last time one of your healing spells went awry?"
Tarl was dumbfounded. "When I was a neophyte, about thirty years ago. I don't understand what
happened. The spell was working fine, then something seemed to suck the magic right out of it." Tarl
pressed his hands against the four gashes on Kern's chest, slowing the bleeding.
Kern gritted his teeth. Pain was nothing to a paladin, he reminded himself. But then, he wasn't a true
paladin yet.
"What's going on?" a clear, crystalline voice asked.
A delicate young woman stood in the doorway of Kern's chamber. Between her forest green tunic and
short dark hair she looked almost like a pretty but mischievous boy. Listle, Shal's apprentice, grinned
impishly. "I heard some-thing that sounded like an ogre's courting call down here and thought I'd better
investigate."
She moved toward the others with a swift, smooth grace that belied her gray elven blood. Her ears were
daintily pointed, her eyes silvery. Lamplight glimmered off a ruby pendant hanging from a silver chain
around her throat She halted when she saw the blood oozing between Tarl's fingers. "Kern! What
happened?"
"Listle," Shal said in her steady voice, "there's a purple jar on the highest shelf in my spellcasting
chamber. You'll recognize it by the star-rune on the seal. It's an ointment of healing. I want you to get it for
me. Now!"
Listle nodded, her eyes wide. She spoke a few fluid words of magic, and silver sparks crackled around
her feet The elf dashed out of the chamber so swiftly her out-line seemed to blur.
"I wish she wouldn't do that," Shal said with annoyance. "A swiftness spell takes a year off your life
every time it's cast. True, elven lifespans are long, but not so long that Listle should squander a year every
time she has the whim."
"Hush, wife," Tarl said gently. "She is only trying to help Kern."
"I'll be all right" Kern said weakly. "Really."
"You be quiet!" Shal snapped.
Kern meekly clamped his mouth shut. The room was beginning to swim around him.
Moments later, Listle burst into the room like a silver comet "I'm sorry I took so long," the elf gasped
breath-lessly. Her shiny hair was a raven-dark tangle, sticking out wildly in every direction. "You have a
confusing variety of jars and vials, Shal."
"Did you find the ointment?"
Listle nodded, handing Shal a small purple jar. The sor-ceress took it breaking the runic seal with a single
word of magic.
"Now, Kern, I need you to listen to me very carefully," Shal said. Her voice was stern but reassuringly
calm. "I need you to open yourself to the power of the healing ointment. Imagine that you're surrounded by
a shining wall of white light, a wall that blocked your father's spell."
The young man closed his eyes and did his best to pic-ture a shimmering wall enclosing him.
"All right, Kern, now I want you to lower the wall. Slowly. Don't rush it. Let it drop, inch by inch, until
it's just a shining ring at your feet."
Kern gritted his teeth with effort. It was hard, but grad-ually his will won out and the imaginary wall
began to shrink. It dropped to his chest, then to his knees, and finally became nothing more than a glowing
circle down around his feet.
"Is it gone?"
Kern nodded, not daring to speak for fear of breaking his concentration.
"Now, beloved," Shal said to Tarl, placing the jar of oint-ment into the cleric's hands. With deft, practiced
fingers, Tarl spread a thin layer of the clear ointment over Kern's oozing wounds. The pungent healing balm
smelled of mint and juniper. Tarl set down the empty jar.
Nothing happened.
"Concentrate on the wall, Kern," Shal warned.
With a groan of effort, he held the wall down. Suddenly he felt a cool tingling in his chest Then he could
bear it no longer. He relinquished his willpower, and felt the imaginary wall spring back into place around
him. But the pain in his chest was gone.
"You can open your eyes now, Son."
Kern could hear the relief in his mother's voice. Slowly he opened his eyes. He was almost surprised to
see that, in truth, there was no wall of white light encasing him. He ran a hand over his chest. His
bloodstained nightshirt was still in tatters, but the skin beneath was smooth and unbroken. The ointment had
healed him.
He grinned weakly. "Thank you, Mother, Father," he whispered hoarsely. "You too, Listle."
The elf winked at him, beaming, but he didn't notice. In the blink of an eye, Kern had fallen asleep.
* * * * *
"I just don't understand it, Tarl!" Shal said, clenching her hand into a fist. The sorceress and her husband
were alone in the main chamber of Denlor's Tower. A fire burned in a vast marble fireplace. Kern was still
sleeping upstairs, and the sorceress had sent Listle to her spell-casting chamber with a broom, hoping to
keep her preco-cious apprentice occupied for a time.
"How, by all the gods, could he be hurt by a dream?" Now that she and Tarl were alone, Shal's voice
was trem-bling. She leaned her head against her husband's broad chest, and he held her in his strong arms.
She was a stat-uesque woman, taller even than Tarl—the result of an inadvertent use of a wishing ring
years ago—but right now she felt small and afraid.
"All I can say is that it must be a very powerful creature that stalks his dreams," Tarl said softly.
"You think it's the warder of Tyr's hammer, don't you?"
Tarl nodded slowly. "Nothing else makes sense. Who-ever plagues Kern's dreams knows that it's his
destiny to find the lost hammer."
Shal sighed. Twenty-two years ago, she and Tarl had confronted a magical pool of darkness with the
help of several others—including the ranger Ren o' the Blade, the sorceress Evaine, and an undead paladin
named Miltia-des, raised from the grave by Tyr for the purpose of the quest. Shal shivered. Even after all
these years, the mem-ory of the ordeal was still clear in her mind.
It all began when, with the help of the evil god Bane, the Red Wizard Marcus stole the entire city of
Phlan, transporting it to a subterranean cavern beneath his tower. There he intended to feed the life-forces
of Phlan's people to a pool of darkness in an attempt to gain enough power to become a dark deity. But
Shal, Tarl, and the others had different ideas, and after they had defeated the Red Wiz-ard, Tarl cast the
legendary Hammer of Tyr into the pool, destroying the dark waters forever.
But something went awry. Before the holy relic could magically return to Tarl's hand, as it always had
before, the hammer was stolen by Bane. The dark god hid it where he thought none would ever find it.
Before he was summoned back to the halls of Tyr, the undead paladin, Miltiades, made a prophecy. One
day, he foretold, it would be the fate of Shal and Tarl's newborn child to lead a quest for the lost hammer.
Knowledge of this prophecy they had thus far kept from their beloved son.
"By Tyr, I would go myself," Tarl said through clenched teeth. "But how can I when . . . when ..." His
broad shoulders slumped in despair as he sank down to a chair covered in gryphon leather. He buried his
face in his hands. "What have I become? I cannot even protect my son in his time of need." His voice was
anguished. "What good is a blind hero, Shal?"
"Enough!" Shal said sharply. "Get all of that nonsense out of your system. Self-pity does not become
you, cleric of Tyr."
A look of surprise crossed Tarl's face. "You're right, of course," he said huskily. "I suppose I should be
thankful I'm alive at all. So many of the temple's clerics have per-ished these last years. I have no right to
complain."
The last five years had been hard ones for the good clerics of Phlan. When the hammer was first stolen
by Bane, few had realized how dire the consequences would truly be. The hammer had been the heart of
the temple's power, and, without the holy relic, the temple's protective aura had gradually diminished. The
warding spells woven about its walls were no longer reliable proof against the scourges of unholy magic
sent by enemies of the God of Justice. The clerics of Tyr were dying, one by one. A year ago, Tarl himself
had nearly succumbed. It was only a great strength, and an even greater faith in his god, that had preserved
him. But he did not escape unscarred—he was struck blind. Tarl knew that it was only a matter of time
before the temple's defenses would fail altogether, and on that day all the clerics of Tyr would perish.
Unless Tyr's hammer was returned.
"Never forget, husband," Shal said softly, "you are the same man you always were. Nothing has
changed that."
He found her face with his hands and kissed her soundly. "What good could I possibly have done in my
life to deserve you, Shal?"
"Oh, I can think of a thing or two," she said with a devil-ish smile.
* * * * *
Kern groaned as he dragged himself out of bed.
"How do you ever expect to fight real monsters, Kern, if dream ones can knock the stuffing out of you
so easily?"
Kern shot Listle a withering glance. Between his mother's healing ointment and a night's dreamless rest,
he was almost as good as new. Put the emphasis on almost, he thought with a wince as he shrugged on a
tunic the color of mist. His chest was so sore he felt as if he had been hugged by an over-friendly owlbear.
"By the way, your mother wants to see you."
"About what?" Kern asked. He grimaced as he pulled on his boots.
The elf did a poor job of stifling a giggle. "How should I know?" she asked.
"It's funny," Kern grumbled, "but I always thought elves were supposed to be stately, regal, polite
beings."
"Well, thinking never was your strong point," Listle retorted.
With a glare, Kern brushed past her and headed for his mother's chamber. As he trudged up the tower's
central staircase, he wondered why Shal wanted to see him. She didn't usually invite him into her
spellcasting chamber. In fact, her private laboratory was generally off-limits to everyone except Listle. She
probably wanted to talk about his recurring nightmares, he thought.
He had dreamed about the beast in the darkness a number of times before, and each time the dream had
been a little clearer and lasted a little longer. He tried to recall the details of yesterday's nightmare, but
already it seemed foggy. He remembered a shadowed nave and a terrible creature. The beast had called
him something. What was it? A title of some sort... Kern shook his head. The memory was too clouded.
The young man had a feeling that his mother and father knew something about the nightmare that they
weren't telling him. They seemed ill at ease every time he told them he had dreamed the same dream.
Were they trying to protect him from something?
He sighed. It wasn't easy being the only son of two of the city of Phlan's greatest heroes. Once, with
the help of Kern's honorary Uncle Ren, Tarl and Shal had defeated an evil dragon that tyrannized half the
city, which in those days was rife with monsters and ruins. And another time, they had helped to rescue
Phlan from an evil Red Wizard named Marcus, who had stolen the city and sealed it in a cavern beneath his
tower. Kern didn't know how he could ever live up to the examples set by parents like that.
"There you are," Shal said as her son stepped into the circular chamber where she studied and practiced
her magical skills. Once the chamber had been used by a powerful wizard named Denlor, a friend of Shal's
old mas-ter, but after his death Shal had taken it over. While Shal insisted that the rest of the tower be
spotless, this room was always cluttered. Shelves lined the walls, sagging under their load of leather-bound
books and rune-sealed jars. Countless tables were strewn with crisp rolls of parchment, bright purple quill
pens, and crystal pots of invisible ink. Bunches of dried herbs hung from the rafters, lending the air a sweet,
dusty scent.
"Sit," Shal said briskly. Kern did as ordered. His mother approached him with a clear crystal in hand, her
violet robe whispering against the stone floor.
"What is that?" Kern asked, eyeing the crystal warily. He was more than a little suspicious of his
mother's magic powers. He had seen her cast a spell and engulf entire bands of attacking orcs in searing
flame. It was generally a good idea to avoid being on the receiving end of her incantations.
"It's a test. I want to find out why your father's spell failed to heal you. Now stop squirming and hold
still."
She spoke several strange words. Suddenly the crystal glowed with a crimson radiance. The scarlet
glow reached out to envelop a heavy spellbook on a nearby table. The sorceress nodded in satisfaction.
"Does it detect magic?" Kern asked tentatively.
"That's right," Shal said. "Now it's your turn." She brought the crystal closer to Kern. The scarlet glow
reached out for him, probing. But as soon as the radiance touched his chest, it abruptly vanished. The
crystal went dark, disintegrating into a fine gray powder that trickled from Shal's hand.
She raised an eyebrow, gazing speculatively at her son.
"What?" Kern asked defensively. "What is it?"
"This is a problem," Shal said. She took a troubled breath. "Oh, I've suspected it for some time now.
Why do you think I always tell you to stay away from my chamber when I'm working on a spell?" She
dusted the remnants of the crystal from her hands. "This confirms everything."
"Confirms what?" Kern asked in utter desperation.
"You are unmagic, Kern." Her face grew serious. "It's my fault, of course. I cast a number of powerful
spells while I was pregnant with you. I would have rather not cast them but was forced to in order to save
your father, as well as the city of Phlan. Now it seems they have affected you, though I'm not yet sure if
the effect is per-manent, or even if it will be consistent from one day to the next."
Kern's head was spinning. "Affected me in what way?"
"Magic doesn't work on you, Kern. Now, this might not actually be all bad. It means you're immune to
harmful spells. But it also means you're immune to magical heal-ing as well, like the spell your father tried
to cast on you after your strange nightmare,"
Kern groaned in dismay. "Isn't there something you can do to fix things?"
"Well, we can help you practice lowering your magical guard." Shal smiled reassuringly at her son. "It
won't solve the problem, but it may help."
Before Kern could reply, Listle burst into the room. A flurry of silver sparks followed in her wake. Shal
scowled at the elf's flagrant use of her swiftness spell.
The elf grinned sheepishly. "I know I wasn't supposed to cast another one," Listle said excitedly, "but I
thought this was too important to wait"
"What is it, Listle?" Kern asked.
Her silvery eyes were positively glowing. "It's the cler-ics at the temple," she exclaimed. "They've
solved Bane's riddle!"
Kern stared at the elf uncomprehendingly.
She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Don't you see, you ogre-brained oaf? They've discovered where
the Hammer of Tyr is hidden!"
2
A Riddle Answered
Weighted down by his heavy armor, Kern hurriedly descended the tower's central staircase. As a
paladin-aspirant, tradition required that he don full armor before visiting the temple of Tyr. That included a
heavy shirt of chain mail, a breastplate of beaten steel, and greaves to match. Over this he wore the tabard
of pure, unblemished white that marked him as a supplicant to the Order of Pal-adins. At his side hung the
worn battlehammer he used for 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 rid-dle of the hammer for twenty-two years. Are you
as curi-ous 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 satisfac-tion of a reply. Listle had the disconcerting habit
of step-ping through walls and other seemingly solid objects when one least expected it. Shal considered the
elf's abil-ity to pass through solid matter a magical curiosity. Kern just considered it a nuisance. He stepped
forward, open-ing 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 prema-ture. Lately, when Kern looked out of his chamber's win-dow 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
ebul-lience. They turned onto a narrow street, and the comfort-ing 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 foun-tains. 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, turn-ing 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 travel-ers 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 mut-tered 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, how-ever, 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 Onopor-dum. 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 ooz-ing 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 ham-mer, 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 oth-ers 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 unmagic as your mother calls it. I confess, I often won-dered why I was never able to catch the
slightest glimpse of you, even after placing that enchantment on your armor. Now it appears I have an
explanation."
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 ener-gies, 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 beam-ing. "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 expres-sion of abject terror.
"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.
摘要：

PoolofTwilightBook3ofthePoolTrilogyByJamesM.WardandAnneK.BrownEbookversion1.0ReleaseDate:November,7th,2003Thiseffortisdedicatedtomybestfriend,MikeGray,Thedudeprobablywon'tevenreadthisbook,buthe'sagoodguyanyway.-J.M.W.Formygrandmother,AdelineDauska,thetreasureinmypast;andformydaughter,Emily,thetreasu...

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