Pool of Twilight (32 page)

“Sirana,” Kern growled.

Evaine nodded. “Yes, it could be that she controls the pool now.”

Kern stood, regarding the others. “You should stay here. Tomorrow, I’ll journey to the valley alone. After all, it’s the hammer she wants to get her hands on. I’ll confront her in the cave and—”

“And get burned to a crisp, Son?” Trooper snorted. The old paladin’s eyes flashed like steel against stone. “I don’t know where you got the notion that foolishness is akin to heroism, but you would do well to use that hammer of yours to knock the idea out of your head.” He tugged at his beard in agitation. “Go to the pool alone? You might as well hand this Sirana the hammer on a silver platter. Fine lot of good your heroics would do us. Sirana would have the hammer, you’d end up a pile of ashes, and I’d have been wasting my time trying to turn you into a real paladin.” He poked a bony finger at Kern’s breastplate. “And I don’t have much time to waste any more!”

Kern stared at the paladin, much chastened.

“What Trooper means to say, Kern,” Miltiades went on in a more gentle tone, “is that we are all in this quest together and that as a group we are stronger than any one of us alone.”

Trooper opened his mouth to point out that this was not at all what he had meant, but a glare from Miltiades’ empty eye sockets snapped his mouth shut. He didn’t suppose there was much point in arguing with a dead man.

It was settled. The company of seven would set out for the pool together, and with any luck they would reach it by late tomorrow.

Suddenly, the westering light of the sun dimmed as a shadow passed overhead. All looked up to see a vast creature of darkness soaring high over the mountains. A black dragon.

Kern had seen a dragon once before, and at the time he had thought it a magnificent and fearsome sight. But that wyrm had been little more than an overgrown lizard with wings compared to the gigantic, bat-winged creature that blotted out the sun now. The beast soared on the wind, stretching its long, sinuous neck, as if it flew with great purpose. In moments it disappeared behind a mountain and was lost to sight.

“This is an ill omen,” Trooper muttered.

“You don’t think Sirana could have summoned it, do you?” Listle asked Evaine.

The sorceress shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“If she did, then we might as well pack up and go home now,” Trooper grumbled. “I recognize that dragon from legends. Its name is Dusk, and there isn’t a black dragon in all the northlands as big, as powerful, and as evil.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully.

“Where do you suppose it was going?” Daile asked, wishing the beast had flown close enough to make a target for her arrows. She considered transforming into her hawk shape to pursue it. It was tempting … But no, that would be a fool’s errand. She shook the thought from her head.

“It flies south,” Gamaliel growled.

“Phlan,” was all Kern said.

Miltiades kept watch in the night.

He stood on a low spur of granite, thirty paces from the sleeping figures huddled around the campfire. He knew that the preternatural chill he eternally emanated only added to the winter cold. It was hard enough for the others to get warm as it was. He did not wish to compound the problem. Besides, he did not need the fire to warm his bones, nor the light to see.

Although, sometimes, he did miss the companionship.

But it was not his fate to make friends. Tyr had raised him once more from the grave for one purpose only—to see Phlan restored. He knew this should gratify him. But he felt a hunger deep in his bones all the same. There was so much in the life he had lived long ago that remained unfulfilled.

Once he had been steward and protector of the city of Turell. For long years the city dwelled in peace. Then an evil wizard called Zarl set his sights upon it. Again and again, Miltiades and the folk of Turell were forced to turn back Zarl’s magical hordes. Yet the wizard himself never rode into battle. Thus, he always survived to raise another army of darkness.

Finally, Miltiades decided to take by stealth what he was denied in honorable battle. He stole into Zarl’s camp and slew the wizard. But in turn Miltiades was discovered and slain by the wizard’s servants. Then the evil horde marched to Turell, taking the city apart stone by stone. For a thousand years, Miltiades had lain in his tomb, shunned by his god, Tyr, for his dishonorable act.

Then, some twenty-two years ago, Tyr had raised the paladin from the grave, giving him a chance to redeem himself. His quest was to restore the city of Phlan. After he had helped rescue the city from its imprisonment beneath the Red Wizard’s tower, Miltiades had returned to a more peaceful slumber in his crypt. But his mission was not over. Phlan would never truly be restored until the Hammer of Tyr was returned. Thus Tyr had raised him once again, to aid Kern on his quest to return the hammer to Phlan.

Now that quest was finally near an end, for good or ill. Either way, Miltiades knew he would return to the grave once more. This time forever.

Yet vows he had made in life went unkept. Even though Turell’s stones had long since turned to dust, the vows still bound him. He had sworn to protect the powerful secrets concealed beneath the city of Turell. True, the city was no more and the hidden chambers might never be found, but then again, some unlucky being might stumble upon them tomorrow. And then the entire continent of Faerun would be in peril.

“If only I had more time,” Miltiades said softly to the night, “to make certain the secrets are safe.”

“What secrets, Miltiades?” a voice asked gently.

He turned to see a figure step out of the shadows. Long hair glistened in the moonlight. Evaine. Her green eyes regarded him intelligently.

Slowly he shook his head. “Old secrets, Evaine. Secrets that are no doubt long buried and lost forever. I should not concern myself with them, but sometimes it is hard for the dead to forget what they did in life, even if it is no longer important.”

Evaine gave him a thoughtful look. “If it concerns you, Miltiades, I somehow doubt that it is truly unimportant.”

She took a step closer to him. Suddenly aware that his bony visage must glow lividly in the moonlight, he reached up to lower his visor.

“Don’t,” she said.

He halted, then nodded. “As you wish. Perhaps it is best. This way you will see me for what I am.”

Evaine crossed her arms against the cold, laughing softly. “Oh, I know very well what you are, Miltiades. A man of great strength and greater gentleness. A man fierce in battle, but kinder than he is fierce. And above all a man with wisdom enough to see his own weaknesses and to forgive the weaknesses he sees in others.”

Her words surprised him. For a moment, he almost felt a spark of warmth inside his empty rib cage. But no, that was impossible.

“I always hoped that someday I would meet a man like you, Miltiades,” she went on softly. She shook her head ruefully. “I just forgot to hope that he would be alive when I did.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. It was all he could think of to say.

She gave him a sharp look. “I’ve told you once not to be sorry, Miltiades. I’ll say it again. Don’t be.” She sighed, brushing her long hair from her face. “You have your vows to keep, and I have mine. I don’t suppose there’s much room for anything else in our lives.”

He nodded in understanding. The two stood in silence for a long while, gazing into the night. When Evaine saw a shooting star, she didn’t even think to make a wish.

Anton stood atop the temple of Tyr’s highest rampart in the steely light of predawn, gazing into the distance. He was watching. And waiting.

Three hours earlier, Sister Sendara had woken him in the deep of night.

“This is the day our fate will be decided,” the ancient priestess had whispered in the chilly darkness.

At those words, dread had clutched Anton’s heart, but he had pushed the feeling aside. Quickly, he had donned his robe and hurried into the temple’s main hall, striking a bronze gong to wake the other clerics. In the dark before the dawn, he told his brothers and sisters of Sendara’s warning. In the hours since, the clerics of Tyr had done what they could to ready themselves and the temple for the coming onslaught, whatever form it might take.

As Anton watched, the baleful eye of the sun heaved itself above the frozen plains, spilling its bloody light across the city. Gazing into the west, he saw a dark stain spreading across the horizon. Even as he watched, the thing grew larger, a vast, undulating sea approaching the city’s walls. His sharp eyes could just make out the twisted forms that shambled in the fore of the black tide.

“Zombies,” Anton murmured. “An army of zombies.”

He did not hesitate. He lifted a polished, silver-tipped ox horn that hung from a strap about his neck and sounded a long, clear note. The alarm rang out across the city.

As it did, the scene erupted in chaos.

Folk streamed into the streets. Word of the approaching army of doom had spread like wildfire. Now people shoved past each other in an effort to flee the city. Those who fell in the crush of humanity were trampled and did not get up. In years past, the valiant folk of Phlan would have armed themselves for battle. Today they poured out of the city’s western gate and fled into the countryside. Only a few remained behind, and these were mostly thieves and looters. By the time the zombies neared the Death Gates, the city was virtually empty.

The massive, ironbound Death Gates had been called by many names in the past—Fire Dragon Gates, Ogre’s Bane Gates, Giant’s Doom Gates. But finally they had simply come to be called the Death Gates, for again and again armies of evil had broken and perished against them.

But not this time. Rusted and worm-eaten, the Death Gates had decayed along with the rest of the city, and no one had bothered to repair them. As the throng of zombies surged forward, the huge gates groaned. More zombies pressed against them, and more, trampling each other to pulp as they pushed at the portal.

Finally, the Death Gates exploded in a spray of rotting timber. Zombies streamed into the abandoned city. Those thieves who had chosen to linger behind and fill their pockets soon regretted their decision as they were torn limb from limb. In minutes all of Phlan was awash with zombies. Only one bastion of resistance remained, and it was upon this that the army of undead finally converged.

The temple of Tyr.

As he watched the zombie horde approach, Anton found himself wondering for the hundredth time how the Hammerseeker and his companions fared. But there was no way to know. Sendara’s runestones had revealed nothing. They could only hope that Kern was even now on his way back to the city. It was their only chance. If the temple fell before the hammer was returned, Phlan would be wiped off the face of Toril forever.

“Help us, Tyr.” Anton muttered a prayer. “Help us to hold on.”

Six other clerics ascended the walls to stand beside Anton. Below, Tarl led a dozen more clerics in the chants that lent magical strength to the gray stone walls and the huge iron gates. At last the horde of undead reached the temple, filling the air with their foul reek.

Anton gazed at the attackers in horror. He had seen corpses raised from the grave before, and though the sight had been unpleasant, it was nothing compared to the throng of abominations he saw before him now.

These zombies were mockeries of living beings, fused from the disparate pieces of myriad creatures as if they had been pasted together by a madman. A snarling elf possessing arms that ended, not in hands, but in the snapping heads of vipers. An undead lion with the rotting upper bodies of three bow-wielding halflings protruding from its back. A gigantic spider, its head that of a beautiful, pale-skinned woman, but its eyes the mindless, many-faceted orbs of an insect. And still more and worse that made Anton sick even to look.

“In the name of Tyr, return to the graves that spawned you, creatures of evil!” Anton boomed, raising his arms above his head. The six clerics flanking him followed suit. Shimmering blue light glowed around their fingertips.

A score of zombies in the lead abruptly collapsed into heaps of dust, destroyed by the holy power of Tyr, but more zombie abominations lurched forward to take the place of those that had been eliminated.

“Come, clerics of Tyr!” a goblin fused to the back of a decomposing wolf cackled with a dirty grin. “Come, join us.”

“Why do you resist?” a mold-covered woman with scorpion tails for hair called in a syrupy voice. “If you fight us, you will perish, and then your bodies will be fused to ours. Whether you resist or not, inevitably you will join us.”

A cacophony rose from the surging throng. “Join us! Joined to us! Join us!”

Anton gagged in revulsion. “Let Tyr’s power strengthen you!” he called to the clerics beside him. All raised their arms once more, calling down the holy wrath of their god. Again, an entire rank of zombies exploded into clouds of choking dust.

Still more shambled forward, jeering at the clerics of Tyr.

Again, Anton and the six clerics beside him summoned Tyr’s power to destroy the slavering undead. And still again. One of the clerics collapsed in exhaustion, but the others chanted on, sending their prayers to Tyr. Fifty more undead burst into foul-smelling dust before another two clerics crumpled into unconsciousness, utterly drained from the effort of channeling so much magical energy.

In the end Anton alone stood upon the rampart to call on Tyr’s power. It was a measure of his willpower that a dozen more zombies exploded into yellow splinters.

Anton felt his knees give way. He slumped to the battlement, gasping for breath. He and his comrades had destroyed fully ten score zombies. But more had appeared to take their places, and the horde stretched through the city’s streets as far as the eye could see, out the Death Gates and to the distant horizon, a great, writhing, fearsome stain upon the land.

“Strengthen the gates!” he shouted down hoarsely.

Tarl was ready. “Tyr, grant us the power of your protection!” the white-haired cleric called out in a ringing voice.

A dozen clerics chanted fervent prayers. Suddenly, massive columns of jagged stone began to push up out of the ground before the gates, growing like gigantic trees. In moments, a dozen columns towered in front of the gates, bolstering the portals. As the first zombies approached, spikes shot out of the columns like huge, stony thorns, impaling the undead creatures. The zombies writhed on the spikes, shredding their own rotting flesh with their struggles. Blue lightning crackled around their bodies, burning them to cinders.