Pool of Radiance Page 3

  No, but I’m far from stupid, and I’m not afraid to express my ideas. The horse raised its head a little with that thought. I just assume that you will be wanting to dispatch whoever or whatever killed our master.

  “Our master? I’d rather you didn’t phrase it exactly that way. It makes me sound like I’m a horse.”

  My apologies. How about if I call you Mistress from now on?

  “Fine. So, what do you do when I’m not riding you?”

  Sometimes our mas—uh, Ranthor—would make me climb in one of the pockets of that cloth. Cerulean angled his head in the direction of the table, where the indigo cloth still lay spread out. I don’t much care for that, actually It’s dark in there—pitch black, in fact. As long as there’s plenty of room, I prefer to just vanish and walk around.

  “Really?” Shal asked. “And what if there’s not plenty of room?”

  Then I just wait outside—you know, invisible. As long as no one runs into me, it works out fine. But we can discuss all that en route to the kitchen. You really should eat, Mistress. And then we need to make travel plans for our trip to Phlan.

  Shal shook her head. She didn’t know what startled her more—the fact that the horse could communicate or that its communication was so decisive. She wondered for a moment how Ranthor had interacted with Cerulean. Whenever Shal had suggested that Ranthor had been working too hard and should eat, he would all but shoo her away. She couldn’t imagine Ranthor taking instructions from a horse. She looked wistfully toward the last place from which she had heard Ranthor’s voice. Although she expected no answer, she still asked the question: “Ranthor, you said this horse served you well. You didn’t say it had rather firm opinions about being left in the dark, or that it stood around outside waiting for someone to run into it. Where’s my ‘magic steed’ instruction booklet, Ranthor? Aren’t you the one who thought of everything?”

  Well, if you’re going to be that way about it…. Cerulean’s eyes assumed a hurt look, and he stomped out of the room and vanished.

  “Cerulean, come back here!” Shal called out to the thin air, feeling rather foolish. “I just haven’t got the hang of this yet.”

  You mean you’ll eat?

  “Yes, I’ll eat. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” Shal walked down the corridor, fully expecting at any moment to bump into an invisible horse, but when she reached the kitchen, Cerulean was already there. He was quite visible again.

  Shal cut herself two pieces of goat’s cheese and bread and poured herself half a flagon of mineral water. She took a bite of the sandwich and then raised the flagon in her right hand and held it up toward Cerulean. “To Ranthor, to magical horses, and to magical journeys! May the gods be with us, Cerulean!”

  Cerulean nodded his head and whinnied softly. To Ranthor and the past. To you, Mistress, and to the future.

  Shal finished her simple dinner with an apple, which she shared with Cerulean. After tidying up, she packed, putting everything she thought she could use in the Cloth of Many Pockets and adding a few more things in Cerulean’s saddlebags. Then she went through the entire keep, magically sealing doorways, rooms, and passages with the command words Ranthor had taught her. Spells of protection had been one of Ranthor’s specialties, and Shal knew as she stood at the outer gate of the keep that nothing short of a god could enter before she returned.

  “Not bad for an apprentice—right, Cerulean?” The big stallion laid its head on her shoulder and looked back at the keep. After a last brief moment of remembering, Shal turned, mounted Cerulean, and resolved to make Ranthor proud of her on this, her first true adventure. “To Phlan, big fellow. Let’s go!”

  Cerulean galloped like no horse Shal had ever ridden. The movements of the stallion’s huge body were so fluid that Shal almost felt as if she were flying. She rode for miles at an incredible pace, and Cerulean never tired.

  Shal took advantage of the smooth ride to study her new magical tools and learn the command words written on the Staff of Power. Before she knew it, the sun was setting. “Well done, Cerulean! Let’s stop and rest.”

  Shal started to go about the motions of setting up camp as she’d seen her brothers do when she was younger. She kept her riding gloves on to protect her hands as she gathered wood and kindling. There was no need to struggle with flint and steel to start the fire, either. Instead, she used a simple cantrip Ranthor had taught her. As the fire began to blaze, Shal stood back and proudly admired her handiwork. She unrolled her bedding and was about to heat a piece of jerky for dinner when Cerulean began to snort and stamp. “Is something wrong?” Shal whispered, wondering if she was about to encounter intruders.

  Aren’t you going to take care of the beast that brought you? Do you think I want to carry these saddlebags all night? Or chew on this hunk of metal in my dreams?

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Immediately Shal began to remove the offending tack. Unstrapping Cerulean’s bridle and removing his bit was easy. Undoing the stiff saddle harness wasn’t even too taxing. But when Shal started to lift the saddle and packs off Cerulean’s back, she almost buckled under the weight.

  “Oof! This is heavy! I wish I were stronger!” And with her last words, she let out a gasp.

  The magic of the Ring of Three Wishes worked instantly. Shal could feel herself growing larger, stronger. The saddle became like a feather in her hands. Her once perfectly fitted riding gear bound her flesh so tightly that the seams split. She flung the saddle to the ground with a force her petite body had never been capable of and watched in horror as her delicate hands and slender arms grew into what she perceived as huge, brawny appendages. She watched her feet, calves, and thighs expand in a similar fashion, and she could feel a sheath of muscled flesh building on her once trim stomach.

  “No!” she screamed. “No!” She knew enough about wishing lore to know that she had made the cardinal mistake of wishers. She had wished carelessly. “Look at me! I’m a monster! I’m huge!” she cried. Shal fell to her knees, terrified and disgusted by what she had done. She knew the change was permanent unless she used another wish.

  Cerulean tried desperately to break into her thoughts. Her terror and revulsion registered on his brain like a stabbing knife. The image projected by Shal was of a grotesque parody of a human female, distorted almost beyond recognition by musculature and sinews. The reality was quite different. Cerulean could perceive human beauty. He certainly had a sense of what Ranthor found attractive in women. Shal had indeed changed as a result of the wish; she was considerably larger than she had been. But the basic beauty of her features and the proportion of her figure had not changed. If she was unattractive, it was only to someone who could not find beauty in a large woman. Her appearance was marred only by the ripped, ill-fitting clothing that still managed to hold a few parts of her expanded figure captive.

  But Shal was oblivious to Cerulean’s mental shouts. She stared at the big calves that protruded from where her ankles had been, and at her forearms, where they tested the limits of the wrist cuffs. She could only imagine what her face must look like.

  Her immediate thought was to wish herself back to her former size. But as much as she wanted to make that wish, she shook her head resolutely. No, Ranthor had entrusted his entire magical legacy to her. It was not to be wasted. Shal’s one goal was to make him proud. She had made a gross mistake, and she must live with it. The ring’s magic must be preserved for her quest to avenge her master’s murder.

  “What a fool I am! I can’t even trust myself with a simple ring!” she chastised herself. Shal reached for the ring to pull it off, but her hands had grown much larger than before and the ring wouldn’t budge. “Damn! Instead of wishing to be strong, I could at least have wished that me and my belongings were in Phlan—”

  “No!” Shal screamed as she felt the ring’s magic working once more. Before she could even blink, she found herself kneeling on the planks of a long wooden dock, facing the twilight silhouette of a city she had never seen but knew without a doubt was Phla
n. Her bedroll, her saddle, and Cerulean were beside her. The horror of her stupidity bludgeoned her like a battle-axe, and she fell prostrate on the dock and wept, beating her fists against the planks with each rage-filled sob.

  Passersby gawked at the huge but comely woman and her seemingly shrunken leather clothing, but none moved closer or offered assistance. They could see a great war-horse standing protectively by the woman’s side, and if that wasn’t enough, the big woman was rattling the two-inch-thick boards of the dock with every blow of her massive fists. If the woman wanted to cry in public, there were few if any who would question her or try to stop her.

  The Test

  Two wagons bumped and jolted their way along the deeply rutted road. “Yo! Tarl!” Brother Donal called down from the head wagon. “Can you interrupt your hammer-throwing long enough to lead the horses up out of these ruts?”

  “No problem, Brother Donal,” answered Tarl. The young cleric hurried ahead of the first wagon to retrieve the war hammer he had just launched at an unfortunate sapling, and then he jogged back to the lead draft horse. Tarl pulled gently but firmly on the horse’s bridle, guiding the animal to the side of the narrow roadway where the path was a little smoother. The horses pulling the second wagon followed suit, stepping into line behind the first. Tarl continued to walk just ahead of the front wagon, knowing that they would soon reach the point where they must leave the pass through the foothills of the Dragonspine Mountains and follow the legendary Stojanow River south into Phlan.

  Brother Anton, who had been riding beside Brother Donal, jumped down to join Tarl. “Your practice is comin’ along well. Unless my eyes deceive me, you haven’t missed your mark in a dozen throws.”

  An unabashed grin broke out on Tarl’s face, and he muttered an embarrassed thank-you as the giant of a man reached his side. Like Tarl and the other ten men journeying together to Phlan, Anton was a warrior cleric in a sect that worshiped Tyr, the Even-Handed, God of Justice and War. Anton’s weapon of choice was the throwing hammer. He could split a good-sized tree—or a good-sized man—with one well-aimed throw.

  “Now, don’t go gettin’ puffed up from a word o’ praise,” said Anton sternly. “What I was wantin’ to tell you is that you’re doin’ just fine with that toy hammer of yours. Fact is, you don’t even have to think about it anymore.” The big man mimicked a limp-wristed throw—“Whoosh, thunk, bull’s-eye … every throw. It’s time now for you to learn to put your back into it, lad. Get yourself a real hammer and start practicin’ a man’s throw.”

  Anton reached under his tunic and pulled from his belt a hammer that was easily twice the size of Tarl’s.

  Tarl shook his head from side to side. “But that’s a smith’s hammer. It’s for fixing armor, not fighting.”

  Anton stiff-armed Tarl to the ground. “Foolish whelp! Do ya think I don’t know what kind of hammer this is? Do ya think you’ll always have your choice of weapons in a fight?” Anton held the hammer down to Tarl, and when Tarl grabbed hold, Anton jerked him to his feet with an effortless tug. “You’d better get used to usin’ anything ya can get your hands on as a weapon—I don’t care if it’s a smith’s hammer or a hunk o’ wood. Now, start throwin.’ Start shatterin’ a bit of this countryside instead o’ just dentin’ it.”

  Tarl stared dumbly at the hammer for a moment, feeling its weight and its awkward balance as he shifted it in his hand.

  “One more thing, Tarl. I want you to make every fifth throw lyin’ on either your back or your belly. Many’s the time I had to take an enemy down after bein’ decked myself,” Anton said with a grimace of recollection.

  Tarl seriously doubted that the huge Anton had ever been knocked down in battle, but his stinging backside was an effective reminder that he was in no position to argue the point. Besides, Tarl had no business even thinking about arguing with a senior brother in the order, and anyhow, he knew Anton was right. Tarl shifted the heavy hammer back and forth in his hand several times, then raised it and stepped into his first throw. The big hammer spiraled crookedly through the air and fell to the ground a good six feet short of the tree Tarl was aiming at. Tarl jogged past the lead wagon to where the hammer had landed. Anton fell in step alongside the head wagon and left Tarl to his throwing.

  It had been nearly two years since Tarl’s eighteenth birthday, when he had taken his clerical vows in the Order of Tyr. He had been traveling with these eleven brothers in the faith for only eight weeks, but he believed he had learned more in that short time than he had in his previous twenty-two months at the temple in Vaasa.

  Even on the road, Tarl continued to be tutored in his studies and devotionals, and the combat training was more intensive than anything to which he had previously been exposed. Brother Donal had drilled Tarl in techniques for guarding the flanks and rear when fighting with allies. Brother Sontag had taught him the use of the ball and chain, a grisly weapon almost as dangerous to use in practice as in battle. Tarl had received a nasty blow to the head in the middle of one of his own practice swings that left him with the utmost respect for Brother Sontag and his chosen weapon, and a headache as well. Even before today’s instruction, Brother Anton had worked with Tarl for many days, in his usual gruff but effective manner, drilling him on the use of the shield as both a defensive and offensive weapon.

  Tarl was anxious to test his new skills in battle, and he knew his chance would come before long. He and the eleven brothers with whom he was traveling had been charged with delivering the sacred Hammer of Tyr to the newly built temple in Phlan. None of the men had ever been to Phlan before, but they had learned something of the port city’s history before setting out on their mission.

  As Tarl understood it, some fifty years ago, Phlan had been completely leveled by marauding dragons. Evil creatures of all description had subsequently moved into the ruins, and it had been only in the last few years that people had regained control of a portion of the city and brought back to it some semblance of civilization. However, most of Phlan was still inhabited by chaotic, evil creatures, and the Stojanow River, which had once been the city’s lifeblood, had been mysteriously turned to a vile, stinking channel of acidic poisons.

  The Temple of Tyr was the first temple to be erected in the city since its fall. The revered Hammer of Tyr would provide symbolic strength to the occupants of the temple, and would be wielded by the temple’s head cleric when the warrior clerics were ready to assist Phlan’s residents in the reclamation of even more of the city’s lost territory. Tarl and his companions were to add their strength to the existing forces of the new temple.

  The thought of real action stirred something in Tarl. He yearned to earn a name for himself as a great warrior of Tyr, a powerful cleric serving the cause of good in the Realms. Tarl already had gained the respect of his teachers for his exceptional clerical abilities. But his healing powers were a gift from Tyr, not a skill he had developed through sweat and dedication. He wanted to prove his devotion to his god and the order by succeeding in battle, the true vocation of the Tyrian clerics.

  As Tarl continued to practice, he envisioned all manner of foes. He took dead aim at tree-ogres, stone-orcs, and stump-kobolds. Unfortunately, the monsters seemed to be winning. Tarl focused his concentration on his next throw—aim, step, close, swing … and release. The smith’s hammer whirred as it spun end-over-end and smashed with a resounding clunk into the small boulder Tarl had targeted. It was Tarl’s third hit since he had started practicing with the awkward hammer, but the first two had only reached their mark; this one split it in two. Had the rock been a hobgoblin, its head would have been split wide open.

  “One enemy dies, Tarl, but another waits! Quick, behind ya!” Anton’s voice carried over the rumble of the wagons. Knowing Anton’s intent, Tarl grabbed the hammer, dropped to the ground, rolled, and threw the weapon at a white pine nearly twenty paces from where he lay. The hammer thunked into the tree’s trunk just an inch from the ground.

  “By Tyr, he’ll be hoppin’ for a day
or two! Ya did some powerful damage to his foot, lad!” Anton laughed as he approached Tarl.

  “Even when ya throw from the ground—no, especially when ya throw from the ground—ya still need all the momentum your body can give ya. Channel your energy so the full strength of your torso is packed behind your throw. That way your arm snaps forward with the force of a released spring, and your hammer does the damage ya need it to.” Anton took the smith’s hammer from Tarl and dropped to the ground to demonstrate. The big man moved with a speed and ease that belied his giant stature. True to his instructions, his arm snapped like a spring, sending the hammer forward with a force Tarl hadn’t realized even Anton could manage from his back. When the hammer thwacked into a nearby tree, the entire length of the trunk split, as if it had been struck by an axe.

  It took all his concentration, but many tries later, Tarl felt the tightly wound tension and powerful release of the snap that Brother Anton had spoken of. Tarl’s throw missed its mark by several inches, but he knew he would never forget the technique, the feel of power in that throw. He also knew that he had been lacking that energy even when he had thrown from a standing position. He continued his practice with renewed enthusiasm all through the afternoon and into the evening, feeling a growing sense of pride and accomplishment as his hammer thrummed through the air with newfound speed and energy.

  Though he was no giant like Anton, Tarl was tall—easily six feet—and strong. Nevertheless, by the time the brothers stopped for the night, Tarl’s arms, shoulders, and back ached from the repeated use of previously underworked muscles. When Brother Sontag sent him for water in the morning, Tarl could barely hoist the yoke to his shoulders. At Anton’s suggestion, Tarl heated a poultice and spread it between his shoulder blades. Anton instructed the young cleric to lie down on his bedroll, and he massaged the tarlike substance into Tarl’s back and shoulder blades with his huge hands. The medication from the poultice quickly spread a penetrating, rejuvenating warmth through his aching muscles.