The dreamstalker screamed in soundless, ethereal agony.
He had been burned! He looked down in astonishment to see that several of his dark, beautiful fingers had been transformed into a sticky mass of blue cobwebs. The bastellus writhed in pain. He had never known such a sensation before. Somehow the young man was immune to his touch.
Sigh shrank away from the hideous, vile human that had caused him pain. Blast Sirana! She could seduce the wretched creature herself. Sigh would have nothing more to do with this task.
The bastellus drifted quickly out the window and into the night, cradling his wounded hands. He would find another victim to feed upon, one with sweet, delicious dreams that would not harm his shadowy form.
Alone once more, the young man groaned in his sleep. Despite the bastellus's passing, the dreamer's nightmare-sent by the guardian of the hammer-had only just begun.
This time Kern knew he was dreaming.
Come, Hammerseeker! the dry, dusty voice spoke from the shadowed nave. Come, meet your doom!
Kern shook his head dizzily. He stood once again in the cavern of death. The skeletal spectators of the coffin walls jabbered and jeered at him in a gruesome cacophony. Bone splinters and broken teeth rained down. He gripped his battlehammer with a gauntleted hand. Somehow he knew he had to resist. To venture any closer was to die.
"Come out and face me!" he shouted to the darkened archway. Fear clutched at his heart with talons of ice. The thick, turgid shadows swirled angrily in the nave.
You show yourself for a coward, Hammerseeker, the ancient voice sneered.
The watchers in the coffin walls rattled their bones and clattered their teeth in a hideous mockery of laughter. Every instinct told Kern to run, but he planted his boots on the hard basalt floor. He was a paladin. He would stand firm.
"I will face you where I can see you!" Kern shouted.
Oh, you do not wish to look upon me, youngling. Believe these words I speak. Better for you that I cloak myself in shadow.
For a passing moment, the darkness of the nave lessened. Kern caught a glimpse of long-impossibly long- yellowed bones and, attached to these, a sinuous shape ending in a stiletto-sharp point. An eerie clicking sound issued from the nave, an insect noise that turned Kern's stomach. Then the curtain of blackness thickened. The guardian of Tyr's hammer was invisible once again.
Kern shook his head. The fetid air seemed to be weighing down upon him, pressing him toward the floor to smother him. His knees were on the verge of buckling, but he raised his hammer high.
"By Tyr in all his might, you will not have me!"
You are wrong, youngling! the voice shrieked with unholy rage. Dead wrong. An ear-shattering crack sundered the air of the cavern, a sound like a giant's bones breaking. The floor lurched wildly under Kern's feet. Suddenly a jagged rift appeared in the stone beneath him. It opened in the floor like a vast, stony maw, a void of darkness ready to swallow him alive.
You will never have the hammer! Never!
Kern's arms flailed wildly as he tried to catch his balance, but to no avail. The gap opened wider yet. With a scream, he went tumbling down into thick, suffocating blackness.
Yes, join us! the mummified spectators screeched and cackled, their voices echoing after him. Embrace the bottom of the pit, Hammerseeker, and join us in death!
Another scream ripped from Kern's lungs. Shreds of darkness rushed by him as he fell. He knew there was nothing to break his fall except for the jagged rocks waiting at the bottom. And they were only heartbeats away.
If it hadn't been for Listle, Kern would have died. Of that he had no doubt. The wounds he had received in his previous dream had been real enough. If he had struck the jagged rocks at the bottom last night…
But he hadn't hit the bottom, he told himself for the tenth time already that morning. Listle had breezed into his room and woken him up just in time.
"I think you saved my life, Listle," he'd said breathlessly after telling the elf about his dream.
"That's all right, Kern," she had replied flippantly. "Something tells me it won't be the last time." Despite her casual demeanor, fear had shone in her silver eyes.
Kern had made a resolution to himself, then. The next time he was plagued by a nightmare, he was determined to fight back and take control of the dream.
Clad in his usual gray tunic and breeches, Kern made his way down the spiral staircase in the center of Denlor's Tower. This last day had been a difficult one. Yesterday, Shal had ventured on a spirit journey with the sorceress Evaine, hoping to learn something about the enemy behind the attack on the temple. But something had gone wrong. His mother had cried out in shock and then fell into a deep unconsciousness from which she had not woken. She lay now in her chamber, pale, silent, and terribly still.
Patriarch Anton had come to visit Shal three times already, but so far none of his healing spells had been successful. His diagnosis was grim. If Shal could not be awakened, she might eventually waste away. Already, dusky shadows had gathered in her cheeks and on her temples. There was only one thing that might have the power to wake her. The Hammer of Tyr. That made Kern's task all the more urgent.
Kern had decided to leave on the morrow. He found his father in the tower's main chamber. The two discussed preparations for the journey, but Kern did not tell Tarl about last night's disturbing dream. Shal's illness was burden enough.
"One last thing, Kern," the white-haired cleric of Tyr said. His face was haggard, his voice hoarse. He had stayed up all night, watching over Shal and sending prayers to Tyr, pleas that had gone unanswered. "You're going to need a new weapon."
Kern nodded. His hammer had been destroyed in the encounter with Slayer, the abishai.
"Could I choose one from your armory?"
Tarl shook his head. "I think not. I'd be happy to give you anything I have, but I don't know that a mundane warhammer-no matter how good-will be of much use to you. I fear that many of the foes you'll be facing will be magical in nature, and for that you will need a special weapon."
"But where am I going to find an enchanted hammer by tomorrow?" Kern asked in dismay.
'That's where I come in," said a silvery voice. With a shameless lack of decorum, Listle rose right up through the stone floor to stand between Tarl and Kern. Her teardrop-shaped ruby pendant flashed brilliantly for a moment on the end of its silver chain. "Now come on, Kern. We don't have all day, you know."
"All day for what?" he demanded in exasperation.
"Haven't you been listening?" The elf rolled her eyes in exaggerated frustration. "We're going to get you a warhammer, you oaf."
An hour later found Kern and Listle on horseback, the city of Phlan outlined in shadow on the horizon behind them.
"You never told me you had friends who lived near Phlan, Listle." Kern sat astride a handsome white palfrey, and Listle rode a delicate dappled gray mare.
"You never asked," she replied glibly.
"Now how did I know that was what you were going to say?" Kern grumbled.
The late autumn day was gray and dreary, heavy with a shroud of mist. Their mounts picked their way along a twisting trail in a forest a few leagues east of Phlan. A few drab brown leaves clung to the skeletal branches of the trees, rattling like bones in the chill wind. All this did little to improve Kern's mood.