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 something 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 outline 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 breathlessly. 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 sorceress 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 picture 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 gradually 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 ointment 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 precocious 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 trembling. She leaned her head against her husband's broad chest, and he held her in his strong arms. She was a statuesque 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. Whoever 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 Miltiades, raised from the grave by Tyr for the purpose of the quest. Shal shivered. Even after all these years, the memory 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 Wizard, 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 perished 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.