Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [111]
"Cadorna," said Shal, who had also started poring over the ledgers. "Yarash's notes are thorough. Cadorna knew everything. Look at this! The councilman didn't send us to check out a rumor or even to stop the pollution. He knew exactly where he was sending us. He did it to get the ioun stones."
Ren moved behind Shal and started reading over her shoulder. "Would you look at that? Yarash wasn't even going to give the stones to Cadorna. The Lord of the Ruins had offered a higher price!" Ren stopped cold and then began reading aloud. "'… I can't imagine what all the fuss is over a couple of rocks. The dragon has dispatched assassins to Waterdeep and beyond, looking for the stones, and now the councilman wants me to give them to him… '."
Ren's eyes were wide. "The Lord of the Ruins-he sent the assassin to kill Tempest!"
Shal reached out and patted Ren's arm soothingly. Then she pointed to an entry in another ledger and started reading it aloud. " 'Thank goodness Porphyrys has followed the instructions of the Lord of the Ruins this time and had those two interfering windbags killed. Between the red mage and that blue fellow, they were seriously depleting my supply of experimental stock…' " Shal could read no further.
"I've seen enough!" she said. "I wanted vengeance. Now I can get it. I want Cadorna to pay for this. Between these writings and what the three of us know already, I think we can convince the First Councilman of his guilt."
"If we can't," said Tarl, helping Shal load the ledgers into the Cloth of Many Pockets, "there's more than one bad apple on the council."
Outside, the pyramid still looked like a giant bauble protruding from the landscape, but Yarash's abominable creations had ceased forever. The conduit that had pumped the vile byproduct of his unnatural magical creations into the Stojanow was still, and the last of the black sludge had begun its slow journey downriver to the wide expanses of the Moonsea.
11
Valhingen Graveyard
The trip back, without the mare, was slow, in places arduous. Even with Cerulean carrying all their equipment, it was taking the three nearly twice as long to return to the city as it had to travel to the sorcerer's island. No one was complaining, though. In fact, all three of the companions were lost in thoughts of their own.
Ren was thoroughly enjoying what was proving to be a quiet return journey. He realized that the victory against Yarash had been Shal's, but as he watched the Stojanow's waters begin to wash away the black poison from the sorcerer's pyramid, he felt an unrivaled sense of achievement. He looked at the brown riverbanks and imagined what they would look like in another year, with healthy new grasses spreading across the now-barren earth and the first saplings poking their leaves above the ground. The recovery would be far from instantaneous, and the gray stumps would remain for years, ugly reminders of one man's gross abuse against nature, but the healing growth would be a signature of hope.
Ren realized that an entire lifetime of thieving in the city wouldn't give him half the sense of purpose he'd felt on the missions to Thorn Island and the gnoll stronghold, and contributing to the purge of the Stojanow had done more for his spirit than any loot he had ever stolen as a thief.
Ren was as ready as he would ever be to accompany Shal as she sought Cadorna's punishment for the slaying of her mentor, and he had already made up his mind to ignore Tarl's insistence that the young cleric face the vampire alone. But most of all, Ren was ready to face the Lord of the Ruins himself, whoever he was-the real murderer of Tempest.
In this quiet interlude as the cleric and his companions hiked the length of the rejuvenating Stojanow, Tarl meditated on the messages he had received from his god when he met him in the innermost sanctuary of the temple. In the same moment in which he comprehended that his healing powers would be greatly enhanced by the ioun stone, Tarl had also learned that Anton could not possibly recover until the master of the word embedded in