Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [97]
After four more times around the square, his hammer glowed blue again, and Tarl entered the second square. This square was of course, smaller, and the distance between the walls of the squares was the same, but the ceiling was easily half again as tall as that of the previous chamber, which gave the second chamber an illusion of a greater size. Once more Tarl felt his breath constrict, and he experienced an intense pressure on all parts of his body, as though the walls of the room were closing in and the air had nowhere to go. Tarl found it impossible to think about the concerns he had planned to bring into the sanctuary. He remembered the advice Brother Tern had offered as he helped him with his robes and armor: "When you can go no further, fight. Find physical balance, and the rest will come. Tyr is God of War and Justice. He seeks focus of purpose and balance."
Tarl raised his shield and wielded his hammer, pushing and swinging, charging and parrying against imaginary foes that lined the narrow hallway. It was not until his body began to revel in the movement and Tarl found a familiar joy in the control of it that his focus returned. Unconsciously, almost as an afterthought to his physical action, he began to speak and re-speak the concerns that plagued him: Shal, Anton, the Hammer of Tyr. Every time he brought his shield up or swung his hammer, it was for Shal, or Anton, or for the return of the hammer. His focus was so strong, he didn't even think about the fact that he was now moving without pain.
Soon his hammer began to blaze a brilliant blue, and Tarl stopped, relaxed his shield and hammer, and passed through the curtain to the third square. The square of the inner sanctuary stood before him. It radiated an intense, bright blue.
Faith had never been difficult for Tarl. Tyrians practiced a hands-on kind of worship that made sense to him, and Tyr seemed infinitely believable. Pictures of him were always the same, a burly but gnarled, bearded old fellow with a hammer as big as his arm. The irony of references to his evenhandedness was that, from all accounts, he was missing one hand, and somehow that made him all the more approachable. Tarl's strong faith had already been rewarded with exceptional healing powers for one so young.
Only now, when two people he valued, perhaps as much as his standing as a cleric, lay filled by evil, did Tarl ever question his god or his faith.
"My thoughts of Shal, Anton, and the Hammer of Tyr I give up to you, and thoughts of you, great Tyr, Grimjaws, the Even-Handed, God of War, God of Justice. I offer up my fate to your hammer and to the balances." Tarl waited, continuing to meditate on his god.
Moments later, his hammer began to glow once more, and Tarl entered the innermost sanctuary. Each of the four walls and the vaulted ceiling were mirrors of highly polished silver. At the center of the small room was a cushioned kneeling stool with a small, covered platform before it. Tarl knelt and rested his hammer on the platform. He was surrounded by his own image-a warrior, armed and ready for battle, but completely submissive and vulnerable.
He stared at the hammer and continued to focus his thoughts on Tyr. The hammer began to radiate an even brighter light, and then it began to rise slowly from the platform as Tarl watched, his mind filled with the wisdom and thoughts of his god. The sensation was not like hearing spoken words, nor was it like the occasional shared thought between intimates. It was a flooding, a purging