Pool of Radiance - James M. Ward [98]
Tarl had no idea how long he'd been in the inner sanctuary. He had no memory of coming out. He knew only that he must find Ren immediately.
* * * * *
"Your daggers! We have to get them to Shal! Now!" Tarl hammered on the door and shouted to Ren again and again, but the big man was rummaging his way out of a deep sleep that had come from exhaustion, and he wasn't comprehending what all the ruckus was about. In fact, Tarl was lucky he was pounding outside the door because Ren probably would have killed him on instinct as an intruder if he'd managed to get into the room. As it was, Ren launched both Right and Left at the closed door.
"Tyr and Tymora!" Tarl leaped back as the two dagger points pierced through to his side of the door. "Wake up, man, before you kill somebody!"
It was Ren's own movement that finally woke him, and he slowly comprehended the source of the clamor. "Be right with you," he muttered.
It took Tarl only a few minutes to explain that he needed to use one of the ioun stones to increase his clerical powers in an attempt to heal Shal, yet it seemed to Tarl more like hours, and longer still before they were finally back at the temple.
The clerics could not keep Shal on a cot or bed. Her body jerked with nightmares and spasms induced by the poison, so she lay on a thick cotton quilt, a soft cotton blanket that was constantly being replaced crumpled over the lower half of her body. Tarl sat on the cool stone floor beside Shal and pulled her twitching body up close to his own. He clenched a blue-black ioun stone in one hand and his hammer in the other. Tenderly he wrapped his arms tight around Shal, then began to pray as he had never prayed before. Blue light like that he had seen in the inner sanctuary blazed from the stone and the hammer. For a moment, Shal's body jerked even more violently, and then a vile green vapor filtered up from the pores around Shal's collarbone and dispersed into the clear morning air. Her body quieted immediately, and Shal went limp in Tarl's arms.
"Shal? Shal!" Tarl pulled her even closer, praying to sense warmth and a firm heartbeat rather than clammy, cooling skin and silence. Suddenly strong arms wrapped around him and pulled him closer still, and he immersed himself in the passion of her grateful embrace.
"Glad to have you back, Shal," said Ren, and he pulled her from Tarl for a hug of his own.
10
Yarash
"This is the rest of your treasure," said Gensor. He watched Cadorna's face darken as he laid out the dwarven armor and then the jewelry. He knew the councilman had killed for far less than the handful of expensive baubles before him, and Gensor had every intention of redirecting Cadorna's attention so he wouldn't take that route, "Not bad for a night's work, eh? But mark my words, there are far bigger prizes to be had."
"Oh?" Cadorna cocked his head and waited for the mage to go on.
"The woman… the mage. She took an assassin's poison dagger in the shoulder last night. I made my exit from the inn unseen just as the brouhaha started."
"She's dead? It serves her r-"
"No. She lives. The Tyrian cleric-" Gensor paused for emphasis-"he used an ioun stone to heal the woman."
"An ioun stone?" Cadorna stood up from his chair and came around in front of his desk. He had to check himself to keep from grabbing Gensor by his robes. "The cleric has an ioun stone?"
"Not his, I suspect, or I'm sure he would have left it with the temple. But, yes, he used an ioun stone. All the clerics and even some of the peasants who were worshiping in the temple early this morning saw it."
Cadorna stood mere inches from Gensor, his eyes blazing with avarice, his thoughts turning to the first reports he had heard from the trio after their venture to Sokol Keep-about ioun stones, the Lord of the Ruins, and "power to the pool."
Gensor went on. "This is only conjecture on my part, but as I said, I don't think the gem could belong to the cleric."
"Yes? So?" Cadorna actually began to tap his foot in his impatience.
"Do you remember the strong magic I detected in the big