Pool of Twilight - James M. Ward [0]
K. Brown
Heroes of Phlan 03 - Pool of
Twilight
By
Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: November, 7th, 2003
This effort is dedicated to my best friend, Mike Gray, The dude probably won't even read this book, but he's a good guy anyway.
–J.M.W.
For my grandmother, Adeline Dauska, the treasure in my past; and for my daughter, Emily, the treasure in my future.
–A.K.B.
1
Dark Dreams
The paladin stood before the shadowed archway, breathing air sharp and acrid with the stench of magic. The stone ruins about him were dark and strangely distorted. The walls of the dank chambers seemed to be undulating wildly, the leprous colonnades lurching at queer angles, as if the place had been designed by a madman.
The paladin gripped a heavy, combat-worn battle-hammer firmly in one gauntleted hand, and in his other he held a white crestless shield. Before being granted a symbol of honor, a paladin had to prove his worth. This was his test.
He stepped through the archway.
Immediately he sensed it. Evil. It lingered on the air, coating him as he passed, leaving what felt like a thin, noxious layer of rancid oil on his skin. The paladin did his best to ignore it as he journeyed into the blackness. His shield gave off a faint azure radiance, lighting his way.
Yesss… Come to me, Hammerseeker.
The bubbling voice seemed to ooze out of the darkness from all directions, shrill and inhuman.
"Who are you?" the paladin called into the murk. The beating of his heart echoed loudly inside his steel breastplate.
Your doom!
Without warning, a pulsing crimson glow burst apart the darkness with violent light, revealing a chamber of monstrous proportions. Ponderous stone vaults, as huge and misshapen as giants, supported a ceiling lost in the crimson miasma. The walls were formed of what seemed at first to be huge oblong bricks. It was only after a moment that the paladin realized what they really were: coffins.
There were hundreds of them. No, thousands. Coffins of beaten gold and worm-eaten wood, of rune-carved stone and rotting wicker. Many were cracked and broken, their denizens hanging out of them in a thousand different states of decay, all leering at him with the ceaseless grins of death.
Come, youngling! Bow to me, before I rend your limbs apart.
Shadows swirled in the lofty nave of the huge chamber. The paladin approached almost against his will. He barely noticed the heaps of treasure scattered around him. Beaten silver urns shone like enormous hearts in the pulsing crimson light. Gold coffers lay broken open, their jeweled contents spilling out of them like guts.
Closer, youngling. Come gaze upon what you have given your brief and pitiful life to seek.
Blue radiance burst into life high in the nave. The paladin caught a glimpse of something hovering at the center of the diamond-hard brilliance, an object of wondrous power. Then the shadows swirled, cloaking the blessed light
And now, Hammerseeker, you die!
Something moved with terrible swiftness in the darkness of the nave. The paladin barely managed to lift his shield in time to meet the blow. He cried out as pain coursed like lightning up his arm. The white shield shuddered, then burst asunder in a spray of twisted shards. The denizens of the coffin-walls jeered at him in a horrid cacophony of teeth clattering and bone snapping.
The paladin fought down the panic clawing at his chest. "I will stand firm, Tyr!" he shouted to his god. He swung his battlehammer in a whistling arc toward the darkness.
But his footing was not secure.
His heel skidded on coins scattered across the stone floor. His blow went wild, the hammer spinning off into the darkness as he fell to his knees. Shrill laughter bubbled from the alcove as the coffin-walls erupted in a new chorus of gleeful rattling. The paladin hung his head in defeat. He was no hero.
No, you are not, youngling. You are a fool. And now you will die a fool's death!
Midnight-dark claws slashed out of the darkness. They punched through the paladin's steel breastplate as if it were parchment. Four streaks