Adon took a torn silk handkerchief and placed it before his face as he walked into the temple with one of the guards. Then the two men surveyed the bloody scene before them.
There were almost a dozen people in the temple, and all of them had been savagely murdered. The main altar had been overturned, and the symbol of Bane had been painted upon the walls with the blood of the murdered clerics. By the fires that still raged in the braziers and the smell that lingered in the temple, Adon knew the desecration had not taken place more than an hour earlier.
No children, Adon noted thankfully. The guard beside Adon became ill, and fell to his knees. When he rose, he found the young cleric moving through the rows of benches and the tiers of the platformed altar. Adon was removing the dead from the horrible positions their attackers had left them in, and was laying them out upon the floor. Then he tore the silk curtains from behind the altar and covered the bodies as best he could. The guard moved to his side, knees trembling. There was movement from without, then a cry as the other guards saw the horrors within the temple.
"There may be others," Adon warned as he pointed at the stairway leading into the heart of the temple.
"Alive?" the guard said. "Others… alive?"
The cleric said nothing, somehow sensing what they would find. The one thing he was certain they would not find were the precious healing potions he had been told about.
Adon remained in the temple even after the stench became unbearable for the others. He attempted to say a prayer for the dead, but the words would not come.
Kelemvor turned from the window. He had checked Midnight's room and found that she had not yet returned from Elminster's house. He went back to his own room, but he could not sleep. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of riding to Elminster's tower and confronting Midnight, but he knew that his efforts would be wasted.
Then, as he was once again watching out the window of the tower, he saw the mage approaching. The fighter watched as she passed the guards and entered the Twisted Tower. A few moments later, there was a knock at his door. Kelemvor sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hands over his face.
"Kel?"
"Aye," he called. "Enter."
Midnight entered the room and closed the door. "Shall I light a lantern?" she said.
"You forget what I am," Kelemvor said. "By the moonlight your features are as plain as if I beheld them at highsun."
"I forget nothing," she said.
Midnight was wearing a long, flowing cape, a more than adequate replacement for the one she had lost. Tiny flames leaped across the surface of the pendant. Kelemvor was surprised to see that she had taken it back, but he did not bother to question her about it.
Midnight removed the cape, then stood before the fighter. "I think we should talk," she said.
Kelemvor nodded slowly. "Aye. What about?"
Midnight ran her hands through her long hair. "If you're tired…"
Kelemvor rose to his feet. "I am tired, Ariel."
"Don't call me that."
Kelemvor flinched. "Midnight," he said and let out a deep sigh. "I assumed we would leave this place together. You would deliver the warning Mystra entrusted you with, then we would put this business behind us and be free for once!"
Midnight laughed a small, cruel laugh. "Free? What do either of us know of freedom, Kel? Your entire life has been ruled by a curse you can do nothing about, and I've been played for a fool by the very gods!"
She turned away from him and leaned against a dresser. "I can't walk away from this, Kel. I have a responsibility."
Kelemvor moved forward and turned her around to face him. He held her roughly by the shoulders. "A responsibility to whom? To strangers who would spit in your face even as you lay down your life to save them?"
"To the Realms, Kelemvor! My responsibility is to the Realms!"
Kelemvor released her. "Then we have little to discuss, it seems."
Midnight picked up the cloak. "It's more than just the curse with you, isn't it? Everything and everyone has their price. Your conditions are too much for me to bear, Kel. I can't give myself to someone who isn't willing to do the same for me."
"What are you talking about? Have I run from this place? Have I run from you? On the morrow we begin preparations for war. There's a good chance I won't see you again until this battle is over. If we survive, that is."
There was silence for a time.
"You would leave this place, wouldn't you?" Midnight said. "If I agreed to come away with you, you'd leave this very night."
"Aye."
Midnight let out a deep breath. "I was right, then. We have nothing lo discuss."
She reached for the door, but Kelemvor called to her. "My reward," he said. "Elminster promised there would be a reward, but he didn't say what it would be."
Midnight's lips trembled in the darkness. "I told him about the curse, Kel. He believes it can be lifted."
"The curse…," Kelemvor said absently. "Then it was a good decision to stay."
Midnight's hair fell before her face.
"He'd have done it anyway, damn you…"
She opened the door. "Midnight!" Kelemvor called.
"Aye," she said.
"You still love me," Kelemvor said. "I'd know if you didn't. That's my reward for coming this far with you, remember?"
Midnight's whole body stiffened. "Yes," she said softly. "Is that all?"
"All that matters."
Midnight closed the door behind her and left Kelemvor to stare into the darkness.
XIV
Mourngrym learned of the vicious attack against the Temple of Tymora in the hours before dawn. Elminster had been summoned, and met his liege at the gateway to the temple. Adon was still there when the sage arrived.
The bard, Storm Silverhand, soon showed up, too. She wore the symbol of the Harpers, a silver moon and a silver harp against a backdrop of royal blue. The night winds caught her wild silver hair, blowing it high into the air, giving her the appearance of a vengeful apparition rather than a human woman. Her armor was the bright silver of the Dales, and she moved past her liege and the sage without a word of greeting.
Mourngrym did not attempt to stop her. Instead he joined her in the desecrated temple, and they surveyed the destruction and the carnage in respectful silence. The symbol of Bane, painted in the blood of the victims, caught their attention instantly. Later, as Storm spoke to the guards who had found the destruction, Adon put forth the theory that it was the theft of the healing potions that had prompted the attack; the debilitating effects such an assault would have on the morale of Shadowdale's faithful was probably also a consideration. Storm Silverhand regarded the cleric very suspiciously, as she would any outsider present during such a tragedy.
"The blood upon his hands he came by in honest service, laying out the dead," Elminster said. "There is no malice in this one. He's innocent."
Storm turned to Mourngrym, seething with fury over the attack. "The Harpers shall ride with you, Lord. Together we will avenge this cowardly act."
Then she was gone, her grief at the tragedy threatening to overwhelm her steely continence. Mourngrym set his men to the grisly task of identification and burial of the dead. The old sage stood at the dalelord's side and spoke in hushed tones.
"Bane is the God of Strife. It is not surprising that he seeks to distract us, to strike at our hearts and leave us grief-stricken and vulnerable to his attack," Elminster said. "We must not allow his plan to succeed."
Mourngrym trembled with rage. "We won't," he said.
Hours later, after returning to the Twisted Tower, Mourngrym stood at the side of his friend and ally, Thurbal, as the man lay in a deep, healing sleep. Thurbal had not spoken since the night Elminster's magic retrieved him from Zhentil Keep, when he warned Mourngrym of the planned attack against the Dales.