Mara visibly fumed. “Nonsense,” she said, hugging her sister’s shoulders. “That’s not what she said. She couldn’t resurrect the babes because they’ve been dead too long.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Haldrin said. His red eyes glared defiantly. “The Merciful Maiden never spoke those words herself. She just nodded when you asked if that was the reason. It’s not commonly known, but a cleric can raise someone who’s been dead a month-or even longer-if a Ritual of Repose is cast on the body. The Merciful Maiden wasn’t lying about being unable to save the babes, but she wasn’t telling us the truth about why. The truth is, Sharindlar’s clerics can’t cure the stoneplague.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Mara cried. “Sharindlar would never withhold her healing magic, especially from innocent babes. Moradin himself wouldn’t permit it.”
Haldrin’s laugh had a wild edge to it. “Just like he wouldn’t permit the collapse of the Rift, or the fall of Underhome?” he cried. He flung out a hand, pointing. “Moradin let my babies die! What kind of god countenances that?”
“Stop it!” Mara cried. “You’re sounding like Father now.”
“Maybe your father was right,” Haldrin spat back. “The gods care as little for us as we do for the ants underfoot.”
“I won’t hear it!” Mara screeched. “Stop this blasphemy! You’re going to bring the stoneplague upon us all!”
Sandor was breathing heavily. He edged to the door. “I won’t,” he gasped. “I won’t be trapped here. I won’t.” He yanked the door open and bolted from the room.
Ambril sat on the bed, rocking the bloody bundles. “Sunder and Sorn,” she moaned. “That’s what we were going to call you. Oh, my babies. My little ones.”
A part of Torrin’s mind registered the fact that they were boys’ names, and that he’d lost his bet with Kier. Not that it mattered any more.
“Their souls are with Moradin,” Mara said, trying to ease the dead babes out of her sister’s arms. “In his realm. Coddled and protected by the gods. They’ll return to the world again one day. Take comfort in that.”
“Your father didn’t find any comfort in that,” Haldrin said. “Why should we?”
Torrin turned, unable to listen any more. As he did, something crunched underfoot-a chunk of dried mud on the floor. He glanced down at it, wondering whose boot it had come from. Then he realized that the spot had been where the Merciful Maiden was standing when he grasped her arm-the arm that had felt so strangely rough. His mouth went dry as he realized what he was staring at. It was a chunk of calcified flesh, the same color and texture as Kendril’s broken finger.
The Merciful Maiden the temple had sent to aid Ambril with the birthing had the stoneplague.
He used his foot to scuff the chunk of tainted flesh into a corner, where it wouldn’t be stepped on by anyone else. Not that it really mattered. Everyone in the room had either touched the dead babes already, or had breathed in their taint.
Including him.
Ambril’s voice rose to a wail again. Her rocking grew more violent. “My babies!” she cried.
Mara and Haldrin were shouting at each other in a stupid, pointless argument about Moradin and whether he was truly merciful, about whether Haldrin echoing her father’s “blasphemous” beliefs had brought the curse of the stoneplague down upon their clanhold. If they weren’t careful, they would indeed prod Moradin into hurling a curse down upon them.
“For the love of the gods!” Torrin bellowed. “Haldrin, your wife needs you. Tend to her. And you, Mara. Go after your husband and stop him before he panics everyone in Eartheart!”
Both blinked, chastised. Without bothering to see if they did as he’d ordered, Torrin whirled and ran out of the door. His first impulse was to follow Kendril’s advice, to hurry those he loved out of Eartheart, as far from the city as they could run. Instead he ran past Kier’s room, in the direction the Merciful Maiden had gone.
He caught up to her in the Hall of the Fountain, a vast room that echoed softly with the sound of splashing water. During the day it would have been filled with people, coming to fill water kegs at the fountain’s brass taps. At that hour of the night, it was empty.
“Merciful Maiden!” he shouted.
She kept walking.
Anger flushed his cheeks. “I know you have the stoneplague!” he called.
She halted abruptly. Slowly, she turned. “That’s not something you should be shouting,” she said in a low voice.
Torrin moved in front of her, panting slightly from his run. “You admit it,” he said.
She touched the disk at her chest. “Sharindlar will not permit a lie.”
“What in the Nine Hells was your order thinking?” Torrin blurted out. “They sent a cleric who’s diseased-to a birthing!”
The Merciful Maiden raised a hand as if to touch his shoulder in sympathy, but let it fall to her side as Torrin glared her down. “I pose no danger,” she said. “The stoneplague isn’t spread by touch or by breath. Nor by spittle or by blood.”
Torrin bit back the urge to shout that she was lying. “How can you know that?” he asked.
“The woman who gave birth tonight wasn’t the first one afflicted,” the cleric replied. “Dozens of others, here in Eartheart, have come down with the stoneplague in the past few days. The family members who’ve tended them have all remained healthy, even without the benefit of a healing ritual. In contrast, the Merciful Maidens who have fallen ill-who continued in their duties, unaware that they were afflicted with the stoneplague-did not spread the contagion to those they ministered to.”
“You’re not the only Merciful Maiden with the stoneplague?” Torrin asked, horrified.
“No.”
“But why don’t you heal yourselves?”
The cleric sighed wearily. “We’ve tried. We can’t. Much as it pains me to admit it, Sharindlar appears to be powerless over this illness. But you needn’t worry. We’re not spreading the stoneplague. That’s the one thing we’re certain of.”
“What about… other gods?” Torrin asked as diplomatically as he could. “Couldn’t a cleric from Berronar Truesilver’s temple heal you?”
“When it seemed Sharindlar had turned her face from us, we tried just that,” she said. “We also took one of the afflicted to an elf healer, but it was no use. The cleric’s prayers to Corellon also went unanswered. Nor were magical potions effective.” The Merciful Maiden looked on the verge of tears. “There’s nothing any of us can do.”
Her words turned Torrin’s veins to ice. If the Maidens couldn’t even heal themselves, Haldrin was right.
Eartheart was doomed.
Chapter Eight
“More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.”
Kier sat at the table in the clanhold’s common room, frowning down in concentration at the soft wax tablet. He moved the stylus with slow, deliberate strokes, copying the runes from the story tablet. Torrin stared over the boy’s shoulder, supervising the lesson, occasionally reaching down to rotate the round wax tablet so that the inscription would spiral inward correctly.
“That’s not bad,” Torrin commented. “But if you’d just take off those gauntlets, you’d have an easier time of it.”
Kier shook his head without looking up.
Torrin sighed. The gauntlets-toy replicas of those worn by the Steel Shields-were made of leather, but even so they hindered Kier as he tried to write. The boy insisted on wearing them all the time, even to bed. No one reprimanded him, however. The family was still grieving the death of the newborn twins, and Ambril herself had fallen ill with the stoneplague. It was as if the disease, no longer having babes to feed upon, had turned its attention to the mother instead. Ambril was too ill to rise from her bed, and Haldrin was run ragged caring for her, nearly frantic with worry he’d lose her, too. It had fallen to Torrin to watch over Kier, to keep some sense of order and routine in the boy’s life.