T Lain - The Bloody Eye

Yddith could still hear the druid laughing when the cloud of unholy blight began dissipating. She no longer heard him laughing when the paladin charged. Yddith watched Alhandra run toward the druid waving her bloody, befouled sword in ferocious overhead circles. Yet, before the paladin reached him, Yddith observed an incredible transformation. The druid’s face quivered. His muscles rippled, his body contorted, and his bones cracked. Hair covered his body thickly at an impossibly fast pace. Where the druid had stood before, a large wolf stood in the cart. As Alhandra closed on the wolf, Yddith saw it leap from the cart and run away.

Before anyone could ready a bow or crossbow, the druid-turned-wolf fled into the forest and all that remained of the assault force was the angry, blind dire wolf that continued slashing and biting at Krusk. As the wolf snapped, Krusk stepped nimbly to the side and brought the axe down with enough force to separate the animal’s head from its body.

Yddith breathed a word of thanks as she saw Krusk’s life spared. She ran out the door and into Krusk’s arms as quickly as possible, paying no attention to the one-eyed citizens of Pergue dragging the boar carcasses to Imel’s butcher’s stand. She completely missed the healing miracle performed by Jozan.

Jozan had moved instantly to the fallen miller’s side. He pulled the flesh of the mangled leg together as well as he could and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. The basics completed, he quickly intoned his supplication to Pelor. The god’s golden glow surrounded the wounded flesh and anyone observing could easily see healthy flesh replacing the ravaged wound. Lovan’s eyes opened and he looked up gratefully into Jozan’s face.

“I dreamed I was headed for Pelor’s plane,” mumbled the miller.

“Quiet, now,” replied the cleric. “Drink this,” he commanded and poured a healing potion between the miller’s dry lips.

Lovan’s pale face gained color and the tear in his leg healed before the amazed eyes of the townsfolk. Jozan breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

Yet, Yddith did see a miracle. When she reached Krusk, the half-orc was bleeding from two wounds and his skin had taken on an unnatural hue from the dismal cloud. Hacking pieces of cloth from the curtains of the tavern, Yddith obviously intended to staunch the half-orc’s bleeding and wash the foul residue off his skin. When she started to touch the barbarian, however, she pulled up short. The paladin was waving a wand and softly singing a short chant. Jozan and Yddith saw one wound healing and observed the paladin repeat the ritual. Indignantly, Yddith turned on her heel and would have stormed back to the Boar’s Tusk in an angry fit if she hadn’t overheard the cleric speaking to the townsfolk.

“The druid spoke of you as slaves,” observed Jozan. “I wonder if he was taking you to Calmet?”

“Calmet?” asked some of the bystanders.

“The one-eyed priest we’re seeking,” answered Jozan.

The miller whispered so that only Jozan could hear. “I heard the orcs talk about someone they called ‘Bad One Eye’,” said Lovan. “He might be the one.”

Jozan nodded and assumed his best oratory posture. He raised his arms and spoke with such power that Alhandra turned to him in amazement, as did the townsfolk.

“People of Pergue,” he began, “I come in the name of Pelor. My companion and I seek the source of your troubles—an apostate, a heretic who has so twisted the loving message of Pelor that his insatiable lust for power is bringing havoc and horror both far and near. We pledge to find him, and in the name of all that is good, we pledge to end your living nightmare.”

The paladin’s mouth dropped open. Certainly, Alhandra preferred forceful action to strong words, but she seemed surprised at Jozan’s newfound confidence. She added her voice to Jozan’s pledge.

“As Heironeous is my witness,” responded the paladin in her battlefield voice, “we will see this through.”

Then, to the welcome surprise of cleric and paladin alike, a harsh voice rang out and offered additional assurance. “I’ll help,” growled the barbarian, “if it means killing that druid.”

“And I’ll kill that miserable cleric if it takes my dying action to do it!” asserted Yddith with a force and purpose she surely never knew she had.

Calmet was frightened. He was frightened more than he’d been since the night Laud removed his eye and introduced him to the Power. He didn’t feel like a priest who represented the Power, not right then. He felt weak, frightened, and angry.

Something had gone wrong. Both Naargh and Hassq had failed to deliver the new group of slaves. It had been weeks since the Black Carnival had performed the ritual. Why weren’t the slaves there?

The cleric looked again at the number of side tunnels that jutted off the main shaft. He’d once asked Laud why so much of their limited slave labor was used to dig so many tunnels away from the main vein, so many false passages and empty chambers. Laud had responded that there were other treasures in the earth, many of which could not be deemed natural. As Calmet passed one such junction, he decided he was grateful for all of Laud’s strange passageways. He wanted to stay as far away from Laud’s alchemical laboratory as possible.

He noticed two orc guards bringing an injured slave toward the surface. For a brief moment, he looked at the filthy wound so certain to become infected and was tempted to heal the limping slave. Then, he remembered his mantra of power: “Cull the weak to be the strong!”

Calmet motioned to the guards and told them to bring the slave and follow him deeper into the shaft instead of continuing toward the surface. The guards looked confused, but didn’t question the cleric’s order. That was one of the things Calmet liked about serving Gruumsh. No one questioned his orders. There were no philosophical debates among the servants of Gruumsh. Avenues to power were clearly established. If you performed the rituals, you gained the power. There were no mysteries associated with the nature of Gruumsh. He was raw power and he despised weakness. Of course, that was one of the things that was bothering Calmet at that very moment. The failure to complete the mine and finish the sanctuary would likely fall on his own head. He was the one responsible for dealing with the orcs, so their failure was ultimately his failure.

The shaft became steeper and Calmet smelled the difference between the moist earth of the deeper regions and the dryer dust near the top of the shaft. Oddly, he became aware of water dripping and the sounds of picks penetrating the obstinate rock lower down. He didn’t usually take time to notice scents and sounds. He must be avoiding the issue at hand.

How could they possibly complete the sanctuary before the solstice without adequate help?

Calmet and his followers approached a junction where a seldom-used passage jogged to the left. He motioned his strange entourage to follow him and turned into the smaller passage. After ten or fifteen paces, he pulled up abruptly. His eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness of the smaller passage, and he focused on the side of the wall where the passage twisted once more. Standing out slightly against the darker shadows, the small group saw a shadowy figure. Larger than a human, it made them uneasy. Their eyes could make out the winged monstrosity that seemed to guard the passage, but they didn’t quite understand why a stone statue would affect them in such a way.

Calmet lifted his amulet, a silver eye with a hole to represent Gruumsh’s missing eye, that a long-dead orc had fashioned for him from his sun symbol. He whispered an Orcish word of power across the top of the infernal symbol. The whisper gained in intensity as the very sound traversed the surface of the amulet until the gutteral word exploded on the statue with unexpected force, echoing back onto the small party with an even louder, eerier sound. As the echoes trailed back toward the main shaft, Calmet proceeded down the passageway. The guards looked at each other and followed. Neither one liked the uneasy feeling that energy was surrounding them, prodding them, and testing them as they turned to follow the cleric through the twisting passage.