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and Shal rushed around the pool to get them. With two stones in each hand and
the
Hammer of Tyr be-fore him, Tarl set out to heal his friend. Each and every
healing was a miracle, but Tarl felt an overpowering sense of awe this time as
bone melded to bone, tissue mended itself, and flesh and spirit healed,
wholly, com-pletely, flawlessly.
The three sat together silently in the cavern until Tarl finally asked what
happened. Ren told the story as he had seen it, and then Shal took over,
describing the drag-on's final moments and Cadorna and Gensor's insane plunges
into the pool. "I looked for them when I brought you the ioun stones. There's
nothing there.
The pool's en-ergy must have turned against them somehow. They're gone, and
the pool is filled with ordinary water."
Tarl and Ren went to the side of the pool and looked for themselves. The water
was a quiet gray-blue.
The sur-face was completely calm, except for an occasional ripple where a
butterfly was struggling to lift itself out of the water. For a moment, Ren
thought he felt something, a whisper of movement nearby, but he turned and saw
only a whirl of butterflies rising from the cavern floor, as though disturbed
by a gentle wind.
"Well," said Ren, returning to Shal's side along with Tarl, "are we ready to
celebrate? I mean, the Lord of the Ruins is dead. You did it. You killed the
real murderer of Ranthor and Tempest. Cadorna's gone.
Tarl has the Ham-mer of Tyr. What do you say we find a way out of this place?"
"Cadorna and Gensor came from there." Shal pointed to a doorway that blended
into the cavern wall so inconspicuously that a person had to look hard to see
it. "But what about returning to Phlan? Aren't there going to be more Black
Watch soldiers guarding the city?"
"Probably." Ren nodded. "But this time it will be differ-ent. Cadorna won't be
there to keep our testimony from being heard. And remember, we still have all
those docu-ments from Yarash."
"Plus the fact that one of my brothers, an elder from the temple, was promoted
to Third Councilman when Cadorna became Second. When Cadorna rose to First
Councilman, he probably rose to Second," Tarl added.
"And now, with Cadorna gone, he must be First!" Shal concluded happily.
Tarl kept the four ioun stones from the hexagon for the temple. The hexagon
itself was of pure gold, and
Tarl and Shal agreed that Ren should take it, since he was no longer thieving
for a living, but they found nothing else of value in the dragon's lair. When
they left, the three dis-covered the body of the wizard
Cadorna had killed, and Shal gathered up his spellbooks and notes as she had
Yarash's. A handful of butterflies followed them out, then disappeared into
the brightly lit afternoon.
On a whim, Ren went past the two dead ogres they had seen earlier and made
sure the door with the dragon head was open. A brigade of butterflies orange,
yellow, blue, and green flew out through the open door and followed the others
into the light of a warm afternoon.
As they passed through the castle and then through the ruins of Phlan, they
found signs everywhere of ko-bolds, orcs, gnolls, and other creatures, but
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left to their own devices, without the dominating influence of the Lord of the
Ruins, the humanoids and monsters were not unified in their efforts, and even
the few that did see the three passing had enough memory to know that they
didn't want to mess with the party that even now they still called simply
"those three."
As cleric, mage, and ranger made their return, they talked of the expansion
the city would see with the arti-facts of Tyr in their rightful place, the
Lord of the Ruins vanquished, and the river flowing clean and pure into the
bay. Shal hoped to return to Cormyr, to Ranthor's keep, for things she had
left behind. Tarl promised to ac-company her on the journey if she would just
wait until he was sure Anton was healed, and she spoke earnestly of the
possibility of returning to Denlor's tower and starting up his school again.
After all, there was that huge library in the ruins that she had yet to
explore....
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