The Sundering: The Sentinel Part 7

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Joelle dipped her cloth in the bucket and squeezed. Dirt and blood jetted into the water, then vanished without fouling it. "It's the same Eye, but it can be perceived in different ways."

"What's that mean?" he asked.

"You've already experienced it," Joelle said. "When Malik showed you the Eye, first you saw a rock. Then, after a moment, you glimpsed its true nature-I saw the horror in your face."

"That felt like magic to me," Kleef said. "Dark magic."

"What did you expect?" Joelle countered. "That's how it feels to have a G.o.d look at you. Terrifying and magical and mysterious."

"Maybe," Kleef said. If there was one thing twenty years of night duty on the Watch had taught him, it was to be suspicious of ready explanations. And Joelle was trying to recruit him-he couldn't forget that. "Let's say Big Bone Deep really exists, and that you and Malik actually raided this hidden temple and lived to tell about it."

Joelle looked hurt. "You don't believe me?"

"I have a suspicious mind," Kleef said. "I still don't see what's so important about a big ball of quartz."

Joelle's smile grew frosty-and Kleef felt crushed.

"I thought I explained that." Joelle paused, then continued in a tone that suggested she found Kleef a little slow. "The Eye of Gruumsh is a 'quartz ball' only in its physical aspect. In its divine aspect, it's a center of power-the medium through which Gruumsh perceives all of Abeir-Toril."

"And that's why you and Malik had to steal it?" Kleef asked, not quite sure why he suddenly felt the need to prove he was smarter than Joelle seemed to think. "To protect the world from orcs?"

Joelle looked confused for a moment. "I suppose 'protecting' is how you would perceive our task," she said. "But it's more complicated than that. It's not the orcs we're trying to stop, and we didn't actually steal the Eye-at least not the divine one. Luthic gave it to us."

"Luthic?" Kleef asked. "Gruumsh's mate?"

"The G.o.ddess of caves," Joelle corrected. "Why do men always a.s.sume that when a female beds a male, she becomes his property and loses her ident.i.ty?"

"I wouldn't know." Kleef's reply came without hesitation, for he had questioned enough scofflaws to know when someone was trying to rattle him. "Why would Luthic give you her mate's only eye?"

Joelle studied him for a time, then spoke in a soft voice. "There's no need to make this into an interrogation, Kleef. I'm happy to tell you everything."

"Thanks," Kleef said, not changing his tone at all. "Why would Luthic give you her mate's only eye?"

Joelle sighed. "It's a gift."

"For you?" Kleef glanced aft toward Malik. The little bug-eyed man had Elbertina trapped against the port bulwark, engaging her in a conversation she was obviously too polite to end. "Or for Malik?"

"Malik is just the bearer," Joelle clarified. She set the cloth aside, then began to fish through the sail-mending kit. "The Eye is for Luthic's lover, Grumbar."

"Luthic is mating with an earth primordial?" As much as Kleef found himself wanting to believe her, he was growing more skeptical by the moment. Affairs between G.o.ds, he could imagine. An affair between a G.o.ddess and an earth primordial ... well, he didn't want to imagine that. "Are you sure?"

Joelle looked up long enough to waggle her hand back and forth. "That's how we Heartwarders perceive it." She withdrew a hooked needle and a length of sail thread from the kit, then slipped them both in the bucket. "I suspect you Watchers might see the Eye differently-perhaps as a reward for her faithful protector."

Kleef began to find the explanation a bit more reasonable. "What would Grumbar be protecting her from?"

Joelle shrugged. "From her mate, perhaps. Gruumsh is the G.o.d of savagery, after all." She removed the needle and thread from the still-glimmering water, then added, "But I really wouldn't know. As I said, that's how you might see things."

Kleef frowned. As a follower of Helm's Law, he had a duty to protect the weak, and the vow was so deeply ingrained that he found himself clenching his teeth in outrage.

"How many ways are there to see this gift?" he asked.

"As many ways as there are faiths," Joelle replied. "The important thing is that Malik and I are trying to stop the Mistress of the Night."

"Shar?" Kleef asked. The longer Joelle talked, the stranger this supposed love triangle began to seem. "What does she have to do with Luthic and Gruumsh?"

"You're forgetting Grumbar." Joelle began to thread the needle, which had emerged from the water bucket as clean and shiny as a brand new one. "And Grumbar is the key to Shar's plan."

She began to close Kleef's wounds. He watched her sew a cut above his knee for a moment, crisscrossing her st.i.tches in a tight, uniform pattern. To his surprise, her work did not cause him much pain-only a little pressure as the needle pushed through the skin, then a little tugging as the thread was drawn through behind it.

After a moment, he said, "All right. Tell me about Shar's plan. And maybe you'd better start at the beginning."

"If you like." Joelle finished st.i.tching the first cut and moved to one on his thigh. "What do you know of the Cycle of Night?"

"Other than the name you just mentioned, nothing."

"Then perhaps I won't start at the very beginning." Joelle spoke without looking up. "But, surely, you've noticed that Faerun is in a time of great change."

"Hard to miss," Kleef said. He glanced back toward the now-distant harbor, where waves were breaking over a shoal of warehouses that had been submerged during the Great Rain. "It feels like the whole world is having a nightmare."

"In a sense, it is," Joelle said. "Abeir and Toril are separating."

"So the doomsayers say." Kleef had stood watch over enough street-corner sermons to know that most sages believed the world was really two worlds that had been separated at the dawn of time, and then forced back together in a great cataclysm of destructive magic a hundred years ago. "I won't claim to know if they're right."

"Then you need to open your eyes and look at the world around you," Joelle replied. "The earthmotes are falling, the plaguelands are vanishing, and even magic has returned to the old ways. The ground heaves and rolls like a restless sea, lakes freeze one day and boil the next, and Faerun is at war from Mirabar to Al Qahara. How can you know all that and doubt the truth of what I'm telling you?"

"Because I don't know all that," Kleef said. "I know only what I've seen with my own eyes, inside the walls of Ma.r.s.ember."

"But even that must be enough," Joelle insisted. "I was in the city for less than a day, and I saw buildings shake like drunkards."

"True enough," Kleef said. With his own eyes, he had seen three different earthmotes plunge into the Dragonmere, and twice he had been nearly been knocked off his feet when the street suddenly writhed beneath his boots. "But even if the doomsayers are right, that doesn't explain the wars. If the world is coming apart, why should so many people waste their last days fighting over it?"

Joelle shrugged. "Because mortals are the weapons of G.o.ds," she said. "And the G.o.ds are fighting to control the world that comes after. That is certainly true of Malik and me-and if we fail, Faerun will suffer for it. All Toril will suffer."

"Because of Shar's plan?" Kleef asked. "She's causing the worlds to separate?"

Joelle shook her head. "Taking advantage of it, certainly. But what single G.o.d could sunder the worlds?" She waved her hand vaguely skyward, as if the shimmering heavens above could encompa.s.s all the upheaval that had seized Faerun in the last two years. "Were Shar that powerful, the Cycle of Night would never have been stopped."

"What is this Cycle of Night?" Kleef asked. He was starting to wonder how Joelle-or any mortal-could know all she claimed about the affairs of G.o.ds. "That's the second time you've mentioned it."

Joelle stopped sewing and looked up. "Oblivion," she said. "Shar is the Lady of Loss, and her appet.i.te is insatiable. She feeds on her own divine children, and through them gains the strength to devour an entire world. Had her son Mask not tricked her, she would have swallowed all of Abeir-Toril."

Kleef scowled. "As in, eaten?" he asked. "I'm not sure I believe-"

"You should," Joelle interrupted. She went back to work, this time closing a cut on his wrist. "You have heard of the Ordulin Maelstrom, I am certain."

"Who hasn't?" Kleef said. Once the capital of Sembia, Ordulin had been destroyed a hundred years earlier by a follower of Shar. Since that time, a growing storm of rain and shadow had swirled around an ever-growing void at the heart of the ruins. "What are you saying, that the maelstrom is Shar's mouth?"

"In a sense, yes," Joelle said. "Had Mask not stopped her, the maelstrom would have continued to expand until Shar had devoured everything."

A cold knot formed in the pit of Kleef's stomach. It was a familiar sensation, the same one he always felt when he caught Tanner or Rathul or another of his men in a lie.

Taking care to keep an even voice, Kleef said, "I don't see how that can be. Mask is dead."

"No G.o.d is ever truly dead, so long as he lives in the heart of a single worshiper," Joelle said. She looked up from the wound she was closing on Kleef's forearm. "You should know that better than anyone else, Watcher."

Kleef scowled, annoyed by her use of the name once given to Helm's faithful. "Those are pretty words, but you won't win my help through lies," he said. "The Lurking Lord has been dead for a century."

"And now he is back." Joelle returned to her work. "As is Lathander, and no small number of other G.o.ds-perhaps even Helm."

"If the Vigilant One has returned, he has not bothered to tell me about it."

"Hasn't he?" Joelle asked. She tied off a st.i.tch, then looked up. "You are a fine swordsman. But had you truly been alone today, you could never have held that bridge-not for so long, against so many."

"I had help," Kleef replied. "The human kind."

"Eventually," Joelle said. "But we both know you should have been killed half a dozen times over before they arrived."

Kleef thought back to the blue glow that had been shining from the agate in Watcher's crossguard, then reluctantly nodded. "There may have been some magic," he allowed. "But that doesn't mean dead G.o.ds are rising."

Joelle sighed in exasperation. "Then perhaps we should talk about what you will believe," she said. "Now that Shar has been stopped from devouring the world-however that happened-she has a new plan."

Kleef glanced aft toward Malik. "One that involves the Eye of Gruumsh?"

"No, that is our plan," Joelle said. "Shar's plan is to drive Grumbar away, since his earthly essence is what keeps her Shadowfell separate from the physical world. If she can make him leave with Abeir when the worlds divide, her essence will be free to spill across all of Toril. Shar will become even more powerful than she is now-and master of her fellow G.o.ds."

"And what's that have to do with Luthic?" Kleef asked. Joelle gave him a look of strained patience, and once again, Kleef suddenly felt the need to prove that he wasn't the idiot she seemed to believe he was. He took a chance and asked, "Is Luthic what keeps Grumbar on Toril?"

Joelle smiled-and sent a flood of warmth pouring through Kleef. "Indeed," she said. "Grumbar's pa.s.sion for Luthic has no limits. If Shar can overcome that, Toril is hers."

"Sounds like that might be hard to do."

"Not as hard as you might think," Joelle said. "Shar has threatened to reveal their dalliance to Gruumsh One-Eye-and if that happens, the Savage One's anger will know no bounds."

Kleef nodded. "That would be bad," he said. "Kings have been known to go to war over such things."

"So have G.o.ds," Joelle said. "So Shar has convinced Grumbar that the only way to protect Luthic is to leave her-to depart with Abeir when it separates from Toril. And if he doesn't, Shar will make certain that Gruumsh discovers their dalliance."

"And Grumbar buys that?" Kleef asked. "He's not willing to fight for her?"

"He might be-if Shar hadn't also planted the idea that Luthic never loved him at all," Joelle said. "Shar has Grumbar thinking that Luthic was only trysting with him because he was the earth primordial-because his favor allowed her to extend her grottos into every last corner of Toril."

"Any truth to that?" Kleef asked.

Joelle shrugged. "Enough for it to work," she said. "Grumbar has just about given up any thought of remaining on Toril. He isn't even trying to secure the dominion of stone and earth in this plane."

Kleef fell silent, trying to come to grips with the idea of thinking about G.o.ds and primordials on the level of common city folk. Joelle's description of the love triangle sounded like the trouble behind a hundred house brawls he had been called to break up, and he could not help feeling it all made just a little too much sense.

"How sure are you about all this?" he asked. "It's hard to believe the G.o.ds conduct their lives no better than we do."

"Because we are seeing them through our eyes," Joelle said. "We can only understand them in terms of ourselves. To Malik, it probably looks like Grumbar is dying of a broken heart. To you, it might seem that Grumbar is leaving out of honor, because he endangered Luthic by encouraging her to break a vow of fidelity."

"Vows?" Kleef asked. It hadn't escaped his notice that Joelle's explanations all revolved around love. "I thought you said Gruumsh and Luthic weren't married."

"I said that Luthic wasn't property, but they aren't married either-at least not to my way of thinking," Joelle replied. "To one of Helm's Watchers ... well, it's impossible for me to know how you would see their arrangement. But the heart of the matter remains the same-Shar is tricking Grumbar into leaving Toril, and it has fallen to us to change his mind ... and that is what the Eye is for."

Kleef recalled what Joelle had said about the Eye being a gift. "You're going to give it to Grumbar?"

"That's the plan: to take it to his temple in the Underchasm," Joelle confirmed. "Luthic stole it from Gruumsh as a symbol of her devotion-to prove she would rather face the Savage One's wrath than lose Grumbar."

"And to tie him to Toril," Kleef said. "Because now that Luthic has made an enemy of Gruumsh, she'll need help to hold him off. Grumbar would be duty-bound to stay and support her."

"I hadn't thought of that." Joelle's tone was approving. "It will be good to have a Helm worshiper helping us."

"I haven't said I'm coming," Kleef reminded her. "I'm not even sure I believe you."

"No?" Joelle kept her eyes on her work. "What part do you doubt?"

"The part where you know so much," Kleef said. "How can you know what the G.o.ds are thinking?"

"Is that all that troubles you?" Joelle tied off the last st.i.tch, then finally raised her eyes. "The Lady of Love revealed it to me, of course."

Kleef lowered his brow, his customary suspicion already turning to disappointment. "Revealed it how?" he asked. "In a dream?"

Joelle's eyes twinkled. "Something like that," she replied. "It came to me as revelations from the G.o.ddess always do-in a moment of pa.s.sion."

Kleef felt the color rising to his cheeks, but pressed on. "That's not much comfort," he said. "What did you see? What did she say?"

"See? Say?" Joelle laughed and returned the needle to the mending kit. "Clearly you have never had a divine revelation. I didn't see anything, and Sune didn't say anything-at least not that I can remember. She just entered my mind, and I knew."

"You ... knew?" Kleef repeated, scarcely able to believe how close he had come to accepting Joelle's story. "How am I to trust in that?"

"How can you not?" Joelle countered. "You've seen the Eye. You've felt its power. Do you think Malik and I could steal that without divine help?"

"Steal it, maybe," Kleef said. He thought back to the moment Malik had revealed the Eye to him-to the cold terror he had experienced as it awakened and looked into him. "But carrying it into the Underchasm? For that, you will need the help of the G.o.ds."

"Which must be why Helm sent you to us."

Joelle smiled and touched Kleef's hand, and he started to see the sense in her words. The earthmotes had dropped, and the Sea of Fallen Stars had risen to its ancient levels. The entire world was at war, and Cormyr was imperiled as never before. Clearly, change was coming to Toril. Joelle allowed her fingers to linger, and Kleef began to realize just how right she was. With dead G.o.ds rising and the heavens themselves engulfed in a power struggle, perhaps Helm had returned.

Perhaps he had sent Kleef to protect Joelle on her journey.

Then Kleef realized what was happening and pulled his hand away. "Don't do that."

Joelle looked mystified. "Do what?"

"Try to charm me," Kleef replied. "It'll never work. I won't turn my back on my duty."

Joelle's voice grew stern. "No one is asking you to ignore your duty, Watchman. Quite the opposite, in fact." She retrieved the cloth she had used to clean Kleef's wounds, then dropped it in the bucket and rose to leave. "We'll remove those st.i.tches in a few hours. Your wounds will be healed by then."