Kern stared at her in astonishment.

Suddenly an expression of agony twisted Sirana's face. She screamed in pain, dropping the hammer. "By all the blackest gods, it burns!"

Kern and the others watched in horror as Sirana's lovely coppery skin began to bubble and smoke. Two stumps sprouted from her back, unfurling into vulturelike wings covered with oily black feathers. In moments the beautiful wild mage was gone. In her place stood a creature that was formed only vaguely like a woman. Her body and face were hideously misshapen. Dagger-shaped fangs curved down from her crooked maw, and sharp talons sprouted from her gnarled fingers. Her wings beat furiously, casting off a foul odor.

"A foul erinyes!" Miltiades spoke grimly, raising his sword.

"Oh, vile paladin, don't you find my true form lovely?" the erinyes Sirana rasped in a croaking voice. "If not, you may blame it on my human father, the Red Wizard Marcus. Human and fiendish blood do not mix well, but I care nothing for beauty. I can don it like a cloak, or cast it aside when I need it no longer. It is power that matters to me!"

"Like the power of Tyr's hammer," Kern said, shaking his head in wonderment. He knelt to retrieve the relic from the ground where it had fallen.

The erinyes whirled on him. "Yes!" she hissed. "I will have it, you foolish little puppy. Just as I will have revenge upon you, and all of Phlan as well." She turned her murderous gaze toward Miltiades. "You will pay for slaying my father. You all will pay!"

"But you have failed, Sirana," Listle said, her voice hard.

"Think that if you wish, elf," the erinyes snarled. "But I have a source of power which I have barely begun to tap. You will never defeat the magic of the pool of twilight! Never!" The half-fiend began to back away from the others. "Vengeance will be mine!"

"Don't let her escape!" Daile cried. She raised her bow, but before she could loose an arrow, the erinyes gripped the bone amulet at her throat. In a puff of smoke, she vanished. Daile's arrow passed through thin air.

Sirana was gone.

Patriarch Anton watched intently as Sister Sendara, augur of the Temple of Tyr, let the runestones slip through her fine-boned fingers. The timeworn pebbles, each carved with a holy symbol, tumbled onto a round silver plate. The wizened priestess peered at the stones, studying the pattern they made as they fell.

"What do you see in the temple's future, Sister Sendara?" Anton asked softly. The two were alone in a small candlelit antechamber off the temple's main hall.

"A moment, Anton," Sendara scolded. "Fate cannot be rushed."

Anton smiled at this gentle rebuke. Of all the clerics left in Phlan's temple of Tyr, only Sendara was older than he was, and only she spoke to him in such a familiar manner. If sometimes she was not as respectful to the patriarch as custom dictated, Anton took no offense. After all, Sendara had been a full cleric of the faith when he could do little more than coo and slumber in his mother's arms.

"These are ill-tidings," she said finally in a cracked voice.

"What is it?" Anton glowered at the stones scattered across the silver platter. They meant nothing to his untrained eyes.

"A shadow approaches the temple of Tyr." Sendara's dark eyes were like bright chips of obsidian. "A foe who has attacked us once before gathers together even greater strength. Soon we will be awash in a sea of darkness."

"Are you certain?"

The ancient priestess frowned at Anton, hands on the hips of her soft gray robe. "It's not as if I'm making this up for dramatic effect, you know."

Anton sighed deeply, placing his hands on her thin shoulders. "I know, Sendara. I know. It is difficult news to bear, that's all."

"As will be the dark days to come." Sendara extricated herself from his grasp. "But there is more, Anton, and on this the runes speak clearly." She gazed at the scattered stones again. "Phlan has suffered many foes and many battles in its history. But none have ever been so dire, or so important, as this. We must prevail in our coming trials, or all will be lost."

"What do you mean, Sendara?"

"I mean, Anton," she said somberly, "that if the temple of Tyr falls before the hammer is returned, then all of Phlan is doomed. Forever."

She gathered her runestones and slipped them into a small silken pouch, leaving Anton alone in the antechamber to contemplate her words. A chill had settled in the old patriarch's bones, but he didn't know if it was from the wintry air or Sendara's frightening words. He found himself wondering once again how Kern and the others were faring on their quest for Tyr's hammer.

A thought struck him. He left the antechamber, making his way through the temple's upper corridors. It was after vespers, and candles had been lit against the gathering gloom outside. He knocked on a small wooden door and entered a room, finding Tarl Desanea sitting in a stiff-backed chair. His stricken wife lay before him. Tarl had moved her from their tower to the sanctuary of the temple several days before. Anton could hear her breathing, painfully slow in its rhythm.

"It's dark in here," the patriarch rumbled softly, lighting a candle.

Tarl shrugged his massive shoulders. "It isn't as if either Shal or I care."

Anton winced. Sometimes he forgot that Tarl was blind.

"You didn't come to evening prayers." Anton sat in a chair next to his friend.

"I said my prayers here," Tarl answered. His voice was flat and toneless, but Anton caught the bitterness in it.

Anton took a deep breath. "Have you received any sign that might tell you how the Hammerseeker fares, Brother Tarl? Any word from Tyr?"

Tarl's blind eyes seemed to gaze out the darkened window. "Nothing. I have felt nothing."

After a moment's hesitation, Anton decided to tell Tarl his reason for asking. He recounted the augury that Sister Sendara had just prescribed. If the temple fell, Phlan would be lost.

Tarl turned his sightless eyes toward Anton. "Phlan will be lost?" His haggard voice was almost mocking. "If Kern does not return, Anton, my family will be lost. If Kern perishes, then so will Shal. I will have no one." He hung his head, at a loss for more words.

Anton's shaggy eyebrows knitted into a scowl. Lately, Tarl had been sinking into a black despair, but Anton had not realized how hopeless the cleric's attitude was until now. This could not go on. "There are others besides you and your loved ones to think of, cleric of Tyr," Anton said sternly. "Regardless of whether the Hammerseeker succeeds or fails, the temple must stand. All of us must be ready to fight the coming battle."

"Really?" Tarl asked hoarsely. "And how does a blind cleric fight, Anton? Shall I have good Brother Dameron point me toward the enemy and kindly tell me when to start swinging?" He shook his head fiercely. "No. I wish you luck in your battle, Anton, but my own battle is here." He reached out a hand to smooth Shal's fiery hair from her pallid brow.

Anton rose from his chair, suddenly angry. "Do not speak to me of your private battles, Tarl. I have watched as, one by one, our brothers and sisters have been struck down by the scourges sent by the gods of evil, the enemies of Tyr. I have watched as foul disease rotted their bodies in the space of an hour, and as searing flames consumed them in an agonizing minute, all because the temple's aura could no longer protect them."

Anton clenched his big hands into fists. "The day you survived the scourge sent against you, Tarl, I was filled with joy. It gave me hope that the temple could withstand the evil with which the gods of darkness afflict Phlan. But now I see that I was wrong." He paused by the door, his face grim. "We have lost you after all, Brother Tarl."