Foul Water

At first light, after a night spent tracing foul water and tending those who could not wait, Kargun took them to the temple.

Not because he thought the Song of the Morning could pour dawn over the mud and make it clean. If that had been possible, he would have asked days ago.

He took them because one well could change a day.

And wells, like doors, needed someone with authority to open them.

The temple stood just inside Beregost’s northern edge, pale stone bright against the working town around it, its tower lifting Lathander’s rose-and-road sunburst into the morning.

Maeril stopped before the steps and looked back toward the road, where patched canvas and thin smoke showed beyond the town’s safer roofs.

“So,” she said. “We ask the dawn why it has been rising over here.”

“Maeril,” Rishi said softly.

“I know.” Her jaw worked once. “I know.”

Kargun did not look offended.

“She is not wrong,” he said.

“No,” Rishi answered. “Only sharp.”

Maeril glanced at him.

She inhaled through her nose, held it, and let it go.

“Fine,” she said. “I will be usefully sharp.”

Kargun pushed the temple door open.

Inside, the air smelled of beeswax, warm stone, clean cloth, and exhaustion no incense could hide.

Acolytes moved quickly between side chambers, carrying basins, folded linens, bowls of broth. Too many pallets had been laid along one wall.

Children slept there, not enough of them. An old man breathed shallowly beneath a yellow blanket. A woman in a bloodstained shawl murmured a prayer over someone’s hand.

The temple was not empty.

That mattered.

It was also not enough.

That also mattered.

The Dawnmaster met them near the inner arch, frowning as if he had been called from three tasks and failed all of them by answering.

He was not old, but strain had made him look as if he had borrowed years against future rest. His vestments were clean only where mud had recently been brushed away. A faint gold glow still lingered around one hand, the last trace of some spent healing.

His eyes went first to Kargun, then to Rishi’s red cords, then to Maeril’s horns, circlet and staff.

“Kargun,” he said. “If this is about more hands, I have sent what I can.”

His voice came out too hard.

He heard it.

A flicker of shame crossed his face before he could hide it.

Kargun bowed his head once. “Dawnmaster Halver. This is Rishishura of Lantern Hall. Maeril Greenward of Wyrm’s Crossing.”

Halver’s expression shifted.

He knew the name.

Not the man.

“Lantern Hall,” he said. “Yes. We have had letters from Baldur’s Gate.”

His eyes moved to Maeril.

“Maeril Greenward,” she said. “Not in the letters, I assume.”

“No,” Halver said.

“Good. Then I can make a fresh poor impression.”

Halver almost smiled.

Almost.

Then the temple’s weariness returned.

“What can you spare?” Rishi asked.

No greeting before it.

No accusation.

Only the question that mattered.

Halver closed his eyes briefly.

“We are not doing nothing,” he said.

Maeril’s gaze sharpened.

Halver winced as if he had stepped on his own foot.

“That came out badly.” He rubbed both hands over his face, then dropped them. “I know how it looks. Some of it is how it looks. Not all.”

“Then tell us the part we cannot see,” Rishi said.

Halver looked toward the pallets.

“We have taken in the worst cases we can house. Children first. Then those too fevered to lift their heads. We send acolytes out when we can. We boil water until our fires threaten to eat the stores. We pray. We fail. Then we pray again.”

His voice stayed level because he forced it to.

“Folks are frightened. The town sees the camp and wants it gone. The camp sees our walls and thinks we are keeping dawn in a chest. Merchants fear sick refugees will scare caravans away. Townsfolk count watched wells, rationed bread, and temple light spent on outsiders.”

Maeril’s hands tightened around her staff.

“So the camp gets the ditch because the town gets the walls.”

Halver flinched.

Rishi gave Maeril a slight look.

She cut him one back, narrow and annoyed.

Halver’s eyes stayed on her, tired and honest enough not to look away.

“Yes,” he said. “Some days. Yes. That is what happens.”

That answer quieted her more than defensiveness would have.

He continued, rougher now.

“If I send more acolytes outside, the town says I have abandoned them. If I keep them here, the camp says the same. If I open the temple stores, they are empty by nightfall. Tomorrow there is hunger on both sides of the gate. If I hold them back, I preserve strength by watching suffering continue.”

His mouth twisted.

“There are prayers for judgment. Fewer for arithmetic.”

Kargun shifted beside them.

The shovel handle over his shoulder knocked softly against his plate.

“We need clean water,” he said.

Halver looked at him.

“I know.”

“One well,” Kargun said. “The eastern reserve.”

Halver’s face tightened immediately.

“That well is for townsfolk.”

“For one day. Healthy carriers only. I choose them. I stand there. I answer for them.”

“That well is already a grievance.”

“Then let the grievance draw clean water before it grows teeth.”

Silence settled between them.

Somewhere behind the inner screen, a child coughed in sleep.

Rishi spoke softly.

“If you cannot spare healing, spare permission.”

Halver looked at him.

“Permission is not nothing,” Rishi said. “Sometimes it is the first bandage.”

The Dawnmaster’s gaze moved from Rishi to Maeril, then to Kargun.

Maeril looked toward the sick laid out on the pallets before she answered.

“We can change the camp’s shape,” she said. “But not if people are washing bandages in runoff and cooking with ditch water. One clean day lets us move the worst of it.”

Halver’s eyes narrowed.

“You sound certain.”

“I am certain the current arrangement is killing them.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” she said. “But it is enough to start.”

Halver looked down at his own hands.

Priest’s hands. Scholar’s hands. Healer’s hands.

Not enough hands.

At last, he nodded once.

“One day,” he said. “Eastern reserve. Healthy carriers. No fevered. No children. No pushing townsfolk away from their own buckets. Kargun stands responsible. If there is a riot, I close it.”

“There will not be a riot,” Kargun said.

“You do not command the town.”

“No,” Kargun replied. “But I can be large in the way.”

That did make Halver smile, faintly and against his will.

“Dawn help anyone who argues with that.”

Maeril inclined her head.

“Thank you.”

Halver looked surprised by the plainness of it.

“Do not thank me yet,” he said. “It is a small door.”

“Small doors are still doors.”

Rishi looked at her.

She noticed.

“Do not look pleased,” she muttered. “I can be profound by accident.”

Kargun bowed.

They left with no miracle, no wagon of supplies, no line of priests following behind them.

Only one well.

One day.

And permission.