Foul Water

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

He did not expect the temple to pour dawn over the mud and make it clean. If that had been possible, he would have asked days ago.

He needed one well for one day.

Wells, like doors, required someone with authority to open them.

The temple stood near Beregost’s northern edge, pale stone bright against the working town. Its tower lifted Lathander’s rose-and-road sunburst into the morning.

At the foot of the steps, Maeril looked back. Patched canvas and thin smoke showed beyond the safer roofs.

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

“Maeril,” Rishi said quietly.

Her jaw worked once. “I know.”

Kargun did not take offense. “She is not wrong.”

“No,” Rishi said. “Only sharp.”

Maeril drew a breath through her nose and released it slowly. “Fine. I will be usefully sharp.”

Kargun opened the temple door.

Beeswax, warm stone, and clean cloth met them inside, along with exhaustion no incense could cover. Acolytes hurried between side chambers with basins, folded linens, and bowls of broth. Pallets crowded one wall.

Children slept on several pallets—too few of the camp’s children. An old man breathed shallowly beneath a yellow blanket. A woman in a bloodstained shawl held someone’s hand and murmured a prayer.

The temple was working.

It was not enough.

The Dawnmaster met them near an inner arch. His frown belonged to a man called away from three urgent tasks who feared he had failed all three by answering. Strain had borrowed years from his face. Mud had been brushed from his vestments in hurried streaks, and the last gold trace of healing still clung to one hand.

His gaze moved from Kargun to the red cords at Rishi’s wrist, then to Maeril’s horns, circlet, and staff.

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

The words came too hard. Shame crossed his face as soon as he heard them.

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

Recognition touched Halver’s face. He knew the name, not the man.

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

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

“No.”

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

Halver nearly smiled. The weariness of the room reclaimed him first.

“What can you spare?” Rishi asked.

No accusation. Only the question they had come to answer.

Halver closed his eyes. “We are not doing nothing.”

Maeril’s gaze sharpened, and he winced.

“That came out badly.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “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 turned toward the pallets.

“We take the worst cases we can house. Children first, then anyone too fevered to lift their head. We send acolytes out when we can. We boil water until the fires threaten our stores. We pray. We fail. Then we pray again.”

He forced his voice level.

“The town sees the camp and wants it gone. The camp sees our walls and thinks we keep dawn locked in a chest. Merchants fear sick refugees will drive caravans away. Townsfolk count guarded wells, rationed bread, and temple light spent on outsiders. Everyone is frightened.”

Maeril tightened both hands around her staff. “So the camp gets the ditch because the town gets the walls.”

Halver flinched. Rishi glanced at Maeril, and she returned a look both narrow and annoyed.

The Dawnmaster did not look away from her.

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

His admission quieted Maeril.

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

His mouth twisted. “There are prayers for judgment. Fewer for arithmetic.”

Kargun shifted. The shovel handle tapped his plate.

“We need clean water,” he said.

“I know.”

“One well. The eastern reserve.”

Halver’s face tightened. “That well is for townsfolk.”

“For one day,” Kargun said. “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.”

Behind the inner screen, a child coughed in sleep.

“If you cannot spare healing,” Rishi said, “spare permission.”

Halver looked at him.

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

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

Maeril looked at the sick along the wall. “We can change the camp’s shape, but not while people wash bandages in runoff and cook with ditch water. One clean day will let us move the sick to higher ground and drain the fouled water away from the tents.”

“You sound certain,” Halver said.

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

“That is not the same thing.”

“No. 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.

He nodded once.

“One day. 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. But I can be large in the way.”

Halver smiled faintly despite himself. “Dawn help anyone who argues with that.”

Maeril inclined her head. “Thank you.”

The plainness of it surprised him.

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

“Small doors are still doors.”

Rishi looked at her, and she caught him doing it.

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

Kargun bowed.

They left without a miracle, a supply wagon, or a procession of priests.

They had one well, one day, and permission.