Tymora's luck

ACT THREE SCENE 2

Joel awoke drenched in sweat and anxious. He'd dreamt the Wyvernspur children were trapped in a cave by foul monsters. They had called upon Tymora, but Tymora's Luck was gone from the Realms, leaving them helpless. The bard shook his head. Selune had said she would check on the children, but perhaps his warning had come too late. Of course, it was possible that the dream had nothing to do with reality, but Joel doubted it. He rolled over, praying that Selune was able to do something for Finder's mortal family.

Soon after falling back asleep, the dreams returned. Joel dreamt of the earthquake in Tymora's garden. In his dream, however, the birch tree fell on top of him instead of away from him. He tried to push the trunk off his body, but it was soggy and rotten. A section broke off, leaving his hands covered with slime.

After several more attempts, Joel managed to wriggle out from beneath the tree.

"Joel," the tree called.

Joel whirled about. Buried within the rotting tree trunk was Finder. The tree fell away from the god. Then Finder began to age until he was an ancient, toothless old man. Joel gasped.

"Find Beshaba," Finder said. "Take her to the Spire."

"Is she here in Gehenna?" Joel asked. "And why the Spire? How do we get there?"

Finder didn't answer Joel's question. The god's flesh fell from his skeleton. Then the skeleton's mouth clacked, "Barghests use fear."

The ground began to shake once more, until gradually

Joel realized it wasn't the ground shaking. Emilo was shaking him awake, calling his name.

"I'm awake," Joel said, some unknown fear making his heart pound and bringing him to instant alertness. "What's wrong?" he demanded of the kender.

"It's Holly," Emilo explained. "She started muttering to herself. Then she cried out, 'Danger! Run!' and ran off." Emilo pointed deeper into the canyon.

Joel shivered despite the hot air. "There's something wrong here." His breathing grew very fast. "There's something terrible. Something dangerous all around us," he declared. With a rising sense of panic, he rose quickly to his feet, only to be seized with sudden, overwhelming fear. He started to run down the canyon and disappeared in the darkness.

Emilo shook his head with confusion. The bard had left in such a hurry that he'd left the finder's stone lying on the carpet. The kender was just about to wake Jas when it occurred to him that the winged woman might be better off left sleeping. Instead, he scooped all the party's gear into the center of the flying carpet. Then, with the finder's stone clutched in his hands, he ordered the carpet to fly after the terrified bard and paladin.

Joel ran pell-mell down the canyon, heedless of whether Emilo and Jas were following or were left behind and equally heedless of what lay ahead. He tripped over something metallic and sprawled across the rocky ground.

Joel rose to his hands and knees and looked around, A plume of molten lava shot into the sky on the slope overhead, and by its light, Joel was able to see what had impeded his flight. Holly lay on the ground nearby, unconscious but breathing.

A moment later something pounced heavily on Joel's back and sent him sprawling again. When he looked up, he was face-to-snout with a growling wild dog with glowing red eyes and horrible breath.

"N-N-Nice doggie," the bard whispered cautiously. He debated in his mind whether he should back away slowly or flee outright. His courage returned to him, however, and he held his ground, unwilling to abandon Holly to this beast. Before his eyes, the dog transformed into a giant humanoid with a flat face, broad nose, pointed ears, and sharp teeth and fangs. It resembled some sort of overgrown goblin, except its skin had a strange purplish color. It raised a huge fist covered in a spiked gauntlet.

Joel could feel his heart racing, and a surge of energy rushed through his body. He ducked, but not fast enough. The gauntlet struck him in the side of the head with the force of a heavy club. Aware that his life depended on it, Joel spent several moments fighting against the darkness trying to claim him. In the end, he lost.

When he regained consciousness, the bard found himself lying on his stomach, his feet and his knees bound together and his hands tied behind his back. Holly lay beside him, similarly trussed with what appeared to be torn strips of blue fabric. The paladin was awake now, glaring at their captor.

About twenty feet away, seated beside a bubbling pool of lava, was the giant goblin who'd hit him. It was tearing strips of cloth from Joel's cloak and dangling them over the lava. When a strip caught fire, the barghest would shake it until it was about to burn his fingers, then drop it in the lava pool, where the cloth made a brilliant flash before finally incinerating completely.

"What's happening?" the bard whispered.

"We've been captured," Holly whispered back.

"I can see that," Joel muttered. "By what? I seem to have misplaced my Volo's guide to Gehenna."

"It's a barghest," Holly explained. "Remember? Finder mentioned them when he was telling us about Gehenna. They can shapeshift into wild dogs."

Joel recalled the last words Finder spoke in his dream. "Barghests use fear," he quoted.

"Yes," Holly said. "They can cast several different spells, including those to effect the emotions of their prey. This one must have cast magic to make us fear our own campsite. I was so afraid that I abandoned you and Jas and Emilo and fled right into a snare. Then something bashed me on the head."

"Me, too," Joel acknowledged. Even with Finder's warning, he hadn't managed to see through the barghest's trick. "Except I tripped on you before getting smashed in the head. What else do you know about barghests?" he asked the paladin, hoping to learn something that might help free them.

"They leave their young in the Realms to forage for themselves. The young tend to live with goblins. The immature barghests eat people, preferably heroes. That's how they grow in strength. There was one terrorizing travelers around Daggerdale a year or so ago. I was with the party that hunted it down. According to Elminster, when they gain enough power, barghests return to Gehenna, but sometimes they return sooner, before they're ready, if they're fireballed in their canine form. I think that's what happened to this one. It's not as tall as most of them and its skin isn't quite all blue. That's how you tell when a barghest is mature."

A great wolflike dog appeared out of the darkness and immediately transformed into another barghest. The second barghest sat down beside the first. This creature, like the first, was about seven feet tall with purplish skin. "Lucky us," the bard murmured. "There's two of them, but they're not fully grown."

The barghests made growling sounds at each other, speaking in a language Joel did not know.

Holly smiled suddenly. "Emilo took off on the carpet with Jas. They weren't captured."

Joel gave a sigh of relief. He'd been feeling guilty about abandoning the pair, but they were probably safer than he. "You can understand the barghests?" he asked the paladin.

Holly nodded. "A little," she said. "They're arguing about who gets which one of us."

"This might be a good time to break the harps Finder gave us and go back to Fermata," Joel said.

"Probably," Holly agreed. "Can you reach your harp?"

Joel wriggled in his bindings. "Um… no."

"Me either," Holly said.

Suddenly, from the outer ridge of the canyon, someone shouted, "Hey, dog-breath!"

"It's Emilo!" Joel whispered excitedly. He craned his neck, trying to get a glimpse of the kender, hoping to warn him away.

Emilo stood alone on the ridge, the finder's stone shining at his feet. He held his thumbs up to his temples and wriggled his fingers at the barghests. "Why don't you go back to your doggie shapes? Then you could round up some sheep."

The barghests rose to their feet. One moved farther down the canyon, while the other began to move toward Emilo.

"Isn't mutton your favorite meat?" the kender shouted. "But tough to catch, I bet. Those sheep are smart. Why, their brains must be two, three times larger than the ones in your thick skulls."

The barghest moving toward Emilo growled.

"I sure hope he knows what he's doing," Holly muttered. "That second one is sneaking off to come up behind him."

"Don't forget, Jas is out there somewhere, too," the bard said. He rolled over, sat up, and began wriggling toward the pool of lava.

"Joel, be careful," Holly whispered. "What are you doing?"

"Most monsters agree that there's no meat sweeter than kender," Emilo said chattily. "Unfortunately kender are just about the cleverest game around, so there's no chance you two will ever be able to judge for yourselves. Unless you find a dead one lying around somewhere. Not above eating carrion, are you?"

The barghest howled and began scrambling up the slope toward Emilo.

Joel sat with his back to the pool of lava and wriggled his hands and fingers until the knot in the bindings covered his left wrist. Then he leaned backward carefully. If he lost his balance, he'd be parboiled, ring of fire protection or no. Very slowly, he began lowering his wrists toward the molten rock a quarter of an inch at a time.

The heat was almost more than he could stand, but the bard did not withdraw. He continued to lower his hands until he heard a sizzling sound. Not until a searing pain shot up his arms did Joel jerk forward away from the lava pool. He began tugging on his bindings, struggling wildly.

The pain was excruciating.

Suddenly he felt the bindings snap, and Joel jerked his hands forward. His left wrist was free, but flaming fabric still encased his right wrist. The bard grabbed the remains of his cloak, which the barghest had left by the pool, and used it to smother the fire. Whimpering from the pain, Joel used his teeth to tear the last bit of the blackened fabric from his burnt flesh.

"You know, there's a nice dead slasrath around here somewhere," Emilo was saying to the barghest as it clawed its way up the steep slope. "It looks like a giant winged worm. A real gully dwarf treat, worms, and easy to catch, too. You might like it for breakfast."

With an enraged bellow, the barghest clamored up the last few feet of slope and lunged at the kender.

Emilo glided backward, riding on the magic carpet, until he disappeared from view. The barghest teetered on the edge of the ridge, growling and snarling. At that moment, Jas soared out of the darkness, coming up behind the barghest with one of Winnie's backpacks swaying beneath her. The pack hit the creature in the head with a thunk. The barghest stumbled, then tumbled down the other side of the ridge.

For several long seconds, they could hear the monster's anguished cries. Then the screams ceased abruptly.

Emilo brought the flying carpet swooping down near Joel and Holly.

"Hurry!'' the paladin cried. "The other one could return any moment."

There was a shimmer in the air beside the pool of lava as a magical doorway opened onto the barghests' campsite. The second barghest stepped out from the shining portal. Joel tossed his tattered cloak in the barghest's face and raced toward the carpet.

From the sky plummeted another backpack, which struck the barghest square in the head. Rocks spilled out of the pack as the creature fell to its knees, howling and clutching its head.

Joel hurled himself onto the carpet, pulling Holly behind him. The paladin was armored in heavy plate mail, but the bard managed to drag her over the edge and onto the carpet. Joel could feel his injured wrists and hands throbbing. Holly rolled into the middle of the carpet, and Joel shouted, "Go! Go!"

Quickly Emilo ordered the carpet to rise twenty feet.

"Backward, quickly!" Holly shouted as the barghest took a leap into the air and levitated upward toward them.

The barghest clawed at the carpet, managed to grab at the fringe, and found itself being pulled along by the retreating carpet. Jas swooped out of the darkness, flying alongside the creature. She hacked at the monster's hand with her sword, and the barghest instinctively released his hold on the carpet.

The barghest hung motionless in the air, growling at them.

"It can levitate, but it can't fly," Holly said. "Better move away before it tries something else."

A howl echoed in the canyon as the first barghest also stepped from a magical door beside the pool of lava.

"I wasn't planning on hanging around, I assure you," Emilo retorted. He slowed the carpet just enough for Jas to settle down beside them, then continued the ascent up the mountain.

Once Jas had cut Holly free, the paladin laid her hands gently on Joel's burned wrist and used her gift of healing to soothe the pain. The scars were terrible to look at, but at least the bard hadn't lost the mobility of his wrists.

"Your ring of fire protection didn't do much good," Jas noted.

"The rings can only protect you from so much heat," Holly said. "Joel nearly dipped his wrists in molten lava. If it weren't for that ring, he wouldn't have any hands left."

"The important thing is we're all right," Joel said. He looked at Jas and Emilo. "Thanks to you two."

Jas shook her head. "Thank Emilo. He's the one who had the foresight to fly off before I could wake up and get scared, too."

"Finder tried to warn me," Joel said. "I wasn't paying enough attention." "Finder warned you? How?" Holly asked., "In a vision, when I was sleeping. He said the barghests use fear. And before that, he said we had to find Beshaba and take her to the Spire."

"Oh, great," Jas muttered. "First Holly has visions. Now Joel's getting them. How do you know it wasn't just a dream?" the winged woman demanded.

"He knew about the barghests," Joel pointed out. Unable to argue with that fact, Jas threw up her hands. "Fine. We go find Beshaba, even if it takes us a century to find her in this hellhole. Then we take her to the Spire, presumably not against her will, since that's a little hard to do with goddesses."

"What's the Spire?" Emilo asked curiously. 'The Spire is the mount in the center of the Outlands," Holly explained. It lies just beneath the ring that holds the city of Sigil."

"Why do you think we're supposed to take her to the Spire?" the kender asked.

Joel shrugged. "It wasn't really clear in my dream. 1 asked, but Finder didn't have time to answer before Holly ran off and you woke me up."

"The Spire is a neutral ground for the gods to parley," Holly explained. "Rumor has it that even the most powerful of the gods are unable to cast magic there."

"Why do we have to take Beshaba there?" Jas wondered.

"Perhaps Selune has sensed that Iyachtu's magic has finally made Beshaba unconscious, like Tymora," Joel speculated. "Finder wouldn't have asked us to do something he knew would be impossible," the bard reasoned.

"Is this Finder, the god of reckless fools, we're talking about here?" Jas asked sarcastically.

"So we have to keep searching for Walinda," Holly said with a grim look.

Joel nodded. He took up the finder's stone from the jumble of gear on the carpet and thought once again of the evil priestess.

Once again the light arced upward, but now its beam curved back down to earth closer to their location.

"Not more than a few miles," Emilo judged. "Your friend Walinda isn't far off now." "She's not our friend," Jas snapped.

"Sorry," Emilo replied, chastened.

"We're lucky, though," Holly said. "While Chamada isn't infinite like most Outer Planes, scholars believe that it's still hundreds of miles high. We could have been traveling and searching for Walinda for days if Selune's portal hadn't transported us to where it did."

"Oddly enough, I don't feel lucky," Jas murmured.

Feeling more alert since he'd had some sleep, Joel was prepared to take over flying the carpet so Holly and Emilo could get some rest. Emilo had no trouble whatsoever falling asleep on the flying carpet, but Holly couldn't seem to get comfortable. She lay awake, staring up into the darkness, until she reminded Joel of an owl. "I'm so hot, she sighed.

As the carpet soared ever higher up the mountain slope, Joel started singing a silly lullaby about goblins who put ice on the toes of sleeping girls in the middle of winter.

"Are you crazy?" Jas asked. "Do you want everyone to hear us coming?"

"Why not?" Joel retorted. "I'm tired of creeping around like a mouse. A little whistling in the graveyard might do us good."

"Actually, that may not be a bad idea," the paladin said. They say a lot of creatures in Gehenna bluff their way to power. You just have to bluff better than they do."

"Bluffing," Jas gasped in mock shock. "Isn't that like lying? Are paladins allowed to do that?"

"Really, Jas, your notions of paladins are so old-fashioned," Holly said. "We're honest, not stupid. If some evil creature is prepared to believe I'm more powerful than he is, why should I disabuse him of the notion?"

"Especially when you're traveling in the company of the awesomely powerful, favored priest of the god of reckless fools," Joel said.

"Exactly," Holly agreed.

Jas snorted with amusement. "I'm tempted to say, You'll learn better when you're older,' but with that attitude, you aren't likely to get much older."

Joel began singing "The Circle Song," a folk song about a boy who grows to be a man who woos and wins his true love, then has lots of children who all grow up to woo and win their true loves. He sang just loudly enough to entertain Holly, but quietly enough so as not to disturb Emilo. When he began the lullaby again, Holly finally drifted off to sleep.

Jas took over flying the carpet while Joel prayed for new spells. When the bard was finished praying, he read through the new scrolls Winnie had packed for them. Since they'd lost a backpack during Jas's attack on the barghest, Joel repacked their equipment, leaving out some of the equipment they would be less likely to use, such as blankets and tarps. He wrapped all the scrolls in a scarf, which he fastened to his belt. The healing potions he slipped into a vest pocket.

They began to fly over more violent sections of the slope. Steam and rock and ash, even molten lava, spewed up from secondary cones on the mountain slope. They had to stay especially vigilant to avoid these hazards. While dodging one eruption, the carpet jerked upward suddenly, and Holly sat bolt upright. At first Joel thought she'd been wakened by the jolt, but then he saw she was drenched in sweat and shaking uncontrollably. "Another vision?" he asked her softly. The paladin nodded, but she didn't look happy. She stared out over the violent land beneath them without speaking.

"What's wrong, Holly?" the bard whispered anxiously. "What did Lathander say? Is Tymora worse? Is it about Beshaba? What?"

"No," the paladin said shaking her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Lord Lathander said that in order to bring Beshaba to him, I'm supposed to offer my aid to that… that woman," she spat.

"You mean Walinda?" Joel asked. Holly nodded wordlessly.

"Oh." Joel put an arm around Holly's shoulders and held her gently.

"I don't understand," the paladin sobbed. "I've always served Lathander well. Why do I have to work with that awful woman? She makes me sick. She's horrid. I should have let Jas kill her when she had the chance. She betrayed her people. She betrayed us. She betrayed the Sensates."

Joel sighed. "Well, fortunately, she also betrayed Bane."

Holly sniffed. "Do you think she might betray Beshaba?"

Joel shrugged. "When she was a priestess of Bane, she pursued power with a vengeance. That was her religion. If she's still in that frame of mind, she could just be using Beshaba. It's food for thought anyway," he said.

As if the mention of food had disturbed his sleep, Emilo rolled over, yawned, and asked, "What's for breakfast?"

Everything in the pack was warm-the water, the bread, the fruit-which would have been fine were the adventurers not already sweltering. Joel tried to conjure an image in his mind of a crisp, cool apple plucked from a tree on a frosty fall morning, but the apples in the pack were closer to becoming apple sauce. Even the magical berries had become the consistency of jam, though they still left one feeling nourished.

Joel held out the finder's stone again and thought of Walinda. The beam of light shot into a canyon somewhere above them. Joel estimated they would reach it within the hour. He slid the stone back inside his shirt.

They were all nervous now except for Emilo, who hung his head over the carpet, wide-eyed at the sight of towering sprays of lava and boulders being tumbled about in rivers of magma.

When they reached the mouth of the canyon, they hovered for a few moments to decide the best way to proceed.

Holly reached out with her paladin sense to detect evil. Not surprisingly, she sensed many evil things in the canyon. Far ahead, shadows and light played across the floor of the canyon in a curiously orderly pattern. At first Joel thought it might be another lava flow, but Jas had another idea.

"It's an army," she said with certainty, "bivouacked in the canyon."

"How can you know that?" Joel asked.

"She's right," Emilo agreed. "That's just what they look like. They're drilling in formation."

Joel didn't dare use the finder's stone again to search for Walinda for fear of being spotted by whoever was in the canyon. If Beshaba was with Walinda, the goddess would surely have sensed them by now. If Walinda was alone, however, they were better off approaching with stealth.

They floated over the canyon at an altitude that prevented them from being noticed, but which also kept them from spying out anything of use. When they came to the opening of the canyon they dropped down slowly, keeping an eye out for any signs of detection.

There were no signs, yet detected they were. Without warning, the flying carpet heaved and began to lose altitude. Jas flew off faster than a bird disturbed by a cat. Holly screamed, and Joel felt something grab at his wrists.

The air about them shimmered as their invisible attackers appeared before them. The attackers were shorter than Jas and looked like some sort of hairy apes, with reddish brown fur and long, sharp claws. At first there were only two of them; then a third appeared on the side of the canyon and leaped across the ten-foot gap to the carpet with amazing ease. The magical carpet drifted downward, unable to bear the extra weight of the attackers.

Aside from being great leapers, the creatures were amazingly strong. One swept Joel up in a bear hug, making it impossible for him to move. Another held Holly's wrists together over her head as if she were a doll.

"They're bar-lgura," Holly warned Joel. "One of the lesser tanar'ri." The creature holding the paladin gave her a vicious shake. Holly quieted instantly.

The tanar'ri, Joel recalled, were creatures from the Abyss who fought the endless Blood War with the baatezu from Baator. They sometimes fought outside of their home planes, which could explain what they were doing here.

The bar-lgura seemed not to notice or challenge Emilo. The kender, very much awake now, sat very still in the center of the carpet, not making a sound.

Joel recalled all the times Emilo had seemed to surprise people with his presence, even the goddess Selune. Finder was right-there was something very strange about the kender. The bard looked away from Emilo to avoid attracting attention to him. Perhaps whatever it was that shielded him from notice could be used to their advantage.

A voice in Joel's head threatened, You will be killed if you do not hold still. The words caused an awful pain behind Joel's eyes. The bar-lgura was communicating with him telepathically. He wondered if it could read his thoughts.

Joel remained motionless, trying not to think of Emilo. The carpet hit the slope, and the bar-lgura jumped off with their prisoners in hand. The third creature grabbed the carpet to keep it from escaping, forcing Emilo to hop off beside Joel. The creature who had grabbed the carpet rolled it up, with their gear inside, and tucked it under his arm as if it were no heavier than a magical scroll.

The three bar-lgura herded Joel and Holly roughly down the slope to the floor of the canyon where they were quickly surrounded by another twenty of the creatures.

This, the bard decided, was a good time for a bluff.

"We are here to see your leader!" Joel announced. "We have important news for her."

The bar-lgura looked at one another, puzzled, as if expecting that one of them would be able to come up with a reply that challenged the bard's assertion. When none did, Joel heard a voice in his head again.

What news? the voice demanded.

"That is for her ears alone," Joel snapped, glaring frostily at the bar-lgura, who maintained his none-too-gentle grip on his wrists.

The bar-lgura holding the carpet nodded to another of its kind. The other went running off down the canyon.

Holly looked at Joel in surprise. The bard shrugged. Assuming the tanar'ri leader was female wasn't such a gamble. If Beshaba were here, she would most certainly be the leader. If Walinda were here, she would find a way to become the leader. The bard knew she was an imperious woman, given to ordering people around. If Walinda weren't the leader, Joel figured it didn't really matter what he said.

The bar-lgura began marching Holly and Joel down the canyon. Emilo trotted along beside them, taking care not to be tread upon by one of the hulking tanar'ri. Holly looked at Emilo with a puzzled expression, then looked at Joel. The bard shook his head to warn her, and the paladin looked away.

There was little light in the canyon, and most of what there was emanated from the hot lava that streamed down the small gullies in the side of the mountain and collected into bubbling pools on the canyon floor. Like the canyon where they'd last rested, the ground was covered with a black flinty ash. Broken, hexagonal-shaped columns that had sheered off the side of the mount above stood like rocky sentries. There were no trees or shrubs or plants of any kind anywhere. Only fiends from the lower planes could live and thrive in such a place.

The bar-lgura had marched them nearly half a mile through an encampment of hundreds of tanar'ri when Joel noted that the populace of the camp had begun to change, as had the atmosphere. The bar-lgura they had already passed had seemed content just to sit around, hardly giving the adventurers a glance. Now their guards led them through gangs of gaunt, filthy creatures who resembled minotaurs. Their behavior was aggressive and openly hostile. They fought with each other in vicious hand-to-hand combat, and several followed behind the guards, snarling at the adventurers.

"What are they?" Joel whispered, nodding to the minotaur-like creatures.

"Bulezau," Holly whispered back. "Tanar'ri pit bulls."

She was rewarded with a slap on her head for speaking.

As they continued on, they began passing tanar'ri troops, both bar-lgura and bulezau, drilling in attack formations. The bulezau who had been following gradually dropped behind. Joel could only assume their captors were approaching the army's headquarters. Soon afterward they came upon a large pavilion, lit all around the perimeter by torches. It was the only shelter in the canyon. Undoubtedly it had been erected for privacy, since it could hardly shelter anyone from the heat and stench of the plane. To one side of the tent stood a flag emblazoned with Beshaba's symbol-black stag horns on a field of red.

The bar-lgura pushed them toward the entrance of the pavilion and formed a semicircle around the prisoners, who were curious to see what would happen next.

A delicate hand moved the tent flap aside, and a small, graceful woman with long, silken black hair stepped out of the pavilion. A cold smile played across her lips.

"So, Poppin, we meet again," the priestess Walinda greeted the bard. Her eyes remained fixed on Joel like a viper's on its prey.

Joel bowed low before the priestess. Upon rising, he met her cold smile with a warmer one of his own. He realized he was mimicking the way Finder greeted women. "I have been searching for you," the bard explained. "You're looking well."

Indeed Walinda looked as lovely as ever, but there was something different about her, and Joel had to stare for a moment to realize what it was. She was wearing the same black plate armor she'd worn as a priestess of Bane. The ruby she'd worn on her forehead was gone, and over the blood-red tattoos on her cheek she had added Beshaba's stag-horn symbol. There was something else different, something even more remarkable. A dark aura surrounded Walinda, a pulsing, fluctuating dark shadow that silhouetted her slender figure. It made her appear more powerful, more forbidding, more seductive.

The bar-lgura holding the flying carpet dropped it at Walinda's feet.

Walinda acknowledged Holly's presence with no more than a glance. Like the bar-lgura, she did not seem to notice Emilo. She did, however, note Jas's absence. "So where is the pigeon girl?" she asked.

"Jas? Why do you ask?" Joel retorted evenly.

"The bar-lgura saw her fly off when you were captured," Walinda said.

"Oh, I imagine she's around somewhere," Joel replied, "inspecting the army you've got here. What does a priestess of Beshaba need with an army?" he asked.

That needn't concern you," Walinda replied. "The bar-lgura said you had news for me."

Joel was momentarily taken aback. It was unlike

Walinda not to brag of the might of her forces, whatever they might be. For some reason, she held this proclivity in check now. "The news is for Lady Beshaba's ears," the bard answered.

"I am Beshaba's proxy," Walinda said. "You may relay your news to me."

Joel glanced at the bar-lgura. Taking the hint, the priestess dismissed the guards with a wave of her hand. Joel sensed in the apelike tanar'ri a certain reluctance to depart. They stepped back several paces, but they did not leave entirely, nor did they turn their backs on their prisoners.

When the tanar'ri were out of earshot, the bard explained in a quiet but urgent voice, "We know of the problem Lady Beshaba is having controlling her power. Lady Tymora is plagued with the same problem. Lord Finder is anxious to discover the cause and do away with it. He bade me to ask Lady Beshaba to meet him at the base of the Spire so they might discuss the situation and determine the solution."

"Beshaba already knows the cause of her misery. It is Iyachtu Xvim," Walinda declared.

"And yet the problem continues," Joel noted, "despite her knowledge."

Walinda squinted her eyes in anger. "Lady Beshaba is a prisoner within the Bastion of Hate, isn't she?" Holly asked. Walinda glared at the paladin.

"Walinda, Lord Lathander has sent me to render you whatever aid you need to free Lady Beshaba," Holly explained. Her voice was tight in an effort to control her anger that she was forced to deal with this woman.

The priestess's eyes widened. Then she burst out laughing. Just as suddenly she stopped, as if she were plunging a dagger into her prey, twisting it, then withdrawing it.

"You?" Walinda exclaimed. "A paladin of light, here in Gehenna to aid Beshaba?"

"Lord Lathander is an ally of Tymora," Joel interrupted. "Since Lady Beshaba and Lady Tymora share the same problem, why should an alliance seem unusual?" Joel asked. "Furthermore, our own world is threatened by the goddesses' troubles. Who better to save the luck of the Realms than a paladin?"

Walinda tilted her head thoughtfully. Then she shrugged and said, "Beshaba has been so weakened that she is now unconscious. I need to reach her to restore her strength. She is indeed a prisoner inside Iyachtu Xvim's realm, which is guarded by Xvim's yugoloth mercenaries. Fortunately Xvim himself is not present. He hasn't been since Beshaba arrived. I await but one more ally and we will attack the Bastion of Hate. You may join the attack if you so choose."

"Against yugoloths?" Holly exclaimed. "Your troops will be slaughtered!"

"They are tanar'ri," Walinda said dismissively. "They live only to die in the Blood War. What difference does it make if they die instead to help Beshaba? At any rate, the bulezau are anxious to engage the enemy. They care little who that enemy is. Their lord loaned me their services so they would not grow bored waiting for their next encounter with the baatezu."

"And the bar-lgura?" Holly challenged.

"The bar-lgura are less eager," Walinda admitted. "The other tanar'ri consider them little more than animals. A balor lord has sold them to me to punish them for failing to obey orders during a recent battle. I promised I would free any survivors."

An easy promise to make if they all die, Joel thought.

"How far off is the Bastion of Hate?" Holly asked.

Walinda pointed to the outer canyon. "If you climb up on that ridge and look down to your left, you will see Iyachtu's fortress. Xvim has set a powerful enchantment about the Bastion of Hate so that no one can gate or teleport into the fortress."

"I want to see it," Holly said.

"Very well," Walinda said.

"We can take the carpet," Joel said.

Walinda unrolled the carpet a few feet with a nudge of her boot. "Nice workmanship," she commented. "It will serve as payment of your commission in Beshaba's army. You can walk up there. You'll forgive me if I cannot join you. As I explained before, I am awaiting the arrival of an ally." She turned to the bar-lgura. "Escort them to the ridge. They are to go no farther."

Holly and Joel trudged behind an honor guard of six bar-lgura. As they scrambled up the ridge, Joel noticed Emilo was missing. Joel wished fervently that he knew what the kender was up to.

From the top of the ridge, they could see a great lava flow below, wider than any river. Chunks of unmelted rock were carried along in the fiery flow, like ice in a thawing stream. Across the river of magma, perched on a ledge cut out of the mountain, was Iyachtu Xvim's fortress, the Bastion of Hate.

On one side, the fortress was shielded by a cliff wall, on the other, by a crescent-shaped wall fortified with six towers.

"If Iyachtu Xvim isn't in there, where is he?" Joel wondered aloud.

Holly's brow furrowed with puzzlement. "Visiting a friend?" she volunteered facetiously.

Joel snorted in amusement. The god of hatred and tyranny was said to have no allies at all. "How do you think they're planning on getting across that lava?" the bard asked.

"All the tanar'ri, even the least, can teleport," Holly said.

"But according to Walinda, Xvim has enchanted his realm so no one can teleport into the fortress. They'll have to climb over those walls," Joel said.

"Not necessarily," Holly countered. "They need only distract the yugoloth so Walinda can sneak in and reach Beshaba without being killed or captured."

"How is Walinda going to restore Beshaba's strength?"

"You saw that dark aura around her," Holly said. "Beshaba has imbued her with power."

"Like Finder pouring his energy into the finder's stone," Joel said, feeling the warmth of the crystal against his chest.

"Sort of," Holly replied. "But by putting some of her power into Walinda, Beshaba has made Walinda a part of her. When Walinda said she was the goddess's proxy, she meant it in a very special way. Beshaba's desires are now her own. She has no choice any longer but to serve Beshaba as Beshaba would wish her to." Holly spun around suddenly and looked back down into the canyon. Joel turned as well.

Directly in front of the tent stood three new arrivals. Flanked by two seven-foot-tall toadlike creatures was a very tall six-armed creature that appeared to be half-snake, half-woman. Walinda seemed to be greeting the snake-woman. Holly must have sensed them with her ability to detect evil.

"Are those toad things hydroloths?" the bard asked, remembering Emilo's description of the creatures in Sigil that had been sent to fetch Jas.

Holly shook her head from side to side. "Hydroloths are much taller. Those things are hezrou, one of the true tanar'ri species. They have human arms. The snake-woman is-"

"A marilith… yes, I know," Joel said. "The strategists and tacticians of the Blood War."

Holly looked at the bard with surprise. "How is it you didn't know about barghests, bar-lgura, or bulezau, but you know what a marilith is?" the paladin asked.

"For the same reason he knew all about alu-fiends and probably knows all about succubi, yochlol, and lamia," Jas said from just behind them.

The winged woman hovered just beyond the ridge, out of reach of the bar-lgura guards, who growled at her and tilted their heads in puzzlement. No doubt they were confused by the appearance of a human woman with slasrath wings and were trying to determine if she was a denizen of the plane or not.

"Relax," Jas said to the tanar'ri. "I'm a friend of theirs." She fluttered to the ridge and landed beside the bard and the paladin. "So how is Walinda?" she asked Joel. "On her deathbed, I hope."

"She's Beshaba's proxy," Holly explained.

"Yes, I heard you talking," Jas replied. "I've been hovering overhead since you came up here. Forgive me for flying off, but if I see Walinda again, I'm likely to lose my self-control and wring her scrawny little neck until her forked tongue pops out of her vicious mouth."

"She knows you're here," Joel pointed out.

"Good. I hope she loses sleep over it," Jas retorted.

"Jas, you mustn't try to attack her now," Holly warned. "She isn't the priestess of a dead god anymore. She can cast priest spells again, ones that could kill you in an instant. With Beshaba's power inside her, she's far stronger than ever before."

"Not that I ever succeeded in killing her when she was a mere mortal, unable to cast any magic at all," Jas said bitterly.

With no comforting reply to offer her friend, Holly changed the subject. "What did you mean about Joel knowing about mariliths for the same reason he knew about alu-fiends and succubi?" she asked.

"Well, I'm assuming there are all sorts of books describing monsters and fiends in the library of that fancy barding college Joel attended as a boy," Jas said. She draped a friendly arm around the bard's shoulder. "Am I right, matey?" she asked Joel.

"Yes, of course," Holly said. "We had such a tome at the church where I learned to read and write," the paladin said. "But why don't you remember all the creatures?" she asked the bard.

Joel could feel a blush rising to his face. "It's not important," he insisted.

"Assuming boys haven't changed that much since I was a girl," Jas said, "I'll bet that book in your church and the book in the barding college both open naturally to certain pages, usually pages with pictures of fiends and monsters who mimic the looks of very attractive women."

"It's important to arm oneself with knowledge of an enemy to which one might be particularly susceptible," Joel pointed out self-defensively. Holly laughed.

"Too bad Walinda wasn't in that book," Jas said, giving the bard's shoulders a sisterly squeeze.

Joel had to nod in agreement. If he'd known when he'd first met Walinda what he knew now, he'd have never made any sort of alliance with her. Yet here he was, forced to do so again. Holly looked back down at the Bastion of Hate. "This isn't good," the paladin said grimly.

"It's Iyachtu Xvim's realm," Jas retorted. "It's not supposed to be good."

"Not that," Holly said. "This whole situation. It's going to be a bloodbath."

"Of a bunch of evil, lawless creatures," Jas pointed out.

"It's still not right," Holly said, shaking her head, "whatever kind of creatures they are."

"You're too softhearted," Jas declared.

"So only the just deserve justice? Only the good deserve goodness? Is that what you think?" Holly asked sadly.

"That's right," Jas replied. There wasn't a shred of doubt in her tone, but her voice cracked, and Joel knew she was thinking of Walinda's torture and murder of her friends.

"Holly, there's nothing we can do about it," Joel said. "Walinda is going to use those creatures, and they're letting themselves be used."

"So what now?" Jas asked.

"I presume the marilith is advising Walinda on how best to attack. When they've come to a decision, we attack."

"We should be there to hear their plans. Maybe we can influence them," Holly said, taking a step in the direction of the canyon floor.

"Not me," Jas said. "I'm not going to be involved in any plan of Walinda's. If she knows what's good for her, she won't trust me in any event. I'll make my own plans for this fight. When you're ready to begin, you let me know. Send out a ray of light from the finder's stone in my direction and I'll join you. Just make sure you're not with Walinda when you summon me."

The winged woman took off from the ridge and disappeared into the darkness.

Holly began sliding back down into the canyon. Joel followed behind more slowly, distracted by a new worry. Holly hadn't been looking at Jas before she'd flown off, so the paladin hadn't noticed what Joel had seen. Jas's eyes had glowed like an owl's-the way they did when the dark stalker was taking control of her. The bard said nothing to the paladin, because he wasn't certain he hadn't imagined it; it might have been a trick of the malignant red light that pervaded the atmosphere.

Even if I'm right, he thought, there isn't a thing I can do about it.