It took Holly five minutes of shrieking and frantic shaking of the bars before one of the cultists came to the cell door.

"She's not moving," Holly cried hysterically, waving at the cloak-covered figure lying in the straw. "She puked up all this black stuff, and now she's not moving."

The cultist, obviously roused from a solid sleep, stared wordlessly into the cell. The paladin spent another three minutes of desperate weeping and terror-filled shouting before the guard turned and left the cell door. Holly screamed after him until he returned with two more cultists. All three were armed with drawn swords.

Holly gave an inward sigh of relief. It was unfortunate that the cultist was cautious enough to go for reinforcements, but at least he wasn't about to risk the displeasure of the Xvimist by letting their chosen sacrifice die unattended.

Motioning with his sword, one cultist ordered Holly, "Stay back."

The paladin backed into the rear left corner of the cell, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible. The cultists unlocked and opened the barred door. One of them stood in the doorway, yawning, while the other two stepped into the cell. One stepped up to Holly with his sword pointed at her chest. The other approached the pile of straw and poked at the caped figure with his sword When there was no response, he kicked at the figure.

"What the—" he growled, reaching down and yanking Jas's cloak from the straw. "There's nobody here!" he shouted.

The cultist guarding Holly turned his head, and in that moment, Holly lunged forward. With both hands, she grabbed at his wrist, forcing his blade out and downward, then slammed her right foot into the inside of his right knee. With a howl, the cultist crashed to the ground.

The cultist at the door moved into the cell with his sword aimed at Holly, not realizing the threat to him came from above. Jas dropped down from the gargoyle-like perch on the ledge above the door and rammed into his head with both feet, sending him reeling into the opposite wall.

The cultist beside the straw wheeled about just in time for Jas to smack him in the head with the water bucket. Before he could recover, the winged woman had closed in, jammed the bucket on his head and kneed him hard in the groin. He didn't put up a struggle as she wrenched the sword from his hand. Jas thrust the blade into his throat, then yanked the weapon back out.

Holly stomped on the wrist of the cultist lying sprawled out before her and began prying his fingers from his sword's hilt. With an animal snarl, the man rolled toward the paladin, grabbed her wrist, and sunk his teeth into her arm.

Holly screamed, but she couldn't kick at him without losing her balance. Jas whirled about. She slid her blade under his neck and sliced upward. The man released his grip on Holly's arm to grab at his throat and gasped for air. Holly yanked her arm back and clutched it to her chest.

Holly eyed the third cultist, who lay unconscious by the wall. As a paladin, she believed that vanquished foes should be spared. As an escaping prisoner, she realized he was an alarm waiting to go off and an evil foe who would have handed her to back to Xvim's people for sacrifice. She watched uneasily as Jas slit his throat, but said nothing.

Jas wiped her blade off on a cultist's leather tunic.

Holly retrieved a weapon for herself, though she had to use it in her left hand. Her right arm was already bruised and swollen around the mark left by the cultist's teeth. One tooth had broken the skin, which might have alarmed Holly, but she knew her god would preserve her from any disease the cultist carried.

After grabbing up her cloak, Jas snapped, "Let's go!"

Jas took the lead, but since she'd been unconscious when the cultists had brought her to the cell, she had to take directions from Holly. As they moved down the corridor, they were assailed by the sickly sweet stench of decaying flesh. Holly remembered it came from a large room through which her captives had dragged her on the way to the cell. At the first intersection, Holly pointed in the direction of the awful smell.

Jas wrinkled her nose and raised her eyebrows. Then she spun about the corner, her sword at the ready. She motioned to the paladin that the way was clear and the two continued on. The passage opened out into a vast room.

Holly and Jas stood on either side of the corridor, peering into the room for any foes. Piles of bones littered the room, some with flesh still clinging to them. Not all of them were animal bones, and Holly felt her stomach churn yet again.

Someone was holding a whispered conversation in the room. Neither woman could spot the speakers, but they could hear them as they approached. With a quick beating of her wings, Jas leapt up to the stone ledge over the passageway exit. Holly was just about to bad away when she recognized Joel creeping along the wall just around the corner.

The paladin whispered the bard's name and rushed toward him. The bard smiled broadly and threw his arms about the paladin.

"I guess you don't need me to rescue you, do you?" Joel asked, noting the paladin had already managed to arm herself.

Holly pulled away from the bard, suddenly uneasy. She peered at the cloaked figure behind him and glared at her. "Who is this?" she hissed.

"Urn, this is Walinda of Bane," the bard said, grabbing at the paladin's arm before she tried anything rash. "She's helping us escape. We've made a truce—just until we get out of here."

"Joel, how could you?" the paladin growled, raising her sword before the priestess. "This woman is a monster."

"Holly, she helped me find you," the bard explained. "I promised her you would honor the truce."

Holly drew back, never taking her eyes off the priestess.

"We have found your friend. Now we must hurry if we are to escape before dawn," Walinda whispered. "The griffon stables are that way," she said, pointing to a staircase.

Joel started moving toward the stairs, pulling Holly with him. He turned to watch Walinda's progress behind them.

"Joel, listen," the paladin hissed, jerking away from the bard. "There is another—"

Joel never heard the rest of Holly's words. He watched in horror as a harpy with a drawn sword came swooping down on the party.

The bard threw himself at Walinda, knocking her to the ground before she was skewered by their attacker.

Joel scrambled back to his feet and drew his sword. In the large, high-ceilinged room, the harpy had just enough space to swoop around in a circle and make a second attack run on them. Joel raised his weapon, but then he recognized the attacker. It was the winged woman Walinda had offered to the Banites.

Behind him, he could hear Walinda muttering a spell. Confused and uncertain, Joel nonetheless kept his vow and stood guard over the priestess. Blue lines of power streaked from Walinda's palms and arced about the winged woman's sword.

The winged woman cried out in rage and dropped her weapon. The blade made an alarming ringing sound on the stone floor. Joel lowered his own weapon, but the winged woman kept on coming, swooping past the bard and landing on the priestess. In an instant, she had wrapped her hands about Walinda's small throat.

With one hand, Walinda grabbed at her attacker's thumbs while the other hand clawed at her face, drawing blood.

Joel was about to put a sword to the winged woman's throat when Holly slammed into him. "No! Jas is an ally!" the paladin declared. Joel looked down at the two women brawling on the floor. Now he realized that it must have been Holly who had repaired the damage done to the winged woman. They needed to reach a compromise quickly.

"Then help me pull her off Walinda, and I'll keep Walinda away," he said.

Together the paladin and the bard managed to pull Jas from the priestess's throat. Joel shoved himself between the two, holding back Walinda, trusting Holly to keep the winged woman from attacking him.

"I take it you two have met," the bard said. He kept his voice calm, despite his worry that the noise of the battle might have awakened other cultists, or worse, alerted the eye tyrant.

"Murderess!" Jas hissed once Holly had helped her to her feet.

"Ah, Pigeon Girl," Walinda taunted. She stood up and rubbed the bruises about her throat. To Joel, she said, "Is this the measure of your protection, Poppin?"

"Enough," Joel snapped. "I made a pact with Walinda," he explained to the winged woman.

"You're a fool to trust her!" Jas growled. "You should kill her before she betrays us to the cultists."

"She won't do that," Joel argued. "She was a prisoner, too. She helped me find Holly." "How?" Holly asked suspiciously.

"I used a spell to detect goodness," Walinda replied, addressing only Holly, ignoring Jas completely. "In this place, your quaint purity stands out like an ogre at a halfling picnic."

"It's some trick," Holly insisted. "Bane is dead. She can't call on him for spells."

"For my part," Walinda said, now speaking only to Joel, "I am prepared to include this winged deformity in our bargain, if only for expediency's sake, even though I know I cannot trust her with my life."

"You have no one but yourself to blame," Holly retorted angrily. "You murdered her friends."

"Cut it out!" Joel cried, and his voice echoed through the large room, startling all three women. "If you all don't stop arguing, I'll just go back to my cell, where at least there was some peace and quiet." Joel couldn't tell which made him more nervous, the glare of hatred Jas gave him or the mocking, chastened bow of Walinda's head. "We are all going the same way," he said. "We need to stick together for safety."

Holly sighed and nodded. "You're right," she said. "Let's go."

Walinda began climbing the stairs and the bard followed.

"You will have your chance to bring her to justice as soon as we escape," Holly whispered to Jas.

Jas breathed out heavily, as if venting her fury and frustration. She gave the paladin a curt nod and motioned for her to go next. The winged woman took up the rear guard, her fists still clenched in rage.

The landing at the top of the stairs led to three other sets of stairs. An especially steep set led down into the darkness. A breeze wafted upward, laden with the odor of a menagerie.

"The griffons are stabled below," Walinda explained.

"Yes, I've got my bearings now," Joel replied.

"I can't believe they haven't posted any guards," Holly muttered.

"They feel too secure in the unassailability of their flying fortress with their Zhentarim allies below," Walinda noted. She pulled out her magical light gem and started down the steps. Joel pulled out his own magically lit stone and followed, careful to keep himself between the priestess and Jas. A push down these steps could result in more than a serious injury.

In the stable below, four griffons lay sleeping with their heads tucked beneath their wings. Each one was shackled by a chain running from a ring in the floor to a heavy iron band about one of its front legs.

Joel tiptoed past the beasts over to the hole in the floor that the griffon riders used as a doorway to the Temple in the Sky. He peered down. A few torches twinkled on the roof of the Flaming Tower, but it took his eyes some time to adjust to the rest of the dark landscape below. Far to the south, a dark ribbon glittered in the moonlight.

"That should be the River Tesh," Holly said, pointing out the body of water to Jas. "We'll want to head upstream, toward Daggerdale," she explained.

An awful squawk rose from behind them, and they whirled around. Walinda had approached the griffons and awakened them. She held a bucket of chopped meat in her hands, but the creatures were too alarmed by her strangeness to accept food from her. They snapped at the priestess's face with their beaks. Walinda backed away hurriedly. Were it not for the chains on their legs, the griffons might have torn her apart in moments.

The creatures' shrieks and cries echoed through the chamber, and no doubt rose up the staircase. Walinda held up an iron symbol of Bane's hand and intoned some unknown words, but the griffons' clamoring only increased. The priestess looked annoyed, but she continued chanting her spell just out of reach of the creatures' beaks.

Holly rushed to Walinda's side and yanked her away from the griffons. "Stop it," she ordered. "You're going to bring the whole house down on us!"

Walinda spun angrily on the paladin. "We need to subdue these creatures to escape," she retorted.

"No we don't," Holly argued. "Jas can carry us one at a time."

"She would drop me the first chance she had," Walinda said, tossing the bucket of meat at the griffons.

"Like that," Jas agreed, snapping her fingers.

Joel approached the winged beasts, singing the calming spell that had worked so well on Butternut, but to no avail. The griffons were immune to any magic that affected ordinary beasts. They continued shrieking. Joel stepped back. "We've got to get out of here fast," he murmured, "before they send someone to check on the griffons."

Walinda tugged at his sleeve. "I cannot trust Pigeon Girl with my life. You vowed to help me escape from here," she reminded him.

"Poor Banebitch," Jas taunted. "She can't get down from this rock."

"You don't get down from a rock, you get down from a goose," Joel retorted automatically. Then he remembered his vision and the wings he'd found. He drew the golden talisman out of his tunic pocket and held it up for the others to see.

"Ahh ... a feather token," Jas said. "Haven't seen one of those in a while."

"What does it do?" Holly asked.

"You throw it to the ground," Jas explained, "and you grow wings. You can use it only once."

"I can carry you," Joel said to Walinda, "and Jas can carry Holly."

From somewhere above them came human shouts.

"To the hole! Hurry!" Jas shouted, grabbing Holly's arm and pulling her in that direction.

Joel followed, with Walinda right behind. At the edge of the hole, he hesitated. "I just throw it to the ground?"

"The floor will do," Jas explained. "It would take a little too long to get to the ground.

Joel threw the talisman to the floor. The wings shattered with a tiny flash. Then a golden light blossomed from the broken magic item, bathing Joel's body in a rich radiance. When the glow had faded, Joel had a pair of great butterfly wings jutting from his back. They were yellow, with black striations, fully three times the size of Jas's.

"There's something else I should explain about these magical wings," Jas said as she shouldered Walinda aside to stand before Joel.

"What?" the bard asked.

Jas put her hands on the bard's chest. "You can use them to glide downward, but you can't fly back up with them. Once you start down, there's no coming back," she said, and then she gave Joel a hard shove backward.

The bard fell through the hole and plummeted downward into the dark sky.

Joel started to scream, but the wings spread out from his body, controlled by some subconscious instinct. The magical appendages checked the speed of his descent, and he began drifting like a dandelion seed. After taking a deep breath and letting his air out, he regained his self-control.

The bard discovered that, by twitching his shoulders. he could control his direction, but just as Jas had said, he could not regain lost altitude. The winged woman had prevented him from honoring his vow to help the priestess of Bane escape.

He craned his neck to see the hole in the floor of the Temple in the Sky. By the feeble light of the waning moon, he soon saw what he'd expected to see—Jas soaring away from the flying rock, carrying Holly. There was no sign of Walinda.

Joel wondered if the giants on the tower would spot them, and if the cultists would mount the griffons and pursue the prisoners. He also began to worry that he might just end up landing on top of the tower, or so near it that he would be quickly recaptured.

Able to control her flight, Jas soon caught up to the bard. Holly's arms and legs were wrapped around the winged woman's neck and waist. Jas wasn't able to hover beside Joel, but she flew under him and then up, trailing her legs.

"Grab hold," Holly shouted.

Joel reached out and snagged the strap of one of Jas's boots. He felt his stomach lurch backward, but his wings held and the rest of his body remained intact. Jas pulled him along as easily as a child played a kite on a string. The winged woman headed southwestward along the edge of the Border Forest, keeping the River Tesh to her left as Holly had instructed.

Joel looked back, scanning the sky for pursuit from the Temple in the Sky. He thought he saw dark specks issuing from beneath the great flying rock, but in the blackness, it was hard to be sure. Then the bard spotted something much larger, something he recognized without any trouble.

It was Walinda's floating ship, the one in which she'd traveled to the tower. Now, however, the ship was flying, moving upward toward the Temple in the Sky. Just as it drew near the base of the flying rock, Jas flew into a low bank of clouds, obscuring the bard's view.

Joel puzzled over what he had just witnessed. Had Walinda summoned the vessel somehow? But if she could do that, then why make a pact with him, and why had she seemed willing to risk flying on the griffons?

Unless she hadn't realized the ship would come for her. Was it possible, Joel wondered, that Bane had found another way to rescue her?

 

Seven

Hunted

 

Joel had no notion how far they traveled, but by the time Jas began to descend, the sky was beginning to lighten. Below them was a meadow adjacent to the Border Forest. Upon Jas's instructions, Joel released his hold on the winged woman's bootstrap when they were still a good twenty feet above the ground. Jas landed, dropped Holly, and sank to the ground. Between carrying Holly's weight and towing me, she has to be exhausted, the bard realized. He was worn out merely from hanging on and being buffeted by the wind.

He drifted downward. The instant his feet touched the earth, the magical wings on his back dissolved, leaving only aching shoulder muscles as a reminder of their previous existence. From here on, he and Holly would have to walk. What Jas would do was up to her.

The bard strode up to the winged woman. "Look," he said, looming over her, "I'm grateful for the help you've given us, but you shouldn't have done that."

"Done what?" Jas asked, not even looking up at him. "Pushed me out of the Temple in the Sky," Joel retorted

Jas looked up at the bard as if he were a fool. She yawned.

"Well?" Joel prompted, expecting a reply.

"If you're expecting an apology," Jas said with a laugh, "you're going to be disappointed."

"You abandoned Walinda," Joel growled. "You left her there to die."

"What makes you think I didn't run her through before I left?" Jas asked.

Joel's eyes widened in shock.

"We didn't harm her, Joel," Holly reassured the bard. "We just shoved her aside and flew off without her."

"And somehow that's supposed to be better?" Joel argued.

"Depends how much the cultists make her suffer," Jas said with a smirk. "A quick death would be too good for her."

"We had a pact," Joel snapped angrily.

Jas rose to her feet and stood no more than a foot from the bard. She was no taller than Walinda, but her body was tough and muscular. She'd seen some hard times— there were scars on her shoulders, her throat, her jaw. She was Joel's senior by a few years, at least, and the annoyance on her face made her appear even older.

Everything about her—her strength, her toughness, her age—intimidated Joel. He thought of the priestess of Bane, who appeared so young and delicate and vulnerable, although he knew she was none of those things. "I promised Walinda my protection," he added.

"I don't give a damn what you promised," Jas replied slowly and coolly. "She tortured and murdered the members of my crew one by one. She made me watch. There was nothing I could do or say to stop her. Then she began torturing me. If she thought it would please her god, she'd do the same to you. Your paladin friend saved my life. I owed her a rescue, and I pay my debts. If not for that, I might have stayed behind and risked being recaptured just for the chance to finish off your precious Walinda." Joel hesitated, considering Jas's words.

"Look, kid," the winged woman added, "it was a stupid promise. You're lucky I made it impossible for you to keep it. You're welcome."

Joel bristled at the woman's patronizing tone. "She helped me find a way out of there, helped me find Holly," he said. "I owed her a debt, too."

"We would have found you without her," Jas argued,

"A promise is a promise," Joel insisted. He looked over at the paladin, who had remained silent the whole time. "Holly, surely you see my point. You're a paladin. Your word is your honor."

Holly spoke softly. "I went along with you, but I did not give my word as you did. I could not. She was a priestess of Bane, Joel, a sworn enemy to my lord, Lathander. Besides, you could have been enchanted. I think you must have been. I can see no reason otherwise for you to make so foolish a vow. And a vow that is made under the duress of magic is not valid."

Joel remembered the urge he'd felt to accept Walinda's first offer. He was certain he had overcome whatever power the priestess had used. "I was not enchanted!" he insisted.

"Maybe not magically," Jas said with a smirk. "You could have been seduced in the usual way. The bitch Las more than her share of curves under that armor, even if she's rotten at the core. I saw her bat her eyes at you and cling to your sleeve, Poppin."

"You're mad," Joel said.

"No. Just realistic," Jas retorted.

"I made a vow in the name of my god to aid her until we escaped," Joel said.

Jas huffed with exasperation. "Fine," she cried, and she pointed back toward the northeast. "Go back and rescue her. I won't stop you. The cultists have probably already chopped her up for dinner, but maybe you'll get lucky and find a piece or two."

Joel blanched with anger. Then he remembered the flying ship. He sighed. He was wasting his time arguing about his honor. Neither Jas nor Holly would concede. Still, for the insult Jas had given him, the bard couldn't resist the temptation to tell the winged woman what he'd seen. At the very least, it would wipe the smug look off her face.

"That won't be necessary," he explained. "I saw her flying ship approaching the Temple in the Sky. Whoever summoned it up there has probably already rescued her."

It was Jasmine's turn to go pale. "Bloody hell," she whispered, "Now I may never get it back."

"Get what back?" Joel demanded.

"The flying ship," Holly explained. "It was Jas's. It can fly—urn—all sorts of places."

"Whoever or whatever is at the helm is learning how to use it faster than I thought," Jas said. "If they figure out how to go beyond the sphere, I'll be stranded here, and they'll have the run of space."

"Well, there's not much you can do about it now," Joel said. He tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. "We should all get some rest for a few hours before we press on."

Jas yawned, too. "That's the first sensible thing you've said since we've met," the winged woman noted. Wrapping her tattered cloak around herself, she lay down on the ground.

Joel looked over at Holly.

"You rest first," the paladin said. "I'll keep watch."

The bard's chivalry collapsed beneath the weight of his fatigue. He nodded in agreement. He unloaded all the weaponry he'd taken from the cultists' armory before he lay down. He fell asleep without another thought.

The sun had risen and climbed a good two hours into the sky when Holly woke Joel to take watch. Jas was still sleeping. The paladin had shot a couple of rabbits with the crossbow and skinned and cleaned them with Joel's dagger. She left them by a tiny fire for Joel to cook.

While he worked, the bard's mind reviewed all that had happened the night before, pondering if there was anything he should have done or could have done differently. By the time the rabbits were finished roasting, Jas woke up. The two shared the first rabbit in an uncomfortable silence.

Finally Joel said, "I'm sorry for the loss of your crew. I understand how you feel about Walinda."

Jas nodded an acceptance of his condolence. "You didn't know her like I did," she said.

"Well, I knew enough," Joel admitted. "But I wasn't charmed, like you thought—magically or otherwise. There was something else that made me trust her. She risked everything to do her god's bidding. She was completely faithful to him. When she swore an oath in his name, I knew she would keep her word. And she did. She helped me find Holly, and she didn't betray us."

"She got herself caught. She didn't deserve your help," Jas countered. "She would never have made a deal with you if she didn't think she had more to gain from it than you did. That's how priests of Bane think Everything is a power play to them. Especially the faithful ones. People don't call them evil because they wear black. It's because they hurt people and think it's all right because they do it in their god's name."

"Suppose Bane really did tell her to do those things. What choice would she have?"

"She could find herself a new god," Jas said, his voice rising in exasperation.

"Would you do that? Leave your deity?" Joel asked.

"I have as little to do with any deity as possible," Jas declared. "In my experience, gods are nothing but trouble, and believe me, I've had some experience in that line. Don't get me wrong. I respect them. All of them. But I try to avoid getting anywhere near their business. I'd advise you to do the same, but since you're already a priest, I realize it's too late."

Joel grinned. "You're not the first to give me that advice," he replied. "But like you said, it's already too late. What are you going to do now?"

"Well, I need to warn someone about my ship being captured by Bane's folk. Someone nearby and powerful, who can shoot it out of the sky if he can't help me get it back. Elminster used to live near here. Is he still around?"

Joel nodded.

"I thought I'd accompany Holly safely back to her home in Daggerdale first. If I recall my geography correctly, it's on the way."

"If you're using the road," Joel said. "As the crow flies, you're better off flying due south. I can see Holly back to Daggerdale if you're in a hurry."

"Actually, I don't usually fly overland very far. For one thing, it's exhausting. For another, I like to stick to the beaten track. I'm too much of a city rat to survive in the wilderness."

"Me, too," Joel said.

"You, too, what?" Holly asked from behind them. The paladin had awakened and joined them beside the fire. She still looked tired, but the cheerful smile had returned to her face.

"Jas and I were discussing how we were going to see you safely back home," Joel explained. "But we need you to hunt rabbits and start fires for us."

"City folk," Holly teased.

"Just get us to Dagger Falls, and we'll be in our element," Joel said.

Holly shook her head. "The Zhents have a puppet constable in Dagger Falls . . . Guthbert Golthammer," the paladin explained. "He's an idiot, but his second-in-command, a half-orc called Toren, knows his job. When you were unconscious, we passed through with the Xvim priest. We'll be recognized as escaped prisoners. And Jas would be sure to attract attention. With those wings, she'd be dragged in on suspicion of spying."

"So what do you recommend, O most wise native guide?" Joel asked.

"We skirt around the town," Holly suggested, picking up a piece of roasted rabbit. "This far north, the farmers will be too afraid of Zhent reprisals to give us much aid, but they won't turn us in. I can at least convince them to part with some waterskins and food. Jas can help us cross the River Tesh. Then we head for the foothills of the Desertsmouth Mountains. The Zhents don't patrol that far west. Then we head south until Joel finds his trail to the Lost Vale. After that, Jas and I continue on to Anathar's Dell."

"Sounds like a plan," Joel said.

Holly finished the remaining rabbit while Jas took to the air to scout out the lay of the land. When she returned, she reported they were still northeast of Dagger Falls. They needed to continue due west for several miles before they could cross the river out of sight of the town. They drank their fill from a stream before they began their trek in earnest.

The day was fair and warm, and the terrain was not difficult. About noon, Holly risked knocking on a farmhouse door. As she'd predicted, the farmer's wife looked frightened and didn't offer any hospitality, but she did send her away with two waterskins full of milk and a big loaf of bread—things she could claim had been stolen.

The three adventurers hurried away to put some distance between them and their benefactor. In the shade of some woods, they feasted on the handouts and rested about an hour. Then they headed southwest toward the river. They reached the water by nightfall and camped. Holly caught some fish for dinner.

Jas took first watch and woke Joel after midnight. Other than a raccoon family raiding their camp for the discarded fish heads left from their meal, Joel's watch was quiet. Holly, on the last watch, woke the other two before the birds began to twitter. "There's something out there," the paladin said. "Something is howling. It's been getting closer."

Joel and Jas listened for a while. The howl came from the northeast. "Just a wolf," Joel suggested.

Holly shook her head. "Wolves travel in packs. When one howls, the others answer. This is something traveling alone."

"A werewolf?" Jas asked.

Joel held up his finger and listened to the howl again. Holly was wrong. There was an answer, a much more disturbing noise. The bard could just barely hear it.

There's a horn. A hunting horn," the bard told them. "Coming from behind us."

"What could anyone be hunting at this hour?" Jas asked.

"Us," Holly whispered.

"Don't they have better things to do with their time?" the winged woman groaned.

"We need to throw their hound off the scent," Joel said.

"So we cross the river," Jas said.

"Not just yet," Holly answered. "We need to lay a false trail."

They gathered up their weaponry and the waterskins and proceeded west down the river path. With only a tiny sliver of light from the setting moon to show the way, it was slow going. They splashed through two creeks that emptied into the river. At the third creek, Jas picked up Holly and flew across the river.

While Joel waited for the winged woman to return, he planned the magic he might need for the day and prayed to Finder to grant him the spells. The howling grew so close that the bard became edgy and impatient. The birds had begun chirping, and the sky was beginning to lighten. Joel was just considering trying to swim the river when Jas finally returned.

"What kept you?" he demanded.

"Holly insisted I land far past the riverbank so they won't be able to pick up our scent by following the water's edge," Jas explained. "Let's go."

Joel wrapped his arms around Jas's neck as Holly had. It felt awkward to have a strange woman wrapping her arms about his chest. Jas didn't seem to be bothered by it. Joel was reminded of Walinda wrapping her cloak around him to hide from the beholder, but while the priestess had smelled of roses, Jas smelled of leather and sweat. Then they took off, and Joel could think only of returning to earth. Without wings of his own, Joel was terrified by the sensation of nothing beneath his feet.

Jas landed in a meadow beyond an untended apple orchard. Holly was digging in the dirt with a sword around a scraggly plant with white flowers.

"Are we going to hide in a tunnel?" Jas teased.

Holly held up a small red potato. Joel and Jas joined the paladin on their knees. When they'd amassed several handfuls of the vegetable, they continued on their trek, following a deer trail.

Shortly after dawn, duly warned by Holly to stay out of range of any spellcasting, Jas took to the sky to check out their pursuers. The paladin and the bard kept moving.

By the time the sun had climbed over the Dagger Hills, coloring the Desertsmouth Mountains a brilliant red, Jas returned.

"Well, there's good news and bad news," the winged woman reported. "There's about a dozen of them on horseback. Didn't spot any griffons, though. I'm pretty sure one of the riders is a priest and one's a mage. They seemed to have figured out we crossed the river. They've turned back downstream."

Holly nodded. "The river is way too deep and fast for horses to swim. The only ford is below Dagger Falls."

"What's the bad news?" Joel asked.

"The hound we heard. It's like nothing I've ever seen," Jas said. "It walks on its hind legs like a man, and it's as hairy as a werewolf and as black as soot. It's also huge... bigger than a man. The river didn't scare it. It jumped right in and started swimming across. The current carried it quite a ways downstream, but it came out on the opposite bank. That's when I turned around and came back."

"We better keep moving," Joel said.

They made for the mountains, and the peaks seemed to grow reassuringly closer. They hadn't heard the Zhent beast's howl since they'd crossed the river, but the creature was on all their minds. Joel kept estimating in his head how long it would take for something to sniff them out, but the farther they traveled, the less worried he became.

Holly traveled with the crossbow loaded, keeping an eye out for game. For lunch, they had two more rabbits with their potatoes. Since their fire couldn't be the only one in the dale, they didn't worry too much about anyone spotting the smoke. They rested for an hour in the shade of a line of trees bordering a stream. Joel had nearly dozed off when he thought he heard a voice say, "Listen."

The bard jerked awake. A howl reached his ear. He called out to Jas and Holly. The howl came again. Without any discussion, the three gathered their meager belongings and moved on.

In the late afternoon, they nearly stumbled upon a skunk chomping on the rancid corpse of a deer. Holly and Jas pulled back, but Joel stood watching the creature for a moment, then began singing softly.

"What is he doing?" Jas whispered to Holly, gesturing at the young priest.

Holly shrugged and didn't reply, afraid that any noise might alarm the animal. She wondered if perhaps Joel, a city boy, might not know what it was he faced.

Joel finished his song. The skunk looked up at him expectantly. Joel began another song. Then he addressed the skunk in its own animal tongue.

When Jedidiah had taught the bard to charm and speak to animals, they had practiced on a cat. "You should charm the animal first before speaking with it," Jedidiah had explained, "because charming it gets the animal's attention. Especially cats. They're notoriously bad listeners." With a skunk, Joel figured, charm was essential, since it kept the animal calm. The conversation with the skunk was similar to the one Joel had with the cat. Simple. Very simple.

"This is my food," the skunk said.

"It's your food," Joel agreed.

"Do you want some?" the skunk asked. It was, after all, enchanted by the bard.

"No thank you," Joel replied. "I'm just passing through."

"Too bad. There's plenty of food here."

"Unless some bad creature comes and takes it away," Joel agreed.

"What bad creature?" the skunk asked. "Some big, hairy howling thing following me and my mates," Joel explained. "Maybe after we pass, you should spray our trail. That will keep him away. Then he won't steal your food."

"Good idea," the skunk said.

"I'm leaving now, with my mates. There is no need to be alarmed when we pass," Joel said.

'"Bye," the skunk said, and returned to chewing on the deer carcass.

Joel motioned for Jas and Holly to keep behind him as he passed the skunk. Both women crept past, holding their breath, keeping Joel between them and the skunk.

"Don't forget to spray our trail," Joel called.

"I won't," the skunk answered.

When they'd put several hundred yards between them and the skunk, Jas burst out, "What were you doing?"

"You spoke with it, didn't you?" Holly guessed. Joel nodded. "You can never have too many friends in low places," he replied with a grin.

"Why did you speak to it?" Jas demanded. "It's a skunk, for gods' sake."

"I had to warn it about the big, hairy howling thing," Joel explained. "It's going to spray the trail behind us."

Holly laughed aloud. Even Jas grinned.

The creature howled again, and their smiles faded. The adventurers continued on. They turned and twisted down several different animal paths and trudged along some streambeds, yet the howling didn't seem to fade in the distance. After another hour of hiking with tired feet and the sound of the beast behind them, their nerves were beginning to fray.

"Shut up already," Jas growled back down the trail, as if the beast might hear her.

"I wonder why it hasn't caught up with us yet," Joel muttered.

"If it's really some sort of hunting hound," Holly said, "it knows better. It's job is to harry us until its master gets here."

"But the riders had to detour to cross the river," Joel remembered. "So it's deliberately hanging back."

Time to go on the offensive," Jas declared.

"I think so," Holly agreed.

Jas did a quick air foray to locate the beast. She returned in a very short while.

"It's rolling in the grass about a mile back, as if it were trying to rub something off," the winged woman reported. "I think your little black and white friend got it but good."

"But not enough to put it off our scent," Holly noted. "How interesting."

Quickly they planned their attack. Jas flew off with Holly, and Joel hurried back down the trail at a loping gait toward the beast. When he'd reached the hedgerow bordering the field where Jas had said he'd find the beast, he stopped and ducked down.

Taking a deep breath, he began to sing Cassana's lament from the opera Wizards in Love. He sang the sorceress's part in falsetto, then shifted to the tenor range to sing the part of the whiny lich Zrie Prakis. As the bard went into the song's finale, he knew the beast had taken the bait. He could smell the creature's approach. Jas had guessed correctly. The skunk had gotten him.

The smell made breathing difficult, but Joel kept singing, as if he were oblivious to the beast creeping up on him. The bard fervently hoped Jas's timing would not be off.

Something on the other side of the hedgerow growled.

Joel sprang to his feet and spun around with his sword raised.

A great black beast sprang over the hedgerow, lunging for the bard's throat. In that moment, Jas, still holding Holly, dropped on the creature, delivering it a resounding kick in the head with plenty of weight behind it. The beast shook its head as if stunned, but it didn't fall. The winged woman and the paladin separated the moment they came to the ground. Holly rolled to her feet in an instant and launched a crossbow bolt into the beast's chest.

The creature turned to face the paladin. Holly gasped. Jas slashed at the beast's arm and managed to draw blood. Joel finished intoning his spell song and pointed at the creature. The hedgerow behind the beast grew and began to snake outward. In five heartbeats, it had entangled the beast's feet, legs, waist, and finally its hairy chest and arms. It was an exceptionally thick hedgerow, and the beast's furious struggles were in vain.

"Bear?" Holly whispered.

"No, it's not a bear," Jas said. "It looks almost human, except for that snout... a really hairy human. It's got fingers but no tail. Maybe it's some sort of half-ogre."

Joel drew closer, despite the stench of skunk that covered the creature. "Bear!" the bard gasped, just barely able to recognize the huge man's features, despite the distortion of his face into a wolflike snout.

"Why is it wearing a steel eye patch?" Jas asked.

"Because it was once a man with one eye," Holly said. "It is you, isn't it, Bear?" the paladin asked.

The creature snarled at the paladin. Then, in a gravelly voice, it's mouth twisting horribly, it replied, "You will... die, paladin. This is all your . . . f-fault, bitch." The words came out slowly and not very clearly, as if Bear was having trouble pronouncing them.

"What?" Holly asked, confused by the accusation. "How did you get this way, Bear?"

"I offered you and the . . . priest of Finder ... to Iyachtu Xvim. If you are not both sacri-f-f—sacrificed with the new moon, my life is ... forfeit," the beast-man said. "The priest I serve gave me the power to track you down so that I might live."

"Can they change you back?" Holly asked.

"Who cares?" Jas asked. "Just slay him and let's get going."

"The spell that transformed me took away the light of my humanity . . . f-forever," Bear growled. "I am all darkness now. Pure. F-F-Favored of Iyachtu Xvim."

"You see now why I avoid gods," Jas muttered to Joel.

Bear's one good eye gleamed with madness. "You will all... die in pain and humiliation. I can taste your souls and ... feel your power wherever your f-feet have touched the earth," the enchanted man boasted. "I might have lost your trail when you flew across the river... but for the power of the fourth one. I can sense the fourth one ... from miles away."

"The fourth one?" Jas asked. "Who's he talking about?"

Holly's eyes scanned the meadow carefully.

"Do you mean Walinda of Bane?" Joel asked, wondering if the priestess were following them to exact some sort of revenge.

Bear gave a braying laugh. "No. The fourth one who travels beside you ... is more powerful than any godless priestess. The fourth one's power ... is far greater even than our high priest, the Ruinlord. When I bring the fourth one to sacrifice . . . my god will elevate me above even the Ruinlord."

Jas shifted nervously. "He's crazy. There is no fourth one," she declared. "Is there?"

Bear writhed in the enchanted hedgerow, struggling to free himself. When he found he could not, he gave an ear-piercing howl.

"Stop that!" Jas ordered, leveling the point of her sword at Bear's throat.

From far off came the sound of a hunting horn.

Bear howled again, louder and longer.

"Shut up!" Jas shouted.

Bear's howls became frantic.

Jas shoved her sword into the beast-man's neck and sliced his windpipe. The howling stopped. Bear's shoulders slumped forward. Only the hedgerow held him up.

Joel looked at Jas, horrified at how quickly she had taken the beast-man's life.

"You didn't have to do that!" Holly objected, whirling angrily on the winged woman.

"Don't be a fool," Jas snapped. "His only reason for being was to bring us to our death. Now we can all sleep at night."

The hunting horn sounded again.

"Come on, Holly," Joel said softly, laying his hand on the paladin's back. "We have to get going."

"Damned right," Jas said. She strode off back down the path they'd come.

Joel and Holly followed behind her.

"Joel, suppose Bear wasn't crazy? Suppose there is a fourth one? Who could it be?" the girl asked.

"Holly, I haven't a clue," the bard admitted. "Let's keep moving."

By nightfall, they'd reached the foothills of the Desertsmouth Mountains. They were considering where they should make camp for the night when they spotted something glowing softly somewhere to the south. The light was an unnatural violet color.

"It's Giant's Craw," Holly said excitedly.

"Is that good or bad?" Jas asked.

"It's a rock," the paladin explained, "with faerie fire cast on it. It marks the entrance to a valley. Giants used to live there, waylaying caravans, until Lord Randal drove them out. It's supposed to be a lovely valley, teeming with game."

"Sounds like a good place to find breakfast," Joel said.

They made their way deeper into the foothills until they'd reached the magical stone. It was a great hexagonal pillar of ebony basalt, as tall as a giant, polished to a smooth finish.

Holly put her back against the west side of the rock and slid down to the ground with a blissful smile. "This is where I'm sleeping," she said.

Jas eyed the stone warily. She settled down a few yards away.

Joel took first watch. He sat with his back against the east side of the stone and watched the waning moon rise in the east. It was like a dying ember, and Selune's Tears, the tiny lights that trailed after it, were like sparks. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next night, would mark the new moon, when the Xvimists would have sacrificed Holly, Jas, and him. He wondered if Bear's death would be enough to placate the bloodthirsty god of the priest of Xvim and his Zhent followers, and if they would abandon the hunt now. Joel doubted it, but with their hound dead, the Xvimists and Zhents could be outwitted. At least Joel hoped so.

The bard's thoughts returned uneasily to Bear's claim that he sensed a fourth person traveling with them. Joel puzzled over who it could be. Someone with power. Absolutely no one came to mind. Joel shook his head. Perhaps Jas was right. Bear had been maddened by his transformation and sensed someone who wasn't there.

After turning the watch over to Jas, Joel slept soundly. Holly woke him in the morning by pressing a raspberry to his lips. She and Jas had found a berry patch. The berries were big, sweet, juicy, and full of flavor. In no time at all, the three of them were covered with briar scratches, their fingers and lips stained purple.

"That's what the stone marker means," Holly joked "Purple berries here."

"It must mark something," Joel said. "It's not like any other rock near here, and its magic is permanent. We could go exploring," he suggested.

"It's not on our agenda," Jas said tersely. "You're supposed to be making a pilgrimage to the Lost Vale, aren't you?"

"We have to hunt anyway," Joel pointed out. "It might as well be here."

"I suppose a tiny side trip couldn't hurt," Jas said with a sigh.

They looked down into the valley. Even by the light of day, it had an eerie look to it. Deposits of loose shale covered much of the mountain slopes on either side. Scrub pines grew out of the shale, but many of them were naked of needles and covered with morning glory vines. Where the shale didn't cover the slopes, wildflowers bloomed, carpeting the hills with gold.

They made their way downward, walking among the flowers, sliding on the shale. Birds chirped everywhere, and Holly spotted deer droppings. Jas took to the air to scout for game. Joel followed the paladin as she crept along the valley floor, alert for every sound. A mile into the valley, she shot two large pheasants and scavenged their nest for the eggs. She began to teach Joel how to pluck feathers. Soon the bard was covered with them and Holly was laughing at him.

Somewhere off in the distance, something howled. Quickly a horn answered.

"Beshaba's filthy luck!" Joel cursed. An icy hand seemed to grip his heart.

"Where's Jas?" Holly asked with alarm.

Joel looked up at the sky. The winged woman was making her way toward them at top speed. She landed just in front of them, her face pale with anger. "Did you hear that?" she demanded.

Joel nodded.

"They're at the stone," the winged woman reported. "You're trapped in this valley."

"What's at the other end of the valley?" Joel asked.

That," Jas said, pointing to a high-peaked mountain. "Its lower slopes are either cliff faces or covered with loose shale."

"They won't be able to charge their horses up the shale slope," Joel noted.

Jas nodded. "There's a ledge on the upper slope, blocked by a rock with a narrow opening, like a needle," she said. "Unless they can fly, too, they can only come at you one at a time through the rock.

"Get Holly up there first," Joel ordered. "I'll see if I can find a way to hold them off."

"Ill be back," Jas promised as she took off with the paladin.

Joel considered carefully what spells he should call on Finder for. When he was finished praying, he dragged a deadfall branch along the valley floor until it lay between two boulders. Unless they were prepared to go up a steep shale slope, the Xvimists would have to ride their horses between the boulders over the branch. Quietly Joel began singing a spell over the branch. Jas arrived before he finished. She paced impatiently until he finished.

"Trip spell?" she asked, pointing to the branch.

Joel nodded as he wrapped his arms around her neck.

Jas took off, flying low, until she reached the end of the valley. She struggled to gain altitude until a thermal of air caught her and practically dumped her and her passenger on the mountain slope.

The needle was an excellent defensive position. It was a thin cleft in a wall of rock situated on a smaller peak just in front of the major peak. Except for a stretch of steeply sloped shale, the other sides of the lesser peak were cliffs. The base of the major peak and the saddle that led to it were all cliff faces. The valley below was a gorge, and the only way up out of the gorge was through the needle on the minor peak.

Holly stood just behind the rock needle, her crossbow loaded, her sword drawn.

Joel looked at the ground just behind the needle. It was worn smooth and flat, like a trail cut into the rock. It went down along the saddle to the major peak before it disappeared beneath another shale slide.

"This led somewhere once," Holly said. "Did you see any sign of a cave from the air? My people used to use them as crypts."

Jas shook her head. She began gathering up large rocks in her cloak. "You don't have to stay, you know,' Joel pointed out.

Jas stood up and looked at Joel. "Like that old joke about two guys running from a bear."

Joel grinned.

"What joke?" Holly asked.

"Two guys are running from a bear," Joel explained. "One says to the other, "We'll never outrun this bear.' The other guy says, 'I don't have to outrun the bear'—'

" 'I only have to outrun you,' " Jas finished.

"That's terrible," Holly said.

"That's life," Jas said. She looked at Joel with a grim expression. "I'll stay until I have no reason to stay," she said.

Joel nodded. She expected to be the last standing, or flying. When he and Holly had fallen, she would be free to fly away.

It seemed to take forever for the Xvimists to reach the base of the mountain. Joel squinted into the sun. Leading the hunt was the loping figure of a man-beast If it wasn't Bear, it was his twin brother.

"How did he survive?" Holly wondered aloud.

"Maybe he wasn't quite dead and the priest of Xvim healed him when they found him," Joel suggested. "Or maybe there was some sort of regeneration spell woven into his transformation,"

"I've got to remember to start cremating the things I kill," Jas muttered.

Below them, Bear howled, even though his master, the priest of Xvim, rode right behind him.

"He's doing that just to annoy me," Jas snarled.

They counted fourteen others behind Bear and the priest. One wore robes like a mage, but the rest were dressed as Zhentilar. Nine of the soldiers were on foot. The trip trap Joel had left behind must have injured their mounts.

The horses balked at the shale slope. The riders dismounted and eyed the slope warily.

Holly turned to Jas and whispered, "If you find Anathar's Dell, tell Lord Randal everything that happened. Tell him I thank him for the trust he had in me. Tell him I died fighting the Zhentilar and the servants of Xvim in Lathander's name."

"I'll never remember all that," Jas said, giving the girl a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "You'll have to live through this and tell him yourself."

Listening to the paladin's pious words, Joel thought again of his own god. Nothing personal, Joel thought, but I'm not really fighting this one for you. He intended to sing a blessing for strength just before the soldiers reached the needle, but in the interim, he wondered if there was anything else he should try praying for. Finder had helped him escape once, but there really wasn't a lot of time for a fresh vision of Jedidiah. He could pray for a quick death so Bear didn't have the opportunity to gloat over Joel's torture. He could pray for courage. His stomach was feeling queasy, and the sword in his hand felt heavy and strange. Mostly he felt regret that he'd never become comfortable in the role of a priest, never lived up to what he thought Jedidiah or Finder needed from him. "Sorry if I was a disappointment, Finder," he whispered.

It wasn't a battle cry, but the words left his spirit feeling a little lighter.

The priest of Xvim finally goaded the soldiers into moving up the shale slope. For all their faintheartedness, the soldiers looked grim and strong, and their weapons sharp and deadly.

At the base of the shale, Bear howled and capered back and forth before the priest of Xvim. Joel could hear him panting. The beastlike sound made Joel's flesh crawl. Bear disgusted him. He didn't want to be near the man-beast again. Suddenly he was gripped by the desire to keep the beast away from Holly. That, at least, could be accomplished.

"Jas," he whispered, "take Holly and get away from here. If you catch one of those thermals, you should be able to get over the first line of peaks. Bear will never be able to follow you over them. He said he can only sense where your feet have touched the earth. He can't track you as long as you're flying."

"No," Holly whispered. "I'm not leaving you."

Jas exchanged a look with Joel, but before the two adults could come to an agreement, there was a sudden flash of light to Joel's left, followed quickly by the boom of thunder. Joel looked up in the sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. As if of one mind, the remaining horses of the foe neighed in panic and galloped off back down the valley.

From the major peak came a great roar. Joel squinted, fully expecting to see a dragon. The roar increased until it sounded like a hundred dragons. Suddenly Joel felt as if he were bouncing on a galloping horse. The very ground beneath his feet was shaking. The shale on the major peak began sliding down the cliff like a great black waterfall. The loose rock parted around the minor peak where they stood, like a stream about a rock. Then the shale continued to spill down the side of the cliff until it nearly filled the gorge below, burying the Zhentilar and the priest of Xvim and the capering Bear.

It was over in less than a minute, although it took much longer for the dust to settle. The noise had so startled all the wildlife that the valley had become deadly silent.

Then Joel heard what sounded like applause. It came from the direction of the high peak on the opposite side of the saddle. Joel peered through the settling dust. A figure stepped out from behind a boulder and began crossing the saddle toward them. It was a man with white hair and a white beard. He wasn't actually applauding, Joel realized, but clapping the dust off his black trousers and red tunic. He smiled up at Joel, and his face crinkled in wrinkles.

"I don't believe it!" Joel muttered, recognizing the man at once.

Holly and Jas half raised their weapons, but they were too astonished to actually attack. With a wave of his hand, Joel indicated that they could relax. He stepped out onto the saddle, spat some dust from his throat, and called out, "Jedidiah! Well met!"

The elder priest of Finder raised his brass glaur over his head in a little victory salute. Jedidiah had once claimed that the valved horn had magical properties that could "bring down the house." Joel realized that he had just witnessed a demonstration of the instrument's power.

"Well met, Rebel Bard," Jedidiah answered his pupil. "You've come a long way."

 

Eight

Jedidiah

 

"I had a vision that you were in terrible danger," Jedidiah explained, "so I headed toward Daggerdale."

"But how did you find me?" Joel asked.

"A little bird told me where you were," the older priest said with a wink. Joel looked down into the valley where Holly and Jas were busy rounding up the Zhents' horses. At Joel's request, they'd left the two men alone to confer. "I don't know that I deserve all this special attention," the bard said, "but I do appreciate it," he added, turning around to thank his old mentor.

The old priest put his hand on the younger man's shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "Finder has a reason for everything," Jedidiah said, sitting down on a rock. While the last few days had worn Joel ragged, the older priest looked as rested and relaxed as he had when Joel had last seen him in Berdusk.

"Tell me about your journey so far," Jedidiah said. Joel sat beside his friend and described his trip from Berdusk. While his journey to the Dragon Coast and his travels through Cormyr had taken over a month, it was the events of the past six days that took the longest to relate. He found himself explaining in great detail his meeting with Walinda, their subsequent agreement, and Holly's and Jas's reactions to it. "Do you think I was wrong to bargain with Walinda?" he asked finally.

Jedidiah stroked his beard thoughtfully. At last he shrugged. "Well, considering Bane died before Finder even became a god, we're not exactly sworn enemies with his priests," the older man noted. "Among the gods, Moander was Finder's only foe, and Finder slew him. This woman Jas has a point, though. As a rule, priests of Bane can't be trusted. If they offer you something, it's a sure bet they'll be getting more out of the bargain than you will. Still, it turned out all right. This Walinda didn't betray you, and you kept your vow as best as you were humanly able. You got away safely. Someone very well might have rescued her in the flying ship. No harm done."

"No harm done," Joel repeated, "but what would Finder think about my making a bargain with someone like Walinda?''

Jedidiah chuckled. "Finder made bargains with worse sorts when he was a mortal. Much worse, believe me. Oh, before I forget, I found this in a resale shop in Dagger Falls." From inside his tunic, the old man pulled out a set of birdpipes and held it out.

"My birdpipes!" Joel said excitedly, taking the instrument from the older man. He blew a tentative scale. The instrument was completely unharmed. Feeling like a complete fool, the Rebel Bard brushed a tear from his eye. "I thought for sure Bear must have smashed this to pieces after he captured me."

"Well, he may have been no music lover, but he knew its value," Jedidiah replied. "You crafted it well." From the folds of his cloak, the old priest drew out a curved blade.

"It's Holly's cutlass!" Joel said in astonishment.

"Is it?" Jedidiah asked. "The owner of the shop where I found your birdpipes said the man who sold him your birdpipes sold this weapon to him as well. I knew it wasn't your sword, but I bought it anyway, in case it belonged to a companion of yours."

"Joel! Joel, look up there!" Holly shouted from below. She was climbing up from the valley floor in such an excited state that she was having trouble keeping her footing on the slate landslide. She pointed at a spot on the mountain peak behind them.

Joel and Jedidiah looked around at the mountain peak. The landslide had uncovered not only a cave, but something much more exciting. Just above the shale, a chipped granite staircase led to a large platform. On the platform, two huge statues flanked a gigantic metal door, which reflected the sun's light as brightly as a mirror.

Jas landed beside the two priests of Finder just as Holly managed to make her way to the top of the shale slope.

Jedidiah presented the paladin with her cutlass, explaining how he had found it in his attempt to track Joel through Daggerdale. Holly smiled with joy at the return of the weapon that had belonged to her father. She thanked Jedidiah profusely. The old priest bowed graciously.

"It's more luck than I'd hoped for," Holly said, staring in wonder at her cutlass. "You gave me my weapon just in time for us to go explore the cave up there."

"We agreed we weren't going to waste a lot of time here," Jas said. "We should press on to the south before the day gets any later."

"We should at least find out what's inside," Holly insisted. "It could be important. Lord Randal will want to know."

"It's Shraevyn's tomb," Jedidiah said.

"Really?" Holly asked excitedly. "Are you sure?"

"Who's Shraevyn?" Joel asked.

"Who cares?" Jas sighed.

"He was a mage who created magical weapons for the warriors of the dales a long time ago," Holly said. "How do you know for sure it's Shraevyn's?" she asked Jedidiah.

Jedidiah looked up at the sky. As if he saw words written there, he recited,

"A stone cast with faerie fire

marked the mage's final resting place.

His apprentices laid Shraevyn in a casket

in the mountain cave at the west end of the valley.

The wizardess and the warrior stood watch

while the worthies of the world

paid homage to the weaponsmith.

Beside him rested the Sword of the Dales,

waiting to shatter the bonds of tyrants."

 

Holly's eyes widened. "You were there?" she asked.

Jedidiah laughed. "My dear, that was over three and a half centuries ago. Just how old do you think I am? No, better not answer that. I was quoting from 'The Lay of Shraevyn,' translated, of course, from the elvish."

"The Sword of the Dales," Holly whispered. "Is that a great weapon?"

"It must have been," Jedidiah answered. "Shraevyn crafted it."

"I can't just leave here without finding out more," Holly insisted.

"We haven't got enough manpower to go looting a crypt," Jas insisted. "Besides, they're always loaded with traps and tricks."

"It might be better to let Lord Randal investigate with several stout men of his own choosing," Jedidiah suggested.

"But that could take days," Holly argued. "We can't risk the Zhents discovering what's in there first."

"We will lead the Zhents away from this place when we leave," Jedidiah said. "As for the time, that I may be able to shorten." He whistled and cupped his hands together. When he opened his hands again, a golden warbler hopped from his palm to his finger—the same sort of bird Joel had seen in his vision. The bird tilted its head to look up at the old priest with one eye. It peeped expectantly. "Speak a message to Lord Randal," Jedidiah told the paladin. "Keep it short," he added.

"Lord Randal," Holly began tentatively. Her voice wavered, but she grew more confident as she spoke, "Shraevyn's tomb has been found," she reported. "Uncovered. At the end of Giant Craw Valley. If you hurry, you may reach it before the Zhentarim learn of it. I travel south now. Your faithful servant, Holly." She looked up at Jedidiah. "Is that all right?"

"Perfect," the priest said. He whistled at the bird and raised his hand. The golden warbler circled to gain altitude, then took off to the southeast.

Holly smiled with pleasure. "Thank you," she said to Jedidiah.

"You're most welcome. It is the least I could do for the service you have rendered me," he said.

"What service?" Holly asked.

"Looking after my student here," the old priest said, patting Joel on the back. "Thank you both," he said, nodding to Jas.

"You'll get my bill later," Jas muttered. "Can we leave now?" she asked Joel.

Joel looked at Jedidiah. The old priest smiled but said nothing.

"I guess we should be off, then," the young bard answered.

They left the valley riding the Zhents' horses. The horses without a rider they tied together and led along behind them. Holly looked back on the valley and noted to her satisfaction that the exposed crypt entrance couldn't be seen from the magical stone.

As they rode south through the foothills, Jedidiah entertained Holly and Joel with song after song. The old priest's repertoire seemed infinite. Joel sang along with a few he knew. When Holly asked shyly to be taught some of the songs, Jedidiah undertook the task with pleasure. Joel had always admired Jedidiah's eagerness to teach others, even those without much talent. What the paladin lacked in tone, she made up for with enthusiasm. Jedidiah picked out cheerful songs well suited to the girl's nature. Jas scowled and, declaring she was going to keep a lookout, took to the air.

Toward late afternoon they stopped to rest beside a stream. As Holly splashed in the icy water farther downstream, Joel and Jedidiah filled the waterskins.

"She's quite charming," Jedidiah noted, nodding in the direction of the paladin. "She sings with her whole heart."

Joel nodded in agreement. He looked up, hoping to spot Jas, but the winged woman was nowhere in sight. "I guess Jas doesn't care much for music," he said.

Jedidiah shook his head. "From what you've told me, HI wager she's hoping to spot her ship. A spelljamming helm is too rare to let slip away. Once you've got the wanderlust for the spheres, you don't return happily to being a groundling."

"What kind of helm?" Joel asked.

"Spelljamming," Jedidiah said. "It's what makes her ship fly. Any priest or mage can make it move, using the power of spellcasting. I don't know how she thinks she's going to get it away from your Banite priestess, though."

"She was planning to ask for Elminster's help," Joel explained.

"A priestess of Bane traveling around with a spelljammer . . . that just might interest the old sage," Jedidiah remarked. "It certainly piques my curiosity."

"So you think we could help her?" Joel asked. "Jas, I mean."

"I think you should finish your pilgrimage to the Lost Vale first, as you promised Finder you would," Jedidiah said. "Jas can wait."

"She's afraid the Banites will figure out how to take it outside the sphere, whatever that means," Joel said, "and strand her here."

"I can't imagine why they'd want to do that. They'd end up little fish in a very big pond. Still, if she's worried about that, why is she still with you? Why doesn't she take off and search for it?"

"She feels she owes Holly for saving her life, so she wants to be sure the paladin gets home safely. Do you think Walinda really does hear Bane's voice?" Joel asked.

"I hope not," Jedidiah replied.

Joel felt a breeze, and Jas landed beside the stream. She had glided down on them as silently as an owl.

"See anything?" Joel asked, half hoping that she hadn't.

Jas shook her head. "I was hoping that once the Bane witch got what she wanted from the Temple in the Sky, she'd head back to the Spiderhaunt Woods—to the village she came from—and I'd be able to spot my ship and find some way to get it away from her. I don't know why I bothered. Now that she's sacrificed most of her village's population, there's no point in her returning there. She could be anywhere by now."

The winged woman rode with the rest of the party until they stopped for the night.

They set up camp in the foothills on a bluff from which they could survey Daggerdale for miles to the north, south, and west. Jas left the horses to graze in a meadow below the bluff while Joel and Jedidiah collected firewood and Holly finished cleaning the pheasants she'd shot that morning. They had just finished their meal of pheasant, berries, and hard black bread from the Zhentilars' saddlebags when a howling rose from the dale to their north.

"Nine hells!" Jas cursed with fury. "We forgot to make sure he was dead this time," she growled at Joel.

"Well, we could hardly dig him out from beneath the rubble just to burn him," Joel argued.

"We don't know it's Bear," Holly said.

"It's him," Jas said. "I'd know that howl anywhere."

"Bear. That's the man the Xvimists transformed into a creature to track you, right?" Jedidiah asked.

"He said he could feel our power wherever our feet touched the earth," Holly explained.

"He also said he would have lost us but for the power of the fourth one traveling with us," Jas added. She glowered angrily at Jedidiah. "That was you, wasn't it? You've been following us."

Joel looked questioningly at the old priest.

Jedidiah looked up sheepishly at the young bard. "It's true. I have been following you since you escaped from the Temple in the Sky," he admitted. "Finder asked me to look after you in case you needed any help."

"Instead of helping us, you've been acting as a beacon," Jas complained.

"I'm sorry," Jedidiah apologized. "I had no idea."

Joel's mind was racing with questions. Why was Finder so protective of him, to the point of troubling the older priest with his safety? Didn't Finder or Jedidiah trust his ability to reach the Lost Vale? Had the pilgrimage to the Lost Vale been a test? Was that why Jedidiah hadn't revealed himself until they'd been pinned in the valley?

"I suppose," Jedidiah said, "it would be best if I left you and led this creature away."

"No!" Joel said suddenly. "You can't risk going off in this wilderness alone."

"In case you hadn't noticed," Jas countered, "he got here alone. According to Bear, he's got a lot of power. He can take care of himself."

"No," Holly said. "If it is Bear, he may easily have found reinforcements. There are plenty of Zhentilar units patrolling the countryside, some commanded by priests of Xvim. It's folly to travel with that sort offeree tracking you without someone to watch your back, no matter how powerful you are. We should stick together. And if you try to sneak off," she added, waving a finger in Jedidiah's face, "we'll have to come after you. So don't even think about it."

Jedidiah smiled sheepishly at the paladin's reprimand. He looked at Joel.

"She's right," the younger bard agreed. He gave Jas a warning glare not to contradict him.

"Well," Jedidiah said, stretching and yawning, "if we're going to be outrunning this dark stalker and Zhent patrols, we'd better get some rest. I'll take that rock over there for a pillow if no one else has claimed it."

Exhausted from flying, Jas begged off from the first watch. Joel and Holly sat together on the bluff, watching the new moon rise.

"Somewhere around here," Holly said, "maybe on this very bluff, Lord Randal's great-great-great-grandfather and his entourage died trying to destroy a tribe of vampires that plagued his people. They killed every last vampire, only to be torn apart by wolves."

"Are there any happy tales in Daggerdale's history?" Joel asked teasingly.

"One day soon there will be," Holly said, but Joel could not get her to say more.

Firestars like those around Anathar's Dell settled around their cookfire, magically absorbing its energy, eventually extinguishing it, but the night was too warm to worry about it. The breeze wafting up from the dale was laden with the perfume of night-blooming flowers. Unfortunately, it also carried the howling up the bluff. The noise was growing closer, but there was no sign of any Zhentilar patrols.

Holly woke Jas for the second watch. Joel was considering taking Jedidiah's watch so the old man could sleep, but the elderly priest woke on his own, looking far more fresh and alert than Joel. The young bard settled down near Holly. Despite the howling, Joel felt completely safe with Jedidiah on watch. He wondered if his trust in the old man wasn't a little childish, but then he remembered how Bear had claimed to sense so much power in "the fourth one." The young bard fell asleep within minutes.

Joel dreamed it was dawn. The sky grew as red as blood, and the sun crested the horizon, burning with white flame. The sun rushed toward him, then passed him, knocking him to his knees with a blast of hot wind. When he looked up again, Holly's form was a black silhouette against the brilliant, white-hot sun. Although Joel heard nothing, he knew the sun was speaking to the girl.

"Joel, wake up!" Holly cried out, shaking him by the shoulders.

Joel's eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright, expecting to see the unnatural dawn. It was still night. The air was cool. Joel was bathed in sweat, however, as if he'd slept too close to the fire, but the fire was out. Holly appeared to be damp, too.

"What's wrong?" the bard croaked, his throat parched.

Holly mopped her brow with her sleeve. "I had a dream, but I think it was more than that. The sunrise came to me to warn me that something bad is going to happen. I think—I think it was a vision from Lathander," the girl whispered.

Joel shuddered. Having a vision from Finder hadn't seemed too alarming, but having Holly's vision from the god she served—that was disturbing.

"Did the vision give you any more details?" the bard asked, trying to keep calm by analyzing the vision.

"There's evil approaching," the paladin warned. "Great evil."

"Bear?"

Holly shook her head.

"The Zhents? More priests of Xvim?"

"No," the girl replied with more headshakes. "Something evil is coming. Something as cold as death and as dark as a crypt, smelling of dust, so evil it hurt to sense its presence." Joel sighed. Finder's vision had been slightly cryptic, but Lathander's was maddeningly obtuse.

"There was one other thing," Holly said.

"What?" Joel asked eagerly.

"You weren't there. There was death all around, but you were gone."

Joel looked around for Jedidiah, hoping perhaps the old priest would have some insight into what Holly had sensed.

Jas stood lookout near the edge of the bluff, but of Jedidiah there was no sign.

"Jas," Joel called out, "where's Jedidiah?" His question echoed through the hills, a chorus of Joel's inquiring about the old priest.

Jas turned from the bluff and strode back to the campsite.

"You want to shout your question again?" the winged woman growled softly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't think they heard you back at the Flaming Tower."

"Where is he?" Joel hissed.

"He walked down into the brush," she answered, tossing her head in the direction of the bushes they'd crawled through to reach the top of the bluff.

"You know he was thinking of trying to lead Bear off our track. How could you let him leave? How could you be so selfish?" he demanded accusingly.

"It was just a call of nature," Jas said, exasperated with the bard's anxiety. "He went down there only a few minutes ago. If he had been gone much longer, I would have wakened you."

Joel huffed. He snatched up his sword and tied it to his belt. "I'm going to check on him," he said to the paladin. "You better stay with Jas."

The young bard scrambled downhill through the brush, righting the urge to shout out for the old priest, praying he was still nearby.

At the base of the hill was a tiny clearing that not too long ago must have been a pond. Cattails swayed about the edges, but the center was solid ground covered with meadow grass. Jedidiah stood in the center of the clearing. Joel sighed with relief, but then he was left to wonder what Jedidiah was up to.

The old priest had stripped to the waist; his shirt and tunic and cloak lay to one side of the clearing. Light flashed from something in his hands. Jedidiah held the object up over his head with both hands. It appeared to be a huge multifaceted yellow gemstone, with a jagged bottom, as if it had been broken from a larger piece. The light from the gem grew, not brighter but larger, turning the meadow grass to a soft golden color.

Jedidiah, too, turned golden. In the light, the priest didn't appear so old. Joel could see the muscles in his arms and chest were not only tense but also well-toned, like those of a much younger man, and his face didn't appear quite so wrinkled.

Jedidiah uttered some words Joel couldn't quite catch, then sang a scale, up and down the notes, over and over again. Steam began pouring from the old priest's body. Then Joel realized the steam had a radiance of its own. Blue light was seeping out of Jedidiah's body. The blue light curled upward, drawn into the yellow stone just as the haze from Walinda's dead followers had been drawn into the statue of Iyachtu Xvim.

Finally Jedidiah ceased singing. He spoke one more word, and the steaming blue light stopped pouring from his body. In another few moments all of it was sucked into the yellow stone. Jedidiah lowered the stone to his chest. The illusion of youth vanished. His face was wrinkled, his muscles sagging, perhaps even more than before. He staggered and fell to one knee.

Joel rushed forward and took the old man's arm to help him rise. Jedidiah looked up, startled, but when he recognized the young bard, he grinned sheepishly. "I'll be fine in a moment," the old man said, grasping the younger man's arm with two thin, bony hands. "What did you do, Jedidiah?" Joel asked. "What is that stone?"

"Just a little sleight of hand," the priest said, allowing Joel to pull him up. "Dark stalkers, transformed hunters like Bear, can only sense living power. So I siphoned a little of it off into this," Jedidiah explained, holding up the stone. "A little gift from Finder."

"It looked like you siphoned a lot of it off," Joel argued. He scooped up the priest's shirt and handed it to him. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Jedidiah nodded, pulling on his shirt, then taking his tunic from the young bard.

Just then Joel heard Holly scream. From the bluff overhead came the sounds of metal striking against metal and shouts of the paladin and the winged woman.

An icy fist gripped Joel's heart, and he recalled Holly's vision. Cursing himself for a fool, he raced back through the brush, shouting for Jedidiah to follow.

The climb up to the bluff in the dark seemed endless to Joel, knowing something threatened his friends. He was puffing by the time he cleared the brush. He pulled the sword from his belt.

Holly must have built up the fire in his absence, for the campsite was illuminated by leaping flames. The paladin and Jas both stood with their backs to the fire, peering out into the darkness. They were both bleeding from small cuts on their arms and faces. Dark shapes lay vanquished at their feet, but many more surrounded them. Joel could see only their silhouettes in the firelight, and he was unable to tell whether the shapes were men or beasts.

The bard gave a shout to distract the creatures. Suddenly a dark form loomed up on his left. Remembering Bear, Joel reacted instinctively, stabbing hard and fast.

His blade sunk deep into the creature's chest. For all the resistance Joel felt, the body might have been an old weathered sack. The blade made a sound like an axe driven into rotten wood. Joel yanked his weapon back, and a taloned hand lashed at his face but missed. Then the creature fell at Joel's feet, nothing more than a collection of ancient, shattered bones encased in sun-dried flesh.

It was a zombie, Joel realized, and the creatures surrounding Holly and Jas were zombies and skeletons. The firelight glinted on blackened bones and yellowish flesh as the undead creatures rallied for another attack. More of the creatures were pulling themselves out of the ground.

Joel remembered Holly's story that Lord Randal's ancestor and his entourage had died here. If the origin of the undead occurred to the paladin, she did not let it affect how she fought. She decapitated one walking corpse with a clean swing, which ended in the chest of a second zombie. She ducked the sluggish blow of a third monster, then reversed the arc of her blade, driving it into her attacker's skull.

Jas was holding her own by half leaping, half flying up, then coming down on the skeletons with a kicking attack. The ancient bones cracked and crumbled to the ground.

Despite their successes, both women had received wounds, and it was obvious they were tiring. Yet the undead continued to rise from the ground.

Joel fought his way toward the fire. A skeletal hand hanging from a tattered muscle tore a gash across his cheek just beneath his eye. It took one blow to send the creature's bones back to the earth, but the cut on his face continued to burn like fire. Another zombie was armed with an ancient, rusty sword, which shattered into a hundred fragments when Joel struck it with his younger blade.

"Where did they come from?" Joel shouted. Such creatures did not just rise from the earth of their own volition.

"I can't tell," Holly replied. "They seem to be trying to drive us off the edge of the bluff. Where's Jedidiah?" "Not far behind me," Joel answered.

"Already here," boomed the voice of the elderly priest from the darkness just beyond the campfire's light. He began a familiar-sounding chant that sounded more like a drumbeat than a song. A reddish haze surrounded him.

The zombies and skeletons turned to face Jedidiah, the remains of their bodies twitching in rhythm with the priest's chant.

Joel's worry that the creatures would do his mentor harm was soon dispelled. One by one, the skeletons saluted the old priest with a raised hand, then crumbled to dust. The closest zombies slumped in place, their animating energy gone. The zombies farthest from the old priest sank back into the earth, pulling rocks and dirt back over their retreating forms.

Jas smashed at a few of these even as they fled. Then she sank to the ground, exhausted.

The radiance about Jedidiah subsided as the last of the undead disappeared. He looked at Joel with surprise. "Why didn't you try quelling the undead with a chant?" he asked.

Joel winced, realizing now that Jedidiah had taught him the same chant in Berdusk. It was a common ritual to protect against the undead, to return them to their graves and eternal sleep. The chant was actually quite basic, Joel remembered, and the results were effective. It wasn't the first time he'd forgotten he possessed priestly skills just when they would have been the most useful.

The Rebel Bard hung his head. "I just started swinging my sword without thinking," he replied.

Jedidiah looked grim. "You are still uncomfortable using the gifts Finder has given you, " he noted. "It's early yet. You'll get used to it. You'll see."

The old man gave the breast pocket of his vest a pat. He patted the pocket again, then reached into it with his hand, an alarmed expression on his face. Jedidiah began patting his other pockets. His brow furrowed, then his expression grew angry.

"What have you lost?" Joel asked.

"That gemstone I had," Jedidiah snapped impatiently. "I had it a moment ago, just before I came up the hill."

Holly moved up beside Joel, her face stricken with worry. "Joel?" she began.

Joel held his hand up, signaling Holly to wait. "You never told me exactly what it was," he said to Jedidiah.

"It's a relic, an artifact," Jedidiah explained hastily, "a tool created by Finder when he was mortal. It's half of the finder's stone. Finder took half with him to the Abyss when he destroyed Moander and left the other half with the saurials in the Lost Vale. It's a faultless locator, and it holds power, as you saw."

"Joel?" Holly tried interrupting again.

"We'll find it," Joel assured Jedidiah, his eyes combing the ground around the fire circle. "We'll start here and work our way back. Maybe one of the undead knocked it loose from your pocket."

"None of them got near me," Jedidiah insisted with irritation. "I had to have dropped it on the way up the hill."

"Joel? Holly snapped.

The Rebel Bard looked back at the paladin. Her eyes were wide with terror.

"What is it, Holly?" Joel snapped.

"It's—it's coming," the girl whispered. "The evil in my vision. There's something familiar about it ... something horrible."

Jedidiah swung about with a feral growl.

A red light issued from beneath the edge of the bluff, just like the light in Holly's vision.

Slowly, majestically, bathed in red like the sun, a great wooden vessel rose above the bluff. It was Jas's ship, stolen from the illithids, now a floating shrine to Bane. Joel suddenly realized what, or rather who, had made the undead restless enough to rise from their graves.

Walinda stood at the ship's prow, a pair of lit iron braziers on either side of her. She still wore her shoulder protectors and bracers, but she had removed the rest of her armor. She was dressed now in a long, low-cut black velvet gown that seemed to shimmer red in the reflected fire from the braziers. Her hair hung loose about her shoulders like a maiden's.

"Well met, Poppin," she greeted Joel, giving him a warm smile. Then she turned to face Jedidiah, holding out her hand. In it sat Jedidiah's half of the finder's stone, glowing with brilliant gold light. With a cruel smile, she asked, "Are you looking for this, old man?"

 

Nine

The Essence Of Bane

 

Joel could have easily predicted what happened next, but he just wasn't quick enough to prevent it. Jas leapt high into the air. Then, with her sword in front of her, she dived toward the priestess of Bane.

Walinda, as cool as ice, raised her hand and commanded, "Fall!"

The winged woman's body jackknifed in midair, and she plummeted downward. She landed hard, all in a heap, on the deck of her former ship.

Holly cried out and made a move to rush forward, but Jedidiah had the presence of mind to grab the paladin and hold her back.

"Let me go," Holly cried. "She's hurt!" "She'll keep," the older priest said brusquely. "You can't help her if you're hurt, too," he warned. To Joel, he said, "I take it this is the infamous Walinda of Bane."

The younger priest nodded. "She cast a command spell. Do you think it was some trick?" he asked in a whisper.

Jedidiah motioned uncertainty with his hands. "Introduce us," he said calmly. Joel looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. If there was one thing Jedidiah knew, it was how to set the tone.

"Jedidiah," the young man said, "allow me to present to you Walinda of Bane. Walinda, this is Jedidiah of Finder."

Walinda bowed before the old priest. It hadn't been lost on her that Joel had presented her first, implying Jedidiah's rank was higher than hers. On the deck beside Walinda, Jas was recovering from her fall. She'd managed to sit up, but it was clear from the unnatural angle of her right leg that she wouldn't be able to stand.

Jedidiah bowed back at the priestess, even lower and more gracefully. "A very smooth extraction," he complimented Walinda, indicating with a nod of his head the stolen finder's stone in the priestess's hand. "I don't think I've encountered a lighter touch since the halfling Olive Ruskettle picked my pipe from my pocket. Done a lot of training with a thief's guild, have you?"

Walinda glared at the old priest. "You are very glib for a man who's just lost a holy relic of his god," she noted.

"Well, glibness is a thing we priests of Finder are especially good at," Jedidiah retorted. "Like priests of Bane excelling in sarcasm. You didn't steal my stone and then make this appearance just to impress us with your flair for drama. What do you want, Walinda of Bane?"

"I have a deal for you, priest of Finder. Won't you come aboard so we might discuss it more comfortably? promise you and your party safe passage—providing," she added with a glance at the winged woman who lay on the deck, moaning, "you can keep your pets in line."

"I need a moment, please, to discuss your offer with my colleagues," Jedidiah replied politely, smiling up at the priestess.

Walinda nodded graciously.

Jedidiah turned about and pulled Joel and Holly close.

"You can't go aboard that vessel," Holly insisted.

"Young lady, I have no choice," Jedidiah answered. "I must have the finder's stone back."

"It's some sort of trick,'-' Holly said. "There's something else aboard that ship, something profoundly evil. The worst evil I have ever felt in my life. It's so strong it's painful to sense it."

"Is there, now?" Jedidiah asked. "How interesting. It doesn't change anything, however. The finder's stone is a relic of my god."

"Is it worth your life?" Holly argued. "Your soul?"

Jedidiah sighed. "Just before we were attacked, I put a large share of my own power into the finder's stone so that the Xvimists' dark stalker could no longer sense me from a distance. Finder needs my powers. I cannot just let Walinda fly off with the stone without trying to barter for it."

"When you barter with evil, evil grows stronger," Holly said through clenched teeth. "If that's not enough, you must know that you cannot trust her."

Jedidiah looked to Joel for support.

The young bard could sympathize completely with the old priest. Arguing with the paladin was an uphill battle. Remembering how weakened the old priest had been when he finished siphoning his power into the stone, Joel had no qualms about helping him to regain it. He attacked Holly's arguments with an appeal to her emotions that he knew she could not reject.

"Holly, Walinda has Jas," Joel pointed out quietly but firmly. "If we tell Walinda to leave without bartering, what do you think she'll do with Jas—hand her back to us unharmed, or keep her to torture her some more?"

The blood drained from Holly's face, and she lowered her head.

As if to emphasize the point, Jas fluttered her wings and tried to stand, then yelped in pain and crashed back to the deck of the ship.

"Perhaps you should stay here," Jedidiah suggested. "I will deal with this woman myself."

"No," Joel said. "I'm going with you. You may need my help."

Holly looked up. "You may need mine as well to help with Jas," she said.

"If this evil gives you pain—" Jedidiah began.

"I am not afraid of pain," Holly answered softly. "I will accompany you."

"Very well," Jedidiah said, respectful of the paladin's courage. He turned around and stepped toward the edge of the bluff. Joel and Holly stood just behind him.

"We will board your ship to parlay," the old priest announced.

The ship edged close to the bluff. First Joel, then Holly, leapt across to the railing and jumped down to the deck. Joel turned back to offer Jedidiah a hand, but the old priest made the jump just as easily as a boy.

Holly hurried to Jas's side. The woman's leg was broken just above the ankle. "When I fix this, you have to lie still," she whispered to the winged woman.

"Just so Jedidiah can get his stupid rock back?" Jas snarled.

"Because you are not thinking clearly. That attack was the clumsiest I have ever seen," the paladin murmured. "You cannot let your hatred warp your reason."

Jas sighed. "Out of the mouths of paladins . .." she muttered. "Right. I'll keep my cool until the witch betrays us. Then I'm going for her throat."

Holly began a healing prayer for the winged woman's broken leg.

Watching the two women whispering, Walinda said to Jedidiah, "Keep a tether on your pigeon, or I will do more than clip its wings next time."

"Threats are uncalled for," Jedidiah chided the woman. "You wanted to discuss a deal. I'm listening."

"Please, make yourselves comfortable," Walinda said. She sat down on the only chair on the deck, a high-backed seat carved from the tusk of some colossal beast.

If Walinda had hoped to put the old priest in his place

by making him stand, her plan backfired. Jedidiah removed his cloak with a flourish and lay it on the floor near the priestess's feet. He lowered himself to the deck and lounged there like a desert prince relaxing in a harem. He was near enough to the priestess that he could have reached out and touched her knee. Joel stood behind him, trying to convey the look of someone prepared to defend the old priest against any assaults. Behind Walinda, a dark doorway led to a cabin. Joel watched it warily, remembering Holly's warning of something evil.

"You are very bold for someone dealing from a position of weakness," Walinda addressed Jedidiah as she held up the finder's stone in the hand farthest from him.

Joel wondered if it would be worth the risk to simply jump the woman and wrestle the stone from her hand. He looked again at the darkened doorway and decided it would probably be most unwise.

"You and Poppin are very alike," Walinda said. "I will look forward to subduing Finder's priests if they are all like the two of you. You are really quite remarkable."

"It's true," Jedidiah said with an arrogant smile. "But you are remarkable as well. The hierarchy of the Black Lord's church was never known for encouraging the ambitions of women, not even talented ones. Yet Joel tells me you are a Dreadmaster. Did you earn your title before or after Torm turned your god into so much dog food?"

Walinda glowered at Jedidiah, but she didn't react to his goads. "The Black Lord named me to his priesthood himself, before the Time of Troubles," the priestess replied proudly. "After the Black Lord was killed in combat, I remained faithful, knowing that our lord would rise again. The night before the Cyricists began the Banedeath, destroying any true followers of Bane who would not convert to Cyric, a voice spoke to me. The voice warned me of what was to come and decreed what action I should take. I gathered those who were most faithful to Bane and led them away from Zhentil Keep. We traveled until we reached the Spiderhaunt Woods. There, in a cave, my lord's spirit was waiting for his true followers.

"When his avatar died in the Time of Troubles, Lord Bane's spirit hid in that cave. We fed his spirit with our worship. Two weeks ago, the spirit brought down this ship from the sky, and we took possession of it in Bane's name. The spirit took command of the ship, and we journeyed north to the Temple in the Sky. In the temple, which was once dedicated to Lord Bane, there were buried secrets that Lord Bane would need to regain his former power and glory. The price was high...."

"Yes. Joel already told me how you paid for it. What secret could be so important that it was worth the lives of all those faithful people?" Jedidiah asked scornfully.

"The location of the Hand of Bane," Walinda said.

"The Hand of Bane," Jedidiah repeated.

"Yes. Its location has been hidden for centuries, yet I was able to find it." Walinda held up the sheets of paper she'd removed from the book in the Temple in the Sky. The edges were scabbed over with dried blood. "So my followers died for a great cause."

Jedidiah leaned forward. "Why would Bane need you to locate the Hand of Bane?" the old priest asked.

"You do not know?" Walinda asked. "Allow me to explain. You will find this very interesting, Poppin," she said, smiling up at Joel. "Gods are made of many elements. They have a physical body and mind Torm slew my lord Bane's body, but it still exists. It floats in the astral plane beside the bodies of other long-dead gods. Gods also possess an essence—a personality, a spirit that binds them to their followers. They also possess power—huge amounts of raw energy, beyond the ken of mortals. If a god is destroyed, his followers can perform a complicated ritual to bind together these elements-body, essence, and power—and resurrect the god. Some gods have the wisdom to create a magical artifact that will make the ritual simpler and more efficient, so that its performance does not require a year's time, or hundreds of followers, or the blood sacrifice of a thousand innocent beings."

"And the Hand of Bane is such an artifact," Joel guessed.

Walinda nodded. "Your student is very apt," she complimented Jedidiah. "Now you understand my sacrifice. With the Hand of Bane in my possession, I can return my lord to his rightful place as a god of the Realms."

Jedidiah waved a hand, as if to brush aside Walinda's comments. "You misunderstood my question entirely. I did not ask why Bane would want you to recover the Hand of Bane. I asked why Bane needed you to locate it for him. Didn't the old boy remember where he'd put it? Getting senile in his death, is he?"

Walinda raised her head proudly. "Bane is not a simple god like your Finder. His plans are subtle and complex. Centuries ago he gave the hand to a loyal priest in the Temple in the Sky to hide where no god, not even Ao, could steal it. The priest was charged to keep the location of the hand a secret. On his deathbed, on Bane's orders, the priest passed the information on to his successor. So it continued for centuries. When the beast cult took over the floating rock, the last priest hid in a secret temple and wrote down all the secrets in his keeping, so that Lord Bane might send me to discover the Hand of Bane when it was needed."

Jedidiah laughed heartily for a moment. "A good story," he said. "I was beginning to think you had fallen prey to some elaborate ruse of Iyachtu Xvim, but now I realize it must be Cyric behind all this. A lie that good could only be his."

"It is not a lie!" Walinda snapped, clenching the finder's stone as if she might crush it.

"Of course, Cyric and Xvim could be in it together," Jedidiah commented. He looked back up at the enraged Walinda and said, 'Think for a moment, woman. Bane is dead. Iyachtu and Cyric both have an interest in seeing that he stays dead for all eternity. They want to be sure the Hand of Bane is destroyed, but first they've got to find it. They need someone who might know where to look. They look around for a likely target, and there you are, stubbornly persevering in your faith in Bane, keeping his faithful from worshiping either the Godson or the mad god. You've been a thorn in their side. They will have vengeance on you for defying them by getting you to give them the hand.

"Cyric, using Bane's voice, warns you to leave Zhentil Keep. He keeps you on hold for a few years while he launches a few other plans. Then he says it's time to find the Hand of Bane. You've probably heard a rumor of it, or maybe the Godson knew something about his father's faithful in the Temple in the Sky. As an added bonus, Iyachtu gets to eat the souls of your followers. Of course, both gods will keep you in the dark until you've handed them the hand. Then they can tell you that you were the one to betray Lord Bane to them."

"It is not true," Walinda growled, rising angrily to her feet. "Do you think I would mistake an imposter for my lord's voice? Never! It was Lord Bane who spoke to me." Joel noted how Jedidiah's eyes followed the finder's stone. The priestess now seemed so overwrought that the Rebel Bard had just made up his mind to rush her and try to grab the stone.

From the darkened doorway of the cabin, a raspy, dark, sepulchral voice spoke. "Cease your whining, fool woman. Can't you see the old priest is only goading you?"

Whoever had spoken remained hidden in the shadows, but Joel could sense that something very evil and very powerful had come onto the deck. Suddenly the bard completely lost his nerve. A wave of nausea and vertigo swept through him, nearly knocking him down. A cold pang of fear lanced through him, paralyzing him. Then despair settled on his heart, a despair so heavy that tears welled in the young man's eyes.

Joel looked at the other members of his party to see their reaction to the evil presence. Jas was crouched in a fetal position, her wings covering her body. Holly's face was twisted in fear, and yet the paladin was trying to stand. Her struggle was short and in vain. She fell to her knees, pressing her hands to her temples.

Jedidiah, however, didn't seem to mind the presence, except to wrinkle his nose as if he'd smelled something unpleasant. He stood tall and straight, like a mast in a storm. Joel took a deep breath and steadied himself. If Jedidiah could stand up to this assault, he wouldn't let the old priest down. The Rebel Bard forced himself to peer into the shadows inside the cabin door.

A figure stepped out of the shadows. It stood upright, taller than the average man, wearing a chest plate of black armor polished to a mirrorlike finish and engraved with the symbol of Bane in blood-red filigree. The figure's broad shoulders were covered with huge spiked plates, which made the creature seem even more massive. Its arms and legs were covered with black fabric, which in turn was covered with fine scales, as supple as a black dragon's hide. A red cape fluttered behind the figure.

The body beneath the armor was even more alarming. The creature, Joel realized, had to be some sort of undead thing. Its skin was as creased as a crumpled piece of paper, yellowed with age and so translucent that brown bone showed from beneath the skin. The flesh around its mouth had worn away, leaving tatters of skin about the creature's brown teeth. Its tongue was black. The sagging flesh of each of its cheeks bore a tattoo of a red lightning bolt. Where its eyes should have been were deep wells with a glimmering white ember of undead hatred at the bottom of each. Dry shoots of white hair sprouted from its mostly bald head. Sparkling on its brow was a white diamond as large as a fingernail. "I am the essence of Bane," the creature said, its voice creaking like the iron gate of a crypt. "See me and fear me."

Joel flinched at the voice, while Holly covered her ears. Beneath her wings, Jas shuddered. Jedidiah bowed and said, "Greetings, Bane. You're not looking so lively, even for an essence. I was wondering if you were going to show yourself."

The creature gave a sharp, barking laugh and lurched forward. "You aren't looking quite yourself, either, priest of Finder," it said.

Jedidiah frowned and his brow furrowed.

The creature strode forward, and Walinda rose and stepped away from the chair. The creature reached out, and Walinda handed it the finder's stone. All the while, Joel noted, the priestess kept her head bowed and never raised it to look at the creature. The thing that claimed to be the essence of Bane sat down in the chair.

"I thought," the creature said, "to let my slave handle these negotiations. Once I realized who you were, however, I knew it would require someone with more skill to bargain with you. We will talk as one being of power to another."

"I'll be prepared to talk," Jedidiah replied, "when you stop painwracking my companions with your petty magic."

"It has always been my practice to begin my dealing from a position of strength, but if it will put you more at ease ..." The creature shrugged.

Joel felt his fear and despair subside like an ocean tide. Holly was able to rise to her feet. Jas stirred beneath her wings and looked out at the creature with disgust.

"You've been duped, Walinda of Bane," Jedidiah said. "This isn't the spirit of Bane. It's a banelich, a former High Imperceptor of the church, made undead by Bane—a little gift Bane used to give to his most groveling mortal yes-men. They go a little mad when they realize there is no greater power in death than there was in their pathetic lives. This one obviously has delusions of grandeur."

Walinda didn't look up at Jedidiah. Instead, she remained beside the creature with her head bowed.

"You are half right, priest of Finder," the creature said. "Centuries ago I was made a banelich by Lord Bane. Since the Time of Troubles, however, I have been much more. When Torm slew Bane, my god's spirit chose to honor me by housing itself in my form. I hold his personality, his ego, his essence. I can even grant this slave her clerical spells. I am now, for all intents and purposes, Bane."

"What do you want from us?" Joel demanded, his patience with this horror wearing thin.

"Ah, well. It is only fitting that my slave"—he waved his hand in Walinda's direction—"should have slaves of her own. It is also practical. Loyal though she is, the tasks I must set for her may be beyond her powers. I thought to reward her with slaves who would amuse her"—the banelich motioned with his hand to indicate Joel—"as well as those who would be useful," he added, waving his hand at Jedidiah, Holly, and Jas.

Walinda raised her head a fraction of an inch and met the young bard's look with a sly smile. Joel felt a flush rise to his face.

Holly stepped forward in front of Joel and declared hotly, "We are not slaves, and we will never serve such as you!"

"How bravely you speak, little paladin of Lathander," the banelich said with a gravely chuckle. "But how little you know. This one," he said, pointing at Jedidiah, "would do anything to regain the finder's stone. And this one," he said, pointing to Joel, "will do anything to help him. He may even find serving my slave pleasurable."

Joel caught Walinda watching him again, and he turned away, fixing his eyes firmly on Jedidiah. "We'll perform a service in exchange for the finder's stone, but we will not serve you or yours," Jedidiah said sharply. "I presume the task you had in mind is retrieving the Hand of Bane."

The banelich nodded. "Naturally. You are familiar with some of the other planes, the homes of the gods and the tanar'ri and the archons. The outer planes share a common ground known as the Outlands. The hand of Bane is—"

"In Sigil," Jedidiah interrupted. "The Hub of the Universe, the Cage, City of Doors, Place of Mazes."

"You are every bit as clever as your reputation," the banelich said, its undead voice revealing the tiniest hint of surprise.

"Walinda said it was in a place where no god could steal it," Jedidiah explained. "That pretty much defines Sigil, doesn't it?"

The banelich nodded. "You will fetch for me the Hand of Bane. Then I will reward you with this bauble," he said, holding the finder's stone aloft in a skeletal hand. With that, the creature rose and walked back toward the darkness of the cabin.

Jedidiah stepped forward and called out, "Banelich!”

The banelich turned, and Joel felt the bottom drop out of his stomach again. The creature's hatred was so oppressive Joel's joints ached from trying to stand, and he had trouble breathing. He heard Holly whimper and Jas growl.

"Yes?" the banelich asked.

"When I fetch the Hand of Bane,"Jedidiah said, "it will be for myself. I'll exchange it for the finder's stone.'

The banelich pulled the tatters of its flesh back into a smile. It nodded in agreement to the subtle change Jedidiah had made to the wording of their bargain. Then it turned back to the door and disappeared into the cabin.

Joel breathed with relief when the weight of the creature's stare had been removed.

Walinda sat once again in the chair. "It is so good to have you aboard, Poppin," she said smiling at Joel. "And the rest of you as well," she added, her eyes settling maliciously on Jas.

"We will use this ship to fly over the Desertsmouth Mountains and into the Great Desert, Anauroch," the priestess informed them. "Buried under the sand are the ruins of the fabled kingdom of Netheril. There, among the debris of one of their ruined citadels, is a gate to the Outlands, the shared land of the outer planes. Our goal, the city of Sigil, rises from the center of the Outlands."

The gate you speak of is called Cat's Gate. I know the place," Jedidiah said. "You can drop us off at the mouth of the River Ashaba. We'll meet you at Cat's Gate four days hence."

"You will go with me to Netheril now," Walinda declared.

Jedidiah strode behind the chair and leaned over the priestess's shoulder. "Tell me, slave, can you surrender power and still wield it?" he asked sharply.

"No," Walinda replied automatically. She looked up, startled, at the old priest. "So you are acquainted with some of the tenets of my faith. What does that prove? You will still accompany me to Cat's Gate forthwith."

Jedidiah leaned in close to the priestess's ear and whispered, "When you held the finder's stone, you wielded power. But you surrendered that power to the disgusting monster you see fit to worship. Since it holds the finder's stone, I made my deal with it. I will recover the Hand of Bane because I must have the finder's stone back. If you want to help—and reap some of that abomination's gratitude—you will meet me at the gate. In the meantime, I will escort my friends to a place of safety where we can rest comfortably before the journey and I can gather together such items as we will need to find the Hand of Bane."

Jedidiah strode over to the ship's railing. "In any case, there is no way you can hold us against our will . . . unless you were to call on the banelich to aid you." Walinda glared at the older priest, and Joel realized what Jedidiah must have already known: Walinda did not dare give the appearance of being weak before the banelich. The priestess shrugged and said, "There is no need to get off at the River Ashaba. This ship can carry you to the Lost Vale. That is where you're headed, isn't it?"

Jedidiah chuckled. "I'm not about to reveal the location of the Lost Vale to you, my dear. Finder has a temple there, and your god has a reputation of being a rude guest in other gods' temples. And after having been enslaved by Moander, the inhabitants of the vale would prefer to avoid the attentions of any more evil gods."

"I will discover it when I fly over the mountains," Walinda said with a shrug.

"You can try," Jedidiah said with a grin.

Joel nodded. The old priest had already explained to him that one could not find the Lost Vale by searching. It had to be entered magically.

"You'd best go inform your lord of our plans," Jedidiah told Walinda, "so he can set course accordingly. Due south of here should be perfect."

Walinda rose. "I will do so." She gave Joel a knowing smile, then went into the cabin.

After a few moments, the ship rose, then began to move southward so smoothly it felt as if they were on a raft adrift in a smooth-flowing river.

Joel joined Jedidiah at the ship's rail. They stared down at the bluff below them and watched the flames of their former campfire recede. "If the banelich is undead," the Rebel Bard asked in a whisper, "can't you destroy it or send it away with a prayer like you did with the skeletons and zombies?"

Jedidiah shook his head. "Walinda has consecrated this vessel to Bane. That makes it the banelich's turf. If I had the power that I put in the finder's stone, I might have taken the banelich in combat. Of course, if I had that power, the banelich wouldn't have come near me. It must have been watching us, and when it saw me pouring power into the stone, it seized its chance. That cloak Walinda has—the one that shielded you from the beholder's sight in the Temple in the Sky—she must have been wearing that. I didn't feel her stealing the stone, but I remember smelling her—the perfume in her hair. If I hadn't been concentrating on turning the undead, I think I would have detected her. At any rate, we could fight the banelich, but there's no guarantee we'd all come out alive, and there's a good chance the finder's stone would be destroyed in the banelich's death throes. I'm sorry, Joel, but I just can't risk it."

"But you can't give the Hand of Bane to the banelich," Joel argued.

Jedidiah smiled grimly. "You were afraid of what Finder would think when you allied yourself with Walinda. Now I have to decide which of two evils would displease Finder more—the loss of his relic containing the power he granted me or the resurrection of Bane."

Jedidiah turned to gaze at Jas and Holly. They were leaning against the railing as far from the cabin as they could get. Holly was still clutching her head. Her paladin ability to sense evil was overloading from prolonged exposure to the banelich's proximity. Jas was stroking the girl's hair comfortingly, even though the winged woman herself looked deathly pale and exhausted.

"We may find another course yet," Jedidiah said, "between now and when we've retrieved the Hand of Bane. In the meantime, I'm going to help your companions. The banelich's painwrack spell can actually do physical damage to its victims. As priests of Finder, we were protected from it by our god, but they weren't. When Walinda returns, try to keep her entertained so she isn't goading Jas and Holly. The strife only serves to amuse the banelich and might possibly be nourishing °

Joel nodded. He watched the old priest tending Holly, singing a Dales lullaby while he used his healing power to ease the pain in her head. Holly fell asleep with her head in Jas's lap. Jedidiah then spoke softly with Jas. The winged woman looked angry and disdainful, but as the bard spoke, her features softened. In the end, she nodded. Jedidiah laid his hands on her shoulders, and healing energy rippled about the woman's body. When the old priest had finished, he sat back beside Jas, leaning against the railing. Apparently the winged woman had come to some sort of peace with Joel's mentor, for she laid her head on his shoulder to sleep.

Jedidiah closed his eyes. Joel couldn't remember ever seeing the old priest so tired. For that matter, he couldn't remember ever seeing the old priest tired at all.

Joel waited for Walinda to reappear. It was nearly half an hour before she emerged from the cabin. She carried two goblets and joined him at the railing.

"Bane is most generous. He has agreed to the old man's request," she said.

"I don't think it was a request," Joel countered.

Walinda appeared not to have heard Joel's comment "I thought we might drink to our quest," she said, handing him a goblet.

Joel met the woman's forthright gaze. Several thoughts raced through his head. Jedidiah had asked him to entertain this woman, ostensibly to keep her from goading Jas and Holly into any fights, but the old priest was canny enough to realize that Walinda's interest in the Rebel Bard could be used to his advantage. For Jedidiah's sake, to regain the finder's stone, Joel was prepared to let himself be used. Still, there were things he could not do.

"I would prefer to drink to the return of the finder's stone to Finder's priests," he said, holding up his goblet.

"Then I will drink to the resurrection of Lord Bane," Walinda replied.

They sipped from their drinks. The liquid was mead, old and mellow.

"Is there nothing to which we can both drink?" Walinda asked demurely.

"I don't think we have all that much in common," Joel said, laying his left hand on the railing.

"I know," Walinda said "We can toast our escape from the Temple in the Sky."

Joel lowered his eyes with embarrassment.

"It's all right, Poppin," the priestess said, laying her right hand on his left. "I forgive you for abandoning me."

"Are Banites allowed to forgive?" Joel asked in mock surprise.

Walinda lowered her eyes as if she'd truly been chastised, then looked back up at the Rebel Bard. "Perhaps I should have said I understand that you were not at fault. My lord came to my rescue in this ship. He found a way to make it fly. His power grows with my faith," she said.

Recalling Jedidiah's explanation of the spelljammer, Joel replied, "Actually, any spellcaster, priest or mage, can make this ship fly."

Walinda's eyes half closed in anger.

"Your lord didn't tell you that?" Joel asked. "Well, you are just a slave," he added, relishing the chance to make her feel less exalted.

Walinda winced as if she'd been cut. She looked back up at Joel, a sly smile on her face. She slid her right hand up from his fingers into the cuff of his sleeve and squeezed his wrist. "See? We do have something in common. You want to degrade me."

Startled by the priestess's words and the gleam in the her eyes, Joel pulled his arm away from her grasp and looked away, into the night sky. He couldn't think of a safe reply that was either honest or sensible.

"You remind me of myself," Walinda said, "before I met my god. I did not know my purpose. I could command a legion and break any man in interrogation. I could heal soldiers who had earned Bane's grace and raise the dead. I had so many duties, yet my worship seemed to have no purpose. Now I know fully why I am a priestess. I serve Bane. I am his servant, his slave. It is the sweetest knowledge imaginable. There is nothing greater I can be."

Walinda took a sip from her goblet, then continued "You are a priest of Finder. You recreate art, search for new meaning in every variation, use your art to bring about change."

Joel looked back at Walinda with surprise.

"Yes," the priestess said. "You see, I understand something of the tenets of your faith as well as the old priest understands ours. But there is something that transcends the tenets of our separate faiths, something that I have, but so far you can only long for. You do not believe that your service has meaning. Are you just another whisper to Finder? Does he send you your spells automatically, without thinking, in that careless manner the gods sometimes have? If another were to take your place, if you were to become something besides a priest, would it make any difference?"

Joel sipped at the mead, wondering if it was really possible that this woman could have felt all the things that he had. Perhaps, he thought, she's just used some magic trinket to read my thoughts.

"If you heard his voice say your name and command you, as I heard Lord Bane's," Walinda whispered, "then you would know your purpose, and your heart would question nothing." The priestess leaned against Joel. The bard could smell the rose perfume in her hair and the spicy incense that clung to her velvet gown. She laid her hand on his neck. Her hand was very warm. She stroked his shoulder with the tips of her fingernails. Exhausted as the bard was from days of fleeing in the rough countryside, the woman's touch was quite relaxing.

"See," the priestess whispered, "you do want to be a slave."

Joel sighed softly. Then her words connected in his brain. He pulled away from her hand and stepped bad from the railing. He could sense the danger in the woman's touch.

Walinda laughed at his reaction. She leaned forward and whispered, "Your reserve is very becoming, Poppin. I could break through all those barriers. Stay with me on the ship. Why walk miles through rough terrain when you can enjoy a smooth ride in the company of someone who knows what you really want? You can tell the old man you are protecting his stone."

"Does the finder's stone need to be protected?" he asked.

"You tell me. Lord Bane is fascinated by it, yet I do not think he understands it. If he thought it would bring him power, he would crack it like a nut. Would it bring him power?" Walinda asked.

Joel frowned at the question. Walinda must presume the stone held some power. Would the banelich really risk breaking the stone to try to steal Jedidiah's power? Could the creature succeed? Should I stay, Joel wondered, to be sure the stone is kept intact until Jedidiah returns?

"Think how you will feel, Poppin," Walinda said, "if you reach the Lost Vale and visit the temple to Finder, yet nothing changes. Finder does not need you." She pointed to Jedidiah. "Finder already has a priest with no doubts. A priest who doesn't question the meaning of his service. But you will never truly know the joy of serving. Your journey is in vain. When it is finished you will not even have your hope left." She drained her goblet and tossed it overboard.

Joel looked at Jedidiah with envy. The old priest was so favored that he carried half of the finder's stone. Or at least he did. Jedidiah had told him the pilgrimage to the Lost Vale was important, but did the elderly priest really understand him, know how he felt? Probably not. Walinda was right; Jedidiah had no doubts about being a priest.

"Stay with me and I will give you new hopes," the priestess offered, sliding her hands about his neck. She squeezed at his throat ever so gently. Alarmed by the choking sensation, Joel dropped his goblet and snatched Walinda's wrists. She did not resist as he pulled her hands from his neck.

Joel released her and backed away another step. "Hopelessness . . . that's the specialty of the house in a temple of Bane, isn't it?" he asked. "And you are a master in its uses."

Walinda bowed her head in acknowledgment of the compliment.

"I took a vow to make a pilgrimage to the Lost Vale," the bard declared. "I will not be foresworn, whether my journey brings me closer to my god or not."

"Pride, not faith," Walinda commented. "Very well, Poppin. But I know you will be back. Only one god can enslave as Bane can. And when you return, I shall make you suffer for making me wait. But, then, making you suffer will not displease me either," she added. Then she strode from the deck into the cabin.

Joel shivered in the warm night air. The ease with which a murderess could manipulate his feelings filled him with despair. He wrapped his cloak about him and lay down on the deck, hoping sleep would release him from his fears and doubts. For a long time, he lay awake thinking of Walinda's threat that he would be back Finally he heard Jedidiah singing softly in the darkness, another lullaby, only this one from Berdusk, a cradlesong Joel's own mother had once sung to Joel. Then the Rebel Bard slept.

 

Ten

Journey To The Lost Vale

 

Joel awoke to Jedidiah's gentle shaking of his shoulder.

"We've made port," the old priest said. "Time to kiss the earth, as the sailors say."

The sun was just rising over the Dagger Hills. Jedidiah was smiling, but he looked tired.

Joel sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. "Did you get any sleep?" he asked. "Someone should have awakened me to take a watch."

Jedidiah shook his head. "I couldn't have slept here anyway, and it was my turn to take the watch. Besides, there wasn't anything really to watch for. The banelich has made his deal. There aren't too many creatures about to fight a ship in the sky."

Joel stood up and looked around. The ship sat at the base of a magnificent waterfall. The water's flow was not great, but it fell over a hundred feet, sparkling in the sunshine. It would join with several other streams to become the River Ashaba. Holly and Jas were leaning over the railing, watching the water with obvious pleasure. Walinda was seated in her chair, watching the bard. "That woman gives me the shivers," Jedidiah muttered. He turned and bowed low to Walinda. "Until we meet again, lady," he addressed her.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay?" she asked, her eyes still fixed on Joel. "Certain," Jedidiah replied.

"I wasn't addressing you, old man," the priestess snapped.

Jedidiah transformed his expression into the comically crestfallen look worn by mimes in Westgate. Joel was unable to keep himself from chuckling.

Jedidiah patted Joel on the back. "It's up to you," he said with a shrug. Then he whispered, "But I'd have another look at those teeth if I were you."

Joel met Walinda's gaze. The priestess smiled, showing her teeth. They were small, white, and perfect. They reminded Joel of doll teeth . . . unnatural. The bard shuddered. "I have to go," he said. He made a hasty bow and joined the others at the ship's rail.

From her chair, Walinda called out, "Four days, old man. Don't keep me waiting."

"Cat's Gate. I'll be there," the old priest called back. Beneath his breath he muttered, "Nag, nag, nag."

Holly giggled and even Jas smiled. The paladin unrolled a rope ladder down the side of the ship and began to climb down. Jedidiah followed as Jas fluttered into the air and settled near Holly. Joel climbed on the railing and looked back at Walinda. The priestess still sat in her chair, facing forward, soon to be left alone on a ship piloted by an undead priest of a dead god. "Do you ever get lonely?" Joel asked. Walinda turned her head to face the Rebel Bard. " know you will return to me, Poppin," she answered. Joel scrambled down the ladder. The moment the bard's feet were on the ground, the great ship rose into the sky and disappeared behind the mountain. "Worst inn I've ever slept in," Jedidiah said. "Can't think why Volo would recommend it."

"I can still sense the banelich," Holly said. "They're not too far off."

"No doubt they'll try to follow us from the air," Jedidiah said. "It won't do them any good." He turned to Joel and explained. "For reasons of their own, Holly and Jas have agreed to accompany us to the vale."

"Oh," Joel said. He could understand Holly wanting to see the vale. To her mind, it was another dale, a possible ally, a secret to take back to Randal Morn. The young bard wondered about Jas's reasons, however. He remembered the long conversation Jedidiah had with the winged woman the night before. He couldn't begin to guess what agreement she'd reached with Jedidiah.

Jedidiah knelt down on the ground and spread his cloak out before him. He sang a simple grace, and the air above the cloak shimmered blue. When the old priest had finished, two fat loaves of bread lay on his cloak. Jedidiah held out his arms, inviting the others to join him.

When they'd finished their breakfast of Jedidiah's bread, plus cold, refreshing water from the stream, Jedidiah said, "Time, I think, to go. Do you need to pull out the map?"

Joel shook his head. He'd studied the map so often on his trip north he had large portions of his route memorized ... especially the route through the waterfall.

Joel stepped into the stream. The water was cold but bearable. He began to walk toward the waterfall.

"Why do I have a sinking feeling we're going to get all wet?" Jas groused. "I hate getting my feathers damp."

"Pretend you're a duck," Jedidiah teased.

"Are we going behind the waterfall?" Holly asked with delight, chasing Joel into the stream. "No wonder Lord Randal's men couldn't discover how to get into your vale."

Jedidiah and Jas followed the bard and the paladin up the stream. The streambed was slick with small, rounded rocks. Closer to the waterfall, Joel discovered a chain beneath the water and picked it up. It was fastened to something behind the waterfall. The bard handed the end to Holly, and they used it to steady themselves as they pulled their way through the strong current until they came to the curtain of water.

The bard and paladin stood just behind the falls, looking out, as Jedidiah and Jas came through.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Holly asked, pointing back at the sunshine rippling through the waterfall. "Very," Joel agreed.

Jedidiah picked up a rock and sang a quick scale, imbuing the stone with a luminous glow.

Behind the waterfall was a cavern. The floor was covered with sand. Footprints ran from the back of the cavern to the waterfall. One set was booted; the other was unlike any print Joel had ever seen before—shaped like a dragon's, but smaller than a human's. "Whose tracks are these?" Holly asked. "The swordswoman Alias and one of the saurials," Jedidiah said.

They followed the footprints back to a staircase cut into the rock. It was a long climb up the stairs. They had to pause to rest twice. At the top of the stairs, they came out into a cave looking out over a valley. "Is that the vale?" Jas asked. Jedidiah laughed. "We've miles and miles to go yet." The cave contained a little shrine to Tyr, god of justice. Bits of ash from burned paper dusted the tiny altar before the god's statue.

They rested again before they followed the path that led from the cave down the opposite side of the mountain. The path stayed beneath the trees, skirting the edge of any clearings, or, if the trees thinned on an especially rocky slope, the trail passed through tunnels cut into the mountainside.

Jas smiled with satisfaction. "I hope that witch wastes lots of time trying to spot us from the air," she said.

They traveled along the path all morning, stopping only once to pick raspberries. By noon, they'd reached their goal: Finder's harp symbol, carved into the gray rock of a cliffside and painted white with a solution of lime. Etched into the cliffside just below the symbol of Finder was the outline of an archway. Jas knocked, pushed, pried, and tapped all about the outline of the archway but could discover no opening.

"It's solid rock," the winged woman insisted.

Joel nodded. He warmed up his voice with a scale, then, with a nod from Jedidiah, he began to sing a marching song the old priest had taught him. The song described the trail so far and asked Finder to unravel an easier path for the rest of the journey. It had two verses and a refrain. Jedidiah joined in on the refrain.

Joel closed his eyes and smiled as he sang the second verse. The weariness of the past few days seemed to drain away. He felt calm, as if he and Jedidiah were singing a drinking song in a tavern in Berdusk. The sounds reverberated from the cliffside, amplifying their voices until they rang throughout the mountains.

Joel repeated the refrain alone, adding a little dance step, which never failed to amuse Jedidiah. Holly applauded.

Jas looked expectantly at the wall, but nothing happened. "Well?" she asked. "What's the problem? Were you off-key or something?"

Jedidiah snorted. "You may no longer be a groundling, my dear, but you are a barbarian. Off-key indeed!" And with that, the bard walked straight into the cliff face, disappearing into the rock like water into sand. He poked his head back out. "Don't dawdle. The door won't last forever."