The tray held a pot of green tea, two cups, and a plate of almond cookies.

"Shishi is also a perfect host," Jedidiah said.

They took their tea in companionable silence, but when they'd finished, Jedidiah stood up and began pacing. His head twitched once, the way it had shortly after they'd left Ilsensine's realm.

"Are you all right?" Joel asked.

Jedidiah shrugged. "I don't know. It seems to me I had an idea, a plan, but I don't remember it now. I forgot it before I took note of it, if you get my drift."

Joel nodded. "I do that all the time," he said.

"But you're not a god."

"Oh. Do you think Ilsensine stole it?" Joel asked.

Jedidiah's head twitched again. Then he shrugged. "I just don't remember. It's like a tickle in my brain." He sighed.

"Was it some way to get back the finder's stone without giving up the Hand of Bane?" Joel asked hopefully.

"There's an awful thought."

A small green ball of light zipped across the bridge and hovered before Jedidiah's face—Shishi, Joel supposed. The spirit reminded him a little of the firestars of Daggerdale.

"Chief Stellar Operator Pan Ho will take a bribe for a one-time use of the portal to Sigil," said the lion-dog spirit. "I would suggest something green. We should visit Pan Ho immediately. She's going to lunch within the hour and will be gone for a week."

Jedidiah bent over and plucked a newly blossomed gardenia from a bush. "Lead on, O wise Shishi."

Shishi went zipping back across the bridge, through the garden, and up the staircase. It waited patiently at the top of the steps for Jedidiah and Joel to catch up.

"That spirit is four hundred years my senior, and it still leaves me eating its dust," Jedidiah grumbled.

Miss Pan Ho was a grumpy dumpling of a woman who eyed Jedidiah with some distrust until he presented her with the gardenia "to brighten the efficient austerity of her office." A small but flawless emerald shimmered in the heart of the flower. Miss Pan Ho sniffed at the flower with a smile on her face. After pocketing the blossom, she rummaged through a drawer filled with keys and drew out a large one made of lead. She handed it to Jedidiah. There was a tiny slip of paper attached to the key, printed with symbols in the Kara-Tur language.

Then Miss Pan Ho locked her drawers and left the room. Throughout the entire exchange, she never said a word

The paper attached to the lead key, Jedidiah explained, instructed the holder of the key that Door Number of the Hall of Confused Dreams was to be locked when people left at noon to eat and rest. The opposite side explained that if anyone found the key it should be slid under the door of Room of the Hall of Confused Dreams.

"So we're supposed to use the key when no one's there and leave it in the room?" Joel guessed.

"Very good," Jedidiah replied. "A little practice and you could master the fine art of bribery, Kara-Tur style. I'll spend the evening with Shishi, then we'll leave for Sigil in the morning."

With Shishi riding on Jedidiah's shoulder, Joel and Jedidiah returned to where Walinda waited. If the lines had moved, it wasn't by more than three feet. Walinda glared all around her with annoyance.

Jedidiah sauntered up to the priestess. "You won't need to wait anymore. I obtained access to the portal from a friend."

"Good," Walinda replied, stepping out of the line.

Almost instantly the line moved up ten feet.

The three adventurers followed Shishi back to his garden.

The old woman who'd served them tea brought them a dinner of fish, pickled cabbage, and something Jedidiah called noodle soup.

After they'd eaten, Shishi assigned them each a tiny room overlooking his garden. Each room held a woven straw mat with blankets, a wooden pillow, a silk robe, and a low writing table.

Jedidiah announced that he was going off with Shishi to "sing for their supper." Joel offered to accompany him, but Jedidiah suggested quietly that the young bard remain behind in case Walinda needed company.

Joel thought that highly unlikely, since the priestess had remained completely silent throughout the meal, but the young bard nodded in agreement. Immediately after Jedidiah and Shishi left, Walinda retired to her room to rest.

Joel enjoyed the solitude of the garden. With the banelich in another plane, all his worries seemed far away. He tried to compose something on his birdpipes that expressed the harmony he felt in this place of the dead, but jarring notes continued to block the melody. In his head, he knew that this was just the calm before the storm. Sooner than he wished, he and Jedidiah would be confronted with the dilemma of the Hand of Bane. He continued to worry about what choice Jedidiah would make.

When darkness fell upon the garden, the bard retired to his room. He left the door open to the perfumed night air and sat down on his mat. He pulled off his tunic and began unbuttoning his shirt. He wasn't yet tired enough to sleep, but there was nothing else for him to do. He felt suddenly very lonely.

Someone rapped lightly on the wooden frame of his open door. Joel looked up. Walinda stood there, looking as aimless as he felt. She wore nothing but the red silk robe she'd found in her room. She had shed her haughty expression with her armor, and only her facial tattoos and the gem in her forehead served as a reminder of her tyrannical beliefs.

"Do you wish to be alone?" she asked.

"Not really," Joel said with a smile, although the priestess wouldn't have been his first choice of company. "Come on in."

The priestess of Bane slid gracefully into the room. She carried a pottery flask with two small china cups. She set them down on the table and then sat down beside Joel on the mat. She settled to the floor with a little less grace, almost a fall. Joel pulled away a few inches. "What's this?" he asked, nodding at the flask.

"Something to drink," Walinda explained. "It's quite good. Try some."

Joel leaned over and poured a little of the beverage into one of the cups. The liquid was clear and very warm. He brought it up to his lips and sniffed. There was a strong odor of alcohol. He sipped the drink. It was strong and a little acrid.

"Where'd you get this?" the young bard asked.

"The old slave brought it for me," Walinda said. She leaned over and poured herself a full cup.

Joel wondered if Walinda had somehow asked for the drink, or if the servant woman had brought it of her own volition. Of course, there was also the possibility that Jedidiah had recommended to Shishi that it be provided to the priestess.

Walinda held up her cup. "What shall we drink to?" she asked.

Joel thought for a moment. They still didn't have much in common. "To Shishi's hospitality," he suggested.

Walinda nodded and took a drink from her cup. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

Joel took another cautious sip. The beverage was far stronger than anything he was used to drinking.

"What song were you playing in the garden?" Walinda asked.

"I was just trying to compose something. The melody wouldn't come out right."

'Tour god is not with you tonight," Walinda said with a knowing nod, leaving her head hanging down so that she stared into her cup.

"You might say that," Joel replied, trying to hide his grin.

The priestess was oblivious to the bard's amusement. "It is worse for me. I have been with Bane, and now his absence is like a rent in my heart."

"I didn't know you could miss abuse," Joel said caustically.

"Bane is the embodiment of power, of strength. For him to allow any to question his authority would be a demonstration of weakness. The feel of his power is like this drink, sharp and strong. When he shared his power with me, I was happy. Now that he is in another plane, cannot call on him for power."

"You can't cast any spells unless he's near?" Joel asked.

"He is strong, but he is only the essence of the god," Walinda explained. "He cannot send his power across the astral void."

"He doesn't know half of what Jedidiah knows about anything. He's just a banelich using you for his own mad schemes."

Walinda set her hand down on Joel's knee and leaned in closer to the young bard. "My lord Bane said you would try to sway my belief in him, Poppin. He knows you are jealous of his power. He is wise as well as powerful." Her fingers tightened on his knee, her nails poking into his flesh. The scent of the wine about her was cloying.

Joel lifted her hand away and set it on the table. "I couldn't care less about his power. You were the one who came in to talk to me," he pointed out. "Could it be that you have your own doubts? Could it be that you're tired of being the slave of a heartless lich?"

Walinda chuckled. "But the banelich does have a heart, Poppin," she confided with a drunken certainty. She slid her hand into his shirt. "He keeps it here in a small silver box." She pressed her fingers against his breastbone and slid her hand along his ribs.

Joel grabbed at her wrist and once again pulled her hand away from his body, then released it.

Walinda jerked her head up and breathed in deeply. "I am prepared to admit," she said with the exaggerated enunciation of an offended drunk, "that the banelich who holds my lord's essence is not perfect. It has its weaknesses. The fool has borne your mentor's insolence because it is afraid we will not succeed without his help. Desperation and fear are weaknesses not to be tolerated." She downed the rest of the drink in her cup and set it down on the table.

"So why are you helping this weak thing become Bane?" Joel asked.

"When Bane is resurrected, the banelich will not matter. I will be Bane's chosen priest," she whispered excitedly. She put both hands on his face and leaned forward.

Joel clenched his jaw, determined to show no reaction to the priestess's kiss. But Walinda did not kiss him. Instead, she bit him on the lower lip, not too hard, but not gently either.

More than a little frightened, Joel grabbed both her wrists and pulled away. "How do you know Bane won't choose the banelich for his priest?" he asked. "Suppose it really is Bane's essence that's desperate and afraid? Suppose you've enslaved yourself to a weak god who is jealous of your own strength? What kind of weak, desperate fool does that make you?"

Walinda stiffened. "My Lord Bane is power and strength. I will not tolerate your blasphemy." She rose unsteadily to her feet and strode to the door, bumping her shin on the table as she passed. She turned in the doorway. "My only foolishness was expecting you might wish to share in my triumph. When we find the Hand of Bane, you will witness my god's resurrection and see me exalted as his most loyal servant. Then you will know what true power is. I will ask Lord Bane to take you to your god, Poppin, so that you may see what a poor, cheap thing your Finder is beside my lord."

Then she spun about and strode out the door toward her own room.

Joel picked up his cup and held it up. "Here's to you, Finder, you poor, cheap thing," he toasted, then drained the cup. Finder, he knew, would laugh at the irony.

Joel couldn't remember falling asleep. He awoke in a dark place, with a throbbing headache, and realized he was bound hand and foot and slung over the shoulder of some great monster. His insides churned, and he heaved the contents of his dinner and Walinda's liquor down his captor's back.

The creature growled some unknown word, no doubt a curse, and set Joel down, none too gently, on the ground. A lamp shone somewhere in the distance, silhouetting Joel's captor. The bard gasped. The monster was one of the bull-headed soldiers of the Celestial Bureaucracy, a go-zu-oni. The bard wracked his aching head trying to figure out what had happened, why he was being carried off.

The go-zu-oni pulled off its cloak and wiped off the garment with the bottom of Joel's shirt. Joel cried out, and the go-zu-oni stuffed a rag in his mouth, then swung him back over its shoulder.

Joel couldn't see where he was or where they were going. He was having trouble breathing and only wished that the go-zu-oni would set him down again soon. Joel passed out.

He regained consciousness to the sensation of ice-cold lingers stroking his face. He was lying on the ground. Someone holding a lantern hovered over him. Joel squinted in the light, trying to make out the someone's face.

"Yes. This is the one," a familiar voice said.

Joel's eyes widened. It was the banelich who held the lantern. The undead creature's lipless smile, which exposed its brown teeth and yellow tongue, was horrible to see. The young bard shuddered.

The banelich set the lamp on the ground and turned away from Joel to address the go-zu-oni who stood behind him. "You've done well."

"Now you will pay me what you promised," the go-zu-oni demanded.

"Accept your reward," the banelich whispered and reached out to touch the giant creature.

The go-zu-oni gasped and fell to the ground, its face very near Joel's. The creature's eyes were open but unblinking. Blood ran from its mouth, nose, and ears, The banelich had killed it with a touch.

The undead creature bent over Joel again and grabbed a fistful of his hair. Joel tried to wriggle away, but the banelich held him fast. "Now we will see what sort of fool your master is," it said. "I believe he will do anything to purchase your worthless life."

The banelich whispered an unknown word, and a black aura surrounded the fingers of its free hand. It brushed aside Joel's shirt and lay its hand on the bard's chest near his heart.

A searing cold tingled over Joel's flesh, and an agonizing pain shot through his lungs and heart. Joel's scream was stifled by the rag in his mouth.

"I need you alive," the banelich said, "but you must pay for your master's insolence.

Unable to respond, Joel glared up at the undead monster with hatred.

"Yes," the banelich said, removing its hand. "You think you are strong. Torturing you will be delightful. Then I will trade you for the Hand of Bane and still keep your master's stone." The banelich stood up. "I must write your precious Jedidiah a note. When I return, we will journey to the astral plane."

The banelich picked up the lantern and strode $ leaving Joel in the dark. Joel heard the clang of a metal door, then silence.

The chill in Joel's chest was unbearable. He laid his bound hands over his heart, desperate for warmth. He couldn't let the banelich use him to force Jedidiah's surrender of the Hand of Bane. He had to escape, but how? What could he do?

It took him several moments to gather his wits, but finally it occurred to him that first he needed to escape the pain, and to do that he had to cast a spell. That, in turn, meant he must be able to speak. It took him what seemed like an interminably long time to push the rag out of his mouth with his tongue, but he finally succeeded.

He gasped for air, then hastily murmured a healing prayer. Warmth spread across his chest and the pain subsided. Now he was able to think more clearly.

He needed to free himself from his bonds. He wriggled over beside the go-zu-oni's body and, in the dark, began feeling around the creature for a weapon. Joel could find no sharp-edged weapon on the monster. Its body was colder than its armor.

Metal armor can be heated, Joel thought, remembering the spell Jedidiah had taught him. Concentrating on the go-zu-oni's spiked helmet, Joel whispered the words that would warm the metal to a searing red heat.

The stench from the go-zu-oni's hair was awful, but Joel managed to burn away the sisal rope at his wrists and ankles without burning his own flesh too badly. Then he crawled in the direction of the door.

He found the door in the dark. There was no light coining from under or over the door or through the keyhole. Joel put his ear to the door. No sound came from beyond. With no clue to guide him, the bard's only choice was to risk it.

Joel stood up and turned the door handle. The handle turned easily. The door opened soundlessly. Only darkness lay beyond.

With his heart pounding, Joel stepped through the doorway. There was no alarm. He slid along the wall until he spotted a light, not a red light like the lich's lantern emitted, but a bright magical light with a blue tinge. Joel followed the glow.

Suddenly he found himself in the streets of the palace, surrounded by unrecognizable buildings. The blue light came from an iron lamppost. Joel began running through the streets without a clue where he was heading but determined to get as far as possible from the banelich.

He heard footsteps following behind him, and he ran faster. He missed a step down into a courtyard and landed sprawled out on his hands and knees. The footsteps grew closer.

Joel shouted and rolled over. Shishi's servant, the old woman in orange pants and robe, stood over him, hissing furiously with her finger over her lips.

Joel grew instantly quiet. The old woman helped him to his feet, then motioned for him to follow. The bard hurried after her as she led him through a maze of passages and streets until they had once again reached Shishi's garden.

Joel rushed into Walinda's room, but the priestess was out cold, sleeping off the effects of the beverage she'd served him. Joel could smell it all about her. She didn't appear to have had anything to do with her master's plan, but she must have known the banelich hadn't gone to the astral plane—unless the undead creature had left, then returned to arrange Joel's abduction.

Joel turned away from the priestess in disgust. He would question her later. Right now he felt sick and exhausted. The old servant stood outside Walinda's door. On either side of her stood two lion-dogs, not spirits or metallic statues, but flesh-and-blood beasts with sharp teeth and rippling muscles.

"Rest," the servant said. "You have nothing to fear now. You will not be disturbed again."

Joel bowed his thanks and slid into his own room. He fell to the mat and was asleep within minutes.

Jedidiah slid Joel's door open as the Rebel Bard was finishing dressing. "Good morning," the god greeted him with a look of concern on his face. "I understand you had some excitement here last night."

Joel nodded. He told Jedidiah all he remembered about his abduction. Jedidiah's face colored with anger as Joel spoke, but the god listened without comment until Joel finished.

"I was a fool not to expect some treachery from the banelich," Jedidiah said. "I felt safe leaving you alone in Shishi's quarters. Poor Shishi is beside himself with shame that this happened to you while you were his guest. He's called in several favors. The powers-that-be are turning the palace inside out searching for the banelich. The go-zu-oni are desperate to prove their honor in the wake of the shame that one of them was bribed. They're also eager to avenge their comrade's death. If the banelich hasn't fled to the astral plane by now, he's in big trouble. As for Walinda—"

"I'm not sure Walinda had anything to do with it," Joel said. "She seemed really drunk last night . . . but maybe she's just a good actress. Maybe she brought that liquor over intending to get me drunk so the go-zu-oni could carry me off."

The liquor was my fault," Jedidiah admitted. "I asked Shishi to provide her with some. I sensed she would be amenable to a little bottled warmth. I hoped she might be having a crisis of faith and would admit it to you in a weak moment."

Joel shook his head. "No such luck. She wanted someone to stand beside her in awe of Bane's power, to share her triumph with a little celebration. I suggested that Bane—the real thing, not the lich—might be a desperate coward, and she stalked off. If the door didn't slide, she would probably have slammed it behind her."

"You don't think maybe she overreacted for a reason?" Jedidiah asked.

"Because she knew the banelich was listening?" Joel asked.

"No," Jedidiah replied. "Because she secretly suspects that Bane may not be all she hopes for."

Joel had to mull that one over for a minute. "I'm not sure," he said finally. "I just can't understand why she tolerates the banelich's treatment of her."

"If it really holds the essence of Bane, the banelich makes her feel strong, despite its abuse of her. When we first met the banelich, remember how it painwracked Jas and Holly, but you managed to stand against its power?"

Joel nodded with understanding. "I looked at you and felt strong," he said. "But I didn't know you were a god then."

"It doesn't matter," Jedidiah said. "You took strength from my presence. Walinda would feel the same in her god's presence."

"Maybe she just thinks she's stronger," Joel said. "She mentioned that Bane couldn't grant her spells when the banelich was in the astral plane," Joel said. "You don't suppose that Bane has never been the one to grant her spells, do you? Isn't there some spell that allows a priest to give spells to someone who isn't a priest?"

"Yes," Jedidiah said. "But that still leaves the question of who's giving the banelich its own spells."

"I hadn't thought of that," Joel said.

"Walinda's still sleeping. Let's go out in the garden for breakfast," Jedidiah said.

Joel followed Jedidiah into the garden. On the little island in the middle of the pond, someone had set a tray with bread and honey and milk and berries. After they had eaten, Joel related in detail his conversation with Walinda. When he mentioned Walinda's comment about the banelich keeping its heart in a silver box, Jedidiah sat straight up and his eyes widened. A low whistle escaped his lips.

"I never imagined just how crazy the banelich really was," Jedidiah said.

"Why? What does the silver box mean?" Joel asked.

"It's his phylactery," Jedidiah explained. "It holds a lich's immortality. A lich usually keeps it hidden carefully away. If you destroy a lich's body, it reforms in a day or so around the phylactery. The only way to really kill the lich is to destroy its phylactery. By carrying it with him, the lich is taking a tremendous risk. If he's killed, he won't be able to come back."

"Then it would be easy to kill him?" Joel asked excitedly.

Jedidiah shook his head. "A phylactery explodes when it's destroyed. Kills anyone near it. It would definitely destroy the finder's stone. The lich is so arrogant about its power, it doesn't believe anyone would dare attack it."

"Or it could just be too paranoid to give the phylactery to Walinda," Joel supposed.

Jedidiah nodded. "It wants her completely enslaved to its will. We were talking about the strength Walinda feels when she's near the lich. I think her longing for that strength is one of the reasons the banelich insisted on sending her with us," the older priest said. "Despite the talk about her 'supervising" us, it has to know she's no match for the two of us should we decide to take the upper hand. It's relying on her desire for Bane's presence to strengthen her loyalty. Of course, it's playing a dangerous game, risking her soul with heretics like us."

"Why?" Joel asked.

"Not being a god, the banelich can't feel it, but the strengthening cuts both ways. Walinda can strengthen Bane with her devotion. Without it, the resurrected god will be weakened."

Joel looked up at Jedidiah curiously. "Do you feel strengthened by my devotion?"

Jedidiah nodded. "They say that every time someone mentions a god's name, whether in curse or in prayer, he is strengthened. Without his name being spoken, a god fades. But the prayers of the faithful, particularly the prayers of a priest, are much more important. And when those prayers come from the god's chosen priests, that brings a special power." Jedidiah paused and looked out over the water. "That's why I had to stand up to the banelich in the desert when you called on me," he continued, "even though you used my false name. The strength you made me feel was something my heart couldn't deny, even though my reason told me I was taking a tremendous risk."

"Didn't you care about Jas or Holly?" Joel asked with a stab of irritation.

"Yes, but not enough to risk you. That's why I'm going to Sigil with you, because I can't bear to risk having you going in alone."

"How will you be able to do that?" Joel asked, suddenly uneasy, remembering that Jedidiah had said he had a reckless trick that might get him into the City of Doors.

"First do me a favor. Sing me the tulip song."

Joel's scrunched his face up in confusion.

"Humor me," Jedidiah asked.

The Rebel Bard sighed. He cleared his throat. Then he sang, no longer hesitating over the oddness of the tune or the words. He sang the song with confidence from beginning to end.

"Excellent," Jedidiah said. He stepped out of the pavilion and pulled the saurial's half of the finder's stone from his boot.

Jedidiah uttered some words completely unknown to Joel. Then he began singing a scale, each note perfect and distinct, his voice rising over and over again. As he sang, his body began to steam, just as it had when Joel had watched him store his power into his own half of the finder's stone. Now, instead of blue, the steam was a myriad of colors, ranging through the whole spectrum, as if a rainbow were flowing from his body and being sucked up by the stone.

Joel watched in fascination until Jedidiah swayed and nearly fell forward into the pond. The young bard leapt up and steadied his god with his hands on his arms. Jedidiah looked exhausted. He also looked old-not as old as when Joel had first met him, but older than he had appeared moments ago. There was something else odd about him. Somehow, to the young priest, he no longer seemed like Finder.

'Jedidiah," Joel asked in a frightened whisper, "what did you just do?"

"Since gods can't get into Sigil, I stopped being a god," the old man explained. "Remember when I told you that the stolen half of the finder's stone holds the power that give me the godly abilities to sense what's going on around me, and around you, and the ability to teleport and to cast any spell?"

Joel nodded.

Jedidiah held up the finder's stone. "Well, now this half of the stone contains the power to use all the abilities that I had left—all my remaining godly endowments: my ability to grant you spells, my ability to shapeshift, even my immortality. Now I should be able to get into Sigil... I hope."

"But—but—" Joel stammered, "how could you be so reckless? What if something happens to you? You could die!"

"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that," Jedidiah said. "But if it does, then this can help you to resurrect me. Just as the Hand of Bane can restore Bane, this stone will restore me. You and Copperbloom must take the stone to the astral plane, find my body, and sing the song for my rebirth."

"Why couldn't you just let me go to Sigil alone with Walinda?" Joel asked in exasperation. He pulled his hands way from Jedidiah's arms. "Don't you think I can handle the job?"

"Joel, there are going to be protections around the Hand of Bane. Some guardian, probably several. That's why Bane needs us to get it. Why risk his priestess's life when he can risk mine or yours? And besides that danger, you'd still have Walinda to contend with. She's a vicious, selfish woman, determined to have her way. She maybe without spells, but she is by no means powerless. She would arrange some way to keep you for herself whether you were willing or not. Or if Bane requested it, she would relish sacrificing you, in the most horrible manner imaginable, to gain his favor."

"But you're mortal now. You're taking the same risks," Joel argued.

Jedidiah's shoulders sagged like a beaten man. Ten years ago, when I became a god, all I really wanted was immortality. Well, immortality plus eternal youth. I hadn't planned on becoming a god. It just happened. I'm not saying I wasn't pleased, but until that moment in the desert when you called on me, I'd never really understood what being a god meant. Joel, there isn't any point in my being a god without you. Not to me"

Joel looked down, embarrassed by Jedidiah's confession.

"Anyway, now we travel just as friends," Jedidiah said. "I hope."

Joel looked up and smiled. "Always," he said.

Jedidiah held out the finder's stone. "You have to carry this now. I trust you to do a better job holding on to it than I did holding on to the other half."

Joel took the stone. It felt warm to the touch. Inside, a tiny light seemed to pulse with a life of its own. Joel tucked the stone into his shirt. He and Jedidiah spent the rest of the morning singing songs in the garden.

Walinda woke shortly before it was time for them to leave. If she was surprised to see Joel, she didn't show it. At Jedidiah's suggestion, they made no mention of the abduction.

Shishi accompanied them to the Hall of Confused Dreams, where they would find the portal to Sigil. Walinda was quiet and sullen, as if she really were suffering from a hangover.

As they approached the door to Room , Jedidiah drew out the key he'd bribed from Miss Pan Ho. He unlocked the door. The room was empty save for a shimmering gray portal against one wall.

Shishi blinked by the doorway. "Thanks for the songs, Finder," the spirit said. "Er—priest of Finder," he added quickly.

Walinda, her eyes closed, appeared oblivious to the exchange.

"Farewell, Shishi. Until we meet again," Jedidiah said, bowing to the lion-dog spirit.

Shishi twinkled once, then zipped away.

Jedidiah shut the door and locked it, leaving the key on the floor just before the door. Then he turned about to face the magical portal to Sigil. He motioned for Walinda to step through first.

The priestess disappeared in the portal as if she had been swallowed by quicksand.

"Let me go through next," Jedidiah said, "just so I'm sure you're not there alone with Walinda, in case I can't get through."

Joel nodded. Jedidiah stepped through the portal and disappeared just as Walinda had.

The Rebel Bard took a deep breath and followed his Mend through the doorway into the city of Sigil.

 

Fifteen

Sigil

 

The three questing adventurers found themselves on a sandstone-paved street between two rows of dingy, cramped stone houses with iron bars covering the windows. The wall from which they emerged was covered with a collage of tattered paper sheets, each imploring the reader to purchase some item or other for reasons of health, wealth, or love. Joel placed his hand on the wall and discovered that it was solid from this side. That was just as well, since the chaos all around them had no place in the Palace of Judgment. People and creatures of all sorts bustled through the streets on foot or in sedan chains, or even a few in carriages drawn by haggard, long-eared ponies. None of the passersby seemed to take any care to avoid any of the other living obstacles in their way. They simply shoved through the crowd or ran it down.

More disturbing than the rudeness of its citizens was the city's air. While the air of the Outlands had seemed to Joel fresh and new, the air of Sigil tasted used and thin, as if breathed by a million lungs and tainted by a hundred diseases. Scents of every sort assailed Joel's nose: food, sweat, sewage, smoke ... mostly smoke. The light fog hanging in the air was gray with smoke. Joel found it necessary to breathe twice as fast as normal. Jedidiah tried to take a deep breath and was caught up in a coughing fit.

Walinda, apparently oblivious to the foul air, was looking at the buildings that surrounded them. "Everything is leaning in toward us," the priestess remarked.

Joel and Jedidiah surveyed the street. Indeed, everything did seem to tilt in their direction, as if they were in the bottom of a great bowl. Joel realized they were inside a torus—the ring they had seen from the Outlands. The city of Sigil curled up around them wherever they were, and the buildings that were built perpendicular to the inner surface of the torus would always look tilted unless the visitors were standing inside the buildings or very near to them. Joel looked straight up, hoping to see the part of the city that must hang above them, but the fog obscured the view in every direction.

The passersby, mostly cloaked and hooded against the chill of the air, completely ignored them—except for one. A blue-skinned elf with pointed teeth, wearing a cloak with great padded shoulders, sidled up beside Joel. "Core, guv'nor. Yer orbing the scenery," he said. "You clueless?"

Puzzled, Joel turned and addressed the elf. "Excuse me?"

"Wot, yer barmy?" the elf asked, tilting his head slightly. "I asked if you were clueless, cutter. Newly arrived to the Cage. Out-of-towner, by the fresh smell on you. Looking for a kip and a bit of a ride, I bet."

The three adventurers exchanged questioning looks.

"Do either of you have magic to understand his tongue?" Walinda asked.

"I don't think a spell would help," Jedidiah grumbled. "This is the local dialect." Passersby continued to ignore them, save for the elf. "Ah! Definitely clueless!" the elf exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "Fortunately for you lot, I'm a most well-lanned tout and knight of the post in the Cage, which is the native name for Sigil, berk. Top-shelf, I am. Guaranteed to get you where you need to be for a bit of jink or a sparkle. I got maps to all the major portals, the passwords of the best kips, and a full listing of all the factions. Can't tell the Dustmen from the Godsmen without one. I got a special today on holy relics. I got the toenails of Mordenkainen, the eye of Tiamat, the Hand of Bane, and the vorpal chiv of Arthur hisself—"

Walinda laughed. "You have the Hand of Bane?" she asked, her tone implying she thought the possibility most improbable.

"Of course," the elf replied, straightening with pride. "It's what every sod in the Cage is hunting for. Got it right in here." He patted a large pouch beneath his cloak. "Let's move to a blind and we can negotiate."

"You'll be in the deadbook if you try that, berks!" a rasping, high-pitched voice cried out. A female dwarf barreled out of a doorway and plodded over to them. "He's in the cross-trade, looking for conies."

The elf wheeled on her. "Bar that! I'm their tout here, and I resent your implication."

The dwarf snorted. "You're just after their jink. Then you'll give 'em the laugh. Besides, everyone knows I have the Hand o' Bane."

Jedidiah raised his eyebrows and glanced at Walinda. The priestess sneered but made no comment.

"Shut yer bone-box!" the elf snapped. "I got the hand. You've got a piece of Vecna. At least that's what you told the last bit of berks you turned stag on."

"Here's the dark of it," the dwarf growled to the elf. "You're on the peel, and peery peel at that. 'I got the Hand of Bane; just step inta the alley' indeed. They'd tumble to you in a dabus's heartbeat."

"Scan this, rube," the elf snarled. 'These are my conies, and I'm gonna keep 'em. So sod off with that Hand of Bane bob and go to the mazes."

Jedidiah took a step backward. The two natives failed to notice as they continued to argue in their nearly impenetrable native language. He set one hand on Joel's shoulder and the other on Walinda's. Priest and priestess looked back at the older man, who made a backward jerking motion with his head. Joel and Walinda stepped back from the disputing pair. Then all three stepped backward two more steps. Then, as one, the three spun about and stepped into the flow of the pedestrian traffic. Both elf and dwarf remained oblivious to the loss of their would-be customers.

"Where are we headed?" the priestess asked.

"For the moment, we're just heading away," Jedidiah replied. "Stay alert and don't gawk. That's probably what marked us as tourists."

"Any other sage advice?" Walinda retorted sarcastically.

Jedidiah shook his head wearily. "I've never been here before, but an old friend once gave me some pointers. Number one is if a woman wearing cutlery on her head walks towards you, turn and run in the opposite direction."

They walked on for about half a mile, keeping their eyes forward, until the surrounding neighborhood improved. The streets here were free of debris and paved with white granite. The buildings were larger and less tightly squeezed together. The shouts from pedestrians on the streets were less vulgar. The gray fog, however, was just as dense.

"What's this 'Hand o' Bane' look like?" Jedidiah asked Walinda, mimicking the speech of the dwarf.

Walinda's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but after a moment's thought, she said, "I will show you." From inside her breastplate, she pulled out the page she'd stolen from the book in the Temple in the Sky. She unfolded the page and showed it to Joel and Jedidiah. Beneath some writing, in a language Joel could not read, there was a painting of a taloned hand.

"The hand is about twice the size of an average man's hand," Walinda explained. "It is carved from obsidian. The claws are fashioned from pieces of garnet."

"Now that you know what it looks like, try the stone," Jedidiah told Joel. "Look bored and indifferent, as if you're measuring the town for a sewer survey or something."

Joel pulled out the saurials' half of the finder's stone. Walinda stared curiously, realizing it was identical to the half her master held, but she said nothing.

Joel concentrated on the Hand of Bane, and a light beam immediately lanced from the gem off to their right and upward through the fog.

"It must be in a tower," Walinda said.

"Not necessarily," Joel replied. "The beacon could just be following the straightest line to another spot on the curve of the city." He slid the stone back inside his tunic.

They couldn't follow the beam directly, so they meandered along the streets, trying to maintain the same general direction. Often they had to turn in a different direction to avoid buildings or dead ends. Finally they paused before a huge statue of a three-eyed horse surrounded by armed guards.

"Better take another reading," Jedidiah suggested. "We could have gotten turned about some."

They were indeed off the correct heading by several degrees. The angle of the light beam had lowered considerably—an indication, Joel thought, that they were getting closer. They corrected their direction and walked on.

After they'd passed through what seemed like miles of meandering city streets, Joel drew out the finder's stone again. Now the angle of the beam was not very steep at all.

"We're in the neighborhood," Joel whispered excitedly.

"We're also being followed," Walinda said calmly. "Oh?" Jedidiah replied with a tone of disinterest.

The tall, pale individual in heavy armor," the priestess of Bane said. "Wearing a skullcap helmet and a thin little sword. He's been with us for at least half a mile. To your right."

Joel glanced to his right immediately. Jedidiah was more casual. The individual Walinda mentioned was talking to a fruit merchant, holding up a pear and examining it as if it were a diamond. His skin was as white as moonlight.

"At the next intersection, let's turn left," Jedidiah suggested. "We'll see if we can lose him."

Joel glanced back once they'd made the turn. The pale warrior was still following them. The adventurers increased their speed and turned left once more, then made a dash to the next corner and made yet another left turn.

Joel looked back. "We've lost him," he said.

They had almost reached the street where they'd taken their last reading when the tall, pale man popped around the corner just in front of them. Joel and Walinda started. Even Jedidiah looked surprised by his sudden appearance.

"Excuse my imposition," their stalker said. He was choosing his words slowly, as if he wasn't speaking his native tongue. Besides being inhumanly pale, the man had cat's eyes and unusually long, slender fingers. "Are you priests of Finder or Bane?" he asked.

Jedidiah sighed. He pointed to Joel and himself and said, "We're priests of Finder." Then he indicated Walinda. "She's a priestess of Bane."

The pale man in armor bowed low. "I was told to expect you," he said. "And a fourth one, a dead one?"

"He couldn't make it," Joel answered before Walinda could muddy the issue concerning the lich.

"Very well," the pale man answered. "I am Bors. You are to come with me, please."

"Excuse me," Joel said, "but why are we to come with you, please?" Bors smiled. "She wishes to see you," he explained.

"She?" Joel asked.

"Come. She will explain all," the pale man insisted. "Please."

Joel glanced at his companions. Walinda looked suspicious; Jedidiah merely shrugged.

"Very well," Joel said. "We will come with you, please. Lead us to her, whoever she is." He fell in beside Bors. Jedidiah and Walinda followed.

"I don't like this," the priestess muttered.

"Neither do I," Joel replied, "but if someone knows about us, I'd rather know who and why than not know."

Their new guide led them into an area with wider streets and even larger buildings, surrounded by iron fences. There were no vendors in the streets, and the pedestrians and sedan chairs moved along in a more sedate fashion. It had all the signs of being the neighborhood of the wealthy and noble.

At the door to a modest house, at least compared to those that surrounded it, Bors halted. "She is here," he said.

The three adventurers hesitated before the ornate doorway decorated with stone gargoyles and other monsters. Their guide motioned for them to enter.

"If this is a trick," Walinda whispered, "and we are forced to flee and become separated, I will meet you near the big horse statue."

Joel nodded.

The door swung open suddenly to reveal a familiar figure wearing a bright red robe.

"It's about time you got here. It seems like I've been waiting forever," Holly Harrowslough declared. She smiled at Joel and Jedidiah, ignoring Walinda. "Come on inside and I'll fill you in."

The interior of the parlor into which Holly led them was spartan and neat. The walls were painted a flat white. The mantel and stonework about the fireplace were of white marble. The carpeting was white wool.

The few pieces of furniture in the room were made of light-colored wood. The only splash of color in the room was a painting over the fireplace of a large red sphere, which seemed to hover in front of the wall.

At Holly's invitation, they sat around a low table made of blond ash. Holly sat with them. Bors stood in the doorway.

"This is a Sensate safe house," the paladin said. "Sensates dedicate their lives to living completely in the here and now," she explained. "They're always seeking new sensations, new experiences, new perspectives. They feel it gives them a greater grasp of the world around them. They use this place as a sort of a retreat, a place to cleanse their mental palate between forays into especially intense sensational experiences."

"'Especially intense sensational experiences,' "Jedidiah repeated with a chuckle. "Is that a euphemism for a debauch?"

"No!" Holly protested. "Well . . . yes, sometimes," she corrected herself. "The Sensates aren't just a bunch of hedonists, though. They don't believe in a cynical repetition of the same sensation. But they certainly wouldn't say no to a debauch if they'd never tried one before."

"A fitting place for a paladin of Lathander," Walinda stated, "a god revered for his enthusiastic beginnings, but who never actually accomplishes anything."

Holly's eyes narrowed at Walinda's words, but then she smiled. "You should try it sometime, Walinda," the paladin suggested. "Exploring new sensations can be quite liberating. From what Jas told me about you, I suspect it might help you grow beyond your pathetic need to be abused and to abuse others in return."

Walinda stared daggers at the girl. "You are a fool," she replied.

"This is fascinating," Jedidiah interrupted before the conversation grew any more hostile, "but you haven't told us how you got here."

"Well, when I arrived I encountered Bors. He's a paladin from another world, but he's made Sigil his home. He's a Sensate. He brought me here. He and his friends have kept a lookout for your arrival."

Joel was more than a little impressed. He had never doubted that Holly was a remarkable girl. Now she seemed even more so. She was vibrant and completely self-assured. Joel also knew her well enough to know that she was being evasive about something.

"But how did you get to Sigil?" the young bard asked. "And what happened to Jas?"

"Jas is fine," Holly said. "I left her in good hands. I got here by a portal, one that brought me straight to Sigil. I can't imagine why you had to go all the way through the Outlands. Bors says that Sigil is full of portals to other worlds."

"The lich wanted to use Cat's Gate," Jedidiah said, "no doubt because it was large enough to accommodate the spelljammer."

"So where's the ship? And where's the lich?" Holly asked.

"We lost the ship," Jedidiah explained. "The lich is in the astral plane, searching for Bane's body. He still has my half of the finder's stone."

"So you're still looking for the Hand of Bane?" Holly asked.

Jedidiah nodded.

"You might have a little problem there," Holly said. "I'm afraid that when I arrived, I was less than discreet in my initial inquiries. Several of Bors's friends among the Sensates offered to help, since searching for an ancient artifact would be a new experience for them. They took to it a little too enthusiastically, though, and ended up creating a market for Hands of Bane. Now half the thieves of Sigil have at least one Hand of Bane in their inventory. Usually it's the hand of some poor unfortunate they've knifed in the alley."

"You did this to make our task more difficult," Walinda said icily.

"No I didn't," Holly retorted. "Can I help it if I'm just too open and trusting?" Then she smiled slyly. "But I couldn't have come up with a better stratagem if I'd actually planned it. I should warn you, I tried divinations to locate the hand, but had no luck. It must be protected by some special magic. Many of the Sensates who were helping me have given up because they became bored or frustrated with our lack of progress. They did discover an old tiefling who claims that several hundred years ago there was a temple to Bane in the Market Ward, but it's gone now."

"We have a way to track the hand," Jedidiah said. "In the meantime, since Sigil is full of portals, as you say, it would be useful if you could discover for us a portal to the astral plane."

Holly looked to Bors.

The Shattered Temple," the Sensate paladin said. "The Athar give tours featuring dead gods."

Holly chuckled. "The Athar are mostly disillusioned priests. They spend their time trying to prove the gods aren't divine. Amusing, no?"

"Hilarious," Jedidiah replied, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

"So how are you tracking the Hand of Bane?" Holly asked. "With the other half of the finder's stone?"

Joel nodded. "Perhaps we should wait until night to continue," the young bard suggested to Jedidiah. "After people are asleep."

"There is no real night here," Holly explained. "Only a period where the smoke turns from light gray to dark gray. There will still be plenty of people out at night. They'll just be a different type."

"Well, we'll wait for the dark gray anyway," Jedidiah said, rising slowly. "Because right now I need some rest."

"I, too, require rest," Walinda said.

Bors showed the priest and priestess to rooms where they could lie down. Joel remained behind with Holly. "Jedidiah doesn't look well," the paladin noted. "He looks like something's sucked all the energy out of him."

"He was up late last night singing," Joel explained, although it was uncanny the way she had actually described exactly what had happened to Jedidiah.

"And Walinda?" Holly asked.

"Walinda had a little too much of some strong Kara-Turan drink," Joel said. He related to Holly their adventures since they'd left her, without, of course, mentioning Finder's loss of godhood. He also left out any mention of his previous evening's conversation with Walinda. Holly, in turn, described to him some of what she had learned about Sigil: its political factions, its geography, its primary places of interest.

Sometime near antipeak, the Sigil midnight, the four Realms adventurers set out with the finder's stone. The stone led them to an alley behind a bookshop on Copperman's Way.

"We're being watched again," Walinda said. "I can feel it."

"We're always being watched," Holly said. "This is Sigil. Watching is the city's favorite pastime, right up there with rat-baiting and cheating customers."

Joel used the finder's stone again in the alley. The beacon of light lanced from the stone straight down to the ground.

"Subterranean tomb, or perhaps a hidden shrine," Jedidiah guessed.

"Or it could have just been buried when they built the road," Holly suggested. "Bors said that they often just build the street up, making first floors into basements and basements into subbasements."

"I would prefer to keep our business out of the public eye," Jedidiah said. "Let's see if we can't find a more private means of excavation than digging in the street."

The four adventurers circled around to the front of the shop. A sign over the front door read, Dits's Books. They entered the front door. There were shelves and shelves of tomes of all sizes. At the moment, the shop was empty of customers.

The proprietor, Bits, was a bariaur, a creature with the body of a mountain sheep and the upper torso of a man, with a ram's horns on his head. He lowered his head and peered at them over the rims of a pair of blue-tinted eyeglasses. "Can I help you?" he inquired.

"Perhaps," Jedidiah said. "We, um, need to dig in your basement. We're willing to pay you for the privilege and for any inconvenience, of course."

"Indeed," the bariaur replied, as if there was nothing very unusual in the man's request. "Why?"

"It's a long story," Joel said.

The bariaur's eyes lit up. "Long stories are my specialty."

Surprisingly, they came to an agreement rather quickly after that. Bits consented to the excavation, provided they paid him a sizable sum of gold and related to him the story behind why they were digging in his basement.

"Why does he need to know the story?" Walinda asked suspiciously. "What difference does it make to him?"

"He's a bookseller," Holly said with a sigh of exasperation. "He probably writes books, too. A good hero's tale is worth a lot of money in Sigil. The populace eats them up, so to speak."

The bariaur led the group down an iron staircase. Jedidiah pulled out a light stone to reveal an empty, windowless basement with walls of fitted stone and a dirt floor. The finder's stone beacon pointed toward the base of the back wall. Just above the beacon was a black granite archway sealed with mortared red brick.

"I don't come down here often," Bits declared. "It's too damp to store books. Tried renting it to some Anarchists, but they said it was haunted and moved out. Never saw a ghost myself, though I sat here for a few nights waiting for one. Very disappointing."

"We'll need some tools to break through this wall," Jedidiah said.

"I can arrange that," Holly said.

"I will go with you," Walinda added.

"That's all right. I don't need any help," the paladin replied.

"But I need to be sure you are not mustering your hedonist friends to attack us and steal the Hand of Bane for yourself," Walinda retorted.

"Fine," Jedidiah said. "Go. Joel, you can start paying this man by telling him our story."

"What will you be doing?" Joel asked.

"Thinking," the older man replied.

Holly, Walinda, Joel, and Dits climbed back up to the ground-floor level. After Walinda and Holly left the shop, the bariaur led Joel into a back room. The shopkeeper settled himself in a nest of pillows in front of a low writing desk, lifted a quill pen, and poised it over a huge roll of parchment. "Whenever you're ready," he said.

Joel began his tale in Berdusk, explaining how he'd met and become friends with Jedidiah, how he'd become a priest of Finder, and how he'd started out on his pilgrimage to the Lost Vale. He ended with his arrival in Sigil, his reunion with Holly, and their tracking of the Hand of Bane to Dits's basement.

Dits recorded Joel's story word for word, with an amazingly quick hand and in a fluid script. When he'd caught up with Joel's last words, he stopped and sat back. "There's something missing," Dits said. "Something you're not telling me. I can sense these things."

Joel started. He had, of course, deliberately left out the secret of Jedidiah's true identity and how the half of the finder's stone he now held possessed all the god's remaining powers.

"There are things I can't talk about," the young bard admitted.

"But the story isn't true without them," Dits objected in an annoyed tone. "And it's not finished, either."

"Not yet," Joel agreed.

The bariaur set down his quill and removed his eyeglasses. He bit down on the wire rims encircling the lenses. "I must have all the facts, including the ending," he insisted. "You'll have to come back and tell me what happens to you in the astral plane. You must also tell me what's missing."

Joel thought for a moment. Once they'd taken care of their business with the banelich, Finder's identity would no longer be at risk. The god would once again possess all his powers. "When I get back from the astral plane, I'll tell you what I've left out," he promised Dits.

"Ah. Time-sensitive material. I understand," the bariaur said. "Don't die on me," he said as he blotted the ink on his scroll dry. The parchment he rolled into two halves, the part that held Joel's story and the part that would hold the story's ending and Jedidiah's secret. "Please try to come back alive. I hate it when I have to change narrative voice in the middle of a manuscript. It's very disruptive."

Joel shuddered. It was certainly possible that he might die, he realized. They would have to contend with the banelich in the astral plane. And the banelich wasn't his only worry. Some other fearsome monster must protect the Hand of Bane. Jedidiah might die, too. The bard tried to mentally shake the notion from his head.

The sharp slam of the shop's front door brought Joel and Dits to their feet. Walinda was shouting his name. Her voice sounded terrified.

Jedidiah came running up the steps as Joel and Dits arrived in the front room. Walinda stood at the counter, bent over, gasping for air. She dropped a huge sledgehammer on the floor.

"What's wrong?" Joel asked.

"We were attacked," the priestess said without looking up.

"Who attacked you?" Jedidiah demanded.

Walinda shook her head. "I don't know," she gasped. "It happened in a dark street. Something fell on me from above and clawed at my throat. Holly hit it with her pickax, and it turned on her. I ran here."

"You left Holly behind in the street?" Joel said angrily.

"There was nothing I could do," Walinda protested. "I have no spells."

"You could have hit whatever it was with this sledgehammer," Joel growled, kicking at the tool she'd dropped at her feet.

"It's too heavy to wield accurately. Whatever attacked us was fast and huge. There may have been more than one. It was too dark to tell. I ran all the way here for help," Walinda shouted back.

"Show us where," Jedidiah said grimly. "We'll be back," he told Bits.

The priestess led them to a dark spot in a narrow lane several blocks from the bookshop.

There was no one around. Jedidiah bent over and retrieved a large pickax that lay in the street, the only indication that Holly had ever been there.

"It's taken her!" Joel exclaimed.

"Use the stone," Jedidiah said calmly.

Joel nodded. He pulled out the finder's stone and thought of the paladin. The beacon shone in the direction of the ward where the Sensate safe house was located.

"She's still alive," Jedidiah declared.

They followed the beacon. It led them right to the Sensate safe house.

Joel dashed inside, shouting the paladin's name.

Holly lay on the white carpet, staining the wool red with her blood. Bors knelt beside her, sewing closed a great gash in the girl's stomach. He used a glowing golden needle that, although unthreaded, left a trace of golden stitches in Holly's flesh. It was a magic Joel had never seen before. Some sort of magic from Sigil, or perhaps from Bors's homeworld, Joel guessed.

The three waited anxiously for the Sensate paladin to finish. When he looked up, Jedidiah asked, "What happened?

"I heard Holly scream," Bors said. "I saw this one run off" He pointed at Walinda. "Then I found Holly in the street, left for dead."

"You were following us," Walinda declared in an accusatory tone.

"Lucky I was," Bors replied coldly.

"Did you see what attacked them?" Joel asked.

Bors shook his head.

Joel gave the priestess of Bane a suspicious glare.

Sensing what the bard must be thinking, Walinda went on the defensive. "It was not I," she declared. "Look." She showed them claw marks streaking her throat and arms. "Besides, if I had attacked her, I would not have left the job half finished. Use your power to heal her and she will tell you so herself. Perhaps she got a better look at whatever it was."

"We can't heal her," Jedidiah explained. "Finder's power doesn't appear to extend to this place."

Walinda sniffed haughtily. "I told you he was a petty god," she said to Joel.

"At least he's not a dead god," Joel barked back.

Jedidiah knelt beside the girl. "Most of these are superficial cuts, as if whatever it was was just trying to hold Holly back. The belly wound seems the most life-threatening injury, aside from the loss of blood."

Holly moaned softly. Then her eyes blinked open.

"Holly," Joel asked, "are you all right?"

The girl moaned again.

"What attacked you?" Walinda demanded.

"Black thing. Furry, with wings," the young paladin whispered. "Like Bear."

"Bear!" Joel gasped. "That's impossible. We cremated him. Holly, are you sure?"

Holly shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. She turned her head toward Bors and said no more.

"She must rest," Bors insisted. "Yes," Jedidiah agreed. He stood up. "And we must get back to work," he said, taking up the pickax he'd retrieved from the street. "Joel, Walinda, let's go. Bors will look after Holly."

"I will stay," Walinda said.

"What?" Joel asked.

"I have been injured myself," the priestess of Bane said, "and you cannot heal me. I have no spells. I would be more hindrance than help. I will nurse the girl. I am better at causing wounds than healing them, but I do know something of the art."

Jedidiah examined the priestess with a jaundiced eye, but after a moment he nodded. "We'll return when we've found something," he said. Then the older priest wheeled about and headed for the door. Joel followed in his wake.

Joel and Jedidiah walked back toward the Market Ward in the dark fog.

"That was strange, wasn't it?" Joel asked the older man.

"What?" Jedidiah replied.

"Walinda offering to nurse Holly."

"Oh, that. Indeed it was," Jedidiah replied.

"I would have thought she'd want to be there when we found the hand no matter how wounded she was."

"Unless the banelich has warned her that there may be a deadly guardian protecting the hand," Jedidiah pointed out.

"What do you think attacked Holly?"

"I don't think it was Bear. It could be another dark stalker. If the priests of Iyachtu Xvim caught wind of what Walinda was up to, they might have decided to send an agent here to prevent Bane's resurrection. Walinda said the creature attacked her first, and it left Holly once Walinda was gone."

"It left Holly for dead," Joel pointed out.

"But it didn't leave her dead. Did you notice Holly was crying?"

Joel nodded. "She must be in terrible pain."

"She turned her head away," Jedidiah said.

Joel thought about that for a moment. "Do you think she knows something she's not telling us? What could it be?"

"I think we should hurry back to the shop, just in case."

From some shadows off to their right, something hissed. Then, in his head, Joel heard a voice speak their names: Joel. Finder.

Jedidiah was brought up short, apparently having heard the same voice using his real name. Joel halted beside him, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

A figure glided out from behind the curtain of fog. It wore a robe of crimson, ornately trimmed in gold. A red fez with a gold tassel crowned its octopuslike head. It was a mind flayer, what Jas called an illithid, one of Ilsensine's chosen master race.

You are Finder, it stated in their heads.

Joel noticed that the left side of the mind flayer's ten-tacled face twitched, as if from palsy.

I am a servant of Lord Ilsensine, the illithid explained. Its face twitched some more. We seek a boon from you.

"I have paid my debt to your lord," Jedidiah replied cautiously. "I have no further desire to deal with him."

He needs to deal with you. The mind flayer waved its tentacles anxiously. He begs for your indulgence.

"Begs?" Jedidiah replied with amused surprise. "Why would the greatest mind in the universe need to beg?"

Your song . . . The illithid's face started to twitch faster; the tentacles writhed as if in pain. After a moment the twitching slowed, and the illithid said, Your song. It doesn't end. It keeps on going, and my lord cannot get it out of his mind.

"That's not my problem," Jedidiah said. "He wanted it."

Please take the song back. It is spreading to us,

Ilsensine's faithful priests, when we pray for spells. It is driving us mad.

"All sales are final," Jedidiah replied with a chuckle.

My lord says he will grant you a boon, the illithid replied, if you will take the song back. Anything you need to know. Gods have traded one of their eyes for such knowledge.

Jedidiah paused for a moment, then said, "There are two things I need to know."

Agreed, the mind flayer cried out in their heads without hesitation.

"Very well," Jedidiah said.

The mind flayer moved in close to Jedidiah. It extended its facial tentacles. The tips of the tentacles glowed with the same green radiance as Ilsensine had. The tentacles stroked Jedidiah's face, then plunged deep beneath the flesh, passing ethereally into his brain. After a moment, they withdrew, leaving Jedidiah's flesh unscarred.

In his head, Joel heard the mind flayer sigh. The creature's palsy had evaporated.

The mind flayer stepped back and bowed deeply. The answer to your first question is no, it said. The answer to your second question .. .The creature tilted his head. He does not know. Good-bye, Finder Wyvernspur.

The illithid slid back into the fog, disappearing within moments.

Jedidiah stood staring after it wordlessly, the blood draining from his face. His expression was one of extreme sadness.

"Jedidiah," Joel whispered. "Are you all right?"

The older man nodded, but he appeared distracted.

"What was that all about?" Joel asked.

Jedidiah sighed. He turned to Joel with a wan smile. "Remember in Shishi's garden, when I thought I remembered that I had a plan? I did. I gave Ilsensine a recursive song, a tuneful little ditty in which the last verse leads directly back into the first, forming a closed loop. Ilsensine couldn't get the tune out of his head and with his powerful brain, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Then, his mind power being what it is, it spread to his priests."

Joel thought of the times when he'd been unable to stop humming some silly ditty for days, sometimes weeks at a time. It had interfered with everything else he had tried to do. The younger bard chuckled. It would be a long time before Ilsensine poked around in a god's mind again. Then he remembered the other mystery. "What about the questions?" he asked. "What were your questions? You looked disappointed by the answers."

Jedidiah was silent for a moment, then said "They only confirmed what I already knew in my heart. We'd better hurry back to the shop in case there's someone else searching for the hand."

The older priest pushed on into the fog. Joel hurried after him before the gloom could separate them.

 

Sixteen

The Hand Of Bane

 

Bits ushered them back into his shop with an air of expectancy. "Well?" he asked Joel.

"Holly's all right," Joel explained. "Her friend Bors found her. She's resting. Walinda has stayed behind to help tend to her." "Walinda?" the bariaur queried with some surprise. "The unpleasant one?"

Joel picked up the sledgehammer Walinda had dropped on the floor of the shop. "Probably just trying to get out of the heavy work," he said, giving Dits a wink. He and Jedidiah made their way into the basement. Dits stood on the top step and watched them. Jedidiah pulled out the light stone and set it on a high step of the stairs so it shone down over their heads.

"Would you care to do the honors?" Jedidiah asked. Joel grinned. He took a firm grip on the handle of the sledgehammer and slammed it into the wall. "Whoa! That's hard," Joel said, his hands smarting. A chip of red had come off a brick, but there was no sign of cracking in the walls. "It feels like it's a lot thicker than it looks," the Rebel

Bard explained.

"Whack at it some more," Jedidiah said.

Joel complied, pounding on the brick wall several times before he noted a small crack forming in the mortar.

Jedidiah went at the crack with the pickax. Together they managed to pull a brick away.

There was a second brick wall behind the first. Mortar filled the space between the two walls.

"You don't think they filled the whole passage in with mortar and brick, do you?" Joel asked, worried that they might be banging on the walls for days, or even weeks.

Jedidiah shook his head. "Three walls maybe. That's the rule in Sigil, I've been told. Three of everything. Isn't that right, Mr. Dits?"

"Aye," the bariaur replied. "If three of something can't handle the job, it wasn't meant to be handled. If you'll excuse me, I'm going back to keep an eye on my shop."

They broke away the first wall completely, tossing the bricks into a corner of the basement. Joel noticed that the older man was pale and wheezing. "We'd better take a break," the younger man said, knowing Jedidiah would not do so unless Joel joined him. They sat on the stairs, breathing heavily, wiping sweat from their brows.

"Are you all right?" the young priest asked.

"It's just the air. And being old. I hope," Jedidiah said.

"What do you mean, you hope?" Joel asked in alarm.

Jedidiah grinned. "Just a feeling I have that this city knows I'm really a god, and it wants to get rid of me."

After a few minutes Joel got up and began smashing away at the second wall. There was indeed a third wall behind it. Joel began smashing through the third wall before he'd finished dismantling the second.

A single brick fell backward out of the third wall, into darkness.

A cold draft surged out of the hole, stirring up the dust on the basement floor.

"I think we're through," Joel said.

Jedidiah picked up the light stone and went to Joel's side. He peered through the hole with the light stone held up beside his eye.

"Looks like a passage leading down," the older man said. "Let's make sure we clear away enough stone so we can make a hasty exit should it be required."

They finished clearing away the second wall, then smashed at the third. The sound of the falling bricks echoed back at them, indicating a large room lay somewhere beyond. When they had cleared away the last of the bricks, a stone staircase of black granite yawned before them. Joel pulled out the finder's stone. The beacon pointed down the staircase.

"This is it," Jedidiah said, setting aside the pickax.

Joel leaned the sledgehammer against the wall.

Together the two men drew their swords and descended into the darkness below. Jedidiah held the light stone, Joel the finder's stone. They pushed aside the bricks that had fallen onto the steps. The stairs led to an arched passageway, which ran straight back toward a red glow.

They walked along the passageway side by side. Shiny black tiles covered the passage wall. Their surface appeared bubbly, like tar, but closer inspection revealed that each tile was a bas-relief carving depicting a different human face, each face screaming in silent, eternal pain.

"A motif only a Banite could love," Jedidiah muttered.

After thirty paces, the passageway opened into a huge circular room, its ceiling vaulted, its floor shaped like a bowl. Around the edges of the room, six braziers glowed with red light. Joel examined the two nearest the entry. They were filled with magically glowing light stones covered with a red oil. In the center of the room was an altar and a statue carved out of black granite. Both were polished to a high luster, which reflected back the red light.

The statue, a human-shaped creature, sat cross-legged on the altar. Its open mouth was filled with sharp teeth, and great horns protruded over its pointed ears. Two black gems sparkled in its earlobes, while another glittered from its forehead. A fourth, even larger, gem shone from a pendant on the statue's chest. Its hands were positioned in ritual signs Joel did not recognize. The face was smooth and youthful, and the flesh well muscled. It wore nothing but a loincloth.

"Is that Bane?" the Rebel Bard asked in a whisper. His voice echoed about the room.

"Probably some avatar he sent to some culture outside the Realms," Jedidiah said. "Handsome, but not the suave, sophisticated Bane we're used to, is he?"

Lying on the altar in front of the seated idol was a clawed hand the size of an ogre's paw, carved from obsidian. The hand's ebony fingers curled upwards. Its fingernails were carved from red garnets. Someone, as an afterthought to the artist's rendition, had studded the hand with diamonds. They gave the hand an odd look, as if it had the pox.

Jedidiah dropped to his knees to look under the hand to ascertain that it wasn't resting on a trap or a hidden device. He and Joel exchanged looks. Jedidiah took a deep breath, then picked up the hand.

Nothing happened. No thunderbolts crashed through the vaulted ceiling. No secret traps caused the floor to swing open. No monsters leapt from hidden alcoves. Jedidiah nodded at Joel and exhaled.

Then the hand began to steam.

A thick white fog enveloped the carving and slithered away from the hand like a snake, wrapping around the intruders and the altar. The vapors carried the stench of decaying flesh. Hastily Jedidiah covered his mouth and nose and tossed the hand back onto the top of the altar. The fog continued to pour from the hand and began to fill the bottom of the bowl-shaped room.

With a start, Joel saw the stone idol's fingers begin to move.

"Jedidiah," the young bard whispered, pointing to the flexing digits. A moment later the arms swayed upward and stretched outward. Then, with a crack that echoed about the room, the statue's eyelids snapped open. Red fire blazed from the statue's eyes.

"This could be trouble," Joel noted.

"Big trouble," Jedidiah agreed as both men backed away from the altar toward the exit.

Something hissed behind them, and the light of the finder's stone flared brightly. Joel whirled about as Jedidiah remained facing the idol of Bane. From the braziers around the room's perimeter, steam had risen and coalesced into corporeal forms. Standing over each brazier was a creature much like the statue, with fangs and horns and pointed ears. Yet unlike the statue, they were not young and fair but ancient and decayed. Their eyes looked blank and dead. The flesh about their faces was withered and desiccated, and beneath their necks they were nothing but skeletons. Each was armed with a bone white saw-toothed blade. Two of them already blocked the exit, while the other four were moving around the room's perimeter to join them.

Joel cast a glance over his shoulder. The idol of Bane had risen to its feet. It stood twice as high as a man, its head nearly touching the room's vaulted ceiling. While it moved slowly, this was no clockwork creature or golem. Its movements were neither clunky nor plodding but fluid and graceful. It was a stone warrior, powered by the hatred of an evil dead god and all his dead followers.

"I'll handle the big guy if you can take care of the six little ones," Jedidiah joked grimly.

"Oh, sure," Joel replied, amazed by the older man's bravado in the face of such overwhelming odds. Was it possible, Joel wondered, that Jedidiah had forgotten he was no longer immortal?

The young bard looked back at the skeletons. They made no movement to initiate combat, but instead merely blocked the entrance. With a flash of insight, the young priest realized that was their job. The privilege of killing any intruders belonged to the statue.

Joel climbed the sloping floor to meet the skeletons. Like the statue, the undead creatures were slow but graceful. Joel wondered if that was part of the magic that made them or if that was the way they'd been in life. The skeletons had the high ground, but that wasn't exactly to the bard's disadvantage. He swung at the lower half of the first skeleton's legs.

His blade smashed through the bones as if they were dried kindling. The undead creature fell to the ground and slid to the altar in the center of the room.

The second skeleton slashed its jagged blade across Joel's arm, tearing the fabric of the bard's shirtsleeve but fortunately missing his flesh. Joel tried the leg-breaking trick again, but this skeleton leapt upward with an unnatural grace, avoiding the bard's sweeping attack. As it came down, it sliced at Joel's left shoulder with its saw-toothed blade. Joel could feel heat and pain radiating down his arm. The bard swung his sword backhanded, slicing through the vertebrae of the skeleton's backbone. The undead monster fell in two halves to the ground. Its bones slid down the curved floor to the base of the altar as the first skeletal guardian's had done.

Two more skeletons stood in the doorway, flanked by the last pair. Joel turned halfway to check on Jedidiah's progress. The bard was engaged in a hide-and-seek game around the altar, dodging the statue's stone fists. The older bard managed to slice at the idol with his sword, but the blade did not penetrate, leaving only a powdery white scratch on the granite hide. Joel thought of the sledgehammer sitting uselessly up in Dits's basement.

Then Joel saw the two skeletons lying by the altar. They were reforming in the mists gathered in the bowl of the floor. The shattered spine of the second and the broken leg of the first had both healed, and the skeletons were rising once more to their feet.

Joel turned back to the other four skeletons with a sinking feeling. He could feel blood trickling down his arm from his wounded shoulder. He knew he wasn't making progress this way. The skeletons would hold Jedidiah and him until they were exhausted. Then the statue would smash them to jelly. Unless he found some way to smash all six skeletons before they could reform. This would be the perfect time to call on Finder to turn the undead to dust, but Finder was no longer a god.

The irony grated on Joel. Now that he was finally confronted with the opportunity to turn undead like the priest he was, Finder could not grant him the power.

Or could he?

Joel was still a priest. Finder was still alive, in this very room. His godhood was stored in the stone Joel held in his left hand. The power that had created the skeletons was dead. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Joel drew back from the skeletons. Ail six now gathered before the exit.

Holding the finder's stone high over his head, the Rebel Bard began the slow, rhythmic chant to send the undead back to their eternal sleep. The finder's stone glowed more brightly. Joel could sense power coursing through him, the power of his faith in Finder, not only what Finder represented as a god, but also the faith that Jedidiah the man would always be his friend. Joel's chanting grew louder.

The light from the finder's stone flared, filling the space about Joel with what seemed to be sunlight. The skeletons began to twitch in rhythm to Joel's chant. All at once, the undead raised their swords in salute. Then their bones rattled to the floor, the magic that held them together broken. Joel poked at a skull with his toe and it crumbled to dust. The rest of the bones decayed before his eyes in the same manner, the powdery dust wafting in the air. These skeletons would never rise again.

Joel spun around. Jedidiah was still evading the idol by dodging about the altar, but he must have taken at least one blow. His left arm hung limp at his side, and the light stone lay on the floor, crushed into several pieces, which now glowed dimly.

Joel dashed up the corridor, up the stairs, and into Dits's basement. The light from the finder's stone was now no brighter than a candle, but it was enough for the bard to locate the sledgehammer leaning against the wall. Joel sheathed his sword and grabbed the tool. He had just turned to head back down the stairs when something slammed into his back. The bard sprawled forward beneath the arched entryway. He lost his grip on the sledgehammer and the finder's stone. The sledgehammer went bouncing down the stairs, and the finder's stone rolled behind a pile of bricks.

The bard rolled over into a dark corner. In the dim light still cast by the finder's stone, he caught a glimpse of a large, dark shadow swooping upward, then turning. It was a human figure with wings. Joel remembered Walinda had said the creature that attacked her in the street had swept down from above. He rose to a crouch.

The shadow sailed straight toward him as if it had no trouble detecting him in the nearly dark room. Its outstretched arms ended in talons.

Just as the flying creature was nearly upon him, Joel lunged forward, wrapping his arms about the creature's midsection. The momentum of the creature's flight shoved the bard backward, but he didn't release his grip. He and his assailant went tumbling across the floor.

The creature was too small and lithe to be Bear. It tried to rake at Joel's face with its talons. The bard grabbed one arm, then another, holding them back. The arms were covered not with fur, but with small, soft feathers. As they rolled on the ground, the creature's face came into the light.

Joel gasped. "Jas!"

The flyer butted her forehead into the bard's face. In surprise and pain, Joel released his hold on the flyer's arms. With one hand clutching his bleeding nose, he stepped back, but he did not draw his sword. His eyes remained fixed in horror on the winged woman.

Jas had undergone a horrible transformation. Her wings were like a gargoyle's, the color of copper, tinged with a green patina, a change due to being in another plane. The rest of her body, though, had been malformed by some evil magic. Dark black feathers covered her skin. Her hands were twisted into razor-sharp talons. A crest of green feathers rose from her brow. Her eyes were larger and more rounded, and they glowed with a green light.

"Hello, Joel. Surprised to see me?" the woman snarled. "Thought I'd died in the desert when you abandoned me?"

"We didn't abandon you," Joel said, keeping his hands up to protect himself against any renewed attack. "We left you with Holly. She said you were all right."

"Holly," Jas whispered, her features softening for a moment. Then her eyes narrowed. "Holly was gone— you were all gone—when the priest and warriors of Xvim found me. They gave me a choice: death or transformation into a dark stalker. How could I resist the chance to take revenge on Walinda or the chance to hunt for those who betrayed me?"

"We didn't betray you," Joel said, his brow furrowing. "The banelich nearly killed you. We healed you and left you with Holly. She said you were safe. Something must have gone wrong. Holly wouldn't lie. Is that why you attacked her?"

Jas looked away. "I didn't realize it was her. I intended to attack Walinda. When Holly struck me, I turned and struck back instinctively. Walinda ran like the coward she is. I'll never allow you take the Hand of Bane to her. I'll kill you before I see her get what she wants."

"Jas, you can't be serious. I understand you want revenge on Walinda because she murdered your crew, but would your crew have wanted you to risk your life, risk your soul, to avenge them?"

Jas snarled and slashed out with a talon. Joel blocked it with his right arm. The talon sliced through his forearm, leaving a stinging cut from his wrist to his elbow.

"My soul was dead the moment I killed Holly," the winged woman screamed. "With her death, I'm trapped inside this form forever. According to the priest of Xvim, one death seals the bargain. Now I live only for vengeance."

"But Holly's not dead," Joel said.

"Liar!" Jas shouted.

"I'm not lying. She has a paladin friend who saved her. She's with him now."

Jas froze as if trying to take in Joel's words. Then her expression softened. "Holly's ... not... dead," she whispered slowly. The green glow faded from her eyes, revealing her brown irises. "She's still alive!"

Joel nodded. "Walinda's watching her until she recovers."

"You left her with that witch?" Jas growled. She stepped back and lofted herself into the air.

"Jas, wait!" Joel shouted, but the winged woman ignored him. She landed on the top step of the iron staircase and disappeared into the shop.

Joel took two steps toward the stairs, then heard someone shout behind him. It was Jedidiah, still trapped by the stone idol.

Joel snatched up the finder's stone and hurried down the stairs into the tunnel leading to the underground shrine. At the base of the stairs, he found the sledgehammer and retrieved it, then ran back to the shrine.

The idol made an effective wall standing before the passageway, blocking Jedidiah from leaving. Jedidiah stood before the creature, holding the Hand of Bane over his head. The magical stone statue had enough awareness not to damage the item it was created to guard, but neither was it going to let its thief pass by.

The creature had its back to Joel. The Rebel Bard took aim with the sledgehammer and swung it right at the statue's left ankle. The blow sent a crack running across the stone joint. The creature started to turn around, but its foot remained frozen in place. It wobbled, trying to balance itself on one foot and the stump of the other leg. Joel raised the sledgehammer again and swung it at the idol's opposite knee. The stone creature slammed Joel in the head with a rock fist before falling backward.

Joel dropped the sledgehammer and fell to his knees, stunned. He was just barely aware of Jedidiah slamming into the idol from behind and sending it crashing to the floor. The stone statue shattered into several pieces. The fragments did not move again.

Jedidiah stumbled forward into the passageway, still clutching the Hand of Bane. He was pale and wheezing, but grinning like a schoolboy. "Are you all right?" he asked Joel. "That was quite a blow you took."

Joel raised his hand to his head. He could feel a lump forming already. "I'm going to have a giant-sized headache," he replied. With Jedidiah's help, he was able to stand.

Slowly the two men walked back down the passageway, propping each other up.

At the base of the stairs, Jedidiah pushed the Hand of Bane at Joel. "Take it," he said.

"Why?" Joel asked, unwilling to touch the stone hand.

"I want you to make the decision of what to do with it," Jedidiah said. "Whether you choose to destroy it or exchange it for the other half of the finder's stone is up to you."

"Why?" Joel asked again. "Jedidiah, is this some sort of ridiculous test?"

Jedidiah shook his head. He leaned against the passage wall. 'The questions I asked the mind flayer... do you want to know what they were?"

Joel blinked with confusion, then answered, "Yes, of course."

"My first question was 'If I exchange the Hand of Bane for the other half of the finder's stone, will Joel still follow me?' You heard the answer in your head too didn't you?"

Joel nodded, then lowered his eyes. The answer had been No. He hadn't thought about what he would do if Jedidiah gave the banelich the hand. He had deliberately avoided thinking about how he felt about it since that first night in the Lost Vale. He looked back up at Jedidiah. "Ilsensine can't know that. It can't predict what I'm going to do."

"Joel, before I cast the spell to protect us from Ilsensine's probes, it was in your mind while you were unconscious, burrowing for your darkest secret. It knew what you thought. It knew what was in your heart. I knew what was in your heart, too, but I didn't want to admit it to myself. I want all my power back. I was a selfish mortal, and godhood hasn't changed that. If you weren't part of the picture ... but you are. I don't want to lose you as my priest, so I'm leaving the decision up to you."

Joel felt as if a heavy weight had settled on his heart. "What was the second question?" he asked.

"If I leave the decision up to Joel, will he act on my behalf?"

"And the answer was He does not know," Joel replied.

Jedidiah nodded. "The mind flayer left before I could ask it if it meant you or Ilsensine."

Joel shook his head. "I don't know what I'll do, Jedidiah. I don't want Bane to be resurrected. But it's not fair that you should be lessened just so he remains dead."

Jedidiah held out the Hand of Bane once again. He looked more than tired now. He looked ancient and haggard. He said, "Joel, I only became a god because several good friends demanded I fight Moander. One even gave his life to show me how an unselfish man dies. But I lived, and I was given the gift of godhood. I'm still not comfortable with it, just as you're not comfortable being a priest. I often wonder if the two aren't related somehow. If I'm going to remain a god, I need friends to show me the way."

Joel took the hand from his god. It was still warm from Jedidiah's touch. "I need to think about this ..." he said.

Jedidiah nodded. "Perhaps it will be easier to decide back at the Sensate safe house. Holly and Walinda will both have different answers for you."

"And Jas," Joel said suddenly. "She was here," he told Jedidiah. "The Xvimists captured her and transformed her like they did Bear. But when she learned Holly wasn't dead, she seemed to act a little more human. I think she's headed to see Holly."

"Let's go, then," Jedidiah said. "Before this city decides to spit me out."

They climbed wearily up both flights of stairs. Dits was among the stacks of books and scrolls speaking with a customer.

"I'll be back soon," Joel called, waving the Hand of Bane at the bariaur. Joel stuffed the hand inside his belt and left the shop with Jedidiah at his side. They hurried through the streets of Sigil. Despite Jedidiah's age, it was Joel whose strength began to flag as they reached the Sensate safe house. The wounds he'd received from the skeleton's sword and Jas's talons throbbed painfully, and his head was pounding from the stone idol's blow.

Jedidiah ushered his wounded priest inside and sat him down in the parlor. "I'll go see if Bors can do that golden thread trick on you," he said.

Joel looked up at the picture over the mantelpiece and gasped. The picture had been slashed to ribbons. Lying on the mantel before it was a note written on a scrap of the painting's canvas.

Joel leapt up and grabbed at the document. He read it quickly and then ran from the parlor, shouting for

Jedidiah. He found the older man in the kitchen, leaning over Bors. The alien paladin had been knocked unconscious, apparently with a heavy frying pan.

Joel waved the note in the air. "It's from Walinda," he said.

Jedidiah rubbed at his temples. "Read it," he ordered.

"I have the paladin in my possession. I will be in the astral plane with my lord Bane. Bring the Hand of Bane if you wish to negotiate. Walinda of Bane . . . She has Holly!" Joel exclaimed.

"And you have the Hand of Bane," Jedidiah replied. "It's the same game, but the stakes have just been changed."

 

Seventeen

Lord Bane's Body

 

Bors soon regained consciousness. Aside from a ringing headache, he was no worse for wear. He sent a street urchin to fetch sedan chairs to take Joel and Jedidiah to the Shattered Temple, where they would find a portal to the astral plane. "I can accompany you as far as the temple, but then we must part," the alien paladin said. "I have an obligation at the Civic Festhall that I can delay no longer." Jedidiah nodded, and Joel realized the old priest was relieved that Bors hadn't insisted on joining their party. Holly's presence had already complicated their business. Who knew what trouble a second paladin could start?

While they waited for their transport, Bors saw to their wounds. With a golden hammer, he applied a blow to Jedidiah's arm, relieving the numbness the older man felt, and with the golden needle, he pricked the bump in Joel's head. The swelling quickly subsided. Then he washed and bandaged Joel's wounds from Jas and the skeleton.

Two chairs arrived, each carried by two bariaurs. Bors instructed them to head for a tavern called the Soused Duck. The tavern, Bors explained, was as near to the Shattered Temple as any bearers would go. He wished them luck and sent them on their way.

As he rode, all Joel could think of was Walinda's treachery and how stupid he'd been to trust her. She'd pulled the same trick her master had tried. Jedidiah had even warned Joel about her in the Palace of Judgment. Of course, Jedidiah had also been tricked, believing Bors could protect Holly from the priestess.

Although it was now day, the fog grew darker as they approached their destination, and the air grew much more foul. Their bariaur bearers stopped at the Soused Duck tavern. The two priests alighted and paid for their ride. The bariaurs hurried away, and Joel could see why.

Beyond the tavern was a blighted scar where there had once been a thriving area of solid buildings. Several city blocks had been destroyed a long time ago but had never been rebuilt. Collapsed and burned-out buildings dotted the landscape. Some of the buildings had been scavenged, but no one chose to live in this place.

The Shattered Temple sat in the center of the devastation. When they had spoken yesterday, Holly had told Joel that the temple had once belonged to a god named Aoskar, who had apparently made an attempt to control the city. The mistress of Sigil had destroyed Aoskar, his church, and his followers. The devastation remained untouched out of superstition and also served as a warning to all: Sigil was off limits to godly powers.

As Joel and Jedidiah approached the heart of the destroyed area, Joel grew aware of the quiet all around them. They had left the hubbub of the city behind. This area was a memorial to the dead.

The Shattered Temple sat on a low rise, surrounded by a small retinue of temple guards. Its roof and upper walls were gone. Its foundation had settled crookedly into the earth. At each corner was a half-razed tower. Graceful arched buttresses surrounding the temple held up only thin air. Any stone walls that remained standing were covered with thick, dark-leafed vines. Four paths led away from the temple in the front, the back, and to either side, down broad staircases. Each path ended in a broken and shattered terrace.

As they approached the nearest terrace, they were called to a halt by the temple guards. The guards were a motley lot. They were armed and armored in a haphazard fashion and wore no recognizable uniforms. They each wore a badge of the Athar, also known as the Lost—those who believed all gods were false.

The guards, while friendly, insisted that Joel and Jedidiah must wait for a guide to tour the ruins. Jedidiah paced the terrace while Joel tried to imagine what this place had looked like before its destruction. In a few minutes a tall, thin man, somewhat older than Joel, approached the terrace from the direction of the temple and spoke with the guards. Then he turned toward Joel and Jedidiah.

"Welcome to the Shattered Temple, headquarters of the Athar," the man greeted them in a gruff voice. "I'm Adenu, and I'll be your guide." Adenu turned and led the pair up the stairs toward the temple. The steps were uneven and scorched, and where there were breaks in the stone, wild grass had taken root. Their guide continued his speech, his eyes half closed, as if he were reading it from the back of his eyelids. "On this tour, I’ll be showing you all the darks uncovered by our leaders, darks which prove the wisdom of the Athar's teachings—the gods are charlatans, beings of false power and false promises."

Jedidiah began to chuckle.

Adenu shot the older man a chill look.

"I'm sorry," Jedidiah apologized. "I'm not laughing at your philosophy. It's just that the irony is killing me."

"Irony?" Adenu asked.

"It's not important," Jedidiah replied. "Sir, any other time I'm sure this tour would fascinate me, but right now we are trying to track down a girl and her abductor. The girl is tall, dark-skinned. Her abductor is a small, slender woman dressed in black. We have reason to believe that the woman would have used your portal to the astral plane."

"Oh, her! Bossy bit of fluff, the one in black was. Blew in here like she owned the place, demanding access as if she were the queen of the world. I thought that dolly-mop with her had too much of the bub."

"Did they go through the portal?" Joel asked.

"Her Majesty handed me a huge sack o'jink. Said she had to see the dead gods immediately—had to show them to the girl. Didn't see the harm in it. I guided them through to the astral side. Once we're across, the woman says she doesn't need a guide. She goes sailing off into the void with the girl in tow. I'm stepping back through the portal, and I'm nearly knocked over by some harpy who goes flying through."

"Jas!" Joel muttered to Jedidiah, who nodded in reply.

As they passed between two long, low buildings to the rear of the temple, Adenu said, "All of 'em lucky it's a good day for the portal."

"A good day?" Joel asked.

"Portal's getting unreliable," Adenu explained. "Like everything the so-called gods created. Some days it's no bigger than an egg. Other days it doesn't open at all."

Adenu led them through the front entryway to the ruined temple. The doors had burned away. Only their hinges remained. "Used to have caravans of people coming here to tour the temple," their guide explained, "all eager for that big finale—seeing Aoskar's body floating in the gray. Now that they know they may not see into the astral, they don't flock here like they used to. Portal closes down entirely, we'll be changing the tour itinerary. Can't say as I'll be disappointed. Thought from the beginning we should talk more about the tree."

"The tree?" Joel asked.

"I've gone and given you a dark," Adenu said. "Come back in a few weeks. The tree will be on the tour by then. Just working out some security problems. But the tree is proof there is a power greater than the gods."

Adenu led them through a door to the first tower on the right. Within, a knee-high wall encircled an empty pool about five feet across. Once the portal must have filled the pool, but now a puddle of gray in the middle was all that was left of the gateway to the astral plane. "Pop through there," Adenu said, "and you'll see 'em ... all the dead gods. No better than they should be. That's where they'll all end up once we've revealed the truth about 'em to the multiverse."

"Some even sooner then that," Jedidiah murmured. He turned to the Athar guide. "We'll find our way from here, thank you," the former god said. "It's been very interesting talking to you, Adenu. Farewell."

"Suit yourselves." He pulled back and watched them from the doorway.

Jedidiah stepped stiffly over the low wall. His face twitched, as if he were in pain.

"Are you all right?" Joel whispered. "I sense I'm not wanted here," the older bard said. Joel smiled.

"Not wanted in the city, I mean," Jedidiah explained. "Something or someone has sensed my presence and is not pleased. There's an oppressive atmosphere all around me. We're not leaving a moment too soon."

Joel stepped over the wall and joined Jedidiah beside the gray puddle on the floor.

"Hold on to my cloak and step through with me," Jedidiah said. "Stay relaxed, and don't panic when we reach the other side. Ready ... set... go!"

The two men hopped through the portal together. They fell into an empty sky. There was no ground beneath their feet, yet they fell no farther. There was neither up nor down, nor any horizon, nothing. In the distance, the sky looked silver, but close up there was no color to the air. Joel looked upward. The portal through which they'd entered looked like a leather-brown disk floating in the sky. It flared with a white light, then shrank to the size of a melon.

Beside him, Jedidiah's form looked pale, nearly translucent. Joel looked down at himself to discover that he, too, seemed less distinct. Yet when he patted his chest and legs, he felt as solid as ever, and the piece of Jedidiah's cloak to which he clung still seemed made of good, stiff wool. He released his hold on the cloak.

"Welcome to the astral plane," Jedidiah said. "The hallway to the multiverse. Don't be fooled by the emptiness. There's plenty here once you learn how to look for it. If you see any colored disks or snakelike tubes, avoid them. The disks are portals to other worlds, and the tubes are conduits between other worlds. With any luck, we won't run into any githyanki. That's a race of humans who worship a lich queen. They're none too friendly to outsiders. We need to find a temporary haven to start. See that gray spot?" Jedidiah pointed into the nothingness.

Joel shook his head.

"No? Well, I'm going to think about moving toward it, and when I do, I'll start to move in that direction. Just like floating down a river. You think about moving toward me and you'll move along with me. Your mind does all the work. Watch."

Jedidiah looked out over the void and started to drift in the direction he had pointed toward.

Joel watched him recede with a hint of nervousness. The silence that surrounded him was far more intense and thus much more eerie than the silence in the Shattered Temple. He longed to hear another voice. It took the young bard a few moments to focus on imagining himself moving toward the older man.

Suddenly Jedidiah appeared to move backwards, toward Joel, but soon Joel realized it was because he was moving toward Jedidiah. Without any landmarks, without even the hint of a breeze, movement was very deceptive.

After a few minutes following Jedidiah, Joel could see the gray spot Jedidiah had indicated. A few minutes later the gray spot became a gray statue of a potbellied, ram-horned satyr with a sullen expression on its face. As the men moved closer, the gray statue appeared to be a huge rock carving, larger than a ship.

Jedidiah settled on the satyr's shoulder, and Joel landed beside him. The young bard felt only a slight sensation of weight holding him to the statue's body.

"Is this ... ?" Joel let his voice trail off.

"A dead god? Yes," Jedidiah replied. "I have no idea who it is. There are a great many of them out here. Some are newly arrived, while others have floated here for millennia,"

"Why are we stopping here?" Joel asked. While he was glad to feel something solid beneath his feet, the nature of the object he stood on made him feel uneasy.

"Now that we're no longer in Sigil, I'd like to have my godhood back. Would you be so kind as to restore it?"

Joel pulled out the finder's stone and held it out to Jedidiah.

The older man smiled and shook his head. "I can't just take it back by myself. It requires a ritual that only a priest can perform."

"What sort of ritual?" Joel asked.

"Well, it's different for every god. In my case, it requires a song ... one about the cycle of life."

"The tulip song," Joel said, realizing finally why Jedidiah had drilled him so assiduously in that particular song.

"Exactly," Jedidiah said. He lowered himself until he was seated cross-legged. Joel sat across from Jedidiah and held out the finder's stone. Then he sang, understanding much more about the song than he had before. As he sang, the process that had placed Finder's remaining godly power and abilities into this half of the finder's stone reversed itself. Mists of all colors of the spectrum streamed from the stone. The mists circled about Jedidiah's form, then were drawn into him, like water into parched earth. When at last Joel had finished, Jedidiah heaved a deep sigh and relaxed.

The weariness and age had disappeared from Jedidiah's face, and he once more appeared to be a man in his prime. More important was the feeling Joel had that he stood in his god's presence. The Rebel Bard hadn't recognized its existence until Jedidiah had given up his power, but now that the power was restored, Joel could feel it once again.

"Well," Jedidiah said, "what do you know? It worked. I can feel your presence again."

Joel's jaw dropped. "What do you mean, it worked?" he squeaked. "Why wouldn't it work?"

"Well, essentially, we just recreated a god, and there's other powers involved in recreating a godly presence— powers that might try to stop the process," Jedidiah explained.

"You knew that when you gave up your powers?" Joel asked, flabbergasted. Jedidiah nodded.

Joel sighed. Then he laughed. "I have a new portfolio for you, Jedidiah. God of Reckless Fools," he said.

Jedidiah laughed. "I like it. Something adventurers can relate to." He stood up, without a hint of pain or tiredness. "Time to deal with the banelich." "How do we find him out here?" Joel asked. "We just think of him, and our minds will move our bodies in his direction. Or you could think of moving toward Holly," the god instructed his priest.

Joel took Jedidiah's latter suggestion and found himself moving away from the dead satyr-god back into the void of nothingness. Jedidiah moved alongside him, though sometimes he soared ahead. Joel wondered if Jedidiah was thinking of the banelich or the paladin or concentrating instead on the other half of the finder's stone. Whichever was the case, they continued to move in the same direction.

Joel couldn't say how long their journey lasted. He didn't get hungry or thirsty or tired, yet he soon realized that time and distance and even his own existence were distorted in this plane. They passed writhing conduits and glowing portals and other dead gods. Once a flying lion circled them, then flew on.

All the while they traveled, the Rebel Bard was uncomfortable in his mind. Jedidiah had entrusted him with the Hand of Bane. The decision of what to do with it was up to him. Before Walinda's treachery, Joel's only concern had been whether or not he would deprive Finder of the power the god wanted, perhaps even needed. Now Holly's life was at stake as well. The priestess had taken Holly for the same reason the banelich had tried to abduct Joel. The banelich didn't want to part with the finder's stone. Walinda would demand the Hand of Bane in exchange for Holly's life, giving her master all he desired.

Another dead god statue seemed to move toward them. This one was of a handsome man wearing ornate plate armor, his face twisted and frozen in a derogatory sneer. As they grew closer, they could see that the statue was far larger than the first one. If this god were to land on any castle in the Realms, he would crush it beneath his great mass. This, the bard sensed with grim certainty, was the body of Bane, former Lord of Strife, Hatred, and Tyranny.

Their quarry had taken up a position on Bane's great back, just below the neck. The banelich had discarded its armor and wore only a ceremonial robe of black and red. Walinda stood at the creature's right, armored in her black plate mail. Holly knelt at her feet, bound hand and foot. The priestess held the point of her silver-tipped goad against the paladin's throat.

Jedidiah and Joel settled several feet away from them, on the left shoulder, leaving a small hillock between the two parties. The hillock consisted of a ridge in the great god's armor corresponding to his shoulder blade. The banelich didn't deign to acknowledge their presence. Instead, Walinda spoke for her master.

"Well met, Poppin," the priestess greeted Joel. "I see you were successful." She nodded toward the stone hand Joel had tucked inside his belt. "I will make a deal with you ... the Hand of Bane for the paladin's life."

"What about our deal for the finder's stone?" Joel asked the priestess.

"My lord chooses not to surrender the power of the stone but to keep it for himself," Walinda replied. "Accept my offer and you may all live to witness my lord's resurrection."

"No!" Holly shouted to Joel. "Don't buy my life with this evil act! Destroy the hand!"

Walinda spun her goad, using the blunt end to smack the paladin in the back of the head, sending her sprawling forward.

Joel looked at Jedidiah. If he accepted Walinda's offer, Finder wouldn't regain the power stored in the other half of the stone. He would remain a weak god. Nor would Holly forgive him for aiding in Bane's resurrection.

"I gave you the hand," his god said softly to Joel, "so you could decide what was right."

The Rebel Bard fixed his eyes on Walinda. He knew the priestess wouldn't hesitate to kill the paladin. Holly was prepared to sacrifice her life to prevent Bane's resurrection, so the evil god couldn't return to the Realms to destroy the lives of others. Why should Holly have to die for all the others?

"I'm sorry, Holly," Joel said, "but your life is as valuable as anyone else's. I won't sacrifice it. I'll make the trade," he told Walinda.

Joel stepped forward, pulling the Hand of Bane from his belt. Suddenly he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eyes. Jas, her wings as silvery bright as a new coin, swooped from beneath the god corpse's right shoulder just in front of Walinda and the banelich. She grabbed Holly by the arms and sped off with her into the void before any of them could react. The winged woman moved with a speed beyond anything her wings could achieve. She moved as anyone did in the astral plane, as fast as her mind could imagine, which in Jas's case was very, very quickly.

Walinda shrieked and swung her goad around to attack, but it was too late. She had lost her prize.

A moment later Jas returned, with Holly in tow, to land at Joel's and Jedidiah's side. "What took you?" Joel muttered. "I was waiting for you to distract the witch," Jas replied. The flyer's skin was still covered with black feathers, but her talons had transformed back to human hands. "You're changing back," Joel noted. "Slowly," Jas said. "The darkness of Xvim is still in me, but I can fight it now."

"Well played, priest of Finder," the banelich bellowed. Its deep voice rolled across Bane's back like the sound of thunder. "You have thwarted my priestess's scheme. Now you will trade power for power. The Hand of Bane for your stone."

"No!" Holly insisted, pulling at the Hand of Bane with her bound hands. "You can't do this! The return of your finder's stone cannot outweigh the evil Bane will bring to the world if he is resurrected."

"Holly," Joel whispered, keeping a firm grip on the Hand of Bane, "you don't understand. There's more at stake than we told you. The power in the stone . .. it's Finder's power."

Holly shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense," she declared. "How could Jedidiah put Finder's power ..." The paladin halted in mid-sentence, and her face lit up with understanding. She turned to look at Jedidiah, her eyes wide with astonishment. Jedidiah grinned sheepishly.

Holly's eyes narrowed with sudden determination. "It makes no difference," she insisted. "Lathander personally sent a messenger to me. If you don't give me the Hand of Bane, if I don't prevent Bane's resurrection, will fail my god."

Joel felt a sudden surge of loyalty to Finder. "So I'm to fail my god instead?" Joel asked. "Is my god's weakness less evil than Bane's resurrection?"

"It must be," Holly said. "Lathander is a god of goodness and light. He wouldn't—"

"I'm waiting for your answer, priest of Finder," the banelich thundered.

Joel glared at the banelich. "Well, you'll just have to keep waiting," he snapped.

"Listen to me, Joel," Holly said. "Lathander wouldn't ask this if it weren't the right thing. Finder's power is not as important."

"Not to Lathander, maybe, but it means a great deal to Finder," Joel argued. "How do you know Lathander just doesn't want Finder to stay weak so he doesn't become a rival?"

"Lathander is a god of goodness," Holly growled angrily. "He wouldn't be so selfish ... unlike some." She turned and glared at Jedidiah.

"Hold on," Joel said. "Is this the Lathander who was ready to let you give up your life just now? Or back in the desert at Cat's Gate? It was Finder who saved you then. He saved us all, even though it meant risking losing his power. He did it because I asked him to."

Holly stammered for a moment, then fell silent. She couldn't deny Joel's words. She released her hold on the Hand of Bane.

Joel knew now what he would do. Finder was as important to him as Bane was to Walinda and Lathander was to Holly. Who was to say that Finder's weakness would not ultimately be a greater evil than Bane's resurrection? Finder hadn't failed him. He wouldn't fail Finder.

"Banelich, we have a deal," Joel called out. He strode to the hillock between the two parties and stood, waiting.

Using its fingernails, the banelich reached up to its forehead and scratched away the thin layer of skin that covered the stolen half of the finder's stone. The undead creature ignored the blood that dripped down its face as it pulled the stone from its skull. "Take this to the priest, slave," he ordered Walinda.

Walinda laid her goad down before the lich. She bowed deeply, then reached out to take the finder's stone from her master's hand. As she did, the banelich grabbed her wrist with its free hand. Black fire poured from its hand and flared up the priestess's arm to her shoulder. Walinda fell to her knees, staggered by the pain.

"That is for failing me," the banelich snarled. "Do not fail me again."

Walinda rose slowly to her feet and backed away from the banelich several steps. As she climbed the rise toward Joel, her gait was unsteady. She halted on the slope just below Joel. The bard saw tears of pain and humiliation in her eyes. In spite of himself, Joel felt a pang of sympathy for the cruel woman. He held out the Hand of Bane.

The priestess reached out to take it with her left hand and thrust her right hand out toward Joel.

A fiery pain flared in Joel's stomach. He looked down at Walinda's right hand. Instead of the finder's stone, she held the silver tip of the goad she had left lying before the lich. She thrust it deep into the bard's belly and gave it a twist.

Joel grunted as the priestess grabbed the hand from his grasp. With a cruel laugh, the priestess ran back to her master's side.

Joel fell forward, clutching at the weapon tip in disbelief. Darkness came over him in waves, then lifted. The bard was dimly aware of Jedidiah praying feverishly over his body and Holly leaning over him, stanching his blood with her hands.

Joel fixed his attention on Walinda and the banelich, but he seemed to see them from some other viewpoint— somewhere above them. He had an uneasy suspicion that meant he was dying, and it was his departing spirit that watched what happened.

The priestess of Bane knelt before the banelich, holding up both the finder's stone and the Hand of Bane.

"Accept these gifts, my lord," Walinda said, "so that you may be restored to greatness."

The lich snatched the finder's stone from her hand and set it back into its forehead. Then it held out both hands. Walinda set the Hand of Bane in the banelich's bony hands. The lich held it up over his head, the black stone and diamonds sparkling in the void. "Let me serve you in your glory," Walinda prayed. The banelich looked down upon the priestess, and the white light in its eyes flared.

"I will be your most humble servant, your slave, your voice to the faithful who will flock to your church," Walinda insisted.

The banelich slammed a fist viciously across the side of the priestess's face.

"Idiot woman!" the banelich growled. "You think I would deign to let one such as you serve me?"

Walinda looked up, wide-eyed with shock, blood streaming from her mouth. "My lord Bane, what have I done to displease you?"

"You exist!" the banelich snapped. "Did you think you would be Bane's chosen priest? You? A woman? Lord Bane will be served by me, the banelich who carried his essence. When I lived, Bane had no priestesses. From the essence I carry, I know that time will come again. You are nothing but a slave." The banelich kicked at the priestess's ribs. "Begone from my sight, you disgusting abomination!"

Walinda crawled backward, away from her master. Joel felt a dull ache in his abdomen and felt Holly's and Jedidiah's hands on him once more. "He's breathing again," Holly said. Joel turned his head and opened his eyes. The banelich stood facing the back of the godly corpse's head. He held the Hand of Bane high above his head and chanted harsh, guttural syllables in some ancient tongue. Bane's name was repeated over and over among the other words. Although he couldn't understand the words, when Joel closed his eyes, he could picture their meaning. The banelich was describing all manner of obscenities and atrocities committed in the name of Bane to glorify his power. It was the evil equivalent of Jedidiah's tulip song.

Jedidiah helped Joel to sit up, then rise to his feet. With Holly holding his elbow and Jas standing behind him, the bard stood beside his god. The banelich's voice rose to a fevered pitch. When it had finished its chant, it intoned Bane's name once, twice, three times. Then the banelich halted, waiting for the resurrection of his god.

Joel held his breath.

Nothing happened. There was nothing but total silence. The dead god's body did not stir.

Then Jedidiah laughed. His laughter seemed to raise a fresh breeze all around them.

The banelich wheeled about. "You dare mock the resurrection of Lord Bane?"

"There isn't going to be any resurrection the way you're going about it," Jedidiah said. "For one thing, you cannot serve as both essence and priest of the god in the same ceremony. Even more importantly, you've been dead for centuries. It takes a living priest to resurrect a god. You just kicked away the only one at hand."

The banelich shook with rage. Joel thought for a moment it might attack Jedidiah. A few moments later the creature grew still. It held out a hand in Walinda's direction. "Come, slave," it said. "You may serve me once more."

Walinda wiped the blood from her mouth and rose to her feet. She approached the lich with a measured ceremonial step. She took the Hand of Bane from his hands.

"I don't believe it," Jedidiah muttered.

Joel stepped forward. "Walinda, don't!" he called out.

"Have a care, priest," the undead creature warned, turning his glowing eyes on Joel.

"Walinda, he's thrown you over once," Joel argued desperately. "He'll do it again. You heard what the banelich said. It holds the essence of Bane; it knows what Bane is thinking. The lich will be Bane's chosen. Bane will betray you."

"Ignore his prattling," the lich commanded. "Begin the chant that will restore to me my power."

Walinda raised the Hand of Bane over her head.

Bane will repay all your faithful service with nothing but abuse and betrayal," Joel warned. "Despite all my doubts, Finder stood by me, teaching me, helping me. Don't you think, for all your devotion, that you deserve as much?"

"Begin the chant!" the banelich said, its voice much sharper. "Begin it now!"

"Walinda," Joel said, "you worship power. To wield power is the virtue of your church. You told me there was no greater honor than to serve Bane as his slave, but you're wrong. You can be the woman who denied Bane power. If Bane is power incarnate and your actions thwart his desire, doesn't that make you stronger than he is? And if you are stronger, then why should you help him? You can serve yourself instead of him, and you will still know joy."

"Begin the chant!" the lich shrieked once more. "Speak my name!"

Walinda looked at the banelich, resplendent in his ornate robes, then turned and smiled at Joel.

She hurled the hand down with an unnatural strength. The ancient artifact fractured as it hit the back of the god's corpse, the fingers of the hand breaking away and scattering in all directions. The banelich screamed as if it were in pain.

"Thank you for the insight, Poppin," Walinda said. She wheeled to face the banelich. "Dead fool, know that it was by my hand that your god's power was denied. I will never utter his name again. May he rot in this plane forever!"

The banelich raised its hand, and a tongue of black fire sprang toward the priestess. Walinda had anticipated something like this, however. Using the power of her mind, she sprang upward, and the black flame passed beneath her and continued harmlessly off into the void. The lich raised its arms upward and hurled more flame after her retreating figure, but by then the priestess was a mere dot in the sky.

The banelich watched her retreating form with its bony mouth agape. Then it turned back to face Joel. "You!" it screamed. "This is your doing! Now you must die!"

The lich sprang at the bard with both hands outstretched, more dark flames wreathing his hands. Joel, still weak from his brush with death, was unable to move quickly. He stepped backward, but he tripped and fell as he did so. Jedidiah interposed himself between his priest and the lich. Grappling each other about the throat, the god and the banelich spiraled upward into the silver void. A black nimbus surrounded the combatants, a dark star that shone across the void.

Joel rose to his feet and launched himself into the air after the pair, but as he drew close, the coldfire repelled him with freezing pain.

Jedidiah reached upward with his right hand to grab at the finder's stone buried in the lich's skull. The banelich grabbed at Jedidiah's wrist with both his arms. With both the lich's arms in the air, Jedidiah was able to lance out with this left hand and grab at the lich's chest beneath the robes.

Jedidiah tossed a small silver box in Joel's general direction . . . the lich's phylactery! The banelich shrieked incoherently. Joel chased after the box. Once he caught it, he willed his way back down until he landed once more on the god's corpse.

"Get back!" the Rebel Bard warned Holly and Jas. He laid the box down and drew his sword.

"Joel, no!" Holly shouted. "You could get yourself killed!"

Joel looked back up at Jedidiah, battling with the banelich, enshrouded with black fire. The bard smashed his sword down on the box.

The box smashed open, and blue flames billowed out in all directions. Joel felt a blast of hot air. Then everything went black.

 

Eighteen

Renewal

 

Joel heard Holly calling his name. She was pleading with him to wake up. Jedidiah needed him.

Well, of course, Jedidiah needed him, Joel thought. That's how it is with gods. They need us, and we need them. He opened his eyes and blinked several times.

Everything was all silver around him. Holly's face came into view. She looked pale enough for light to shine through her.

"He's awake!" Holly cried out. "Joel, stay with us."

"I can hear you ... no need to shout," the bard said, but his voice sounded far off. He shook his head. "What—what happened?"

"When you destroyed the banelich's phylactery, there was a huge explosion," Holly said. "Look at yourself."

The Rebel Bard looked back down at his body. His tunic and shirt were burned to a crisp, and his skin beneath was pink as a newborn's—and painful to touch.

"I healed you as best I could," the paladin explained. She handed him half the finder's stone. "This fell from your shirt."

"What about the banelich?" Joel asked, sliding the gem into his boot.

"It turned to dust as soon as the phylactery was destroyed," Holly explained.

Suddenly Joel realized something was wrong. "Where's Jedidiah?" he demanded.

"You'd better come see," Holly said. She sailed off over Bane's body. Joel followed her, very slowly. He had a hard time concentrating.

Jedidiah lay with his head in Jas's lap. He was unconscious. His face and hands were terribly scarred, and his breathing was shallow and ragged. The god had his gift of immortality, but without the power to heal the grievous wounds the banelich had inflicted on him, Jedidiah might never recover. In his hands he clutched half of the finder's stone—the stolen half, which held the power that could restore to him all his godly abilities and, Joel hoped fervently, heal his wounds.

Joel knelt beside his god. Very gently he pulled the finder's stone from his hands. As if Jedidiah knew it was him, the god wielded up the gem.

Joel lifted his head and began to sing. His voice still sounded very far off, but he knew the tulip song well enough that it didn't matter.

The finder's stone began to glow softly, then to steam. Misty blue smoke writhed outward toward Jedidiah's body and surrounded him. Slowly the power sank back into its source.

Jedidiah's scars began to heal, and his breathing grew strong and steady. Without warning, his eyes snapped open.

"Lo," Jedidiah said.

"Hello, yourself," Joel replied with a smile. He handed Jedidiah the emptied half of the finder's stone.

"You might have been killed destroying that phylactery, you know," Jedidiah chided Joel.

Joel shrugged. "I might have lost my god if I hadn't," he pointed out.

"Where's Walinda?" Jedidiah asked.

"Did she ever come back?" Joel looked up at Jas.

"Who cares?" the winged woman muttered.

"She never returned," Holly said.

"What happened to the Hand of Bane?" Jedidiah asked.

Holly held up a leather sack and shook it. Its contents rattled like dried bones.

"That should make Lathander happy," Jedidiah muttered, sitting up slowly.

"Yes," Holly said. "I am to scatter the pieces about the multiverse," she said.

"Get that order in another vision, did you?" Jedidiah teased.

"Since my lord Lathander is not in the habit of posing as a feeble old adventurer, that is how he makes his wishes known. Yes," the paladin replied with a sassy tone. "My lord Lathander also wishes you to know that he thinks you are a reckless fool."

"God of Reckless Fools," Jedidiah agreed with a grin. "He could have popped in at any time to show me how I should have done it. Not that I would have listened, necessarily, but I'm always open to suggestions from the haughty and powerful."

Holly tossed her head and sniffed, but Joel didn't think she was really offended. Had she asked Lathander, the bard wondered, why it was Jedidiah who had to save her in the desert and not Lathander?

"And you, Lady Jas," Jedidiah asked, "do you have any criticisms you wish to share?" Jedidiah asked the winged woman.

"I learned a long time ago not to mess with gods," Jas replied.

"But the gods have messed with you anyway," Jedidiah noted, stroking some of the feathers growing on Jas's face. "Perhaps I can remedy the damage Xvim's priests have done to you," he suggested.

"I think the darkness inside of me is something I have to deal with myself," Jas said.

"Very well," Jedidiah said, "but perhaps I shall check in on you sometime to see if you need a song to lighten your heart."

"I think I could tolerate that level of godly interference," Jas replied. "Maybe."

"Then I guess it's time I escorted you all back to the Realms," Jedidiah said.

Joel shook his head. "I need to return to Sigil," he said. "But I don't want you following this time. It's way too risky."

Jedidiah looked surprised and more than a little concerned. "Does—does this mean you're leaving me?" he asked.

"Only for a while," Joel assured him. "I thought I'd help Holly hide the Hand of Bane. Then I have another duty."

"Oh?"

"I owe the end of a story to a bariaur. When I've finished my tale, I hope Dits will tell it to others ... other priests and other gods. Maybe even the Athar."

"You'll have to tell it to me when you return," Jedidiah replied.

Joel grinned broadly. "You'll be able to hear it firsthand when I tell it in Sigil," he said. "I've restored your ability to sense what happens around your priests . . . around me."

"I know," Jedidiah said.

"But you still want to hear me tell the tale," Joel realized aloud. 'You want to hear me say your name and tell people that I'm your priest."

"Yes," Jedidiah said with a sheepish grin.

"That's my purpose ... to strengthen you, as you strengthen me," Joel said. "A priest's purpose is not about being a slave to power as Walinda thought. It's a covenant about growing and renewing one another, god and follower both."

Jedidiah sighed and smiled. "Yes," he agreed.

"I understand now," Joel said, "I can accept that I'm your priest, without reservations, now and forever."

"And I accept the gift of your following with great joy," Jedidiah said. "Forever."

The Rebel Bard held out his hand.

On the corpse of a dead deity the god Finder clasped hands with his faithful priest.