Finder's bane h-15

by Kate Novak

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

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

  "I hope not," Jedidiah replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Joel looked questioningly at the old priest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Bear?"

  Holly shook her head.

  "The Zhents? More priests of Xvim?"

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

  "There was one other thing," Holly said.

  "What?" Joel asked eagerly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Where is he?" Joel hissed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What have you lost?" Joel
asked.

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

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

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

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

  "Joel?" Holly tried interrupting again.

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

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

  "Joel? Holly snapped.

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

  "What is it, Holly?" Joel snapped.

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

  Jedidiah swung about with a feral growl.

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

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

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

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