Tumora's luck lg-3
Page 24
"Of course not," Perr insisted. "Tyrannar Neri ordered me to obey his commands."
"Suppose there were an army of tanar'ri sitting at the gate, commanded by a priestess of Beshaba?"
"Why would Hatemaster Morr signal me to open the gate to such an army?" Perr asked with surprise.
"Would that make a difference as to whether or not you would obey him?" Joel asked.
Perr looked confused. "Such at thing would be a betrayal of Lord Xvim," he said.
"Only if Lord Xvim gave a damn," Joel said. "Suppose Lord Xvim enticed Beshaba here as a test of his tyrannars-a test that I believe they have all failed. They cower in the temple waiting for Lord Xvim to return and save them all. Not one is filled with enough hatred to seize the opportunity offered them. Beshaba-the goddess herself, not merely one of her avatars-lies unconscious in Lord Xvim's throne room, no doubt from some magic set there by the lord himself. Yet not one of the tyrannar acts to destroy Lord Xvim's enemy."
"You can't kill a goddess," Perr insisted. Then, less certainly, he asked, "Can you?"
"A mortal, no. But another goddess could."
"What goddess?" Perr asked with obvious fascination.
"Tymora," Joel said. "She and her sister, Beshaba, have always hated one another. Of course, this works to the glory of Lord Xvim. He feeds on their hatred, for the hatred and tyranny of the gods can be far more powerful than that of mere mortals. I have lured Tymora here with the information that Xvim has abducted one of Tymora's favorites, the bird woman Jasmine, and plans to give her to Beshaba. Tymora is so enraged that she fully intends to destroy Beshaba. I think Lord Xvim would be most pleased if the death were to take place in his holy tower."
Perr's jaw dropped, and he remained speechless for several moments. Joel did not spoil the mood by breaking the silence. He waited patiently for Perr to react. Finally the petitioner said, "It is dangerous… but so brilliant." There was admiration in the look he gave Joel.
"I haven't much more time to waste," the bard said. "It doesn't really matter whether you open the gate or not, because Tymora can tear it in half as easily as Beshaba did. I am telling you this only to test your loyalties. Tymora will come disguised as a priestess of Beshaba, because she believes Beshaba is in league with Xvim and that we will admit a priestess to attend her mistress. If we fail to admit her, she will admit herself, and her army of tanar'ri will attack the yugoloths until she reaches Beshaba. The tyrannars know nothing of my plan." "But Hatemaster Morr does?" Perr asked.
"Hatemaster Morr is dead," Joel replied, "though his body has not yet been discovered."
"Is that why you go shaven and pierced as Hatemaster Morr does-did? To imitate him?" Perr asked.
"It is satisfying to learn that death has not dulled your keen mind," Joel replied. "I have noticed that the yugoloths have nearly as much trouble distinguishing one human from another as we do telling the yugoloths apart. They recognize Hatemaster Morr's naked head and lip ring rather than his features."
"So you will give me the signal to open the gate. If I do, how will I be rewarded?" Perr asked, obviously excited. He was breathing more quickly now.
"That will depend on how Lord Xvim rewards me. Though I wear the robes of a hatemaster to imitate Hate-master Morr, I am actually a ruinlord. I believe Lord Xvim will raise me to the rank of a tyrannar. I will then ask that you not only be restored to the rank and power of a hate-master, but to the rank and power you should have attained had Tyrannar Neri not foiled your last mission. I will ask Lord Xvim to make you a ruinlord. Although you are a petitioner, he can grant you such power. That is, of course, assuming you have not yet by then merged with Lord Xvim. This scheme might be the chance you await. What greater tyranny can a mortal attain than to aid in the destruction of a god? What greater hatred can he show than betraying commanders who are actually his inferiors?"
Perr flicked his right hand backward at the wrist. "That is the signal Hatemaster Morr gives to open the gate," he said.
Joel imitated the signal. "Darkness falls," he intoned solemnly, imitating the greetings he had heard exchanged by other priests of Xvim.
"And darkness rises again," Perr responded.
Once Joel had crawled out of the gatekeeper's suffocating quarters, he began to shiver despite the warmth of the Gehennan air. He had the uncomfortable feeling he had been transformed into a priest of the god Cyric, Prince of Lies. He pressed his hand against the finders stone inside his shirt and was comforted by its warmth. Finder was still with him.
The yugoloth he'd spoken to earlier was staring at him. He stared back, debating whether or not to try to convince these creatures not to defend the fortress when the tanar'ri attack came. In the end, he decided not to try. It would be far more complicated than it had been to convince Perr to open the gate. The yugoloths would take their orders from a higher-ranking yugoloth, and Joel had no way of knowing which one that would be. Without actually lying, he had already suggested to them that Tymora was coming. Considering what had happened to their fellows when Beshaba had arrived, that deception might keep them from attacking Walinda, providing this yugoloth spread the rumor that Tymora was expected.
Joel knew better than to repeat the lie, though. It would look manipulative. Either the yugoloths gossiped or they didn't.
He strode off down the wall until he turned a corner. There were more yugoloth guards up ahead. He noticed another trapdoor at his feet. He opened it without a trace of furtiveness. The ladder leading down into the darkness below was scaled for a large yugoloth, but Joel managed to make his way down it without breaking his neck.
Joel pulled out the finder's stone. By its light, he could see that he was in a room with a window looking out over the courtyard. The room was empty save for him, a table and a chair, and a dead yugoloth, one of the short, lobster-like ones. It lay on its back, its carapace sliced down the center from its head to the bottom of its tail. Its entrails had been pulled out and stomped on.
From somewhere in the walls, Joel caught the muffled sounds of a battle with swords. He stood at the window and thought of Jas. The finder's stone sent a beacon of light up to another part of the wall. Joel hoped Jas was paying attention, for he didn't dare use the beacon for long. After only a few heartbeats, he slipped the magic crystal back into his shirt and stepped to one side of the window.
The bard counted to five hundred before returning to the window to resignal the winged woman, but Jas appeared in the window just as Joel was pulling out the finder's stone. She had Emilo with her.
'Sorry we took so long," Jas apologized. "We were just finishing up. Did you know that Walinda's troops are starting to mass outside the bastion?"
"She said she'd give me half a day," Joel replied.
"Well, apparently she got impatient," Jas retorted. She looked down at the dead yugoloth on the floor. "Your handiwork?" she asked.
Joel shook his head. "I take it isn't yours either."
"No," Jas replied. "Looks like one of the bigger yugoloths got tired of taking orders from this guy."
"We started the fighting going on down the hall," Emilo said excitedly. "And Jas has set up fifteen barrels of smoke powder to explode."
"You did what?" Joel gasped. "Do you know how dangerous that stuff is? It's been outlawed in fifteen cities in the Heartlands."
"Trust me," Jas said. "I know what I'm doing. It may be enough to knock a hole in the outer wall, and maybe not. At any rate, it will make a great diversion. What did you find out about the gate?"
"I think I've got the gatekeeper convinced to open the gate on my signal. Unless he's got me completely fooled, or he changes his mind, or he figures out I'm not a ruinlord of Xvim."
Suddenly there was a tremendous boom, like a fireball cast by an ancient wizard, and the floor shook beneath them.
"Was that another quake from Beshaba?" Emilo asked.
Jas leaned out the window and peered out into the darkness. "Damn! I think my smoke powder went off a little early," she declared.
"Does it look to you like the wall's collapsed a little?" Jas asked.
"It's too dark for me to tell," Joel replied. "This isn't good," he huffed. "Now the priests are going to be on the alert. I thought you said you knew what you were doing."
"Hey, as hot as it is in this place, anything could have set it off," Jas retorted. "Maybe a yugoloth got careless with a torch, or a little fountain of lava sprouted up nearby. Walinda had to be near enough to hear it. Maybe she'll take it as a sign to begin her attack."
"I was hoping we might avoid a big battle," Joel said.
"What difference does it make?" Jas said. "So some yugoloths and some tanar'ri tear each other apart."
"Holly's out there," Joel reminded the winged woman. "You heard how upset she was about Walinda sacrificing her troops. She's likely to try to protect the bar-lgura."
Jas looked down at the floor, unable to argue with the bard's assessment.
"Maybe you better try summoning Walinda now with the finder's stone," Emilo suggested, "before the priests get themselves organized."
Joel nodded. "You're right," he agreed. "Jas, fly me down to the ground near the wall. I'll signal her through the gate. While I'm taking care of that, I want you to take Emilo back to the tower. Emilo, climb down the stairs to the throne room on the first floor and wait there without giving yourself away. Walinda's betrayed us more than once in the past. We need to keep you in reserve in case she proves ungrateful for all we've done for her. Stay away from the imp. Jas, I may not need you, but wait for my signal, just in case."
Once on the ground in the courtyard, Joel made his way along the wall toward the gate. The larger yugoloths were no longer drilling in formation but milling about in large, tight herds, while the shorter ones were trying to reorganize them. A group of novice priests emerged from a door in the wall and hurried toward him.
"Hatemaster, what's going on?" one of the novices asked.
"What's going on?" Joel imitated the man's panicked voice. "Tyrannar Neri is setting off fireworks to announce the start of his tea party," the bard replied sarcastically. "What do you think is going on, you ninny? We're under attack, of course. If you know what's good for you, you'll get back inside the wall."
"Wouldn't we be safer in the temple?" another novice asked. It might be better, the bard realized, if he could keep the novices separated from the temple so the higher-ranking priests within received no information. He had to make them think it was their idea, however.
"Fine. Go right ahead," Joel said. "The yugoloths are in some sort of snit about not being paid, but if you want to walk past them while they're in such a quarrelsome mood, feel free," he added, waving his arm in the direction of the courtyard.
The novices glanced nervously at the yugoloths milling about in the courtyard, then turned and hurried back through the door into the wall. Joel continued on toward the gate.
When he came to the iron portcullis, he halted and peered out into the darkness. Against the red glow of the lava river, he saw the silhouettes of hundreds of bulezau. There was no sign of the bar-lgura or Walinda. Joel pulled out the finder's stone and concentrated on the priestess. The beacon of light shot through the portcullises of the inner and outer walls and struck a boulder not more than a hundred yards away from the gate.
Come on, Walinda, the bard thought impatiently. I can't signal for them to open the gate if they don't see you. He slipped the finder's stone back into his shirt.
Joel didn't care whether the priestess made her appearance because of the signal from the finder's stone or because she had read the bard's thoughts as long as her appearance made an impressive spectacle. Suddenly the air around the boulder shimmered and the priestess manifested herself. She was kneeling on the magic carpet, which hovered five feet off the ground. As the carpet glided forward, Holly stepped from the dark ranks of the bulezau and walked along beside it. Then the marilith slithered forward behind Holly.
The carpet halted directly before the gate. The ebon aura of power that surrounded the evil priestess had grown until it blocked out the light from the lava river behind her.
From the wall above, Joel heard the gatekeeper call out, "Who goes there?"
Walinda, with her head held high and her back as straight as an eastern princess's, called out, "I am Walinda of Beshaba. I have come at the summons of Lady Beshaba."
Joel stepped back away from the portcullis so that Petitioner Perr could see him from the window in the gate control room.
Perr looked down upon the bard disguised as Hate-master Morr. Joel gave him the signal to open the gate. Perr disappeared from the window.
All right, Perr, old buddy, Joel thought, this is it. Your moment of destiny. Please don't make me look like a fool.
Both portcullises raised up all the way, as if Perr wanted to be sure this woman he believed to be Beshaba's sister didn't feel inclined to damage his newly repaired gates.
"Enter and be welcome, Walinda of Beshaba," Joel called out, "in the name of the New Darkness."
One of the larger yugoloths came running up to Joel and halted at his side. An agonizing pain blazed across the bard's head as the creature shouted telepathically, There are hundreds of invisible bar-lgura all around the priestess!
"I am aware of that," Joel lied, realizing that the yugoloths could see the invisible beings he had only suspected were present. The magic carpet carried Walinda through the gatehouse. Holly and the marilith entered beside her. All three moved toward the bard.
The bar-lgura are entering the courtyard!
"It's all right," the bard said with a calm, reassuring tone. "They are our allies."
The yugoloth grabbed at Joel's robe and shook him. Allies do not enter with their weapons drawn!
The marilith's tail whipped around the yugoloth, and she yanked the struggling creature toward her. She lay all six hands on the creature's body and hissed.
Joel's mind reeled with the yugoloth's telepathic scream as the marilith's touch magically bruised and burned the creature's body.
"Leave him be!" the bard shouted at the snake-woman.
The yugoloth vanished.
"What did you do to him?" Joel demanded. He fled from my attack with his magic, the marilith answered telepathically.
Walinda leaned forward on the magic carpet. "Is that you, Poppin?" she asked with astonishment.
"Of course it's Joel," Holly snapped. "He's the only person here not radiating evil."
"I am impressed, priest of Finder," the priestess said. "I had no idea you would prove such a talented saboteur. You have ensured our victory."
"And you may have just thrown it away," Joel retorted sharply. "You still have to win your way to Beshaba. We might have reached her with stealth, but now that you've attacked one of the guards, we may not be able to avoid a fight."
Even as the bard spoke, the giant yugoloths in the courtyard surged toward the intruders.
"So there will be a fight," Walinda said. "That is what we have armies for."
The yugoloths stopped about a hundred feet away from the wall, and it soon became clear that they were blocked by invisible bar-lgura. The larger yugoloths apparently had no trouble seeing the shorter apelike tanar'ri, invisible or not, and engaged them in combat. As the bar-lgura began to fight back, they broke the spell of invisibility that surrounded them. Then Joel was able to see what had so alarmed the yugoloth who'd tried to warn him. Hordes of tanar'ri surrounded Walinda.
The marilith raised a horn to her lips and sounded a call to battle. Moments later the minotaurlike bulezau, in all their horrifying visibility, began streaming through the gates, flanking outward along the wall, territory which the bar-lgura had claimed for them. Several of the bulezau carried magic killers. As the iron latticework spheres passed near the invisible bar-lgura, they became visible again.
Joel looked toward the temple, but so far there was no sign th
at the priests of Xvim had chosen to leave their refuge to investigate either the explosion or the sounds of battle that they surely must have heard.
"Beshaba is on the first floor of that tower," Joel told the others. "If we hurry, we might still make it to the roof and down the stairs before it occurs to the yugoloths to block our access to your goddess."
Suddenly a shower of spears hailed down upon them from the bastion wall. Several struck the bulezau and the bar-lgura near the wall. One spear bounced off Holly's shoulder plate. Another struck Joel in the leg, just above his knee.
The bard cried out and fell forward.
"Get him on the carpet," Walinda ordered.
Invisible bar-lgura hands lifted the bard into the air and laid him on the magic carpet beside the evil priestess.
Joel ignored the fiery pain and called out to Holly to get on the carpet, too.
At that moment, a column of fire shot down from the sky and struck the paladin.
"Carpet, up fifty feet," Walinda commanded.
"No!" Joel shouted as the carpet began rising above the battle, leaving Holly on the ground. "Carpet, go down," he ordered.
"Silence him!" Walinda snapped.
Large, hairy arms belonging to an invisible bar-lgura grabbed the bard from behind and covered his mouth. As Joel struggled, the bar-lgura's invisibility dispelled, but the bard was unable to break from the apelike fiend's grasp.
"Carpet, go up another fifty feet," Walinda ordered. "Don't be foolish, Poppin," she said to Joel. "The paladin's holiness makes her a natural target. We cannot afford to keep her beside us."
Then Joel spotted Jas swooping down toward Holly, and he ceased his struggles. He turned to glare at the priestess as she directed the flying carpet up to the roof of the tower.
The marilith and her two hezrou lieutenants had used their power to teleport to the roof. By the time Joel and Walinda arrived, they already stood beside the parapet surrounding the roof. The toadlike hezrou were sniffing at the air as the snake-woman looked with a critical eye at the ground far below. Walinda settled the carpet just behind where the marilith stood. At a signal from the priestess, the bar-lgura released Joel. The apelike tanar'ri rolled off the carpet and began sniffing the air as well.