by Kate Novak
"She's right," Cory agreed.
"I'm not sitting around here waiting all day," Tavan said. "We made a sacrifice to Tymora. If we attack the orcs, we'll be lucky and break through." He pulled out a dagger from his belt.
"No," Toran said. "We should attack the kobolds and try to find the exit from the catacombs into the woods."
"We'll flip for it," Tavan said. "I call heads."
Toran pulled out a coin and tossed it in the air, but he didn't manage to catch it. The coin hit the floor of the crypt and spun about on its side like a top. When it stopped spinning, it did not fall over. Instead, it remained balanced on edge, neither heads nor tails.
"Interesting," the guardian hissed. "I'd take that as a sign."
"We stay here," Amber growled to Tavan and Toran.
From the catacombs, the kobolds began shrieking loudly. The clamor upset the children.
Suddenly a terrible rumbling noise came from the catacombs, and the whole crypt began to shake. Pieces of stone from the arched ceiling of the crypt began to tumble to the floor.
"If we stay here, we'll be crushed!" Toran shouted.
Now not only Pars, but also Ferrin and Heather, began to cry and scream as well. Dust filled the air as more stone and dirt collapsed around them.
"Tymora," Cory called out, "we need your help!"
The other children took up the call, shouting out Lady Luck's name. Amber bent over her young brother to shield him from the falling stone. She whispered a prayer to Selune, since the goddess of the moon was the patron of shapeshifters.
The ground ceased moving as suddenly as it had started. In a few minutes, the dust cleared enough for them to survey the damage. The ceiling of the crypt had collapsed on either side of them, so that both the entrance to the catacombs and the exit to the mausoleum were both completely blocked off.
Amazingly, the ceiling over their heads remained intact. They were safe from the orcs and kobolds, but they were now sealed alive in the crypt of their ancestors.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The looming figure hovered over the altar of stone and stroked the gold coin and the pink rose. Swollen with the power of two goddesses, they glowed with a light so bright it was painful for mortals to behold. The figure coveted that power, but it was not yet time to claim it. Soon, very soon, Beshaba and Tymora would be no more. Then their power would be his, and no one could stop him from claiming it.
Then he would claim the goddesses' worshipers as well. Beshaba's followers would turn to him readily, eager for the ruin he would bring to their enemies. Tymora's priests, of course, would balk, but they would be powerless without him. They would turn to Selune for protection, but they couldn't cower in Selune's temples forever. When they emerged, they would be captured and given a choice-join him or die. It mattered not to him which they chose.
It was the adventurers who followed Tymora that he coveted. Adventurers were a power to be reckoned with in the Realms, and many of them relied on Tymora's luck to survive the hardships of their professions. They wouldn't dare to risk his wrath. They would call on him for sustenance, and their strength would be his. And then, in time, the Realms would be his.
Opera is the one medium that provides a venue for the composer to express vastly differing emotions simultaneously through song. The many voices weave together to form a single tapestry of song that may reveal not only wrenching pain and darkest evil, but sublime joy, noblest sacrifice. Thus, music that is already beautiful and moving is further enhanced by chilling ironies and dramatic overtones. The enjoyment of opera is an acquired taste, but to my mind, those who put forth the effort to study it and appreciate it will be richly rewarded.
— Raistlin Majere
ACT FOUR SCENE 1
Jas landed on a rocky butte and folded back her wings, which here in the Outlands were reddish brown at the base and speckled with white and black flecks at the tips. After all the awful shapes and colors her wings had taken, Jas rather liked them they way they looked now-like a hawk's. Even better, her eyes had returned to normal, and she was slowly molting her feathers. She felt human again.
She peered out across the prairies, but she could see nothing for miles and miles but the spire. The infinite peak rose in the distance, seemingly no closer today than it had been yesterday. Jas did not hurry back down to the party, but sat for a few minutes to enjoy the peaceful solitude.
Traveling across Gehenna on foot would be preferable to traveling anywhere with Beshaba. Despite having shrunk to the size of a human, the goddess was still a giant terror. Although she made perfectly clear that she could destroy the party in an instant, the goddess was so exhausted by the drain on her power she rode on the carpet. Since the carpet couldn't take the weight of five persons, Jas was forced to fly alongside it, for which she might have been grateful. She was plagued, however, with the sensation that she was once again watching her friends being tortured, only this time by Walinda's goddess.
Beshaba never stopped complaining or criticizing or scheming. The magic carpet moved too slow. The light of the Outlands was too bright. Holly's smile was annoying. Joel's good manners were a pretense. Jas reeked of Tymora's magic. They'd been forced to introduce Emilo, to keep Beshaba from tripping over him, and the goddess had been especially aggravated by the kender's presence. Halflings and kender were vermin. On occasion, she would launch into a tirade about how Xvim would rue the day he tangled with her. She would see that he choked on his own tongue.
Then there was the bad luck that dogged not only the adventurers but Beshaba herself. A freak wind blew the magic carpet into a tree. In the collision, a branch tore a great hole in the rug so that it would no longer fly. Emilo had been crushed at the loss of so spectacular an item of magic.
The party was forced to walk. They passed too close to a burr bush and ended up picking prickles out of their clothes for hours. Their boots began to fall apart, and before long, they all had blisters, even the goddess, who also broke a nail trying to adjust the straps on her sandals.
When they set up camp for the night, Holly cut her hand cleaning a bird she had caught for them to eat, Joel hurt his knee breaking a branch to feed the fire to cook the bird, and Emilo burned his hand building the fire. Beshaba, who, as Holly pointed out, didn't really need to eat as did the humans, insisted on tasting the bird and burned her tongue. The injury soured the goddess's mood even further.
After spending half an hour fruitlessly searching for a holy symbol that was missing from her backpack, Holly threw herself, frustrated and tearful, to the ground to sleep. She was up again in only a few minutes, having lain on an anthill. She had to remove all her armor to get the ants off her, and she was badly bitten. While Joel sorted through their remaining magical scrolls, the wind whipped the pages away in the dark. Then, while Jas was on watch, the bard was beset with nightmares about children suffocating in a cave and cried out in his sleep, waking Holly and Emilo and alarming everyone.
Only Jas seemed immune to the problems besetting the party. Reeking of Tymora's magic apparently had a positive side. Ordinarily this many tribulations would have resulted in bickering, but no one was comfortable speaking in the goddess's presence except the goddess. The angry silence of the others was infinitely more wearying than any fight would have been, and Jas couldn't help but think the others resented her lack of misfortune.
During the second day's travel, Beshaba grew more suspicious and distrustful, not only of the surrounding area, but of her escorts as well. She demanded that Jas fly up ahead to scout, Emilo and Holly walk in front where she could see them, and Joel stay right at her side. She would become livid when she took her eyes off Emilo and didn't see him when she looked again. From some of her jewelry and a string, the goddess created a jangling collar for the kender, so that she could hear him and he wouldn't become "unnoticed" again. Emilo looked as mortified as a cat with a bell around the neck.
After having desired Walinda's death since the day she met her, Jas now regretted that the prie
stess wasn't here to suffer under her goddess's spiteful eye. Of course, Walinda was so perverse that she had thrived on the abuse her previous master had heaped on her, so there was no guarantee Beshaba would actually make Walinda miserable even were she still alive.
Now that her friends' murderess was dead and the dark stalker was just a phantom of her mind, Jas found the fires that had driven her had grown cold. She didn't want to go back on her promise to help Tymora, but the thought of traveling day after day with Beshaba was intolerable. And when they finally reached the spire, what would happen next? The uncertainty, the inability to plan her life beyond tomorrow was exhausting her. Suddenly, off in the distance, Jas caught sight of a beam of light. The beam looked familiar, a line of yellow just like the light from the finder's stone Joel had used to summon her when they were in Gehenna. There were two finder's stones, Jas remembered, or rather two halves of one stone. Joel had one half, and the other…
"Finder," Jas whispered. "It's about time you showed up."
The thought that Finder would soon be there lifted Jas's spirits slightly. Finder would deal with Beshaba, god to goddess. Jas flew back to the group to give them the good news.
Beshaba didn't seem pleased. She didn't trust any of the gods, and apparently she suspected Finder of some treachery. She awaited his arrival holding a dagger next to Joel's ribs so she would have the upper hand over Joel's god.
Soon it appeared as if a sun had blossomed on the horizon and was moving toward them. With Beshaba's attention fixed on the sky, Emilo sat down beside Jas and pulled out a piece of red glass from one of his many vest pockets. He held the glass up to his eye so he could view the approaching light without squinting. "It looks like a chariot of fire," the kender said excitedly. "Want to see?" he asked Jas.
Jas took the glass and looked at the approaching light. "It looks more like a fiery carriage and four," she noted. "Leave it to Finder to travel in style."
Jas was about to hand the piece of glass back to Emilo when she noticed the depiction of the sun and the face carved on its surface. It looked like the holy symbol of Lathander.
"Emilo," the winged woman whispered, "where did you get this?"
"Walinda took it from Holly's backpack," the kender said. "I picked it up when she tossed it aside. Can you imagine doing that-as pretty as it is? I think it stung her."
"Holly was looking everywhere for that last night," Jas said. "She was in tears about losing it."
"Really?" Emilo asked with astonishment. "I must have been sleeping. I'll give it back to her."
The kender rose and hurried over to Holly and tugged on her sleeve to get her attention.
Finder landed his fiery flying carriage pulled by four flaming stallions. The god pulled the carriage up beside Beshaba and reined in the horses.
"I've come to offer you a ride, Lady Beshaba," Finder said with a cocky wink. "I'll even let you drive if you promise not to murder my priest."
Beshaba glared at Finder. "I have been in the Outlands nearly a whole day. What took you so long to come for me?" she demanded.
"I've been busy. Assassins and saboteurs have begun to strike against Tymora's church, and Lady Selune and I have been hard pressed to keep her priests safe," Finder explained.
"Or perhaps you were busy preparing some scheme at the base of the spire to betray me?" the goddess accused him.
"My lady, you know the natives of the region of the spire, the rilmani, would never allow that," Finder replied. "They serve only the Balance and will preserve our truce. I suggested the spire as a neutral ground where you would feel safe for just that reason."
"Ha!" Beshaba laughed coldly, but she removed her dagger from Joel's ribs. "The rilmani are just as likely to let you destroy me, then destroy you, all in the name of their precious Balance."
"I may be a reckless fool," Finder replied, "but I have no desire to quarrel with the rilmani. Hence you are safe."
"Where is my hateful sister?" Beshaba demanded.
"Lathander has set up a dead magic zone in Elysium to protect her from the drain on her power. Since we did not think you would wish to travel to Elysium, you will have to make do with the dead magic zone near the spire."
As Finder and Beshaba bickered, Emilo slipped Holly the red glass. "Walinda took this from your pack, but I saved it," he said. "Sorry I forgot to give it back right away."
Holly's eyes lit with joy. "Oh, thank goodness!" she declared. Then the paladin did something the kender hadn't expected. Indeed, if he'd known what she was going to do, he would have stopped her.
Holly gripped the glass firmly in her right hand, rocked back on her heels, and hurled the glass ornament at a rock, smashing it to pieces.
Finder's head snapped up and Beshaba whirled around. Both powers looked at the paladin, Finder with horror, Beshaba with fury.
"What was that?" Beshaba demanded.
"I broke a piece of glass," Holly said.
"What sort of glass, girl?" the goddess hissed as she moved toward the paladin with her dagger drawn.
"It was a holy symbol," Holly said. "To let Lord Lathander know I'd found you."
"Lathander senses all you do," Beshaba growled. "You broke it so he would know exactly where you were, didn't you?"
"I suppose so," Holly replied.
Something overhead gave an ear-piercing shriek.
Everyone looked up. Swooping toward them was a huge bird with the most brilliant plumage Jas had ever seen. Every color of the setting sun was reflected in its feathers. Its eyes were as red and shiny as rubies. It also flew faster than any bird Jas had ever seen.
"It's a phoenix! Some trick of Lathander's!" Beshaba gasped. "I warned you the bard's life would be forfeit," she growled to Holly. She turned about and lunged for Joel, grabbing him by his ponytail.
"No, Beshaba!" Finder cried out. "He had nothing to do with this. Leave my priest out of it." The phoenix's shadow covered them all.
Finder leapt forward to grab Beshaba, but he was too late. The goddess was snatched up in the talons of the phoenix and carried aloft, screeching like a banshee. Joel was carried off with her, dangling from her hand by his hair like a doll carried by a small child.
Finder jumped back into his carriage, snapped the reins, and gave chase. Within seconds, both the bird and the fiery carriage had become mere dots on the horizon.
Jas and Emilo looked at Holly.
"I had to do it," the paladin whispered, but there were tears pooling in her eyes.
A minute later Finder returned in the carriage. He didn't have Joel or Beshaba with him.
"What happened?" Jas asked.
"The phoenix went through a magic gate that closed before I could reach it," Finder said coldly. He stepped down from the carriage and strode up to Holly. Jas had never seen him look so angry before. His eyes blazed with light and his body shook.
"You," he said, thrusting a finger in Holly's face, "have some explaining to do."
ACT FOUR SCENE 2
Once he'd recovered from the initial shock of being yanked into the air by his hair, Joel grabbed at Beshaba's wrist with both hands and hung on for dear life. The phoenix flew with such speed that the wind in his face made it hard to breathe. Far below, the plains of the Out-lands became a blur. For a moment, Joel thought he saw Finder in his flaming carriage, but it might just have been a flash of light in the back of his eyes from the pain in his head.
The phoenix's talons were wrapped about Beshaba's waist and hips, so her arms were free. Although she was now the size of a human woman, she was still possessed of godly strength. With one arm, she raised Joel so that they faced each other eye to eye. The goddess gave the bard a cruel smile, one that reminded Joel of Walinda.
Joel was sure Beshaba was about to drop him to avenge herself on everyone she believed had betrayed her.
"Rat," the goddess murmured, and it appeared suddenly to Joel that the goddess and the phoenix overhead were growing larger.
A great blast of wind hit the phoenix sid
eways, very likely caused by Beshaba's bad luck. The phoenix lost altitude but recovered quickly.
The bard was beginning to feel relieved that Beshaba hadn't dropped him when he noticed with alarm that there was gray fur on his arms. He felt his nose, and was shocked to discover that it had become a snout. Beshaba had called him a rat, and a rat he had indeed become. Fearful that he might forget he was human, Joel writhed and called out to Finder, but all that came from his mouth was a pathetic squeak. A moment later Beshaba grabbed him about the belly with one hand and slipped him into a pocket of her gown. It was dark inside the pocket, but Joel fought back his sense of helplessness by reminding himself that at least he still remembered who and what he was.
It was also hot and stuffy inside the pocket of Beshaba's gown, but infinitely preferable to being dropped from such a height. In the relative safety of the warm darkness surrounding him, Joel was left to wonder why Beshaba didn't simply destroy the phoenix.
There was the possibility she no longer possessed enough power to attack the great creature. Yet she had wreaked havoc upon the Bastion of Hate, even after she had lapsed into unconsciousness. She may have thought to confront Xvim on an angry impulse, but if she had gone with the understanding that her lack of control could be used against Xvim, then she was very cunning indeed. She could be faking her weakness so that she could confront Lathander and cause the same sort of destruction in his realm.
This left Joel wondering just what kind of game Lathander was playing. He'd sent Holly to retrieve Beshaba, that much was obvious. But why? Did he think, as Tymora had, that Beshaba was behind Tymora's loss of power? Then why hadn't he told Finder what he was planning?
