by Kate Novak
Jas looked up at Joel and laughed in spite of herself through her tears. “You bards are such smooth talkers. Everything’s a symbol to you.”
Joel shrugged. “After all those years of training at the bard college, I can’t help myself anymore.”
“Can’t help what?” Emilo asked, suddenly popping out from behind a weigela bush.
“The propensity to put reality into poetical context,” Joel said. He released Jas’s hands and stood up. “Where have you been?”
“I went to investigate something that caught my eye,” Emilo replied. He looked at Jas with surprise. “You’ve been crying,” he noted. He pulled out an enormous baby blue handkerchief from one of the many pockets in his vest. “Here, you can dry your eyes with this. It’s clean. Unless you’d rather keep crying. That would be all right, too.”
“No, I’m finished now,” Jas said, taking the proffered cloth. She dabbed at her eyes, then wiped off her leather vest.
Emilo snagged a slice of melon from the tray of food on the bench and slurped at it noisily.
Tymora, Finder, and the priestess Winnie returned from their private conference.
Jas stood as they approached. “Will you help me now, please?” she asked the goddess. She held chin up and met Tymora’s gaze, but there was only earnestness, not pride, in her tone.
“Of course I’ll help you,” Tymora answered. She smiled warmly and placed both her hands on the winged woman’s shoulders.
Joel stepped away from the pair to stand at Finder’s side. Emilo took a position beside Winnie. He flashed the halfling priestess a cheery smile. Winnie eyed the kender with a look of indifference, but a tiny smile played across her lips when the kender looked away from her.
Tymora whispered a few words Joel couldn’t hear. Suddenly blue light glowed about her hands; then the blue light began to turn white, like a poker in a fire. The light soaked into Jas’s body. The winged woman began to glow, and her skin took on a translucent look, as if a gauze curtain were blocking the sun. A tiny sliver of black appeared in the light. It began to rise like a mist, expelled by Tymora’s power flooding through Jas.
Something overhead rumbled in the sky. Joel looked up with surprise. A dark cloud had blocked the light from a patch of stars overhead. Then the ground shook beneath their feet. A moment later the ground moved like a wave of water. The bench beneath the birch tree toppled over, and the birch was uprooted from the ground by the violence of the tremors.
Joel was knocked from his feet. He tried to rise, but the heaving of the ground convinced him to remain down. When he looked up, the goddess was pushing the winged woman away from her. Tymora’s head snapped up and her body arched back with a jerk. Sparks danced about her. She began breathing very quickly.
Finder cried out, “Tymora!” at the same time as Winnie shrieked, “My lady!” Finder leapt forward and wrapped his arms around the goddess’s body. A bolt of lightning shot upward from Lady Luck straight into the darkness overhead. The goddess collapsed in Finder’s arms, as limp as a doll.
The ground stilled, and the darkness overhead disappeared, leaving the stars twinkling above as if nothing had happened.
Jas lay on the ground, stunned. Winnie looked at her in alarm. “You do have something inside you, don’t you?” the halfling priestess whispered.
“No,” Tymora whispered. It seemed to Joel that in the silence that followed the upheaval, the goddess’s soft voice could be heard throughout her realm. Finder lowered her gently to the ground, cradling her shoulders and head against his chest.
“Winnie, listen,” Tymora said. “It was not Jasmine. Something caused me to lose control of my power. I sensed … I sensed …” The goddess’s voice faded.
“Tymora,” Finder whispered urgently. “What did you sense? Or was it a person?”
Tymora’s eyes flew open wide. “Beshaba!” she growled. Then her eyes closed again and she collapsed against Finder.
The ground gave one last tiny rumble, as if Tymora’s realm was shuddering from the name the goddess had just uttered.
“Who’s Beshaba?” Emilo asked curiously.
“Her sister,” Finder replied.
“Her enemy,” Winnie answered.
Behind the Scenes
“I am having a problem harnessing Tymora’s power,” the looming figure growled. “She is too generous with it. It leaks away whenever her followers call upon her. Worse, when she casts a spell, my power conduits cannot contain the energy bursts, and they overload and spew the power back out. It has attracted the attention of her allies.”
“So what is to be done?” the summoner asked with concern.
“She is greatly weakened. If we can capture her and bring her here, her allies will not be able to investigate the power drain and trace it back to us. Should she regain consciousness and cast another spell, we will not have to rely on the energy conduits—the fusion chamber can absorb the power. Then it will not be wasted. More importantly, if she is within the circle of darkness, she will not sense her followers calling upon her, and her power will not leak away when she shares it with them. Can your forces capture her?”
“I will make it so,” the summoner said.
“Good,” the looming figure replied. Then, the figure thought, no more of her power will be squandered on her foolish followers. It will all be mine.
Act Two
Scene 3
In the earthquake-ravaged garden, Finder had cast all the spells he could think of to help revive Tymora, but the goddess remained in a swoon. Joel had never seen Finder so pale and grave, not even when the god had returned to mortality to enter Sigil and his own life was threatened.
Joel realized his god was not just reacting in fear of anything that could so injure a power as great as Tymora. When Joel had first met Finder, Finder had assumed the identity of an old priest named Jedidiah and told Joel about Finder’s life and transformation into a god. Jedidiah had told Joel how much Finder owed to Tymora, how grateful the god was to the goddess for her help. He’d also spoken of Tymora’s grace and charm with so much passion that Joel had wondered if Jedidiah were speaking of his own feelings or those of Finder. Later, when Finder revealed that Jedidiah was only a ruse, Joel realized that his god had revealed his heart. Finder was smitten with Lady Luck.
Now Finder found himself powerless to help the patroness he cared for. As a mortal Finder had always been a man of action. As a god, he would feel no less frustrated by his helplessness.
Tymora’s priestess, Winnie, faced a critical dilemma. As Finder had pointed out to her, any spells she cast on her mistress would ultimately draw from her mistress’s power, so it was perhaps best for her to take a different role in the crisis. At the god’s advice, the halfling priestess had hurried off to arrange security for the area and to request the aid of Tymora’s oldest ally, the goddess Selune.
Finder, Joel, Jas, and Emilo had formed a circle about Tymora, anticipating an attack, perhaps from Beshaba, perhaps from some unknown enemy.
“How is it,” Emilo asked, “that Tymora and her sister are enemies?”
“Joel,” Finder said, “tell Emilo the story of Tyche.”
“Tyche?” Joel asked, his mind fixated on danger, not old tales.
“Yes, Tyche. They still teach her tale at that fancy barding college in Berdusk, don’t they?” the god snapped at his priest.
“Yes,” Joel said, realizing that his god was far more worried than he let on. The bard paused for a moment, trying to remember the traditional beginning to the tale of Tyche.
“Feel free to improvise,” Finder said with a more even humor.
“Right. A long time ago,” Joel began, “even before the fall of Myth Drannor, there was a great war between the gods of Toril over who would be their leader. It was known as the Dawn Cataclysm because it was started by Lathander when he decided that he should be that leader. Lathander is the god of beginnings,” Joel added for Emilo’s benefit. “Births, spring, and dawn are all his purview. Also cal
led the Morninglord, he’s a god of good. At the time of the Dawn Cataclysm, Lathander was favored with the love of Tyche, the goddess of all luck, good and bad, but Tyche wanted no part in the conflict Lathander had begun. She kissed Lathander with misfortune and left him to his war.
“Tyche wandered about the Realms for some time. As she rested on a snow-capped mountain surveying the land all about her, a rosebud burst through the snow at her feet. The bud showed no sign of damage from the harsh setting in which it had grown. It was just on the verge of opening its petals and promised to be perfect in every way. Because of the circumstances of the rose’s appearance, Tyche took it to be an overture of peace from Lathander.
“The goddess of luck reached down to pluck the rose, but the stem wouldn’t break. Tyche yanked harder, only to be rewarded by thorns in her fingers. She cursed the young blossom with bad luck, and the stem snapped right off. Annoyed that the gift had proved so difficult, Tyche decided to keep Lathander waiting a while longer. She continued wandering about the Realms, with the rose fastened in her hair above her ear.
“The rose, however, was not an offering from Lathander but a trap set by Moander the Darkbringer, god of decay. The rose blossomed, and its pollen drifted into her ear, where it began to rot her from the inside out. Thus the Darkbringer hoped to gain for himself Tyche’s power over luck.
“When Tyche returned to her home in the outer planes, Selune, goddess of the moon, was there waiting to speak with her. Selune was instantly aware of the corruption eating away at her friend. Without a moment’s hesitation—”
“—she lashed out,” said another voice, “with a bolt of purifying light that split Tyche down the center of her rotting core. All that was good and kind in Tyche coalesced into a single form and stepped out from Tyche’s rotting corpse. That was Tymora. I brought her forth from the tragedy of Tyche’s corruption, and she possessed power over good fortune.” The speaker appeared to be an elderly matron with long, black hair streaked with silver. There was something extraordinarily regal about her. Joel was filled with a sense of awe. Although he realized her elderly appearance was probably a godly illusion, the bard was certain he was in the presence of someone far older than either Finder or Tymora, and far more powerful. With Winnie trailing along behind her, the speaker approached Finder.
“Lady Selune,” Finder greeted her. His demeanor was grave as he bowed low. His mortal companions did likewise.
“Finder,” Selune said, recognizing the god with a cursory nod. She knelt beside Tymora’s unconscious form and set her hand over Lady Luck’s heart. A white light far brighter than that which Tymora had summoned flowed from the older goddess’s hand and covered Tymora’s body. The light appeared to seep into the unconscious goddess. Finder gasped.
“Did you see that?” Selune asked Finder.
“I think so,” the younger god said.
“Let’s try it again, shall we?” Selune asked. Once again the white light flowed from her hand over Tymora, then disappeared.
“Something’s drawing it off,” Finder whispered.
“What are you talking about?” Jas demanded. “The energy’s going into her.”
“No,” Selune said. “It appears that way to your mortal eyes because you do not sense all that we do. Something is drawing off the power surrounding Tymora in such a way that it only appears to be sinking into her form. But that’s only part of the problem. Close your eyes, Finder, and concentrate on Tymora. What do you sense?”
Finder closed his eyes. In less than two heartbeats, they flew open again. “She’s leaking like a sieve,” he said in a shocked voice.
Selune nodded. “Something has pierced the very source of her power. She can no longer control its release. Every time she uses her power, her control weakens so that more spills out of her. When she was casting her blessing on Jasmine, the power burst out. Whatever or whoever is siphoning her energy away was unprepared to absorb the surge. Some of the power went into the land, so the land quaked.”
“So it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t tried to cure me,” Jas said.
Selune leaned back on her heels and looked up at Jas. “The guilt is not your own, Jasmine. Do not rush to claim it,” the older goddess said curtly. “Only another god would have the power to cause such damage. Had Tymora not attempted to cure you, we might not have discovered the drain until it was far too late.”
Jas’s body stiffened, and the feathers on her wings quivered until Selune looked back down at Tymora. The winged woman tilted her head in puzzlement. “You look like someone I knew a long time ago,” she said softly.
“No,” Selune replied without looking up at Jas again. “Someone you knew a long time ago looked like me.” She stroked Tymora’s forehead and said, “We must find a way to stop this drain and restore Tymora’s ability to control her power.”
“Tymora believed Beshaba was behind this,” Winnie said.
“Please, who is Beshaba?” Emilo asked, stepping up beside the elderly goddess.
Selune turned toward the kender, and a look of surprise crossed her face. Perhaps she was surprised the kender had addressed her so directly, but Joel was left with the unmistakable impression that the goddess had not sensed the kender before.
“Beshaba, like Tymora,” the goddess explained, “arose from the corrupted form of Tyche. Once Tymora came forth, all that was tainted by Moander coalesced and stepped out as the goddess of ill fortune, Beshaba. Beshaba was lovely to behold, but her heart was malicious and spiteful. She is called Tymora’s sister only because they shared the same origin. Beshaba and Tymora hated one another instantly and tried to destroy each other. Fortunately other powerful gods were present at the time and helped separate the battling sisters. Beshaba fled to live on the dark planes, which were more suited to her spirit.”
“We must discover out how Beshaba is draining my lady and stop her somehow,” Winnie said.
Selune nodded. “Before we begin to investigate Beshaba, we need to take certain precautions. We can slow the drain from spells that Tymora grants to her priests. Winnie, as circumspectly as possible, you will have to spread word to Tymora’s churches that Finder and I will grant their spells for now. The drain from adventurers who call on Lady Luck will be more difficult to control. It is already causing problems in Faerûn, the sort of problems that could soon spread throughout the Realms. Tymora has always been generous. Even in her unconscious state, she’s still sending good fortune to those she favors. Too much luck is disrupting their lives as assuredly as bad luck would.”
“Can we stop that?” Finder asked.
“We must find a way,” Selune said. “Or the consequences will be horrible.”
“How can too much good luck be a bad thing?” Emilo asked.
“In more ways than you can imagine, but mostly it’s a case of flood or famine,” Selune replied. “Think a minute. When the good luck is all gone, what will be left?”
“Nothing but bad luck,” Jas said, beginning to sense what the regal goddess was driving at.
“Perhaps another power could conceal from Tymora’s senses any adventurers who call on her,” Finder suggested. “That should help to control her releases of power.”
Selune nodded. “Lathander might be able to do that. I will speak with him. Wait here.” The goddess vanished.
Joel went to Finder’s side. “Will you be going to investigate Beshaba?” he asked softly.
Winnie flashed a look of utter disbelief at Joel. “He really is one of the clueless, isn’t he?” the halfling priestess asked Finder.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jas snapped, glaring at Winnie.
“Easy, Jasmine,” Finder warned. “No,” he said to Joel, “I will do everything I can for Tymora, but I don’t dare approach Beshaba’s realm. She would detect another power in an instant. For another god to enter her realm without invitation would be tantamount to a declaration of war. And Beshaba is Tymora’s equal in power. In a fight with her, I wouldn’t stand a chance.�
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“But Selune is more powerful than Beshaba, isn’t she?” Joel asked.
“Selune will do what she can to avoid a war with another power,” Finder replied. “It’s a messy business.”
“We’ll have to send in a discreet party on a reconnaissance mission,” Winnie explained. “They’ll have to take care not to set off any magical alarms that Beshaba may have cast upon her realm. If they cannot stop whatever it is that is draining my lady’s power, if they find there is nothing to be done short of warring with Beshaba, then Selune may act.”
“I can go on your behalf,” Joel said to Finder.
Finder smiled sadly at his priest. “I know you would do anything for me, but you don’t realize the dangers you would be facing. Beshaba’s realm is in the Abyss, a place of infinite evil, cruelty, and bloody war. Moreover, the nature of the realm will weaken your ability to cast your priestly spells.”
“If Beshaba has set up magical alarms, it will be to warn her of the arrival of the minions of Tymora or Selune, mighty warriors and powerful mages. What could be more harmless than the priest of a god she has no reason to fear?” Joel insisted. “I can at least spy out the territory.”
“He has a point,” Winnie said.
Finder shot Winnie a withering glare.
Joel set a hand on his god’s arm and said, “When you were forced to trade the Hand of Bane in return for your power, you let me make the decision. You trusted me to make the right one for all involved. I know your heart, Finder. Let me help.”
“I’ll go with Joel,” Jas said. “I’ll keep him out of trouble.”
Finder looked at Jas with surprise. It was unlike the winged woman to volunteer for anything dangerous. “Why?” Finder asked.
