by Kate Novak
Joel stared uncertainly at the door. “We’re more likely to discover what we need to know at the top of the stairs,” he said.
“But perhaps we can learn something useful here,” Emilo argued. “Maybe Beshaba keeps her secrets down here instead of up there,” the kender suggested.
“Just a quick look,” Joel agreed with a sigh.
They slipped through the door. The finder’s stone light stubbornly shone back toward the stairs.
From his pack, the kender pulled out a torch and tinderbox. By the light of the torch, they proceeded down the narrow corridor.
The corridor opened into a larger hallway. To his left, Joel could hear the murmur of low, indistinct voices.
The bard led his companions in the direction of the voices. The hallway emptied into a great room with rows of benches facing an altar covered with a red cloth and a rack of horns—an underground temple to Beshaba. The benches were packed with people praying, some silently and others mumbling their prayers with considerable fervor. Occasionally a worshiper approached one of the braziers that surrounded the altar and set fire to an offering.
A pretty young woman dressed in black from head to toe came up from behind them. “Beshaba provides,” she whispered. “Bad things always happen. Only offerings and prayer to Lady Doom can save us.”
“Mmmm,” Joel responded noncommittally.
“Our goals are meaningless. Lady Doom can undermine them with but a thought,” the woman insisted.
“Oh, yeah?” Jas replied with irritation. She didn’t doubt Beshaba’s power, but the other woman’s fear of the goddess annoyed her.
The woman clutched Jas’s arm. “Appease her so her wrath turns elsewhere—” the woman’s eye’s lit up—“perhaps even on your enemies,” she concluded. Then she turned away from them to approach the altar.
“I feel a sudden urge to climb another few thousand stairs,” Jas muttered to Joel.
“Me, too,” Emilo agreed.
“Let’s go,” Joel said.
They hurried down the hallway, scurried down the narrow corridor, squeezed back through the secret door, and pushed it closed behind them. The finder’s stone shone upward.
In unison, the adventurers sighed, then resumed their ascent. Every two hundred steps there was a landing, a secret door, which they ignored, and another flight of steps that turned ninety degrees.
On step 1313, Joel slipped on the stairs, slid down twenty steps, and twisted his ankle. He had already used his healing spell on the wounds Jas suffered at the hand of the fetch. In order to continue the climb, the bard was forced to cast a healing spell from one of Winnie’s scrolls. They rested at the next landing, ate some more food, and finished off the water.
“We don’t really have to go any farther,” Joel said. “We could just sit here while Finder and Selune sense what’s going on above.”
“I don’t want to just sit here in the dark while Finder and Selune are the only ones who get to see what’s going on,” Jas argued. “What do you think, Emilo?”
“It would be a shame to come all this way and not see what’s at the top,” the kender said.
“Two to one. You’re outvoted, Joel,” Jas announced.
“So much for trying to break away from my image as a reckless fool,” the bard muttered.
After Joel cast a spell to fill their empty water flasks, the adventurers continued on their way.
The landing at step 2600 appeared to be a dead end, but Emilo had no trouble detecting the stone to push to open the landing’s secret door.
They blinked in the sudden light that assaulted their eyes. In actuality, it wasn’t particularly bright, but it was far brighter than they were used to. The light, coming from lanterns hanging from the ceiling, revealed a vast chamber or gathering hall. The floor was littered with human bodies, some moaning, some lying deathly still. A portion of the chamber’s ceiling appeared to have collapsed recently. Some of the bodies lay beneath boulders and piles of rubble.
Other people stood around talking, apparently oblivious to the suffering and pain around them. One group of people squatted in a corner rolling dice and cursing loudly. Joel weaved a path through the fallen bodies. Jas and Emilo followed. They passed a group of men playing a bizarre game with a basket. As each man reached into the basket, the others chanted, “Beshaba, take him,” over and over again. Each man drew out a snake, usually something harmless like a garter snake, but one man reached in, gave a hideous screech, and fell back, clutching his hand. A few moments later the man’s body was wracked with a violent seizure. Joel forced himself to avert his eyes.
“Here’s another player,” a large bully of a man said, blocking Joel’s path. “Have you done enough to appease the Maid of Misfortune, chum?” the man asked the bard.
Jas stepped forward with her sword drawn, pointing the weapon at the man’s throat. “Leave him alone,” she growled.
The man paled and stepped back. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t realize he was with you.”
Jas took a position beside Joel, and when people saw her determined expression and her weapon, they backed away from the adventurers.
“Someone you know?” Joel asked.
“Never seen him before in my life,” Jas whispered.
They crossed the room and followed the light from the finder’s stone through a doorway that led to another corridor. Farther down the corridor, their progress was halted by a gaping chasm in the floor. It was at least fifteen feet to the other side. Emilo dropped a pebble into the pit, and it took nearly four seconds before it clinked on something below. Jas flew the two men and their gear across the chasm. After her exertions, the winged woman required several minutes rest before she could continue.
They proceeded far more cautiously along the corridor.
Somewhere up ahead, a soft red glow issued from a doorway. The three adventurers crept forward and peered into the room that lay beyond. The damage in this room was even worse than the last. Most of the ceiling had collapsed, as well as some of the floor. Moans arose from a pit approximately in the room’s center. The red light shone out of a pool of water on one side of the room.
The people in this room were at least paying some attention to the fallen and injured. Two women in the mauve robes of Beshaban priestesses were tending to the injured, most of whom were other priestesses. Two beautiful winged women stood as armed guards beside another entrance across the room. Joel guessed they were alu-fiends, the half-human offspring of succubi. Now he realized why the men in the last hall had backed away from Jas. Her wings were the same size, shape. and color as the alu-fiends.
“Any sign of Beshaba?” Jas whispered.
Joel shook his head. “Something’s not right here,” he whispered.
“That’s right. And you’re it,” a soft female voice said from behind them.
The adventurers spun around. In the hallway behind them stood another alu-fiend. She was lovely to behold, with long, black hair that glittered like silk in the light of the finder’s stone and a small, lithe frame. Her beauty was matched only by her deadliness. She held a sword point to Joel’s throat.
From the shadows behind the alu-fiend appeared a tall figure in a dark cloak. The figure held the edge of a curved sword to the alu-fiend’s throat and ordered, “Lower your weapon, fiend, and don’t make a sound, or we will have to kill you and all your friends.”
The alu-fiend stiffened angrily, then complied sullenly.
Joel peered intently at his rescuer and the curved blade. There was something familiar about her and her sword. “Holly?” the bard whispered in disbelief.
The tall figure lowered her hood, revealing the face of the paladin Holly Harrowslough. Beneath the black cloak, she was dressed in full battle armor.
“Holly!” Jas growled softly. “What are you doing here?”
“Lathander sent me,” the paladin said softly. “What are you doing here?”
“Finder sent us,” Joel said as he took the alu-fiend’s sword from her
hand. “I wish Lathander had mentioned to Selune that you’d be here,” he added. “We could have teamed up sooner.”
“What does Selune have to do with this?” Holly asked.
“She’s helping Tymora,” Joel said.
“What’s wrong with Tymora?” Holly asked with confusion.
“Someone is draining her power. We think it’s the mistress of this realm. Isn’t that why Lathander sent you? To discover how she’s doing it?”
“Beshaba has nothing to do with Tymora’s troubles,” the alu-fiend spat.
“I told you not to make a sound,” Holly growled, pressing her sword blade against the flesh of the alu-fiend’s neck.
“Hold on,” Joel said, pushing Holly’s hand back. He smiled sweetly at the alu-fiend. “What do you know about this?”
“It is Xvim. He sent a squad of hydroloths to attack my lady’s court,” the alu-fiend declared. “When my lady used her power to defend us, she lost control, and the mountain quaked. Xvim must have known such a thing would happen, or he would not have risked his forces.”
“How do you know the hydroloths came from Xvim?” Jas asked.
“Because my mistress cursed his name before she teleported away,” the alu-fiend said haughtily.
“Hydroloth? Aren’t they the froglike things that Xvim sent to Sigil to bring back Jas?” Emilo asked Joel.
Holly started, as if she hadn’t noticed the kender before. Emilo smiled up at the paladin and bowed. “Emilo Haversack. Pleased to meet you at last, Holly,” he said. “I’ve heard a good deal about you.”
“Why did your mistress teleport away?” Joel demanded of the alu-fiend.
The alu-fiend tched as if Joel were a simpleton. “To save her realm and her people from destruction,” she said.
“Where did she go?” Holly asked.
“She did not say, but I would guess she has gone to Gehenna, to confront that mewling godling Xvim and make him pay for his treachery,” the alu-fiend said.
“When?” Jas asked.
“During the quake,” the alu-fiend said.
“That was yesterday,” Joel said. “Why isn’t she back?”
“Do you think something happened to her in Gehenna?” Jas asked Joel.
“I think,” the bard said, “that we’re going to have to go to Gehenna to find out.”
Offstage
Somewhere in the Prime Material Plane, on the world known as Toril, in Realmspace, Daramos Lauthyr, High Lord Priest of Tymora, surveyed the wreckage of a once-secret shrine to Beshaba. Hidden in an underground chamber beneath a stable beside a respectable inn, the shrine had been a mere hundred yards from the shining spires of the Lady’s House, also known as the temple of Tymora and Arabel’s most resplendent cathedral. Beshaba’s worshipers must have laughed at their proximity as they hid here in Lady Luck’s shadow.
Now it was Lauthyr’s turn to laugh. He toed one of the holy symbols of Beshaba, a crudely painted red plaque with black antlers, and allowed a tight smile to creep across his thin lips. As he looked around at the devastation, the smile grew into a full-fledged grin.
A week of heavy summer storms following hard after a season of steady spring rains had created a sinkhole over thirty feet across and twenty feet deep just beneath the stables. The secret shrine’s earthen roof, insufficiently supported by wooden beams, had collapsed, as had the stable above, revealing the vipers’ nest below. The worshipers had been crushed and smothered by dirt, slate rock, and lumber.
The town guard, aided by Lauthyr’s priests, were now sorting through the tangle of rubble and timbers to pull free the corpses of Beshaba’s unfortunate followers. Apparently the collapse had occurred during a service to the Maid of Misfortune, for there were many human corpses. A dozen had been discovered in the top layer of the ruins, along with a those of half a dozen horses that had been quartered in the stable above. So far the rescuer had found only one survivor—a stallion. Lauthyr had ordered that it be dug out, lifted from the sinkhole, and healed. It was unlikely that he would accord similar kindness to any of Beshaba’s worshipers, should any of them be found alive. Lauthyr was not the sort to show mercy to an enemy.
Any other priest might have credited Chauntea for the bountiful rain that had revealed the temple, but Lauthyr attributed the destructive rain in full to Tymora, since it had revealed the shrine of her hate-filled sister. It was a clear sign, in Lauthyr’s mind, that Tymora had chosen Arabel as her own, which meant Daramos Lauthyr, High Lord Priest of the Lady’s House, was the chosen prophet of Tymora’s church.
Lauthyr looked up beyond the pit’s walls to the new spires of the Lady’s House, with their finely wrought golden domes perched atop turrets of white marble veined with sea-green jade. It had cost as much as the price of the marble to haul the stone from Impiltur, but Lauthyr considered the money well spent. The new construction, made possible by the donations of Tymora’s followers, announced the wonders of Tymora and demonstrated that Tymora’s church in Arabel was the most faithful in the world.
Lauthyr decided he would have to convince Myrmeen Lhal, the local lord, to cede this land to Tymora’s church. Once the sinkhole had been filled in, it would serve well as the site for a church school, or perhaps a rectory—a place where Lauthyr himself could reflect upon the marvels his rule had created.
The High Lord Priest was shaken out of his daydreaming by the sound of someone clearing his throat. Lauthyr stifled the frown that came naturally to his face whenever he was interrupted. Lord Priest Doust Sulwood stood before him.
“We’ve uncovered thirty-seven bodies so far,” Sulwood reported. “There’s likely to be four or five times that number by the time we’re through.”
“An impressive display of Tymora’s vengeance,” Lauthyr replied, sagely concealing any pleasure he felt. Doust Sulwood was an annoyingly kind person, not the sort to revel in a foe’s misfortune. “This should make a wonderful sermon for this evening’s service and for many evenings to come.”
“Are you planning to speak from the pulpit about the Marliir noble we found?” Sulwood asked with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
“What?” Lauthyr growled.
“Among the bodies is one of the Marliir nobles. A lesser cousin,” Sulwood explained.
Lauthyr frowned for a moment. House Marliir was much favored in Arabel. The noble family wouldn’t appreciate a priest implicating any member of their family in a scandal. With a more impassive expression, the High Lord Priest replied, “Such a pity that poor Marliir noble was in the stables when Tymora chose to weaken the supports of the temple below.”
Sulwood snorted contemptuously. Lauthyr’s political machinations never ceased to annoy him.
From the ground level above them, a woman called out urgently to the High Lord Priest. Lauthyr and Sulwood looked up. A young priestess stood on the edge of the sinkhole, waving down at Lauthyr.
“What is it, my child?” Lauthyr asked calmly.
The priestess knelt down before Lauthyr, a ridiculous formality in Sulwood’s opinion, especially in light of the fact she was twenty feet above the Lord High Priest. As far as Sulwood was concerned, a bow of the head showed respect enough for a mortal being who was, after all, only a servant to the goddess he worshiped.
“Forgive me, High Lord, but there is an emergency back at the Lady’s House.”
Daramos Lauthyr looked back up at the resplendent spires of Tymora’s temple with alarm. “What’s wrong?” he asked less calmly.
“Apparently the collapse of Beshaba’s shrine changed the channel of one of the city’s springs. The water is now pouring into the Lady’s House.”
The High Lord Priest sighed with relief. “No doubt Lady Luck wished us to have a more convenient source of water,” he informed the priestess.
“But, High Lord,” the priestess called down, “it’s flooded out the scriptorium and the library. All our tomes and scrolls have been ruined.”
Lauthyr paled. He had no insight into Lady Luck’s motives for destroyin
g the accumulated learning of her favored temple.
Sulwood gave Lauthyr a solicitous pat on the back. “Don’t worry, High Lord,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll find some good explanation before tonight’s sermon.”
It has been said that being turned into a drider is the worst punishment that can be exacted on one of Menzoberranzan’s drow. Untrue. The high priestesses have perfected the art of uttering unintelligible shrieking sounds that burn the ears and send disrupting shivers through the spine, much like the famed “quivering palm” of some clerical warriors. They call it opera.
—Drizzt Do’Urden
Intermezzo
Walinda of Beshaba eyed the creeping lava with excitement. Less than a mile down the slope from the molten magma stood a fortress built of lumber. When the lava reached the building, it would burst into flame. If the lava pushed out a mere streamlet, the fortress would incinerate itself long before the wall of lava covered its current position, but should the lava come all at once, a wall of molten rock, the fortress would be torn from its foundations first and carried along with the lava as it burned.
Having already watched two other fortresses fall to the lava, Walinda knew that either sight would be impressive. The only thing to mar the priestess’s amusement was the knowledge that the fortresses were empty. Watching inhabitants scramble about to save themselves, or their possessions, or perhaps even to attempt to save their fortress by digging a channel to divert the flow of the lava—that would have been much more entertaining. As it was, the priestess was able to appreciate the display of raw force, whether or not it made someone’s life a misery.
She wore a magical ring that protected her completely from the heat of Gehenna, yet she walked carefully along the crust of cooling rock. Nothing could protect her from the tons of liquid rock that would bury her should she make a misstep through the crust and tumble into the flow of lava.
Walinda hugged herself with a feeling of satisfaction. She felt whole again. She needed a power to serve, a power greater than herself. Once she had seen Beshaba, she knew that she had made the right decision. She would serve Beshaba as she would have served Bane, had he not betrayed her.
