by Kate Novak
Joel took back the finder’s stone from Emilo. He slid the stone into his shirt with a visible sense of relief. Then Jas flew the bard down to the bastion wall, as near to the gate as she dared to go. She landed in the shadows of the parapet. The eternal darkness of Gehenna, lit only by lava and torchlight, made sneaking around the fortress possible, especially since no one suspected the adventurers were roaming around unconstrained. The wall adjacent to the gate, though, was better lit.
As Joel made his way toward the gate, Jas returned for Emilo. Together she and the kender slipped into a window in the inner bastion wall that looked out over the courtyard. Then they began exploring.
Although the yugoloths lived in the caverns in the cliff, Jas and Emilo discovered several great mess halls on the ground floor of the structure built between the bastion walls. Most of the tables and benches were suited to the size of the giant cricket-shaped yugoloths, but there were smaller accommodations as well, either for humans or for the lobster-shaped yugoloths.
“This must be the mess hall,” Emilo said.
“I thought Joel said the yugoloths live in the caverns in the cliff,” Jas murmured. “Why would their mess halls be near the wall?”
“Maybe it’s like oats and horses,” Emilo suggested. “The food brings the yugoloths in from the cliff like oats bring horses to the stables. Then, after they’ve eaten, Xvim’s men put them to work.”
Jas nodded. It made sense. The yugoloths were mercenaries. They weren’t going to assemble for work for the love of Xvim; they had to be bribed.
They discovered one mess hall where four human priests, acolytes by the look of their robes, were scooping some white gelatinous porridge into giant bowls and setting them out on the table. The priests finished serving and moved on to the next mess hall.
“This looks like a good place to start,” Jas suggested.
An indescribable stench rose from the putrid white globs in the bowls.
“That stuff would send any decent horse running back to the pasture,” Jas declared.
Emilo scampered down the benches alongside the yugoloths’ mess tables as Jas kept watch from the doorway. He sowed the tables with Walinda’s phony gems at random intervals. Occasionally he’d drop a gem into a bowl. Some yugoloths would be rewarded at dinner, while others would go wanting.
Somewhere nearby someone rang a gong four times.
“They’re coming,” Jas hissed, hurrying to one of the narrow windows that looked out over the courtyard. Emilo hopped down from a bench and hurried after her. Jas squeezed through the window and perched on the window’s keystone while the kender watched from the windowsill.
It was only a matter of minutes before discord erupted as the large yugoloths and their shorter commanders set to squabbling over the gemstones. Within another few minutes, there was all-out warfare in the mess hall.
Jas scooped up the kender and moved on. They planted the seeds of discontent in two more mess halls before they ran out of gems. Then they sneaked in through a window of the wall’s upper level.
In a locked room, opened handily by Emilo, the pair discovered an arsenal of missile weaponry: arrows, crossbows, and spears. The same room was lined with arrow slits along the outer wall of the bastion.
Emilo poked an arrow out a window slit. There was no invisible barrier to stop it, but when the kender tried to draw the arrow back inside, the arrow stuck in midair. “It’s a one-way barrier,” he noted. “We could push everything out the windows.”
Jas shook her head. “The yugoloths stationed atop the wall are likely to hear the clatter. We have to find someplace—Hello. What have we here?” The winged woman held up a strange-looking device Emilo had never seen before. It looked like a short hollow wand with a wooden handle.
“What is it?” Emilo asked.
“An arquebus. It’s a weapon that uses smoke powder,” Jas explained. With her sword, she began prying the lid off the small barrel next to which she’d found the arquebus. “Remember that stuff I mentioned before? The stuff that causes explosions?” Jas yanked the lid off the barrel to reveal a fine silver and black powder.
“Is that smoke powder?” Emilo asked, stepping closer and sniffing. “Ew. I once knew a gnome that smelled like that.”
“Stay back with that torch,” Jas ordered the kender. “Gods, if only Arandes was alive to see this,” she murmured as she stirred her fingers gently through the powder that filled the barrel. “He was a gif,” she explained to Emilo. “Gif measure their honor in part by how much smoke powder they possess.”
“Is that a lot of smoke powder?” Emilo asked.
“Oh, yes,” Jas replied, pressing the lid back onto the small barrel. “I wonder if there’s any more around.…”
Act Three
Scene 8
Joel drew out a torch from his belt and lit it from another torch burning in a sconce on the parapet. If the giant yugoloths could see in the dark, they would spot him easily. He might as well appear as if he had every right to be on the wall. He strode with purpose along the road between the two walls in the direction of the gate.
Giant yugoloths milled about everywhere atop the walls. Some stared outward from the bastion, but most leaned along the inner wall, watching their fellows drilling in the courtyard below. Bored out of their minds, Joel expected. There were none of the smaller yugoloths atop the wall at the moment. No doubt they came up here only to make periodic inspections.
The bard halted when he stood over the gate. If the gatehouse was laid out as he expected, the controls for the gate would be in a room just above the gate—directly beneath his feet. There was a trapdoor near the outer wall that must lead down to the control room. Two yugoloths stood on it.
Joel looked out over the wall to the outside of the fortress with an expression of annoyance on his face. After a moment, he whirled around and addressed the nearest yugoloth. “Tyrannar Neri is expecting a visitor. She is late in arriving. Have you spotted anyone approaching the bastion?” he demanded imperiously.
The yugoloth shrugged and shook its head.
Joel tapped his foot impatiently and glared at the yugoloth as if it might be lying. After a moment, he said, “I need to speak with the gatekeeper immediately.”
Joel felt a sharp pain in one side of his head, and the yugoloth’s telepathic words formed in his mind: Not standard procedure, the yugoloth informed him.
“I know it’s not standard procedure,” Joel snapped. “It’s not standard procedure for the tyrannar to cower in the temple either, or for an angry goddess to take up residence in our lord’s throne room, now, is it?”
Not our fault the gatekeeper let her in, the yugoloth insisted.
Joel rolled his eyes as if he were tired of the yugoloths excuses. “I know that,” he said. “Unless you—”
An excuse not to pay us on time, the yugoloth argued.
“Since when does the tyrannar need an excuse?” Joel growled. “As I was saying, unless you want a repetition of the whole ugly affair with Beshaba, I suggest you let me speak with the gatekeeper.”
Another power is coming? the yugoloth demanded. The creature chittered with its teeth in what Joel presumed was a nervous reaction.
“Beshaba has a sister, you know,” Joel replied curtly.
Several of the yugoloths joined in a chorus of chittering. The yugoloth who was communicating with Joel motioned with its head, and the two standing on the trapdoor stepped aside. One of the yugoloths pulled on the ring that opened the door. A flicker of torchlight shone in the hole below. A ladder led downward. Joel could see no sign of the gatekeeper.
Joel handed his torch to the yugoloth spokesman and began climbing down the ladder. When he’d gone down four steps, he looked up at the yugoloth and ordered, “Close the door behind me. I’ll knock when I’m ready to leave.” Then the bard continued his descent.
With his hand clenched about the little wooden harp, Joel stepped down to the floor of the gate’s control room. It was possible the gatekee
per would prove to be some creature he couldn’t deceive. If such a creature, whatever it was, attacked him, he would be left with no choice but to flee to Fermata.
The air was suffocating in the room below. It took Joel’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dim light of a single torch. A tiny window in the outer wall looked out over the gate, and another one on the opposite wall looked out over the courtyard. An array of large gears, levers, and handles occupied the other two walls.
There were signs that the gatekeeper actually lived in the room. A cot stood against the outer window, and beneath that a chamber pot. On a small table beside the cot rested a water bottle and a half-finished meat pie.
A figure stood beside the cot. Joel’s eyes widened in surprise. While his inductive reasoning had proved correct—the gatekeeper did indeed prove to be a human, and a priest—the gatekeeper’s identity came as a bit of a shock to the bard. The gatekeeper wore the robes of a novice. He was tall and handsome, with blue eyes and golden hair.
It was the same priest of Xvim Joel had battled four nights ago in Sigil. The priest who had arranged for Jas’s abduction. The priest who had deliberately killed himself by slicing his flesh to shreds on the razorvine. Upon his death, the Xvimlar had returned here to his god’s realm as a petitioner.
Lucky I disguised my features, Joel thought. It was lucky, too, that he had learned the priest’s name from Walinda’s interrogation of the dead hydroloth. “I am Hatemaster Camfer, Hatemaster Perr,” the bard greeted the man.
The priest bowed. “Perr?” Was that my name?” he asked.
Suddenly Joel remembered that petitioners recalled nothing of their past lives. Finder had given his only two petitioners their names again, but apparently the Xvimlar didn’t bother with such niceties.
“Yes,” Joel answered.
“I was powerful then,” Perr noted, with a hint of anger in his voice.
Joel was struck with an idea. An unsettled gatekeeper was a poor gatekeeper. A true follower of Xvim would never settle for such a lowly position. Even as a petitioner, a follower of Xvim would be ambitious, would despise others, especially those who kept him from the superior position of power to which his faith entitled him.
“Yes,” Joel replied. “Before you died, you were powerful. If you had succeeded in your last mission, they would have made you a ruinlord … possibly.”
“Possibly? Why possibly?” Perr asked.
“Well, you know the political situa—Oh, excuse me. I’d forgotten. You don’t remember, do you?” Joel asked.
“No,” Perr replied with a chill tone.
“Suffice it to say you did not get along with Tyrannar Neri, but he might still have promoted you. After all, you were his man. Tyrannar Noxxe, on the other hand, never appreciated your devotion.”
“But Tyrannar Noxxe is dead,” Perr noted.
“But he wouldn’t have died if Beshaba hadn’t entered the fortress, which she might not have done if you had been successful in your last mission. But if you had been successful and lived, Noxxe might still be alive and you wouldn’t be promoted. Hence, I qualified my statement with ‘possibly.’ ”
“What was my last mission in life?” Perr asked.
“Well, your cover story was you were bringing back a runaway slave. Actually, you were involved in arranging an attack on Beshaba’s fortress,” Joel lied.
“Why?”
Joel shrugged. “I do not know. You would not tell me more before you left.”
“I told you of my mission? Were we friends?” Perr asked.
“Hardly,” Joel said with a sniff. “We are, after all, priests of Xvim. It would be more accurate to say we share most of the same enemies. Nonetheless, it irks me to see you reduced to this menial role. It’s a waste of your talents.”
“I am gatekeeper of the Bastion of Hate,” Perr growled. “It is an honor accorded me for having died in service to Lord Xvim.”
“Look around you. This is a slave’s job. It’s been pushed off on you because you’re an expendable petitioner,” Joel retorted. “Everyone of any power is in the temple trying to hide from Beshaba’s spreading ill luck. Otherwise they’d put someone with more sense in here. Tell me, did you let Beshaba into the fortress because she enchanted you, or did you hope she might destroy Tyrannar Noxxe?”
“I did not let her in,” Perr shouted angrily. “She tore both gates in half. Nearly a hundred yugoloths died trying to block her entry before they realized she was a goddess and fled before her mad eyes.”
“Really?” Joel asked with astonishment. “Excuse me. I see that Tyrannar Neri has misinformed me concerning the goddess’s arrival. He’s convinced the surviving yugoloths that you let her in. No doubt Neri was eager to convince everyone that you were not worthy of this post, let alone one more challenging and suitable to one of your power.”
“I had the gate repaired in less than two hours,” Perr said proudly. “And it functions perfectly—better, in fact, than it did before.”
“Well, that is hardly surprising,” Joel said, “considering the talents you possessed in life. As I said before, your talents are wasted in this position.”
“Are you prepared to offer me another position, Hatemaster Camfer?” Perr asked.
Joel smiled. “That all depends,” he said. He turned to look out the window of the inner bastion wall, the one that overlooked the courtyard. The giant yugoloths were still performing marching drills down below.
“On what?” Perr asked.
Joel turned back to face the petitioner. “Tyrannar Neri has insulted you by placing you here,” he insisted. “He may even have been behind the failure of your last mission. Just because the other tyrannars call him Neri the Nitwit doesn’t mean that Neri isn’t a cunning man. My offer depends on your hatred of this man whom you should call your enemy. Is your hate great enough to spur you to action? Are you prepared to seize the power that should rightfully be yours?”
Perr’s lips were set in a sneer, and his blue eyes glittered in the torchlight like a fiend ready to do battle in the Blood War. Despite his hatred, Perr was no one’s fool. “I presume you have a plan to do away with Tyrannar Neri that will put me at great risk,” he stated bluntly.
Joel smiled coldly. “It will only put you at risk if it fails,” he said. “Naturally the plan does not depend on you, though it will be easier if you help us. The risk you take will serve as proof you are worthy of the power with which you will be rewarded. Of course, you are free to turn down my offer should you prefer to serve out the rest of eternity as a slave.”
“I am a petitioner. I will soon merge with Lord Xvim,” Perr countered.
Merging with one’s god was the ultimate goal for a petitioner, Finder had explained to Joel. When the petitioner’s spirit was sufficiently like his god’s, the two became as one. Of course, the spiritual growth necessary for a merger would be far different for petitioners of Xvim than the petitioners of any other god.
“Perhaps you have confused Lord Xvim with a god of obedient sheep,” Joel retorted haughtily. “Slaves do not merge with the New Darkness. A petitioner must become as Lord Xvim himself is, consumed by hatred and a tyrant over all, before there can be a merger. We have never had to replace a gatekeeper because one merged with Lord Xvim.”
Perr glared at Joel, but he did not deny the wisdom of the false hatemaster’s words. “So what is your plan, and how will I be rewarded?” he asked.
“First,” Joel said, “tell me, when someone calls at the gate, who decides to let him in?”
Perr shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I drop a note out that window,” he said, pointing to the window looking out over the courtyard, “and a yugoloth carries it to the temple. I wait at the window until Hatemaster Morr arrives and signals me to open the gate. If he does not give me the signal to open the gate or does not come, I do not open the gate.”
Which was why, Joel realized, Hatemaster Morr had been the one to greet “Marin the Red” at the gate. “And would you ever question
Hatemaster Morr’s signal?” Joel asked.
“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.
