Finder's Bane

by Novak, Kate

  “I would prefer to keep our business out of the public eye,” Jedidiah said. “Let’s see if we can’t find a more private means of excavation than digging in the street.”

  The four adventurers circled around to the front of the shop. A sign over the front door read, Dits’s Books. They entered the front door. There were shelves and shelves of tomes of all sizes. At the moment, the shop was empty of customers.

  The proprietor, Bits, was a bariaur, a creature with the body of a mountain sheep and the upper torso of a man, with a ram’s horns on his head. He lowered his head and peered at them over the rims of a pair of blue-tinted eyeglasses. “Can I help you?” he inquired.

  “Perhaps,” Jedidiah said. “We, um, need to dig in your basement. We’re willing to pay you for the privilege and for any inconvenience, of course.”

  “Indeed,” the bariaur replied, as if there was nothing very unusual in the man’s request. “Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” Joel said.

  The bariaur’s eyes lit up. “Long stories are my specialty.”

  Surprisingly, they came to an agreement rather quickly after that. Bits consented to the excavation, provided they paid him a sizable sum of gold and related to him the story behind why they were digging in his basement.

  “Why does he need to know the story?” Walinda asked suspiciously. “What difference does it make to him?”

  “He’s a bookseller,” Holly said with a sigh of exasperation. “He probably writes books, too. A good hero’s tale is worth a lot of money in Sigil. The populace eats them up, so to speak.”

  The bariaur led the group down an iron staircase. Jedidiah pulled out a light stone to reveal an empty, windowless basement with walls of fitted stone and a dirt floor. The finder’s stone beacon pointed toward the base of the back wall. Just above the beacon was a black granite archway sealed with mortared red brick.

  “I don’t come down here often,” Bits declared. “It’s too damp to store books. Tried renting it to some Anarchists, but they said it was haunted and moved out. Never saw a ghost myself, though I sat here for a few nights waiting for one. Very disappointing.”

  “We’ll need some tools to break through this wall,” Jedidiah said.

  “I can arrange that,” Holly said.

  “I will go with you,” Walinda added.

  “That’s all right. I don’t need any help,” the paladin replied.

  “But I need to be sure you are not mustering your hedonist friends to attack us and steal the Hand of Bane for yourself,” Walinda retorted.

  “Fine,” Jedidiah said. “Go. Joel, you can start paying this man by telling him our story.”

  “What will you be doing?” Joel asked.

  “Thinking,” the older man replied.

  Holly, Walinda, Joel, and Dits climbed back up to the ground-floor level. After Walinda and Holly left the shop, the bariaur led Joel into a back room. The shopkeeper settled himself in a nest of pillows in front of a low writing desk, lifted a quill pen, and poised it over a huge roll of parchment. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

  Joel began his tale in Berdusk, explaining how he’d met and become friends with Jedidiah, how he’d become a priest of Finder, and how he’d started out on his pilgrimage to the Lost Vale. He ended with his arrival in Sigil, his reunion with Holly, and their tracking of the Hand of Bane to Dits’s basement.

  Dits recorded Joel’s story word for word, with an amazingly quick hand and in a fluid script. When he’d caught up with Joel’s last words, he stopped and sat back. “There’s something missing,” Dits said. “Something you’re not telling me. I can sense these things.”

  Joel started. He had, of course, deliberately left out the secret of Jedidiah’s true identity and how the half of the finder’s stone he now held possessed all the god’s remaining powers.

  “There are things I can’t talk about,” the young bard admitted.

  “But the story isn’t true without them,” Dits objected in an annoyed tone. “And it’s not finished, either.”

  “Not yet,” Joel agreed.

  The bariaur set down his quill and removed his eyeglasses. He bit down on the wire rims encircling the lenses. “I must have all the facts, including the ending,” he insisted. “You’ll have to come back and tell me what happens to you in the astral plane. You must also tell me what’s missing.”

  Joel thought for a moment. Once they’d taken care of their business with the banelich, Finder’s identity would no longer be at risk. The god would once again possess all his powers. “When I get back from the astral plane, I’ll tell you what I’ve left out,” he promised Dits.

  “Ah. Time-sensitive material. I understand,” the bariaur said. “Don’t die on me,” he said as he blotted the ink on his scroll dry. The parchment he rolled into two halves, the part that held Joel’s story and the part that would hold the story’s ending and Jedidiah’s secret. “Please try to come back alive. I hate it when I have to change narrative voice in the middle of a manuscript. It’s very disruptive.”

  Joel shuddered. It was certainly possible that he might die, he realized. They would have to contend with the banelich in the astral plane. And the banelich wasn’t his only worry. Some other fearsome monster must protect the Hand of Bane. Jedidiah might die, too. The bard tried to mentally shake the notion from his head.

  The sharp slam of the shop’s front door brought Joel and Dits to their feet. Walinda was shouting his name. Her voice sounded terrified.

  Jedidiah came running up the steps as Joel and Dits arrived in the front room. Walinda stood at the counter, bent over, gasping for air. She dropped a huge sledgehammer on the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” Joel asked.

  “We were attacked,” the priestess said without looking up.

  “Who attacked you?” Jedidiah demanded.

  Walinda shook her head. “I don’t know,” she gasped. “It happened in a dark street. Something fell on me from above and clawed at my throat. Holly hit it with her pickax, and it turned on her. I ran here.”

  “You left Holly behind in the street?” Joel said angrily.

  “There was nothing I could do,” Walinda protested. “I have no spells.”

  “You could have hit whatever it was with this sledgehammer,” Joel growled, kicking at the tool she’d dropped at her feet.

  “It’s too heavy to wield accurately. Whatever attacked us was fast and huge. There may have been more than one. It was too dark to tell. I ran all the way here for help,” Walinda shouted back.

  “Show us where,” Jedidiah said grimly. “We’ll be back,” he told Bits.

  The priestess led them to a dark spot in a narrow lane several blocks from the bookshop.

  There was no one around. Jedidiah bent over and retrieved a large pickax that lay in the street, the only indication that Holly had ever been there.

  “It’s taken her!” Joel exclaimed.

  “Use the stone,” Jedidiah said calmly.

  Joel nodded. He pulled out the finder’s stone and thought of the paladin. The beacon shone in the direction of the ward where the Sensate safe house was located.

  “She’s still alive,” Jedidiah declared.

  They followed the beacon. It led them right to the Sensate safe house.

  Joel dashed inside, shouting the paladin’s name.

  Holly lay on the white carpet, staining the wool red with her blood. Bors knelt beside her, sewing closed a great gash in the girl’s stomach. He used a glowing golden needle that, although unthreaded, left a trace of golden stitches in Holly’s flesh. It was a magic Joel had never seen before. Some sort of magic from Sigil, or perhaps from Bors’s homeworld, Joel guessed.

  The three waited anxiously for the Sensate paladin to finish. When he looked up, Jedidiah asked, “What happened?

  “I heard Holly scream,” Bors said. “I saw this one run off” He pointed at Walinda. “Then I found Holly in the street, left for dead.”

  “You were following us,�
�� Walinda declared in an accusatory tone.

  “Lucky I was,” Bors replied coldly.

  “Did you see what attacked them?” Joel asked.

  Bors shook his head.

  Joel gave the priestess of Bane a suspicious glare.

  Sensing what the bard must be thinking, Walinda went on the defensive. “It was not I,” she declared. “Look.” She showed them claw marks streaking her throat and arms. “Besides, if I had attacked her, I would not have left the job half finished. Use your power to heal her and she will tell you so herself. Perhaps she got a better look at whatever it was.”

  “We can’t heal her,” Jedidiah explained. “Finder’s power doesn’t appear to extend to this place.”

  Walinda sniffed haughtily. “I told you he was a petty god,” she said to Joel.

  “At least he’s not a dead god,” Joel barked back.

  Jedidiah knelt beside the girl. “Most of these are superficial cuts, as if whatever it was was just trying to hold Holly back. The belly wound seems the most life-threatening injury, aside from the loss of blood.”

  Holly moaned softly. Then her eyes blinked open.

  “Holly,” Joel asked, “are you all right?”

  The girl moaned again.

  “What attacked you?” Walinda demanded.

  “Black thing. Furry, with wings,” the young paladin whispered. “Like Bear.”

  “Bear!” Joel gasped. “That’s impossible. We cremated him. Holly, are you sure?”

  Holly shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. She turned her head toward Bors and said no more.

  “She must rest,” Bors insisted. “Yes,” Jedidiah agreed. He stood up. “And we must get back to work,” he said, taking up the pickax he’d retrieved from the street. “Joel, Walinda, let’s go. Bors will look after Holly.”

  “I will stay,” Walinda said.

  “What?” Joel asked.

  “I have been injured myself,” the priestess of Bane said, “and you cannot heal me. I have no spells. I would be more hindrance than help. I will nurse the girl. I am better at causing wounds than healing them, but I do know something of the art.”

  Jedidiah examined the priestess with a jaundiced eye, but after a moment he nodded. “We’ll return when we’ve found something,” he said. Then the older priest wheeled about and headed for the door. Joel followed in his wake.

  Joel and Jedidiah walked back toward the Market Ward in the dark fog.

  “That was strange, wasn’t it?” Joel asked the older man.

  “What?” Jedidiah replied.

  “Walinda offering to nurse Holly.”

  “Oh, that. Indeed it was,” Jedidiah replied.

  “I would have thought she’d want to be there when we found the hand no matter how wounded she was.”

  “Unless the banelich has warned her that there may be a deadly guardian protecting the hand,” Jedidiah pointed out.

  “What do you think attacked Holly?”

  “I don’t think it was Bear. It could be another dark stalker. If the priests of Iyachtu Xvim caught wind of what Walinda was up to, they might have decided to send an agent here to prevent Bane’s resurrection. Walinda said the creature attacked her first, and it left Holly once Walinda was gone.”

  “It left Holly for dead,” Joel pointed out.

  “But it didn’t leave her dead. Did you notice Holly was crying?”

  Joel nodded. “She must be in terrible pain.”

  “She turned her head away,” Jedidiah said.

  Joel thought about that for a moment. “Do you think she knows something she’s not telling us? What could it be?”

  “I think we should hurry back to the shop, just in case.”

  From some shadows off to their right, something hissed. Then, in his head, Joel heard a voice speak their names: Joel. Finder.

  Jedidiah was brought up short, apparently having heard the same voice using his real name. Joel halted beside him, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  A figure glided out from behind the curtain of fog. It wore a robe of crimson, ornately trimmed in gold. A red fez with a gold tassel crowned its octopuslike head. It was a mind flayer, what Jas called an illithid, one of Ilsensine’s chosen master race.

  You are Finder, it stated in their heads.

  Joel noticed that the left side of the mind flayer’s tentacled face twitched, as if from palsy.

  I am a servant of Lord Ilsensine, the illithid explained. Its face twitched some more. We seek a boon from you.

  “I have paid my debt to your lord,” Jedidiah replied cautiously. “I have no further desire to deal with him.”

  He needs to deal with you. The mind flayer waved its tentacles anxiously. He begs for your indulgence.

  “Begs?” Jedidiah replied with amused surprise. “Why would the greatest mind in the universe need to beg?”

  Your song … The illithid’s face started to twitch faster; the tentacles writhed as if in pain. After a moment the twitching slowed, and the illithid said, Your song. It doesn’t end. It keeps on going, and my lord cannot get it out of his mind.

  “That’s not my problem,” Jedidiah said. “He wanted it.”

  Please take the song back. It is spreading to us,

  Ilsensine’s faithful priests, when we pray for spells. It is driving us mad.

  “All sales are final,” Jedidiah replied with a chuckle.

  My lord says he will grant you a boon, the illithid replied, if you will take the song back. Anything you need to know. Gods have traded one of their eyes for such knowledge.

  Jedidiah paused for a moment, then said, “There are two things I need to know.”

  Agreed, the mind flayer cried out in their heads without hesitation.

  “Very well,” Jedidiah said.

  The mind flayer moved in close to Jedidiah. It extended its facial tentacles. The tips of the tentacles glowed with the same green radiance as Ilsensine had. The tentacles stroked Jedidiah’s face, then plunged deep beneath the flesh, passing ethereally into his brain. After a moment, they withdrew, leaving Jedidiah’s flesh unscarred.

  In his head, Joel heard the mind flayer sigh. The creature’s palsy had evaporated.

  The mind flayer stepped back and bowed deeply. The answer to your first question is no, it said. The answer to your second question…The creature tilted his head. He does not know. Good-bye, Finder Wyvernspur.

  The illithid slid back into the fog, disappearing within moments.

  Jedidiah stood staring after it wordlessly, the blood draining from his face. His expression was one of extreme sadness.

  “Jedidiah,” Joel whispered. “Are you all right?”

  The older man nodded, but he appeared distracted.

  “What was that all about?” Joel asked.

  Jedidiah sighed. He turned to Joel with a wan smile. “Remember in Shishi’s garden, when I thought I remembered that I had a plan? I did. I gave Ilsensine a recursive song, a tuneful little ditty in which the last verse leads directly back into the first, forming a closed loop. Ilsensine couldn’t get the tune out of his head and with his powerful brain, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Then, his mind power being what it is, it spread to his priests.”

  Joel thought of the times when he’d been unable to stop humming some silly ditty for days, sometimes weeks at a time. It had interfered with everything else he had tried to do. The younger bard chuckled. It would be a long time before Ilsensine poked around in a god’s mind again. Then he remembered the other mystery. “What about the questions?” he asked. “What were your questions? You looked disappointed by the answers.”

  Jedidiah was silent for a moment, then said “They only confirmed what I already knew in my heart. We’d better hurry back to the shop in case there’s someone else searching for the hand.”

  The older priest pushed on into the fog. Joel hurried after him before the gloom could separate them.

  Sixteen

  The Hand Of Bane

  Bits ushered them ba
ck into his shop with an air of expectancy. “Well?” he asked Joel.

  “Holly’s all right,” Joel explained. “Her friend Bors found her. She’s resting. Walinda has stayed behind to help tend to her.” “Walinda?” the bariaur queried with some surprise. “The unpleasant one?”

  Joel picked up the sledgehammer Walinda had dropped on the floor of the shop. “Probably just trying to get out of the heavy work,” he said, giving Dits a wink. He and Jedidiah made their way into the basement. Dits stood on the top step and watched them. Jedidiah pulled out the light stone and set it on a high step of the stairs so it shone down over their heads.

  “Would you care to do the honors?” Jedidiah asked. Joel grinned. He took a firm grip on the handle of the sledgehammer and slammed it into the wall. “Whoa! That’s hard,” Joel said, his hands smarting. A chip of red had come off a brick, but there was no sign of cracking in the walls. “It feels like it’s a lot thicker than it looks,” the Rebel

  Bard explained.

  “Whack at it some more,” Jedidiah said.

  Joel complied, pounding on the brick wall several times before he noted a small crack forming in the mortar.

  Jedidiah went at the crack with the pickax. Together they managed to pull a brick away.

  There was a second brick wall behind the first. Mortar filled the space between the two walls.

  “You don’t think they filled the whole passage in with mortar and brick, do you?” Joel asked, worried that they might be banging on the walls for days, or even weeks.

  Jedidiah shook his head. “Three walls maybe. That’s the rule in Sigil, I’ve been told. Three of everything. Isn’t that right, Mr. Dits?”

  “Aye,” the bariaur replied. “If three of something can’t handle the job, it wasn’t meant to be handled. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to keep an eye on my shop.”

  They broke away the first wall completely, tossing the bricks into a corner of the basement. Joel noticed that the older man was pale and wheezing. “We’d better take a break,” the younger man said, knowing Jedidiah would not do so unless Joel joined him. They sat on the stairs, breathing heavily, wiping sweat from their brows.