by Novak, Kate
Another dead god statue seemed to move toward them. This one was of a handsome man wearing ornate plate armor, his face twisted and frozen in a derogatory sneer. As they grew closer, they could see that the statue was far larger than the first one. If this god were to land on any castle in the Realms, he would crush it beneath his great mass. This, the bard sensed with grim certainty, was the body of Bane, former Lord of Strife, Hatred, and Tyranny.
Their quarry had taken up a position on Bane’s great back, just below the neck. The banelich had discarded its armor and wore only a ceremonial robe of black and red. Walinda stood at the creature’s right, armored in her black plate mail. Holly knelt at her feet, bound hand and foot. The priestess held the point of her silver-tipped goad against the paladin’s throat.
Jedidiah and Joel settled several feet away from them, on the left shoulder, leaving a small hillock between the two parties. The hillock consisted of a ridge in the great god’s armor corresponding to his shoulder blade. The banelich didn’t deign to acknowledge their presence. Instead, Walinda spoke for her master.
“Well met, Poppin,” the priestess greeted Joel. “I see you were successful.” She nodded toward the stone hand Joel had tucked inside his belt. “I will make a deal with you … the Hand of Bane for the paladin’s life.”
“What about our deal for the finder’s stone?” Joel asked the priestess.
“My lord chooses not to surrender the power of the stone but to keep it for himself,” Walinda replied. “Accept my offer and you may all live to witness my lord’s resurrection.”
“No!” Holly shouted to Joel. “Don’t buy my life with this evil act! Destroy the hand!”
Walinda spun her goad, using the blunt end to smack the paladin in the back of the head, sending her sprawling forward.
Joel looked at Jedidiah. If he accepted Walinda’s offer, Finder wouldn’t regain the power stored in the other half of the stone. He would remain a weak god. Nor would Holly forgive him for aiding in Bane’s resurrection.
“I gave you the hand,” his god said softly to Joel, “so you could decide what was right.”
The Rebel Bard fixed his eyes on Walinda. He knew the priestess wouldn’t hesitate to kill the paladin. Holly was prepared to sacrifice her life to prevent Bane’s resurrection, so the evil god couldn’t return to the Realms to destroy the lives of others. Why should Holly have to die for all the others?
“I’m sorry, Holly,” Joel said, “but your life is as valuable as anyone else’s. I won’t sacrifice it. I’ll make the trade,” he told Walinda.
Joel stepped forward, pulling the Hand of Bane from his belt. Suddenly he caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eyes. Jas, her wings as silvery bright as a new coin, swooped from beneath the god corpse’s right shoulder just in front of Walinda and the banelich. She grabbed Holly by the arms and sped off with her into the void before any of them could react. The winged woman moved with a speed beyond anything her wings could achieve. She moved as anyone did in the astral plane, as fast as her mind could imagine, which in Jas’s case was very, very quickly.
Walinda shrieked and swung her goad around to attack, but it was too late. She had lost her prize.
A moment later Jas returned, with Holly in tow, to land at Joel’s and Jedidiah’s side. “What took you?” Joel muttered. “I was waiting for you to distract the witch,” Jas replied. The flyer’s skin was still covered with black feathers, but her talons had transformed back to human hands. “You’re changing back,” Joel noted. “Slowly,” Jas said. “The darkness of Xvim is still in me, but I can fight it now.”
“Well played, priest of Finder,” the banelich bellowed. Its deep voice rolled across Bane’s back like the sound of thunder. “You have thwarted my priestess’s scheme. Now you will trade power for power. The Hand of Bane for your stone.”
“No!” Holly insisted, pulling at the Hand of Bane with her bound hands. “You can’t do this! The return of your finder’s stone cannot outweigh the evil Bane will bring to the world if he is resurrected.”
“Holly,” Joel whispered, keeping a firm grip on the Hand of Bane, “you don’t understand. There’s more at stake than we told you. The power in the stone… it’s Finder’s power.”
Holly shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she declared. “How could Jedidiah put Finder’s power …” The paladin halted in mid-sentence, and her face lit up with understanding. She turned to look at Jedidiah, her eyes wide with astonishment. Jedidiah grinned sheepishly.
Holly’s eyes narrowed with sudden determination. “It makes no difference,” she insisted. “Lathander personally sent a messenger to me. If you don’t give me the Hand of Bane, if I don’t prevent Bane’s resurrection, will fail my god.”
Joel felt a sudden surge of loyalty to Finder. “So I’m to fail my god instead?” Joel asked. “Is my god’s weakness less evil than Bane’s resurrection?”
“It must be,” Holly said. “Lathander is a god of goodness and light. He wouldn’t”
“I’m waiting for your answer, priest of Finder,” the banelich thundered.
Joel glared at the banelich. “Well, you’ll just have to keep waiting,” he snapped.
“Listen to me, Joel,” Holly said. “Lathander wouldn’t ask this if it weren’t the right thing. Finder’s power is not as important.”
“Not to Lathander, maybe, but it means a great deal to Finder,” Joel argued. “How do you know Lathander just doesn’t want Finder to stay weak so he doesn’t become a rival?”
“Lathander is a god of goodness,” Holly growled angrily. “He wouldn’t be so selfish … unlike some.” She turned and glared at Jedidiah.
“Hold on,” Joel said. “Is this the Lathander who was ready to let you give up your life just now? Or back in the desert at Cat’s Gate? It was Finder who saved you then. He saved us all, even though it meant risking losing his power. He did it because I asked him to.”
Holly stammered for a moment, then fell silent. She couldn’t deny Joel’s words. She released her hold on the Hand of Bane.
Joel knew now what he would do. Finder was as important to him as Bane was to Walinda and Lathander was to Holly. Who was to say that Finder’s weakness would not ultimately be a greater evil than Bane’s resurrection? Finder hadn’t failed him. He wouldn’t fail Finder.
“Banelich, we have a deal,” Joel called out. He strode to the hillock between the two parties and stood, waiting.
Using its fingernails, the banelich reached up to its forehead and scratched away the thin layer of skin that covered the stolen half of the finder’s stone. The undead creature ignored the blood that dripped down its face as it pulled the stone from its skull. “Take this to the priest, slave,” he ordered Walinda.
Walinda laid her goad down before the lich. She bowed deeply, then reached out to take the finder’s stone from her master’s hand. As she did, the banelich grabbed her wrist with its free hand. Black fire poured from its hand and flared up the priestess’s arm to her shoulder. Walinda fell to her knees, staggered by the pain.
“That is for failing me,” the banelich snarled. “Do not fail me again.”
Walinda rose slowly to her feet and backed away from the banelich several steps. As she climbed the rise toward Joel, her gait was unsteady. She halted on the slope just below Joel. The bard saw tears of pain and humiliation in her eyes. In spite of himself, Joel felt a pang of sympathy for the cruel woman. He held out the Hand of Bane.
The priestess reached out to take it with her left hand and thrust her right hand out toward Joel.
A fiery pain flared in Joel’s stomach. He looked down at Walinda’s right hand. Instead of the finder’s stone, she held the silver tip of the goad she had left lying before the lich. She thrust it deep into the bard’s belly and gave it a twist.
Joel grunted as the priestess grabbed the hand from his grasp. With a cruel laugh, the priestess ran back to her master’s side.
Joel fell forward, clutching at the weapo
n tip in disbelief. Darkness came over him in waves, then lifted. The bard was dimly aware of Jedidiah praying feverishly over his body and Holly leaning over him, stanching his blood with her hands.
Joel fixed his attention on Walinda and the banelich, but he seemed to see them from some other viewpoint somewhere above them. He had an uneasy suspicion that meant he was dying, and it was his departing spirit that watched what happened.
The priestess of Bane knelt before the banelich, holding up both the finder’s stone and the Hand of Bane.
“Accept these gifts, my lord,” Walinda said, “so that you may be restored to greatness.”
The lich snatched the finder’s stone from her hand and set it back into its forehead. Then it held out both hands. Walinda set the Hand of Bane in the banelich’s bony hands. The lich held it up over his head, the black stone and diamonds sparkling in the void. “Let me serve you in your glory,” Walinda prayed. The banelich looked down upon the priestess, and the white light in its eyes flared.
“I will be your most humble servant, your slave, your voice to the faithful who will flock to your church,” Walinda insisted.
The banelich slammed a fist viciously across the side of the priestess’s face.
“Idiot woman!” the banelich growled. “You think I would deign to let one such as you serve me?”
Walinda looked up, wide-eyed with shock, blood streaming from her mouth. “My lord Bane, what have I done to displease you?”
“You exist!” the banelich snapped. “Did you think you would be Bane’s chosen priest? You? A woman? Lord Bane will be served by me, the banelich who carried his essence. When I lived, Bane had no priestesses. From the essence I carry, I know that time will come again. You are nothing but a slave.” The banelich kicked at the priestess’s ribs. “Begone from my sight, you disgusting abomination!”
Walinda crawled backward, away from her master. Joel felt a dull ache in his abdomen and felt Holly’s and Jedidiah’s hands on him once more. “He’s breathing again,” Holly said. Joel turned his head and opened his eyes. The banelich stood facing the back of the godly corpse’s head. He held the Hand of Bane high above his head and chanted harsh, guttural syllables in some ancient tongue. Bane’s name was repeated over and over among the other words. Although he couldn’t understand the words, when Joel closed his eyes, he could picture their meaning. The banelich was describing all manner of obscenities and atrocities committed in the name of Bane to glorify his power. It was the evil equivalent of Jedidiah’s tulip song.
Jedidiah helped Joel to sit up, then rise to his feet. With Holly holding his elbow and Jas standing behind him, the bard stood beside his god. The banelich’s voice rose to a fevered pitch. When it had finished its chant, it intoned Bane’s name once, twice, three times. Then the banelich halted, waiting for the resurrection of his god.
Joel held his breath.
Nothing happened. There was nothing but total silence. The dead god’s body did not stir.
Then Jedidiah laughed. His laughter seemed to raise a fresh breeze all around them.
The banelich wheeled about. “You dare mock the resurrection of Lord Bane?”
“There isn’t going to be any resurrection the way you’re going about it,” Jedidiah said. “For one thing, you cannot serve as both essence and priest of the god in the same ceremony. Even more importantly, you’ve been dead for centuries. It takes a living priest to resurrect a god. You just kicked away the only one at hand.”
The banelich shook with rage. Joel thought for a moment it might attack Jedidiah. A few moments later the creature grew still. It held out a hand in Walinda’s direction. “Come, slave,” it said. “You may serve me once more.”
Walinda wiped the blood from her mouth and rose to her feet. She approached the lich with a measured ceremonial step. She took the Hand of Bane from his hands.
“I don’t believe it,” Jedidiah muttered.
Joel stepped forward. “Walinda, don’t!” he called out.
“Have a care, priest,” the undead creature warned, turning his glowing eyes on Joel.
“Walinda, he’s thrown you over once,” Joel argued desperately. “He’ll do it again. You heard what the banelich said. It holds the essence of Bane; it knows what Bane is thinking. The lich will be Bane’s chosen. Bane will betray you.”
“Ignore his prattling,” the lich commanded. “Begin the chant that will restore to me my power.”
Walinda raised the Hand of Bane over her head.
Bane will repay all your faithful service with nothing but abuse and betrayal,” Joel warned. “Despite all my doubts, Finder stood by me, teaching me, helping me. Don’t you think, for all your devotion, that you deserve as much?”
“Begin the chant!” the banelich said, its voice much sharper. “Begin it now!”
“Walinda,” Joel said, “you worship power. To wield power is the virtue of your church. You told me there was no greater honor than to serve Bane as his slave, but you’re wrong. You can be the woman who denied Bane power. If Bane is power incarnate and your actions thwart his desire, doesn’t that make you stronger than he is? And if you are stronger, then why should you help him? You can serve yourself instead of him, and you will still know joy.”
“Begin the chant!” the lich shrieked once more. “Speak my name!”
Walinda looked at the banelich, resplendent in his ornate robes, then turned and smiled at Joel.
She hurled the hand down with an unnatural strength. The ancient artifact fractured as it hit the back of the god’s corpse, the fingers of the hand breaking away and scattering in all directions. The banelich screamed as if it were in pain.
“Thank you for the insight, Poppin,” Walinda said. She wheeled to face the banelich. “Dead fool, know that it was by my hand that your god’s power was denied. I will never utter his name again. May he rot in this plane forever!”
The banelich raised its hand, and a tongue of black fire sprang toward the priestess. Walinda had anticipated something like this, however. Using the power of her mind, she sprang upward, and the black flame passed beneath her and continued harmlessly off into the void. The lich raised its arms upward and hurled more flame after her retreating figure, but by then the priestess was a mere dot in the sky.
The banelich watched her retreating form with its bony mouth agape. Then it turned back to face Joel. “You!” it screamed. “This is your doing! Now you must die!”
The lich sprang at the bard with both hands outstretched, more dark flames wreathing his hands. Joel, still weak from his brush with death, was unable to move quickly. He stepped backward, but he tripped and fell as he did so. Jedidiah interposed himself between his priest and the lich. Grappling each other about the throat, the god and the banelich spiraled upward into the silver void. A black nimbus surrounded the combatants, a dark star that shone across the void.
Joel rose to his feet and launched himself into the air after the pair, but as he drew close, the coldfire repelled him with freezing pain.
Jedidiah reached upward with his right hand to grab at the finder’s stone buried in the lich’s skull. The banelich grabbed at Jedidiah’s wrist with both his arms. With both the lich’s arms in the air, Jedidiah was able to lance out with this left hand and grab at the lich’s chest beneath the robes.
Jedidiah tossed a small silver box in Joel’s general direction … the lich’s phylactery! The banelich shrieked incoherently. Joel chased after the box. Once he caught it, he willed his way back down until he landed once more on the god’s corpse.
“Get back!” the Rebel Bard warned Holly and Jas. He laid the box down and drew his sword.
“Joel, no!” Holly shouted. “You could get yourself killed!”
Joel looked back up at Jedidiah, battling with the banelich, enshrouded with black fire. The bard smashed his sword down on the box.
The box smashed open, and blue flames billowed out in all directions. Joel felt a blast of hot air. Then everything went black.
> Eighteen
Renewal
Joel heard Holly calling his name. She was pleading with him to wake up. Jedidiah needed him.
Well, of course, Jedidiah needed him, Joel thought. That’s how it is with gods. They need us, and we need them. He opened his eyes and blinked several times.
Everything was all silver around him. Holly’s face came into view. She looked pale enough for light to shine through her.
“He’s awake!” Holly cried out. “Joel, stay with us.”
“I can hear you … no need to shout,” the bard said, but his voice sounded far off. He shook his head. “Whatwhat happened?”
“When you destroyed the banelich’s phylactery, there was a huge explosion,” Holly said. “Look at yourself.”
The Rebel Bard looked back down at his body. His tunic and shirt were burned to a crisp, and his skin beneath was pink as a newborn’sand painful to touch.
“I healed you as best I could,” the paladin explained. She handed him half the finder’s stone. “This fell from your shirt.”
“What about the banelich?” Joel asked, sliding the gem into his boot.
“It turned to dust as soon as the phylactery was destroyed,” Holly explained.
Suddenly Joel realized something was wrong. “Where’s Jedidiah?” he demanded.
“You’d better come see,” Holly said. She sailed off over Bane’s body. Joel followed her, very slowly. He had a hard time concentrating.
Jedidiah lay with his head in Jas’s lap. He was unconscious. His face and hands were terribly scarred, and his breathing was shallow and ragged. The god had his gift of immortality, but without the power to heal the grievous wounds the banelich had inflicted on him, Jedidiah might never recover. In his hands he clutched half of the finder’s stonethe stolen half, which held the power that could restore to him all his godly abilities and, Joel hoped fervently, heal his wounds.
