Finder's bane h-15 Read online

  "That would be my guess," the winged woman replied.

  "Now he's chasing the banelich's power," Jedidiah said with a grin.

  "Go get 'em, Bear," Jas said. She flew off toward the village.

  Joel looked at Jedidiah. "What do you think? Can Bear hurt them?"

  "He can certainly annoy them," Jedidiah replied, then changed the subject. "Do you think you're ready to try that song again now?" he asked.

  Joel nodded. "Does the song have a purpose?" he asked.

  "It might," Jedidiah answered, "but I'd rather explain that later, after you've learned it."

  It still took a lot of work, but by dinner Joel had mastered Jedidiah's song. The god put off explaining the purpose of the song for another day. Joel accepted the delay.

  Dinner that night was a simple affair, a buffet in Grypht's stone tower with only the wizard and the humans attending.

  When they'd all finished eating, they began discussing their plans for the next day. Grypht didn't cast any magic to enable him to speak with the guests. Instead, he listened quietly and attentively as they talked. On the table before Joel, Jedidiah spread out a map of the Desertsmouth Mountains and the Anauroch Desert. A collection of X's, drawn like bones, dotted the map.

  Holly and Jas leaned over the table to get a better look.

  "These were the locations of the cities of the dead empire of Netheril," Jedidiah explained to Joel. "Not all its wizards together could block the encroaching sand that eventually buried it. There's nothing left but ruins inhabited by desert nomads and an occasional ancient dark monster. We are here," the older priest said, pointing to an unmarked spot on the map.

  Jedidiah jabbed a finger at one of the X's. "This is Cat's Gate. It's large enough to march an army through. It leads to the Plane of Concordant Opposition, otherwise known as the Outlands. Grypht will teleport Joel and me there." "I want to come with you," Holly said matter-of-factly,

  Jedidiah shook his head. "I can't imagine either the banelich or Walinda will welcome you back aboard," he pointed out.

  "But if you insist on my coming," Holly said sweetly, "I'm sure you can talk them into it."

  "Don't you dare!" Jas warned, waving a finger at Jedidiah. "This is too dangerous for her, and you know it!"

  Joel agreed completely with the winged woman, but he tried a different tack on the paladin. "Holly, their god is an enemy of your god. They're going to know you plan to thwart them," the Rebel Bard pointed out. "Jedidiah and I, though, have no choice but to help them. We can't allow you to disrupt our plan."

  "On the other hand," Holly argued, "you don't really want to help them. If there's any chance of getting Jedidiah's stone back without helping Bane's church, I'm going to find it and make sure you take it. Besides," the girl added, "you can't afford to trust Walinda and the banelich. They'll betray you the first chance they get. Then you'll really need my help."

  Jedidiah studied the girl with a grim smile. "Very well, paladin," he said. "I cannot guarantee the banelich will accept you into the party, but I will do my best to convince it that we need your help to find the hand. In turn, you must promise not to try anything rash… at least not without consulting with me first."

  Holly grinned and nodded.

  Jas threw her hands up. "Has everyone here taken leave of his senses?" she growled.

  Joel shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to argue with Jedidiah about bringing Holly, but not in front of the others.

  "I take it you haven't changed your mind since we talked on the spelljammer. Your goal is still Waterdeep?" Jedidiah asked Jas.

  "You bet," the winged woman replied. "Other spelljammers land in Waterdeep. I've got plenty of experience. I won't have any trouble getting one to take me on as crew. I'd prefer to have my own ship back, but under the circumstances, I think I'd be better off cutting my losses. Just as soon as I see you three off tomorrow, I'm going to take up Grypht's generous offer to teleport me to Waterdeep."

  Grypht nodded to Jas.

  As he rolled his map up, Jedidiah addressed the saurial wizard. "We'll meet you in the temple tomorrow morning."

  Back in the privacy of the cottage that he shared with Jedidiah, Joel confronted the god with his concern for the paladin. "How can you let Holly come along? She's in far greater danger from Walinda and the banelich than we are. They may despise us, but they hate her."

  "I imagine Holly feels you are in far more danger because Walinda has taken a liking to you," Jedidiah replied.

  Joel huffed. "This isn't her problem," he said. "How can you allow her to take such a risk on our behalf?"

  "Joel, she's used to taking risks, especially on behalf of her god. No doubt she feels she can serve Lathander if she comes with us. She's a sensible girl, with a sensible attitude. If the banelich agrees to her presence, she can serve as a distraction, maybe even a big enough distraction to give us a chance to get the stone back."

  "You're using her as a decoy?"

  "The Hand of Bane is the decoy. Holly is the stalking horse," Jedidiah corrected.

  "What if we find no other way of getting the stone back? Holly is never going to allow us to give Walinda the Hand of Bane."

  "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Jedidiah replied. "Or burn it once we've crossed it." He sat on his bed and pulled off his boots. "Have a little faith, priest," he teased.

  Once again Joel lay awake far into the night wondering about his god. Jedidiah had proven himself foolish

  I enough to lose most of his godly power. Now he was preparing to use the young paladin in a deadly game against the church of Bane. The fact that Holly was willing to be used didn't ease Joel's mind any.

  The young priest also couldn't stop worrying what would happen if they recovered the Hand of Bane and Jedidiah did hand it over to the banelich. Bane would be resurrected once more to plague the Realms. Or worse, what would happen if the banelich took the Hand of Bane and then found a way to betray them and keep the finder's stone? As weak as Jedidiah was, not only would Joel's and Holly's lives be at stake, but Jedidiah himself could end up taking Bane's place in the astral plane as a floating immortal corpse.

  When sleep finally came to the Rebel Bard, his dreams were filled with barren deserts and blood-red sunsets.

  Twelve

  Cat's Gate

  The next morning Joel and Jedidiah climbed the stairs to the Singing Cave together, lugging heavy backpacks filled with supplies. Copperbloom had seen to their provisioning as efficiently as a quartermaster from the Cormyrean army. She'd provided them with all they needed: food, water, tarps, blankets, fresh clothing, potions, even new scabbards for their weapons. Holly was already waiting at the entrance to the temple. Her face was drawn, her eyes bloodshot. She probably stayed up late speaking with Jas, and of course she would have been up at sunrise to pray to her god before she set off on her quest.

  "I need to speak with Copperbloom in private," Jedidiah told Joel. "Call me when Grypht arrives, please."

  Joel nodded and Jedidiah disappeared into the temple.

  "Where's Jas?" he asked Holly.

  "She gone off with the flyers," the paladin said. "She said she didn't want to see us off. She asked me to bid you farewell."

  The news left Joel feeling disheartened. He might never see the winged woman again, and he had at least hoped to wish her well.

  Grypht arrived a short time later. Once again he'd taken the trouble to cast a spell so he could speak their language. He wished them good morning, then spoke to Joel. "In case you had not noticed, your Jedidiah can be very reckless and thoughtless."

  Joel flushed, unable to bring himself to gainsay the saurial wizard's analysis of his god. Grypht knew Jedidiah far better than he, and Joel had already reached the same conclusion.

  "Any time you can influence him to show moderation or consideration, I advise you to do so," Grypht said.

  Joel nodded, then went to fetch Jedidiah.

  Copperbloom accompanied her god and her fellow priest out of the Singi
ng Cave. She embraced Holly, then Joel. Her scales were warm and smooth to the touch, and the scent of honeysuckle rose from her throat. The priestess bowed very low before her god.

  Jedidiah returned her bow with one of his own, then turned to Grypht. "We're ready," he said.

  "Are you sure you want to go this early?" the wizard asked. "They are not expecting you for another day. They may not even arrive there themselves until tomorrow."

  "I want to be there before they arrive, to check the lay of the land," Jedidiah explained, "in case they were considering some trick before we enter the Outlands, Check on Cat's Gate tomorrow evening, just in case we have to leave Holly behind."

  "Or in case they do not show up?" Grypht asked hopefully.

  "That's not likely," the god replied. "In that event, we will head for Sigil without them. If the Hand of Bane is ours, they will come to us."

  Grypht nodded, then turned away from the others.

  From the growls and clicks, Joel guessed that the wizard had begun an incantation in his own tongue. The smell of fresh-mown hay surrounded the huge saurial. The tip of his staff began to sparkle, and with it the wizard traced a door-sized ellipse in the air. The yellow-white sparks hung suspended by magic.

  Light flared in the ellipse, and a blast of very hot, very dry air shot out from within. Inside the sparkling border, there appeared a wasteland of sand.

  "You can step through now," Grypht said.

  Jedidiah picked up a knapsack and jumped through the magical portal. They could see him sliding in the sand on the other side.

  Joel grabbed the other knapsack and stepped through more carefully. He stood on the top of a huge sand dune. The air was scorching and completely still. It shimmered all about him. The morning sun was blinding. To the east, the Desertsmouth Mountains were a purple haze. The dunes reached every other horizon.

  The bard turned back to watch for Holly. In the ellipse, he saw the paladin hug the saurial wizard. A moment later she dropped through the portal and tumbled down the sand dune past Joel until she came to rest beside Jedidiah in a hollow on the side of the sand dune. Back in the Lost Vale, Grypht motioned with his staff, and the ellipse blinked out.

  Joel slid down the slope on his backside until he reached the old priest and the paladin. He stood up and shook the sand from his clothing.

  Below the dune on which they stood, two monuments of worn stone poked out from the sand, rising some fifty feet in the air. Three sides of each monument rose vertically, but the fourth, outer side inclined like a pyramid. The monuments stood about fifty feet apart, with their inner sides parallel to one another. Their surfaces were covered with huge bas-reliefs of great cats-lions, tigers, leopards, panthers.

  "Behold the pillars of Cat's Gate," Jedidiah said, motioning to the two stone towers. "Or rather, the tops of the pillars of Cat's Gate. The majority of the gate is

  buried in the sand. According to old texts, the pillars rose higher than the Flaming Tower. When the kingdom of Netheril was in flower, there was a floating citadel here, one that made the Temple in the Sky look like a pebble. The wizards who built the gate commanded a strip of land along the Desertsmouth Mountains five hundred miles long and a hundred miles across. The Lost Vale was one of their outlying colonies. Not satisfied with what they had, the wizards set their sights on the Outlands. They bore into that plane with their magic, built the pillars to hold open the gate, then marched their armies through to conquer the lands beyond in their name."

  "What happened?" Holly asked, shielding her eyes with her hand to observe the pillars.

  "Other beings, more powerful than the wizards, marched their armies out of the gate into Netheril to conquer it in their name," Jedidiah replied. After a century or so of warfare, the encroaching desert sand became a blessing-covering the surrounding city, making the land useless to conquering armies, and sealing the gate from detection on either side."

  "If the pillars are taller than the Flaming Tower, it's going to take a lot of digging to clear them. They must be buried under fifty feet of sand," Joel estimated.

  "More like a hundred feet," Jedidiah corrected.

  Joel whistled softly. "How are we going to dig it out? Magic?"

  "We're not going to lift a finger," Jedidiah declared "Clearing the gate is the banelich's problem."

  Holly nodded and grinned. "Good strategy," she complimented Jedidiah.

  "How so?" Joel asked.

  "It will test the powers of the banelich, maybe even wear him out some before we pass through the gate," the paladin explained.

  They pitched a tarp over the hollow in the sand dune. Joel and Holly slid down to the base of the dune, leaving Jedidiah reclining beneath the tarp, blowing melodies with his glaur. The horn sounded for miles around in the clear air, serving as an anchor for the two young adventurers as they explored the surrounding desert.

  After nearly an hour, having discovered nothing but sand, the bard and paladin practiced at swordplay. Holly was more skilled with a blade and offered Joel several pointers. She drilled him until he'd corrected his most glaring errors.

  As the sun climbed higher, the air grew baking hot. Jedidiah called Joel and Holly out of the sun. Parched and exhausted, the pair joined the older man beneath the tarp. They ate and drank some of the food and water, then Holly lay down and napped. Once she was sleeping soundly, Jedidiah had Joel review the tulip song he'd taught him the day before. Then they talked together softly, not about the finder's stone or the Hand of Bane or the trials to come, but about Netheril. Jedidiah knew as many tales about the lost kingdom and its fall as he did about the Dalelands.

  If he closed his eyes, Joel could still picture Jedidiah as the old priest who'd first befriended him, could almost imagine that they sat by a fire-a very warm fire-in a tavern in Berdusk. Jedidiah's younger appearance might not have bothered the Rebel Bard at all, except that it served as a constant reminder of the loss of the finder's stone. If not for the bargain that hung over them, Joel realized, he would have been comfortable with Jedidiah whatever form he wore.

  Holly woke and listened to Jedidiah's tales with obvious pleasure. While she disapproved of the older man's bargain with the banelich, it was obvious she still liked him. Of course, Joel thought, she was unfettered by the knowledge that Jedidiah was not merely serving Finder, but actually was Finder.

  The sun westered, and a soft breeze played with the sand around them, bringing with it the promise of a cool night. Jedidiah stood and stretched, then climbed to the top of the dune. Joel and Holly followed. The older priest stood looking eastward, toward the Desertsmouth Mountains, frowning.

  "They aren't expecting us to be here until tomorrow,' Joel reminded him.

  "Yes," Jedidiah replied, "but I thought they might arrive early to scout out the area, perhaps even set some sort of trap for us. Your Walinda has disappointed me. I expected more treachery from her."

  "Maybe they're having trouble finding the gate," Joel suggested.

  Jedidiah shook his head, denying that possibility.

  "Do you think something happened to them?" Joel asked.

  "Wouldn't that be nice," Holly muttered.

  Sunset in the desert was magnificent, painting the sky crimson, magenta, and purple. The night sky that succeeded it was no less beautiful; a myriad of stars shimmered and twinkled like gems in the goddess Selune's jewel box.

  The air grew chill, and Joel and Holly returned to huddle under the tarp, leaving Jedidiah to maintain his vigil. Using two of the spells Jedidiah had taught him the day before, Joel created more water, then heated the metal flask it was in until the water steamed. He and Holly brewed tea and sipped at it. Then they carried some of the hot beverage up to Jedidiah.

  "Come back to the shelter, Jedidiah," Holly coaxed the older man. "I'll sense them long before you see them," she said.

  Jedidiah took the tea. "Do you think so?" he asked the paladin with a secretive smile.

  Joel wondered just how good the god's eyes were at seeing acros
s the void in the dark. Were they even better when he had all his godly power? Of course, if Jedidiah had all his godly power, he could sense the banelich, too.

  When Jedidiah had finished the tea and handed the cup back to Holly, he reached in his boot and pulled out the saurial's half of the finder's stone. The yellow gem glowed in the dark.

  Holly gasped. Joel explained quickly that the stone was the sister to the first.

  "What happens if you put the two pieces together?" Holly asked.

  "Nothing," Jedidiah said. "Finder rent it asunder to get at the paraelemental ice at its core. That's how he destroyed Moander." The older man handed the gem to Joel. "Take this and think of Walinda," he ordered the young bard.

  Joel held the stone. He was trying to recall in his mind's eye the priestess's features when he remembered the sensation of her hands about his throat. A thin beacon of light lanced out from the stone and arced across the sky toward the Desertsmouth Mountains. Gently Jedidiah lifted the stone from Joel's hands. The beam of light blinked out.

  "Did you do that to signal them?" Holly asked.

  "No," Jedidiah replied. "I suspect the banelich always knows exactly where it is. I sent out the light to be sure they're not dead and still in the Realms."

  "The light might attract other unwelcome creatures," Holly said.

  "Wouldn't that be interesting?" Jedidiah said with a wicked grin.

  Holly gave the older man a curious look, then turned away. "Wake me for last watch," she called as she slid toward the shelter. "I want to watch the sun come up."

  Jedidiah took the first watch, sitting just outside the shelter. Joel, lying beside Holly in the shelter, quickly fell asleep from exhaustion, but when he awoke, sometime after moonrise, he couldn't fall back asleep. He slipped out of the tarp shelter. The air was so chill now he could see his breath. The new moon had risen over the dunes. Jedidiah sat watching it, softly humming The Tears of Selune," a song the god had written, as a mortal, in honor of the goddess of the moon. "Anything?" Joel asked, sitting down beside his god.

  Jedidiah shook his head. "Holly's probably right-she'll sense it long before we see it. You didn't sleep that long," he noted. "If you need more rest, I can stand watch longer."