Finder's Bane Page 24

  “My master said you would arrive soon,” the priestess said as she took a place beside them on the road.

  On one hand, Joel was relieved to see that the priestess hadn’t gotten to Sigil before them. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to forgive her for abandoning them. “What are you doing here?” the bard asked. “Did the banelich kick you out of his chariot?”

  “My master has gone on to the astral plane to search for Bane’s body,” the priestess replied coolly. “In the meantime, I have been instructed to oversee the hand’s recovery.”

  “You left us behind in Ilsensine’s realm,” Joel accused her.

  “”What difference does it make? You escaped. You are alive and unscathed, as far as I can see.”

  “No thanks to you,” Joel retorted.

  “And I escaped from the Temple in the Sky without your help,” Walinda reminded him.

  Joel was silenced.

  “But you can’t get into the palace without our help, can you?” Jedidiah taunted. “I guess I forgot to mention that entry to living creatures is rather restricted.”

  Walinda’s face reddened, and she glared coldly at Jedidiah.

  Like a dramatic tour guide, Jedidiah waved his arm to indicate the palace. “All the dead of Kara-Tur,” the priest explained, “come here to be judged by the Celestial Bureaucracy and sent on to the plane for which the deeds and misdeeds of their lives suited them. That’s why there are gates to every plane here. It is also a place of great order. All who serve within report to a bureaucrat, who in turn reports to a higher bureaucrat, who reports to an even higher bureaucrat, who reports to Yen-Wang-Yeh, Illustrious Magistrate of the Dead, the sole ruling power here. His law is enforced by General Pien and his army of men-shen and go-zu-oni. The gods of Kara-Tur, good or evil, orderly or chaotic, and all those in between rely on this part of the Celestial Bureaucracy to provide them with the inhabitants of their realms. Not one would dare disrupt the business that takes place here. So the palace is also a place where powers and their ambassadors can meet to parlay and exchange prisoners. The powers of other pantheons also meet here, knowing that General Pien and his forces would instantly squelch any disorder.”

  “If my master had a fortress such as this, plus all these dead at his command,” Walinda said, “he could rule the Realms.”

  “So could Yen-Wang-Yeh,” Jedidiah replied. “But there is nothing in the Realms he desires. All the gods of the Kara-Tur, even the evil and chaotic ones, have a place in the Celestial Bureaucracy and duties to perform. To step out of one’s place, to fail in one’s duty, would bring dishonor.”

  “What is dishonor when one has power?” Walinda declared.

  “Of course,” Jedidiah replied, “if your master had Yen-Wang-Yeh’s position and his honor wasn’t enough to keep him performing his assigned duties, it would all be over at the end of the year. The Celestial Emperor would call on him to make his report, judge him bereft of his duties, and boot him out. Someone else would be assigned to his position. Your master would be without a job.… Well, here we are.”

  They’d reached the iron gate in the wall surrounding the palace. The gate stood wide open, but standing in the gateway, serving as guards, were a number of fearsome, bull-headed creatures that stood over eight feet tall. Some were orange, some gray, some purple. They wore polished armor and ornate robes and were armed with swords and spears.

  “Those are the go-zu-oni,” Jedidiah whispered. “Don’t ever get them mad at you.”

  The go-zu-oni guards addressed each arrival in a tongue Joel had never heard and pointed out where they should go. One of the bull-headed creatures stepped in front of Jedidiah and addressed him in short bursts in the same foreign tongue.

  Jedidiah bowed low and held out a strip of copper engraved with symbols and characters Joel could not identify.

  The go-zu-oni took the strip of metal, examined it briefly, and said something else to Jedidiah, then handed back the strip of metal.

  Jedidiah bowed again, then instructed the others, “Follow me.”

  They stepped through the gate. A few paces inside, beyond the press of the crowd, Jedidiah halted. His companions stopped beside him.

  “Lo,” Jedidiah said, gesturing with his arm. “The Palace of Judgement.”

  Joel looked at the scene that lay before them. The palace was the size of a city, with thousands of buildings. Unlike a typical city, everything was orderly. Every building was constructed of red brick and stone, and the people moving between the buildings did so in an orderly fashion. There was bustle, but no pushing or shoving or disturbances. There were throngs of the dead in the entry courtyard waiting to enter different buildings, guarded by the go-zu-oni, yet the spacious courtyard still seemed almost empty. Joel guessed the courtyard could have held more than a few armies. Officials dressed in brightly colored robes carried armfuls of scrolls from building to building. Joel spotted a party of tanar’ri and another of baatezu arguing heatedly, but not fighting. A creature like an elephant standing on its hind legs stood addressing a pair of foxes, who also stood on their hind legs. Everything about the scene suggested duty and harmony. Joel stood in silent awe.

  “Have we stopped for a reason?” Walinda asked.

  Jedidiah chuckled. “No. No reason. Let’s go, Joel.” The older priest led them across the courtyard to the far right. They climbed a stair, passed through the archway of a building, and came out beneath an archway on the other side. Then they descended another set of stairs into a smaller courtyard. There, across the courtyard, stood a building with four staircases leading up to four arched doorways. Intelligent beings stood in four separate lines leading from the doorways, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard. Most of the beings were human, but there were many nonhumans as well, from centaurlike creatures with ram’s horns on their heads to odd creatures that looked like metallic boxes with legs. Some of the beings chatted amicably with others in line, some slouched or griped impatiently, while still others stared straight ahead with blank expressions.

  “Pick a line,” Jedidiah told Walinda. “Of course, with your karma, any line you pick is going to be the one that moves the slowest.”

  “Why must we get in line?” Walinda asked.

  “Because all these people want what you want, to fill out the proper forms to gain an interview with a bureaucrat who will grant them permission to appear before the tribunal that determines whether or not to recommend to Yen-Wang-Yeh’s staff that they be allowed to use one of the portals. Since you’re not from Kara-tur, and you’re not dead, you’ll need special permission. Don’t cause any trouble while you’re waiting. Courtesy is everything to these people. Should you offend someone who turns out to be married to the cousin of the mother of the official we may later have to deal with, then we could end up waiting in lines until Gehenna freezes over.”

  A palanquin carried by four go-zu-oni lumbered past them. Reclining on the heavily scented pillows within the box was a horse-headed creature. Human servants ran before the conveyance strewing rose petals at the go-zu-oni’s feet, and others who followed behind gathered the petals back up.

  “Who was that?” Joel asked.

  “Some general of the animal kingdom whose mother got him his post,” Jedidiah muttered.

  “What are you going to do while I’m waiting?” Walinda demanded impatiently.

  “I?” Jedidiah asked with a shocked expression. “I will be finding a contact so you don’t have to wait in line. If all goes well, we’ll be in Sigil before the end of the week. Come along, Joel,” he said, turning and heading back up the staircase the way they’d come.

  Joel hurried after his god, following him through the hallways of another building, down another staircase, through another courtyard, through another building, then out a moon-shaped door onto a balcony overlooking a garden courtyard with a small pond. Joel dallied at the rail of the balcony, as he was sure one was meant to do, to take in the beauty of the garden and admire the serenity of the scene. Bees buzz
ed among the gardenias, carp glided through the water, and birds twittered in the trees.

  “Dawdle later,” Jedidiah called from behind him. The older priest had circled the balcony and started down a wide staircase into the garden.

  Joel hurried down the stairs, but Jedidiah held him back on the landing between the first flight of stairs and the second.

  Eight identical bronze statues, covered in a green patina, flanked the staircase. The statues resembled some creature half-way between a dog and a lion. Jedidiah rapped sharply on the third lion-dog on the right. A hollow clank rang out into the courtyard.

  A pale green light began to glow in the lion-dog’s eyes. “Finder!” a voice cried out from inside the bronze statue. “You’ve come back to visit!”

  “Just a short visit, Shishi,” the older priest replied. “We’re just passing through.”

  “Pooh,” the voice inside the lion-dog pouted. “You’re always just passing through. I suppose you want help.”

  “I’m too old to wait in line, Shishi,” Jedidiah said with a tired smile, “and too impatient. I need three passes to Sigil.”

  “Ah. Not the usual destination of the dead. This may take a while. Will you sing for me tonight, Finder?” Shishi asked.

  “You know I will. Oh, but while I’m here, my name is Jedidiah—a priest of Finder.”

  The light in the lion-dog’s eyes blinked, giving the illusion that the statue blinked. “But you still look like Finder!” the voice said. “What sort of western custom is this?”

  “Humor an old barbarian,” Jedidiah implored, patting the lion-dog’s metal head. “I’ll be waiting in the garden.”

  The green light in the lion-dog’s eyes faded.

  Jedidiah motioned to Joel with a jerk of his head, and together they walked down into the garden. They crossed a tiny bridge to an island in the center of the pond and sat on a bench in a pavilion overlooking the water.

  “In case you hadn’t guessed,” Jedidiah explained, “Shishi is a spirit of a lion-dog. Even though he can’t actually drink, he’s a big fan of drinking songs of the western Realms. Gods only know why.”

  “Are you one of the gods who knows why?” Joel asked.

  Jedidiah chuckled and shook his head.

  “He’ll keep me up until dawn singing for him and four hundred of his equally invisible friends. Still, it beats waiting in line.”

  An old woman in orange pants and robe came across the bridge and set down a tray just outside the pavilion. She bowed low to Jedidiah, then recrossed the bridge and disappeared behind a tree.

  The tray held a pot of green tea, two cups, and a plate of almond cookies.

  “Shishi is also a perfect host,” Jedidiah said.

  They took their tea in companionable silence, but when they’d finished, Jedidiah stood up and began pacing. His head twitched once, the way it had shortly after they’d left Ilsensine’s realm.

  “Are you all right?” Joel asked.

  Jedidiah shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems to me I had an idea, a plan, but I don’t remember it now. I forgot it before I took note of it, if you get my drift.”

  Joel nodded. “I do that all the time,” he said.

  “But you’re not a god.”

  “Oh. Do you think Ilsensine stole it?” Joel asked.

  Jedidiah’s head twitched again. Then he shrugged. “I just don’t remember. It’s like a tickle in my brain.” He sighed.

  “Was it some way to get back the finder’s stone without giving up the Hand of Bane?” Joel asked hopefully.

  “There’s an awful thought.”

  A small green ball of light zipped across the bridge and hovered before Jedidiah’s face—Shishi, Joel supposed. The spirit reminded him a little of the firestars of Daggerdale.

  “Chief Stellar Operator Pan Ho will take a bribe for a one-time use of the portal to Sigil,” said the lion-dog spirit. “I would suggest something green. We should visit Pan Ho immediately. She’s going to lunch within the hour and will be gone for a week.”

  Jedidiah bent over and plucked a newly blossomed gardenia from a bush. “Lead on, O wise Shishi.”

  Shishi went zipping back across the bridge, through the garden, and up the staircase. It waited patiently at the top of the steps for Jedidiah and Joel to catch up.

  “That spirit is four hundred years my senior, and it still leaves me eating its dust,” Jedidiah grumbled.

  Miss Pan Ho was a grumpy dumpling of a woman who eyed Jedidiah with some distrust until he presented her with the gardenia “to brighten the efficient austerity of her office.” A small but flawless emerald shimmered in the heart of the flower. Miss Pan Ho sniffed at the flower with a smile on her face. After pocketing the blossom, she rummaged through a drawer filled with keys and drew out a large one made of lead. She handed it to Jedidiah. There was a tiny slip of paper attached to the key, printed with symbols in the Kara-Tur language. Then Miss Pan Ho locked her drawers and left the room. Throughout the entire exchange, she never said a word

  The paper attached to the lead key, Jedidiah explained, instructed the holder of the key that Door Number 26 of the Hall of Confused Dreams was to be locked when people left at noon to eat and rest. The opposite side explained that if anyone found the key it should be slid under the door of Room 26 of the Hall of Confused Dreams.

  “So we’re supposed to use the key when no one’s there and leave it in the room?” Joel guessed.

  “Very good,” Jedidiah replied. “A little practice and you could master the fine art of bribery, Kara-Tur style. I’ll spend the evening with Shishi, then we’ll leave for Sigil in the morning.”

  With Shishi riding on Jedidiah’s shoulder, Joel and Jedidiah returned to where Walinda waited. If the lines had moved, it wasn’t by more than three feet. Walinda glared all around her with annoyance.

  Jedidiah sauntered up to the priestess. “You won’t need to wait anymore. I obtained access to the portal from a friend.”

  “Good,” Walinda replied, stepping out of the line.

  Almost instantly the line moved up ten feet.

  The three adventurers followed Shishi back to his garden.

  The old woman who’d served them tea brought them a dinner of fish, pickled cabbage, and something Jedidiah called noodle soup.

  After they’d eaten, Shishi assigned them each a tiny room overlooking his garden. Each room held a woven straw mat with blankets, a wooden pillow, a silk robe, and a low writing table.

  Jedidiah announced that he was going off with Shishi to “sing for their supper.” Joel offered to accompany him, but Jedidiah suggested quietly that the young bard remain behind in case Walinda needed company.

  Joel thought that highly unlikely, since the priestess had remained completely silent throughout the meal, but the young bard nodded in agreement. Immediately after Jedidiah and Shishi left, Walinda retired to her room to rest.

  Joel enjoyed the solitude of the garden. With the banelich in another plane, all his worries seemed far away. He tried to compose something on his birdpipes that expressed the harmony he felt in this place of the dead, but jarring notes continued to block the melody. In his head, he knew that this was just the calm before the storm. Sooner than he wished, he and Jedidiah would be confronted with the dilemma of the Hand of Bane. He continued to worry about what choice Jedidiah would make.

  When darkness fell upon the garden, the bard retired to his room. He left the door open to the perfumed night air and sat down on his mat. He pulled off his tunic and began unbuttoning his shirt. He wasn’t yet tired enough to sleep, but there was nothing else for him to do. He felt suddenly very lonely.

  Someone rapped lightly on the wooden frame of his open door. Joel looked up. Walinda stood there, looking as aimless as he felt. She wore nothing but the red silk robe she’d found in her room. She had shed her haughty expression with her armor, and only her facial tattoos and the gem in her forehead served as a reminder of her tyrannical beliefs.

  “Do you wish to be al
one?” she asked.

  “Not really,” Joel said with a smile, although the priestess wouldn’t have been his first choice of company. “Come on in.”

  The priestess of Bane slid gracefully into the room. She carried a pottery flask with two small china cups. She set them down on the table and then sat down beside Joel on the mat. She settled to the floor with a little less grace, almost a fall.

  Joel pulled away a few inches. “What’s this?” he asked, nodding at the flask.

  “Something to drink,” Walinda explained. “It’s quite good. Try some.”

  Joel leaned over and poured a little of the beverage into one of the cups. The liquid was clear and very warm. He brought it up to his lips and sniffed. There was a strong odor of alcohol. He sipped the drink. It was strong and a little acrid.

  “Where’d you get this?” the young bard asked.

  “The old slave brought it for me,” Walinda said. She leaned over and poured herself a full cup.

  Joel wondered if Walinda had somehow asked for the drink, or if the servant woman had brought it of her own volition. Of course, there was also the possibility that Jedidiah had recommended to Shishi that it be provided to the priestess.

  Walinda held up her cup. “What shall we drink to?” she asked.

  Joel thought for a moment. They still didn’t have much in common. “To Shishi’s hospitality,” he suggested.

  Walinda nodded and took a drink from her cup. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

  Joel took another cautious sip. The beverage was far stronger than anything he was used to drinking.

  “What song were you playing in the garden?” Walinda asked.

  “I was just trying to compose something. The melody wouldn’t come out right.”

  “Your god is not with you tonight,” Walinda said with a knowing nod, leaving her head hanging down so that she stared into her cup.

  “You might say that,” Joel replied, trying to hide his grin.

  The priestess was oblivious to the bard’s amusement. “It is worse for me. I have been with Bane, and now his absence is like a rent in my heart.”