Finder's bane

Five

The guards and Bear marched Holly and Joel through the corridors of the tower and up staircases until they had reached the roof. The sun had set, and it took Joel a few minutes to adjust to the darkness outside. Bear called to two men who were busy grooming a pair of griffons as the Zhentilar unfastened the manacles about the prisoners' hands and feel It was then that Joel realized he and Holly were being taken to the Temple in the Sky.

The griffon riders came forward. Beneath the red capes they wore, they were clothed in tunics made of poorly tanned hides, decorated with a circular pattern of nine human eyes. Joel remembered Holly saying that the floating temple was occupied by a beast cult. Then was something far more sinister, though, about the pattern of eyes, but Joel couldn't quite place it.

"My master asks that you keep these prisoners in your temple until the new moon," Bear said. "They are meant for offerings, so be sure to tie them to their saddles so they do not try to jump."

Wordlessly each rider took a prisoner and led them toward the griffons. Joel noted that although the Zhentilar guard followed behind to prevent them from making a break for it, the soldiers avoided getting anywhere near the griffons. A moment later Joel understood why, as one griffon turned its great eagle head, shrieked, then snapped at the bard's face. The griffon's rider tapped the creature on the beak with his riding crop, and the raptor head followed the crop until the griffon faced forward again. From a pouch at his belt, the rider pulled out a piece of raw meat, dripping blood, and rewarded the mount.

The rider shoved Joel onto the creature's back and lashed his feet to its harness. When the rider mounted behind Joel, the bard could feel the rumble in the griffon's chest as it complained of the extra weight. Joel looked for Holly, but the griffon and rider carrying her were already in the air.

A moment later Joel's ears were full of the sound of his griffon's beating wings, and he was airborne.

The waning moon still cast enough light to reveal features of the land below, the fields and forest, the tower, the clouds, the River Tesh glittering miles away. Joel studied the shape of the moon.

If he and Holly were to be sacrificed at the new moon, that gave them at least three more days to escape. He tried to focus on what the rider did to control the griffon, thinking such knowledge might come in handy if he could arrange an escape. The rider didn't seem to be giving the beast any instructions. Joel soon realized the griffon flew of its own volition, like a horse returning to its home stable, where it knew there would be food and water waiting.

All too soon the temple blocked out his view of the moon and the stars. The griffon flew through a great hole in the bottom of the floating rock. A few moments later they set down into a vast cavern lit by torchlight. The hole by which they'd entered was set in the floor of the cavern.

Joel could see two other griffons stabled in the cavern. They were being groomed by two other men, who also wore hide tunics marked with the pattern of eyes.

The riders untied the prisoners from their mounts and led them up a very long, frighteningly steep set of stairs. At the top of the stairs, Joel's guard shoved him to the left.

Holly cried out, "No!"

Joel spun about to see what was wrong. He just had time to see Holly being led off in the opposite direction when his guard smacked him across the face with his riding crop.

Joel shouted, "It's all right, Holly. I'll find you." The next moment the riding crop slammed into the bard's ear, so if the paladin called back a reply, Joel didn't hear it.

The corridors above the stables were all lit with a bright magical light. Everything was carved out of the rock, which appeared to be the same oily stone as had been used to create the statue of Iyachtu Xvim in the tower below.

At the bottom of a second staircase, his guard pushed him down a short dead-end corridor and slammed a gate closed behind him. Bedding in the cell consisted of some straw piled in the corner. The guard slipped two buckets through a hole in the gate's bars. One was empty, the other filled with water.

"Don't spill the water," the beast cultist ordered. "It's all you'll get until tomorrow night." From the pouch at his belt, he pulled out a piece of raw, bloody meat and tossed it at the bard's feet. Then he left the prisoner completely alone.

Joel looked down at the piece of meat and felt his stomach churn. He hadn't eaten for two days, but the raw flesh served as a reminder of the massacre of the Banites. Even if he could bring himself to sample it, the bard suspected he wouldn't be able to keep it down. He toed the meat into a corner, then sipped at the water in the bucket until his stomach settled.

He spent some time examining the gate that made up his cell door. He tried to give it a shake, but it didn't even rattle. It slid in grooves in the floor and the ceiling, and its sides disappeared into the rock walls. Whatever mechanism held it in place was also buried in the walls. The grillwork was solid iron.

Joel emptied out his pockets to take stock of his possessions. His captors had missed the hidden pocket in his belt, so he still had his map to the Lost Vale. They'd taken everything else but his clothing and boots. He could understand the Zhentilar taking his sword and dagger and, of course, the wand, but the fact that they'd taken his birdpipes really irritated him. He wondered whether Bear, no lover of music, had taken them and smashed them. It wasn't likely the Xvimist would try to play them. Joel chuckled just at the thought of the big man's paws trying to cover the holes over the reeds.

Joel sat down on the straw and leaned against the wall. He'd only been conscious for a few hours, and between his hunger and his injuries, he felt exhausted. He thought of Holly, all alone in some cell, no doubt praying to Lathander.

"I don't imagine you're available to get me out of this predicament, are you, Finder?" the bard whispered. He began humming, and soon he was singing softly. Between the winged woman and the ride on the griffon, his thoughts were stuck on flight. He sang a song of Finder's about larks called "Birds Who Sing in Flight." For the first time, it occurred to him that the song could be interpreted to include people, too. It was the last thing he remembered before he drifted off to sleep.

When next Joel opened his eyes, Jedidiah stood leaning against the cell door, stuffing a short clay pipe with a fine black, sparkling powder. "Were you planning on sleeping the night away?" the old priest asked with a grin.

Joel was ready to spring up, embrace the old man, and tell him how glad he was to see him, but some powerful force held him down in the straw. That's when he realized he was dreaming. In his heart, he had wanted to see Jedidiah, so he summoned him in his sleep.

The old priest was dressed just as he had been when Joel had last seen him in Berdusk. He wore black boots and trousers, a white shirt, a red velvet tunic, and a huge dagger. His glaur, a valved brass horn, hung from his belt. His white beard was neatly trimmed, and his white hair was drawn back into a short ponytail.

"This place is abysmal," Jedidiah declared. "Believe me, I know." He kicked at the piece of raw meat on the floor. "The food is terrible, and the room doesn't even have a view."

When Joel finally managed to speak, his voice sounded remote even to himself. "I'm sorry, Jedidiah," he said, "but I've failed. I'm not going to be able to complete my pilgrimage to the Lost Vale. I've been captured by priests of Iyachtu Xvim, and they're going to sacrifice me to their god. They're going to sacrifice Holly, too. She's a paladin of Lathander."

"There," the old man said, pointing at a spot on the solid wall behind Joel. Joel wondered in confusion whether the priest didn't hear him or he was ignoring him.

Jedidiah lit his pipe and tossed it at the wall where he'd just pointed. There was a great flash of light and an explosive boom, and when the smoke cleared, a large, perfectly shaped window had appeared in the rock. On the other side, there were blue skies, white clouds, and bright sunshine.

Jedidiah sprang across the room to the far wall and leapt up onto the windowsill. With hands on either side of the window, he leaned out over the void. "Much better," he said. "It's not such a dead end now."

Joel marveled as he always did at Jedidiah's spryness and daring. The innumerable creases on his brow, about his eyes, and in the corners of his mouth marked the old priest as ancient, yet he was as strong and energetic as a boy.

Jedidiah sat down on the windowsill and pulled out a second pipe from his tunic and tapped the bowl on the sill until a huge chunk of tobacco spilled out. In the tobacco was a white egg.

"They're going to kill me," Joel reiterated.

"Only if you let them," Jedidiah said. He tapped on the egg. Something within tapped back.

"I haven't a chance of escaping," Joel argued.

Jedidiah laughed. It was the same laugh he used for overly self-important musicians. "You have to look for chances," he said, tapping on the eggshell again.

The shell cracked open, and a tiny golden warbler popped out of the shell. The bird grew at an impossible rate until it had reached full adult size. Then it peeped and flew up to Jedidiah's hand.

"I'm locked in a cell, in a floating rock filled with beast cultists, a half mile off the ground!" Joel complained.

Jedidiah looked out the window. "A quarter mile," he retorted. He whistled at the warbler, and the bird sang back seven notes.

"So even if I break out of this cell, how do I get down off this rock?" Joel asked, beginning to feel quite irritated at Jedidiah's casual air in the face of Joel's impending doom.

"You don't get down off a rock; you get down off a goose," the old priest teased.

With an amazing sleight of hand that Joel had seen the priest use before, Jedidiah passed one hand over the golden bird and transformed it into a piece of golden jewelry, no larger than his palm, shaped like a pair of wings. When the priest passed his hand back over the talisman, it transformed back into the golden warbler. The bird sang one more time, then launched itself out the window.

As the bird flew off, Joel felt his heart lighten. Jedidiah laughed, and Joel felt his exhaustion draining away, replaced with a youthful energy. Of course he would escape, he thought. Of course he would rescue Holly. Of course he would reach the Lost Vale.

"Of course," Jedidiah said, "you're never going to get anything done sleeping your life away." The priest bent down and poked Joel on the forehead for emphasis. Joel felt a jolt pass through his body.

Joel awoke with a start, sitting up immediately in the straw bedding. He blinked and looked around. Jedidiah wasn't there, of course, and the cell looked just as it had before his dream.

He sat and thought about the dream for a few minutes. It could just have been his heart playing tricks on his mind, offering escape in sleep when there was none in life. Yet the dream had seemed so real. For one thing, he recalled it vividly… the exploding pipe, the window, the newly hatched bird, the winged talisman. Of course, Jedidiah had been annoyingly vague, but he was that way in real life as well. The view from the window though hadn't been quite right. The cell was far too deep inside the rock to command an outside view.

There was something rather peculiar about the way the hallway dead-ended on nothing but a prison cell. Why not just excavate a cell? Why add a hallway? Unless…

Jedidiah had said something about it not being such a dead end.

Joel knelt in the straw and examined the wall where Jedidiah had created a window. The stone was oily and quite roughly hewn. A chunk broke off in his hand. Curious, Joel tossed the rock in the air. Although it came from the floating rock fortress, it did not float of its own accord. The cell was well lit by the same magical light that illuminated everything, but it was still hard to examine the blackness of the wall. The rough surface cast shadows over each crack and niche. Joel ran a piece of straw horizontally across the stone. It stuck in a shadowed crevice. Joel ran the straw up vertically. There was definitely a crack there. Just at the edge of his reach, the crack took a sharp ninety-degree turn.

Ultimately the crack formed a perfect rectangle exactly where the window had been in Joel's dream. Had the dream actually been a vision? the bard wondered.

Joel cast a glance back down the corridor, but it was empty. His jailers, trusting the strength of the cell, hadn't posted a guard.

Joel pushed gently along the seam, but the rock didn't move. The opening could be mortared shut, secured with some secret mechanism, or merely stiff from disuse.

The Rebel Bard placed his shoulder against the stone and pushed with all his weight. Something made a rusty, grinding noise, and the wall shifted, just a fraction. The seam was now a clear divot, an inch deep, with a similar-sized rise on the far edge of the doorway. The section of wall pivoted about a central post.

Joel pushed harder, and now the wall moved more easily. Black dust showered down from the top of the door, creating a dirty waterfall that billowed in clouds near the floor before settling. Joel brushed the black dust off his tunic before poking his head into the space he'd just discovered.

Behind the door, the air was fresh and cool, which could indicate there was another exit. It was dark, though, pitch-black, and full of cobwebs, which could mean no one else used the door or even knew about its existence. Wrapping his cloak around his hand and sweeping the air before him, Joel half stepped, half crawled into the passage beyond.

Something glittered on the floor just beyond the door. Joel bent over and picked it up. Black dust had drifted into the finely carved lines, delineating each tiny feather. It was a tiny set of golden wings, no bigger than his palm-the same talisman Jedidiah had held in Joel's vision!

Joel considered the source of the vision. Could it really have been Finder who sent him the dream of Jedidiah? With a sense of embarrassment, the bard recalled how he had questioned whether his god could get him out of this predicament. A sense of awe crept over him to think that the Nameless Bard might actually be paying attention to him, a priest who doubted his own calling and hadn't the sense to avoid being kidnapped by Xvimists.

"Thank you, Finder. Thank you very much," Joel whispered, hoping fervently that his god heard his gratitude as readily as he'd listened to his doubts.

The Rebel Bard blew the dust from the talisman and slipped it into an inner pocket of his tunic. Then he began to feel his way through the darkness behind his cell.

Beyond the secret door was a corridor going off in the same direction as the one that led to Joel's cell. The priestess, Walinda of Bane, had declared that the Temple in the Sky had once been a temple of Bane. Apparently when the floating rock had changed owners, many of the old passages had been closed off and forgotten.

The illumination from the cell extended only a few yards into the passageway. Beyond that, darkness reigned. Joel was forced to hug the wall, brushing away cobwebs, testing each footstep carefully before moving forward. He reached a corner in the corridor. It formed a T branching off to the right and left. Joel chose the direction in which the cultists had dragged Holly. Then the corridor turned again, and ebon blackness, like a velvet hood, fell over his eyes. His movement slowed. Then his foot sensed a void.

Joel knelt and reached down with his hand. The floor dropped only a few inches. It was a step down. Beyond the step, Joel felt another step. But how many were there? And what was at the bottom of the steps? These corridors could be a maze, the bard thought, with traps and pits. Maybe there were rats and giant spiders.

Despite the cool breeze moving through the tunnel, Joel began to sweat, perspiration beading on his forehead and carving thin rivulets down his dusty face. I really could use a light, he thought.

Then he remembered. He could make light. Jedidiah had taught him how. He'd never needed to use it before. Now was probably a good time. The bard composed himself and began the prayers that would bring him the gift of spells from his god. When he had finished, he ran his hand over the wall until he'd broken off another chunk of rock. Joel focused on the rock as he hummed a scale in C-sharp. The rock lit up like a lantern wick, and Joel leaned back with a sigh of relief.

A few moments later he was on his way down the staircase, continuing roughly in the direction Holly had been taken. There were other intersections, but the corridor he was in now was larger than the corridors that connected to it, and Joel sensed they were merely tributaries. If he didn't find some sort of room or exit, he could always go down one of the smaller corridors when he reached the opposite side of the temple. With a grin, the bard imagined himself pushing open another secret door into a cell containing Holly.

The tunnel ended in a cavern that Joel guessed must have once served as a temple to Bane. Within, rows of benches faced an altar on the left-hand wall. On the opposite wall was another corridor leading away from the temple.

Joel moved down the center aisle of benches up to the altar. There were rings set in the four corners of the altar stone and troughs running to a hole at one end of the stone. Even in the dim light, Joel could see bloodstains in the stone.

Behind the altar, carved into the rock wall, was a giant bas-relief of a man's face. Unlike the rough-hewn statue of Iyachtu Xvim below, this figure was the work of a skilled artisan. The face's smooth, sharp features were handsome but hostile, a traditional representation of the god Bane. There were two divots in the eye sockets that traditionally would hold giant red gems to represent the icon's eyes. No doubt someone had looted this icon's eyes.

Thinking of people who might have the nerve to desecrate a temple to Bane, Joel was reminded of Holly. It occurred to him he'd better continue searching for her before the night wore away. The bard gave the icon of Bane a little slap on its rocky cheek and turned to leave. Just as he was stepping off the altar, he heard a sneeze behind him.

Joel started and then froze. He could hear his own heart pounding in his chest. It was several moments before he gathered his wits about him and reacted. Pocketing his magically lit rock, he ducked behind the altar and listened.

A few moments later he heard two more sneezes. They probably were soft and stifled, but in the echoing rock chamber they might as well have been thunder. On his hands and knees, Joel crept around the altar in the direction of the sounds.

To the right of the altar was a curtained alcove. Light slipped out from beneath the curtain and through rotted holes in the fabric. He'd missed it before because his own light stone had outshone it. This light was not as bright as the magical light that lit the corridors used by the cultists, nor was it the flickering light of a torch or a lantern. Rather, it was a soft, constantly glowing luminescence, like his own light stone but even less bright. Someone else was down here, someone with magic.

Joel crawled up to the curtain and put his eye to one of the holes. Beyond the curtain was a small alcove housing a massive tome chained to an iron stand. Leaning over the book was the familiar form of Walinda of Bane. Using a gemstone enchanted with a light spell for illumination, the priestess skimmed page after page with an impatient look on her face.

Joel was just about to back away when a waft of breeze brushed the curtain up against his face. The priestess's head jerked up, and she turned to stare straight at Joel just as she had twice before. Joel froze. She's in the light; I'm in the dark. She can't possibly see me, the bard thought.

The priestess leapt toward the curtain with a curse on her lips. Still on his hands and knees, Joel tried rolling sideways into the darkness, but to no avail. Carrying her light with her, the priestess cornered him against the altar. With a curse on her lips, she held out her right hand. A blue flame flickered in her palm.

"Hey, take it easy," Joel cried out. "I was just looking. No harm done."

"Oh, it's only you," the priestess replied. The hostile look on her face was replaced with one of cool indifference, and the flame in her hand died out. "I thought you'd be dead by now," she added.

"Who, me?" Joel asked, feigning nonchalance. "Whatever gave you that idea, Walinda of Bane?"

Walinda's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "It occurs to me you have the advantage of knowing my name. Might know yours?"

The bard stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands. "I'm Joel," he said, offering his hand. "Joel of Finder."

The priestess ignored the bard's hand. "Finder," she said with a nod. "Ahh… of course. The poppinjay bard who slew Moander to become a petty god."

The priestess stepped back. "As a priest of a rival god, albeit a petty one," she noted, "you will be sacrificed by the Xvimists in the dark of the moon beside the harpy I offered to them. You may have temporarily escaped your prison cell through these tunnels, but eventually the cultists will find you. Swear fealty to me, and I will help you escape the cultists," Walinda offered. The expression on her face softened, and her tone of voice was suddenly warm and sincere. Joel was taken aback, not only by the priestess's offer, but by the sudden urge he had to accept it just to please her. Had she tried to ensorcell him with a charm spell? But if Bane was dead, she couldn't cast any spells… unless she had used some sort of magical amulet. But why? Why betray her hosts to help a priest of what she considered to be a minor poppinjay god?

Joel grinned with sudden insight. "I will if you will," he retorted.

Walinda glared at him. "What folly do you speak?" she demanded.

"Well," Joel replied, "if you were really a guest of the cultists, you wouldn't need me and my fealty. You'd just give a shout and have them put me in another prison cell. When I sneaked up on you, though, you had no idea I wasn't a cultist, yet you were prepared to attack me. Now that I think about it, the deal you made with the Ruinlord of Xvim only guaranteed you access to this place. Nothing was said about granting you passage back down to the ground. You're a prisoner here, too, Not much of a deal maker, are you?"

"I'm a Dreadmaster of Bane, the Dark One, first among his priests," Walinda replied haughtily, "not some merchant scum. You are wrong. I am not a prisoner. I wheeled to attack in case you were some fell beast left wandering these passages as a guardian of this abandoned temple. Now accept my offer, or die soon regretting that you did not."

Joel chuckled, unable to hide his amusement. She was good at bluffing, but she still had no reason to help him unless she needed his help. "Thanks, no," he replied. "I've seen how little you value those who've sworn fealty to you."

"My followers," Walinda said softly. Her lip quivered, and she turned away.

Joel was surprised. He'd expected her to react with contempt for her people, or even anger that he'd raised the subject. Instead, she acted as if she genuinely grieved their loss. Of course, the bard reminded himself, she could simply be a good actress.

After a moment the woman straightened and replied proudly, "You would not think I sold them so cheap if you knew how great was my goal." She turned again to face him. "My god demanded I gain entry to this place, and I obeyed. Even though their sacrifice brought power to Bane's bastard son, they have earned the favor of Bane. Their loyalty and the price they paid for it will not be forgotten."

Joel shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other. "I know this must be a sore point, and I really hate to have to bring it up, but isn't Bane, um, dead?"

Walinda smiled. It was a smile of great joy, and it made her face positively lovely. "Bane is a god. Death can have no power over the gods. He will return."

"All right," Joel said slowly, beginning to sense this was not a topic they could sensibly debate.

"You doubt me, Joel of Finder," Walinda said. "Tell me, if everyone told you Finder was dead, would you believe it?"

"For me it's different. I have proof Finder lives; he grants my spell prayers."

"Are you so certain that Bane does not grant mine?"

Joel remembered the blue flame at her palm. "You probably just have some sort of magical talisman."

"That is a possibility. At any rate, suppose Finder did not grant you spells, yet still he spoke to you?" Walinda asked.

Joel took a deep breath, then breathed out. Hearing the voice of her god might be some madness of Walinda's, but having just received a vision from Finder, Joel hardly felt in a position to argue with her. Still, the alternative, that Bane might return, was too unpleasant to think about.

"It is true," the priestess admitted, "that I have been made a prisoner by the cultists, yet Bane foresaw this when he bade me to come here. This temple was once his, and he has told me all its secrets. It was a simple matter to escape from my cell to search for the information my god bade me to seek.

"Which is?" Joel asked, curious despite himself.

Walinda smiled again, and her eyes glittered with excitement. Once again her face appeared quite lovely. Then the smile faded to a smirk. "You are most curious, little poppinjay," the priestess noted. "No doubt your curiosity led you to find a way from your cell."

"Maybe Finder told me how to escape," Joel suggested. "The same as Bane told you."

Walinda glared at the bard, obviously finding the comparison between her god and his distasteful. "Perhaps I should simply betray you to the cultists in exchange for my freedom," she said.

Joel leaned against the bloodstained altar, appearing as casual as he could. "You could try," he agreed amicably. The priestess had been prepared to attack him with some sort of spell. Whether Bane had granted it or not was moot at this point. He had no combat magic or weaponry at his disposal, which she probably guessed. Still, if she didn't subdue him quickly with magic, he could no doubt overcome her with brute strength.

With cold smiles, each priest eyed the other warily, Finally Walinda said, "Yet the cultists cannot be trusted to honor a bargain. Perhaps, since neither of us seems inclined to kill the other, we should ally with one another against the cultists in order to escape from this place."

Joel rubbed his hand against the stubble on his chin, debating the wisdom of such an act.

"You are slave to a petty god who will one day be crushed by the Dark Lord," Walinda declared, "yet I will swear by Bane that if you aid me, I will aid you, and not raise my hand against you until we have escaped from this rock."

"I have a companion I have to rescue," Joel informed her.

Walinda's eyes narrowed. "The girl dressed in the colors of a Lathanderite?" she asked.

"That's her," Joel replied.

"Lathander is the sworn enemy of Bane."

"I'm not leaving without her," Joel insisted.

"When she looked at me, her eyes were full of hate," the priestess said. "Would she be willing to honor our truce?"

Holly, Joel realized, would not be happy about allying with Walinda, but she was a reasonable girl. Surely, he told himself, the paladin could restrain her enmity if it meant a chance to escape certain death at the hands of the Xvimists. He was sure he could convince her.

Was he himself convinced an alliance was a good idea? There were several points in its favor. It was only temporary. Once he'd found Holly, the two of them would outnumber the priestess should she attempt to betray them. If Walinda really did know all the secrets of this place, she would be useful. Alternatively, Walinda was a woman who had willingly sacrificed her own followers. She was probably the torturer and murderer of the great black-skinned creature she had used as a figurehead on her ship. Joel knew he not only shouldn't trust her, but he should despise her.

Yet he held a grudging respect for the priestess. To walk into this proverbial dragon's den had taken more than courage or foolhardiness. The woman was devoted to her god. Joel wondered if he would ever show himself as worthy of Finder as she had proven herself to Bane. Until he knew the answer, he felt a curious tie to the priestess, as if only she could help him discover it.

"I agree," he answered at last. "We have a truce, you and I, until we escape. We will aid each other. You will help me rescue my companion, and I will ensure she keeps the bargain as well." Joel paused, then remembered it was to be an oath. "I swear this in Finder's name," he added.

Walinda bowed. Despite the plate armor encasing her figure, the bard couldn't help being impressed with hot slender and graceful the woman was. She replied, "And I, too, declare that we have a truce, you and I, and your companion, should we rescue her, until we are well dear of the Temple of the Sky and the Flaming Tower. I vow this in the name of the mightiest of gods, Lord Bane, who sleeps, waiting for his faithful to come to him."

And may he wait a long, long time, Joel thought privately. Aloud he asked, "So what now?"

"Keep watch, Poppin, while I complete my research. I shall not be very much longer," the priestess said Then she returned to the book in the alcove.

Joel watched her for a few minutes as she skimmed the pages of the book, apparently oblivious to his presence. Either she really trusted him now because he'd made an oath, or she did not perceive him to be any threat to her. The smile had returned to her face, and Joel found himself enchanted by the beauty of her features.

A voice inside chided him. Stop being an idiot. The less you look at her, the safer you'll be. The bard began pacing back and forth before the alcove, anxious to get going and free Holly. He thought of leaving Walinda to search for Holly himself, but realized it was far more reasonable to wait, since the priestess knew her way around.

From the alcove, Walinda whispered, "Yes. At last.'

Joel poked his head into the alcove. Removing a tiny blade from inside her bracers, Walinda began slicing pages out from the chained book. Something dark and liquid oozed from the cut edges that remained and pooled and clotted in the book's spine.

"It's-it's bleeding," Joel gasped.

Walinda looked up at the bard as she carefully folded the stolen leaves. "If you put your ear close," she said "you can hear it weep as well. A sweet sound… but we must go." She slid the paper beneath her breastplate and swept out of the alcove.

Joel turned away from the book with a shudder and hurried after his newly pledged ally.

Walinda led the bard down the corridor opposite the one he'd arrived by. She turned down the third side passage on the left, a route Joel might have avoided. The tunnel was deteriorated and difficult to traverse. They were forced to climb over rockfalls, crawl under low ceilings, and balance on thin ledges in places where most of the tunnel floor had collapsed into deep, dark chasms. Oily water seeped from the wall and ceiling and made the floor slick. Despite all the difficulties, Walinda didn't seem the least bit uncertain, not even when they reached a dead end.

"Here" she said, touching a section of the wall. "Push here," she ordered Joel.

Joel put his shoulder to the wall and shoved hard. The seam became a crack, but something within the wall squealed alarmingly.

"Wait!" Walinda whispered urgently. She stepped up beside Joel and set her hands on the center of the door where it pivoted. She murmured words Joel did not recognize. Then she stepped back and said, 'Try it now."

Joel pushed again. In his bones, he could feel the grating of rust and iron, but no noise came from the shifting wall.

The door opened into an all-purpose storage room, lit with bright magical light. Cuts of meat hung from the ceiling. Rope, wood, hides, jugs, and other items were stacked all about. Walinda led Joel past a pair of butchering tables to a firepit, which seemed to serve as a makeshift smithy. The ashes within were cold at the moment. On the wall beyond the smithy hung all manner of weapons, most of which were in poor shape, rusted or broken, but some appeared quite serviceable.

"We must arm ourselves," the priestess explained, "before we rescue your companion."

Joel took a short sword and a dagger for himself. Choosing a weapon for Holly was more difficult. There was nothing on the wall like the curved blade that had been her father's. The bard picked out two different swords for the paladin, so she could select whichever was more comfortable. He also snagged her a crossbow and a quiver of bolts.

Walinda selected a mace and a thick-headed metal club. She grinned at his weapon-bedecked figure. "You are the very image of a holy warrior, Poppin," she teased. "Come. Your companion should be in a prison cell nearby. We will make better time if we move through the main hall, but we must be very quiet."

Walinda made for the storeroom's regular door and opened it just enough to peer out. She waved him forward and slipped through the doorway. Joel padded after her.

The bard had barely cleared the archway when he slammed into Walinda, who was backing up swiftly.

The priestess turned and forced him back into the storeroom. She pressed him against the wall just inside the doorway, whispering, "Hush! Don't move. Don't even breathe." She opened her long black cape and wrapped it around the pair of them.

Joel froze as Walinda pressed herself up against him. He could have sworn he felt her heart pounding even through her breastplate. Joel was wondering what could possibly have frightened the icy priestess when he saw it.

Floating toward the storeroom in complete eerie silence was a great sphere, bristling with eyestalks that swayed like snakes. It drooled yellow ichor from a fanged mouth at the center of its spherical body.

Joel hoped the cloak had some magical property that hid them, for they stood not in the shadows, but out in the open in a lighted room. He offered up a short, silent prayer to Finder in case it did not. As he remained still and breathless, he became uncomfortably aware of the rose scent of Walinda's hair and the sensation of her hands clenching his shoulders.

The many-eyed creature drifted just outside the doorway and began muttering to itself in some unknown language. It was too big around to squeeze through the doorway. A minute later it drifted away.

Walinda relaxed her grip on Joel's shoulders and backed away. Her cloak fell from him, but her scent lingered. She brushed back a stray wisp of hair and readjusted her cloak.

"What was that?" Joel whispered.

"An eye tyrant," Walinda replied softly. "Some call it a beholder. The beast cultists are so debased they worship it. Bane warned me of its presence here, that it was the greatest danger I could face."

"Great," Joel whispered sarcastically. "I don't suppose Bane happened to mention how you were supposed to get down to the ground."

"Lord Bane is all-wise and all-powerful," the priestess retorted. "He told me I would find you, Poppin, and that you would find a way to escape from here."