weapon at the man's throat. 'Leave him alone,' she growled.
The man paled and stepped back. 'Sorry, ma'am. Didn't realize he was with you.'
Jas took a position beside Joel, and when people saw her determined expression and her weapon, they backed away from the adventurers.
'Someone you know?' Joel asked.
'Never seen him before in my life,' Jas whispered.
They crossed the room and followed the light from the finder's stone through a doorway that led to another corridor. Farther down the corridor, their progress was halted by a gaping chasm in the floor. It was at least fifteen feet to the other side. Emilo dropped a pebble into the pit, and it took nearly four seconds before it clinked on something below. Jas flew the two men and their gear across the chasm. After her exertions, the winged woman required several minutes rest before she could continue.
They proceeded far more cautiously along the corridor.
Somewhere up ahead, a soft red glow issued from a doorway. The three adventurers crept forward and peered into the room that lay beyond. The damage in this room was even worse than the last. Most of the ceiling had collapsed, as well as some of the floor. Moans arose from a pit approximately in the room's center. The red light shone out of a pool of water on one side of the room.
The people in this room were at least paying some attention to the fallen and injured. Two women in the mauve robes of Beshaban priestesses were tending to the injured, most of whom were other priestesses. Two beautiful winged women stood as armed guards beside another entrance across the room. Joel guessed they were alu-fiends, the half-human offspring of succubi. Now he realized why the men in the last hall had backed away from Jas. Her wings were the same size, shape, and color as the alu-fiends.
'Any sign of Beshaba?' Jas whispered.
Joel shook his head. 'Something's not right here,' he whispered.
'That's right. And you're it,' a soft female voice said from behind them.
The adventurers spun around. In the hallway behind them stood another alu-fiend. She was lovely to behold, with long, black hair that glittered like silk in the light of the finder's stone and a small, lithe frame. Her beauty was matched only by her deadliness. She held a sword point to Joel's throat.
From the shadows behind the alu-fiend appeared a tall figure in a dark cloak. The figure held the edge of a curved sword to the alu-fiend's throat and ordered, 'Lower your weapon, fiend, and don't make a sound, or we will have to kill you and all your friends.'
The alu-fiend stiffened angrily, then complied sullenly.
Joel peered intently at his rescuer and the curved blade. There was something familiar about her and her sword. 'Holly?' the bard whispered in disbelief.
The tall figure lowered her hood, revealing the face of the paladin Holly Harrowslough. Beneath the black cloak, she was dressed in full battle armor.
'Holly!' Jas growled softly. 'What are you doing here?'
'Lathander sent me,' the paladin said softly. 'What are you doing here?'
'Finder sent us,' Joel said as he took the alu-fiend's sword from her hand. 'I wish Lathander had mentioned to Selune that you'd be here,' he added. 'We could have teamed up sooner.'
'What does Selune have to do with this?' Holly asked.
'She's helping Tymora,' Joel said.
'What's wrong with Tymora?' Holly asked with confusion.
'Someone is draining her power. We think it's the mistress of this realm. Isn't that why Lathander sent you? To discover how she's doing it?'
'Beshaba has nothing to do with Tymora's troubles,' the alu-fiend spat.
'I told you not to make a sound,' Holly growled, pressing her sword blade against the flesh of the alu-fiend's neck.
'Hold on,' Joel said, pushing Holly's hand back. He smiled sweetly at the alu-fiend. 'What do you know about this?' 'It is Xvim. He sent a squad of hydroloths to attack my lady's court,' the alu-fiend declared. 'When my lady used her power to defend us, she lost control, and the mountain quaked. Xvim must have known such a thing would happen, or he would not have risked his forces.'
'How do you know the hydroloths came from Xvim?' Jas asked.
'Because my mistress cursed his name before she teleported away,' the alu-fiend said haughtily.
'Hydroloth? Aren't they the froglike things that Xvim sent to Sigil to bring back Jas?' Emilo asked Joel.
Holly started, as if she hadn't noticed the kender before. Emilo smiled up at the paladin and bowed. 'Emilo Haversack. Pleased to meet you at last, Holly,' he said. 'I've heard a good deal about you.'
'Why did your mistress teleport away?' Joel demanded of the alu-fiend.
The alu-fiend tched as if Joel were a simpleton. 'To save her realm and her people from destruction,' she said.
'Where did she go?' Holly asked.
'She did not say, but I would guess she has gone to Gehenna, to confront that mewling godling Xvim and make him pay for his treachery,' the alu-fiend said.
'When?' Jas asked.
'During the quake,' the alu-fiend said.
That was yesterday,' Joel said. 'Why isn't she back?'
'Do you think something happened to her in Gehenna?' Jas asked Joel.
'I think,' the bard said, 'that we're going to have to go to Gehenna to find out.'
OFFSTAGE
Somewhere in the Prime Material Plane, on the world known as Toril, in Realmspace, Daramos Lauthyr, High Lord Priest of Tymora, surveyed the wreckage of a once-secret shrine to Beshaba. Hidden in an underground chamber beneath a stable beside a respectable inn, the shrine had been a mere hundred yards from the shining spires of the Lady's House, also known as the temple of Tymora and Arabel's most resplendent cathedral. Beshaba's worshipers must have laughed at their proximity as they hid here in Lady Luck's shadow.
Now it was Lauthyr's turn to laugh. He toed one of the holy symbols of Beshaba, a crudely painted red plaque with black antlers, and allowed a tight smile to creep across his thin lips. As he looked around at the devastation, the smile grew into a full-fledged grin.
A week of heavy summer storms following hard after a season of steady spring rains had created a sinkhole over thirty feet across and twenty feet deep just beneath the stables. The secret shrine's earthen roof, insufficiently supported by wooden beams, had collapsed, as had the stable above, revealing the vipers' nest below. The worshipers had been crushed and smothered by dirt, slate rock, and lumber.
The town guard, aided by Lauthyr's priests, were now sorting through the tangle of rubble and timbers to pull free the corpses of Beshaba's unfortunate followers. Apparently the collapse had occurred during a service to the Maid of Misfortune, for there were many human corpses. A dozen had been discovered in the top layer of the ruins, along with a those of half a dozen horses that had been quartered in the stable above. So far the rescuer had found only one survivor-a stallion. Lauthyr had ordered that it be dug out, lifted from the sinkhole, and healed. It was unlikely that he would accord similar kindness to any of Beshaba's worshipers, should any of them be found alive. Lauthyr was not the sort to show mercy to an enemy.
Any other priest might have credited Chauntea for the bountiful rain that had revealed the temple, but Lauthyr attributed the destructive rain in full to Tymora, since it had revealed the shrine of her hate-filled sister. It was a clear sign, in Lauthyr's mind, that Tymora had chosen Arabel as her own, which meant Daramos Lauthyr, High Lord Priest of the Lady's House, was the chosen prophet of Tymora's church.
Lauthyr looked up beyond the pit's walls to the new spires of the Lady's House, with their finely wrought golden domes perched atop turrets of white marble veined with sea-green jade. It had cost as much as the price of the marble to haul the stone from Impiltur, but Lauthyr considered the money well spent. The new construction, made possible by the donations of Tymora's followers, announced the wonders of Tymora and demonstrated that
