'Leave her be, paladin,' Beshaba commanded. Her voice was soft and sweet, like a young girl's, but it echoed throughout the whole chamber. 'She is among the honored dead now. I do not want her body defiled with Lathander's stench.'
Holly pulled back, insulted and aghast, but she had the sense to choose her words carefully. 'Is there nothing you can do for her, lady?' she asked the goddess.
'She has no need of aid. She had done her duty here. Her spirit is already returned to the Blood Tor, where it will serve as my petitioner.'
Holly lowered her eyes to the ground so that her shock would not be so obvious. She was appalled that Beshaba did not value Walinda's life, but only the service the priestess rendered her goddess.
'So. The servants of Lathander, Finder, and my hateful sister Tymora have all come to my aid. How amusing,' Beshaba said.
Joel bowed low, with a flourish of his hand, making sure his greeting was every bit as graceful as the one he'd first given Tymora. Beshaba was renowned for the jealousy she bore her sister. 'Greetings, fair Beshaba,' the bard said as he rose. 'My lord, Finder, bids me to escort you to the spire, should you agree.'
'The spire… aye,' Beshaba replied. 'There I might find sanctuary from this sickness. Then I can better plan how to avenge myself on the upstart Xvim.'
'Forgive my impertinence, Lady Beshaba,' Joel begged, 'but how is it you are so certain Iyachtu Xvim is behind your sickness?'
'I read Xvim's name in the minds of the hydroloths who attacked me in my realm. He sent the creatures to goad me into using my power, and then I discovered I could not control the power. This is his doing, I am sure. No doubt Lathander can discover exactly what Xvim is up to. Come, we will leave this place finally. Bring your flying carpet. You may need it.'
Beshaba rose with a goddess's grace and flowed down the stairs of the dais like a ghost. She drifted over the bodies of the dead Xvimlar she'd slain days earlier.
Joel, Holly, Jas, and Emilo hurried up the dais, slipping past the corpses of Walinda and Ratagar, and sat down on the carpet.
'Airheart,' Joel whispered, giving the carpet a pat. 'Carpet, rise and go forward slowly.'
The carpet glided along behind the Maid of Misfortune. Beshaba stopped at the door to the tower. Joel halted the carpet beside her.
'Leave the bastion,' Beshaba ordered, 'and await me in the canyon where my proxy gathered her army. I will join you once I have taken care of some unfinished business.' Beshaba knocked softly three times on the door. The bar holding the door fell away, the door's hinges snapped, and the door collapsed outward. The ground began to tremble. Beshaba stepped out of the tower, and Joel ordered the carpet to follow on her heels. He was eager to be out in the open before the quake grew stronger.
Yugoloth corpses, felled by the marilith's deadly cloud, littered the stairs to the tower door. In the courtyard, yugoloths and tanar'ri continued to fight, even though the battle no longer served any purpose beyond the fiends' desire to shed blood.
Joel ordered the carpet to rise far above the combat and soar toward the only exit from the fortress. Joel slowed as they approached the gate. The gatehouse was choked with bar-lgura keeping the passage open for their fellow tanar'ri.
Fortunately the apelike creatures seemed to recognize the adventurers as allies. They did not attack, but neither did they clear the way for the carpet to exit through the gate.
Holly addressed the tanar'ri. She had to shout to be heard over the clashing and screaming of the battle. 'The battle is over,' the paladin announced. 'Walinda is dead. Her goddess follows us. You have no reason to stay.'
The bar-lgura looked at the paladin uncertainly. Holly raised her hands to her forehead, agonized by the barrage of telepathic queries the tanar'ri were sending.
'It is true,' Holly insisted. 'I do not lie. Tell your fellows to retreat while they still can.'
The bar-lgura began backing out of the fortress. Joel ordered the carpet through the gatehouse.
Once free of the confines of the fortress, the bar-lgura began vanishing in beams of shimmering air, presumably teleporting back to their homes in the Abyss. Joel gave a last look up at the gatehouse, but he saw no sign of petitioner Perr. He wondered if the former priest of Xvim had any clue that he had been deceived. The bard ordered the carpet to rise twenty feet and sent it back toward the canyon as Beshaba had ordered.
Holly looked back at the fortress, shaking her head.
'What's wrong?' Emilo asked.
'The bar-lgura will flee,' the paladin explained, 'but they said the bulezau have gone into a battle frenzy and will never leave.'
'Their loss,' Jas said.
'Evil's gain,' Holly argued. 'No good is served by their deaths.'
'Even dead, Walinda manages to ruin the lives of others,' Jas commented. 'And she never actually had to pay for any of it.'
'She paid with her life,' Holly said, aghast.
'That's not payment enough,' Jas growled. 'Now she's a petitioner, still serving an evil power.'
'But that is all she will ever be now,' Holly said, 'until she merges with Beshaba. It is only as living beings that we can choose the course our spirits will take. Now Walinda can never be redeemed by the light. She will never know joy or love or mercy.'
'Walinda could have lived a thousand years, and she would never have changed,' Jas declared. 'She was evil incarnate.'
They had just reached the ridge overlooking the Bastion of Hate when they heard another rumble.
'Beshaba's bad luck seeping out?' Holly asked.
'Pouring out is more like it,' Joel replied. 'She must be casting some very powerful magic.'
Floating above the ground, the four carpet riders didn't feel the vibrations of the earthquake, but they still weren't safe from its violence. Geysers of ash and molten lava began to shoot up around them, and rocks from the slope above rained down on them. Joel ordered the carpet to back away from the mount a hundred feet.
Hovering near the darkness of the void, the adventurers could hardly even feel the heat, but they had an excellent view of the havoc wrought on the Gehennan mount.
The realm of Iyachtu Xvim trembled like jelly, yet neither the walls, nor the temple, nor the tower collapsed. Xvim had built them well. Finally Mount Chamada itself gave way. The great, wide ledge beneath the Bastion of Hate broke from the side of the mount and began to slide down the slope. It moved slowly at first, but soon picked up a terrifying speed, carrying with it Xvim's fortress.
The noise was deafening, a continuing roar that battered their ears and left an ache in their foreheads. Then the air grew foul with dust, ash, smoke, and foul vapors. The four adventurers lay on the carpet with their arms over their heads and their faces, choking and gasping.
Suddenly there was silence all about them, and bright light and clean, fresh air. They raised their heads and looked about. The carpet sat in a field of thistle and burdock. Overhead, the cloudless sky was bright blue, though there was no sun to be seen.
'I don't think we're in Gehenna anymore,' Holly said after a long pause.
'But where are we?' Jas asked.
'Who cares?' the paladin said with a laugh. 'Breathe that air. Isn't it wonderful?'
Indeed, the air was not only fresh, but it also seemed to make Joel's skin tingle. The feeling was a familiar one to the bard. 'We're in the Outlands,' he said. 'How'd we get here?' Jas asked.
'I brought you,' a soft, girlish voice said from somewhere overhead.
The adventurers looked up.
Beshaba hovered above them, her feet grazing the thistle flowers. She was no longer a giant, but the size of a normal human woman. 'Bringing you here has cost me more power than I thought it would. In payment, you will serve as my bodyguards on our journey to the spire.'
Eager to keep the goddess on the path Finder had requested, Joel bowed his head and said, 'We would be honored, Lady Beshaba.'
Beshaba looked at Holly and Jas. 'Does he speak for you as well?' she asked.
