of Sigil, wherein is hid the Hand of Bane. We will besiege the city to reclaim what is mine, and with it, my power.'
As if on cue, the clouds about the spire drifted outward, revealing the spire's summit. Floating above the summit was a huge circular ring.
Jedidiah guffawed.
The banelich frowned and wheeled about to face the priest.
Jedidiah continued to laugh, long and hard, clutching his side.
'I said nothing amusing,' the banelich declared coldly.
Jedidiah took a few deep breaths and managed to control himself. He wiped a tear from one eye. He had to stifle one last giggle before he finally became serious once more. 'No,' he replied at last. 'Of course you didn't say anything amusing. I was laughing at your folly.'
Walinda glared at Jedidiah as her master kept a stony silence.
'I don't suppose you'd care for the benefit of my counsel?' Jedidiah asked.
'Proceed,' the banelich ordered.
'There are so many things wrong with your plan, I hardly know where to begin,' Jedidiah said. 'I suppose we could start with the least of the problems. Sigil is called the City of Doors because everyone comes and goes by magical portals. There are hundreds of them. You can't besiege a city unless you can cover all those doors. Next, the population of Sigil is at least twice that of Waterdeep, with ten times the number of powerful beings. At least. Not even you could conquer a city that size. You'd be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who would stand against you. Then there's the mazes. Anyone considered a serious threat to the peace and security of the city finds himself trapped in amaze and shipped deep into the ethereal plane.'
The banelich nodded. 'So we need to approach the city by stealth, after dark,' he said, 'and search for the Hand of Bane in secret.'
'Well, that's another one of your problems,' Jedidiah said. 'You can't approach the city at all.'
'What lies you speak!' Walinda snapped angrily. The city is right there,' she said, motioning to the torus above the spire. 'We can see it directly ahead of us. We simply head for it.' She looked at her master for approval, but the banelich remained silent, waiting for Jedidiah to explain himself.
'Just because you can see it doesn't mean you can reach it,' Jedidiah said. 'Some scholars say the spire is infinitely high and the city is merely a mirage, a projection of the real city over the spire. Other scholars claim you do indeed see the city, but magic cast on the spire limits your travel upward by half the distance between yourself and the city, so that you can go halfway, then three quarters of the way, then seven eighths of the way, then fifteen sixteenths of the way, and so forth. But no matter how close you come, you never actually get there.'
Walinda's expression became confused for a moment, then she shook herself, and her angry expression returned. 'You are babbling philosophical nonsense. My lord Bane, why do you allow this fool to continue?'
'You're free to fly there and test what I say,' Jedidiah said to the priestess with a sly grin.
'We shall!' Walinda insisted.
'Though this ship and your master are likely to fall apart long before we even get close. The closer one gets to the spire, the more magical powers fail. As we approach, our most powerful magic will be neutralized first. I recommend we don't fly too high, because at some indeterminable point, the spelljammer's helm will cease to function. Still farther in, the most powerful spells granted by the gods to their priests shut down. That would include, I suspect, the forces that animate baneliches. You'd be reduced to a pile of bones and ragged flesh. Closer in than that, minor gods cannot use their power. At the base of the spire, there is no magic whatsoever. No heal spells, no light spells. No god's power works; not even Bane at his height could wield power there.'
The banelich remained silent for several moments. Then he asked Jedidiah, 'So how do you propose we enter Sigil?'
'Like everyone else does… via a portal. We make our way toward the Palace of Judgment, where I have some modest contacts who can arrange for us to use one of their portals. If we are where I think we are, not far from the city of Bedlam, we can reach the palace by keeping the spire on our starboard bow.'
'For how long?' the banelich asked.
Jedidiah shrugged. 'For as long as it takes. It's impossible to judge something like that in this plane. It could be a few days, or it could take a month. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we'll get there.'
The banelich studied Jedidiah in silence for several long moments, as if trying to detect any hints of treachery or falsehood. At last he nodded. 'We will attempt entering Sigil your way.' He turned to head back to the cabin. Walinda followed behind him.
'Oh, there's just one more thing,' Jedidiah called out.
The banelich turned and waited for Jedidiah to continue.
'You know you probably can't enter Sigil with us.'
The banelich drew back as if it had been slapped.
'No gods can enter, remember? Some great power prohibits the entry of all gods. I'm willing to bet that holds true for a god's essence as well. You won't be able to pass through the portal.'
“I had not forgotten,' the banelich replied coolly. 'My slave will act on my behalf and oversee the recovery of the hand.'
'But, my lord,' Walinda protested, 'if I leave you-'
The banelich whirled with its skeletal arm raised as if to deliver a blow to his priestess. Walinda winced involuntarily and said nothing more. The banelich turned and strode back into the cabin. Walinda hesitated on the deck, obviously uncertain whether her god would welcome her presence.
'For the essence of a god, your lord seems pretty uninformed,' Jedidiah noted. 'It's common knowledge among travelers of the planes that you can't enter Sigil except by means of a portal. You know, it seemed to me your master forgot it couldn't come with us, too. I wonder if some of the magic holding it together isn't already being neutralized.'
Walinda turned and scowled at the older priest 'Perhaps my lord was just testing you,' she retorted Then she hurried after the banelich.
The ship rose a few feet from the ground and glided in the direction Jedidiah had suggested.
'So does this mean you can't get into Sigil either?' Joel whispered.
'Not as I am,' Jedidiah said. 'But I think there's a trick I might be able to use to get in. It's reckless, but it just might work.'
According to Grypht, Joel recalled, recklessness was Jedidiah's other major fault. 'What is it?' he asked.
'I'll tell you later, when we can be sure of our privacy,' Jedidiah promised.
The rest of that day Joel spent at the ship's rail, amazed by the geological oddities that made up the landscape-vertically stratified rocks resembling tomes on a wizard's shelf, a lake filled with multicolored geysers, a hand carved of granite rising from the earth, Clouds of all colors formed out — of nowhere and disappeared just as mysteriously. Although there was no sun to set, night came on gradually, the blue sky darkening to indigo, then black. No moon or stars shone in the darkness, but the land seemed to glow with its own pale light.
Sometime after dark, Jedidiah pulled out the finder's stone and held it out. A beacon of light shot out from the stone in a direction a few degrees to the left of their current heading.
'We're a little off course, but nothing that can't be corrected in the morning. Time to get some sleep.'
If not for the ship being a shrine to Bane and the task that awaited them, Joel might have found the next two days of travel almost pleasant. The cruise was smooth, and he and Jedidiah had plenty of leisure time. When they weren't eating or sleeping, they watched the scenery, practiced spells, sang, or talked.
Except for checking up on them several times a day, the priestess avoided the two men. At first Joel felt relieved that Walinda was no longer showing any interest in him, but that left him to wonder why. Was the banelich forbidding her to communicate with the men as punishment, or perhaps out of fear that she might grow too close to them and betray her master? If keeping her distance was Walinda's idea, what did she hope to accomplish? Was she punishing herself? Was she hoping to prove her loyalty and thus curry the favor of her master?
The banelich had given them the run of the ship, save for the captain's chart room where the creature usually stayed and the crew quarters where Walinda slept. According to Jas, whom Jedidiah had questioned in the Lost Vale, the upper decks had been sheered off when Jas and her crew were escaping from the illithids. Joel
