said. 'The darkness of Xvim is still in me, but I can fight it now.'
'Well played, priest of Finder,' the banelich bellowed. Its deep voice rolled across Bane's back like the sound of thunder. 'You have thwarted my priestess's scheme. Now you will trade power for power. The Hand of Bane for your stone.'
'No!' Holly insisted, pulling at the Hand of Bane with her bound hands. 'You can't do this! The return of your finder's stone cannot outweigh the evil Bane will bring to the world if he is resurrected.'
'Holly,' Joel whispered, keeping a firm grip on the Hand of Bane, 'you don't understand. There's more at stake than we told you. The power in the stone… it's Finder's power.'
Holly shook her head. 'That doesn't make any sense,' she declared. 'How could Jedidiah put Finder's power…' The paladin halted in mid-sentence, and her face lit up with understanding. She turned to look at Jedidiah, her eyes wide with astonishment. Jedidiah grinned sheepishly.
Holly's eyes narrowed with sudden determination. 'It makes no difference,' she insisted. 'Lathander personally sent a messenger to me. If you don't give me the Hand of Bane, if I don't prevent Bane's resurrection, will fail my god.'
Joel felt a sudden surge of loyalty to Finder. 'So I'm to fail my god instead?' Joel asked. 'Is my god's weakness less evil than Bane's resurrection?'
'It must be,' Holly said. 'Lathander is a god of goodness and light. He wouldn't-'
'I'm waiting for your answer, priest of Finder,' the banelich thundered.
Joel glared at the banelich. 'Well, you'll just have to keep waiting,' he snapped.
'Listen to me, Joel,' Holly said. 'Lathander wouldn't ask this if it weren't the right thing. Finder's power is not as important.'
'Not to Lathander, maybe, but it means a great deal to Finder,' Joel argued. 'How do you know Lathander just doesn't want Finder to stay weak so he doesn't become a rival?'
'Lathander is a god of goodness,' Holly growled angrily. 'He wouldn't be so selfish… unlike some.' She turned and glared at Jedidiah.
'Hold on,' Joel said. 'Is this the Lathander who was ready to let you give up your life just now? Or back in the desert at Cat's Gate? It was Finder who saved you then. He saved us all, even though it meant risking losing his power. He did it because I asked him to.'
Holly stammered for a moment, then fell silent. She couldn't deny Joel's words. She released her hold on the Hand of Bane.
Joel knew now what he would do. Finder was as important to him as Bane was to Walinda and Lathander was to Holly. Who was to say that Finder's weakness would not ultimately be a greater evil than Bane's resurrection? Finder hadn't failed him. He wouldn't fail Finder.
'Banelich, we have a deal,' Joel called out. He strode to the hillock between the two parties and stood, waiting.
Using its fingernails, the banelich reached up to its forehead and scratched away the thin layer of skin that covered the stolen half of the finder's stone. The undead creature ignored the blood that dripped down its face as it pulled the stone from its skull. 'Take this to the priest, slave,' he ordered Walinda.
Walinda laid her goad down before the lich. She bowed deeply, then reached out to take the finder's stone from her master's hand. As she did, the banelich grabbed her wrist with its free hand. Black fire poured from its hand and flared up the priestess's arm to her shoulder. Walinda fell to her knees, staggered by the pain.
'That is for failing me,' the banelich snarled. 'Do not fail me again.'
Walinda rose slowly to her feet and backed away from the banelich several steps. As she climbed the rise toward Joel, her gait was unsteady. She halted on the slope just below Joel. The bard saw tears of pain and humiliation in her eyes. In spite of himself, Joel felt a pang of sympathy for the cruel woman. He held out the Hand of Bane.
The priestess reached out to take it with her left hand and thrust her right hand out toward Joel.
A fiery pain flared in Joel's stomach. He looked down at Walinda's right hand. Instead of the finder's stone, she held the silver tip of the goad she had left lying before the lich. She thrust it deep into the bard's belly and gave it a twist.
Joel grunted as the priestess grabbed the hand from his grasp. With a cruel laugh, the priestess ran back to her master's side.
Joel fell forward, clutching at the weapon tip in disbelief. Darkness came over him in waves, then lifted. The bard was dimly aware of Jedidiah praying feverishly over his body and Holly leaning over him, stanching his blood with her hands.
Joel fixed his attention on Walinda and the banelich, but he seemed to see them from some other viewpoint- somewhere above them. He had an uneasy suspicion that meant he was dying, and it was his departing spirit that watched what happened.
The priestess of Bane knelt before the banelich, holding up both the finder's stone and the Hand of Bane.
'Accept these gifts, my lord,' Walinda said, 'so that you may be restored to greatness.'
The lich snatched the finder's stone from her hand and set it back into its forehead. Then it held out both hands. Walinda set the Hand of Bane in the banelich's bony hands. The lich held it up over his head, the black stone and diamonds sparkling in the void. 'Let me serve you in your glory,' Walinda prayed. The banelich looked down upon the priestess, and the white light in its eyes flared.
'I will be your most humble servant, your slave, your voice to the faithful who will flock to your church,' Walinda insisted.
The banelich slammed a fist viciously across the side of the priestess's face.
'Idiot woman!' the banelich growled. 'You think I would deign to let one such as you serve me?'
Walinda looked up, wide-eyed with shock, blood streaming from her mouth. 'My lord Bane, what have I done to displease you?'
'You exist!' the banelich snapped. 'Did you think you would be Bane's chosen priest? You? A woman? Lord Bane will be served by me, the banelich who carried his essence. When I lived, Bane had no priestesses. From the essence I carry, I know that time will come again. You are nothing but a slave.' The banelich kicked at the priestess's ribs. 'Begone from my sight, you disgusting abomination!'
Walinda crawled backward, away from her master. Joel felt a dull ache in his abdomen and felt Holly's and Jedidiah's hands on him once more. 'He's breathing again,' Holly said. Joel turned his head and opened his eyes. The banelich stood facing the back of the godly corpse's head. He held the Hand of Bane high above his head and chanted harsh, guttural syllables in some ancient tongue. Bane's name was repeated over and over among the other words. Although he couldn't understand the words, when Joel closed his eyes, he could picture their meaning. The banelich was describing all manner of obscenities and atrocities committed in the name of Bane to glorify his power. It was the evil equivalent of Jedidiah's tulip song.
Jedidiah helped Joel to sit up, then rise to his feet. With Holly holding his elbow and Jas standing behind him, the bard stood beside his god. The banelich's voice rose to a fevered pitch. When it had finished its chant, it intoned Bane's name once, twice, three times. Then the banelich halted, waiting for the resurrection of his god.
Joel held his breath.
Nothing happened. There was nothing but total silence. The dead god's body did not stir.
Then Jedidiah laughed. His laughter seemed to raise a fresh breeze all around them.
The banelich wheeled about. 'You dare mock the resurrection of Lord Bane?'
'There isn't going to be any resurrection the way you're going about it,' Jedidiah said. 'For one thing, you cannot serve as both essence and priest of the god in the same ceremony. Even more importantly, you've been dead for centuries. It takes a living priest to resurrect a god. You just kicked away the only one at hand.'
The banelich shook with rage. Joel thought for a moment it might attack Jedidiah. A few moments later the creature grew still. It held out a hand in Walinda's direction. 'Come, slave,' it said. 'You may serve me once more.'
Walinda wiped the blood from her mouth and rose to her feet. She approached the lich with a measured ceremonial step. She took the Hand of Bane from his hands.
'I don't believe it,' Jedidiah muttered.
