you to keep your part of our bargain after I've removed the curse.'
Kelemvor's heart began to race. 'After?'
'Of course,' Bane said flatly. 'I cannot expect you to serve me if I haven't made it clear that your curse has ended.'
'B-But how can you remove the curse when so many others have failed?' Kelemvor asked breathlessly.
'You keep forgetting… I am a god,' Bane growled, tightening his grip on Kelemvor's throat ever so slightly. 'There is nothing I cannot accomplish.'
A heavy breath escaped from Kelemvor's lips.
'You doubt the word of the God of Strife?' Tarana gasped. She backed away from the fighter and drew a small knife from the folds of her robe. Bane shook his head, and Tarana put her dagger away.
'My family has petitioned gods in the past,' Kelemvor stated, swallowing hard.
'But not a single cursed member of the Lyonsbanes has ever believed in a god before,' Bane stated and removed his hand from the fighter's throat. The God of Strife stroked the fighter's face gently.
'That's the key,' Bane purred. 'A god will grant no mercy and no favors to one who does not believe completely. You may not be a follower of mine — not yet, anyway — but you know what I am. You believe that I am the Black Lord, the God of Strife. You have faith that I am all that I say I am.'
Kelemvor nodded slowly.
'That is enough. That faith is all I need,' Bane said softly. 'And your answer.' The fallen god paused and turned away from the fighter again. 'What shall it be, Kelemvor Lyonsbane? One final mission, and in return, the fulfillment of all your dreams. Or would you languish here until you die? You must decide.'
The blond sorceress had returned to the Black Lord's side, and together, they waited patiently for Kelemvor to give his answer.
VIII
For what seemed like hours, Midnight and Adon followed Varden and Gratus through the secret tunnels that wound beneath the streets of Scardale. Finally they reached a dead end. Panic set in for the mage when she saw the blocked tunnel. She knew that it was only a matter of time before Durrock discovered their escape and followed them. After all, there had been no way to seal the entrance to the tunnels behind them. And the last thing Midnight wanted was to be trapped in the labyrinth beneath the town with the assassins.
'Not to worry,' Gratus said as the mage stared at the blockage in front of them. 'Look up.'
The first rung of a ladder lay a few feet over the old merchant's head. Varden brushed Gratus aside and leaped to grab the lowest rung. After hauling himself up and climbing for a moment, the thief let out a moan when he bumped his head at the top of the passage. Varden strained against the barrier over his head and was relieved to find that the trap door slid aside.
A shaft of amber light, filtered through the dirty carpet that lay over the hole, pierced the tunnel. Cautiously Varden drew his dagger and cut through the rug. The light intensified as the carpet fell away into the tunnel. When the gap in the material was large enough, the thief poked his head through and looked into the room they had found. Varden was surprised to find that he was in some kind of abandoned inn.
A few tables were scattered around the room, which was filled with light from several windows, plus a number of holes in the walls and ceiling. Dust and debris covered everything in the taproom, including the thin amber carpet that surrounded Varden.
'It seems to be clear,' the thief whispered as he turned back to the tunnel. 'Hurry, though. I'm not exactly sure where we are.'
Gratus swore softly and started to climb the ladder, after a helpful boost from Adon. Then Midnight and Adon exited the tunnel. When they looked around the taproom, the heroes saw that Varden was crouched next to one of the few intact windows in the building, surveying the streets beyond.
'I think we're close to what used to be the Cormyrian garrison.' The thief paused and turned back toward Midnight. 'We're not far from the place where the remaining soldiers from the various garrisons opposing the Zhents have hidden. The Zhentilar call them the 'Sembian Resistance.''
'I think the Sembians made that up,' Gratus chuckled as he led the heroes to the back of the inn. They quietly crept out into an alley, then started off toward the Sembians hiding place.
On the street, at the front of the inn, there was little activity. Varden took the lead, while Gratus used his knowledge of the layout of Scardale to guide the party to the secret outpost. Resistance fighters from the various garrisons were encountered from time to time, but they recognized Varden and Gratus and presented no problem. There was a close brush with a band of Zhentilar only blocks away from the hiding place, but the heroes managed to evade the soldiers.
Finally Varden and Gratus stopped behind the skeleton of a burned-out butcher shop. The blackened beams stood like dead trees, and a jumble of rubble cluttered the area that the shop had once occupied. Gratus carefully crept to the center of the heap of charred wood, where a slightly singed door lay on the pile, and rapped quietly five times.
After a moment, Midnight heard a voice softly ask for a password. Gratus bent over, and when his face was almost low enough to touch the door, he whispered, 'Friends of Sembia.'
The door creaked open slightly, and a guard peered out at the heroes. 'Well, well,' he whispered, 'if it isn't Gratus! And, Varden, you're alive!' The door flew open now. 'Come in quickly!'
The heroes rushed through the open door and found a set of blackened, burned stairs leading to a musty cellar. Once the heroes were down the stairs, the guard reset several traps on the door and rejoined them. Then he moved toward a small crawlspace in one of the walls. 'Don't worry,' he said, turning to Midnight and Adon. 'This leads to our hiding place.'
After crawling down a short passage, Midnight and Adon found themselves in a stone tunnel, much like the one they had used to escape from Durrock and the Zhentilar earlier. Torches lined the walls, lighting the gray- bricked passage, and Midnight saw a handful of soldiers dressed in the uniforms of various nations. Some rested against the walls, others sat on crates of food, sharpening weapons or rolling dice.
'Wait here,' Varden told Midnight and Adon. 'I'll go talk to Barth, the leader of our little troop.' The thief smiled warmly and walked toward a large curtain that was hung in the tunnel a few yards away.
It was over two hours before Midnight and Adon were given an audience with Barth. Since none of the soldiers made any attempt to talk to the mage or the cleric, they spent the time exploring possibilities for Kelemvor's rescue and discussing all that had happened to them since they'd met in Cormyr.
At one point, the conversation lagged, and Adon spent a few moments looking around the tunnel at the tired, dirty soldiers. For the first time, he noticed that they were huddled in groups — the Cormyrians with other Cormyrians, the men from Hillsfar only with their own, and so on.
The Zhentish invasion changes Scardale little, the cleric thought with a sigh. This was once a thriving, happy place… before Lashan's reign, anyway.
In fact, it hadn't been so long ago that Scardale was on the verge of forging its own empire. Under the leadership of Lashan Aumersair, an aggressive young lord, Scardale had gathered an army and even managed to conquer a few of its neighbors. But the invasion of Harrowdale, Featherdale, and Battledale drew the attention of the rest of Scardale's rivals for power in the area — Hillsfar, the Dales, Sembia, even Cormyr and Zhentil Keep.
Lashan was eventually turned back from Mistledale and Deepingdale by the combined forces of Scardale's powerful neighbors, and the young nobleman's empire collapsed as quickly as it had risen. The troops from the conquering armies soon occupied the town of Scardale itself, though Lashan escaped and was presumably still in hiding somewhere. Then each of the major powers placed a small garrison in the town, to prevent any one power from rising unchecked in the dale.
The various garrisons had fought among themselves for years over petty insults, making the town little more than an open invitation to lawlessness. Now that the balance had been tipped in Zhentil Keep's favor, Adon thought bitterly, the soldiers were treating it like another taproom brawl, another momentary inconvenience. They weren't
