like a knife, leaving twin tornadoes of black fog in her wake. Her armor still gleamed and looked newly polished, and her ebony blade rested sheathed in her belt.
'It's Judith, all right,' confirmed the Abbot, 'and she's caught her prey.'
Indeed, the enforcer of justice in the Abyss carried the inert form of a warrior in her sinewy arms. Shards of the warrior's armor fell away from his body like strips of torn paper, revealing a blood-crossed, pulpy mass of ripped flesh.
Head dangling at an odd angle, the paladin (for it had to be he) made no move to resist Judith's handling.
'Is he dead?' ventured the Castellan.
'Care to bet that he's not?' replied the taller abishai, smiling.
'How would you prove it one way or another?' said the shorter one, warily.
The Abbot of Misrule nodded aloft. 'By how she disposes of the prize. If she just dumps it, or consumes it in flight, it's dead. If she slams it into the ground, that's a coup de grace, a killing blow.'
'Another cup of saint's blood?' asked the Castellan.
'Agreed. And prepare to pay off,' warned the Abbot. 'Look.'
Judith swept in low over the ground, and both abishai got a good look at her face-a face locked in intense fury. She passed within a hundred paces of them, but would not have noticed the malingering fiends even if they had feathery wings and aureoles.
Then she arced upward, sharply, at a right angle to the ground. The Castellan groaned as the Abbot chuckled. Both knew what was to come next.
At a height of about a hundred feet, Judith flipped over and raised the paladin's body over her head. At the apex of her upward arc, she flung him down, overhand, onto the blasted terrain below.
There was time for a long, very human scream, then the ground shook.
'Well, that was nice,' said the Abbot, tapping his now empty goblet. 'Care to make it double or nothing on how big of a crater he made?'
The Castellan's grumbling reply was below the level of even his companion's sensitive ears. He stomped down to the crypt; the Abbot sauntered down after him.
'And speaking of wagers…' The taller creature grinned. 'I believe we need to settle that previous one as well. Toede could not prove his nobility, as you had hoped, so I win that as well. Just leave your keys to the crypt on your way out.
The Castellan paused from rattling his soul-bottles and held up a taloned paw. 'Hold, now. If we don't learn anything definite from an experiment, then we might as well call it a draw.'
'Experiment?' The Abbot smiled. 'And here I thought this was simply a bet.'
The Castellan ignored his companion. 'We could make a case that, by calling the draconian's attention to himself, Toede saved hjs companion Groag from certain death.'
The Abbot snorted rudely. 'Or that he was hoping the draconian's fiery form would explode upon striking the cold iron door. Objection overruled. Leave the keys by the door.'
'He did save his companion a few other times,' added the Castellan.
'Usually for his own self-interest. Besides, that's loyalty, not nobility,' replied the taller abishai, 'and is beyond the purview of this discussion. At no point did anyone, even his erstwhile companion, recognize the slightest inherent spark of nobility within the subject's breast. And before you mention Hopsloth, you know he was being ironic, or as close to ironic as something like that creature can be. Indeed, if anything, Toede further enhanced his evil reputation by this, er, second coming.'
The Castellan frowned and moved to another case, shoving aside, in his quest for the correct bottle, containers filled with last essences of sinners, murderers, and government bureaucrats.
'I would be lying,' smiled the Abbot of Misrule, 'if thex results of Toede's failure were not pleasing to me. Yet another small metropolis spun into disorder through the greed of a few. But you should be pleased as well.' He motioned to the shelf, where a new bottle, shining like ancient coins, glistened, its draconian captive howling in eternal green flames. 'One more addition to the collection.' He smirked.
The Castellan of the Condemned just harrumphed. 'The problem…' he began and stopped. 'The problem is we were unclear about the initial edict. 'Live nobly' we instructed. Apparently that was too vague for our subject. Note that he quickly transposed it from an order or directive to a promise or assurance, that if he returned to his old sinecure, all would be set aright and he would be granted all that he desired. He expected to be treated as a noble soul, and as such did nothing to help make that happen.'
'I sense you are trying to weasel out of your bet,' said the Abbot.
'This isn't about the bet,' lied his portly companion. 'It's about an interesting experiment. We gave flawed instructions and in turn gained flawed results. What do mortals do when confronted with a failure?'
'Retire to the local inn and get blotto,' said the taller one. 'Speaking of which, have you found that saint's blood yet?'
'No,' said the Castellan, correcting his companion's response (though not his request, for he produced a small flask carved from a single ruby). 'Humans pick themselves up and try again.'
'You're dinking of domes,' muttered the Abbot, with the stopper in his teeth. He spat it out and repeated. 'You're thinking of gnomes. Humans prefer to get blotto after a failure, whether it's a lost battle or a dead calf.'
The Castellan would not be swayed. 'Similarly,' he said, 'we can assume that our mortal agent would learn from previous experience, and, with more precise orders, demonstrate whether nobility is possible in his hardened little heart.'
'I don't think I care for where this discussion is leading,' muttered the Abbot, leaning back against a red-hot wall.
'I'd like to run this experiment one more time,' said the Castellan.
'I have no interest in risking my earnings against some additional scheme,' interjected the taller abishai.
'Double or nothing on the bet,' said the Castellan quickly.
The taller abishai licked his lips at the prospect, and at length lifted his goblet in a toast to the smaller creature. 'Perhaps your argument has merit after all, particularly at double or nothing. When do we start?'
Chapter 10
Toede awoke with a queasy feeling, a sour ache in the pit of his stomach. Digestive problems, something going down the wrong way.
No. The something going down the wrong way was him, going down the gullet of Hopsloth. Had it all been a dream, or…?
He looked at himself, still dressed in the sturdy gray trousers, shirt, and brocaded vest that he had battled Gildentongue in. A little combat-scarred, but none the worse for wear. Certainly his clothes did not look like he had taken a trip through the digestive system of a dragon-spawned abomination.
The battle with Gildentongue was not a dream, however, nor was the confrontation with Hopsloth. They were slices of reality, carved off and sent spinning into the void. He had died, again, Toede mused, and scowled at the thought, in the hopes it would retreat meekly from his mind. He had died twice now, with dragons and their kin responsible for both deaths. And something or someone had brought him back each time.
Something throbbed red and painful in his mind, and he closed his eyes to think about it. Something that happened after he had been pulled into the maw of the holy Water Prophet, but before waking up here. It was like catching the tattered remnants of a dream, but all at once it came into sharp and singular focus.
He had been on some otherworldly, metaphysical plane. Those godly figures were back, towering brutes of
