At that moment Kurzen suddenly scrambled upright and pointed back at the doorway leading from the hall into the narthex. “Gods have mercy!” he cried. “It’s a beholder!”
Jack leaped to his feet and whirled to look back the way they had come. A great, spherical shape easily eight or nine feet across floated slowly into the temple narthex. Writhing eyestalks crowned its upper surface, and its single central eye glared at the ring of emerald flames and the explorers waiting inside. Behind the monster more troglodytes slunk along, cringing and hissing to the eye-tyrant.
“Ahhh,” the beholder gurgled in its thick voice. “Here are the cruel ones who killed our servants and defiled our lair. We are not pleased with them. Do they think to hide from us within their magic? They are mistaken. Which of the ten dooms at our command do they deserve, we wonder?”
“Now I understand-the troglodytes maim themselves to show devotion to their master,” Narm remarked. He sighed and raised his sword into a guard position. “Eye tyrant, indeed. Well, with luck we will die quickly.”
That seemed like a poor aspiration to Jack. He wasn’t sure exactly what the beholder’s ten eye-rays did, but he didn’t care to find out. He glanced about the room, searching for a way out, then sudden inspiration struck him. “Wait!” he cried to the monster. “Wait, oh magnificent master. We are only lost travelers. The true defilers-your enemies and ours-have passed into the temple proper. We have no quarrel with you!” Behind him he felt Kurzen and the others exchanging wary glances, but they were clever enough to keep silent.
The beholder paused, studying Jack with several of its eyes. “Our servants are certain that your pitiful company slaughtered them with abandon.”
“A terrible misunderstanding, your spherical majesty,” Jack answered. “Ask your servants if there were not others besides our company who caused you even greater injury.” He pointed to the archway leading into the temple. “While we bandy words in this antechamber, they are already pillaging your treasures.”
The creature diverted several of its eyes to its troglodyte minions and rumbled a question in their language. Most of its eyes remained firmly trained on Jack and his company. The troglodytes seemed agitated to Jack, and he thought he caught a whiff of their horrible stink even from across the room. What manner of monster willingly accepted troglodytes into its service, he wondered. Clearly one that possessed little or no sense of smell.
“Do you really believe this will work?” Kurzen asked in a low voice.
“We will persuade the beholder that its true enemy is Jelan and her company, and wait while the creature chases them off or is destroyed in the attempt to remove them from the temple,” said Jack. He could sense the possibilities realigning even as he spoke, and had to hide a grin of satisfaction at the turn of events. “Regardless of whether Jelan and her sellswords or the beholder and its minions triumph, the winning side will doubtless be weakened, and our position correspondingly improved.”
“And if the creature is not dissuaded from attacking us?” the dwarf continued.
“Confidence, friend Kurzen, confidence. This is the oldest ploy in the book.” Jack nodded at the beholder. “See, the creature concludes its deliberations.”
The beholder drifted a little closer, having finished its discussion with its minions. “The issue is decided,” it rumbled. “There is no egress from the temple. We will destroy you first, and then deal with the intruders within.”
“Ah, damn it,” Narm muttered.
The beholder fixed its great central eye on Jack and his companions. There was a strange silvery flash around its huge red iris … and on the instant the wall of dancing green fire surrounding the company vanished, snuffed out by the antimagic of the monster’s gaze. “Go, loyal minions,” it burbled to its troglodytes. “Slay them all, but do not spoil the eyes.”
“New plan!” Jack cried. “Follow me! We’ll lead them to Jelan and make this her fight, too.” He spun on his heel and ran with all his speed for the archway leading into the temple proper.
Narm, Kurzen, and Halamar cursed and swore, but they ran after Jack as the trogs’ javelins hissed through the air around them. Arlith darted out of the shadows at the far end of the hall and joined them as they fled. Without a word the beholder’s servants surged forward, charging after the company, while the monster suddenly shut its central eye and lashed out with a half dozen ravening beams of magical energy from its twisting eyestalks. A green ray smote Kurzen on his shield, spreading a crackling verdant field over the wood and metal. With a curse, the dwarf flung away his warboard, which disintegrated before it reached the ground. A thin bluish ray intended for Narm was intercepted by a hapless troglodyte who ran into its path; the creature took three more steps before its skin grayed and it petrified in mid-stride.
Jack felt himself seized by an unseen force and lifted off his feet. A golden ray held him transfixed in some sort of telekinetic grip. He kicked and struggled to no avail before the beholder contemptuously flung him across the room. Jack hit the wall with enough force to knock him senseless for a moment, sliding to the floor with his back and skull aching and his ears ringing. He came back to himself just as a troglodyte reached him and raised its club to dash out his brains. In sheer panic Jack scrambled backward on his posterior, the troglodyte bounding and hissing after him, before he found his feet and dashed into the great temple beyond the arch.
The Temple of the Soulforger was almost exactly as he had seen it in the crystal ball of Aderbleen Krestner. Lustrous yellow marble gleamed beneath his feet; pillars of red marble carved in the shape of dwarf warriors towered over him. Ramshackle bookshelves covered with old tomes, scrolls, and various baubles and junk were arranged haphazardly in the great chamber, clearly the addition of the temple’s current tenants and not the original dwarf artisans. Jelan and her companions-the tiefling blacksword, the elf mage, the priest of Tempus, and the warrior with the tattoos-were scattered about the room, searching through the clutter.
Myrkyssa Jelan caught sight of Jack at once, and her face darkened. “You simply do not know when to leave well enough alone, do you?” she snapped. She drew her katana and advanced on Jack as he skidded to a halt in the middle of the temple chamber.
“Elana, there is something you ought to know,” Jack cried. At that very moment his comrades, the pursuing troglodytes, and the terrible round shape of the beholder all spilled into the temple through the archway from the narthex. The monster’s eye-rays flashed and sizzled in the air, throwing polychromatic flashes of light across the room.
“The beholder has returned!” shouted the tattooed swordsman beside Jelan-one of the most ridiculous statements of the obvious Jack had heard in some time.
Jelan did not hesitate a moment. “Slay the beholder,” she told her mercenaries. “We’ll deal with the others afterward.”
The Warlord’s mercenaries ran up to join the battle. A furious skirmish developed just inside the temple as the two companies of adventurers battled the beholder and its minions. Narm stormed toward the beholder with his greatsword, only to be blocked by troglodytes leaping to their master’s defense. Halamar scorched several troglodytes and turned his fire against the beholder, but the monster fixed its central eye on him and the sorcerer’s spells abruptly died. Eyes wide in sudden alarm, the young pyromancer seized his staff in both hands to fend off the rush of two more troglodytes trying to cut him down while his magic was suppressed. Arlith, skulking in the shadows, shot the beholder with a crossbow bolt that struck it dead-center on its side; the monster gurgled in pain and lashed out with a purple eye-ray that swept over the halfling. Deep cuts suddenly appeared across her face and hands, streaming blood; Arlith cried out and collapsed, cradling her useless hands. Another eye-ray, this one pure black, reached out to flick the tiefling with the ebony sword. The devil-kin warrior simply dropped where he stood, crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut, but the elf Kilarnan loosed a lightning bolt that crashed through two or three more trogs before blasting the beholder from its other side. The monster roared again and spun to fix its antimagic eye on the mage.
“Close in on the thing!” Kurzen shouted. “Don’t give it a chance to pick us off with its eyes.” The dwarf battled closer, shouldering his way through the troglodytes as he followed his own advice.
Jack wondered if it had been such a good idea after all to try to combine with Jelan’s company against the beholder. Flight might have been the better option … but they were committed now. He conjured his force-darts and pounded the beholder’s flank, only to be seized by the telekinesis-ray once again and flung into the nearest pillar. The impact drove the breath from his lungs, and he wheezed for air as he staggered to his feet once again, bruised and battered. Then Jelan charged into the fray with a piercing war-cry, deliberately trying to attract the monster’s attention. The beholder flicked its ebony ray at her, which struck her in the center of her breastplate and had no effect. The Warlord did not even break her stride; the beholder glowered and shifted two more of its eye- rays onto her, to no avail-her peculiar immunity meant that she had nothing to fear from the monster’s magical eyes. She threaded her way through the troglodytes, and leaped high to slash the beholder across its crooked
