Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [119]
Then there was the bad luck that dogged not only the adventurers but Beshaba herself. A freak wind blew the magic carpet into a tree. In the collision, a branch tore a great hole in the rug so that it would no longer fly. Emilo had been crushed at the loss of so spectacular an item of magic.
The party was forced to walk. They passed too close to a burr bush and ended up picking prickles out of their clothes for hours. Their boots began to fall apart, and before long, they all had blisters, even the goddess, who also broke a nail trying to adjust the straps on her sandals.
When they set up camp for the night, Holly cut her hand cleaning a bird she had caught for them to eat, Joel hurt his knee breaking a branch to feed the fire to cook the bird, and Emilo burned his hand building the fire. Beshaba, who, as Holly pointed out, didn't really need to eat as did the humans, insisted on tasting the bird and burned her tongue. The injury soured the goddess's mood even further.
After spending half an hour fruitlessly searching for a holy symbol that was missing from her backpack, Holly threw herself, frustrated and tearful, to the ground to sleep. She was up again in only a few minutes, having lain on an anthill. She had to remove all her armor to get the ants off her, and she was badly bitten. While Joel sorted through their remaining magical scrolls, the wind whipped the pages away in the dark. Then, while Jas was on watch, the bard was beset with nightmares about children suffocating in a cave and cried out in his sleep, waking Holly and Emilo and alarming everyone.
Only Jas seemed immune to the problems besetting the party. Reeking of Tymora's magic apparently had a positive side. Ordinarily this many tribulations would have resulted in bickering, but no one was comfortable speaking in the goddess's presence except the goddess. The angry silence of the others was infinitely more wearying than any fight would have been, and Jas couldn't help but think the others resented her lack of misfortune.
During the second day's travel, Beshaba grew more suspicious and distrustful, not only of the surrounding area, but of her escorts as well. She demanded that Jas fly up ahead to scout, Emilo and Holly walk in front where she could see them, and Joel stay right at her side. She would become livid when she took her eyes off Emilo and didn't see him when she looked again. From some of her jewelry and a string, the goddess created a jangling collar for the kender, so that she could hear him and he wouldn't become "unnoticed" again. Emilo looked as mortified as a cat with a bell around the neck.
After having desired Walinda's death since the day she met her, Jas now regretted that the priestess wasn't here to suffer under her goddess's spiteful eye. Of course, Walinda was so perverse that she had thrived on the abuse her previous master had heaped on her, so there was no guarantee Beshaba would actually make Walinda miserable even were she still alive.
Now that her friends' murderess was dead and the dark stalker was just a phantom of her mind, Jas found the fires that had driven her had grown cold. She didn't want to go back on her promise to help Tymora, but the thought of traveling day after day with Beshaba was intolerable. And when they finally reached the spire, what would happen next? The uncertainty, the inability to plan her life beyond tomorrow was exhausting her. Suddenly, off in the distance, Jas caught sight of a beam of light. The beam looked familiar, a line of yellow just like the light from the finder's stone Joel had used to summon her when they were in Gehenna. There