Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [127]
"Well, it does explain why Sirrion wanted Holly to fetch some chickens," Emilo pointed out.
"But what were the other things for?" Jas asked. "The luck charms and the rose and the coin and the crystal sphere?"
"Spell keys?" Kenda suggested.
"What?" Finder asked in surprise.
"What are spell keys?" Emilo asked.
"They're special requirements necessary for a wizard to cast magic in different planes," Kenda explained. "Spell keys vary greatly from plane to plane and spell to spell. Sometimes the wizard must perform a certain action, such as free a bird or sacrifice a goat or spit in the wind or sing a song. Other times the wizard need only possess a certain item, like a dagger or cat or a feather or some sort of gems tone."
"Or something like the power key that Finder gave Joel?" Emilo asked.
"Well, similar to that, yes," Kenda replied. "But power keys are created by gods for their priests."
"That's it!" Finder said excitedly. "Lathander must know some of Tymora's major power keys. He may have guessed at some of Beshaba's."
"Is that important?" Jas asked.
"A power key allows a priest to siphon off some of his god's power," Finder explained. 'That's why they're kept secret, or made to be temporary, or made so they can only be used by one person. If they aren't, they can be used by the wrong person to drain a god's powers."
Finder turned to Holly and asked sternly, "So what is this ancient wrong Lathander intends to right, paladin?"
"I-I don't know," Holly said, her voice trembling.
"But you suspect something," Finder said. "I can sense it. Tell me what it is," he growled.
"Dawnbringer Aurora said Lord Lathander would right an ancient wrong, but when Lord Sirrion said the same thing, I knew he was lying. I didn't know how that could be… unless…"
"Unless Lord Sirrion has lied to Lord Lathander, and Lord Lathander and his priestess were taken in by the lie," Finder suggested to the paladin.
"Yes," Holly whispered.
"So perhaps Sirrion only intends to drain away the two goddesses' powers," Bors suggested.
"But what's the ancient wrong that Lathander thinks he's righting?" Jas asked.
"Oh! I get it! He's going to put Tymora and Beshaba back together again!" Emilo cried out excitedly.
"What are you talking about?" Holly demanded.
"The kender has the dark of it," Kenda said. "Lathander wants to put Tyche back together as if she were a cracked egg."
Act Four Scene 4
After discovering that their teleport, dimensional doorways, and magical portal spells all failed within the chamber, the bard and the two goddesses set about to explore their prison from top to bottom. The fusion chamber was filled with the chaotic matter that Tymora had said was very similar to that found in the plane of Limbo. Both goddesses could manipulate the matter into an organized form with a mere thought, and once they did so, the matter stayed fixed in place. With much concentration, Joel found that he, too, could manipulate the matter, but the moment he ceased concentrating on it, it reverted to a swirling chaos of earth, air, water, and fire that threatened to choke, drown, or burn him unless one of the goddesses re-formed it for him.
By forcing the chaotic matter to the side, forming vast spaces of air only, the prisoners puzzled out that the fusion chamber was actually a large pyramid nearly a hundred feet high, with a square base over a hundred feet on each side. The temple that Beshaba had created actually took up very little of the space within the fusion chamber. The boundaries of the chamber were silvery, shimmering magical walls of force. The prisoners could find no doors, so they began testing the nearest wall. They smashed at it with weaponry, magic missiles, lightning bolts, and fireballs. They rubbed at it with water and acid and lye created out of the chaos matter. They chanted ancient spells of disintegration at it and spells to dispel it. They cursed it and blessed it. Nothing they tried seemed to penetrate or