Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [128]
Tymora and Beshaba began exploring every inch of the walls in greater detail, looking for a flaw they could work on. Because the bard was unable to travel safely through the Limbo-like chaos outside the region the goddesses had formed, they left him in Beshaba's temple. There Joel practiced manipulating the chaotic matter with his mind, feeling much like a child who'd been given a lump of clay to play with while his parents went about their adult business.
The bard found that fields of grass and groves of trees were the easiest to create, while rooms took a great deal more concentration. He challenged himself by creating rooms he remembered well, like his grandmother's parlor, the mess hall of the barding college he'd attended as a boy, and the tavern where he first met Finder and spent a long night discussing music and art.
His creations were nowhere near as organized or detailed as the goddesses'; nonetheless, it was an amazingly powerful sensation manipulating the chaos into order. Concentrating proved to be taxing work, however, and Joel was forced to retreat periodically to the temple so he could rest without thinking.
As he played with the Limbo matter, Joel began to recognize a certain common denominator in each the environments he created-the window. It appeared in each of the interiors Joel created, although he was certain there was no window in the real mess hall or the tavern. He tried hard to envision the space without the window, but it would not go away.
The temple Beshaba had created had a tunnel shaft, and the dungeon that Beshaba's mind had formed without even consciously thinking about it had a window. Joel concentrated on forming the hull of the spelljammer he'd ridden in, which definitely had no windows, but his creation was marred by a ragged hole in the hull. Something, or someone, was keeping the Limbo matter from completely surrounding him.
Joel could think of only one reason for the opening: Someone outside the fusion chamber wanted a window in order to watch the prisoners.
Joel imagined some sacks of sand along the hull of the imaginary spelljammer and climbed atop them so he could peer through the hole. A dim, rosy light shone through.
In the dim light, on the other side of the spelljammer hull, Joel could make out what looked like a stone altar, adorned with glowing crystals and sparking balls of glass. Strewn about the table were varying tokens of luck both good and bad-a horseshoe, a luck stone, a four-leaf clover, a broken mirror, a new knife, and a black cat curled into a ball, sleeping. Suspended magically above the table were three items: an old coin and a pink rose, both of which glowed as bright as a lightning flash, and a blue crystal sphere.
The space beyond the stone altar looked like a grassy clearing beneath a bright red tent large enough to hold a wedding party.
The hole in the hull seemed to Joel like a magical portal out of the fusion chamber. Joel tried to put his hand through the hole, but found his way blocked by an invisible magical barrier. Unlike the shimmering walls of the fusion chamber, the barrier that blocked the portal was not completely impenetrable. Joel poked at it with his dagger, and in doing so discovered that nonliving objects could penetrate through the magical opening. Standing this close to the hole, he became aware of a faint clanking sound. Then he heard voices, muffled, he suspected, by the magical barrier.
In his excitement, Joel's concentration on the hull ceased, and he was surrounded again by chaos. Staving off panic, he swam back through the swirling matter until he reached Beshaba's temple. He coughed up the water and dirt he had inadvertently breathed in and smacked out the tiny patches of flame dancing in his clothing and hair.
Once he'd caught his breath, the bard concentrated on the tunnel near the ceiling. He reformed the chaos matter so the shaft was considerably larger, reaching down to the floor. In doing so, he uncovered another magical portal through which he could look out of the fusion chamber. Oddly