Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [138]
Beshaba stood and shook herself like a dog. From Joel's hand, she grabbed the pink rose that held her power and disappeared.
Tymora sat up and shook her head sadly at Lathander. Jas knelt beside the goddess and handed her the ancient coin from Myth Drannor. Tymora slid the coin down her shirt and sighed.
"You know, I think there's something wrong with the fusion chamber," Emilo said. "I'm not sure, mind you, but I don't think it's supposed to look like that."
The others looked back at the portal to the fusion chamber. It had begun to glow with a brilliant white light.
"It's not properly calibrated to join the stone," Xvim screamed. "It's going to explode! Run!"
"Grab Emilo!" Finder ordered Jas as he scooped up Joel.
Tymora disappeared. Jas flew from the tent, with Finder close behind her.
Last of all, Lathander snatched up Holly and fled.
The blast from the fusion chamber expanded outward like a blossoming flower of solid light. The shock wave caught the fleeing Morninglord and his disobedient paladin and tossed them about like corks on a raging sea, propelling them across the god's realm. Then a blast of sound shook their bodies. As Joel looked back, Lathander and Holly appeared to Joel as two black specks. Then the specks were gone.
Slowly, but inexorably, the brilliant light faded. When the dust finally settled, a crater the size of a small town had appeared where there once had been a meadow.
I don't like opera at all. All that deception just rubs me the wrong way. It's too much like real life.
–Vangerdahast
Curtain Call
The vision of Ayryn, the genasi server, was so lifelike that the Sensates had to shield their eyes from the explosion of the fusion chamber projected into the sensorium.
Kenda Fretterstag rose to leave. "I was really looking forward to experiencing the creation of a new power," she sighed.
"You did get to witness a paladin disobey her god," Bors pointed out.
"Why, yes, I did," Kenda noted. "Any chance you might risk your god's wrath?"
Bors frowned. While he had been proud of Holly's strength of character, the thought of what she had risked filled him with fear.
"Thought not," Kenda taunted as she grabbed her fur coat and made her way to the exit.
Ayryn continued to project the images of Lathander, Holly, Jasmine, Emilo, and Tymora. There was no sign of Joel or Finder. Though the others stood on the steps of Lathander's temple, it appeared to the Sensates as if the gods and adventurers were sitting among the Sensates in the sensorium.
Lathander and Holly Harrowslough stood off to one side, their image projected so that they appeared to stand beside Ayryn. They had been blasted from Lathander's realm and had only just returned. They were engaged in earnest discussion. Now the Morninglord cupped Holly's face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. Apparently the god of beginnings had decided that his paladin's good sense and stout heart outweighed her disobedience.
Quellig, the tiefling wizard, sat up and leaned forward as Jasmine asked Emilo Haversack, "So, your friend Fiz Whatever made you unnoticeable to all but people from Krynn just so you could uncover Xvim's fraud? Why? What's it to him?"
"Well, it's a little more complicated than that," the kender said. "The way Fizban explained it, gods from one world aren't supposed to let gods from another world harm each other, whether they're good or evil. It's against the rules. It could start a war between the gods from Krynn and the gods from Toril. If it really was Sirrion helping Lathander to drain the power from Tymora and Beshaba, or some other god from Krynn impersonating Sirrion, Fizban was going to have to step in and make him stop. But since it wasn't a god from Krynn, Fizban didn't have to get involved. He didn't want to get into an argument with Lathander if he could help it. That could start-"
"All right, all right," Jas said. "I don't need to know any more about the gods. What I want to know is, if you're unnoticeable to everyone except people from Krynn, why is it that I can see you