Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [39]
Something overhead rumbled in the sky. Joel looked up with surprise. A dark cloud had blocked the light from a patch of stars overhead. Then the ground shook beneath their feet. A moment later the ground moved like a wave of water. The bench beneath the birch tree toppled over, and the birch was uprooted from the ground by the violence of the tremors.
Joel was knocked from his feet. He tried to rise, but the heaving of the ground convinced him to remain down. When he looked up, the goddess was pushing the winged woman away from her. Tymora's head snapped up and her body arched back with a jerk. Sparks danced about her. She began breathing very quickly.
Finder cried out, "Tymora!" at the same time as Winnie shrieked, "My lady!" Finder leapt forward and wrapped his arms around the goddess's body. A bolt of lightning shot upward from Lady Luck straight into the darkness overhead. The goddess collapsed in Finder's arms, as limp as a doll.
The ground stilled, and the darkness overhead disappeared, leaving the stars twinkling above as if nothing had happened.
Jas lay on the ground, stunned. Winnie looked at her in alarm. "You do have something inside you, don't you?" the halfling priestess whispered.
"No," Tymora whispered. It seemed to Joel that in the silence that followed the upheaval, the goddess's soft voice could be heard throughout her realm. Finder lowered her gently to the ground, cradling her shoulders and head against his chest.
"Winnie, listen," Tymora said. "It was not Jasmine. Something caused me to lose control of my power. I sensed… I sensed…" The goddess's voice faded.
"Tymora," Finder whispered urgently. "What did you sense? Or was it a person?"
Tymora's eyes flew open wide. "Beshaba!" she growled. Then her eyes closed again and she collapsed against Finder.
The ground gave one last tiny rumble, as if Tymora's realm was shuddering from the name the goddess had just uttered.
"Who's Beshaba?" Emilo asked curiously.
"Her sister," Finder replied.
"Her enemy," Winnie answered.
Behind the Scenes
"I am having a problem harnessing Tymora's power," the looming figure growled. "She is too generous with it. It leaks away whenever her followers call upon her. Worse, when she casts a spell, my power conduits cannot contain the energy bursts, and they overload and spew the power back out. It has attracted the attention of her allies."
"So what is to be done?" the summoner asked with concern.
"She is greatly weakened. If we can capture her and bring her here, her allies will not be able to investigate the power drain and trace it back to us. Should she regain consciousness and cast another spell, we will not have to rely on the energy conduits-the fusion chamber can absorb the power. Then it will not be wasted. More importantly, if she is within the circle of darkness, she will not sense her followers calling upon her, and her power will not leak away when she shares it with them. Can your forces capture her?"
"I will make it so," the summoner said.
"Good," the looming figure replied. Then, the figure thought, no more of her power will be squandered on her foolish followers. It will all be mine.
Act Two Scene 3
In the earthquake-ravaged garden, Finder had cast all the spells he could think of to help revive Tymora, but the goddess remained in a swoon. Joel had never seen Finder so pale and grave, not even when the god had returned to mortality to enter Sigil and his own life was threatened.
Joel realized his god was not just reacting in fear of anything that could so injure a power as great as Tymora. When Joel had first met Finder, Finder had assumed the identity of an old priest named Jedidiah and told Joel about Finder's life and transformation into a god. Jedidiah had told Joel how much Finder owed