Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [57]
Other people stood around talking, apparently oblivious to the suffering and pain around them. One group of people squatted in a corner rolling dice and cursing loudly. Joel weaved a path through the fallen bodies. Jas and Emilo followed. They passed a group of men playing a bizarre game with a basket. As each man reached into the basket, the others chanted, "Beshaba, take him," over and over again. Each man drew out a snake, usually something harmless like a garter snake, but one man reached in, gave a hideous screech, and fell back, clutching his hand. A few moments later the man's body was wracked with a violent seizure. Joel forced himself to avert his eyes.
"Here's another player," a large bully of a man said, blocking Joel's path. "Have you done enough to appease the Maid of Misfortune, chum?" the man asked the bard. Jas stepped forward with her sword drawn, pointing the weapon at the man's throat. "Leave him alone," she growled.
The man paled and stepped back. "Sorry, ma'am. Didn't realize he was with you."
Jas took a position beside Joel, and when people saw her determined expression and her weapon, they backed away from the adventurers.
"Someone you know?" Joel asked.
"Never seen him before in my life," Jas whispered.
They crossed the room and followed the light from the finder's stone through a doorway that led to another corridor. Farther down the corridor, their progress was halted by a gaping chasm in the floor. It was at least fifteen feet to the other side. Emilo dropped a pebble into the pit, and it took nearly four seconds before it clinked on something below. Jas flew the two men and their gear across the chasm. After her exertions, the winged woman required several minutes rest before she could continue.
They proceeded far more cautiously along the corridor.
Somewhere up ahead, a soft red glow issued from a doorway. The three adventurers crept forward and peered into the room that lay beyond. The damage in this room was even worse than the last. Most of the ceiling had collapsed, as well as some of the floor. Moans arose from a pit approximately in the room's center. The red light shone out of a pool of water on one side of the room.
The people in this room were at least paying some attention to the fallen and injured. Two women in the mauve robes of Beshaban priestesses were tending to the injured, most of whom were other priestesses. Two beautiful winged women stood as armed guards beside another entrance across the room. Joel guessed they were alu-fiends, the half-human offspring of succubi. Now he realized why the men in the last hall had backed away from Jas. Her wings were the same size, shape, and color as the alu-fiends.
"Any sign of Beshaba?" Jas whispered.
Joel shook his head. "Something's not right here," he whispered.
"That's right. And you're it," a soft female voice said from behind them.
The adventurers spun around. In the hallway behind them stood another alu-fiend. She was lovely to behold, with long, black hair that glittered like silk in the light of the finder's stone and a small, lithe frame. Her beauty was matched only by her deadliness. She held a sword point to Joel's throat.
From the shadows behind the alu-fiend appeared a tall figure in a dark cloak. The figure held the edge of a curved sword to the alu-fiend's throat and ordered, "Lower your weapon, fiend, and don't make a sound, or we will have to kill you and all your friends."
The alu-fiend stiffened angrily, then complied sullenly.
Joel peered intently at his rescuer and the curved blade. There was something familiar about her and her sword. "Holly?" the bard whispered in disbelief.
The tall figure lowered her hood, revealing the face of the paladin Holly Harrowslough. Beneath the black cloak, she was dressed in full battle armor.
"Holly!" Jas growled softly. "What are you doing here?"
"Lathander sent me," the paladin said softly. "What are you doing here?"
"Finder sent us," Joel said as he took the alu-fiend's sword from