Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [76]
Joel began singing "The Circle Song," a folk song about a boy who grows to be a man who woos and wins his true love, then has lots of children who all grow up to woo and win their true loves. He sang just loudly enough to entertain Holly, but quietly enough so as not to disturb Emilo. When he began the lullaby again, Holly finally drifted off to sleep.
Jas took over flying the carpet while Joel prayed for new spells. When the bard was finished praying, he read through the new scrolls Winnie had packed for them. Since they'd lost a backpack during Jas's attack on the barghest, Joel repacked their equipment, leaving out some of the equipment they would be less likely to use, such as blankets and tarps. He wrapped all the scrolls in a scarf, which he fastened to his belt. The healing potions he slipped into a vest pocket.
They began to fly over more violent sections of the slope. Steam and rock and ash, even molten lava, spewed up from secondary cones on the mountain slope. They had to stay especially vigilant to avoid these hazards. While dodging one eruption, the carpet jerked upward suddenly, and Holly sat bolt upright. At first Joel thought she'd been wakened by the jolt, but then he saw she was drenched in sweat and shaking uncontrollably. "Another vision?" he asked her softly. The paladin nodded, but she didn't look happy. She stared out over the violent land beneath them without speaking.
"What's wrong, Holly?" the bard whispered anxiously. "What did Lathander say? Is Tymora worse? Is it about Beshaba? What?"
"No," the paladin said shaking her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Lord Lathander said that in order to bring Beshaba to him, I'm supposed to offer my aid to that… that woman," she spat.
"You mean Walinda?" Joel asked. Holly nodded wordlessly.
"Oh." Joel put an arm around Holly's shoulders and held her gently.
"I don't understand," the paladin sobbed. "I've always served Lathander well. Why do I have to work with that awful woman? She makes me sick. She's horrid. I should have let Jas kill her when she had the chance. She betrayed her people. She betrayed us. She betrayed the Sensates."
Joel sighed. "Well, fortunately, she also betrayed Bane."
Holly sniffed. "Do you think she might betray Beshaba?"
Joel shrugged. "When she was a priestess of Bane, she pursued power with a vengeance. That was her religion. If she's still in that frame of mind, she could just be using Beshaba. It's food for thought anyway," he said.
As if the mention of food had disturbed his sleep, Emilo rolled over, yawned, and asked, "What's for breakfast?"
Everything in the pack was warm-the water, the bread, the fruit-which would have been fine were the adventurers not already sweltering. Joel tried to conjure an image in his mind of a crisp, cool apple plucked from a tree on a frosty fall morning, but the apples in the pack were closer to becoming apple sauce. Even the magical berries had become the consistency of jam, though they still left one feeling nourished.
Joel held out the finder's stone again and thought of Walinda. The beam of light shot into a canyon somewhere above them. Joel estimated they would reach it within the hour. He slid the stone back inside his shirt.
They were all nervous now except for Emilo, who hung his head over the carpet, wide-eyed at the sight of towering sprays of lava and boulders being tumbled about in rivers of magma.
When they reached the mouth of the canyon, they hovered for a few moments to decide the best way to proceed.
Holly reached out with her paladin sense to detect evil. Not surprisingly, she sensed many evil things in the canyon. Far ahead, shadows and light played across the floor of the canyon in a curiously orderly pattern. At first Joel thought it might be another lava flow, but Jas had another idea.
"It's an army," she said with certainty, "bivouacked in the canyon."
"How can you know that?" Joel asked.
"She's right," Emilo agreed. "That's just what they