Tymora's Luck - Kate Novak [95]
Emilo sighed. "That's because your heart is stronger than your reason. Winnie said it's quite common in cases like yours where you've not only suffered a recent tragedy, but you still haven't recovered from a childhood tragedy. Winnie said what you're feeling inside you isn't a dark stalker, Jas. It's your own guilt and bottled-up grief. You can't let go of them, so they've made a darkness on your soul, which you confused with the lie that the priests of Xvim told you. Winnie didn't think Tymora should go along with Finder's plan to try to fool you. She thought the only thing that could heal you was if you grieved for your parents and your friends and accepted the fact that it wasn't your fault that they died."
"How can I grieve when that murderess is walking around free?" Jas snarled angrily. "It's just like when my parents died. I couldn't do anything to avenge their deaths. My friends' deaths were even worse. Every time I tried to kill their murderer, I failed. I'm useless… worse than useless, in fact. I'm helping that bitch just so Tymora doesn't die."
A sudden realization came over the kender. "You mean it was Walinda who murdered your friends?" Emilo asked.
"Walinda tortured them to death," Jas keened. "She made me watch." The winged woman began sobbing once more.
Emilo stroked her hair some more. After several minutes, Jas grew calm again.
"I thought the only way I was going to fight the dark stalker was to give up hating Walinda," Jas said. "I can't do that. And not just because we're so close to the Bastion of Hate."
"I can understand that," Emilo said. "You don't have to. You just have to accept that Walinda isn't dead yet."
"You tell me how to do that," Jas demanded angrily.
The kender squeezed Jas's shoulders and said fiercely, "Just focus on that word yet."
Act Three Scene 6
Joel turned about slowly, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. Fortunately the room wasn't truly pitch-black. Somewhere ahead was a smoldering brazier. There was a horrendous stench to the room, like an abattoir.
"Who's there?" the bard called out.
"Oooh, a curious one," the whispering voice replied. The echoes in the hall still made it seem to come from everywhere. There was a slight squeak to the whisper, as though it came from a woman or a child… or perhaps a halfling or kender.
"I'm Marin the Red," Joel announced, "the captain of the guard of Lord Xvim's throne room, and I demand to know who you are."
Raucous, high-pitched laughter rang through the hall. Leaving his backpacks on the floor, Joel drew his sword and moved forward cautiously.
"Watch out!" the high-pitched voice cried out.
The warning came too late as Joel tripped on something soft. He sprawled across the floor once more.
As he pulled himself to his aching knees, the bard's hands came in contact with what had tripped him-the legs of a human body. Joel ran his hands up the body. It was encased in plate mail. The bard felt around the body's throat. The flesh was cold. There was no pulse.
'That was the last captain of the guard," the voice announced matter-of-factly.
Hastily Joel muttered a spell to cast light upon his sword, but no light appeared. Without the finder's stone his power as a priest wasn't even great enough to cast a simple spell.
"Ouch," the voice said. "I'll bet that's embarrassing. Can't even spit out a light spell. You must be a looong way from your god."
Joel crawled back toward the door until he came upon his backpacks. He rummaged around until he found a few torches and tucked them under his belt. Then he crawled toward the dimly glowing brazier. Nothing else blocked his way. From the coals in the brazier, he lit one of the torches. In the flickering light, he could see that the room was littered with bodies, the corpses of priests of Xvim and human guards. Joel estimated there were at least a hundred.
"Quite a mess, eh?" the voice commented.
The voice no longer seemed to come from everywhere. Joel got a fix on the speaker's direction. It was definitely somewhere up ahead, in the darkness at the far end of the chamber.