"Well, the wings got rid of him fast enough," Jas noted. Her tone was completely neutral. Joel couldn't even fathom a guess at what she was feeling.
"But you still ran from your grief," Tymora noted. "Saerloon wasn't far enough from Waterdeep, so you had to leave Realmspace and travel to other spheres." "I tried going home a couple times," Jas said. "Things just kept coming up."
"And when you finally returned to Realmspace, your crew was murdered and you were abducted by a mad priestess of Bane," Tymora added, "who delivered you to the priests of Iyachtu Xvim for sacrifice. You escaped, but then you were recaptured and transformed into a dark stalker."
"I guess Finder's told you everything," Jas said, giving the god a sharp look.
"No," Finder said. "I kept your confidences, as you asked."
"My ability to sense things is even more powerful than Finder's. I am aware of what occurs around the worshipers of my allies as well as my own worshipers," Tymora explained. "Lathander is one of my allies," she explained.
"You know all this from Holly?" Jas realized aloud.
And from me, Joel realized silently. Since Finder was also an ally of Tymora's, the goddess would sense things that happened to Finder's worshipers.
"I know you're here to rid yourself of the dark stalker. But since Holly wasn't with you when the priests of Xvim captured you, I don't know how they came to transform you," Tymora said.
Jas stared into the darkness for several moments without replying. Then she sighed and began. "The priests of Iyachtu Xvim gave me a choice-die or agree to be transformed into a dark stalker. I let them transform me. Then they sent me to Sigil to hunt down Walinda, Joel, and Holly. The priests told me once I killed someone, the transformation would be complete and I would be able to sense the power of my prey. But I didn't want to kill anyone. Except Walinda."
"So you attacked Walinda, and Holly got in the way, and you thought you'd killed her. Is that the first time you sensed the dark stalker in you?" Tymora asked.
Jas closed her eyes, trying to remember back. "I think so, yes."
"Even though you hadn't killed anyone yet?" Tymora asked.
"If Holly's friend Bors hadn't healed her, Holly would have died," Jas insisted.
"When the priests of Iyachtu Xvim transformed you, how did they do it?"
"They used a spell," Jas said.
"A mage spell or a priest spell?" Tymora asked.
"A mage spell. They had this crazy wizard with them. He kept tearing off his clothes and throwing fireballs at monsters that only he could see. He talked to himself and to people who weren't there. Just being near him was scary. They told me not to resist when he cast his spell. If I didn't transform, then they'd kill me." Jas shrugged. "Maybe I resisted a little, and that's why I could partially control the transformation by keeping calm."
Tymora exchanged a glance with Finder.
"I managed to transform Jasmine back to her true form," Finder explained, "but she can still sense the dark stalker within her."
"I see," Tymora said. Her brow furrowed with concern.
"But I suspect that since you're a far greater power than Iyachtu Xvim, you should have no trouble removing the curse from her soul," Finder said to Tymora.
The goddess raised an eyebrow. "Indeed," she replied.
At that moment, the halfling priestess, Winnie, appeared, followed by two human servants carrying trays of food and drink.
"Winnie, your timing is excellent, as always," Tymora said. "Jasmine, drink some of the wine; it will make the ordeal to come easier to bear." The goddess stood up. "Winnie, Finder, I need to have a word with both of you," she said. She led the halfling and the god some distance away from the bench beneath the birch tree.
The human servants set the trays of wine and food on the bench beside Jas, then left without a word.
Jas looked at the wine as if it might be poisoned. Joel laughed. He stood up and filled three goblets. He sampled the drink and sighed. "Only the finest, as my grandfather used to say." He handed goblet to Jas. "To your happiness, lady," he said.
Jas took a swallow from the goblet as if it were filled with water. A moment later she gasped and her eyes grew round. "It is good," she whispered.
Told you so," Joel said. He turned around with a goblet for Emilo, but the kender wasn't there. "Where did Emilo go?"
Jas looked about her, but not with much effort. "Don't know," she said. She took another deep swallow from her goblet, then held it out to Joel. "More, please," she requested.
Joel looked at the winged woman with surprise. He'd never seen her drink anything stronger than ale, and then she always nursed her drink carefully. It was possible that the quality of the wine was behind her current lack of self-restraint, but the bard suspected it had more to do with her anxiety. He filled her goblet halfway. Jas took another long swallow.
"I could learn to like this stuff," the woman said. She smiled up at Joel. Her eyes already appeared unfocused.
An uneasy suspicion seized the bard. He knelt down before Jas and put his hand around her goblet. "Jas, do you remember what you said about how Tymora reacted when you said you wanted to be able to fly. She gave you a sad little smile as if you were a kid who asked for cake for dinner? If it was a test, you failed, but she gave you what you asked for anyway."
"Yes… so?" Jas replied, tugging her goblet away from Joel's hand and sloshing some of it on herself in the process. It looked like blood dripping down her leather vest.
"I was thinking of those drunken revelers last night- the ones we hid from on the road to the Gilded Hall. They were fighting over the wine, remember? Finder called them the bacchae. They travel in mobs, with no purpose but to drink. I'm wondering if they all had a dark stalker."
"What are you talking about?" Jas asked, clearly confused by Joel's line of thought.
"Metaphorically speaking. They might all have something inside them that they can't get rid of. Maybe that's what made them more susceptible to the wine."
Jas stared at the bard for several moments, seemingly without comprehension. Understanding, when it came, caused her to start. She set the goblet back down on the tray. Her body shook. At first Joel thought it was from rage, until he saw the tears in her eyes.
Joel set his goblet down as well. He took Jas's hands in his own. "It's going to be all right. Tymora will get rid of the dark stalker."
"It doesn't matter," Jas sobbed. Her tears fell from her cheeks and mixed in rivulets with the wine on her vest. "Arandes is dead. All the others are dead. I shouldn't even be alive. I should have died with my crew."
"No," Joel insisted. "They wouldn't want you to feel that way. Your being alive means they'll be remembered." Joel hesitated for a moment. Reminding Jas of Walinda might only encourage her to renew her futile quest for vengeance, but it was a risk the bard felt he had to take. He phrased his words carefully. "Your being alive is a symbol of Walinda's failure to resurrect Bane. Fighting off the dark stalker as long as you have is a symbol of the failure of Iyachtu Xvim's priest to spread their darkness."
Jas looked up at Joel and laughed in spite of herself through her tears. "You bards are such smooth talkers. Everything's a symbol to you."
Joel shrugged. "After all those years of training at the bard college, I can't help myself anymore."
"Can't help what?" Emilo asked, suddenly popping out from behind a weigela bush.
"The propensity to put reality into poetical context," Joel said. He released Jas's hands and stood up. "Where have you been?"
"I went to investigate something that caught my eye," Emilo replied. He looked at Jas with surprise. "You've been crying," he noted. He pulled out an enormous baby blue handkerchief from one of the many pockets in his vest. "Here, you can dry your eyes with this. It's clean. Unless you'd rather keep crying. That would be all right, too." "No, I'm finished now," Jas said, taking the proffered cloth. She dabbed at her eyes, then wiped off her leather vest.