"Except you?" Joel asked.
"Well, I am an imp, after all. It is part of my job. More importantly, I'm not one of the Dark One's followers, so she didn't waste her energy on me, except to imprison me into this cage so I couldn't run off. Shortly after that, she passed out. It was several hours before they sent anyone else in here. See that guy over there?" Ratagar pointed to a man lying at the base of the dais with the point of a sword sticking out of his back. "He thought he could attack Her Highness while she slept. He tripped on the stairs and fell on his sword."
"So even though she's unconscious, she's still leaking bad luck," Joel noted.
"A most accurate assessment. You're one clever fellow, even if you aren't a tiefling."
Joel ignored the comment. "What did you mean by calling me a sacrifice when I arrived?" he asked.
"Apparently," Ratagar said, "if there's no one around to soak up the bad luck, it leaks out of the building. So every hour or so they toss someone in here to sponge it up, so to speak. One guy choked on an apple. Another slipped on some blood and cracked his head against the floor. He moaned a long time before he finally expired. One of the guards had the bright idea of sitting perfectly still. A chunk of the ceiling fell on him. I take it Tyrannar Neri the Nitwit has seized power out there."
"That's who sent me here," Joel said.
"He must be desperate to think sending you here would work," Ratagar commented.
"Why?" Joel asked.
"Well, according to one of the captains of the guard they sent in this morning, the one who choked on the apple, Her Highness seems to be directing the bad luck even in her unconscious state. He said the bad luck is only affecting the followers of Xvim. It isn't influencing the yugoloths. That's one reason there aren't any of them in here. Not that they'd allow themselves to be used as sponges anyway. They're mercenaries, not tremendously devoted to Xvim. Anyway, the priests tossed a captive barghest in here yesterday, but apparently barghests aren't on Her Highness's cursed list either. Nothing happened to it, and the bad luck kept leaking out of the tower. The next person they sent in here, a nasty little novitiate, passed the time by torturing the barghest. The barghest got free and tore the priestling to pieces. Then the barghest died."
"So that's why Neri insisted I join the Xvimlar before he sent me in here," Joel realized.
"Yep. Dotardly old fool. Whatever made him think initiating you would take?"
"Why do you say that?" Joel asked.
"For the same reason I know you're not a tiefling," Ratagar explained. "You've got the stink of goodness on you. Not as bad a stench as a paladin, but I'm willing to bet you're an honorable guy, a good friend, kind to animals, that sort of nonsense."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Joel said. "I'm afraid I've done my share of evil." He was thinking of Jas's transformation and how his marvelous plan might actually have been a betrayal.
"Ahhhh, the self-excoriating type. So rare these days. Too many people deny responsibility," the imp declaimed.
"So where's Xvim?" Joel asked.
"Ah! Now, that's the big question. No one knows. He told Noxxe he'd be incommunicado for a few days. Noxxe was supposed to hold down the fort, so to speak."
"Any other ways out of here besides the front door?" Joel asked.
"Of course. Let me out of this cage and I'll show you the way," Ratagar offered, waving his fingers in Joel's direction.
The bard felt an urge to free the fiend, but he realized immediately that the imp had used magic to make the suggestion seem more palatable. Joel shook his head. It was bad enough he was dealing with Walinda. Adding an imp to his list of associates didn't seem like a good idea. He also had to wonder why Beshaba had seen fit to cage the imp instead of killing him or letting him go. So far, Beshaba's bad luck hadn't touched the bard, but if the goddess perceived Joel freeing what she'd seen fit to imprison, he might be the target of her wrath. "I'll have to think about that for a while," Joel said. "I'll get back to you." He picked up his torch and started down the stairs.
"Hey! Where you going, pal?" Ratagar demanded. "Don't leave me here alone," he whined. "I'm afraid of the dark!"
"Don't worry," Joel said as he made his way toward the outer wall of the throne room. "This will all be over soon."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ratagar said with rising panic.
Joel began pushing at the tapestries along the wall until he found one with no wall behind it. Behind the tapestry, he discovered a staircase leading upward. The steps were high and wide, made for the feet of a god with a form as large as the one Beshaba had assumed. Joel fetched his backpacks, then returned to the stairs and began climbing toward the top of Xvim's tower.
ACT THREE SCENE 7
Jas looked out over the Bastion of Hate from the roof of Xvim's tower. From here, she could see the dark outline of the canyon ridge where Walinda's bar-lgura kept watch in their invisible form. If she looked directly down, Jas could see the torches twinkling along the fortress wall and in the courtyard below. She and Emilo had witnessed the mezzoloths toss someone with a crest of red hair through the tower's front door and lock him inside. The finder's stone confirmed that Joel was somewhere beneath them, but its beam stubbornly pointed to a trapdoor entrance on the tower's roof, which was bolted securely from the other side.
The windows to the tower were blocked by invisible magical barriers, and there were at least twenty yugoloths guarding the front door, so the roof entry was the only way to reach Joel. Emilo was examining it now by the light of a torch, looking for some way to slip the bolt or break through the trapdoor.
After depositing Emilo on the roof of the tower, Jas had tried flying toward Walinda's camp, but the barrier that kept things from flying into the fortress also prevented her from flying away. As far as she could tell, the barrier was a dome that came to a peak over the tower, then fell straight down to the city walls. She returned to the tower roof, having ascertained there was no way out but the gate.
Now she leaned against the parapet and enjoyed the slight breeze. It was hot atop the tower, but not as hot as it was down below. She was feeling a lot calmer now. At first she'd been annoyed that Finder and Tymora had allowed her to continue in her state of self-deception, but she realized she wouldn't have believed them if they'd told her the truth. She believed Emilo, though. She wasn't sure why, but she was certain the kender was incapable of deceiving her.
Her hands had returned to normal, but her face was still covered with feathers and her eyes still glowed. She suspected that in this unholy realm of the god of hate, where she couldn't forget her hatred of Walinda, she could never shed the dark stalker form entirely. The sense that she was possessed by something evil had faded, however. She had set aside her guilt that she had not yet destroyed Walinda by focusing, as Emilo had suggested, on the word yet. She would find a way to mete out justice to the evil priestess. In the meantime, Jas was left with only her grief, which was far more painful but much less frightening.
Frustrated by his failure to slip the bolt on the trapdoor, Emilo poured some lantern oil along the edge of the door and set it alight. The door was made from stout wood, though, and did not catch ablaze easily. The kender succeeded only in charring the wood. Then Jas began stabbing at it with her dagger, trying to create a hole large enough for Emilo to get his slender arm through.