"Wouldn't we be safer in the temple?" another novice asked. It might be better, the bard realized, if he could keep the novices separated from the temple so the higher-ranking priests within received no information. He had to make them think it was their idea, however.
"Fine. Go right ahead," Joel said. "The yugoloths are in some sort of snit about not being paid, but if you want to walk past them while they're in such a quarrelsome mood, feel free," he added, waving his arm in the direction of the courtyard.
The novices glanced nervously at the yugoloths milling about in the courtyard, then turned and hurried back through the door into the wall. Joel continued on toward the gate.
When he came to the iron portcullis, he halted and peered out into the darkness. Against the red glow of the lava river, he saw the silhouettes of hundreds of bulezau. There was no sign of the bar-lgura or Walinda. Joel pulled out the finder's stone and concentrated on the priestess. The beacon of light shot through the portcullises of the inner and outer walls and struck a boulder not more than a hundred yards away from the gate.
Come on, Walinda, the bard thought impatiently. I can't signal for them to open the gate if they don't see you. He slipped the finder's stone back into his shirt.
Joel didn't care whether the priestess made her appearance because of the signal from the finder's stone or because she had read the bard's thoughts as long as her appearance made an impressive spectacle. Suddenly the air around the boulder shimmered and the priestess manifested herself. She was kneeling on the magic carpet, which hovered five feet off the ground. As the carpet glided forward, Holly stepped from the dark ranks of the bulezau and walked along beside it. Then the marilith slithered forward behind Holly.
The carpet halted directly before the gate. The ebon aura of power that surrounded the evil priestess had grown until it blocked out the light from the lava river behind her.
From the wall above, Joel heard the gatekeeper call out, "Who goes there?"
Walinda, with her head held high and her back as straight as an eastern princess's, called out, "I am Walinda of Beshaba. I have come at the summons of Lady Beshaba."
Joel stepped back away from the portcullis so that Petitioner Perr could see him from the window in the gate control room.
Perr looked down upon the bard disguised as Hate-master Morr. Joel gave him the signal to open the gate. Perr disappeared from the window.
All right, Perr, old buddy, Joel thought, this is it. Your moment of destiny. Please don't make me look like a fool.
Both portcullises raised up all the way, as if Perr wanted to be sure this woman he believed to be Beshaba's sister didn't feel inclined to damage his newly repaired gates.
"Enter and be welcome, Walinda of Beshaba," Joel called out, "in the name of the New Darkness."
One of the larger yugoloths came running up to Joel and halted at his side. An agonizing pain blazed across the bard's head as the creature shouted telepathically, There are hundreds of invisible bar-lgura all around the priestess!
"I am aware of that," Joel lied, realizing that the yugoloths could see the invisible beings he had only suspected were present. The magic carpet carried Walinda through the gatehouse. Holly and the marilith entered beside her. All three moved toward the bard.
The bar-lgura are entering the courtyard!
"It's all right," the bard said with a calm, reassuring tone. "They are our allies."
The yugoloth grabbed at Joel's robe and shook him. Allies do not enter with their weapons drawn!
The marilith's tail whipped around the yugoloth, and she yanked the struggling creature toward her. She lay all six hands on the creature's body and hissed.
Joel's mind reeled with the yugoloth's telepathic scream as the marilith's touch magically bruised and burned the creature's body.
"Leave him be!" the bard shouted at the snake-woman.
The yugoloth vanished.
"What did you do to him?" Joel demanded. He fled from my attack with his magic, the marilith answered telepathically.
Walinda leaned forward on the magic carpet. "Is that you, Poppin?" she asked with astonishment.
"Of course it's Joel," Holly snapped. "He's the only person here not radiating evil."
"I am impressed, priest of Finder," the priestess said. "I had no idea you would prove such a talented saboteur. You have ensured our victory."
"And you may have just thrown it away," Joel retorted sharply. "You still have to win your way to Beshaba. We might have reached her with stealth, but now that you've attacked one of the guards, we may not be able to avoid a fight."
Even as the bard spoke, the giant yugoloths in the courtyard surged toward the intruders.
"So there will be a fight," Walinda said. "That is what we have armies for."
The yugoloths stopped about a hundred feet away from the wall, and it soon became clear that they were blocked by invisible bar-lgura. The larger yugoloths apparently had no trouble seeing the shorter apelike tanar'ri, invisible or not, and engaged them in combat. As the bar-lgura began to fight back, they broke the spell of invisibility that surrounded them. Then Joel was able to see what had so alarmed the yugoloth who'd tried to warn him. Hordes of tanar'ri surrounded Walinda.
The marilith raised a horn to her lips and sounded a call to battle. Moments later the minotaurlike bulezau, in all their horrifying visibility, began streaming through the gates, flanking outward along the wall, territory which the bar-lgura had claimed for them. Several of the bulezau carried magic killers. As the iron latticework spheres passed near the invisible bar-lgura, they became visible again.
Joel looked toward the temple, but so far there was no sign that the priests of Xvim had chosen to leave their refuge to investigate either the explosion or the sounds of battle that they surely must have heard.
"Beshaba is on the first floor of that tower," Joel told the others. "If we hurry, we might still make it to the roof and down the stairs before it occurs to the yugoloths to block our access to your goddess."
Suddenly a shower of spears hailed down upon them from the bastion wall. Several struck the bulezau and the bar-lgura near the wall. One spear bounced off Holly's shoulder plate. Another struck Joel in the leg, just above his knee.
The bard cried out and fell forward.
"Get him on the carpet," Walinda ordered.
Invisible bar-lgura hands lifted the bard into the air and laid him on the magic carpet beside the evil priestess.
Joel ignored the fiery pain and called out to Holly to get on the carpet, too.
At that moment, a column of fire shot down from the sky and struck the paladin.
"Carpet, up fifty feet," Walinda commanded.
"No!" Joel shouted as the carpet began rising above the battle, leaving Holly on the ground. "Carpet, go down," he ordered.
"Silence him!" Walinda snapped.
Large, hairy arms belonging to an invisible bar-lgura grabbed the bard from behind and covered his mouth. As Joel struggled, the bar-lgura's invisibility dispelled, but the bard was unable to break from the apelike fiend's grasp.
"Carpet, go up another fifty feet," Walinda ordered. "Don't be foolish, Poppin," she said to Joel. "The paladin's holiness makes her a natural target. We cannot afford to keep her beside us."
Then Joel spotted Jas swooping down toward Holly, and he ceased his struggles. He turned to glare at the priestess as she directed the flying carpet up to the roof of the tower.
The marilith and her two hezrou lieutenants had used their power to teleport to the roof. By the time Joel and Walinda arrived, they already stood beside the parapet surrounding the roof. The toadlike hezrou were sniffing at the air as the snake-woman looked with a critical eye at the ground far below. Walinda settled the carpet just behind where the marilith stood. At a signal from the priestess, the bar-lgura released Joel. The apelike tanar'ri rolled off the carpet and began sniffing the air as well.