Fortunately the apelike creatures seemed to recognize the adventurers as allies. They did not attack, but neither did they clear the way for the carpet to exit through the gate.
Holly addressed the tanar'ri. She had to shout to be heard over the clashing and screaming of the battle. "The battle is over," the paladin announced. "Walinda is dead. Her goddess follows us. You have no reason to stay."
The bar-lgura looked at the paladin uncertainly. Holly raised her hands to her forehead, agonized by the barrage of telepathic queries the tanar'ri were sending.
"It is true," Holly insisted. "I do not lie. Tell your fellows to retreat while they still can."
The bar-lgura began backing out of the fortress. Joel ordered the carpet through the gatehouse.
Once free of the confines of the fortress, the bar-lgura began vanishing in beams of shimmering air, presumably teleporting back to their homes in the Abyss. Joel gave a last look up at the gatehouse, but he saw no sign of petitioner Perr. He wondered if the former priest of Xvim had any clue that he had been deceived. The bard ordered the carpet to rise twenty feet and sent it back toward the canyon as Beshaba had ordered.
Holly looked back at the fortress, shaking her head.
"What's wrong?" Emilo asked.
"The bar-lgura will flee," the paladin explained, "but they said the bulezau have gone into a battle frenzy and will never leave."
"Their loss," Jas said.
"Evil's gain," Holly argued. "No good is served by their deaths."
"Even dead, Walinda manages to ruin the lives of others," Jas commented. "And she never actually had to pay for any of it."
"She paid with her life," Holly said, aghast.
"That's not payment enough," Jas growled. "Now she's a petitioner, still serving an evil power."
"But that is all she will ever be now," Holly said, "until she merges with Beshaba. It is only as living beings that we can choose the course our spirits will take. Now Walinda can never be redeemed by the light. She will never know joy or love or mercy."
"Walinda could have lived a thousand years, and she would never have changed," Jas declared. "She was evil incarnate."
They had just reached the ridge overlooking the Bastion of Hate when they heard another rumble.
"Beshaba's bad luck seeping out?" Holly asked.
"Pouring out is more like it," Joel replied. "She must be casting some very powerful magic."
Floating above the ground, the four carpet riders didn't feel the vibrations of the earthquake, but they still weren't safe from its violence. Geysers of ash and molten lava began to shoot up around them, and rocks from the slope above rained down on them. Joel ordered the carpet to back away from the mount a hundred feet.
Hovering near the darkness of the void, the adventurers could hardly even feel the heat, but they had an excellent view of the havoc wrought on the Gehennan mount.
The realm of Iyachtu Xvim trembled like jelly, yet neither the walls, nor the temple, nor the tower collapsed. Xvim had built them well. Finally Mount Chamada itself gave way. The great, wide ledge beneath the Bastion of Hate broke from the side of the mount and began to slide down the slope. It moved slowly at first, but soon picked up a terrifying speed, carrying with it Xvim's fortress.
The noise was deafening, a continuing roar that battered their ears and left an ache in their foreheads. Then the air grew foul with dust, ash, smoke, and foul vapors. The four adventurers lay on the carpet with their arms over their heads and their faces, choking and gasping.
Suddenly there was silence all about them, and bright light and clean, fresh air. They raised their heads and looked about. The carpet sat in a field of thistle and burdock. Overhead, the cloudless sky was bright blue, though there was no sun to be seen.
"I don't think we're in Gehenna anymore," Holly said after a long pause.
"But where are we?" Jas asked.
"Who cares?" the paladin said with a laugh. "Breathe that air. Isn't it wonderful?"
Indeed, the air was not only fresh, but it also seemed to make Joel's skin tingle. The feeling was a familiar one to the bard. "We're in the Outlands," he said. "How'd we get here?" Jas asked.
"I brought you," a soft, girlish voice said from somewhere overhead.
The adventurers looked up.
Beshaba hovered above them, her feet grazing the thistle flowers. She was no longer a giant, but the size of a normal human woman. "Bringing you here has cost me more power than I thought it would. In payment, you will serve as my bodyguards on our journey to the spire."
Eager to keep the goddess on the path Finder had requested, Joel bowed his head and said, "We would be honored, Lady Beshaba."
Beshaba looked at Holly and Jas. "Does he speak for you as well?" she asked.
"Joel is our friend," Holly said. "We trust him to speak for us."
"Your friend? Well, that is a good thing," Beshaba said. "You will protect me the better for it. For if my person comes to any harm, I will hold your friend Joel responsible and he will forfeit his life."
Opera? I loved the opera. So much jewelry, so much profit… The music? I was too busy to listen.
INTERMEZZO
"She really is a mean old witch, isn't she?" Annali Web-spinner commented as she watched the goddess Beshaba threaten the Rebel Bard's life after all he'd done for the Maid of Misfortune.
"It's no wonder Walinda worshiped her, is it?" Bors Sunseed retorted with a dry tone.
The bariaur made a face at the paladin. She had been prepared to argue to the death her admission of Walinda into the Sensates. That was before they'd learned Walinda had betrayed a secret she had sworn to keep. Annali had felt a trifle embarrassed, but she wasn't going to take criticism lying down from the snotty paladin.
"I think perhaps this would be a good time for a break," Cuatha Da'nanin said. "Ayryn, you have exhausted yourself for us, and we thank you, but now you must rest."
The genasi scryer covered her crystal ball, and the vision of the goddess and Joel and his companions and the thistle field in the Outlands faded from view.
The wizard Quellig took up the crystal ball and proceeded to summon a view of Joel's party. Quellig's sensations were not as incorporeal as Ayryn's, so the rest of the Sensates in the room were not treated to Quellig's vision, but the tiefling wizard held a recorder stone so that everything he saw could later be shared with the others should any of it prove interesting.
The Sensates had scried upon the Rebel Bard nonstop since he'd reached Arborea, and many of those hours had been tedious. There was nothing quite so boring as watching a man sleep. Erin Montgomery had been adamant, however, that they record Joel's journey to Fermata to meet with Finder.
When it looked as if Joel's party would pay a visit to Tymora, Erin had insisted the watch continue. At Da'nanin's suggestion, she had agreed to halt once they'd witnessed Tymora exorcising the dark stalker from the winged woman, Jasmine.
For that event, Ayryn had been asked to scry once more, and the Sensates who'd shared the first viewing of the gods had been asked to return. All but Walinda, who could not be found, had come back for the experience. Since Joel, not Tymora, was the target of Ayryn's scrying, the genasi's vision had not been misdirected. The Sensates witnessed Joel's meeting with Lady Luck with mild interest. Many of them had actually visited Brightwater and had already seen the goddess from afar. Finder's charm had impressed more than a few of the ladies. Ultimately it was the goddess's seizure that had made it a night to remember.
After witnessing Tymora collapse, nothing in the multiverse-not even her lover, Da'nanin-could have convinced Factol Montgomery to cease watching over the young adventurers who had agreed to risk their lives to discover the cause of the goddess's weakness.