"I have a deal for you, priest of Finder. Won't you come aboard so we might discuss it more comfortably? promise you and your party safe passage-providing," she added with a glance at the winged woman who lay on the deck, moaning, "you can keep your pets in line."

"I need a moment, please, to discuss your offer with my colleagues," Jedidiah replied politely, smiling up at the priestess.

Walinda nodded graciously.

Jedidiah turned about and pulled Joel and Holly close.

"You can't go aboard that vessel," Holly insisted.

"Young lady, I have no choice," Jedidiah answered. "I must have the finder's stone back."

"It's some sort of trick,'-' Holly said. "There's something else aboard that ship, something profoundly evil. The worst evil I have ever felt in my life. It's so strong it's painful to sense it."

"Is there, now?" Jedidiah asked. "How interesting. It doesn't change anything, however. The finder's stone is a relic of my god."

"Is it worth your life?" Holly argued. "Your soul?"

Jedidiah sighed. "Just before we were attacked, I put a large share of my own power into the finder's stone so that the Xvimists' dark stalker could no longer sense me from a distance. Finder needs my powers. I cannot just let Walinda fly off with the stone without trying to barter for it."

"When you barter with evil, evil grows stronger," Holly said through clenched teeth. "If that's not enough, you must know that you cannot trust her."

Jedidiah looked to Joel for support.

The young bard could sympathize completely with the old priest. Arguing with the paladin was an uphill battle. Remembering how weakened the old priest had been when he finished siphoning his power into the stone, Joel had no qualms about helping him to regain it. He attacked Holly's arguments with an appeal to her emotions that he knew she could not reject.

"Holly, Walinda has Jas," Joel pointed out quietly but firmly. "If we tell Walinda to leave without bartering, what do you think she'll do with Jas-hand her back to us unharmed, or keep her to torture her some more?"

The blood drained from Holly's face, and she lowered her head.

As if to emphasize the point, Jas fluttered her wings and tried to stand, then yelped in pain and crashed back to the deck of the ship.

"Perhaps you should stay here," Jedidiah suggested. "I will deal with this woman myself."

"No," Joel said. "I'm going with you. You may need my help."

Holly looked up. "You may need mine as well to help with Jas," she said.

"If this evil gives you pain-" Jedidiah began.

"I am not afraid of pain," Holly answered softly. "I will accompany you."

"Very well," Jedidiah said, respectful of the paladin's courage. He turned around and stepped toward the edge of the bluff. Joel and Holly stood just behind him.

"We will board your ship to parlay," the old priest announced.

The ship edged close to the bluff. First Joel, then Holly, leapt across to the railing and jumped down to the deck. Joel turned back to offer Jedidiah a hand, but the old priest made the jump just as easily as a boy.

Holly hurried to Jas's side. The woman's leg was broken just above the ankle. "When I fix this, you have to lie still," she whispered to the winged woman.

"Just so Jedidiah can get his stupid rock back?" Jas snarled.

"Because you are not thinking clearly. That attack was the clumsiest I have ever seen," the paladin murmured. "You cannot let your hatred warp your reason."

Jas sighed. "Out of the mouths of paladins…" she muttered. "Right. I'll keep my cool until the witch betrays us. Then I'm going for her throat."

Holly began a healing prayer for the winged woman's broken leg.

Watching the two women whispering, Walinda said to Jedidiah, "Keep a tether on your pigeon, or I will do more than clip its wings next time."

"Threats are uncalled for," Jedidiah chided the woman. "You wanted to discuss a deal. I'm listening."

"Please, make yourselves comfortable," Walinda said. She sat down on the only chair on the deck, a high-backed seat carved from the tusk of some colossal beast.

If Walinda had hoped to put the old priest in his place

by making him stand, her plan backfired. Jedidiah removed his cloak with a flourish and lay it on the floor near the priestess's feet. He lowered himself to the deck and lounged there like a desert prince relaxing in a harem. He was near enough to the priestess that he could have reached out and touched her knee. Joel stood behind him, trying to convey the look of someone prepared to defend the old priest against any assaults. Behind Walinda, a dark doorway led to a cabin. Joel watched it warily, remembering Holly's warning of something evil.

"You are very bold for someone dealing from a position of weakness," Walinda addressed Jedidiah as she held up the finder's stone in the hand farthest from him.

Joel wondered if it would be worth the risk to simply jump the woman and wrestle the stone from her hand. He looked again at the darkened doorway and decided it would probably be most unwise.

"You and Poppin are very alike," Walinda said. "I will look forward to subduing Finder's priests if they are all like the two of you. You are really quite remarkable."

"It's true," Jedidiah said with an arrogant smile. "But you are remarkable as well. The hierarchy of the Black Lord's church was never known for encouraging the ambitions of women, not even talented ones. Yet Joel tells me you are a Dreadmaster. Did you earn your title before or after Torm turned your god into so much dog food?"

Walinda glowered at Jedidiah, but she didn't react to his goads. "The Black Lord named me to his priesthood himself, before the Time of Troubles," the priestess replied proudly. "After the Black Lord was killed in combat, I remained faithful, knowing that our lord would rise again. The night before the Cyricists began the Banedeath, destroying any true followers of Bane who would not convert to Cyric, a voice spoke to me. The voice warned me of what was to come and decreed what action I should take. I gathered those who were most faithful to Bane and led them away from Zhentil Keep. We traveled until we reached the Spiderhaunt Woods. There, in a cave, my lord's spirit was waiting for his true followers.

"When his avatar died in the Time of Troubles, Lord Bane's spirit hid in that cave. We fed his spirit with our worship. Two weeks ago, the spirit brought down this ship from the sky, and we took possession of it in Bane's name. The spirit took command of the ship, and we journeyed north to the Temple in the Sky. In the temple, which was once dedicated to Lord Bane, there were buried secrets that Lord Bane would need to regain his former power and glory. The price was high…"

"Yes. Joel already told me how you paid for it. What secret could be so important that it was worth the lives of all those faithful people?" Jedidiah asked scornfully.

"The location of the Hand of Bane," Walinda said.

"The Hand of Bane," Jedidiah repeated.

"Yes. Its location has been hidden for centuries, yet I was able to find it." Walinda held up the sheets of paper she'd removed from the book in the Temple in the Sky. The edges were scabbed over with dried blood. "So my followers died for a great cause."

Jedidiah leaned forward. "Why would Bane need you to locate the Hand of Bane?" the old priest asked.

"You do not know?" Walinda asked. "Allow me to explain. You will find this very interesting, Poppin," she said, smiling up at Joel. "Gods are made of many elements. They have a physical body and mind Torm slew my lord Bane's body, but it still exists. It floats in the astral plane beside the bodies of other long-dead gods. Gods also possess an essence-a personality, a spirit that binds them to their followers. They also possess power-huge amounts of raw energy, beyond the ken of mortals. If a god is destroyed, his followers can perform a complicated ritual to bind together these elements-body, essence, and power-and resurrect the god. Some gods have the wisdom to create a magical artifact that will make the ritual simpler and more efficient, so that its performance does not require a year's time, or hundreds of followers, or the blood sacrifice of a thousand innocent beings."