Four

How long he remained unconscious Joel could not tell, but at some point he began to sense he was rolling from side to side. Somehow he knew he was on a ship bound for some far-off land. Through a gray haze, he saw the prow of the floating ship that had accompanied the pilgrim Banites. Standing on the deck over his prone form was the Banite priestess with her silver goad. She turned to face him, wearing a pitiless smile.

Instinctively the Rebel Bard tried to back away, but his hands and feet were chained. He shouted. A moment later when he opened his eyes, he realized he had been dreaming. The rolling had stopped, and the ship and the priestess of Bane were gone.

Holly hovered over him, surrounded by a rosy glow, which quickly faded. She'd been using her paladin's gift of healing to repair the damage done by Bear's beating. Her pretty features were darkened with concern. Joel raised an arm to ruffle her hair reassuringly, then realized the chains were not just part of a dream. He and the paladin both were shackled hand and foot, short chains linking the shackles and a slightly longer one attached to the chains at their wrists, linking them one to the other.

Joel squinted and blinked in the sunlight streaming over Holly's shoulder. The sun was westering over the mountains, but the brightness still hurt Joel's eyes. Holly shifted her position to shade his face. "Are you all right?" the girl asked.

"Just tell me the priestess of Bane was a dream," Joel croaked, his throat raw and parched.

"Why would you dream about a priestess of Bane?" Holly asked. "It's a priest of Xvim who's captured us. Don't you remember?"

"Priest of Xvim, a dozen Zhentilar, and one ugly Bear," Joel muttered, remembering now what had happened. With Holly's help, he sat up and looked around. He could see all the parties named seated beneath the shade of a tree. "What were you doing there?" he demanded of Holly.

"I took a detour from my route to check on Bear," Holly explained. "When I saw him throw you from your horse I tried to ride to the rescue."

"You should have ridden right to Lord Randal and let him know."

"I couldn't just let them keep beating you up," Holly argued. "With Bear there, I couldn't bluff them like you did, so I just attacked. It was the only thing I could think of."

Joel sighed. As much as he liked the paladin, subtlety, he realized, was not her forte. Trying to sound hopeful, the bard asked, "So where are we now?"

"You've been out since yesterday. We passed through Dagger Falls some time after noon today. They had you slung across the back of a packhorse. Now that you're awake, you'll have to march."

"What happened to Butternut?" Joel asked.

"She had the sense to bolt," Holly answered.

Joel thought of all the things in Butternut's saddlebags that were lost to him now, especially Kharva's beef stew pies. He felt his stomach growl.

"So Bear can't risk going back to Anathar's Dell,' Holly explained. "When your horse shows up there, riderless, there will be a great many questions asked."

"Well, that's a small blessing, at any rate. Where are they taking us now?" Joel asked.

"There," Holly said, motioning with both manacled hands over Joel's right shoulder.

The bard twisted about. They sat on a slope looking down over a vale. On the opposite side of the vale, where Holly had just motioned, was a squat black tower. Hanging in the sky over the tower was a huge chunk of rock shaped like a great hornet's nest.

"That's the Flaming Tower, and the flying rock above it is called The Temple in the Sky," Holly explained. "No one knows much about the rock except that it's supposed to be inhabited by a beast cult. The beast cult ha made an alliance with the people in the tower."

"And who's in the tower?" Joel asked.

"It used to be held by Zhents who followed Cyric, God of Lies, but since Cyric's madness has grown, their power's been slipping. In his last report, Lord Randal said the tower's now held by Zhents who follow Iyachtu Xvim."

"Same as our captors," Joel noted. "So why aren't our captors hurrying across the vale to get home in time for supper?"

"Look harder… at the east side of the tower," Holly replied.

Joel focused on the area Holly had indicated. Ht started with surprise. There, parked at the tower gate, was the floating ship of the Banite pilgrims. The hulking vessel seemed small and fragile next to the massive tower. Joel squinted, but he couldn't see any sign of the pilgrims or the priestess on or near the ship.

"There was some sort of fight going on when we arrived," Holly explained. "The Banites were trying to get in the tower, and the Xvim people were trying Is keep them out. Our captors sent a scout down to find out if it was safe to approach."

"Sounds like the Zhents are spending more time with religious feuds than in conspiring to conquer the Realms," Joel noted.

"It's one small bit of luck," Holly replied. "Before the Time of Troubles, when the Zhents were all united under Bane, their power was nearly unassailable. Since Bane's death, the people of the dales have been given some breathing space." Holly paused, then nodded toward a single rider climbing the hill toward them. "There's the scout our captors sent out," she said.

The rider dismounted before the priest of Xvim. Joel and Holly couldn't hear what he reported, but they heard the laughter of their captors. One of the Zhentilar, a tall woman with a shaved head, mounted her horse and rode over to where Joel and Holly sat. With a practiced smoothness, the soldier leaned over with a pole and snatched up the center of the chain linking the prisoners. Yanking on the chain, the woman barked a sharp command for them to get up and start moving.

Joel fought back his urge to resist. The Xvimists had shown no compunction about injuring their captives, and he wanted to arrive at the tower conscious and alert. Feeling as stiff as a board, he accepted Holly's help getting to his feet, but once standing, he found he could move without pain. Together bard and paladin walked alongside the soldier's horse as she followed her unit down into the vale. They crossed a stream, and Holly and Joel, unmounted, were expected to endure the chill water seeping into their boots. The party followed the stream for some distance before coming to a trail that led up to the tower.

As they climbed the hill, Joel could pick out people on the roof of the tower throwing rocks down on the Banite ship. It was only when the hulking ship's battering ram broke off and its hull rocked perilously close to tipping over that Joel realized the rocks were boulders, and the people on the roof throwing the missiles were giants.

Whoever controlled the Banite ship apparently chose retreat over obliteration. The vessel turned about in place, then floated westward, still appearing majestic despite its damage.

Their captors laughed at the ship and continued up the trail toward the tower, which squatted on the hilltop like a massive spider. A hundred yards beyond the tower lay the edge of the great Border Forest, which, according to Holly, the Zhentarim plundered for the lumber and burned down for the land.

The fortress itself Joel estimated to be three hundred feet square and a hundred feet high. Its black granite block walls were broken only by a series of arrow slits The mortar seaming the granite blocks was the color of dried blood and gleamed in the light of the setting sun like burning coals.

It was the Temple in the Sky, however, that impressed Joel more. A great chain fastened it to the roof of the tower, as if it might float off like a dandelion seed were it not moored, yet its mass was even greater than the tower. The impression Joel had earlier that it resembled a great hornet's nest was strengthened when a flying creature issued from a hole at the base of the rock and darted downward like a busy insect. The creature had the hindquarters of a lion and the wings, head, and claws of a massive eagle. Joel watched it with fascination. Although he'd never seen one before, he realized it was a griffon, a dangerous carnivore which, according to lore, could be trained as a mount if raised from a hatch-ling. The griffon settled on the roof of the tower, and a red-cloaked rider dismounted from its back.