Holly woke Jas for the second watch. Joel was considering taking Jedidiah's watch so the old man could sleep, but the elderly priest woke on his own, looking far more fresh and alert than Joel. The young bard settled down near Holly. Despite the howling, Joel felt completely safe with Jedidiah on watch. He wondered if his trust in the old man wasn't a little childish, but then he remembered how Bear had claimed to sense so much power in "the fourth one." The young bard fell asleep within minutes.

Joel dreamed it was dawn. The sky grew as red as blood, and the sun crested the horizon, burning with white flame. The sun rushed toward him, then passed him, knocking him to his knees with a blast of hot wind. When he looked up again, Holly's form was a black silhouette against the brilliant, white-hot sun. Although Joel heard nothing, he knew the sun was speaking to the girl.

"Joel, wake up!" Holly cried out, shaking him by the shoulders.

Joel's eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright, expecting to see the unnatural dawn. It was still night. The air was cool. Joel was bathed in sweat, however, as if he'd slept too close to the fire, but the fire was out. Holly appeared to be damp, too.

"What's wrong?" the bard croaked, his throat parched.

Holly mopped her brow with her sleeve. "I had a dream, but I think it was more than that. The sunrise came to me to warn me that something bad is going to happen. I think-I think it was a vision from Lathander," the girl whispered.

Joel shuddered. Having a vision from Finder hadn't seemed too alarming, but having Holly's vision from the god she served-that was disturbing.

"Did the vision give you any more details?" the bard asked, trying to keep calm by analyzing the vision.

"There's evil approaching," the paladin warned. "Great evil."

"Bear?"

Holly shook her head.

"The Zhents? More priests of Xvim?"

"No," the girl replied with more headshakes. "Something evil is coming. Something as cold as death and as dark as a crypt, smelling of dust, so evil it hurt to sense its presence." Joel sighed. Finder's vision had been slightly cryptic, but Lathander's was maddeningly obtuse.

"There was one other thing," Holly said.

"What?" Joel asked eagerly.

"You weren't there. There was death all around, but you were gone."

Joel looked around for Jedidiah, hoping perhaps the old priest would have some insight into what Holly had sensed.

Jas stood lookout near the edge of the bluff, but of Jedidiah there was no sign.

"Jas," Joel called out, "where's Jedidiah?" His question echoed through the hills, a chorus of Joel's inquiring about the old priest.

Jas turned from the bluff and strode back to the campsite.

"You want to shout your question again?" the winged woman growled softly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I don't think they heard you back at the Flaming Tower."

"Where is he?" Joel hissed.

"He walked down into the brush," she answered, tossing her head in the direction of the bushes they'd crawled through to reach the top of the bluff.

"You know he was thinking of trying to lead Bear off our track. How could you let him leave? How could you be so selfish?" he demanded accusingly.

"It was just a call of nature," Jas said, exasperated with the bard's anxiety. "He went down there only a few minutes ago. If he had been gone much longer, I would have wakened you."

Joel huffed. He snatched up his sword and tied it to his belt. "I'm going to check on him," he said to the paladin. "You better stay with Jas."

The young bard scrambled downhill through the brush, righting the urge to shout out for the old priest, praying he was still nearby.

At the base of the hill was a tiny clearing that not too long ago must have been a pond. Cattails swayed about the edges, but the center was solid ground covered with meadow grass. Jedidiah stood in the center of the clearing. Joel sighed with relief, but then he was left to wonder what Jedidiah was up to.

The old priest had stripped to the waist; his shirt and tunic and cloak lay to one side of the clearing. Light flashed from something in his hands. Jedidiah held the object up over his head with both hands. It appeared to be a huge multifaceted yellow gemstone, with a jagged bottom, as if it had been broken from a larger piece. The light from the gem grew, not brighter but larger, turning the meadow grass to a soft golden color.

Jedidiah, too, turned golden. In the light, the priest didn't appear so old. Joel could see the muscles in his arms and chest were not only tense but also well-toned, like those of a much younger man, and his face didn't appear quite so wrinkled.

Jedidiah uttered some words Joel couldn't quite catch, then sang a scale, up and down the notes, over and over again. Steam began pouring from the old priest's body. Then Joel realized the steam had a radiance of its own. Blue light was seeping out of Jedidiah's body. The blue light curled upward, drawn into the yellow stone just as the haze from Walinda's dead followers had been drawn into the statue of Iyachtu Xvim.

Finally Jedidiah ceased singing. He spoke one more word, and the steaming blue light stopped pouring from his body. In another few moments all of it was sucked into the yellow stone. Jedidiah lowered the stone to his chest. The illusion of youth vanished. His face was wrinkled, his muscles sagging, perhaps even more than before. He staggered and fell to one knee.

Joel rushed forward and took the old man's arm to help him rise. Jedidiah looked up, startled, but when he recognized the young bard, he grinned sheepishly. "I'll be fine in a moment," the old man said, grasping the younger man's arm with two thin, bony hands. "What did you do, Jedidiah?" Joel asked. "What is that stone?"

"Just a little sleight of hand," the priest said, allowing Joel to pull him up. "Dark stalkers, transformed hunters like Bear, can only sense living power. So I siphoned a little of it off into this," Jedidiah explained, holding up the stone. "A little gift from Finder."

"It looked like you siphoned a lot of it off," Joel argued. He scooped up the priest's shirt and handed it to him. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Jedidiah nodded, pulling on his shirt, then taking his tunic from the young bard.

Just then Joel heard Holly scream. From the bluff overhead came the sounds of metal striking against metal and shouts of the paladin and the winged woman.

An icy fist gripped Joel's heart, and he recalled Holly's vision. Cursing himself for a fool, he raced back through the brush, shouting for Jedidiah to follow.

The climb up to the bluff in the dark seemed endless to Joel, knowing something threatened his friends. He was puffing by the time he cleared the brush. He pulled the sword from his belt.

Holly must have built up the fire in his absence, for the campsite was illuminated by leaping flames. The paladin and Jas both stood with their backs to the fire, peering out into the darkness. They were both bleeding from small cuts on their arms and faces. Dark shapes lay vanquished at their feet, but many more surrounded them. Joel could see only their silhouettes in the firelight, and he was unable to tell whether the shapes were men or beasts.

The bard gave a shout to distract the creatures. Suddenly a dark form loomed up on his left. Remembering Bear, Joel reacted instinctively, stabbing hard and fast.

His blade sunk deep into the creature's chest. For all the resistance Joel felt, the body might have been an old weathered sack. The blade made a sound like an axe driven into rotten wood. Joel yanked his weapon back, and a taloned hand lashed at his face but missed. Then the creature fell at Joel's feet, nothing more than a collection of ancient, shattered bones encased in sun-dried flesh.

It was a zombie, Joel realized, and the creatures surrounding Holly and Jas were zombies and skeletons. The firelight glinted on blackened bones and yellowish flesh as the undead creatures rallied for another attack. More of the creatures were pulling themselves out of the ground.