"Why didn't Ilsensine just keep us and drain us?"

"Have you ever eaten crab?" Jedidiah asked.

Joel looked completely confused by the question.

"Some people enjoy cracking the crab and getting the meat piece by laborious piece. Ilsensine prefers to have the crab shell itself and hand its meat over. Just one of its sick games. Not one you want to play, believe me."

"Do you know what song it took? Did it take only one?"

"I can't remember," Jedidiah said, his face drawn. "I can feel there's a void, but I don't know what was there."

Joel nodded. "I'm sorry. I know how you feel about your songs. They're like your children. You want them to live and flourish. Now one of them is gone forever."

Jedidiah looked out across the plain toward the Palace of Judgment. A look of grief swept across his face. "It wouldn't be the first time," he said. He stood up awkwardly. "Let's go," he said.

Fourteen

After so much time in the wilderness, the crush of humanity approaching the Palace of Judgment was jarring. A steady stream of travelers moved along the paved road toward the palace gates. They all seemed to be traveling on foot. Some were empty-handed, while others carried small sacks of food and belongings. They were all pale, like ghosts. Almost all had dark hair and unusual eyes. There was no traffic headed in the opposite direction. "They look like the Tuigan Horde," Joel joked. "Not so loud," Jedidiah admonished him. "These are the dead of Kara-Tur. The Tuigans invaded their lands as well. Comparisons between the two peoples would be considered a grave insult. The Kara-Tur consider the Tuigans barbarians. Of course, the Kara-Tur consider all outsiders to be barbarians, from the king of Cormyr to the sage of Shadowdale."

They stepped into the stream of traffic and approached the gate amongst the orderly dead. Standing to one side of the gate, outside the walls, stood one of the living. Walinda of Bane was examining each traveler who approached the gates. The two living priests stood out among the crowd, and the priestess recognized them only a moment after they spotted her. She hurried toward them.

"My master said you would arrive soon," the priestess said as she took a place beside them on the road.

On one hand, Joel was relieved to see that the priestess hadn't gotten to Sigil before them. On the other hand, he wasn't about to forgive her for abandoning them. "What are you doing here?" the bard asked. "Did the banelich kick you out of his chariot?"

"My master has gone on to the astral plane to search for Bane's body," the priestess replied coolly. "In the meantime, I have been instructed to oversee the hand's recovery."

"You left us behind in Ilsensine's realm," Joel accused her.

"What difference does it make? You escaped. You are alive and unscathed, as far as I can see."

"No thanks to you," Joel retorted.

"And I escaped from the Temple in the Sky without your help," Walinda reminded him.

Joel was silenced.

"But you can't get into the palace without our help, can you?" Jedidiah taunted. "I guess I forgot to mention that entry to living creatures is rather restricted."

Walinda's face reddened, and she glared coldly at Jedidiah.

Like a dramatic tour guide, Jedidiah waved his arm to indicate the palace. "All the dead of Kara-Tur," the priest explained, "come here to be judged by the Celestial Bureaucracy and sent on to the plane for which the deeds and misdeeds of their lives suited them. That's why there are gates to every plane here. It is also a place of great order. All who serve within report to a bureaucrat, who in turn reports to a higher bureaucrat, who reports to an even higher bureaucrat, who reports to Yen-Wang-Yeh, Illustrious Magistrate of the Dead, the sole ruling power here. His law is enforced by General Pien and his army of men-shen and go-zu-oni. The gods of Kara-Tur, good or evil, orderly or chaotic, and all those in between rely on this part of the Celestial Bureaucracy to provide them with the inhabitants of their realms. Not one would dare disrupt the business that takes place here. So the palace is also a place where powers and their ambassadors can meet to parlay and exchange prisoners. The powers of other pantheons also meet here, knowing that General Pien and his forces would instantly squelch any disorder." "If my master had a fortress such as this, plus all these dead at his command," Walinda said, "he could rule the Realms."

"So could Yen-Wang-Yeh," Jedidiah replied. "But there is nothing in the Realms he desires. All the gods of the Kara-Tur, even the evil and chaotic ones, have a place in the Celestial Bureaucracy and duties to perform. To step out of one's place, to fail in one's duty, would bring dishonor."

"What is dishonor when one has power?" Walinda declared.

"Of course," Jedidiah replied, "if your master had Yen-Wang-Yeh's position and his honor wasn't enough to keep him performing his assigned duties, it would all be over at the end of the year. The Celestial Emperor would call on him to make his report, judge him bereft of his duties, and boot him out. Someone else would be assigned to his position. Your master would be without a job… Well, here we are."

They'd reached the iron gate in the wall surrounding the palace. The gate stood wide open, but standing in the gateway, serving as guards, were a number of fearsome, bull-headed creatures that stood over eight feet tall. Some were orange, some gray, some purple. They wore polished armor and ornate robes and were armed with swords and spears.

"Those are the go-zu-oni," Jedidiah whispered. "Don't ever get them mad at you."

The go-zu-oni guards addressed each arrival in a tongue Joel had never heard and pointed out where they should go. One of the bull-headed creatures stepped in front of Jedidiah and addressed him in short bursts in the same foreign tongue.

Jedidiah bowed low and held out a strip of copper engraved with symbols and characters Joel could not identify.

The go-zu-oni took the strip of metal, examined it briefly, and said something else to Jedidiah, then handed back the strip of metal.

Jedidiah bowed again, then instructed the others, "Follow me."

They stepped through the gate. A few paces inside, beyond the press of the crowd, Jedidiah halted. His companions stopped beside him.

"Lo," Jedidiah said, gesturing with his arm. "The Palace of Judgement."

Joel looked at the scene that lay before them. The palace was the size of a city, with thousands of buildings. Unlike a typical city, everything was orderly. Every building was constructed of red brick and stone, and the people moving between the buildings did so in an orderly fashion. There was bustle, but no pushing or shoving or disturbances. There were throngs of the dead in the entry courtyard waiting to enter different buildings, guarded by the go-zu-oni, yet the spacious courtyard still seemed almost empty. Joel guessed the courtyard could have held more than a few armies. Officials dressed in brightly colored robes carried armfuls of scrolls from building to building. Joel spotted a party of tanar'ri and another of baatezu arguing heatedly, but not fighting. A creature like an elephant standing on its hind legs stood addressing a pair of foxes, who also stood on their hind legs. Everything about the scene suggested duty and harmony. Joel stood in silent awe.

"Have we stopped for a reason?" Walinda asked.

Jedidiah chuckled. "No. No reason. Let's go, Joel." The older priest led them across the courtyard to the far right. They climbed a stair, passed through the archway of a building, and came out beneath an archway on the other side. Then they descended another set of stairs into a smaller courtyard. There, across the courtyard, stood a building with four staircases leading up to four arched doorways. Intelligent beings stood in four separate lines leading from the doorways, down the stairs, and out into the courtyard. Most of the beings were human, but there were many nonhumans as well, from centaurlike creatures with ram's horns on their heads to odd creatures that looked like metallic boxes with legs. Some of the beings chatted amicably with others in line, some slouched or griped impatiently, while still others stared straight ahead with blank expressions.