After a few minutes Joel got up and began smashing away at the second wall. There was indeed a third wall behind it. Joel began smashing through the third wall before he'd finished dismantling the second.

A single brick fell backward out of the third wall, into darkness.

A cold draft surged out of the hole, stirring up the dust on the basement floor.

"I think we're through," Joel said.

Jedidiah picked up the light stone and went to Joel's side. He peered through the hole with the light stone held up beside his eye.

"Looks like a passage leading down," the older man said. "Let's make sure we clear away enough stone so we can make a hasty exit should it be required."

They finished clearing away the second wall, then smashed at the third. The sound of the falling bricks echoed back at them, indicating a large room lay somewhere beyond. When they had cleared away the last of the bricks, a stone staircase of black granite yawned before them. Joel pulled out the finder's stone. The beacon pointed down the staircase.

"This is it," Jedidiah said, setting aside the pickax.

Joel leaned the sledgehammer against the wall.

Together the two men drew their swords and descended into the darkness below. Jedidiah held the light stone, Joel the finder's stone. They pushed aside the bricks that had fallen onto the steps. The stairs led to an arched passageway, which ran straight back toward a red glow.

They walked along the passageway side by side. Shiny black tiles covered the passage wall. Their surface appeared bubbly, like tar, but closer inspection revealed that each tile was a bas-relief carving depicting a different human face, each face screaming in silent, eternal pain.

"A motif only a Banite could love," Jedidiah muttered.

After thirty paces, the passageway opened into a huge circular room, its ceiling vaulted, its floor shaped like a bowl. Around the edges of the room, six braziers glowed with red light. Joel examined the two nearest the entry. They were filled with magically glowing light stones covered with a red oil. In the center of the room was an altar and a statue carved out of black granite. Both were polished to a high luster, which reflected back the red light.

The statue, a human-shaped creature, sat cross-legged on the altar. Its open mouth was filled with sharp teeth, and great horns protruded over its pointed ears. Two black gems sparkled in its earlobes, while another glittered from its forehead. A fourth, even larger, gem shone from a pendant on the statue's chest. Its hands were positioned in ritual signs Joel did not recognize. The face was smooth and youthful, and the flesh well muscled. It wore nothing but a loincloth.

"Is that Bane?" the Rebel Bard asked in a whisper. His voice echoed about the room.

"Probably some avatar he sent to some culture outside the Realms," Jedidiah said. "Handsome, but not the suave, sophisticated Bane we're used to, is he?"

Lying on the altar in front of the seated idol was a clawed hand the size of an ogre's paw, carved from obsidian. The hand's ebony fingers curled upwards. Its fingernails were carved from red garnets. Someone, as an afterthought to the artist's rendition, had studded the hand with diamonds. They gave the hand an odd look, as if it had the pox.

Jedidiah dropped to his knees to look under the hand to ascertain that it wasn't resting on a trap or a hidden device. He and Joel exchanged looks. Jedidiah took a deep breath, then picked up the hand.

Nothing happened. No thunderbolts crashed through the vaulted ceiling. No secret traps caused the floor to swing open. No monsters leapt from hidden alcoves. Jedidiah nodded at Joel and exhaled.

Then the hand began to steam.

A thick white fog enveloped the carving and slithered away from the hand like a snake, wrapping around the intruders and the altar. The vapors carried the stench of decaying flesh. Hastily Jedidiah covered his mouth and nose and tossed the hand back onto the top of the altar. The fog continued to pour from the hand and began to fill the bottom of the bowl-shaped room.

With a start, Joel saw the stone idol's fingers begin to move.

"Jedidiah," the young bard whispered, pointing to the flexing digits. A moment later the arms swayed upward and stretched outward. Then, with a crack that echoed about the room, the statue's eyelids snapped open. Red fire blazed from the statue's eyes.

"This could be trouble," Joel noted.

"Big trouble," Jedidiah agreed as both men backed away from the altar toward the exit.

Something hissed behind them, and the light of the finder's stone flared brightly. Joel whirled about as Jedidiah remained facing the idol of Bane. From the braziers around the room's perimeter, steam had risen and coalesced into corporeal forms. Standing over each brazier was a creature much like the statue, with fangs and horns and pointed ears. Yet unlike the statue, they were not young and fair but ancient and decayed. Their eyes looked blank and dead. The flesh about their faces was withered and desiccated, and beneath their necks they were nothing but skeletons. Each was armed with a bone white saw-toothed blade. Two of them already blocked the exit, while the other four were moving around the room's perimeter to join them.

Joel cast a glance over his shoulder. The idol of Bane had risen to its feet. It stood twice as high as a man, its head nearly touching the room's vaulted ceiling. While it moved slowly, this was no clockwork creature or golem. Its movements were neither clunky nor plodding but fluid and graceful. It was a stone warrior, powered by the hatred of an evil dead god and all his dead followers.

"I'll handle the big guy if you can take care of the six little ones," Jedidiah joked grimly.

"Oh, sure," Joel replied, amazed by the older man's bravado in the face of such overwhelming odds. Was it possible, Joel wondered, that Jedidiah had forgotten he was no longer immortal?

The young bard looked back at the skeletons. They made no movement to initiate combat, but instead merely blocked the entrance. With a flash of insight, the young priest realized that was their job. The privilege of killing any intruders belonged to the statue.

Joel climbed the sloping floor to meet the skeletons. Like the statue, the undead creatures were slow but graceful. Joel wondered if that was part of the magic that made them or if that was the way they'd been in life. The skeletons had the high ground, but that wasn't exactly to the bard's disadvantage. He swung at the lower half of the first skeleton's legs.

His blade smashed through the bones as if they were dried kindling. The undead creature fell to the ground and slid to the altar in the center of the room.

The second skeleton slashed its jagged blade across Joel's arm, tearing the fabric of the bard's shirtsleeve but fortunately missing his flesh. Joel tried the leg-breaking trick again, but this skeleton leapt upward with an unnatural grace, avoiding the bard's sweeping attack. As it came down, it sliced at Joel's left shoulder with its saw-toothed blade. Joel could feel heat and pain radiating down his arm. The bard swung his sword backhanded, slicing through the vertebrae of the skeleton's backbone. The undead monster fell in two halves to the ground. Its bones slid down the curved floor to the base of the altar as the first skeletal guardian's had done.

Two more skeletons stood in the doorway, flanked by the last pair. Joel turned halfway to check on Jedidiah's progress. The bard was engaged in a hide-and-seek game around the altar, dodging the statue's stone fists. The older bard managed to slice at the idol with his sword, but the blade did not penetrate, leaving only a powdery white scratch on the granite hide. Joel thought of the sledgehammer sitting uselessly up in Dits's basement.