by Kate Novak
The ship’s bow came down, pitched forward slightly, then leveled off again. Joel pulled himself shakily to his feet and made his way back to Jedidiah’s side, clinging to the rail like a seasick novice. The tusk throne in which Walinda sat must have been fastened to the deck, for it remained upright. The priestess clung to the chair’s armrests, looking startled.
“What was that?” Joel asked.
Jedidiah pointed back toward the magical gate. While it had been perfectly perpendicular to the ground back in the desert, here it had tilted backward forty-five degrees, so they had entered the Outlands at a steep angle in relation to the earth.
“That explains the sand,” Jedidiah muttered.
“What?” Joel asked.
“The sand burying the gate back in the desert,” the older priest explained. “It should have spilled out onto this side of the gate, blocking our entrance into this plane, but the way the gate is tilted on this side, any sand that passes through it falls right back to the other side.”
“How did the gate get tipped like that?” Joel wondered.
“Judging from the land about us,” Jedidiah replied, “I’d say it’s the natural state of things.”
Joel surveyed the world he’d just entered. “The natural state of things” seemed to be quite unnatural. It was as if some god had strewn the geographical features about at random. Tall, spindly mountains rose from perfectly level plains without a hint of a foothill about them. A stone ledge, wider than the base of the peak it surrounded, jutted out like a shelf mushroom on a tree. Several peaks bent over and downward, like trees growing on a windy slope. Rivers originating from nowhere meandered about and ended without outlet; one stream even circled back on itself. Lakes dotted mountain plateaus. A swamp grew out of a hillside. Fields had been tilled in serpentine squiggles. Trees were planted to spell out entire lines of unknown script.
The colors of the land were unusual as well—pale and indistinct. When Joel focused on any one feature of the landscape, its color seemed to blur with the background.
“Painted by a mad and myopic god with a muddy palette,” Jedidiah joked. “Or maybe it’s just faded from a thousand too many launderings, eh?”
Walinda, who had joined the priests at the railing, soon turned away, looking disturbed. “It’s horrible,” she said.
“It’s not that bad,” Joel replied.
“There is no order, no reason,” Walinda insisted.
“But it’s so interesting, so … wild,” Joel argued.
“Forget it, Joel,” Jedidiah said. “You’ll never get a Banite to appreciate the beauty of chaos.”
“It’s a beautiful sky,” Joel pointed out to the priestess. “Bright and blue.”
“There’s no sun,” Walinda said. “It’s broad daylight, yet there is no sun.”
Joel searched the sky and the horizon carefully. Far off in the distance, a great brown spire rose from the horizon, reaching so far into the sky that clouds obscured its summit. But Walinda was right. There was no sun.
“Well, the air is good,” Joel said. Indeed the air felt fresh, as if it had just been created and never breathed before by any other living creature. It made his skin tingle. At first he thought he was just noting the difference between the hot, dry air of the desert and the cool, moist air of the Outlands, but the sensation persisted. There was a vitality to this plane he could sense.
Walinda shrugged, indifferent to the air. “My lord Bane said there are gods who make their homes here. Why would they choose such a place?” she asked.
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Jedidiah said, winking at Joel. “In this case, the beholder would be Gzemnid, god of the eye tyrants. He makes his home in this plane. Judging from the chaotic landscape, I’d guess we’re not too far from his realm. Other parts of this plane are very different. All the outer planes have at least one gate leading to the Outlands. The area surrounding each gate takes on characteristics of the plane to which it leads. For instance, in the far-off city of Rigus, there’s a gate to Acheron, where your lord Bane made his home before he became a corpse floating in the astral plane. Everyone in Rigus has a rank: slave soldier, citizen, private, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, general. You’d feel right at home.”
The ship drifted downward, settling in a rocky field where the ground was ridged and uneven, like a frozen, choppy sea.
The banelich came out of the cabin and walked toward the bow. It stopped at the railing and flung one skeletal arm in the direction of the great spire that rose beyond the horizon. “Lo!” it bellowed.
“Hello, yourself,” Jedidiah replied with a grin.
The banelich ignored the taunt. “There,” the creature announced, “is our goal. Upon that peak rests the city of Sigil, wherein is hid the Hand of Bane. We will besiege the city to reclaim what is mine, and with it, my power.”
As if on cue, the clouds about the spire drifted outward, revealing the spire’s summit. Floating above the summit was a huge circular ring.
Jedidiah guffawed.
The banelich frowned and wheeled about to face the priest.
Jedidiah continued to laugh, long and hard, clutching his side.
“I said nothing amusing,” the banelich declared coldly.
Jedidiah took a few deep breaths and managed to control himself. He wiped a tear from one eye. He had to stifle one last giggle before he finally became serious once more. “No,” he replied at last. “Of course you didn’t say anything amusing. I was laughing at your folly.”
Walinda glared at Jedidiah as her master kept a stony silence.
“I don’t suppose you’d care for the benefit of my counsel?” Jedidiah asked.
“Proceed,” the banelich ordered.
“There are so many things wrong with your plan, I hardly know where to begin,” Jedidiah said. “I suppose we could start with the least of the problems. Sigil is called the City of Doors because everyone comes and goes by magical portals. There are hundreds of them. You can’t besiege a city unless you can cover all those doors. Next, the population of Sigil is at least twice that of Waterdeep, with ten times the number of powerful beings. At least. Not even you could conquer a city that size. You’d be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people who would stand against you. Then there’s the mazes. Anyone considered a serious threat to the peace and security of the city finds himself trapped in a maze and shipped deep into the ethereal plane.”
The banelich nodded. “So we need to approach the city by stealth, after dark,” he said, “and search for the Hand of Bane in secret.”
“Well, that’s another one of your problems,” Jedidiah said. “You can’t approach the city at all.”
“What lies you speak!” Walinda snapped angrily. “The city is right there,” she said, motioning to the torus above the spire. “We can see it directly ahead of us. We simply head for it.” She looked at her master for approval, but the banelich remained silent, waiting for Jedidiah to explain himself.
“Just because you can see it doesn’t mean you can reach it,” Jedidiah said. “Some scholars say the spire is infinitely high and the city is merely a mirage, a projection of the real city over the spire. Other scholars claim you do indeed see the city, but magic cast on the spire limits your travel upward by half the distance between yourself and the city, so that you can go halfway, then three quarters of the way, then seven eighths of the way, then fifteen sixteenths of the way, and so forth. But no matter how close you come, you never actually get there.”
Walinda’s expression became confused for a moment, then she shook herself, and her angry expression returned. “You are babbling philosophical nonsense. My lord Bane, why do you allow this fool to continue?”
“You’re free to fly there and test what I say,” Jedidiah said to the priestess with a sly grin.
“We shall!” Walinda insisted.
“Though this ship and your master are likely to fall apart long before we even get close. The closer one gets to the spire, the more magica
l powers fail. As we approach, our most powerful magic will be neutralized first. I recommend we don’t fly too high, because at some indeterminable point, the spelljammer’s helm will cease to function. Still farther in, the most powerful spells granted by the gods to their priests shut down. That would include, I suspect, the forces that animate baneliches. You’d be reduced to a pile of bones and ragged flesh. Closer in than that, minor gods cannot use their power. At the base of the spire, there is no magic whatsoever. No heal spells, no light spells. No god’s power works; not even Bane at his height could wield power there.”
The banelich remained silent for several moments. Then he asked Jedidiah, “So how do you propose we enter Sigil?”
“Like everyone else does … via a portal. We make our way toward the Palace of Judgment, where I have some modest contacts who can arrange for us to use one of their portals. If we are where I think we are, not far from the city of Bedlam, we can reach the palace by keeping the spire on our starboard bow.”
“For how long?” the banelich asked.
Jedidiah shrugged. “For as long as it takes. It’s impossible to judge something like that in this plane. It could be a few days, or it could take a month. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we’ll get there.”
The banelich studied Jedidiah in silence for several long moments, as if trying to detect any hints of treachery or falsehood. At last he nodded. “We will attempt entering Sigil your way.” He turned to head back to the cabin. Walinda followed behind him.
“Oh, there’s just one more thing,” Jedidiah called out.
The banelich turned and waited for Jedidiah to continue.
“You know you probably can’t enter Sigil with us.”
The banelich drew back as if it had been slapped.
“No gods can enter, remember? Some great power prohibits the entry of all gods. I’m willing to bet that holds true for a god’s essence as well. You won’t be able to pass through the portal.”
“I had not forgotten,” the banelich replied coolly. “My slave will act on my behalf and oversee the recovery of the hand.”
“But, my lord,” Walinda protested, “if I leave you—”
The banelich whirled with its skeletal arm raised as if to deliver a blow to his priestess. Walinda winced involuntarily and said nothing more. The banelich turned and strode back into the cabin. Walinda hesitated on the deck, obviously uncertain whether her god would welcome her presence.
“For the essence of a god, your lord seems pretty uninformed,” Jedidiah noted. “It’s common knowledge among travelers of the planes that you can’t enter Sigil except by means of a portal. You know, it seemed to me your master forgot it couldn’t come with us, too. I wonder if some of the magic holding it together isn’t already being neutralized.”
Walinda turned and scowled at the older priest. “Perhaps my lord was just testing you,” she retorted. Then she hurried after the banelich.
The ship rose a few feet from the ground and glided in the direction Jedidiah had suggested.
“So does this mean you can’t get into Sigil either?” Joel whispered.
“Not as I am,” Jedidiah said. “But I think there’s a trick I might be able to use to get in. It’s reckless, but it just might work.”
According to Grypht, Joel recalled, recklessness was Jedidiah’s other major fault. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you later, when we can be sure of our privacy,” Jedidiah promised.
The rest of that day Joel spent at the ship’s rail, amazed by the geological oddities that made up the landscape—vertically stratified rocks resembling tomes on a wizard’s shelf, a lake filled with multicolored geysers, a hand carved of granite rising from the earth. Clouds of all colors formed out of nowhere and disappeared just as mysteriously. Although there was no sun to set, night came on gradually, the blue sky darkening to indigo, then black. No moon or stars shone in the darkness, but the land seemed to glow with its own pale light.
Sometime after dark, Jedidiah pulled out the finder’s stone and held it out. A beacon of light shot out from the stone in a direction a few degrees to the left of their current heading.
“We’re a little off course, but nothing that can’t be corrected in the morning. Time to get some sleep.”
If not for the ship being a shrine to Bane and the task that awaited them, Joel might have found the next two days of travel almost pleasant. The cruise was smooth, and he and Jedidiah had plenty of leisure time. When they weren’t eating or sleeping, they watched the scenery, practiced spells, sang, or talked.
Except for checking up on them several times a day, the priestess avoided the two men. At first Joel felt relieved that Walinda was no longer showing any interest in him, but that left him to wonder why. Was the banelich forbidding her to communicate with the men as punishment, or perhaps out of fear that she might grow too close to them and betray her master? If keeping her distance was Walinda’s idea, what did she hope to accomplish? Was she punishing herself? Was she hoping to prove her loyalty and thus curry the favor of her master?
The banelich had given them the run of the ship, save for the captain’s chart room where the creature usually stayed and the crew quarters where Walinda slept. According to Jas, whom Jedidiah had questioned in the Lost Vale, the upper decks had been sheered off when Jas and her crew were escaping from the illithids. Joel explored all that was left of the ship—the lower deck, the cargo hold, and the roofless battle deck. Everything of value had been stripped away, no doubt by Walinda’s followers. It was during their second night in the Outlands, while he was poking around the ruined battle deck, that Joel discovered the spy hole.
There was a square of floorboards that was cleaner than the rest of the deck, as if someone had pried up a bench or a storage box. In the center of the square, a bottle cork filled an eye-sized knothole in a floorboard. Curious, Joel pulled at the cork. Beneath the knothole, someone had drilled through the subflooring and the ceiling of the cabin below. Cautiously Joel got down on his stomach and put his eye to the hole.
Some mechanism or magic gave the bard a panoramic view of the whole room below. He found himself staring into the captain’s map room, where the banelich sat in state on a throne of iron and silver. From his discussions with Jedidiah, Joel realized that the throne had to be the ship’s spelljamming helm, the magical artifact used to power the ship. The banelich looked up at the ceiling, seemingly straight at Joel.
With a sharp intake of breath, Joel pulled away from the hole and froze. After a few moments’ thought, Joel realized the undead creature couldn’t possibly have seen him. He peered back down the spy hole.
The banelich held the stolen half of the finder’s stone in its lap, stroking the yellow gemstone greedily. The gem sparkled in the light given off from a nearby brazier.
Walinda stepped forward. The priestess wore the same black velvet gown she’d worn the night she’d stolen the finder’s stone. Her hair hung down her back, loose and shining. She set a golden bowl down in the brazier. The banelich set the finder’s stone in the bowl. Walinda rolled up the sleeve of her left arm.
Taking the priestess’s arm, the banelich ran its fingertips along her veins. Black marks appeared where the banelich touched her. Walinda winced and clenched her teeth, but she didn’t utter a sound. Like a snake striking out, the banelich sunk its teeth into Walinda’s wrist and tightened its jaws into her flesh until blood began to flow from her arm. Walinda’s body jerked, but once again she didn’t make a sound.
The lich sat up straight again, licking the blood from its teeth with its black tongue. It held Walinda’s bleeding arm over the golden bowl in the brazier. Walinda’s blood poured over the finder’s stone and hissed in the bottom of the warmed bowl. The bowl began to fill with bubbling, congealing blood. Joel thought he could smell the stench through the floorboards, though it could have been his sickened imagination.
Walinda began to swoon. The banelich released her arm. The priestess sank to the
floor and collapsed in a heap.
The banelich fished the finder’s stone out of the blood-filled bowl and positioned the gem back into the hole in its skull. With both hands, the undead creature smeared the congealing blood over the stone and his skull. The blood began to glow. When the banelich had finished, new flesh appeared around the hole in its skull, and the finder’s stone was covered with a transparent layer of skin that held it more firmly in place.
Joel rolled away from the hole as quickly and silently as possible. He crawled toward the stern. Just past the cargo bay, he began retching. When he’d once again regained control of his stomach, Joel crawled back down the steps to the lower deck, where he and Jedidiah had set up their quarters.
Jedidiah listened with consternation to Joel’s report.
“The banelich means to keep the stone, doesn’t it?” Joel asked.
“Probably,” Jedidiah agreed. “No doubt Walinda and her master intend some treachery to get the Hand of Bane from us once we’ve obtained it so they don’t have to trade for it.”
“What can we do?” Joel asked.
“Nothing for the moment,” Jedidiah replied, scowling angrily. “After we get the hand, we’ll have to be very, very careful.”
Early the following evening Joel began to notice a buzzing in his head. He couldn’t say for sure how long he’d been hearing it, but it was beginning to give him a headache. He mentioned it to Jedidiah when he explained he was going to bed early.
Jedidiah began to say good night, then stopped and his eyes widened. “Gods! I’m an idiot,” he declared. “Get below deck,” he ordered Joel as he wheeled about and headed for the cabin, shouting Walinda’s name.
Joel grabbed his pack and followed his god into the cabin. He heard Jedidiah shouting, “Hard aport. And pick up speed if you can. We’ve come too close to a very dangerous place.”