Holy Opposites 28

	“Well, I was hoping you could tell me what the progress of the Skullport project would be,” Axio said.  The Promenade had fallen in the aftermath of the War of the Spider Queen, but Axio knew that small teams of Seldarine-worshippers and Oghmites had been covertly clearing it out on excursions to the region, ever since Eilistraee and her brother had been re-built from their Weave patterns after the Spellplague ended.

	Luanea tsked.  “Axio, now… you know I can’t really say unless you’re there in person,” she said cautiously.  “I love you like a dear friend, but some things are simply too secret.  Why do you ask?”

	“We may be going there soon,” Axio said bluntly.  He sank into his deep cushion as Dessa sprang into his lap.  “Oof!  Hi there,” he said, dislodging the garrulous child who had nearly landed on his sheathed blade.  “Careful, Dessa, I’m armed.”

	“Huh?  What are you going around with a sword for?” Dessa asked, rolling away and staring at his weapon.

	“Because there’s a cult of Bane active in the city, and I can’t be too careful.”  Axio lifted her back up and settled her back down in his lap in a safer spot.  “There you are.”

	She snuggled back against him and wrapped one massive arm around herself.  “So why are you going to Skullport?”

	“Because part of the cult of Bane is active in Undermountain also,” Axio said gravely.  “I may be going there to fight, and soon.”

	“Wow.”

	Luanea simply looked worried.  “Oh, I see,” she said softly.  “Well, that’s bad.  Yes, I suppose I can relay that Skullport is still horrible, that’s no secret.”

	Axio smiled wistfully.  “I’m not surprised.  We may have to go down there, that’s all.  My contacts in the Watch tell me that the cult of Bane was using a sending circle connected to the upper levels of Undermountain.”

	“Well… I can tell you that the Promenade is in no shape to receive visitors for the long term,” Luanea counseled.  “The Port itself may be in better shape.  You may want to find another entrance, though.  A powerful Beholder has taken over the Port, and is using it in their enslavement efforts.”

	Axio rubbed his eyes with his free hand.  Dessa looked up at him in concern.  “I see.”  He looked over at the priestess and nodded gravely.  “Then we go in with care.  Skullport can get us right onto the third level of the Undermountain complex; we can bypass the upper levels entirely.”

	Luanea looked distressed.  “Perhaps I should go with you,” she said.  “The path to Undermountain is a long and dangerous one, filled with monsters from Halaster’s labs.  I won’t be of much good in the city until my temple is finished, and you may need help bypassing the traps we mapped out.”

	Dessa wriggled free of the arm she had been using as a seat belt.  “No!  Luanea, you can’t leave!” she said in distress.  Her wide silver eyes flashed with worry.

	“You won’t be alone, sweetheart,” Luanea said soothingly.  “The other priestesses and the priests will look after you.”

	“But…” Dessa said unhappily.

	Axio cleared his throat.  “I don’t want to drag you away from your duties here,” he said awkwardly, though internally he was relieved.  Three was better than two, when it came to adventuring.  “But, if you’re offering, I would be happy to have you.”

	Luanea nodded.  “I would be honored.”


Chapter Twenty:


	Toller hid a frown as he endured his colleague’s lecturing.  “Of course, your little side operation was clever,” the other priest said, as if it were the height of magnanimity.  “It might have even worked if not for Greenpath’s loose lips.”

	“I honestly can’t blame him for talking,” Toller said flatly.  “The Paladin they sent is a monster.  He probably scared Greenpath out of his mind.”

	The old human cleric across the table from him looked at him over his spectacles, devoid of emotion.  “And does that forgive his trespass?”

	“No.”

	“How about yours?”

	Toller glared at the other cleric.  “I haven’t committed one, sir.”

	Darius Vorthane looked up at Toller with a hint of anger stealing in under his expression.  “We shall see, shan’t we?  For now, the Church of Ryaire is onto us, the Guard has destroyed two of your side depots, they’ve reclaimed hundreds of children, and lest we forget, captured your second-in-command.  Would you say that half our plan being jeopardized by your actions constitutes trespass?”

	Toller’s fists clenched.  “No.”

	Vorthane smiled thinly.  “We shall see,” he repeated.  He stood behind his desk, and Toller felt his blood chill a bit.  Vorthane may have been old, but he was no weakling.  His might and connection to the will of Bane surpassed Toller’s by a great deal.  Toller knew better than to push his advantage.  “Now, brother,” he said, putting a bit of stress on ‘now,’ “I want you to return to the fold, and do the work of Hate.  This time, I trust you will invest perhaps somewhat less of your own time in the… super-jurisdictional activities.”  Darkness flared over the candles of the room as his anger seeped through.  Toller felt pressure against his mind as Vorthane let his building hate show visibly.

	Toller did not like being told not to pursue his ambitions.  He did not like to be told he was not doing the work of Hate.  Being told he was insubordinate and incautious was something he did not enjoy at all.

	“Yes, sir,” he said, and he turned on his heel and walked out without one more word.

	The door shut behind him, and he ground his teeth.  He certainly, utterly, absolutely, definitely did not like Darius Vorthane.  But that room… that altar, sacrificial chamber, laboratory, and armory all in one, was his lair, his place of power.  Half the objects in it were magical, at least one he suspected to be psionic.  There would be no challenging him there.  No.  That would be elsewhere.  It would come later.

	Much later, now.  He felt his shoulders sag as the enormity of the loss he had just suffered weighed him down for a long moment.  A year and a half of hard work.  Thousands of gold pieces.  Two whole properties.  Five loyal minions.  An entire rookery, and worst of all, nearly four hundred children’s souls.

	Damn it all.  Damn the Paladins.  Damn them to the Hells.


	Vorthane looked through the two-way mirror that comprised his sanctum’s door and watched his subordinate fume.  Toller was a man at odds with his own nature, and that made him hard to control.  He was prone to disruptive conduct and mood swings, and his love of killing was perhaps a shade too large for a man whose soul was supposed to be devoted only to Hate, glorious Hate.  Conflict breeds maturity and hierarchy, and Toller lacked the former and sought to claim the latter.

	Nevertheless, he wasn’t stupid.  No, Bastienne Toller was not stupid.  He would wait.  As long as he felt some profit was to gain in the current ritual’s preparations, he would be loyal.

	Vorthane watched Toller storm down the long, stone hallway into the general portion of the church.  When he was out of sight, Vorthane turned his seat to face the long, black crystal embedded in his office wall.  He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, staring deep into the crystal’s depths from thirty feet away.  It had always been beautiful, but now it was in its proper place, embedded in the wall of the church he had labored sixty years to find.

	He rose from his seat and walked over to the wall, looking into the crystal.  It was a single piece of stone, about forty pounds, and polished to a mirrored sheen.  It had been a gift from Bane, he had always thought, though his god had never confirmed it outright.  He had bathed it in the blood waters of the Rift, he had shined it by the lightning-gleam of the Banehold, and he had used it as a focus of his admittedly meager psychic power since he had discovered that by accident in his youth.

	Now, it was the centerpiece of his own, private hold in the greater Church of Hate.

	He knelt by the stone with some effort and pondered.  Meditation soothed his psychic headaches, and it helped him plan.  He had stayed ahead of the probing lances of the Triad and the Seldarine for sixty years, thanks to his meditations.  How, then, to best make use of Toller’s failures?

	Toller had blown the cover of the operation.  That much was clear.  Ryaire was moving openly against him, and her master Ilmater wouldn’t be far.  Where that crippled fool went, Helm, Tyr, and Torm would be quick to follow.  No, this was bad, undeniably bad.  Vorthane, however, had not attained his position as fifth in command of the entire Cult of Hate by failing to exploit the upsides of his church’s losses.  Not even Bane’s death during the Avatar Crisis and the rise of Xvim and Cyric had spoiled his trust in his god.  With Bane’s resurrection, the Cult of Hate had returned as strong as ever.

	But what to do now?  He was not sure.  Bane would not tell him; he didn’t even bother asking.  Bane preferred to work through agents, and who blamed him?  Seeding strife was not always easy, but it did take omnipresence.  Vorthane did not feel in one way abandoned for his master’s relative lack of attention.

	Attention… yes, perhaps that was it, Vorthane mused.  The attention of the forces of law and the like would surely be on him now.  Perhaps… perhaps Toller would gain a chance to redeem himself.  Perhaps martyr himself.  Yes, there was irony there, and a chance to gain strength back in the face of adversity.  A foe of the God of Martyrs, martyring himself for a master he hated and god who barely cared… that was delicious.  It would work.

	Vorthane would make it work.