"Give us Father Tuubel!"

Teysa fumed. Just sitting here talking to this smiling lunatic was raising her blood pressure. She knew that a light touch was called for, but the sight of the Eel's smirk set something off inside her. She stepped forward and planted her hands on her hips. "We've come for Father Tuubel, Eel. We know you have him. He's a priest of Agamor, a harmless old man. Release him to us and we'll consider the matter settled."

Aliara had turned to Teysa halfway through this declaration with horror in her eyes. "Tey, we can't-" she whispered urgently, but the Eel cut her off. The expression on the drow's face now was one Teysa didn't like one bit. It wasn't bored amusement or furious anger. Instead, she looked calm and crafty. It was the face of someone who knew the value of human life down to the last decimal and was doing profit/loss calculations in her head.

"Ith that all?" the Eel asked. "Why, you thould have athked at onthe. Of courthe you may have him. I'll take you to him now." She snapped again and a quarter of guards stepped forward, humans and dwarves in mismatched chainmail and half-plate. Four more stepped out of the crowd behind Teysa and boxed her in. All of them carried spears, and all of the spears were levelled at her face. She raised her hands slowly while, next to her, Aliara did the same.

The Eel hopped off her throne and slid her feet into silver sandals. Her toes were ringed too, Teysa noticed, and the tops of her feet were lined with studs. The drow set off at a brisk walk and the guards followed behind; Teysa had to keep pace, to avoid being pricked by their speartips. She let her hand start to drift down towards her mace, but a sharp poke between the shoulder blades made her raise it again. Hands up, she and Aliara were escorted through a door in the back wall.

They found themselves in a broad corridor lit by torches along both walls. Servants scurried past bearing plates of food or jugs of wine. They all averted their gaze from the unfortunate captives. The Eel led them along for a few minutes, then turned in to one steel door and held out her hand. The nearest guard handed her a jangling key ring; the keys clinked gently off her rings as she searched for the right one. At last she held it up, inserted it into the lock, and pushed open the door.

The room inside was dim, lit only by the meager torchlight that filtered in from the corridor. Teysa could make out a barred cage that occupied most of the room-- it was set against the far wall and subdivided into three cells, each empty but for a scattering of straw. In the far left cell a figure was hunched up in the corner. It was hard to make out details in the dimness, but it was certainly the right size to be an elderly human.

"Oh Father! We brought you guethtth!" said the Eel in a singsong voice. The figure in the far cell shuddered but did not otherwise move. "Thuit yourthelf," the Eel shrugged, and turned to Teysa. "My guetht here came to me for help a few weekth ago. Jutht like you! I offered quite generouthly to help him with hith financeth in exchange for the uthe of hith building, and he very rudely tried to go back on hith offer. Nobody thwindleth me, underthood?" She stabbed a finger into Teysa's chest. "Tho he'th here until I can recoup my invethtment. Maybe you have ideath. Why don't you keep him company for a while?"

Two of the guards stepped forward and unlocked the other two cells. The others herded Teysa and Aliara apart. The nearest, a human brute with a squashed nose that had been broken and reset too many times, reached down to Teysa's belt to take her mace. His hands went everywhere as he did, and his broken-toothed grin told her that he was enjoying every second of it. She resisted the urge to spit in his face.

Aliara was similarly disarmed, and then the two of them were pushed towards the cells. Teysa eyed the nearest guard's spear, wondering if she could take it, but dismissed the idea. There were seven more, plus the Eel herself, and they looked alert. She allowed herself to be bullied into the cage. The door slammed behind her and the lock clicked. She sat down against the back wall and looked up at the Eel. "There," the drow said. "Now you have plenty of time to talk to each other. I'm thure you have a lot in common. You thould get along famouthly." She turned on her heel and marched out of the room. As the last of her guards followed her, he closed the steel door behind him; the light vanished with it, leaving Teysa in pitch darkness.

She stood up, crossed over to where she thought the boundary between cells was, and reeled as she dashed her forehead against the bars. She sat down hard on the floor and rubbed at her sore head, then spoke into the darkness.

"Father Tuubel? Is that you?"

The voice that answered was frail, but well-projected. Father Tuubel sounded as though he had been a powerful orator in his youth.

"Who asks?"

"My name is Teysa, Father. Of the Order of the Golden Ray. This is-- well, this was supposed to be a rescue, but I'm afraid it's gone wrong. What's happened? Why are you here?"

"Oh, my child," Father Tuubel replied. It sounded as though his voice was getting closer. "I am so sorry that you have been dragged into this. I am a sinner, and I am being punished for my folly."

"What folly?" Teysa thought back to the pots of amberhaze she had found in the church. She had a pretty good idea of Father Tuubel's sin, but she wanted to hear it from the man's lips.

"Pride, what else?" said the old man. Teysa could hear the wry smile in his voice. "I had plans. The new apse, a finer altar... I thought that if we presented a less shabby appearance, we might attract more pilgrims. Lead more people to Agamor's light. So I told myself, anyways."

"Of course, such things cost money, and we didn't have any. In my arrogance, I went looking outside the Church for aid. That drow woman promised to help, if I would allow her to use my Church as a way station." He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was thick with guilt. "Fool that I am, I agreed. I told myself that if it was weapons or... slaves, I would put a stop to it at once. When nothing... untoward happened, I convinced myself that I had made a good bargain. I lied to poor Ansium. I lied to myself."

When he didn't seem to want to continue, Teysa prodded gently. "So you took her money and let her store things in the Church. What happened next?"

"Well, I wondered what exactly I was storing for her. So I looked around in one of the pots. I'm sure you saw what I found. She was storing her poisons in my church! Still, I told myself that it was like... like the incense, I suppose. Not truly wrong. I tried not to think about it, but whenever I went out, I saw them. Those in the thrall of her ****. Those who had lost everything. They came here looking for Agamor's grace to help them clean up their lives, to help free them from the shackles of dependency, but what guidance could I offer them when I was peddling those same shackles? So I came to her to tell her that it was over, that I wanted her filth out of my church. She threw me in here."

By the end of his recitation it sounded as though he were just on the other side of the bars. Teysa tried to imagine what he looked like. The priests from her childhood had all seemed impossibly ancient, like wise old wizards from some storybook. They had just been beards in the sky to young Teysa, fonts of wisdom beyond the ken of a child. All of the adults in her life had deferred to the clergy so automatically that she had seen them as gods themselves.

Eight years in the Abbey had taught her that nobody was infallible, but it was still a shock to hear a priest confess so bluntly. She thought about her own crisis of faith, the fear that had dragged her out here. She struggled for the words to bring it up and couldn't find them. How could she turn to this man to comfort her? It seemed as though he needed her far more than she needed him.

His quavery voice broke the silence. "My daughter... you said you are of the Order of the Golden Ray? Have they sent you to bring me back for trial?"

Teysa shook her head, realized he couldn't see her, and spoke up. "No, Father. My presence here is a... is a coincidence. Ansium was worried about you."

"I see," came the reply from the darkness. "Well, in that case--"

He was interrupted by a metallic clank and the rattle of chains. Thin bars of light appeared high up on the wall. Teysa squinted-- her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and the sudden light was blinding. The beams resolved into shutters that winched open to reveal rows of avid faces. Humans, drow, dwarves, all looking down with eager expressions. At the same time, the far wall of Teysa's cell began to lift into the ceiling. The stonework had just been a facade, she realized, over steel; the wall rose like a castle portcullis, spilling in more light. On the other side of it, Teysa could see a roughly circular sand-floored room with high walls. More people were sitting in tiered rows of seats atop the walls. Teysa's heart sank. She was familiar enough with this setup to know what she was looking at. She had spilled blood in arenas like this before, though the prospect never thrilled her. Dealing **** was a solemn duty. It should not be entertainment.

Fortunately, the walls of Aliara and Father Tuubel's cells remained in place. It seemed that only Teysa was called for here. She sat crosslegged in her cell and stared out at the crowd. If they wanted her to perform for their amusement, they could come in here and get her.

The Eel climbed up onto the lip of the arena and stood with her arms over her head. Her tattered dress hung from her in rags. "My friendth!" she cried, and the roar of the crowd dwindled to a hush. "Today I have thomething very thpethial for you! For a limited time only: the paladin Teytha will tetht her holy mettle againtht the fierthetht opponentth we can find! Thtep forward, Teytha!"

Teysa made no move to stand. The crowd jeered at her, calling her coward, whore, fraud. She closed her eyes and let the insults wash over her.

The Eel clapped her hands, and a few moments later a door in the wall of the pit opened up. Two humans and a drow, all armored in chainmail and carrying swords, emerged and crossed the pit into Teysa's cell. Two of them took up positions on either side of her and grabbed her under the arms. Teysa simply went limp and allowed them to drag her to her feet. She was a muscular woman and they struggled under her dead weight, but eventually she was propped up between them and goose-stepped out into the middle of the arena.

The drow produced a curved blade from somewhere in the recesses of his armor and went to work on Teysa's clothing. He cut the straps that bound her armor to her body, pulling the pieces off one by one and tossing them into the corner. Her tunic went next, quartered along the back and sides, then her belt and trousers. They left her her boots but sliced even her smallclothes to ribbons. Teysa bore this humiliation stoically, even while the crowd offered a variety of lewd suggestions. "This one's too pretty to waste in the arena!" clamored one dwarf. "Bring her to my bed, I'll put the spurs to her!"

"This ain't no paladin, it's a milk cow!" shouted someone else. "Look at the size of those udders! Moo for us, cow!"

"What a slut! You think she fucked the old man too?"

"Jump up and down for, sweetie!"

Teysa's face reddened at the barrage of taunts and come-ons. She stared unblinking at the sand of the arena. It looked none too fresh, and she wondered what other poor souls had lost their lives down here. Her jaw set resolutely. She would not die in the dark here. Not while Aliara still needed her. And El'keth, and all the rest...

The guards released her arms, but she did not slump to the floor. She would not give these animals the satisfaction. The humans drew back from her warily as though she were a beast in a menagerie-- trapped, but not tamed. They kept their swords leveled at her while the drow stepped forward. He smiled insolently and reached around behind his back. Teysa tensed her face, anticipating a humiliating slap, but when the drow held out his hand he was clutching her mace. He offered it to her haft first, then stepped backward quickly. All three guards retreated to the door with their swords still held out.

Teysa made no move to stop them. She stared at the mace in her hand as though she'd never seen it before. When the Eel's guards had stripped her she had assumed that she was meant to die in an entertaining fashion, but if they were giving her back her mace, at least she had a chance. She adjusted her grip. A chance, that was all, but she'd take it.

She risked a look behind her. Aliara was kneeling at the edge of her cage, hands gripping the bars, eyes wide and frightened. She saw Teysa looking at her and mouthed encouragement. Father Tuubel, on the other hand, had retreated to the far corner. He looked as she'd imagined, wizened and liver-spotted with a thick grey beard. His face was slightly jowly and his meaty cheeks trembled in fear. He looked away quickly when she met his gaze. She couldn't find it in her heart to be angry at the old man, but she pitied him.

The Eel took her seat in a carved wooden throne high up in the stands and laid her arms on the armrests. "Thee lookth pretty fierthe to me, my friendth. Even-- hehe-- in the buff. Tho let'th thee the challenger!"

There was another metallic squeal and a portion of the arena wall began to sink into the ground. Beyond it was a dark passage. Chains clinked somewhere in its depths, and a low rumbling growl echoed from within. A gust of warm air blew out of the door. Teysa's nose wrinkled at the rotten smell that came with it. It stank like a corpse thrown into a bog on a hot day, a mixture of blood, peat, and putrefaction. Some of the audience members lower in the stands gagged, or stood up to seek higher ground.

Something was emerging from that dark tunnel. The arena was lit only by torches high up on the wall, leaving the pit partially shadowed, but Teysa made out a long, sleek body, stumpy limbs, and a tail that scythed from side to side. The creature emerged fully and hissed, belching a cloud of halitosis at her, and Teysa recoiled.

Its body was reptilian, but mottled with patches of dark fur. Stubby dorsal ridges lined its back. Bony ridges hid its eyes, but its mouth hung open, croggled fangs sticking out at odd angles. Its nostrils flared as it got her scent. It moved on six legs, each one tipped with a bony hoof, and its tail split into two waving fronds that danced back and forth.