That was close!

Teysa shook her head. She was still plunging, falling, but now the comfortable warmth had vanished, leaving only a wretched sense of vertigo. The spicy scent dried up and blew away, to be replaced by a sickly odor of rotting meat. With a supreme effort of will she **** herself to look away. As soon as she did it all vanished: the slide, the void, the patterns. Meluria hissed at her and tried to drag her head around, but there was no strength in her spindly arms. There never had been, Teysa realized. Her strength had been in convincing Teysa that she was weak.

The paladin wrenched herself backward. She stumbled over the scaly tail, but Aliara was there to catch her and turn her fall into a graceful twirl. She slid one arm around Teysa's waist and clasped her hand in the other. Arms jutting out before them like the prow of a warship they crossed the stage in time to the beat. At the end, Aliara spun around under Teysa's elbow and pressed her body to her partner's. She looked up and winked at Teysa, then spun back to the end of her arm with a giggle. Teysa had never seen ballroom dancers at work, and so she had no idea what Aliara was doing, but she mimicked the half-elf as best she could. The snake-woman hissed in rage and frustration and resumed her shimmying dance, but Teysa ignored her. She watched as Aliara's feet flashed across the floor, almost too fast to follow. She couldn't do that herself, but she made an attempt anyways, hammering out a staccato rhythm against the flat stone of the stage with her heavy tread. The music sped up as though trying to throw them off, but that just inspired Aliara to greater feats of acrobatics. She leapt and dove from one of the stage to the other with her arms outstretched. Teysa tried to keep up but was soon reduced to twirling in place and shaking her upper body in what she thought was an appropriately sensual way.

Meluria watched all this with simmering frustration on her face. Finally she crossed her arms and slithered down the stairs. The Eel shot her a dirty look, and Teysa spared a moment of pity for whatever grim punishment the mad drow would come up with. Even criminals deserved better than that.

Finally the Eel had had enough. She yawned theatrically and turned away from the stage. Nobody said anything, but that seemed to be the signal for her courtiers to lose interest as well. They returned to their small groups and the music gradually wound down. Aliara kept vamping and cavorting with a happy grin on her face until the last drumbeat echoed off the wall, then slumped down with her hands resting on her thighs and panted. Teysa took a moment to catch her breath as well, then collected up her discarded clothes and began to dress.

When she had finished, the Eel deigned to notice her once again. "Very well," she said with obvious ****. "You have pleathed me. Very entertaining. And, happy day, it appearth that my friendth were able to locate your old man. He mutht have gone a bit funny in the head." She snapped her fingers and a pair of drow guards hustled forward. Between them they frog-marched an elderly man in threadbare robes. Once, they might have been fine golden temple vestments; now they were faded and forlorn. In that they were a match for the man who wore them. A few stands of grey hair clung together stubbornly atop his liver-spotted forehead. He pawed nervously at his long grey beard with trembling fingers. His eyes flickered from the guards to the Eel to Teysa, and lit up as she pinned her holy symbol to her shoulder.

"Father Tuubel?" Teysa asked. The old man nodded with relief. "Ansium sent us. We've come to bring you back to the church."

"Agamor be praised!" Tuubel replied in a tremulous voice. The guards holding him gave a shove and he stumbled forward, but Teysa stepped up to catch him. There was no weight to him at all. "Is that the symbol of the Order of the Golden Ray, my daughter?" he asked. Teysa nodded. "Then my prayers were answered after all!"

"Go on, thoo," the Eel snapped. "I have important buthineth to do here. Bringth down the tone to have a couple of holy rollerth around." Her guards closed in, but Teysa held up a hand. "We'll be leaving now," she said, and bowed deeply. "Thank you very much for your assistance, milady." She held out an arm for Father Tuubel to lean on and he took it gratefully.

They did not speak until they were out of the Eel's den. As soon as they stepped into the fresh air of the market, Teysa felt some of the tension run out of her. She turned to Father Tuubel. "Father," she asked, "my name is Teysa. This is Aliara. Are you hurt? Did they do anything to you?"

Tuubel waved a hand. "No, no. Though I dread to think what might have happened had you not come along." He hesitated, and shame crept across his face. "If you knew to look for me there then you know that I deserved such a vile punishment. I have been a terrible sinner."

"Nonsense," Teysa insisted. "You didn't deserve that. Nobody does."

"But I betrayed my sacred trust," Tuubel insisted. "I let that woman make my church into a... a mockery. A warehouse for her poisons. When I tried to end our arrangement, she had me thrown in irons."

"So you made a mistake," Aliara said with a shrug. "Big deal. Aren't you religious types all about forgiveness? I know Teysa is." There was a warning note there, a hint of an argument that Teysa knew they would never really resolve. Instead of tugging on that thread, she just nodded.

"Yes, Father. Whatever you did, I know you did it with the best of intentions, even if you were misguided. If Agamor thought you still deserved punishment, He would not have delivered you to me."

Tuubel stroked his beard before answering. "I... suppose there is sense in that, Teysa. Even if you were His instrument... thank you for coming, all the same."

"I could not ignore your plight," Teysa said. She sounded a little pompous even to her own ears, but in truth, it had felt good to swing into action again. She had missed the moral clarity of her adventuring days. Sometimes life really was as simple as smiting evil to rescue the fair maiden. Of course, in this case "smiting" was a bit of a stretch, and the "fair maiden" was a shriveled old man on the wrong side of eighty, but she had put herself in danger to rescue a (mostly) innocent person, and that was what counted. Wasn't it?

"Besides," she went on, feeling the pull of honesty, "I need your guidance. It's a matter of... of faith."

"I hardly think I have much to teach a sister of the Order of the Golden Ray on that matter," Tuubel laughed, but quieted quickly when he saw her expression. "But I will try. Come with me to my temple, and I will do my best to resolve your dilemma." He straightened, sighed as his back audibly cracked, and set out across the square.