The goddesses' bodies grew translucent and fluid like melting wax. Their torsos joined, then merged, until there was only one torso between the two of them. They had become a misshapen creature with four arms and legs struggling against the bonds of the chaos matter and two heads screaming in rage and pain.
Tymora's head cried out, "Lathander, help me, please!"
"Lathander, do something!" Finder shouted. "Can't you see they're in agony?" he demanded.
"Xvim is right," Lathander said. "Once the spell has begun, there is no stopping it."
"There must be something you can do, my lord," Holly said with a tone of desperation.
"No," Lathander answered. "The fusion chamber will not stop until it has united something that had previously been separated," he insisted.
"What if we threw a whole bunch of broken eggs into it?" Emilo asked.
Lathander shook his head. "It must be something of power," the god explained.
"The finder's stone?" Joel asked Finder excitedly.
"It's worth a try," Finder agreed. He pulled his half of the stone from his boot, and Joel pulled his out from his shirt.
"Ready… set… go!" Finder shouted.
Together both halves of the finder's stone arced through the air and into the portal. The portal flashed with a brilliant light. Immediately the chaos matter around Tymora and Beshaba fell away and streamed back into the fusion chamber like a river running into the sea.
The partially merged Tymora and Beshaba squirmed and wriggled until they lost their balance and toppled onto the ground. The torso ripped in two, dripping chaos matter like ichor until Tymora and Beshaba emerged as two separate individuals.
Beshaba stood and shook herself like a dog. From Joel's hand, she grabbed the pink rose that held her power and disappeared.
Tymora sat up and shook her head sadly at Lathander. Jas knelt beside the goddess and handed her the ancient coin from Myth Drannor. Tymora slid the coin down her shirt and sighed.
"You know, I think there's something wrong with the fusion chamber," Emilo said. "I'm not sure, mind you, but I don't think it's supposed to look like that."
The others looked back at the portal to the fusion chamber. It had begun to glow with a brilliant white light.
"It's not properly calibrated to join the stone," Xvim screamed. "It's going to explode! Run!"
"Grab Emilo!" Finder ordered Jas as he scooped up Joel.
Tymora disappeared. Jas flew from the tent, with Finder close behind her.
Last of all, Lathander snatched up Holly and fled.
The blast from the fusion chamber expanded outward like a blossoming flower of solid light. The shock wave caught the fleeing Morninglord and his disobedient paladin and tossed them about like corks on a raging sea, propelling them across the god's realm. Then a blast of sound shook their bodies. As Joel looked back, Lathander and Holly appeared to Joel as two black specks. Then the specks were gone.
Slowly, but inexorably, the brilliant light faded. When the dust finally settled, a crater the size of a small town had appeared where there once had been a meadow.
I don't like opera at all. All that deception just rubs me the wrong way. It's too much like real life.
CURTAIN CALL
The vision of Ayryn, the genasi server, was so lifelike that the Sensates had to shield their eyes from the explosion of the fusion chamber projected into the sensorium.
Kenda Fretterstag rose to leave. "I was really looking forward to experiencing the creation of a new power," she sighed.
"You did get to witness a paladin disobey her god," Bors pointed out.
"Why, yes, I did," Kenda noted. "Any chance you might risk your god's wrath?"
Bors frowned. While he had been proud of Holly's strength of character, the thought of what she had risked filled him with fear.
"Thought not," Kenda taunted as she grabbed her fur coat and made her way to the exit.
Ayryn continued to project the images of Lathander, Holly, Jasmine, Emilo, and Tymora. There was no sign of Joel or Finder. Though the others stood on the steps of Lathander's temple, it appeared to the Sensates as if the gods and adventurers were sitting among the Sensates in the sensorium.
Lathander and Holly Harrowslough stood off to one side, their image projected so that they appeared to stand beside Ayryn. They had been blasted from Lathander's realm and had only just returned. They were engaged in earnest discussion. Now the Morninglord cupped Holly's face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. Apparently the god of beginnings had decided that his paladin's good sense and stout heart outweighed her disobedience.
Quellig, the tiefling wizard, sat up and leaned forward as Jasmine asked Emilo Haversack, "So, your friend Fiz Whatever made you unnoticeable to all but people from Krynn just so you could uncover Xvim's fraud? Why? What's it to him?"
"Well, it's a little more complicated than that," the kender said. "The way Fizban explained it, gods from one world aren't supposed to let gods from another world harm each other, whether they're good or evil. It's against the rules. It could start a war between the gods from Krynn and the gods from Toril. If it really was Sirrion helping Lathander to drain the power from Tymora and Beshaba, or some other god from Krynn impersonating Sirrion, Fizban was going to have to step in and make him stop. But since it wasn't a god from Krynn, Fizban didn't have to get involved. He didn't want to get into an argument with Lathander if he could help it. That could start-"
"All right, all right," Jas said. "I don't need to know any more about the gods. What I want to know is, if you're unnoticeable to everyone except people from Krynn, why is it that I can see you perfectly?" she asked. "I wasn't born on Krynn."
"Actually, you were," Tymora said, laying a hand on the winged woman's shoulder. "Your mother and father took a spelljammer to Krynn, and you were born there before they returned to Toril."
"So Jas has been spelljamming since she was a baby," Emilo said. "No wonder she likes the stars."
At that moment, Beshaba suddenly appeared in front of Lathander. "I've teleported here to share my gift with you, Lathander," she said, and she gave him a quick kiss on the mouth. Then the Maid of Misfortune vanished again.
The Morninglord looked mildly alarmed. "I don't suppose you'd care to balance out Beshaba's ill luck with a kiss of your own?" he asked Lady Luck.
Tymora stepped back and pointed at Holly. "You were blessed with far more than your share of luck the day this girl entered your service," she informed him.
"Yes… I've come to realize that," Lathander said.
Finder and Joel appeared and approached the gods and mortals assembled on the temple stairs. Finder casually tossed the finder's stone in the air and caught it again. The magic crystal was once again intact.
"No sign of Xvim," Joel reported. "We've searched everywhere.''
"I can't believe he let Beshaba destroy his bastion and didn't raise a finger," Tymora said.
"He was playing for high stakes," Finder said. "He couldn't bring himself to abandon the evil deception he'd set up. If he had been successful, he would have possessed all of your power, Tymora, and all of Beshaba's power as well. He never intended to return it to Tyche."
Tymora put a hand on Jas's shoulder. "We have much to talk about," she said. "Will you accompany me back to Brightwater?"
"Yes," Jas agreed. "As long as you don't serve me any more of that wine."
"I think you'll find that wine tastes quite different now," the goddess replied. "Finder, Rebel Bard… until we meet again," she added, saluting the god and his priest.