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."What are you doing here?" the bard asked."Did the banelich kick you out of his chariot?""My master has gone on to the astral plane to search for Bane's body," the priestess replied coolly."In the meantime, I have been instructed to oversee the hand's recovery.""You left us behind in Ilsensine's realm," Joel accused her.""What difference does it make? You escaped.You are alive and unscathed, as far as I can see.""No thanks to you," Joel retorted."And I escaped from the Temple in the Sky without your help," Walinda reminded him.Joel was silenced."But you can't get into the palace without our help, can you?" Jedidiah taunted."I guess I forgot to mention that entry to living creatures is rather restricted."Walinda's face reddened, and she glared coldly at Jedidiah.Like a dramatic tour guide, Jedidiah waved his arm to indicate the palace."All the dead of Kara-Tur," the priest explained, "come here to be judged by the Celestial Bureaucracy and sent on to the plane for which the deeds and misdeeds of their lives suited them.That's why there are gates to every plane here.It is also a place of great order.All who serve within report to a bureaucrat, who in turn reports to a higher bureaucrat, who reports to an even higher bureaucrat, who reports to Yen-Wang-Yeh, Illustrious Magistrate of the Dead, the sole ruling power here.His law is enforced by General Pien and his army of men-shen and go-zu-oni.The gods of Kara-Tur, good or evil, orderly or chaotic, and all those in between rely on this part of the Celestial Bureaucracy to provide them with the inhabitants of their realms.Not one would dare disrupt the business that takes place here.So the palace is also a place where powers and their ambassadors can meet to parlay and exchange prisoners.The powers of other pantheons also meet here, knowing that General Pien and his forces would instantly squelch any disorder." "If my master had a fortress such as this, plus all these dead at his command," Walinda said, "he could rule the Realms.""So could Yen-Wang-Yeh," Jedidiah replied."But there is nothing in the Realms he desires.All the gods of the Kara-Tur, even the evil and chaotic ones, have a place in the Celestial Bureaucracy and duties to perform.To step out of one's place, to fail in one's duty, would bring dishonor.""What is dishonor when one has power?" Walinda declared."Of course," Jedidiah replied, "if your master had Yen-Wang-Yeh's position and his honor wasn't enough to keep him performing his assigned duties, it would all be over at the end of the year.The Celestial Emperor would call on him to make his report, judge him bereft of his duties, and boot him out.Someone else would be assigned to his position.Your master would be without a job.Well, here we are."They'd reached the iron gate in the wall surrounding the palace.The gate stood wide open, but standing in the gateway, serving as guards, were a number of fearsome, bull-headed creatures that stood over eight feet tall.Some were orange, some gray, some purple.They wore polished armor and ornate robes and were armed with swords and spears."Those are the go-zu-oni," Jedidiah whispered."Don't ever get them mad at you."The go-zu-oni guards addressed each arrival in a tongue Joel had never heard and pointed out where they should go.One of the bull-headed creatures stepped in front of Jedidiah and addressed him in short bursts in the same foreign tongue.Jedidiah bowed low and held out a strip of copper engraved with symbols and characters Joel could not identify.The go-zu-oni took the strip of metal, examined it briefly, and said something else to Jedidiah, then handed back the strip of metal.Jedidiah bowed again, then instructed the others, "Follow me."They stepped through the gate.A few paces inside, beyond the press of the crowd, Jedidiah halted.His companions stopped beside him."Lo," Jedidiah said, gesturing with his arm."The Palace of Judgement."Joel looked at the scene that lay before them.The palace was the size of a city, with thousands of buildings.Unlike a typical city, everything was orderly.Every building was constructed of red brick and stone, and the people moving between the buildings did so in an orderly fashion.There was bustle, but no pushing or shoving or disturbances.There were throngs of the dead in the entry courtyard waiting to enter different buildings, guarded by the go-zu-oni, yet the spacious courtyard still seemed almost empty.Joel guessed the courtyard could have held more than a few armies.Officials dressed in brightly colored robes carried armfuls of scrolls from building to building
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