They returned to the palace, where the swami attended to the still-wounded Monkey Paladin.
    "We've got to find this bolt," Hari mused afterward, to general agreement.
    "It's not in the castle, it's not out at the ruined town."
    They sat around trading theories on who could have stolen it and why—never mind how. Mard, the old woman, and the ambassadors seemed to be the best candidates. As they talked, sudden screaming erupted from the streets of the town.
    Ashram took the form of an owl and flew off toward the sound; the others followed more conventionally. Three scorpions the size of ponies were in the square, massacring people.
    "Bugger all," Hari remarked.
    Ashram landed nearby and cast a Giant Insect of his own, creating five enormous ants to battle the scorpions. "You are not the only one who can do such things!" he reprimanded the unseen enemy. "The powers of the gods are endless!"
    One scorpion had already entered a house and was dispatching the inhabitants. The screams were terrible. The ants launched their counterattack, chitin clattering fiercely as their massive mandibles clashed. As the visitors neared the battle Ashram spoke another prayer, summoning a swarm of hornets that closed on the scorpion that was inside the house. Outside, one of the ants got stung and collapsed, twitching.
    Ashram lit the scorpions up with a Faerie Fire spell. "Get the people out of that house!" he yelled at Hasin. Fortunately, Hari beat him there, bounding through the wreckage of the door with mace in hand, and commenced laying about with it.
    There weren't any live people left in the house to be helped. Hasin had led a reasonably long and very prosperous life by not getting very close to giant scorpions; he threw his spear and missed. Tried a crossbow bolt and missed. Hari was performing considerably better, the scorpion apparently unable to penetrate his armor on the rare occasions it managed to touch him at all.
    Outside another two ants had been poisoned but they had done some damage to the scorpions and were if nothing else keeping them busy.
    Ashram produced a stream of fire that lightly singed a scorpion. There was only one ant remaining, which left an unoccupied scorpion; Hari suggested Hasin try to deal with it. He tried a poison dart; that seemed to work rather well as it soon fell. Lords Utam and Rudra were running to join the battle. Hari dealt his opponent a terrible blow, cracking the carapace; sticky fluids oozed out and the hornets swarmed madly, stinging the vulnerable joints. Another mighty swing and its head was crushed.
    That left one. Ashram threw more flame at it, the hornets buzzed toward it, the newly arrived lords attacked only to see their swords clang off the creature's armor. Hasin sent another dart speeding on its way. Lord Rudra got in a good blow on his second try. Ashram threw more flames. Hari joined the battle with a bound and struck the finishing blow.
    "What were those things?" Utam panted.
    Ashram cast a spell to see if the scorpions were natural or magically created, and found them to be the former. There was a faint hint of magic about them, however, as of some directing spell. They had come up from the river.
    "I suppose we should head down to the river and take a look," Hari suggested.
    "I suppose," Hasin sighed.
    "Well struck," Ashram congratulated him. "I hope that is not the case."
    There did not seem to be any more of the creatures hanging about. There were men on the other side in the livery of the rajah of Urim, guarding the ford.
    Suddenly the three adventurers looked around and noticed that they had been joined by the vast majority of Amirdata's nobility and men at arms. They shared a glance and sprinted back up the hill.
    They were too late. The princess was gone.
    "You said you wanted heroes in the area to take care of stuff like this! Why don't you trust us?!" the frustrated hermit hollered.
    "I'm sorry, we weren't thinking," a shamed guard admitted.
    "That's obvious!" He sighed deeply. The lord Maraham had taken the princess out to Bharhut. "After them!"
    Ashram knocked on Mahabhodipani's door; the little monk was studying. "Someone has just taken the princess out to the abandoned city where the lotus scepter can protect her."
    "But I have the lotus scepter right here."
    "Yes, but I don't think he knows that. Could you come along, please?" On his way down the stairs, he wondered, "He knew. How did he know?" How had Maraham known the scepter was gone? He procured a piece of the princess' clothing and called his tiger while the others gathered torches. Ghal took a sniff, nosed around, and led them off down the road that led past the crematorium. In the dead of night, they followed the tiger, trailed at some distance by the Lords Utam and Rudra and ten of the guards from the palace.
    As the neared the city some of the workers were fleeing out of it. "Help! Help! Monsters! Naga! They kidnapped Lord Maraham and the princess! They are inside the city!"
    "And you wanted to wait until tomorrow," Hasin observed to Hari,
    "I still do. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get that option."
    Ashram stared into the dark forest.
    "What is the hermit doing?" someone whispered.
    A twig cracked. A trumpeting noise split the air, and four wild elephants burst from the trees and bowed to the holy man.
    "Where are these naga?" Hari asked the workers.
    "They're inside the city! Over there, near the town center!"
    "Free the princess and get her back here," Ashram instructed his elephants.
    The odd little army entered the city. There were a couple of dead men in the streets; Ashram examined them and found that they appeared to have been killed by some giant sting or fang, possibly with poison.
    "Stay away from the tail."
    "I'd like to stay away from the things completely, is that an option?" Hasin asked wistfully, spinning his blowpipe nervously.
    "No."
    "This always happens when I run into you guys."
    Ghal turned down a side street, still on the trail of the princess.
    "This way!" Ashram directed the elephants and the others to head for the city center, where the nagas were. The three and the Buddhist followed the tiger, hearing the sounds of battle begin behind them. Elephants screamed. They were in a particularly decayed part of the city, and a foul odor rose up from the ruined buildings around them.
    There came the sound of chanting from up ahead. Ashram clad himself in living armor like to that of a tree. They rounded a corner and found themselves at a breach in the old city wall. Before them, about fifty feet away, was the princess, tied to a stake and with a glazed look in her eyes. A fire had been lit, there was an altar in place, and the old woman chanting and sprinkling ghee.
    They withdrew behind the wall for a moment and made a hurried plan, then came into the open and advanced.
    "Cease, old woman!" Ashram bellowed.
    Several butas closed on them from each side, groaning horribly—then confronted with the holy light that suddenly shone forth from the paladin of Haruman, they retreated again.
    "Curse you!" the old woman shrieked.
    Ashram generated a sword of flame from one hand, gesturing to Ghal to attack. "Your defenses are weak, old woman, if this is the best you can do!"
     Hasin faded back into the shadows and began circling around the battle, hoping to sneak up on the old woman.
    "Do you think so?" she hissed. From the ground emerged a dozen black tentacles, seizing the advancing men and tiger.
    "Help! Help!" Mahabhodipani was caught, as was Ghal, who whimpered in pain.
    "I'll free them, get her!" Ashram told Hari, who was not displeased by that idea, and ran toward the old woman with his holy mace swinging. Ashram turned and slashed at the tentacle holding his feline friend captive. The black thing vanished. Mahabhodipani had fallen unconscious.
    Lightning crackled from the old woman's hands toward the advancing heroes, wounding them both. A twig cracked under Hasin's foot, revealing his position. Ghal gathered himself and sprang, catching the old woman with one paw and his teeth. She began to laugh horribly, madly, as she cast another spell, but this one had no effect. Ashram ran toward the princess and cut her free. Hasin, his plan to sneak up on the old woman and stab her in the back having gone somewhat awry, and the back in question being on the ground and under a tiger just then, darted over and grabbed the princess, dragged her out of the immediate area.
    The old woman turned into a vulture and flew away.
    "Hey! She's not supposed to do that!" Hasin yelped. He handed the girl—who seemed to have been drugged—back to Ashram and tried a dart, but it whistled harmlessly past the large bird.
    "Miserable—get down here, you!" Hari demanded.
    There was nothing any of them could do about that, but at least the girl was safe for the moment.
    The city center was all quiet now. Three of the elephants, many of the guards, and Lord Utam were dead, Lord Rudra barely alive. It seemed that Lord Maraham had transformed himself into a horrible ogre-like monster that spat poisoned ghee; he was dead, and the nagas had fled as such creatures were wont to do after seeing the strength of the opposition.
    Ashram tended to Lord Rudra, then put him, the princess, and the unconscious Buddhist on the remaining elephant for the return to the palace. He called a halt at the old woman's dark hut. "I hesitate to burn it, because if she's got the bolt inside... someone should go in and find out whether she has it."
    "All right," Hasin sighed.
    "I ain't doing it like this," Hari stated.
    "No, you're not paying attention to the code. Someone is him."
    "Are you sure you want to do this, and do this now?" He looked for vultures.
    "Sir, if we burn it, it will not affect the bolt," Rudra informed him.
    A vote was taken in favor of burning the place. They did. The smoke smelled worse than the crematorium grounds. Then they returned to the palace, where the swami and hermit ministered to the wounded. The hermit thanked the elephant, which returned to the forest sadly and alone.
    "And we still don't have the damn bolt!" Hasin fumed.
    They all slept late the next morning, and continued healing. In the ashes of the old woman's hut, they found no sign of the holy relic. Ashram blessed the site and checked his location spell again; still no bolt in the area. Mahabhodipani waved the scepter around, and the aura of evil there dispersed at last.
    When they returned to the palace, a great deal of conversation was going; the forces of Urim had begun crossing the river and were forming up on the Amirdata side, with more arriving every hour.
    Hari nodded. He went to the middle of town and lifted the mace, called upon Rama and Haruman to send him an army.
    Nothing happened... immediately. Ashram and Hasin continued trying to figure out where the bolt could have gone; maybe the old woman had dropped it in the river? There was only so much random guessing they could do; the troops were now a bigger problem. Ashram called out to one of the evident leaders and told him in so many words to stop. He noticed that the men looked odd, kind of dazed.
    "We can't," the man from Urim replied woodenly. "Kill kill kill kill...."
    "Could you come here a second!" he called to Hari. "Take a look at this guy."
    They started shooting at him. Hari didn't need to be anywhere near them to sense the evil that was in them.
    For a third time, the CRACK resounded everywhere; even the soldiers of Urim heard it.
    Having given fair warning, Ashram had no qualms about raising the water in the river. It only caught a few men and two elephants in the river's center, where they drowned. Ashram was forced to retreat as more arrows came his way; a couple of hours later, the river resumed its normal level.
         

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