Stone 23

Chapter 23
Adie wants to know if the Stone of Tears is well hidden, and Zedd admits that he hung it around a little girl's neck. Adie responds: “You have hung the Stone of Tears, the Stone that it be told was hung by the Creator Himself around the Keeper's neck to lock him in the underworld...you hung that around a little girl's neck?” So, the Stone's purpose is to lock Satan away, it would seem. Huh. Weird. I guess in this setting God uses random magical trinkets instead of, you know, awesome divine power. Can't say I remember God in the Christian mythos using a necklace to lock Satan in hell.
Zedd insists that he did the only thing he could, since this way no minions of Satan can torture the information out of him. Yes, I'm sure it's much better to have the doomsday artifact in the possession of a defenseless child rather than an awesomely powerful wizard. Makes perfect sense to me. \~/
There's some talk about the screeling that attacked Zedd. Adie says that since Zedd destroyed it Satan won't bother to send another. Zedd points out that, no, he'll send something worse. 
Adie suddenly decides to give Zedd a round bone object, the size of a hen's egg, “masterfully carved into the shape of a vicious beast.” What the beast looks like, we aren't told. Adie says that this bone was given to her by a sorceress who had been waiting for her “as the prophecies had told her to do.” I'm getting a little tired of everything being prophecized.
Anyway the round carved bone is skrin bone, and it's important to the veil, blah blah blah. It appears to be a Plot Coupon. Apropos of nothing, Adie has a complete skrin skeleton lying about in her Hut of Bones. Zedd decides to start poking at the Plot Coupon with magic. Suddenly, bones start falling off the walls and sliding together. For some unexplained magic-related reason, Adie's Museum of Underworld History exhibit is reassembling and coming back to life. 
The skeletal skrin recollects itself, and we still don't know what it looks like. It has long fangs and arms, and it's presumably large, since it smashes Adie's table with one swipe. Adie and Zedd try blasting it with magic, which does nothing, so Adie throws some sparkly white sand at it.
No, it turns out to be sorcerer's sand, and I still wonder why “sorcerer's,” as opposed to “wizard's,” since we haven't seen the word “sorcerer” used anywhere else. Zedd thinks of her as a “fool woman,” although I don't see how the guy who reanimated the skrin by poking around with magic has much room to talk. To make a long scene short, the skrin claws Adie's arm and pretty much wrecks her house as Zedd drags her out. She doesn't want to leave her bones and magical doodads, but Zedd drags her onto a horse and away they ride with Bony the Skrin in pursuit.
Drinks: 1
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