Song of the Saurials

by Kate Novak

  “Yes” Olive said hesitantly, feeling a little nervous.

  “It’s been disintegrated,” Finder explained.

  “Oh, great!” the halfling muttered.

  “Recently, too, I’d say, judging from the lack of water damage,” the bard added. “Probably by the same person or creature who dispelled the continual light enchantments that used to be on the archway keystones.”

  “Marvelous,” Olive replied sarcastically. “And we’re digging our way right toward whoever did it. Did it ever occur to you that this person or creature might have blocked the passages because he, she, or it wanted to be left alone?”

  “I don’t care,” Finder snapped. “If it’s there, it’s in my home, and I’m going to get rid of.”

  “Right,” Olive said without enthusiasm. “Suppose you get disintegrated first?”

  “There’s enough magic in my workshop to demolish an army. I created the finder’s stone there,” he said. He began pulling small boulders out of the rubble.

  Olive scrabbled up the pile and began digging out dirt and mud with her tiny pack shovel. Finder had broken the handle using it as a wedge on a boulder in the first pile of rubble they’d dug through, so now only Olive could use it comfortably. “You mean,” she corrected the bard, “that that’s where you altered the stone’s already magical nature with a piece of enchanted para-elemental ice.”

  Finder looked up at the halfling with a hint of surprise. “And where did you learn that?” he asked.

  “Elminster was explaining it to the Harper tribunal when I … uh, passed through,” Olive said.

  “He was, was he? Well, that stone was one of the most brilliant ideas of the century,” Finder said, tossing more rocks into the passageway behind them. “Para-elemental ice is far colder than ordinary ice,” he explained as they worked. “It keeps the finder’s stone from overheating no matter how much lore or how many songs or spells are stored inside it. The cold also helps the stone retrieve any information I’ve put into it as fast as a human mind could.”

  Olive recalled that Finder had once compared his own memory and voice to polished ice. “Did you use another piece of this magical ice in Alias?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Finder replied. “The most talented wizards of the era told me it couldn’t be done, that it wouldn’t work, but they were all wrong. Alias lives, and she will never forget anything I taught her. She’s even better than the Finder’s stone, since she can learn new things without my help. She amazes even Elminster,” the bard boasted.

  “I think Elminster likes her more than he’s amazed by her,” Olive said.

  “Don’t let the sage’s grandfatherly act fool you. Alias is the most remarkable piece of craftsmanship Elminster has ever seen, and he knows it. She’s a constant reminder that I was right and he was wrong. He’ll always regret that he turned me down when I asked for his help trying to create the first singer.”

  Olive strongly doubted that Elminster felt any such thing. She was beginning to feel less tolerant of Finder and his vanity. She was hungry and tired and dirty and, quite frankly, afraid of whatever it was that had disintegrated the ceiling. Finder had failed to recognize the danger Kyre presented, and Grypht had paid the price. The halfling had no desire to become a casualty of the bard’s scheme to recover his home. It was time, she decided, to prick his ego, to bring him back to reality and get him to reconsider heading back to civilization.

  “So,” Olive said, “what went wrong with the first singer?” she asked casually.

  “I was careless,” Finder replied, rocking a large stone loose from the pile. “I inserted the enchanted ice too quickly, and it exploded.”

  “That’s what you told Elminster. But what really happened?” Olive asked.

  “Why would I lie to Elminster?” Finder asked, without denying that there was more to the story.

  Olive grinned. “I’ll know that when you tell me what happened,” she replied.

  “What do you know about it, Olive girl?” the bard asked with a light tone, but the halfling could tell she’d made him nervous.

  “I know that Flattery came to life,” Olive said, “but even though he looked just like you, he didn’t turn out to be as dutiful a child as Alias. He didn’t want to go into the family music business. He took up magic instead.”

  Finder stopped working and stepped away from the blockade, looking up at Olive with astonishment, perhaps even fear. “How did you know that?” he gasped.

  Olive sat down on a boulder. She laid down her shovel, pulled off her gloves, and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to brush out the dirt. “It’s nothing special. I just happened to run into him—Flattery, that is.”

  Finder rolled his eyes to the ceiling, muttering, “Halfling luck!” He made it sound like a curse.

  Olive laughed. “You don’t believe in that silly superstition, do you?”

  Finder leaned back against the passage wall. “Of course I do. You’re living proof. Why do you think Cassana and Phalse tried so hard to get you to turn against Alias?”

  Olive’s eyes narrowed. It was embarrassing just remembering how close she had come to betraying Alias, Akabar, and Dragonbait. “Because they were vicious sadists,” she snapped, “who wanted to see just how frightened they could make me.”

  “The truth is, they were afraid of you. You and all your race never follow the score. You’re always improvising without the composer’s consent. You destroyed all their plans with one decision and your halfling luck. I’m beginning to know how they must have felt,” Finder said with an embarrassed grin. “And just what do you mean, you ‘just happened’ to run into Flattery?” he asked curiously.

  Finder’s sudden interest in her luck made Olive nervous. It was bad luck to talk about luck. “You tell me first. What went wrong when you created Flattery?” Olive asked.

  Finder shrugged. “He didn’t want to sing. We argued about it, and he got angry. I had two apprentices with me at the time, Kirkson and Maryje. Flattery killed Kirkson and injured Maryje. Then he ran off. By the time I’d gotten help for Maryje, the trail was cold. Then the Harpers brought me to trial and exiled me. I tried scrying for Flattery all these years, but he kept himself hidden with his magic.”

  “Did you name him Flattery?”

  Finder’s face turned stormy. “That was Kirkson’s fault,” he said. “A practical joke to tease me. Once he told the creature that was its name, it wouldn’t accept a different one.”

  “What were you going to name it?”

  “I hadn’t decided yet.”

  “Hadn’t decided or hadn’t even considered giving it a name?” Olive guessed.

  Finder looked contrite. “I remembered to give Alias one,” he said defensively.

  “Alias. Some name,” Olive replied. “I still can’t figure out why you lied to Elminster.”

  “I was afraid the Harpers might hunt down the crea—Flattery. I hoped if he was free, he might relent and sing my songs after all.”

  “Not a chance,” Olive said. “Flattery hated your guts. He wanted to destroy you and wipe out the whole rest of the Wyvernspur clan, too.”

  Finder turned away from the halfling. In the torchlight, Olive couldn’t tell what emotion he was concealing. With his back to her, the bard asked, “So how did you meet him?”

  “I was in Immersea,” Olive explained. “You know the wyvern’s spur—your family heirloom that turns the bearer into a wyvern and protects him from magic and—”

  Finder spun around and interrupted her. “I know all about the spur,” he said with annoyance. “I watched my idiot brother use it often enough. Get to the point, please.”

  “Well, Flattery didn’t know all about it. Fourteen years ago, one member of your family, Cole Wyvernspur, Giogi Wyvernspur’s father, discovered that Flattery was slaughtering people. Cole figured out that Flattery was a member of the family and challenged him to a duel to keep the family honor intact, so to speak. Flattery killed Cole, but Cole, using the spur, nearl
y killed Flattery. So Flattery tried to steal the spur, thinking he could use it against you and the rest of the clan. Giogi stopped him, though.”

  “Giogi? Giogi Wyvernspur? That ridiculous fop whom Alias nearly killed last year?” Finder asked.

  “That’s the one. Grown some since then. Nice boy.”

  “What happened to Flattery?” Finder demanded impatiently.

  “Giogi had to kill him,” Olive said softly. “Even if Flattery couldn’t use the spur, he would have wiped out the Wyvernspur family. He was powerful enough and certainly crazy enough.”

  Finder looked down at the tunnel floor and gave a resigned sigh. Olive thought he might be grieving, but when he looked back up, she saw a look of relief on his face.

  “If it hadn’t been for Dragonbait, Alias would have been just as bad as Flattery,” Olive said. “Maybe worse.”

  “No, she wouldn’t!” Finder answered vehemently. “I didn’t make the same mistake with her.”

  “What mistake?”

  Finder didn’t answer. Instead, he bent over and resumed pulling stones from the debris that obstructed the passageway.

  Olive reached down and grabbed one of the bard’s fingers. “What mistake?” she repeated.

  “Nothing,” Finder said. “You’re right. Dragonbait made all the difference.”

  Olive couldn’t think of anything that could make Finder relinquish any credit for his success with Alias, but she was certain he was lying. However, she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know why. She did know that she didn’t want to see the workroom where Flattery had been created.

  Olive released Finder’s finger and patted him gently on the wrist. “Finder, let’s leave. I told Giogi about you. He said you’re welcome in his home anytime. That’s where I was going to take you.”

  The bard looked up and laughed. “Giogi? That’s who you expected to protect me from the Harpers? Ruskettle, have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “Giogi has a friend called Cat who can keep you hidden. I thought you’d want to meet her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s one of the copies that Phalse made of Alias,” Olive explained.

  Finder reached up and grabbed Olive’s wrists. “What?” he shouted.

  “You know—one of the twelve copies he made,” Olive explained. “I found another one—Jade. We were friends, but Flattery killed her. He thought she was Cat. He was mad at Cat because he thought she’d betrayed him. She was his apprentice for a while, since she’s a mage. Jade was a pickpocket—a good one, too. Anyway, Cat sided with Giogi against Flattery. He was horrible to her—Flattery, that is.”

  Finder sat on the pile of rock he’d been shifting. “Olive, I think I’m getting too old to keep up with you. If you have any more revelations, give them to me now, while I’m sitting down.”

  “Cat’s going to have Giogi’s baby next spring. So you’ll be a grandfather, sort of, besides being an eleventh-generation great-granduncle.”

  Finder closed his eyes and began to rub his temples with his fingers.

  “So how about heading for Immersea?” the halfling asked, hoping Finder would be more open to the suggestion in his shocked state.

  Finder shook visibly and rose to his feet. “I need to get into my workshop first. Then we can discuss what to do next.”

  “Suppose whatever’s set up housekeeping down here is between us and the workshop?” Olive protested.

  “I’m not going to let some squatter keep me from my own home,” the bard answered angrily.

  “Finder, you’ve been in exile for two hundred years. It’s not as if whatever it is didn’t wait a decent interval before moving in.”

  The bard grinned slyly. “It’s getting awfully late to be on the road, Olive,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather have a bath and spend the night in a comfortable bed before we leave? I can get you that with the magic in my workshop.”

  Olive tried to fend off the temptation by imagining a ray of disintegration coming toward her.

  “The door to the workshop is only about another hundred feet down this passage,” Finder said.

  Olive pictured the green ray of disintegration Flattery had used to destroy her friend Jade and did not reply.

  “Then we wouldn’t have to walk at all.” Finder added. “I have copies of my spellbooks in my workshop. I can teleport us to Immersea.”

  Olive sighed at her own weakness. She slipped on her gloves, picked up her shovel once again, and started shifting dirt. Finder began to sing a dwarven mining tune as he returned to digging out the rocks. In spite of her annoyance with the bard’s stubbornness and her fear of whatever lay beyond the obstructions, Olive hummed along in harmony. It was too hard to resist the power of Finder’s voice.

  They were both growing tired, so they worked more slowly. They’d been at it nearly an hour when Olive felt a flutter of air waft through her hair. “Got it!” she whispered down to the bard.

  “Do you see anything?” Finder asked.

  The halfling put her face near the flow of air and squinted. “It’s too dark,” she reported. Her talent for seeing in the dark had never been as well developed as most of her folk, but her other senses were sharp enough. “It feels warmer,” she said, “and—phew! Your home’s new tenant isn’t much of a housekeeper. It smells like garbage.”

  Finder started working faster, excited by the nearness of their goal.

  Olive slipped down to the floor to give the bard room to work. He piled stones up on either side of the tunnel to shore up the ceiling as he dug into the dirt. Olive watched him wriggle like a snake into the hole he’d created and disappear. If he wanted to go first, she had no objections. If there was something waiting on the other side, Finder was a bigger target and made a good shield.

  “I need the torch,” his muffled voice called out.

  Olive took up Finder’s torch and scrambled up to the hole. She thrust it through as far her halfling arm could reach and leaned it against the stones the bard had positioned. Finder reached back carefully and pulled it the rest of the way through. Olive slipped her shovel into her knapsack and slid back down the rubble to fetch her own torch. “Damn!” Finder growled from the other side of the rubble.

  “What is it?” Olive called out with alarm.

  Finder did not reply.

  Olive froze in horror. “Finder?” she whispered. From the other side of the rubble, she heard the sound of rattling iron. Olive snatched up her torch and scrabbled to the hole. “Finder!” she shouted.

  “No need to shout, Olive girl,” Finder called back. “I can hear you.”

  “Why did you say ‘damn’?” she asked angrily, thrusting her torch into the hole.

  “Someone’s put an iron grate across the passage,” the bard explained. “Nothing I can’t handle, though.”

  As Olive crawled through the hole toward the light, she heard the sound of a wire jiggling in a lock. As she poked her head out of the hole, she saw the iron grate ten feet away. There was a door with a simple-looking lock set in it. The bard was bent over it, picking at it with a bit of wire. Why, Olive wondered, would anyone seal the passages with cave-ins and then put up an iron grate with a door in it? That is, unless they had some insidious reason to want someone to open the door.… “Finder, wait!” the halfling cried urgently. “Let me have a look first!”

  A distinct click echoed down the passageway. Finder pushed on the grate. It swung open on squeaky hinges. The bard turned around, grinning at Olive with amusement. “I told you I could handle it,” he said.

  Olive rolled her eyes. “You can never have too many people check a lock,” she snapped. “Suppose it had been trapped?”

  Finder shrugged. “It wasn’t. No harm done,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

  Sometimes, Olive thought, he’s just like a little boy. She slid down the pile of dirt and stone on the other side and picked up her torch.

  “After you, my dear,” Finder said, motioning for her to go through the doorway.
/>   Olive eyed the passage cautiously. It was too dim to pick out any really well-hidden traps. “Age before beauty,” she replied.

  A rueful look flickered across the bard’s face, but he turned and stepped across the threshold into the passage beyond.

  Olive understood that look. Now that Finder was no longer living on the boundary of the plane of life, his body was feeling his great age more, and Finder had never liked anything that reminded him of his mortality. The younger halfling couldn’t bring herself to tease him about it. She remembered all too well her mother’s own groaning complaints when her body began to fail. No doubt, Olive realized, I’ll be just as annoyed when I get old—providing I live long enough, she amended, though she suspected the odds of that decreased the longer she stayed with Finder.

  She trotted after the bard anyway. “So, where’s this workshop?” she asked when she caught up with him.

  “Straight ahead, Olive,” Finder said, pointing down the dim corridor.

  Olive held her torch higher and peered into the darkness. Two dim torchlights shone somewhere farther down the passage. “Someone’s coming,” she hissed, halting in her tracks.

  Finder chuckled. He moved his torch up and down, and one of the lights ahead of them rose and fell as if in reply. “It’s just our reflection, Olive. The door is enchanted, made of polished steel. Keeps it from being disintegrated.”

  Olive paced behind Finder. Halfway down the passage, a strand of her hair blew across her face. Olive halted again and turned sideways. From a gap in the wall large enough for a human to pass through, warm air, stinking of garbage, blew into the corridor. The quarried stone that had covered the gap lay smashed in pieces about the passageway floor, crunching under their feet. Beyond the gap was a tunnel stretching farther than the torchlight could reveal.

  “This must be where whatever it was that disintegrated those arches broke in,” Olive said.

  Finder turned and walked back to inspect the gap. “Yes,” he said slowly. “The hillside is riddled with natural caves and galleries. I had this gap sealed off to keep cave monsters out. I should have filled in the tunnel behind the gap, too. Well, it can’t be helped now,” he said with a shrug and continued down the corridor, intent on his goal.