by Kate Novak
Of course, he could have been wrong about the orcs. They may have decided to post a guard after all, and were lying in wait to grab Olive when she passed the tunnel that led to their lair. The longer the shadows lengthened, the more uneasy Finder grew. She’d saved his life twice already today, yet he’d had the nerve to convince her to go past an orc warren alone to save his life a third time. Here he was, a master bard, a Harper, a full-grown human male, relying on a tiny halfling female to pull his fat out of the fire. Female! Sweet Selune! He hadn’t even considered what the orcs would do to her if they captured her.
Finder caught sight of the sun and the moon just as they were equally distant from the horizon, like Tyr’s scales, balanced in the sky. Then the sun sank lower and the moon rose higher. The bard sighed. If Olive didn’t return with a neutralize poison potion soon, he would die anyway. With a deep sense of shame, he realized there was no sense in letting her die, too. He twisted his tunic into a sling for his injured arm and forced himself to his feet. His head spun, and glittering dots danced before his eyes, but he did not change his mind. As the sun sank, the bard climbed down the stairs into the underground passages in search of the halfling.
After Olive had cried herself out, she stared for a while at the wall of the brightly lit workshop, blinking like an owl in daylight. Part of her kept telling her to hurry back to Finder. If she couldn’t get him to the road, she could at least be with him when he died. Another part of her didn’t want to watch him die. That part must have been stronger, because she didn’t move until something heavy thumped against the door.
Olive started and nearly tumbled from the bench. She padded over to the enchanted steel door and pressed her ear against it. From the hallway on the other side came harsh, unintelligible cries. The orcs had returned and discovered the unlocked gate, Olive realized.
Fortunately there was a second door out of the workshop, but if she used it, she’d have to find her way through strange tunnels and dig her way through Tymora knew how many more cave-ins. Then it occurred to Olive that the other door might also lead to a T-trap guarded by orcs. The thought paralyzed her with fear.
From near the door, she heard another cry—an unmistakably haughty voice demanding the orcs back away.
“Finder?” Olive whispered to herself, confused by the bard’s presence. Why hadn’t he stayed put?
From the hallway, Finder shouted, “You have no business here. This is my home. Leave now or face the consequences.”
Has he gone mad? the halfling wondered. There was a slurred sound to his speech and a tremor in his deep voice. That’s just great. He’s delirious, she thought wearily.
The orcs in the tunnel outside shouted and screamed. There was another thump at the door, like a spear or a crossbow hitting against it. Then suddenly there was silence. A new voice, sharp and high-pitched, spoke in the common tongue. “Release him,” the voice ordered calmly, in the manner of a being accustomed to being obeyed. Olive couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
Someone else was out there, someone who ordered orcs around. Someone, Olive suspected, who had the power to disintegrate ceilings and other things.
“Don’t try anything foolish. I can kill you in an instant. You are the Nameless Bard?” the voice asked.
“Yes,” Finder replied with a croaking sound in his voice.
Olive bit her lip, wondering what she could do to rescue her friend.
“I’m pleased you returned,” the sharp voice said. “I was sorry to have missed you the first time. The orcs were sure you’d fled for good. It seems that I came to investigate this tunnel in the nick of time. Now that you’ve gone to all the trouble to pick the lock on the gates, you might as well open the door to your workshop for me,” the voice demanded.
“Why should I?” Finder replied. His tone was haughty, but Olive could hear him wheezing even through the workshop door.
“Because if you don’t, these orcs will kill you,” the voice explained.
“I’m already dying,” Finder said. “I was caught by the poison needle trap in this gate.”
“Show me,” the sharp voice ordered.
There was a short silence, then the sharp voice said, “My, my. How inconvenient for you, nameless one. You can hardly play an instrument with that hand. Corx, the antidote!”
“He’s not dying yet,” an orc replied in common. “Let him open the door first.”
“I need this hand to open the door,” Finder lied.
“Corx, obey me!” the sharp voice insisted.
There was the sound of grumbling among the orcs, and a moment later, Olive heard Finder say, “A good year for antidotes. A youthful bouquet, fruity and light.” His voice still sounded weak.
“My name is Xaran,” the sharp voice announced, “and I have just saved your life. I think that deserves some consideration, don’t you?”
“Consideration, certainly,” Finder replied, “but not license to loot my workshop.”
“I can still kill you without blinking an eye,” Xaran pointed out.
“But then you’ll never get into my workshop,” Finder replied. “you’ve gone to such trouble to set up a trap to capture me before I got inside. What is it you’re after? Perhaps we can come to some sort of agreement.”
“Well, naturally my associates, these orcs, are interested in whatever wealth you might have been hoarding in there for the past two centuries,” Xaran said.
“I’m flattered,” Finder replied.
“I doubt it. Your monstrous ego is well known. Perhaps, though, your pride is justified. Certainly I can think of many uses for your renowned skills.”
“You won’t get much out of me if all you intend to offer me is my life,” Finder said.
“But suppose I were to offer you immortality?”
“I already have that,” Finder boasted, “through my music.”
“But does that truly satisfy you?” Xaran asked. “Think of all the adventures you could yet experience, all the tales still untold, all the songs unfinished. People not even born could one day benefit from your wisdom and tutelage—singers and musicians, adventurers and Harpers, wizards and kings. You haven’t even lived as long as Elminster the Sage. He has yet to surrender to death. Why should you?”
Listening behind the enchanted steel door, Olive tapped her foot nervously. This Xaran knows Finder too well, she thought. Who is he, anyway? How did he learn the bard’s weaknesses? And most importantly, what in the Nine Hells does he want? The outline of a plan came to Olive, and she began pulling light stones out of the wall as she listened to the voices filtering through the door.
“Were you thinking of offering me an unlimited supply of elixirs of youth?” the bard asked. “Or did you have something more devious in mind, like depositing me in a magic jar or turning me into a lich?”
“No,” Xaran said. “I had in mind a new spell, one that will make your body immortal.”
“I see,” Finder said. “And what do you ask in return?”
“I am interested in your advanced knowledge of simulacrums.”
“So is every evil tyrant in the Realms,” Finder retorted. “But I’m the evil tyrant who holds your life in his hands, so to speak.”
“True enough. Is that all you want?”
“No. There is one other little thing. You must bring me Akabar Bel Akash. I believe you are acquainted with the gentleman.”
“Akabar?” Finder asked with surprise, echoing Olive’s own thoughts. “What do you want with him?”
“He has in his possession something I desire. You must convince him to visit you here.”
“I haven’t seen Akabar in over a year,” Finder argued. “He returned to Turmish.”
“He is near Shadowdale now,” Xaran corrected him.
“I see,” Finder said.
“Well, nameless one?” Xaran prompted.
Olive stood poised at the door, holding a fistful of the magical light stones in one hand and Finder’s dagger in the other. This might be
my last chance for a surprise attack, she thought.
She reached up and traced the treble clef carved in the doorframe. The door swung open a foot, and with a banshee shriek, the halfling burst out of the workshop and hurled the light stones down the hallway. The orcs screamed in terror at the brilliant light and covered their eyes with their arms. While they were temporarily blinded, Olive lunged out with Finder’s dagger to the right, where she’d heard Xaran’s voice coming from, but there was no one there. Olive whirled about and pushed Finder through the workshop doorway.
As she turned around again to close the door, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder, and blood began oozing into the fabric of her tunic. Olive’s eyes widened at the sight of what had just attacked her. There, five feet above the ground, just outside the door, floated Xaran—a hideous ball of flesh with a monstrous maw of fangs, one great central bloodshot eye, and a crown of ten eye stalks waving like serpents. Xaran was a beholder!
The halfling realized with a jolt that when she had tried to attack Xaran with the dagger, she’d lunged just beneath it, ironically in the only place it could not harm her with any of its magical eye rays. When she’d pulled back into the supposed safety of the workshop, she’d stepped into its line of vision, and it had hit her with a look from an eye that caused magical wounds.
Olive slammed the door shut before the monster could turn an even deadlier eye in her direction.
“What are you doing?” Finder shouted, squinting in the brightly lit room.
“What am I doing?” Olive squeaked with astonishment. “I’m saving your life! In case you hadn’t noticed, there was a beholder out there!”
“I was in the middle of negotiating a deal with it,” Finder said angrily.
“Are you nuts? Beholders are incredibly evil!” Olive shrieked.
“So? They are also honorable … in their own fashion.”
“They’re also vicious,” Olive argued. “As soon as you refused to bring Akabar to it, it would have killed you.”
“What makes you think I was going to refuse?” Finder asked.
Olive stared up at the bard in horror, but Finder just glared back at her, offering no further explanation.
She thought she’d shut all the monsters out of the workshop. Now she wasn’t certain.
10
The Hunt
Alias watched with relief as Breck Orcsbane urged his horse down the left-hand fork of the trail they followed in order to scout ahead. The ranger was in a foul mood, and a respite from his company was more than welcome. He scowled constantly at the ground and hardly spoke to her at all, except to complain about Dragonbait. Alias could understand how Breck felt, but silent, uncritical sympathy did not come easily to her. They’d been on the road for three hours now, and at first the ranger’s prediction that it would be easy to track Grypht had proven true. They’d begun their search atop Oakwood Knoll and had no trouble finding the creature’s path leading down from the knoll. Grypht was large and heavy; his feet sank deep into the wet soil, and his great tail knocked down large swaths of vegetation like a scythe.
Grypht, however, was not a beast, but a creature with intelligence and cunning. He knew enough to travel paths that were rocky whenever possible, where he would leave no prints, or to cut through areas heavily strewn with fallen leaves, where he could use his tail to brush the leaves around to cover his passage. Following Grypht proved to be a challenge to the Harper ranger, despite his keen eye and years of tracking experience. He had put himself under so much pressure to avenge Kyre that Alias didn’t like to think what would happen if they lost Grypht’s trail.
The ranger would have been happier, Alias realized, tracking alone. Then he could grieve for the half-elf in private. They couldn’t risk having him find Akabar and Grypht without the presence of others, though. In the state Breck was in, he’d end up attacking Grypht or Akabar or both and end up dead himself. Since Mourngrym had forced Breck to travel with two relative strangers, the ranger repressed his grief behind a wall of hostility.
As for Breck’s complaints about Dragonbait, though, Alias was on the verge of agreeing with the ranger’s desire to leave the saurial behind. She’d begun the hunt arguing with Breck in Dragonbait’s defense. The ranger didn’t want to travel with Dragonbait unless he was mounted, as they were. Breck kept insisting that the creature would slow them down, but Alias had explained that Dragonbait could keep up with a trotting horse for hours. Since then, the saurial paladin had proceeded to make a liar out of her so often that even she was growing annoyed with him. He fell behind again and again for no apparent reason, as if he had no interest in their hunt. Once when the swordswoman had turned around to urge him to keep up, Alias had found him gathering nuts. Several times he seemed to know the path Grypht was taking but would not reveal it until Breck had discovered it for himself.
Alias had first noticed the saurial sniffing the air when they were on Oakwood Knoll. When the party had reached the first stony path, he’d sniffed the air again. Once Breck had disappeared down the path to check the trail to the north, the saurial had taken a few steps down the path to the south and sat down with a sigh. He did the same thing at a second fork, and again at a creek bed. He’d waited a quarter of an hour while Breck rode around searching for the trail beneath a thick carpet of leaves, until it seemed as if the ranger might explode. Then the paladin had casually plodded through the leaves in a direction which Breck, following behind, later found to be correct.
Finally guessing that the saurial’s sense of smell might be as sharp as any hunting hound’s, Breck had asked Alias to ask Dragonbait to lead the way, but at the next choice of intersections, Dragonbait scratched his head and acted confused. Breck, completely frustrated with the paladin, had resumed the lead.
Alias, familiar with her companion’s phony “dumb animal” routine, had glared at the saurial and whispered, “What is wrong with you? Why won’t you help him?”
The ranger is beyond my help, Dragonbait had signed.
Alias had ridden off after the ranger in a huff. She didn’t know what had gotten into the paladin, but she knew they couldn’t afford to alienate Breck completely. Aside from worrying about keeping the ranger from starting a battle with Akabar and Grypht, in the back of Alias’s mind was the realization that if they ever did locate Nameless, Breck was one of the bard’s judges.
Now, as Breck disappeared down the fork in the road, Alias dismounted to stretch her legs. Dragonbait was nowhere to be seen. The swordswoman walked back down the path to see what he was up to. She spotted him tying a strip of blue cloth to a tree branch just above his head. She crept up behind him until she was a mere three feet away.
“What are you doing?” she asked suddenly.
Dragonbait jumped and whirled around, obviously startled.
“You’re marking the trail,” she exclaimed in surprise. “Why?”
Mourngrym might come, Dragonbait signed.
“Mourngrym is not coming,” Alias retorted. She reached up to yank the strip of cloth from the tree and nearly lost her balance when she tripped on a heap of walnuts piled on the trail just below the branch.
“Why are you leaving nuts out on the trail?” she demanded.
An offering to Tymora, the saurial signed.
“Nuts?” Alias cried. “Since when does Lady Luck demand offerings of nuts? Dragonbait, what has gotten into you? Why are you slowing us down?”
Breck’s too angry, Dragonbait signed as he had at the tower. He’s not getting any calmer.
“But you’re only making him angrier. And you still haven’t told me why you’re marking the trail,” Alias said. “What are the nuts for, anyway?”
Dragonbait pointed down the trail. Breck had returned. The saurial loped up to the ranger’s horse.
Alias growled to herself. Dragonbait was keeping something from her, she was certain of it. She followed her companion back down the trail. “Did you find anything?” she asked Breck as she mounted her horse.
; Breck nodded wordlessly and led the way back down the fork of the trail he’d just examined.
Dragonbait slapped at Alias’s horse so it trotted down the trail ahead of him. It took the swordswoman a moment to slow her mount and turn to be sure the paladin was following. Dragonbait trotted past her. Alias turned her horse again and followed him. She’d spotted another strip of cloth hanging from a branch to mark the fork they now rode on. It wouldn’t do to confront the saurial in front of Breck, but eventually she’d find out what he was up to if she had to shake it out of the paladin.
Akabar watched with fascination as Grypht studied the teleport spell carved into his staff. The carvings didn’t look the least bit like any writing Akabar had ever seen. They appeared to be nothing but notches and lines carved at irregular intervals. The Turmish scholar longed to pester the saurial wizard into translating for him, but Grypht’s tongues spell had worn off. Besides, they had both agreed that the most important thing was for them to return as soon as possible to Shadowdale, so Akabar remained silent.
In the back of the Turmishman’s mind, he was anxious about Zhara. He had a blurry memory of Kyre speaking some spell that included his wife’s name. Dragonbait had promised to look after her, though, which assuaged the southern mage’s fears considerably. Still, he’d be glad to get back to Zhara.
He’d also be relieved to get out of the forest wilderness all around them. The slender oak saplings that surrounded them were lovely, but there were three especially large maples off to one side whose appearance the mage found disturbing. By their size, Akabar judged them to be hundreds of years old, but he didn’t expect they could live much longer. Their trunks were riddled with insect bore holes. Sucker vines covered many of their branches. While some of their leaves were an autumnal gold, most were brown and dry far too early in the season. He hadn’t noticed the trees when he first regained consciousness, but now he couldn’t get them out of his mind, even when he turned his eyes away from them. As the sun sank lower in the sky and the shadows lengthened and deepened, the sickly trees and even the young oak saplings seemed to close in on the forest clearing where they sat.
