by Kate Novak
“What? Not even the prayer to the stars?” the bard asked with mock surprise, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I thought all of Lady Luck’s priests sang that prayer each night.”
Zhara looked flustered. She hadn’t expected this self-serving man to have any knowledge of religion, let alone to know intimate details about prayers to her goddess. “Well, yes … I sing that,” she admitted.
“And I’ll wager you sing it beautifully, too,” Finder replied, then he turned his smile on Breck Orcsbane. Although he hadn’t met the man, he had already guessed who Breck was from the Harpers pin that the ranger wore on his cloak. “And you, Harper?” Finder asked. “Is your only concern that I do not do the Darkbringer’s bidding? Or have you come to whisk me back to prison?”
“I must hear your story first, sir,” Breck Orcsbane said, “to discover whether it confirms or denies what Akabar and Grypht have told me. Please tell me all that has happened to you since yesterday,” the ranger requested.
“All that has happened to me since yesterday will make a rather long tale,” the bard said. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit down before I begin.”
“Of course not,” Breck replied politely.
Finder settled down in the grass. Olive handed him his dagger and horn, and she and Alias sat on either side of him like doting daughters. The others, save for Grypht, sat before him like children listening to a bedtime tale.
Grypht stood off from the others, watching with considerable interest as Finder recounted the events of the past day in true bardic tradition. The wizard could hear, but not understand, Finder, so he was acutely aware of the power the human held over his audience. The other six adventurers listened with fascination to the bard’s story, enthralled by the sound of his voice.
It was a rare gift, this ability to entertain others, and it attracted people to it, as did anything rare. It was also a very minor enchantment, Grypht realized, but one so subtle as to prove nearly irresistible. Not even Breck Orcsbane proved immune to it. When he first began listening to Finder, the ranger’s face had been an impartial mask, but soon Breck too, was swayed by the bard’s words, and he looked at the older man with obvious admiration and respect. At least now, Grypht thought, the ranger will finally accept the truth about Kyre.
Olive listened with delight to how heroically Finder portrayed her role in their first escape from the orcs and her subsequent return to the workshop. When she caught sight of the blank look on Grypht’s face and realized he couldn’t understand the bard, she rose quietly and slipped over to where the saurial wizard stood. She slipped her diamond earring off and held it out to him, signing for him to try it. With some amusement, Grypht accepted the tiny piece of jewelry and slipped it on a horn beside one of his ear slits.
“I know you can cast magic to understand what we’re saying,” she whispered, “but my earring won’t wear out like your spells. You can borrow it for a while.”
Wearing the earring, Grypht was able to understand the halfling perfectly, though it didn’t give him the power to reply, so he merely nodded his thanks to Olive. As he watched the halfling return to the bard’s side, he wondered if she realized that by offering him the loan of her magical jewelry, she was paving the way for him to fall under the bard’s spell along with the others.
Finder finished his tale with a description of the final battle with Xaran in which they had all been involved. Only Olive recognized the omissions in the bard’s story. He hadn’t mentioned the plan he’d made in the Tower of Ashaba to escape with his magical stone in the event the Harpers judged against him, nor his plan to elude their judgment once he’d fled from Kyre. And, of course, he had not revealed that he knew who had looted his workshop. Loyally, Olive said nothing to correct the bard. It could be disastrous, she realized, if the Harpers found out about Flattery.
“So, Harper,” Finder said to Breck. “What’s your verdict? Are you hauling me back to Shadowdale in chains?”
“Considering the emergency, I have more important things to do than to escort prisoners around, sir,” Breck said to the bard. Briefly the ranger and the merchant-mage updated Finder on Elminster’s disappearance, Kyre’s death, Grypht’s flight from the tower with Akabar, Morala’s scrying visions, and the hunt for Grypht.
“According to Grypht,” Breck explained to Finder, “Moander turned most of his people into its minions and forced them from his world, through Tarterus, to the Realms. These minions are now building the god a new body.”
“How do you know all this?” Finder asked Grypht.
“I’ve been scrying on my people and watching their suffering for many months now,” Grypht explained.
“We have to find this new body and destroy it before Moander’s minions complete it,” Breck said. He slipped off his pack, and from it he pulled out a large parchment map and a thin stick of writing lead. He spread the map out on the grass in front of him.
“Nice map,” Alias said, impressed with the detailed attention to geography and scale. “Where’d you get it?”
“I made it,” Breck said with a shrug, though from his smile, it was obvious he was proud of his handiwork. “This is the clearing near Shadowdale where we met with Zhara and Grypht and Akabar,” the ranger explained, setting his stick of lead down on the map. “This is the direction the finder’s stone indicated when Grypht thought of a saurial whom Moander has possessed and brought to the Realms,” he said, drawing a line northwest by west on the map. “Was the saurial you thought of helping to build this body for Moander?” Breck asked Grypht.
The wizard nodded.
“So Moander’s new body must be somewhere along this line,” Breck said, tracing with his finger the line he’d drawn. He pointed to the region of the map representing the dales. “I can’t believe they could have been building a god’s body for three months anywhere in the dales without having been detected by Elminster,” he said. “The mountains would be a much more likely hiding place.” Breck slid his fingers across the individual peaks of the Desertsmouth Mountains. “They might be as far off as Anauroch, but there’s nothing in the desert for them to use to build Moander’s new body. There’s not enough to eat or drink there for a large party of adventurers, let alone a whole tribe.”
“Are you certain you’ve drawn your line accurately?” Finder asked. “You could be off by miles.”
Breck shook his head. “You bards have a boast that you never lose count of the measure. Well, we rangers have a boast of our own. We never get lost. I stood beside Grypht and watched the beam from the finder’s stone very carefully. It ran just between these two peaks—Mount Andria and Mount Dix.”
“Then Moander’s minions must be building his new body approximately here,” Finder said. “The Lost Vale.” He pointed to a spot on the line just to the south of a peak labeled “Mount Hans.”
“The Lost Vale is nothing but a myth,” Breck said. “Adventurers have been searching for it for centuries without finding a thing.”
“How quickly old Harper secrets are forgotten,” Finder said, chuckling. “You can’t search for the Lost Vale,” he explained. “Someone must take you to it magically. It makes perfect sense that Moander would choose the Lost Vale. It’s magically hidden and warmed, and there’s a gate to Tarterus nearby. Isn’t that how Moander got your people from Tarterus to the Realms?” Finder asked Grypht. “Through a gate?”
Grypht nodded.
“We can triangulate with the stone to be sure, but my money is on the Lost Vale. Care to make a bet, ranger? My hundred gold to your one says I’m right.”
“How could I resist?” Breck replied, gathering up his map.
“We’ll have a better view from the top of the hill,” Finder said, rising to his feet.
The other adventurers stood, except for the halfling. “I’ll just wait here until you get back,” Olive said, lying back in the grass.
Grypht looked thoughtfully at the halfling, then pulled out a small vial and handed it to Dragonbait. “Stay here with Ol
ive,” he ordered the paladin. “See if this salve will help her injury any.”
As the others followed the bard up the hillside Dragonbait knelt beside Olive. The paladin hadn’t realized the halfling was injured. It was so unlike her to suffer in silence. Now, though, he could see what Grypht must have noticed earlier, the bloodstain on the shoulder of her tunic.
What happened to your shoulder? he signed.
“Xaran took a shot at me last night with its wounding eye,” Olive said. The halfling sat up suddenly, staring at the paladin in surprise. “You’re using a hand cant!” she squeaked. “How did you learn it? No one’s supposed to teach it to outsiders.”
Dragonbait pointed toward Alias’s retreating figure.
Olive rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. “That girl is nothing but trouble!” she exclaimed. “Just what the Realms needs—a paladin who understands the thieves’ hand cant! Lord of Shadows, is nothing sacred anymore?”
Dragonbait chuckled at the halfling’s rhetorical question. Grypht recommended we try this salve on your wound, he signed.
“I’m not hurt that bad,” Olive said, but when she tried to shrug, the pain made her grimace in spite of herself.
Let me see the wound, the paladin insisted.
Olive sighed and loosened the drawstring at the neck of her tunic and let the garment slip down her shoulder, revealing a blood-caked bandage.
Gingerly the paladin lifted the bandage from the wound. A honeysuckle scent of concern issued from the saurial’s neck glands. The halfling’s shoulder was in worse shape than Finder’s hand had been, yet she hadn’t said a word when he’d used all of his healing energies on Alias and Finder. Dragonbait poured Grypht’s salve onto the wound.
The sticky salve wasn’t a magical healing potion, but as Dragonbait pulled a spare shirt from his knapsack and fashioned it into a fresh bandage, Olive could feel the pain in her shoulder easing.
When the paladin finished tending her injury, Olive stood up, saying, “Let’s join the others, shall we?”
As Dragonbait walked up the hill beside the halfling, he signed, Are you coming with us to fight Moander again?
“I’m going with Finder,” Olive said. “Whatever he decides to do, I’ll do.”
Dragonbait’s brow furrowed slightly. He remembered Alias commenting once that Nameless was a good influence on Olive. The paladin wasn’t so sure that was exactly accurate. He suspected it was the bard’s reputation, more than the man himself, that influenced Olive. Like Alias, the halfling probably perceived the bard as a good man. Both women thought his brilliance made up for his vanity. Finder’s special attention to them made him seem to them less selfish and reckless than he really was. The paladin doubted he’d ever convince either woman of Finder’s true nature.
Then Olive surprised him by whispering, “Someone has to keep an eye on him in case he tries to do something especially stupid.”
I thought you liked him, Dragonbait signed.
“I love him,” Olive snapped, “but I’m not an idiot, you know.”
I know now, the saurial signed in reply.
In the ruins of the manor house atop the hill, Finder handed Grypht his magical stone. “Think of the same saurial you thought of before,” he instructed the wizard.
As the others watched, a beacon of light sprang out from the finder’s stone, heading northwest.
“We’re right here,” Finder said, pointing out on Breck’s map the position of his keep, “and the beam cuts to the right of that mountain—the one that looks like it’s been sliced in half.”
Breck nodded. “That’s Wizards’ Folly. It used to be a whole mountain thirty years ago, before two wizards decided to use it for a battlefield.” The ranger drew a second line on his map. The two lines intersected at precisely the spot Finder had claimed to be the Lost Vale. “It seems you’ve won your wager,” Breck said.
Olive and Dragonbait rejoined the others just as the ranger pulled a gold coin from a pouch on his belt and tossed it to the bard.
Finder twirled the gold piece around his fingers and seemed to make it disappear into thin air. Only Olive caught sight of the glimmering coin as it slid down the sleeve of the bard’s shirt.
“So, can your magical stone take us to the Lost Vale?” Breck asked Finder.
“To the Singing Cave at the northern edge of the vale,” the bard replied. “From the cave’s mouth, you can see the whole vale.”
“First we should find out about the seed,” Grypht said. “You didn’t say in your tale, but are you sure the beholder didn’t mention a seed to you?” the wizard asked Finder.
“I’m sure,” Finder replied. “What is this seed?”
“Let me explain,” Alias said, shooting a warning glance at the others. She didn’t want Finder to know that she’d changed any of his songs. It would only anger him, so she decided to leave that part out of her explanation. “Because my soul is linked to Dragonbait’s, it seems I have a strange ability,” the swordswoman explained carefully. “It makes me go into a trance and sing about things related to Dragonbait’s people. Since the saurials are minions of Moander, they know about this seed, and somehow I sang a song about it.”
“Sing the song for me now,” Finder ordered.
Alias repeated both verses of the saurial soul song for the bard. Now that she was sure that Finder was safe from Moander, she was better able to concentrate on the first verse. She felt as if some stranger had whispered Moander’s secrets to her in her dreams, and she only had to remember the dream and how it had made her feel to understand it. With a jolt of alarm, she realized that she knew the purpose of the seed as clearly as she had known that Moander had meant to possess Finder. “The minions have already completed Moander’s new body!” she declared. “That’s why they need the seed.”
“What?” Grypht and Akabar asked in unison.
“The seed in the song is a seed of possession,” Alias explained.
“Like the one Xaran used to try to possess Finder?” Olive asked.
Alias shook her head. “Not exactly,” she said. “When Moander was in the Realms last year, it stored most of the power it acquired in the Realms in this seed, so this seed is much more powerful. Larger, too, I think.” Alias looked confused for a moment. “The saurials have never seen the seed, so I can’t picture it. Moander needs the seed, though, to possess its new body. Without it, the god can’t return to the Realms.”
“Good,” Breck said. “Then all we have to do is find the seed and destroy it.”
“If Moander can’t find it,” Akabar asked, “how are we supposed to discover it?”
“Use the finder’s stone,” Breck said excitedly.
Finder shook his head and explained. “It won’t work if you haven’t got a clear picture of what you’re trying to locate.”
“We can try,” the ranger insisted.
Finder handed Alias the magical stone, and Alias concentrated hard on the song. She seemed to sense excitement and impatience emanating from Moander. Although the finder’s stone glowed in her hands, it sent out no beam of light.
“Hey!” Olive said excitedly. “Maybe the finder’s stone is the seed! Maybe it’s glowing to point to itself!”
“Try to keep your imagination under control, little Lady Luck,” Finder chided. “That’s impossible. Moander has never been anywhere near the stone.”
“Not so,” Akabar said. “Alias had the stone with her last year when she freed Moander from its prison in Yulash, and Dragonbait used it to follow the god through the gate it created to go to Westgate. Although Moander never actually touched it, the god did get quite close to the stone.”
Finder took exception. “Xaran never said anything about the stone, and I’d know if anyone had tampered with it.”
“But would you tell us if you did know?” Akabar asked suspiciously. “How do we know for sure that you haven’t been possessed by Moander?”
“How do we know you haven’t been?” Finder growled back.
Anxious to restore unity, Grypht said, “Dragonbait sensed no evil in Finder.”
Alias translated the wizard’s statement, and Dragonbait confirmed the swordswoman’s words with a nod.
“But there is something wrong with Akabar,” Olive said, remembering the conversation she’d eavesdropped on. “At least Zhara thought so.”
“What is it, priestess?” Breck demanded.
Zhara looked down at the ground, unable to deny what the halfling said but unwilling to speak out against her husband.
“I have not been possessed but merely enchanted,” Akabar said with a sigh. “It is the sort of enchantment women can always sense. Kyre fed me a philter of love so I would follow her to Moander.”
Alias noted the pained look on Breck’s face. He’d suffered enough grief from Kyre’s death already. The news that the half-elf had used magic to seduce another man came as just one more slap in the ranger’s face.
“Grypht can dispel the enchantment,” Finder said. “Then Moander won’t be able to use your love for her against us.”
“Breck loved Kyre, too,” Akabar pointed out. “Will you try to disenchant him? Kyre was a beautiful, talented woman. Why shouldn’t both of us remember her with feelings of love. Do not waste your spell, wizard,” the mage said to Grypht. “How I felt about Kyre does not matter now that she is dead.”
“He’s right,” Breck said.
Only Alias noted the look of pain on Zhara’s face. It’s so like Akabar, the swordswoman thought, to think it doesn’t matter that he loves another woman. He expects Zhara to share his affections with his other wives and any other woman he desires. If it hadn’t been for her friendships with Dragonbait and Finder and Olive, Alias realized, she, too, might have accepted Akabar’s shared affections. A wave of sympathy for the priestess swept over her, and a feeling of guilt niggled at her conscience, remembering how she had actually hoped Akabar would fall in love with Kyre and become disenchanted with Zhara.
The other members of the party had already accepted Breck’s judgment about Akabar’s decision and had returned to arguing about the finder’s stone.
