Song of the Saurials

15 The Reunion

While Akabar was convincing Breck to hold still so that Zhara could use her clerical powers to heal his injuries, Dragonbait hurried to Alias’s side. Through the soul link he shared with her, he could sense the pain the swordswoman felt from the wound Xaran had given her. The paladin laid his hands on Alias’s shoulders and began a prayer.

Although Dragonbait had once explained to Alias that he prayed when he healed, she had never actually heard the words of his prayer before. A sense of embarrassment came over her as she listened to the paladin’s pious request to his gods for the power to relieve her pain. Dragonbait, she realized, was as devout as all the clergy members she had joked about for as long as she had known him.

When the wound on Alias’s chest had ceased bleeding and the skin had knit together, Dragonbait ran a teasing finger down the brand on her arm so that it tingled pleasantly, as if to remind her that he still cared for her even if she was an impious barbarian.

“The beholder injured Nameless’s hand, too,” Alias reminded him.

Dragonbait turned wordlessly and, taking the bard’s hand in his own, repeated his prayer. The gash in Finder’s hand stopped bleeding and closed, though the bard was left with a long scar.

As Olive watched Dragonbait heal Alias and Finder, she caught sight of a familiar yellow gem tucked in the paladin’s belt. “Finder! Dragonbait’s found your stone!” the halfling cried.

Dragonbait pulled out the gleaming magical stone. “I found it in the passage through the rubble,” he said in saurial, handing the stone to the swordswoman.

“I dropped it when the orcs grabbed me,” Alias recalled, taking the stone. She glanced at Olive, then looked at the bard with surprise. “What did Olive just call you?” she asked.

“Finder,” the bard replied. “That’s my name, Alias. Finder Wyvernspur. The Harpers didn’t quite succeed in wiping it out completely. Olive discovered what it was.”

“Leave it to Olive to uncover the Harpers’ best-kept secrets,” Alias muttered. Suddenly she laughed. “Finder, as in the finder’s stone? All this time we’ve been using your name and never knew it.” She held the magic stone out to the bard and said, “I believe this is yours. We used it to find you.”

Finder smiled with delight. “That’s the second time in as many days that a pretty woman has returned my property to me,” he said, taking the stone.

The bard’s compliment wasn’t lost on either Olive or Alias. Olive shook her head at Finder’s unrelenting flattery as she bent over to retrieve the bard’s magical horn. Alias, though, hadn’t seen the bard for over a year, and she was overcome with emotion. Her joy at finding him safe and all her yearning to be with him and please him came rushing to the surface. She threw her arms around Finder’s neck and hugged him.

“I’ve missed you so,” the swordswoman whispered. “I tried to see you back in Shadowdale, but the Harpers wouldn’t let me visit you. I was so worried when you disappeared.”

For a moment, Finder felt uncomfortable in Alias’s embrace; she had never been quite so demonstrative toward him before. Then he noticed Dragonbait watching him curiously. The paladin was looking, Finder suspected, for some proof that the bard loved Alias as a daughter, not merely as his singing simulacrum.

Almost defiantly, Finder embraced Alias in return and discovered to his surprise that, beyond the fierce pride he felt as her creator, he did indeed harbor some tender feelings for her. “I missed you, too,” he admitted softly.

Akabar watched the bard and swordswoman’s reunion with satisfaction. He liked Dragonbait, but the mage felt Alias needed more contact with humans. He felt even greater pleasure noting how thoughtfully Breck watched Finder and Alias. I hope the Harper will show some mercy and take the father’s and daughter’s affection for one another into account in his final judgment upon the bard, Akabar thought.

Olive, who was trying to remain casual about the fuss Finder was making over Alias, kept her eyes on the Turmish woman who was healing the Harper ranger. Despite the dark shade of the woman’s skin and the different texture of her hair, the halfling quickly recognized that the priestess was another one of Alias’s “sisters.” Finder, the halfling noted, hadn’t even noticed the woman yet. He only had eyes for his eldest “daughter,” the one who sang.

When the priestess finished healing the ranger, she began speaking softly to Akabar in Turmish. With the magic earring Finder had given her, Olive eavesdropped on the couple’s conversation.

Zhara tugged on her husband’s sleeve. “Our reunion has not yet been so sweet as theirs,” she whispered in Turmish. “Are you still angry with me for fighting with Alias?”

Akabar looked down at his wife and sighed. She, too, he realized, needed human contact. She’d had her share of terror since yesterday, and although she was very much like Alias, she wasn’t used to the horrors and rigors of adventuring. The mage slipped his arms around his wife’s shoulders and kissed her tenderly on the lips. “There is nothing left of my anger but smoke,” he whispered back.

Zhara squeezed him around the waist, laid her head on his chest, and sighed deeply.

Akabar stroked Zhara’s thick auburn hair. Unbidden, a vision of Kyre came to his mind. He couldn’t keep from picturing the half-elf’s long, silky black hair.

Zhara sensed his unease. “What’s wrong?” she asked, gazing up at him, concerned.

“Nothing,” Akabar replied, shaking his head. There was no sense worrying Zhara about his feelings for a dead woman. He held Zhara even tighter, but the vision of the half-elf remained.

Olive grew uncomfortable watching Akabar embrace his wife, so she turned her attention to the remains of Xaran’s body. Someone had once told her that alchemists would buy beholder eyes for potions, but she doubted she could get much for Xaran’s eyes. Even before they’d been crushed by the cave-in, stabbed at by herself, and frozen and then burnt by Grypht, they hadn’t exactly been fresh-looking.

There was something worth retrieving from the beholder, though. Finder’s dagger was still lodged in Xaran’s central eye. Olive began to roll the beholder over so she could reach the dagger.

Grypht caught Dragonbait’s eye and cocked his head. The paladin moved away from the others to join his fellow saurial.

“Well, Champion, what does your shen sight tell you about the bard?” Grypht asked quietly.

“The Darkbringer does not possess him,” Dragonbait replied, but there was not much relief or pleasure in his voice.

“So he does not burn with the fires of evil,” Grypht said with a shrug. “But you have not told me what your shen sight does reveal about him,” the wizard said.

“He is much the same as before, High One,” Dragonbait said. “A mountain of pride, wrapped in gray fog.”

“Neutral … neither good nor evil,” Grypht noted. “A man who walks the wall. He does not lack the strength to abide by convictions. Why doesn’t he have any?” the wizard growled.

“Perhaps,” Dragonbait suggested, “convictions are not as interesting to him as he is to himself.”

“Do you want your dagger, Finder?” Olive called out.

The bard looked in Olive’s direction. “Of course I do, little Lady Luck,” he said, winking at the thief.

Olive sniffed in mock disdain at the flattering nickname and turned away so no one could see her blushing. Leaning over Xaran’s corpse, she pulled Finder’s dagger from the beholder’s central eye.

As Olive’s leg brushed against the remains of her cloak, Grypht could see that the burr that Xaran had spit at the halfling still lay in the folds of the charred fabric. Alarmed, the wizard noticed that the magic seed pod had begun to swell. He rushed to Olive’s side and lifted her from the ground by her arm, snatching her away from the seed.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Put me down!” she demanded. “You’re hurting my arm!”

An explosive crack came from Olive’s cloak as the burr split open, releasing a cloud of blue-black dust.

With his free hand, Grypht grabbed Akabar’s robe and pulled the merchant-mage and his wife farther away from the cloud. “Use the stone!” the wizard ordered. “Get us out of here! Now!”

Finder held up his magic stone with his good hand and took up Alias’s right hand with his injured one. “Dragonbait, get over here,” the bard shouted.

The paladin leaped to Alias’s side and grabbed her left hand.

As if it had a mind of its own, the black cloud drifted toward the halfling, tucked under the wizard’s arm.

Dragonbait grabbed Zhara, and Zhara held onto Akabar. Grypht reached out for Akabar. Finder sang a note, and the party glowed a vivid yellow, then vanished.

The cloud of black dust swirled once around the spot where they’d stood, then sank to the floor, unable to sustain itself without a host.

When the light from the finder’s stone’s teleportation spell died out, the adventurers found themselves once again on the hillside outside the crumbling stone manor.

“We should be safe here for a while, at least,” Finder said. To Olive, he added, “You should be more careful, little Lady Luck.”

“Me?” the halfling said increduously, thinking of all the risks Finder had taken in the past day alone.

Grypht set Olive down, and the halfling sank into the grass, exhausted by the teleportation and groaning from the pain in her injured shoulder.

Grypht waved a finger at the halfling, and the scent of honeysuckle rose from his body.

“Grypht says you should be more careful, too, Olive,” Alias translated for the halfling. “You nearly became Moander’s smallest minion.”

Confused, Olive looked at Finder. “How come I didn’t understand what he said?” she asked the bard, tapping meaningfully on the magical diamond earring he’d given her.

“The earring will only work for languages that are spoken in the Realms,” the bard explained. Suddenly he turned to Alias. “How did you understand what Grypht said?” he asked.

“I cast the tongues spell from the finder’s stone—your stone,” Alias said.

“That’s impossible,” Finder said. “I enchanted the stone so that only a Wyvernspur can cast—” The bard halted in midsentence, and his brow furrowed. “Then Olive was right,” he said. “In the eyes of the gods, you are my daughter.”

“It’s true, then, that the tongues spell cast from your stone is permanent?” Grypht interrupted. “You can still understand me?”

Finder nodded.

“But permanency requires tremendous power,” Grypht said. “Where does it come from?”

“From the stone,” Finder explained in saurial. “It was a simple artifact before I inserted a shard of para-elemental ice into it, making it a device which could store music, lore and magic”

“You tampered with an artifact?” Grypht asked, looking at the bard as if he were insane.

“Why not?” Finder asked Grypht. “It worked.” Turning away from the saurial wizard, the bard glanced at the other adventurers. “This is quite a party you’ve assembled to rescue me,” he commended Alias.

Zhara sniffed in annoyance. “You flatter yourself, bard,” the priestess said. “We are here because we wanted to make sure you did not do Moander’s bidding.”

Finder looked at Zhara in surprise, finally taking notice of her resemblance to Alias. “You’re one of the copies of Alias that Phalse made, aren’t you?” the bard asked Zhara.

“Nameless—um, Finder,” Alias said, “this is Zhara, priestess of Tymora and Akabar’s wife,” she added. Although she managed to keep her voice even when she said it, she couldn’t keep herself from glowering at the merchant-mage.

Finder turned his most charming smile on the priestess and bowed low. “I am pleased to meet you, my lady,” he said.

“Why should you be pleased?” Zhara asked coolly. “I don’t sing.”

“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 Olive,” 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.

“According to your story, Kyre grabbed the stone just before you used it to teleport yourself to this place yesterday,” Grypht reminded Finder. “This morning the beholder grabbed for it when Alias dropped it. These events suggest that Moander’s minions have some interest in the stone.”

“Maybe they just wanted to use it to find their seed,” Finder argued.

“That’s possible,” Grypht said, “but it doesn’t disprove the theory that the stone is the seed.”

Finder scowled. “Moander traveled on land from Yulash deep into the Elven Woods. The god could have left its power anywhere. The seed could be practically anything.”

Olive cursed herself for making the suggestion about the stone. The bard cherished the stone, and if the others insisted on destroying it, Finder would be furious. She wracked her brain for some way to convince the others that the idea was wrong. Fortunately Alias succeeded where the halfling could not.

“Moander would never have chosen the finder’s stone to hold the seed,” the swordswoman said. “The seed’s casing has to break open for the seedling of possession to sprout, but breaking open the finder’s stone would release the para-elemental ice at the center of the stone, and the seedling would die in the cold.”

“Yes,” Grypht agreed. “That’s true.”

Olive breathed a sigh of relief as Alias returned Finder’s stone to him. The bard studied the gem thoughtfully.

“Well, if we can’t find the seed,” Breck said, “we’re back to the first plan. We’ve got to destroy Moander’s new body before the minions manage to find the seed and resurrect the god. Are you ready to take us to this Singing Cave?” he asked Finder.

“Just as soon as I take Alias somewhere safe,” the bard said.

“What?” Alias exclaimed.

“Moander tried to use you once. It will try again,” Finder said. “I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“Finder, why did you bother to make me a swordswoman if it wasn’t to fight?” Alias snapped.

“So you could defend yourself if you were in trouble,” Finder said. “I didn’t expect you to go looking for fights. And I most certainly never dreamed you’d run around trying to destroy evil gods.”

“Be reasonable, bard,” Breck said. “This is no time to be overly paternal. Alias is a good fighter. We need her.”

Grypht added, “Her presence can protect us from the scrying of Moander’s minions.”

“So can Zhara’s,” Finder countered.

“But Alias might sing another soul song that could help us defeat the Darkbringer,” Grypht persisted.

Finder glared at the wizard. “I won’t have you using her to sing soul songs.”

“Only you can use her to sing your songs, is that it, Finder?” Akabar asked.

“Stop it, all of you!” Alias shouted. “No one uses me! I choose to do things or not on my own.” She turned to Finder and addressed him with her hands on her hips. “Dragonbait is my brother. His tribe is my tribe. You would do well to remember that, Father. I’m going to help the saurials, and you are not going to stop me. Grypht has scried the vale; he can teleport me there if you won’t.”

“An hour ago the thought of Moander filled you with terror,” Dragonbait reminded her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Alias said stubbornly. “I’m not staying behind.”

“Fine,” Finder said coldly.

Alias looked as if the bard had slapped her in the face.

Olive knew exactly what the swordswoman was feeling and thinking. Alias was on the verge of considering some compromise, just as the halfling had found herself doing so often with Finder. I can’t let that happen, Olive decided. She hurried to Finder’s side and pushed the bard’s hand into Alias’s, saying, “Now that that’s settled, let’s get going.”

Finder shot an annoyed look at Olive, but to his own surprise, he realized he’d grown too superstitious about the halfling’s instinctive actions to defy them. He tightened his grip on Alias’s hand and stole a glance at her.

Alias smiled at him shyly.

“I just don’t want you to be hurt,” he said.

“I know,” Alias answered.

The others hastily formed a chain with their hands. Finder sang a series of notes, and the stone’s glow of teleportation surrounded all of them.

The Mouth of Moander looked up suddenly from Moander’s new body. With Moander controlling her, she shouted, “Gather the fliers. Cast a spell of invisibility on them. They must patrol the vale.”

Several lesser minions hurried to obey the god’s high priestess. They began to climb down from the immense mount of vegetation that Moander would soon inhabit.

Coral felt her heart sink. When her scrying on Xaran and the Nameless Bard had failed, she had been certain the swordswoman Alias had rescued the bard.

No, my priestess, Moander whispered in her head. I can sense the power of the seed. The bard has brought it to the vale. I told you he was possessed.

“Then why hasn’t he brought the seed directly to you?” Coral asked defiantly. “Why do you need the fliers to search for him?”

Moander ignored her goading. No doubt the bard will have my servant Alias with him, the god informed Coral. And where Alias is, the paladin will be, too. They must be reeled in carefully. You will have that honor, Coral. Champion will be pleased to see you again … at first.

Coral looked down at the ground, far below the top of the god’s new body. If I can make it close enough to the edge to jump, she thought, I could end this torment.

Curiously, Moander didn’t seem to notice her thought or take control of her limbs. Whispering her former goddess’s name, Coral dashed to the edge of the vast pile of greenery and flung herself away from it. She began to drift down as gently as a feather. On the ground beneath her, she could see a possessed magic-user staring up at her. Moander had used the mage’s body to cast a feather fall spell on her. She had gained nothing by her suicide attempt.

But I have learned much, Moander’s voice came to her. Now I know just how far you will go. I must keep you on a tighter leash, mustn’t I? It is hopeless to defy me. You, and you alone, will be the one to sacrifice Champion, and no other—just as soon as you have planted the seed to resurrect me in the Realms.

Coral’s tears splashed to the ground like rain. Some time later she landed beside them. Under Moander’s control, she rose to her feet and strode off to make preparations to capture Dragonbait and Alias.