Кейт Новак - Song of the Saurials

“Elminster is speaking in my defense this time,” Nameless replied confidently.

“You put a lot of store in that old coot.”

“The Harpers have grown accustomed to abiding by Elminster’s counsel.”

Olive sniffed. “And you expect them to forgive all, to take you back into their fold and restore you to your position as a Master Harper?

“Naturally,” the bard said coolly.

“What then?” Olive snapped. “Engagements at all the royal courts? A few noble titles granted in honor of your talents? Wizards begging for your secrets? Flocks of apprentices ready to serve under you?”

“Why should it be any different than it was before?” Nameless asked with a cocky grin.

“You’re dreaming, pal!” Olive shouted, completely frustrated with his vanity and unrelenting certainty. “Wake up and smell the bacon! Not even the great Elminster is going to bring Morala around. As for the other two, the ranger might take pity on you, but that half-elf bard’s got all the compassion of an iron golem. You need—” Olive halted, alarmed at the way her voice echoed through the cell and annoyed that this stupid human had made her lose her self-control. “You need a contingency plan,” the halfling whispered. “Just in case I’m right and you’re wrong.”

“I have too much to lose if I flee now and you’re wrong,” Nameless retorted heatedly.

“You have too much to lose if you don’t. Security isn’t going to get any more lax if they condemn you, you know. Since you’ve already broken out of the Citadel of White Exile, they’ll have to find some place even worse—if you can imagine any place worse than that.”

Nameless fought to control a tremor in his lip. For two centuries, he’d lived in the Citadel of White Exile, able to scry on the happenings in the Realms but completely unable to participate. It had been torture for him, but he could imagine worse things. He had other objections to trying to escape, though. “You forget we’re talking about the Harpers,” he said. “They’ll have no trouble tracking me down.”

“You’re a Harper yourself,” Olive pointed out. “If you weren’t so eager to rest on your laurels, you could keep a step ahead of them. I’ve got a place where you could hide, too—somewhere you’ll be welcome, and no one would ever be able to detect you magically.”

“You want me to hide behind Alias’s shield,” Nameless replied, referring to the misdirection spell cast on the swordswoman, a spell which made her and anyone she traveled with completely undetectable by magical means. “Forget it,” Nameless said vehemently. “I’m not getting her involved in this.”

“I wasn’t talking about Alias,” Olive said. “Give me credit for some sense. She’s too obvious. I wasn’t talking about a magic dead zone, either. That’s too obvious, too; besides, there’s too much riffraff in places like that. I have someplace even better in mind. With any luck, the Harpers will waste their time checking out Alias and the dead zones and miss us altogether. The Harpers aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. Why do you give them so much power over you?”

“Because,” Nameless hissed angrily, “they have my name.”

Olive shrugged her shoulders and helped herself to another plum. “Big deal. So do I. It’s Finder. Finder Wyvernspur, from the clan Wyvernspur of Immersea, in Cormyr,” she said nonchalantly. She stifled a mock yawn before adding, “Your older brother was Gerrin Wyvernspur. Your mother’s name was Amalee Winter, and your father was Lord Gould. Your grandfather was the Paton Wyvernspur. Sound familiar?”

The bard leaned back against the wall, staring at the halfling with undisguised amazement. Silently, with his eyes closed as if he were reciting an oft-repeated prayer from childhood, the bard mouthed the names Olive had given him.

“Surprised?” Olive asked, unable to keep from grinning.

The bard looked at the halfling and nodded, still dumbfounded.

“I’ve got something else for you, Finder,” Olive said, pulling something from her cloak pocket. She laid it down on the bed in front of the bard. “Recognize this?”

Finder looked down at the halfling’s gift. It was a sparkling yellow crystal, multifaceted and roughly egg-shaped, somewhat larger than a hen’s egg. The bard gasped. Then he whooped once with pleasure, leaped from the bed, snatched Olive up in the air, and swung her around, laughing with delight. “You stole the finder’s stone! You incredible halfling! I could kiss you!”

“Well, I suppose I deserve it,” Olive said, turning her head and pointing to her cheek. Finder pressed his lips against her flushed face. Then he laughed and spun around again, with Olive still in his arms.

“I’ll lose that plum I just ate if you don’t set me down,” Olive threatened.

Finder lowered the halfling gently to the bed. Olive bounced once on the mattress and snatched up the crystal. “Is this thing still loaded with magic?” she asked, tossing the stone to the bard.

Finder caught the crystal with one hand. He sang a short, clear G-sharp and peered into the stone’s depths. “Yes!” he announced. “I don’t believe it. Elminster didn’t give this to you, did he? You did steal it, didn’t you?”

Olive grinned. “No and no. Elminster gave it to Alias last year. Maybe he felt she had some right to it, seeing how she’s related to you. We lost it outside of Westgate, but I ran into the man who found it and convinced him to part with it.”

“And my name? Who parted with that?” Finder asked.

“That’s a longer story. Why don’t we save it for later? Let’s go, huh?”

Finder sat down on the footstool. “There’s no hurry now,” he insisted. “We can leave anytime. There’s a teleport spell in the crystal.”

“Which won’t work if Elminster’s cast some sort of anti-magic shell around this cell,” Olive argued.

“The finder’s stone is an artifact. Not even Elminster’s magic can stop spells cast from it,” Finder declared. He picked out a plum from the bowl and took a bite, slurping noisily. “I want to give Elminster the chance to argue my case before the Harpers as he should have done the first time. If he fails to convince them to pardon me, then we’ll leave.”

“I have a bad feeling about this, Finder. Let’s go now, please,” Olive pleaded.

“Relax, Olive. I have everything under control. Here, have another plum.” Finder held out the silver fruit bowl toward Olive.

Olive crossed her arms, determined not to encourage her friend’s indifference to his own peril.

Finder waved the bowl enticingly under her nose. Unable to resist the smell, the halfling chose a second plum.

“Finder. Such a proper name,” the bard mused as he set the bowl back on the table. The halfling suppressed an unexplainable shiver and bit into her plum.

While Olive Ruskettle was trying her best to convince the Nameless Bard that Elminster might fail to get him freed, the sage himself was explaining to the Harpers how the alliance of evil beings that had freed Nameless had managed to trick the bard into building a new version of his simulacrum for them.

Morala shook her head and bit her tongue, but she could no longer hold back her annoyance. “This is just what I warned him would happen when he was planning the first simulacrum. Evil cannot disguise itself from good unless good looks the other way. Nameless’s own arrogance blinded him to their nature.”

“That may be, thy grace,” Elminster replied, “but he did not hesitate to act against these evil beings when he finally recognized their true nature. He did his best to keep them from gaining control of the simulacrum. He freed her so that she and her companions were able to return and destroy all of the members of the consortium, the sorceress Cassana, the lich Prakis, the Fire Knives Assassins Guild, the Tarterean fiend Phalse, and even Moander the Darkbringer.”