7
Beneath Finder’s Keep
Finder cursed under his breath as he and Olive turned a corner of the underground tunnels and were forced to another halt. Olive sighed with resignation. Their way was blocked by a wall of rocks, dirt, and mud where the ceiling had caved into the passage. It was the fourth such obstacle they’d encountered. The first had been at the base of the stairs that led from the ruined manor house to the underground tunnels. It had taken them an hour to clear a hole through it. The second collapse hadn’t been as severe, and within half an hour they’d wriggled their way through. When they came upon the third collapse, Finder had decided to backtrack to the stairs and try a different route through the maze of twisting tunnels. Now they had no choice but to start digging again.
“If I hadn’t lost the stone, we could have taken a dimensional door into the workshop,” Finder growled, kicking at the base of the pile of rubble.
Trying to keep Finder from dwelling on the loss of his stone, Olive remarked, “Unless the roof in the workshop collapsed, too. Then we’d be transported beneath a pile of rubble and dead.”
“No,” Finder replied, shoving his torch into the base of the rubble. “Then the dimension door would leave us in the astral plane. The workshop will be fine, though,” he said. “Nothing could have gotten in there.”
“Half a ton of rock doesn’t need a key,” Olive pointed out, setting her own torch beside Finder’s.
“True,” Finder said, “but these ceilings haven’t collapsed from anything natural.” He pointed to a portion of the arched ceiling that was still intact. It was lined with quarried stone, perfectly fitted. “We haven’t found any of the quarried stone in the piles,” he said.
“It would probably be at the bottom of the pile,” Olive replied. “We haven’t dug that deep.”
Finder shook his head. “Some of it would be on the edges. It’s impossible for an arch to collapse unless some of the stone is removed.” The bard pointed to the top of the collapsed portion. “It wasn’t pried or chipped out, and it didn’t fracture in a straight line. See how circular the collapsed parts are—making an arc right through the stones?”
“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.