After checking over her shoulder once again for any stray orcs, she began work on the lock. It was a heavy one, and she broke two wire picks in it. She wondered momentarily whether it had been welded shut. She began to examine miscellaneous keys from her key collection. When she thought she had a near match, she wriggled both it and another wire about in the hole. She tried to put Finder’s poisoned hand out of her mind. She couldn’t allow anything to distract her.
Olive had no idea how long she’d been fiddling with the gate, but when the lock finally gave way, her torch was burnt to a nub. When she pushed on the gate, the burning stick fell to the ground. The flame immediately went out, leaving only glowing cinders at her feet.
The halfling picked up her pack and pushed the door open farther, not bothering to oil the hinges. They didn’t squeak, suggesting that the door was probably used often. Olive tried to put that idea out of her mind. If the only key was Finder’s unfinished melody, there wasn’t an orc in the world who could open the door. She’d heard orcs singing several times, and she had been anything but impressed.
Olive ran her hand along the polished steel door. There was no handle or lock. “Listen up, door,” she whispered. She sang the lyrics to the melody Finder had taught her as softly as she could. Something in the door made a clicking noise. Olive pushed on the door gently, and it swung open. Bright light flooded into the corridor from the workshop within. Olive slipped into the room and pushed the door closed behind her. It clicked again. She was locked safely inside. The halfling sighed with relief and leaned back against the door.
“Hello, Father,” a voice said from inside the workshop.
Olive stood bolt upright. A figure stood before her, dressed in black robes. He looked just like Finder, only younger, when he was in his prime. When he said the word “Father,” his voice dripped with sarcasm.
“Flattery!” Olive gasped. “But—but you’re dead! Giogi killed you!”
“I’ve been hoping you would escape the Harpers’ prison someday and return here,” Flattery said.
Since Flattery seemed unaware that she was not Finder, Olive realized she was seeing only a magical image of the evil mage, a message Flattery had left behind for Finder. Flattery had assumed his creator would be the only other person who could open the workshop door.
“After the weeks you spent trying to force me to sing your songs,” the image of Flattery said, “I hope you’ll be pleased to learn that I finally broke down and sang the key to the workshop door. Naturally I did not sing it to please you. When you struck me that first time, only three days after I was ‘born,’ I realized there was no pleasing you. Even if my new voice hadn’t been weak and immature, even if it had been identical to yours, you would have found something else to criticize me for. Knowing that enabled me to endure your violent threats and your pitiful apologies.”
Olive clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms, trying to deny the truth behind Flattery’s evaluation of Finder.
“It is now three years since my escape from this place, this hell hole you chose as my nursery,” Flattery’s image explained, indicating the workshop with a wave of his hand. “The Harpers have destroyed your reputation so fast that even I am impressed with their power. I haven’t heard one of your stupid little tunes for nearly a year and a half now. Your name is truly forgotten.
“I shall never forget, though, the look of surprise and fear on your face the day you came down to this room and found me free. Your apprentice, Kirkson, had taken pity on me—something you and your fawning Maryje never possessed. Kirkson used to come down late at night to comfort me as best he could. It was he who gave me some of your books to read. By mistake, he gave me your spellbook. When I realized what it was, I used its magic to escape from my cage and stole the disintegration ring from your desk. Then I waited. It wouldn’t have mattered that day whether you intended to plead with me or to beat me again. Either way, I intended to kill you and Maryje. Kirkson alone would be spared. It was unfortunate that it was he who leapt into the path of my disintegration ray in order to save your miserable lives.
“Since then, however, I’ve had my revenge on Maryje. She went mad after they exiled you, and last night she killed herself. It was I who drove her to it. It wasn’t very difficult. I sent her constant nightmares about my pain and suffering, along with telepathic suggestions that she was worthless.”
Olive felt sick to her stomach. She was trembling with grief and rage. She hadn’t wanted to see the workshop where Flattery had been created, and she’d been right.
“That leaves only you, Father,” Flattery’s image said, spitting out the word “Father” like an epithet. “I returned here to my birthplace to claim my inheritance. I’ve left you nothing. You might as well be dead.”
From the center of Flattery’s image, a dozen green rays shot out like spokes from a wheel and whirled around until a single green plane of light shimmered three feet above the floor. Then just as suddenly, the green rays disappeared along with Flattery’s image.
Olive reached up and touched the top of her head. A large clump of her hair came off in her hand, shaved off near the roots by the strange green light. A line of black scorch marks ran along the walls and furniture of the workshop.
The halfling walked about the workshop like an automaton. The room was well lighted with magical stones set in the walls and ceiling. Everything was tidy and dust-free. Olive looked at the marble-topped desk. There was no spellbook there. There were no books anywhere in the room. The shelves that lined the walls stood empty. She went over to the mahogany wardrobe on the wall behind the well and opened the doors. The shelves within were empty, too. There not only were no neutralize poison potions, but there were no potions at all.
Olive sat down on the bench at the worktable without bothering to check for any secret compartment holding a sack of gems. It just didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. She pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms around her legs, lowered her head, and wept uncontrollably.
Finder awoke from his nightmare shouting in fear. It took him several moments to remember he was in the ruins of his manor house. He was still having trouble breathing, and he was drenched in a feverish sweat and shivering from the cooling air. The sun was beginning to set, and the moon was cresting the horizon.
The bard had been dreaming of Flattery, something he thought was long past him. He’d told the lie of the creature’s destruction so many times that he’d almost come to believe it himself. Leave it to Olive, he thought, a lying thief herself, to discover the existence of Flattery.
Finder had always believed that Tymora, Lady Luck, favored the halfling rogue, but now it seemed that Tyr Grimjaws, the Even-Handed, God of Justice, had made Olive his agent. If she told Elminster that she knew Flattery hadn’t died, Elminster would know Finder had lied about the ice shard exploding in order to cover up a worse secret. If Olive knew anything about how he had treated Flattery and told Elminster, the bard’s reputation would be ruined. Finder wondered whether Tymora had made Olive loyal to him because Lady Luck still favored him, or if Tyr was testing him somehow with the halfling’s presence.
In his dream, Finder had opened the door to his workshop, just as he had two centuries ago, and discovered Flattery standing there, pointing a ringed finger at him, prepared to disintegrate him. In Finder’s dream, though, it was Olive, not Kirkson, who leapt in front of him to save his life from the green death ray, but the halfling was too short, so the ray hit Finder anyway, and he died.