“You merely destroyed the body of Moander in this world, but Moander’s power and spirit live on in the Abyss, and the Darkbringer’s slaves in this world are building it a new body, a new abomination for it to possess. The Darkbringer will return once the body is finished.”
“Moander hasn’t got any followers left in the Realms to build him a body,” Alias protested.
“That,” Grypht explained, “is why Moander enslaved my tribe and brought them to the Realms—”
Grypht gurgled suddenly, released Alias, and clutched at his throat. There was an arrow lodged in his neck. The great creature teetered once, then fell over backward and landed on the forest floor with a crash.
13
The Soul Song
Dragonbait rushed to Grypht’s side as Alias whirled around. Breck stood at the edge of the clearing, a second arrow already notched in his bow. He must have rediscovered Akabar and Grypht’s trail and tracked them right back to the camp, the swordswoman realized.
Dragonbait knelt beside the saurial wizard, cursing himself for having forgotten the ranger’s bloodlust.
Breck cried out, “Don’t touch him!”
Dragonbait ignored the ranger’s order and laid his hands on the larger saurial’s chest. He began to pray for the power to heal.
“Breck, you idiot!” Alias called out. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Breck approached them. “I thought I was saving your life,” he said. “That creature could have killed you in an instant. What does Dragonbait think he’s doing?”
“Healing him,” Alias explained.
“No!” Breck shouted, and shoved the saurial paladin away from Grypht. “Are you crazy? That’s the monster that killed Kyre!”
“No, he isn’t,” Alias said. “Grypht is a saurial like Dragonbait. He’s a friend of Dragonbait’s. He couldn’t have killed Kyre.”
“Well, actually,” Akabar said, “he did kill her.”
“See? I told you so!” Breck said, waving his finger in Alias’s face.
Alias shot Akabar a look of frustration. Even if the Turmishman didn’t want to lie, he could at least have had sense enough to keep his mouth shut.
“He had no choice, though,” Akabar explained. “Kyre was a minion of Moander. She would have enslaved both of us to the Darkbringer if Grypht hadn’t destroyed her.”
“How dare you speak such lies?” Breck growled at Akabar. “Kyre was a Master Harper! How dare you slander her like that? And with such a feeble story. Moander is dead.” The ranger turned his bow on the Turmishman. “You’re lying about Kyre. Admit that you’re lying!” he demanded.
Alias pushed Breck’s bow aside. Despite her anger with Akabar and Zhara and Dragonbait, she couldn’t let Breck shoot them full of arrows. “Lord Mourngrym said we were to capture Grypht, if we could, and bring Akabar back alive,” she reminded him sharply. “If we don’t do something for Grypht soon, he’s going to die, and if you don’t stop waving that bow at Akabar, your fingers are going to slip and we won’t be able to bring him back alive either.”
“All right,” Breck said, “you can heal Grypht, but I want him tied up first.”
“With what?” Alias asked. “Breck, he’s too big to tie up. He’s not going to run off anyway.”
Dragonbait signed something to Alias.
“Dragonbait says he guarantees Grypht’s good behavior,” Alias explained to the ranger.
“He’s going to guarantee the good behavior of a murderer?” Breck asked sarcastically.
“It was self-defense,” Akabar insisted.
“Kyre wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Breck retorted.
“She was possessed by Moander,” Akabar explained. “It’s true Moander was dead, but the evil god’s spirit is trying to return to the Realms. It can possess good creatures as well as evil.”
“Like the treants,” Alias pointed out. She shifted her position very subtly, blocking the ranger’s view of Grypht as Zhara bent over the saurial wizard.
“You saw the treants, then?” Akabar asked. “They were controlled by Moander the same way Kyre was,” the mage explained, motioning with his hands to keep Breck’s eyes away from his wife. “She might never have joined Moander willingly, but she was possessed by a vine of some sort, the same thing that possessed the treants. We had no choice but to destroy them. They tried to kidnap me and nearly killed Grypht. Why do you think a single arrow brought him down so easily? He received so many injuries from them that he passed out in our hiding place and slept for hours.”
Akabar put a hand on Breck’s shoulder. “I am sorry for the loss of your fellow Harper,” he said to the ranger. “She seemed to me a beautiful and clever woman, traits that Moander could not have made her mimic were they not already her own. I can understand your anguish. I share it with you.”
Breck took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Replacing his arrow in his quiver and shouldering his bow, the ranger nodded respectfully at Akabar. “Thank you,” he said. “However, you must realize I cannot accept your story without proof. There was nothing left of Kyre’s body. You will have to come back to Shadowdale, so Morala and Lord Mourngrym can judge whether you are telling the truth or not.”
Behind the ranger, Zhara finished her prayers to cure Grypht’s wounds.
Akabar looked up at the trees hesitantly, reluctant to agree with the ranger but equally reluctant to refuse him. He looked anxiously at Grypht, who was rising slowly to his feet.
“He hasn’t time to return to Shadowdale” Grypht said in Realms common.
Breck whirled around and discovered the saurial on his feet. The ranger reached for his sword, but Grypht caught his wrists. As burly as he was, the ranger was no match for the five-hundred-pound saurial.
“You’ve drawn my blood twice in as many days,” the wizard said to Breck. “Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of it. Now you will listen to me without attacking me.”
Breck’s body went limp and he glared at Grypht. “I’m listening, monster.”
“Good,” Grypht said, but he didn’t release the ranger. “In our world,” the wizard explained, “there are still fools who worship the Darkbringer and give his minions power to walk among us. Kyre came to our world as a visitor to study our music, and we welcomed her, but while she was among us, our tribe was attacked by minions of Moander. Kyre helped defend our tribe most heroically, but she was captured by the enemy. The Darkbringer made her one of its minions by possessing her body with its vines. Since she is native to this world, she can walk among your people without raising suspicion, so Moander sent her back here to prepare things for his return. In the meantime, my tribe has fought against the attacks of other minions of Moander for months now, until all but I and my apprentices and the Champion, the one you call Dragonbait, have been caught and enslaved. Moander has marched my tribe forcibly through the plane of Tarterus and into this world. The Darkbringer is using them to create a new body to use in the Realms. I came to your world seeking Champion’s help.
“Unfortunately I arrived in Kyre’s presence, and she used your ignorance to her own purposes and convinced you to attack me. When she’d cornered me in Nameless’s room, she imprisoned me in a soul trap. Akabar freed me, and I destroyed her before she could enslave us both. I would not have destroyed her if there was any hope she would live once Moander had dispossessed her, but there wasn’t. Moander’s possession had eaten away the inside of her body.”
“You kidnapped Elminster and Nameless, and you expect me to believe what you’re saying?” Breck said, tossing his head back haughtily.
“I didn’t kidnap Elminster or Nameless,” Grypht replied. “I used a transference spell on Elminster—”
“That agrees with what Lhaeo said must have happened,” Alias interspersed. “That strange place where Morala saw Elminster in her scrying bowl must be Grypht and Dragonbait’s home world.”