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.