Breck nodded. “That’s Wizards’ Folly. It used to be a whole mountain thirty years ago, before two wizards decided to use it for a battlefield.” The ranger drew a second line on his map. The two lines intersected at precisely the spot Finder had claimed to be the Lost Vale. “It seems you’ve won your wager,” Breck said.
Olive and Dragonbait rejoined the others just as the ranger pulled a gold coin from a pouch on his belt and tossed it to the bard.
Finder twirled the gold piece around his fingers and seemed to make it disappear into thin air. Only Olive caught sight of the glimmering coin as it slid down the sleeve of the bard’s shirt.
“So, can your magical stone take us to the Lost Vale?” Breck asked Finder.
“To the Singing Cave at the northern edge of the vale,” the bard replied. “From the cave’s mouth, you can see the whole vale.”
“First we should find out about the seed,” Grypht said. “You didn’t say in your tale, but are you sure the beholder didn’t mention a seed to you?” the wizard asked Finder.
“I’m sure,” Finder replied. “What is this seed?”
“Let me explain,” Alias said, shooting a warning glance at the others. She didn’t want Finder to know that she’d changed any of his songs. It would only anger him, so she decided to leave that part out of her explanation. “Because my soul is linked to Dragonbait’s, it seems I have a strange ability,” the swordswoman explained carefully. “It makes me go into a trance and sing about things related to Dragonbait’s people. Since the saurials are minions of Moander, they know about this seed, and somehow I sang a song about it.”
“Sing the song for me now,” Finder ordered.
Alias repeated both verses of the saurial soul song for the bard. Now that she was sure that Finder was safe from Moander, she was better able to concentrate on the first verse. She felt as if some stranger had whispered Moander’s secrets to her in her dreams, and she only had to remember the dream and how it had made her feel to understand it. With a jolt of alarm, she realized that she knew the purpose of the seed as clearly as she had known that Moander had meant to possess Finder. “The minions have already completed Moander’s new body!” she declared. “That’s why they need the seed.”
“What?” Grypht and Akabar asked in unison.
“The seed in the song is a seed of possession,” Alias explained.
“Like the one Xaran used to try to possess Finder?” Olive asked.
Alias shook her head. “Not exactly,” she said. “When Moander was in the Realms last year, it stored most of the power it acquired in the Realms in this seed, so this seed is much more powerful. Larger, too, I think.” Alias looked confused for a moment. “The saurials have never seen the seed, so I can’t picture it. Moander needs the seed, though, to possess its new body. Without it, the god can’t return to the Realms.”
“Good,” Breck said. “Then all we have to do is find the seed and destroy it.”
“If Moander can’t find it,” Akabar asked, “how are we supposed to discover it?”
“Use the finder’s stone,” Breck said excitedly.
Finder shook his head and explained. “It won’t work if you haven’t got a clear picture of what you’re trying to locate.”
“We can try,” the ranger insisted.
Finder handed Alias the magical stone, and Alias concentrated hard on the song. She seemed to sense excitement and impatience emanating from Moander. Although the finder’s stone glowed in her hands, it sent out no beam of light.
“Hey!” Olive said excitedly. “Maybe the finder’s stone is the seed! Maybe it’s glowing to point to itself!”
“Try to keep your imagination under control, little Lady Luck,” Finder chided. “That’s impossible. Moander has never been anywhere near the stone.”
“Not so,” Akabar said. “Alias had the stone with her last year when she freed Moander from its prison in Yulash, and Dragonbait used it to follow the god through the gate it created to go to Westgate. Although Moander never actually touched it, the god did get quite close to the stone.”
Finder took exception. “Xaran never said anything about the stone, and I’d know if anyone had tampered with it.”
“But would you tell us if you did know?” Akabar asked suspiciously. “How do we know for sure that you haven’t been possessed by Moander?”
“How do we know you haven’t been?” Finder growled back.
Anxious to restore unity, Grypht said, “Dragonbait sensed no evil in Finder.”
Alias translated the wizard’s statement, and Dragonbait confirmed the swordswoman’s words with a nod.
“But there is something wrong with Akabar,” Olive said, remembering the conversation she’d eavesdropped on. “At least Zhara thought so.”
“What is it, priestess?” Breck demanded.
Zhara looked down at the ground, unable to deny what the halfling said but unwilling to speak out against her husband.
“I have not been possessed but merely enchanted,” Akabar said with a sigh. “It is the sort of enchantment women can always sense. Kyre fed me a philter of love so I would follow her to Moander.”
Alias noted the pained look on Breck’s face. He’d suffered enough grief from Kyre’s death already. The news that the half-elf had used magic to seduce another man came as just one more slap in the ranger’s face.
“Grypht can dispel the enchantment,” Finder said. “Then Moander won’t be able to use your love for her against us.”
“Breck loved Kyre, too,” Akabar pointed out. “Will you try to disenchant him? Kyre was a beautiful, talented woman. Why shouldn’t both of us remember her with feelings of love. Do not waste your spell, wizard,” the mage said to Grypht. “How I felt about Kyre does not matter now that she is dead.”
“He’s right,” Breck said.
Only Alias noted the look of pain on Zhara’s face. It’s so like Akabar, the swordswoman thought, to think it doesn’t matter that he loves another woman. He expects Zhara to share his affections with his other wives and any other woman he desires. If it hadn’t been for her friendships with Dragonbait and Finder and Olive, Alias realized, she, too, might have accepted Akabar’s shared affections. A wave of sympathy for the priestess swept over her, and a feeling of guilt niggled at her conscience, remembering how she had actually hoped Akabar would fall in love with Kyre and become disenchanted with Zhara.
The other members of the party had already accepted Breck’s judgment about Akabar’s decision and had returned to arguing about the finder’s stone.
“According to your story, Kyre grabbed the stone just before you used it to teleport yourself to this place yesterday,” Grypht reminded Finder. “This morning the beholder grabbed for it when Alias dropped it. These events suggest that Moander’s minions have some interest in the stone.”
“Maybe they just wanted to use it to find their seed,” Finder argued.
“That’s possible,” Grypht said, “but it doesn’t disprove the theory that the stone is the seed.”
Finder scowled. “Moander traveled on land from Yulash deep into the Elven Woods. The god could have left its power anywhere. The seed could be practically anything.”
Olive cursed herself for making the suggestion about the stone. The bard cherished the stone, and if the others insisted on destroying it, Finder would be furious. She wracked her brain for some way to convince the others that the idea was wrong. Fortunately Alias succeeded where the halfling could not.
“Moander would never have chosen the finder’s stone to hold the seed,” the swordswoman said. “The seed’s casing has to break open for the seedling of possession to sprout, but breaking open the finder’s stone would release the para-elemental ice at the center of the stone, and the seedling would die in the cold.”