“Prove it! Release the ice from the stone!” Alias replied vehemently. “Use it to stab Moander through the heart and freeze it to death! Then we can rescue Akabar!”
“I’m … not sure that will work,” Finder said hesitantly.
“It just might,” Grypht interjected hurriedly, “if we can attach the para-elemental ice to something that can withstand that much cold … a magical weapon or staff, perhaps.”
Dragonbait took his sword from Alias and offered it to the wizard, hilt first.
“Para-elemental ice on a magically flaming sword?” Grypht said dubiously. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Finder looked at Alias’s tear-stained face. Now he had some idea how she had felt when he had scolded her for the heresy of changing his songs. The bard struggled against an uncontrollable desire to make her smile again. In the end, he lost the struggle. He drew out his dagger. “This belonged to my grandfather,” he said. “It has certain power against evil creatures.”
“That should do nicely,” Grypht said. “Now, do we break the stone to get at the ice?” he asked.
“Can you levitate the stone?” the bard asked, holding out the finder’s stone.
Grypht nodded and pulled out a tiny golden wire from the pocket of his robe. As he concentrated on summoning the magical power to him, the smell of fresh-mown hay began to fill the cave. “Rise,” he said, shaping the wire into a scoop and lifting it into the air. The wire glittered and vanished as Finder’s magical stone drifted out of the bard’s hands.
From outside came the sound of splintering wood as Moander made its way through the forest below the cave, ingesting the trees into its body.
Finder tapped on his magical stone with the tip of his dagger until he had positioned it so that the long axis was perpendicular to the floor. “Olive,” the bard said calmly, “I need your steady halfling hands and your sweet halfling voice. Are you still wearing that ring I gave you?”
“Yes,” Olive said. “Do you want it back?”
“No. I want you to be wearing it for protection. Take this one, too, to keep the chill off.” The bard slid a second ring from one of his fingers and slipped it on Olive’s finger beside the one he’d given her earlier.
He looked up at Alias. “I need you to sing a high C,” he said, “on cue. Hold it until I motion for you to stop.”
Alias nodded.
“Olive, a high G for you, and hold it.” Finder motioned for the two women to begin. As their voices blended in a chord, the bard began singing a series of random atonal notes. Then he motioned for the women to stop. He tapped his dagger on the side of the Finder’s stone, and a tiny crack appeared at the center of the stone along the facet lines.
From outside, the sound of the toppling trees and the rumbling of the ground as Moander advanced grew so loud the adventurers had to raise their voices to be heard. They could hear Moander’s cacophonous chanting of its name clearly now. Dragonbait moved to the cave entrance to keep an eye on the god’s progress.
Handing his dagger to the halfling, Finder ordered her, “Hold it so the blade is level to the ground.” Olive held the dagger out with both hands.
The bard lifted the top of his magical stone away from the bottom. A terrible cold filled the cave instantly, causing their breath to steam. The water droplets on the walls of the cave froze; the ferns on the ground turned gray and brittle, and the swallows nesting in various nooks and crannies began twittering in alarm. Alias’s arms began to turn blue and she started to shiver uncontrollably. Grypht moved toward the mouth of the cave, where the air was warmer. Protected by Finder’s ring of cold resistance, Olive didn’t notice the chill. Finder simply ignored it.
“Alias, take this,” the bard said, handing the swordswoman the top of the stone.
Alias took the piece of crystal gingerly, expecting it to be cold, too, but it felt as warm as Finder’s hand.
Sticking out of the center of the bottom of the stone, like a needle in a pincushion, was a sliver of ice as clear as glass. Finder held his hands beneath the stone and ordered Grypht to release it from his levitation spell.
“Done,” the wizard replied from the mouth of the cave.
Finder knelt down in front of Olive. He huffed once on the tip of the dagger blade to cover it with moisture. “Steady now, Olive girl,” he said. He tilted the stone so that the tip of the ice needle touched the dagger’s groove. As he slipped the stone away, the needle of ice fell into the groove, with the end of the needle hanging out over the tip of the dagger. Finder breathed on the blade once again to freeze the needle of para-elemental ice to the dagger’s blade.
The bard stood up and tossed the bottom of the finder’s stone in his hand. “There may just be enough power in this piece to light my way to Akabar,” he explained to the swordswoman. “If I succeed in destroying Moander but fail to come out of the pile, you must try to use the top half of the stone to locate the mage.”
“Can’t you put both halves together again?” Alias asked.
Finder shook his head. “Never again,” he said.
Suddenly Alias realized that Finder’s immortality might not protect him from death at the hands of a god. He might never come back to her. She’d asked him to sacrificed his stone, but she didn’t want him to sacrifice his life.
“Let me take the dagger,” the swordswoman said. “Moander is as much my enemy as anyone’s.”
Finder shook his head. “No. This is my responsibility,” he said firmly.
The walls and floor of the cave began to shake from Moander’s approach. The swallows in the cave abandoned their nests and swarmed outside, fleeing from the quaking mountain.
“Set the dagger down carefully, Olive,” Finder ordered. “Then I’ll have to ask for my ring of cold resistance back. Keep the ring of protection. As careless as you are, you need it.”
Olive laid the dagger down in the frozen ferns. Finder took back the ring of cold resistance and slipped it on his finger. Hastily Olive pulled out the silver Harpers pin Finder had given her. As the bard bent over to pick up the dagger, Olive fastened the pin to his tunic, saying, “Wear this for luck.”
“But I gave you that pin. It’s yours,” Finder objected.
“Then you’d better bring it back to me, hadn’t you?” the halfling said with a wink.
“Take care, little Lady Luck,” Finder whispered, kissing her gently on the forehead. He stood and looked into Alias’s eyes. “Remember, no matter what happens, I love you,” he said. Touching the sigil of Moander on her arm, he promised, “I will rid you of this.”
“Moander is starting to move faster!” Dragonbait shouted. “You must hurry!”
Finder kissed Alias’s cheek and rushed to the mouth of the cave. The pile of greenery was only a hundred feet away, and the top of the pile was now level with the cave entrance. Eight long tendrils, tipped with fanged mouths, snaked out from the god’s body toward the cave.
Grypht drew back into the cave and began chanting.
Dragonbait drew his sword, prepared to fend off the god, but Finder pushed the paladin back inside the cave. “Look after Alias,” he shouted over the din.
Three of the tendrils snaked out and grabbed Finder, pulling him from the cave entrance. The remaining tendrils reached into the cave after Grypht and the others, but the slimy vines slammed into an invisible wall of force cast by the wizard. The saurials and the two women were safe for the moment, but they could only watch helplessly as the bard was drawn toward Moander’s body.
As Moander constricted its tendrils around Finder’s limbs and torso, the bard forced himself to remain calm. There was a protective enchantment on the sliver of para-elemental ice that helped insulate the ice. He still needed to dispel that enchantment. The tendrils drew Finder to the top of Moander’s body, which now stood several hundred feet above the ground. The decaying greenery steamed about the bard, giving off a pungent, earthy smell. Hundreds of tendrils tipped with eyes and mouths waved over the surface of the god. One tendril, lipped with the eye of a deer, snaked toward him, studying him curiously. “You are possessed by my vines,” its mouth declared. “Why don’t you obey?”