Finder's Stone - Song Of The Saurials Part 1

Song of the Saurials.

By Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb.

1.

The Nameless Bard

"Hear what you've denied the Realms, what you've denied yourselves," the prisoner muttered as he raised the chordal horn to his lips. His breath flowed through the instrument's chambers with the steady force of a trade wind, and his fingers danced gracefully over the horn's holes and keys. Sweet music filled the prison cell, slipped through the iron bars set in the cell door, swirled down the hallways of the Tower of Ashaba, and entered, unbidden, into the courtroom.

The tune echoed along the bare stone walls of the chamber and danced about the Harpers' courtroom. There, seated at a table before a tribunal of three Harpers, sat Elminster the Sage, about to offer his own counsel concerning the prisoner. Elminster paused before beginning his opening statement and closed his eyes to listen to the tune. It took him only a moment to catch the gist of the spell it was meant to weave. Ah, Nameless, will ye never change? he thought. A penitent man would plead for his freedom, a righteous man demand it. Is seduction all ye knowest?

Morala of Milil, the eldest of the three judges, scowled at the musical interruption. Her eyes nearly disappeared in the wrinkles that creased her face. A lock of her snow-white hair fell forward, and she shoved it impatiently back into the gold hairnet at the nape of her neck. She, too, recognized the spell wrapped within the melody, and when she caught Elminster's eye, she folded her frail arms across her chest and smiled coldly.

Elminster smiled back, as if oblivious to the ancient priestess's hostility. He thought with some annoyance. Why did the Harpers have to choose thee for this tribunal? Ye could hardly be considered unbiased. Ye never liked Nameless.

Morala had been one of the judges who had sentenced Nameless at his first trial. Of course, Elminster knew that was exactly why she was here now. Someone had to represent the past, someone who knew the Nameless of old and recognized his tricks, tricks such as the one Nameless was engaging in at this very moment.

"It wouldn't kill thee to enjoy the melody, Morala," the sage muttered under his breath. "A mere tune could hardly corrupt a pillar of stone like thyself."

Morala gave the sage a harsh glare, as if she'd heard his remark. Uncertain just how good her hearing was, Elminster shuffled a stack of scrolls across the table as if he were preoccupied with his defense and did not hear the music. When he sensed that Morala had turned her attention away from him, the sage sneaked a glance at the other two judges.

Not surprisingly, Breck Orcsbane, the youngest of the three judges, seemed delighted with the music. The ranger's head bobbed in time with the music, setting his long plait of yellow hair swaying like a pendulum. Elminster half-expected the brawny woodsman to get up and dance a jig. Morala had already expressed her displeasure that someone of Breck's simplicity had been chosen for the tribunal, but Elminster was relieved to discover that at least one of the judges knew how to enjoy life.

Only the bard, Kyre, displayed a completely neutral reaction to the music. The beautiful half-elven woman tilted her head to listen, but Elminster suspected that her technical a.n.a.lysis of the tune precluded experiencing it on any emotional level. The sage wished he could tell what she thought of it. He wished he could tell what she thought of anything. Kyre was so remote and stiff whenever he addressed her that Elminster felt as if he were speaking with the dead, an experience with which he was not unfamiliar. As if to compensate for her reserved nature, Kyre wore a vivid red orchid in her l.u.s.trous black hair. To bloom in this climate, the sage realized, the orchid had to be enchanted, but who, he was left to wonder, was she trying attract with it?

"Heth," Morala said, addressing the tower page a.s.signed to the Harpers. "Request the captain of the guard to do something about that noise," she commanded, "and close the door on your way out."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," Breck said. "The music's not half bad."

Heth hesitated at the doorway.

Morala's eyes narrowed as she looked to Kyre for support.

Kyre shrugged, indifferent to the priestess's annoyance.

"The sound does not disturb me," the half-elf said flatly.

"Elminster? Aren't you distracted by the noise?" Morala asked, hoping the sage would at least have the decency to admit the inappropriateness of the music at the trial. They had already agreed that Nameless should not appear before the tribunal. Morala feared he might charm the younger Harpers with his wit, while Elminster feared he might disgust them with his ego. It certainly did not seem appropriate to the priestess that the man's music should be heard. It was just such music that Nameless had used to justify his crimes, and the Harpers had not yet repealed their original judgment that all the prisoner's music be banished from the Realms.

"I'm sorry, Morala," Elminster replied. "My hearing's not what it once was. Didst ye ask if I heard boys?"

Morala let her breath out in a huff. She motioned the page to sit. "Please, continue with your argument, wise Elminster," Morala prompted.

Having gained the upper hand with Morala on so small a matter, Elminster hesitated before moving on to the more important issue at hand. Do I really dare speak on Nameless's behalf? he wondered. Nameless's ordeals don't seem to have humbled him any. Is he any wiser for all his suffering? The sage sighed to himself and shook his head in an attempt to clear away his doubts. He had said he would speak on the prisoner's behalf, so he would. He could only hope that the collective decision of the tribunal would prove at least as wise as his own uncertain counsel.

The sage rose to his feet and cleared his throat. "At my request," he explained, "the Harpers have agreed to reconsider the case of the Nameless Bard. They have chosen ye from among their ranks to represent them and serve on this tribunal. For the benefit of Kyre and Breck Orcsbane, who were not yet born when Nameless was first tried, I will review the circ.u.mstances of his trial and the outcome. If it please thy grace," the sage said, nodding politely in Morala's direction, "feel free to add to or correct me at any point. Ye knew Nameless as well as I."

Morala nodded politely in return, but Elminster realized it was unlikely she would interrupt him. His report would be scrupulously accurate, and Morala was astute enough to know she would only look like a fussy old woman if she began correcting him.

Elminster began his tale. "The Nameless Bard was born three hundred and fifty years ago in a small village in one of the northern nations, the second son of local gentry. At an early age, he completed his training at a renowned barding college and graduated with highest honors. He chose the life of a wandering adventurer, and his songs became popular wherever in the Realms he roamed. While he relished his fame, he also put it to good use, attracting other young adventurers to help in any cause he felt worthy. Thus he and his companions became the founding fathers of the Harpers.

"With the blessings of his G.o.ds and such aid as magic can give, he lived well beyond the natural span of years given to a human, yet there came a time when his mortality began to prey greatly on his mind. The bard became obsessed with preserving his songs for posterity. He was never satisfied with any other person's performance of his works, so he would not settle for the tradition among most bards of pa.s.sing the work on orally or leaving a written record. He began to experiment with magical means of recording his work and thus created a most marvelous piece of magica"the finder's stone."

Elminster paused a moment and glanced at Morala, wondering if she would object to his mentioning the name of the magic device. Morala, however, chose to ignore Elminster's mischief and waved her hand impatiently for him to proceed.

"The stone was originally a very minor artifact that would serve any person as a compa.s.s of detection. Basically its wielder needed only to think of a person, and the stone would send out a beam of light indicating a path to that person," the sage explained. "It also protected itself from theft as well as it could with a blinding light spell. Occasionally it was known to direct its wielder without instruction, as if it had a mind of its own, so that the stone was said to help the lost find their way.

"The Nameless Bard experimented with altering the artifact's nature, something only the most skilled or the most foolish magic-wielder would dare to try. Into the crystal's heart he inserted a shard of enchanted para-elemental ice. Having survived such a risky undertaking, Nameless reaped a great reward. In his hands or those of his kin, the stone acted as a rechargeable wand holding those spells Nameless had acquired. Like the blank pages of a journal, the stone could store other information as well. Nameless claimed it could recall for him an entire library of tomes. It could also recall his songs and 'sing' them, as it were, in Nameless's voice, exactly as he sang them. He added other enchantments so it could project the illusion that he was actually sitting there, singing the song."

"A little stuck on himself, wasn't he?" Breck noted with a grin.

Morala huffed in agreement.

"More than a little, good ranger," Elminster replied, smiling at Breck. The sage was pleased that the young man wasn't afraid to speak out and even more pleased that the failings of others amused rather than annoyed the ranger. "Despite all that he had accomplished," Elminster went on, "Nameless still was not satisfied. The stone's illusion of himself needed to be commanded when to sing and told what to sing. It had no vital force to sing of its own will, or judgment to choose a song appropriate to the moment, or ability to gauge an audience's reaction and build upon their emotions. So Nameless abandoned the stone as a failure. He planned next to build a powerful simulacrum of himself. The creature was to have Nameless's own personality as well as all the knowledge Nameless had placed in the finder's stone. So that none would shun it as an abomination, Nameless researched ways to make it indistinguishable from a true human. Finally, he intended to give it immortality."

Breck gave a low whistle of amazement. The priestess Morala shuddered, even though she was already familiar with the story. Kyre's expression remained neutrala"interested, but emotionless. The tune from the prisoner's cell swelled into a bold fanfare.

Elminster continued. "Having found it useful in his alterations of the finder's stone, Nameless obtained another shard of para-elemental ice for the heart of the simulacrum." The sage paused. It was easy enough for Elminster to speak of Nameless's brilliance and daring, and even his obsession and vanity, but the sage's heart ached to recall the bard's crime.

It was better he should tell it, though, than let Morala give the account. "Yet, for all his brilliance and natural ability with magic," Elminster explained, "Nameless was a bard, not a trained magic-user. He recognized his own limitations and tried to enlist the aid of several different wizards, but without success. There were not many people whom he had not offended with his arrogance. Among those mages he counted as friends, many thought his project silly, a waste of time and energy. Some did not believe it would even work. Others thought the creation he proposed to be a heinous act. A few pointed out that the creation could be copied and used by malicious beings for evil purposes. They tried to convince him that he should be satisfied with the finder's stone's recreation of his music. Whatever their opinion, every mage he spoke with told him the project was too dangerous. It would prove fatal to himself or some other."

"He went ahead and did it anyway, didn't he?" Breck asked, as eager as a child to hear the outcome of Elminster's story.

The sage nodded. "Yes, he did. With the aid of his apprentices, he built the simulacrum's body in his own home. As he began casting the spell that would animate the creature, however, something went wrong. The para-elemental ice exploded. The simulacrum was destroyed, and one apprentice died instantly. Another lost her voice, and all attempts to heal her failed."

"She killed herself later," Morala interrupted with a trace of anger.

"Yes," Elminster admitted, then hastily added, "but that was after the time of which I speak. When Nameless summoned help for his wounded apprentice, he freely admitted how she had sustained her injuries. The other Harpers were appalled that he had risked his own apprentices in so dangerous a task, all for the sake of his obsession with his music. They summoned him to judgment and found him guilty of slaying one apprentice and injuring another. They determined a punishment to fit his crime.

"His music and his name were to be banished from the Realms. To keep him from thwarting them in this goal, and also to keep him from trying his reckless experiment again, the Harpers removed the bard's own name from his memory and banished him from the Realms, exiling him to a border region of the positive plane of life, where, due to the nature of that re gion, he would live in good health and relative immortality. He was condemned, however, to live in complete solitude." Elminster paused again.

Nameless's tune switched to a plaintive minor key as Morala, Orcsbane, and Kyre sat contemplating their fellow Harper's crime and his punishment. It almost seemed as if Nameless was aware of what point in his story Elminster had reached. Morala glanced suspiciously at the sage, but he seemed not to notice the tune at all.

Actually Elminster's attention at the moment was attracted to a fluttering shadow behind the tribunal. The sage made no sound or movement to call attention to the small figure he spotted skulking along the courtroom wall. It was only the halfling, Olive Ruskettle. Elminster could see no harm in her unauthorized presence. After all, she knew Nameless's story already. The sage made a mental note, though, to chide Lord Mourn-grym about the quality of the tower guard. In the courtroom, the halfling was nearly impossible to spot, adept as she was at hiding in the shadows, but she should not have been able to pa.s.s through the tower's front gate in broad daylight unchallenged by the guards.

Unaware she had been observed by the sharp-eyed sage, the halfling sneaked out of the courtroom and down the corridor toward the prisoner's cell.

If ye have plans to visit thy friend Nameless, ye little sneak thief, ve are in for a surprise, Elminster thought, suppressing a grin. He focused his attention again on the judges. "Two hundred years have pa.s.sed since the exile of the Nameless Barda""

"Excuse me, Elminster," Kyre interrupted, "but are we to continue calling this man Nameless throughout this hearing? Surely we can be trusted with his name. It would simplify things, would it not?"

"No!" Morala objected. "It is we who made him Nameless. Nameless he will remain."

Elminster sighed at the old priestess's vehemence. "It is the purpose of this tribunal to decide not only whether or not to free Nameless, but whether or not Nameless's name should be restored to the Realms. Morala and I have both taken an oath not to reveal the name unless the Harpers decide otherwise. So we must continue to refer to him as Nameless, at least until the aid of this trial."

"I see," Kyre replied, nodding her head slightly. "Excuse my interruption."

Elminster nodded and once again began the second half of his tale. "Nameless remained in exile for two centuries. Then certain evil powers deliberately sought him out and freed him from his place of exile."

The tune coming from the bard's prison ceased abruptly. Morala's lips curled ever so slightly in satisfaction while Elminster stroked his beard thoughtfully, wondering just what Nameless was up to now.

In his prison cell, Nameless lowered the chordal horn and glared at his cell door. Something was jiggling in the lock. Elminster had given the guards specific instructions to show the prisoner every courtesy possible, including always knocking before opening his door. The prisoner scowled in antic.i.p.ation of delivering a scathing reprimand to whichever guard had been so foolish to interrupt him in the middle of his composition.

The door swung open slowly. A female halfling stood in the doorway. Her hazel eyes sparkled, and she winked conspiratorially as she slid a copper wire into her russet hair. "Nice ditty," she quipped. "Has it got any lyrics?"

"Naturally," the prisoner replied, relaxing his angry face. "Would you like me to write them down for you, Mistress Ruskettle?" he asked.

"That'd be great," the small woman said, stepping into the cell. She pushed the door almost, but not quite, closed behind her. Her furry bare feet padded silently across the plush wool Calimshan carpeting. She slipped off her knapsack and her wet cloak and checked to be sure the back of her tunic and pants were dry before seating herself on a tapestry-covered footstool.

The Nameless Bard lay the chordal horn down on the table. "Come in. Mistress Ruskettle. Have a seat and make yourself at home," he said, though he knew sarcasm was wasted on half-lings in general and on Olive Ruskettle in particular.

"Thank you. Nameless," Olive replied. "Nice quarters you have here," she said as her eyes inspected the polished furniture, the velvet drapes, the bra.s.s-bound clothes chest, the silk bedspread, the gold candelabrum, the crystal wine decanter, and all the other luxuries Nameless's captors had provided for his cell. "You're looking well," she added, grinning at the fine silken s.h.i.+rt, fur-trimmed tunic, wool pants, and leather boots he wore.

Nameless grinned back as he seated himself cross-legged on the bed. He never could remain annoyed with Olive for long. She had, after all, rescued him from the dungeon of the cruel sorceress Ca.s.sana and also helped him free his singer, Alias, from Ca.s.sana. It wasn't just grat.i.tude, however, that made him fond of the halfling thief; Olive's brash nerve amused him. It reminded him of himself.

"What have you been up to?" the bard asked. "It's been over a year since I've seen you last."

"Yes. Sorry about that. This summer's been rather chaotic, as you've probably heard. I was staying with friends in Immersea, who talked me out of traveling until the trouble died down. If I'd known you were wasting away in prison, I would have come sooner," the halfling said. From a silver bowl piled with fruit, she plucked a large, juicy plum and ate the delicacy in several dainty, but quick, bites.

"My imprisonment is a mere formality until the new trial is over," Nameless said. "That door wasn't even kept locked until that old bat Morala arrived and caused a stink."

"She's the priestess of Milil?" Olive asked. "The one who has it in for you?"

"You've met?" Nameless asked.

"I've seen her around."

"Have you seen Alias?"

"Actually, I came to see you the moment I hit town," Olive said. The halfling didn't care much for Alias. Olive realized, however, that Nameless thought of the singing swordswoman as a daughter, so in an effort to be polite, she asked the bard, "How is dear Alias?"

"I don't know," Nameless huffed. "She and Dragonbait arrived in Shadowdale a day after Morala, and Morala won't allow me any visitors. How did you get past the guard at the tower gate?"

"You know," the halfling said, pulling out a silver pin from her cloak pocket, "it really is amazing how much respect the local constabulary has for this silly harp-and-moon symbol, even when it's pinned to the breast of a short person with no visible weapons."

Nameless grinned at the irony. He'd given the halfling thief his old Harper's pin. According to custom. Olive would need him to vouch for her until she was accepted by the other Harpers, but he was a disgraced Harper. Now she'd used the pin to break a rule made by Moralaa"a Master Harper. There was nothing like the chaos a halflinga"or a womana"could cause, Nameless thought, and Olive is both. "You realize," Nameless asked aloud, "you'll have some problems being accepted by the Harpers until I have reestablished myself?"

"You realize," Olive retorted, "that I'll have some problems accepting the Harpers if they don't get off their high horses and forget this banishment business. In the meantime, you can't stay in this dump. I've got a horse and provisions for you hidden at the edge of town."

"Why, that's awfully thoughtful of you. Mistress Ruskettle."

"So let's go," Olive said, hopping up from the footstool and standing beside the bed, tapping her foot in mock impatience.

Nameless leaned forward, reached out a hand, and stroked her hair. Ordinarily Olive couldn't stand having humans patting her on the head, but Nameless hadn't actually patted her, and she liked him more than any other human she'd ever met, so she could forgive him a good deal. She looked up at him, puzzled that he'd even touched her at all.

"Oh, Olive," he said with a rueful smile.

"What's wrong?" she asked, not failing to note he had used her given name, something he'd never done before.

"Did you think me incapable of arranging my own escape, Olive?" Nameless asked.

"You're still here, aren't you?" Olive pointed out, growing annoyed.

"Yes, but not due to any lack of skill with locks," Nameless said, holding out his hand and presenting the halfling with the copper wire he'd just slipped from her hair. Dexterously he twirled the s.h.i.+ning metal strand through his fingers, then made it vanish so quickly that Olive couldn't be certain if he'd flipped it away or slipped it up his sleeve.

"All right, I'm impressed. Can I have my pick-bone back?" the halfling asked.

"It's in your hair, Olive, right where you put it," replied Nameless.

Olive ran her fingers through her hair and found the wire lodged behind her ear exactly where she'd put it. "An illusion, right?" she guessed.

Nameless did not reply. Instead, his eyes twinkled with mischief.

"I hate it when you do things like that," Olive huffed.

"You love it when I do things like that," Nameless countered. "You just hate that you can't do them yet."

"All right. So you didn't need my help to escape. Why are you still here?" she demanded.

"Because I have no desire to become a hunted fugitive when I don't have to. The Harpers will come to their senses and release me."

"That's what you thought when you turned yourself over to them two hundred years ago," Olive argued. "What makes you think this trial's going to end any different from the first one?"

"Elminster is speaking in my defense this time," Nameless replied confidently.

"You put a lot of store in that old coot."

"The Harpers have grown accustomed to abiding by Elminster's counsel."

Olive sniffed. "And you expect them to forgive all, to take you back into their fold and restore you to your position as a Master Harper?

"Naturally," the bard said coolly.

"What then?" Olive snapped. "Engagements at all the royal courts? A few n.o.ble t.i.tles granted in honor of your talents? Wizards begging for your secrets? Flocks of apprentices ready to serve under you?"

"Why should it be any different than it was before?" Nameless asked with a c.o.c.ky grin.

"You're dreaming, pal!" Olive shouted, completely frustrated with his vanity and unrelenting certainty. "Wake up and smell the bacon! Not even the great Elminster is going to bring Morala around. As for the other two, the ranger might take pity on you, but that half-elf bard's got all the compa.s.sion of an iron golem. You needa"" Olive halted, alarmed at the way her voice echoed through the cell and annoyed that this stupid human had made her lose her self-control. "You need a contingency plan," the halfling whispered. "Just in case I'm right and you're wrong."