Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [118]
"That's not my problem," Jedidiah said. "He wanted it."
Please take the song back. It is spreading to us,
Ilsensine's faithful priests, when we pray for spells. It is driving us mad.
"All sales are final," Jedidiah replied with a chuckle.
My lord says he will grant you a boon, the illithid replied, if you will take the song back. Anything you need to know. Gods have traded one of their eyes for such knowledge.
Jedidiah paused for a moment, then said, "There are two things I need to know."
Agreed, the mind flayer cried out in their heads without hesitation.
"Very well," Jedidiah said.
The mind flayer moved in close to Jedidiah. It extended its facial tentacles. The tips of the tentacles glowed with the same green radiance as Ilsensine had. The tentacles stroked Jedidiah's face, then plunged deep beneath the flesh, passing ethereally into his brain. After a moment, they withdrew, leaving Jedidiah's flesh unscarred.
In his head, Joel heard the mind flayer sigh. The creature's palsy had evaporated.
The mind flayer stepped back and bowed deeply. The answer to your first question is no, it said. The answer to your second question…The creature tilted his head. He does not know. Good-bye, Finder Wyvernspur.
The illithid slid back into the fog, disappearing within moments.
Jedidiah stood staring after it wordlessly, the blood draining from his face. His expression was one of extreme sadness.
"Jedidiah," Joel whispered. "Are you all right?"
The older man nodded, but he appeared distracted.
"What was that all about?" Joel asked.
Jedidiah sighed. He turned to Joel with a wan smile. "Remember in Shishi's garden, when I thought I remembered that I had a plan? I did. I gave Ilsensine a recursive song, a tuneful little ditty in which the last verse leads directly back into the first, forming a closed loop. Ilsensine couldn't get the tune out of his head and with his powerful brain, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Then, his mind power being what it is, it spread to his priests."
Joel thought of the times when he'd been unable to stop humming some silly ditty for days, sometimes weeks at a time. It had interfered with everything else he had tried to do. The younger bard chuckled. It would be a long time before Ilsensine poked around in a god's mind again. Then he remembered the other mystery. "What about the questions?" he asked. "What were your questions? You looked disappointed by the answers."
Jedidiah was silent for a moment, then said "They only confirmed what I already knew in my heart. We'd better hurry back to the shop in case there's someone else searching for the hand."
The older priest pushed on into the fog. Joel hurried after him before the gloom could separate them.
Sixteen
The Hand Of Bane
Bits ushered them back into his shop with an air of expectancy. "Well?" he asked Joel.
"Holly's all right," Joel explained. "Her friend Bors found her. She's resting. Walinda has stayed behind to help tend to her." "Walinda?" the bariaur queried with some surprise. "The unpleasant one?"
Joel picked up the sledgehammer Walinda had dropped on the floor of the shop. "Probably just trying to get out of the heavy work," he said, giving Dits a wink. He and Jedidiah made their way into the basement. Dits stood on the top step and watched them. Jedidiah pulled out the light stone and set it on a high step of the stairs so it shone down over their heads.
"Would you care to do the honors?" Jedidiah asked. Joel grinned. He took a firm grip on the handle of the sledgehammer and slammed it into the wall. "Whoa! That's hard," Joel said, his hands smarting. A chip of red had come off a brick, but there was no sign of cracking in the walls. "It feels like it's a lot thicker than it looks," the Rebel
Bard explained.
"Whack at it some more," Jedidiah said.
Joel complied, pounding on the