Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [75]
Copperbloom returned a few minutes later with a large blue-glazed porcelain bowl decorated with a harp, a glaur, and a songhorn, all entwined in green vines laden with yellow blossoms. She set the bowl down before Jedidiah and bowed low.
"Thank you," Jedidiah said.
The bowl was filled with pure white sand. Jedidiah brushed the sand aside until he uncovered a glimmer of yellow. Gently he loosened what was buried in the sand and pulled it out.
Joel gasped. "It's the finder's stone!"
"Half of the finder's stone," Jedidiah corrected.
The stone the old priest held was the mirror image of the stone Joel had seen Jedidiah use to siphon off his power-a rounded, multifaceted yellow gemstone with a jagged bottom.
"This," Jedidiah said, blowing sand from the stone, "is the half of the stone Finder left in the vale with Alias and the saurials before he went into the Abyss to find the mage Akabar bel Akash. It hasn't left the vale since then-nearly ten years ago."
"I thought Finder went into the Abyss to kill Moander," Joel said.
Jedidiah shook his head. "That wasn't his original intention, but Akabar sacrificed his own life to convince Finder to kill Moander."
Suddenly Joel came to another realization. "If that's the half of the finder's stone that Finder left the saurials, then the half you had was…" Joel let his voice trail off.
"… the half that Finder took with him to the Abyss," Jedidiah said with a nod.
Joel's eyes widened. "You had Finder's half of the stone? How did you get it?" he asked, his voice low with wonder. "Did Finder give it to you?" he asked.
"Not precisely," Jedidiah said. He sang a scale, then another in a different key. The half of the finder's stone glowed brightly and cast a beam of golden light on Jedidiah. As it did, the old priest began to transform. His back grew straighter; his skin became unwrinkled; his muscles hardened; his hair darkened to black, with only a few splotches of gray. His features still looked like Jedidiah, but the signs of his age had evaporated, and youthful vitality flowed through his body.
When the transformation had ceased, Jedidiah turned to Joel. "You see," he said with a sheepish expression on his face, "I had Finder's half of the stone because I carried it with me into the Abyss. It was my half of the stone. I'm Finder, your god."
Eleven
Finder
Joel's jaw dropped. He stared wordlessly at Jedidiah for a full twenty heartbeats, while his mind struggled to form a coherent reply. Finally he said, "I don't believe it," then instantly felt foolish.
"I'm afraid it's true," Jedidiah replied. "May I strike myself with lightning if it's not," he joked. Excitement gripped Joel's heart. Here he was, speaking with a god, the god he'd agreed to serve. Suddenly he was nervous. "Um, is there some special way I should address you? Should I kneel or bow, or anything? I've never met a god before," he said.
Jedidiah shook his head. "No. My ego's large, but despite what my detractors say, it's not that large. I'm not really comfortable with adulation. I'm just a little god. You can keep calling me Jedidiah. I've gotten rather attached to the name."
Joel grinned. The fears Walinda had tried to use to cloud his judgment evaporated. He was really talking with Finder. Then a new worry niggled at his heart. "If you're Finder, then what happened to Jedidiah?" he asked. "Jedidiah is me, or I'm Jedidiah. It's a disguise I wear when I travel around the Realms."
"Then that was you in Berdusk?" Joel asked. "When you were telling me about Finder, you were telling me about yourself?"
Jedidiah nodded.
Joel let out his breath. He thought he'd been asked to join Finder's church by a charming old bard-priest, when all along it was Finder himself. "Why me?" he asked.
"Why did I ask you to be a priest?" Jedidiah inquired.
Joel nodded.
"Well, I wanted to get the best people I could find-people who already believed strongly in transforming art. I'd watched you in Berdusk, arguing with your teachers, trying to