Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [79]
Once again Joel explained that Jedidiah was in disguise to avoid his enemies in the Outlands.
"You sure you weren't in disguise before to avoid your enemies in the Realms, and this is how you really look?" Jas asked Jedidiah, a sly grin on her face.
Jedidiah grinned back at the winged woman. "Don't you think I'd prefer to convince people I was a much younger man with such a beautiful and clever young woman present?" he asked.
Jas flushed and turned her attention to the meal. Locustlike, she polished off all the remaining food before lying down in the sun for a nap.
"She looks happy for a change," Joel noted.
Holly shrugged. "She's found an activity to temporarily take her mind off the death of her friends," the paladin said. "It will be a long time before she's at peace, let alone happy."
Joel looked down into his teacup, feeling insensitive. Holly, he realized, was speaking from her own experience of losing her family to the Zhents.
Handful tugged Holly off to show the young paladin around the vale. Jedidiah sat with Joel in the garden, telling him tales about the saurials and the death of Moander.
That evening the saurials held a feast for their guests. They served roasted boar and good, strong ale. Jedidiah and Joel were called upon to sing and play. Joel was asked to tell the tale of his journey north. Holly sang a Daggerdale haying song. Prompted by the flying saurials, even Jas sang a strange song about traveling between the spheres that not even Jedidiah had heard before. The saurials sang, too. It was eerie watching the saurials listen to sounds the humans couldn't hear, but Grypht and Jedidiah translated the words. The saurials also played musical instruments, but these the humans could hear. Copperbloom and two of her students accompanied Joel on several tunes. The young saurials performed a skit, the play Joel had watched them rehearse in the temple. It was about a pact the tribe had once made with a dragon back on their home world. It was past midnight when the saurials finally began drifting homeward and released their guests from the celebration. Copperbloom led Jas and Holly off, and Handful showed Joel and Jedidiah to a small cottage. Joel pulled off his boots and flopped down on one of the two beds with a sigh of genuine pleasure. It was the first real bed he'd been in since Anathar's Dell, and he expected the night to be just as restful.
Jedidiah lay on the bed across the room. He was soon snoring softly. Apparently, without the majority of his godly power to sustain him, the efforts of the past few days had exhausted him as it would any human.
Despite the amusements of the evening, all the ale he'd had to drink, and the softness of the feather bed, Joel had trouble drifting off to sleep. He couldn't help thinking about Walinda, the banelich, and the consequences of handing over the Hand of Bane to them. Although Jedidiah had invited Joel to ask him any question, the young bard had kept one in reserve. Now the question rustled through his brain like a serpent slithering through dried leaves.
Wouldn't it be better, he thought, just to forget the power in the finder's stone? Was the power so important to Jedidiah that he was prepared to assist in the resurrection of so evil a god as Bane, earning the enmity of all good people in the Realms? If Jedidiah would forgo the power rather than aid Bane's followers, he would still have his immortality, without forfeiting any of the love and respect Joel and many of the saurials obviously felt for him. Of course, Joel realized, Copperbloom might not see it that way. She had been instrumental in getting Finder to start his church, and the power in the stolen finder's stone would help that church to grow.
Wishing he had the courage to ask Jedidiah these questions, the bard finally fell into a restless sleep.
Late the next morning, after a large brunch, Jas took again to air to soar with the flyers. Holly set out with Handful to visit a shrine to Lathander in the mountains to the east of the vale. When both women had