Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [100]
Akabar and Zhara came up behind the ranger, equally concerned for the swordswoman, though less inclined to blame Grypht. Akabar stepped between the wizard and Breck's sword.
Alias snapped out of her trance. She gasped and looked around in confusion.
"Alias? What is it?" Akabar asked. "What's wrong?"
"I just had a… a bad dream," she said. "It was something about Nameless." She paused, concentrating hard, but whatever it was, she couldn't remember now.
"First you walk in your sleep, now you dream when you're wide awake," Breck growled. "What manner of curse are you under?"
"I do not walk in my sleep," Alias snapped.
"You did last night. Ask Dragonbait if you don't believe me," Breck replied.
Alias looked at Dragonbait, and the paladin nodded.
"It sounded as if you were singing a saurial soul song," Grypht said. "But how can that be?" the wizard asked Dragonbait. "She's not a saurial."
"What's a soul song?" Alias asked in saurial.
"Her soul and spirit are bound by magic to my own, High One," Dragonbait explained to Grypht.
"But you haven't received the gift of soul singing," Grypht said, still confused.
"My mother had the gift, High One," Dragonbait reminded the wizard.
"That's right… so she did." Grypht nodded, remembering.
"Would someone please tell me what a soul song is?" Alias asked again.
Grypht clapped his hands once and bounced on his heels. "This is marvelous-even better than the magic stone. If she sings what our people know, she will be our eyes and ears in the enemy's camp."
"What are they talking about?" Breck asked Alias. Although he was unable to follow any of the conversation in saurial, the ranger recognized Grypht's excitement.
Alias waved Breck silent and shouted in saurial, "What is a soul song?"
"A song of our people that reflects our tribe's state of being," Grypht explained calmly. "When a singer of a soul song sings, her mind opens up to what is within the souls of her tribe, and she sings their song. Sometimes when she sleeps, she often dreams their dreams and wakes singing their song. The song will change as the tribe's condition changes. It may be a song of joy or contentment, which we accept with pleasure, or it may be a song of grief, which we learn to bear. When it is a song of evil, though, we must act-fight the evil, whether it conies from without or within, until the song grows good again.
Because our tribe is controlled by Moander, the tribe knows much anguish, but it also knows of the Darkbringer's plans. You probably have just been singing of those plans. I hope you can do it again. Something opened your mind to the souls of our tribe and you began to sing. What was it? What were you thinking about before you went into the trance?"
Alias's brow furrowed. "I… I don't remember."
"Your fear of Moander," Dragonbait said.
Alias lowered her eyes, embarrassed, then it occurred to her that this soul-singing trance could explain her other problem. "That must be why I've been singing Nameless's songs differently. I've been turning them into soul songs."
"It is very likely," Dragonbait agreed.
"Dragonbait, if you knew what was happening, why didn't you try to tell me what was wrong?" Alias asked the paladin.
"I only started to suspect last night," Dragonbait said, "when you sang in saurial. At least, you tried to sing, but your words had no feeling, since you hadn't the power to produce scents. Just now when you sang, it was much more obvious that it was a soul song."
"Would someone please explain what is going on?" Breck demanded, frustrated beyond endurance at not being able to understand the swordswoman's conversation with the saurials.
Alias explained everything that Grypht and Dragonbait had just told her. "So," she said in conclusion, staring pointedly at Akabar and Zhara, "I was right after all. I knew I wasn't singing the songs wrong because of the gods."
"Actually," Dragonbait said, "our people believe that soul singing is a gift of the gods."