Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [114]
"I know you can cast magic to understand what we're saying," she whispered, "but my earring won't wear out like your spells. You can borrow it for a while."
Wearing the earring, Grypht was able to understand the halfling perfectly, though it didn't give him the power to reply, so he merely nodded his thanks to Olive. As he watched the halfling return to the bard's side, he wondered if she realized that by offering him the loan of her magical jewelry, she was paving the way for him to fall under the bard's spell along with the others.
Finder finished his tale with a description of the final battle with Xaran in which they had all been involved. Only Olive recognized the omissions in the bard's story. He hadn't mentioned the plan he'd made in the Tower of Ashaba to escape with his magical stone in the event the Harpers judged against him, nor his plan to elude their judgment once he'd fled from Kyre. And, of course, he had not revealed that he knew who had looted his workshop. Loyally, Olive said nothing to correct the bard. It could be disastrous, she realized, if the Harpers found out about Flattery.
"So, Harper," Finder said to Breck. "What's your verdict? Are you hauling me back to Shadowdale in chains?"
"Considering the emergency, I have more important things to do than to escort prisoners around, sir," Breck said to the bard. Briefly the ranger and the merchant-mage updated Finder on Elminster's disappearance, Kyre's death, Grypht's flight from the tower with Akabar, Morala's scrying visions, and the hunt for Grypht.
"According to Grypht," Breck explained to Finder, "Moander turned most of his people into its minions and forced them from his world, through Tarterus, to the Realms. These minions are now building the god a new body."
"How do you know all this?" Finder asked Grypht.
"I've been scrying on my people and watching their suffering for many months now," Grypht explained.
"We have to find this new body and destroy it before Moander's minions complete it," Breck said. He slipped off his pack, and from it he pulled out a large parchment map and a thin stick of writing lead. He spread the map out on the grass in front of him.
"Nice map," Alias said, impressed with the detailed attention to geography and scale. "Where'd you get it?"
"I made it," Breck said with a shrug, though from his smile, it was obvious he was proud of his handiwork. "This is the clearing near Shadowdale where we met with Zhara and Grypht and Akabar," the ranger explained, setting his stick of lead down on the map. "This is the direction the finder's stone indicated when Grypht thought of a saurial whom Moander has possessed and brought to the Realms," he said, drawing a line northwest by west on the map. "Was the saurial you thought of helping to build this body for Moander?" Breck asked Grypht.
The wizard nodded.
"So Moander's new body must be somewhere along this line," Breck said, tracing with his finger the line he'd drawn. He pointed to the region of the map representing the dales. "I can't believe they could have been building a god's body for three months anywhere in the dales without having been detected by Elminster," he said. "The mountains would be a much more likely hiding place"
Breck slid his fingers across the individual peaks of the Desertsmouth Mountains. "They might be as far off as Anauroch, but there's nothing in the desert for them to use to build Moander's new body. There's not enough to eat or drink there for a large party of adventurers, let alone a whole tribe."
"Are you certain you've drawn your line accurately?" Finder asked. "You could be off by