Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [142]
Now that the saurials were free from the god's possession and no longer served him, the wizard had no doubt what use Moander would have for them now. Moander would consume the saurials whole. The wizard looked up and down the hillside for Alias, Dragonbait, Olive, and Akabar, but they were nowhere to be seen, despite the fact that they had agreed to meet him here. Grypht began to grow alarmed.
What could have happened to them?
The sound of Moander's approach, cracking trees and smashing rock and rumbling earth, now reached the wizard's ears. Above all those sounds came a cacophony of singing from the hundreds of mouths that grew from the god's body. The Darkbringer was chanting its own name over and over again in victory.
"High One, what should we do?" Sweetleaf asked nervously.
Grypht was about to scoop up as many of the small fliers as he could carry and teleport away with them and Sweetleaf when suddenly Moander changed directions and began heading northward, toward the mountain slope and the Singing Cave.
"It's following that flier!" Sweetleaf cried, pointing to a dark shape moving northward through the air with the smooth movement of a mage using a fly spell.
"Who is it, High One?" Sweetleaf asked.
Just before the shape disappeared into the Singing Cave, Grypht caught sight of the yellow glow the finder's stone gave off in the dark. "Can it be… the bard?" Grypht asked uncertainly.
Suddenly Grypht remembered the dark shape he'd seen standing in the camp beside Coral when they'd begun their attack. Finder had returned in time for the battle after all. With his magical stone, the bard could have teleported to the Singing Cave. Could it be that he was deliberately leading Moander away from the saurials? Did he know what had happened to the others?
He had to discover what the bard was up to, the wizard decided. Perhaps Finder could help move the unconscious saurials. "Do what you can for our people, Sweetleaf," Grypht ordered the cleric. "I'll return as soon as I can." The saurial wizard clutched his staff and teleported to the Singing Cave.
*****
Finder drifted into the mouth of the Singing Cave and landed smoothly among the ferns.
"Don't move!" Alias growled, waving Dragonbait's sword at the bard's chest.
Dragonbait knocked the swordswoman's hand aside. "Alias, he's holding Olive.
You'll skewer her," the paladin warned. He could see the invisible halfling with his heat sight.
"What are you talking about?" the swordswoman demanded. "His arms are empty."
"No, they're not," Olive piped up. She wished herself visible, and suddenly she was. She looked back up at the bard. "How come you could see me when I was invisible?" she demanded.
"When you get to be my age, Olive, no beautiful woman is invisible," Finder said.
Olive began to smile at the bard's flattery, but she caught sight of the flower in the bard's hair and shuddered nervously.
Sensing her unease, Finder set the halfling down on the floor. Olive scurried toward Alias.
Grypht appeared behind the bard. He could smell the anger and the fear permeating the air around him. "What's going on?" he demanded.
"Finder's been possessed by Moander!" Alias declared. Her voice cracked with pain and sorrow.
"See the flower in his ear?" Olive chirped.
In the cave lit by Dragonbait's flaming sword, the finder's stone, and the magical blue sigils of Moander glowing on Alias's arm and Dragonbait's chest, Grypht had no trouble picking out the flower growing from the bard's ear and the mossy growth on his chin.
"Champion can use his power to cure disease on him," Grypht said.
"No!" Finder said, stepping back. "I don't need to be cured. I know it appears as if I've been possessed, but