Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [20]
The beast looked down at the halfling as if it were concentrating on trying to understand her, but it made no reply.
Olive sighed. "Of course. Dragonbait could only understand us because of his link to Alias." The halfling turned to Finder. "I don't suppose you speak any Saurial, do you, Finder?" she asked.
Finder eyed the creature suspiciously. "What makes you think this monster's a saurial? He doesn't look anything like Dragonbait."
The halfling raised her eyes to the heavens and muttered "Humans'" She looked back at Finder with disappointment."I don't look anything like you, either," she pointed out. "And you don't look anything like Alias, yet we're all from the Realms What makes you think all saurials have to look like Dragonbait?"
Finder conceded Olive's point with a slight nod. "I grant you that it could be a saurial. What makes you think it is?"
"Only two things smell as good as fresh-baked bread," Olive explained. "Fresh baked bread and angry saurials."
"Because that's the smell they use to communicate their anger," Finder said, recalling now all that Alias had told him about Dragonbait's scents.
"He doesn't smell quite so much like bread anymore. I hope that means he's calming down," Olive said.
"Yes, but what got him angry in the first place?" Finder asked. "And what's he doing here?"
"It looks like someone tried to roast him," Olive said, indicating the beast's charred clothing and hands. "I imagine that could make him pretty mad."
From the sleeve of his robe, the beast pulled out a silver medallion on a silk cord and handed it to Olive.
"For me?" Olive asked, her eyes glittering with delight.
The beast tapped the medallion with a claw.
Olive's eyes widened in astonishment at the design inscribed into the shining metal. "Finder, the picture on this medallion- it's Dragonbait!" Olive declared, holding out the medallion for the bard to see. "It looks just like him. And that's his sword-well, the sword he had last year before Alias lost it in the battle with Phalse. This guy knows Dragonbait," she added, poking a finger at the beast.
"Dragonbait's at The Old Skull with Alias," Finder said. "If this overgrown saurial is Dragonbait's friend, why isn't he down there raising a mug with Dragonbait? What's he doing here with us?"
"Maybe Alias and Dragonbait sent him here to rescue you," Olive suggested as she casually slipped the creature's medallion into a pocket of her tunic.
Finder looked exceptionally doubtful. "Wait a minute!" the bard said, slapping himself in the forehead. "We don't have to play guessing games. I have a tongues spell in the stone." Finder laid his chordal horn on the table and held the finder's stone out before him. He sang a scale in A-minor. Olive watched, fascinated, as the stone glowed in Finder's hands and surrounded him with yellow light.
The bard and the lizard stood staring at one another for what seemed to Olive like an eternity, though it was actually no more than a minute. She could detect a collage of scents rising from both the beast and Finder, but she grew bored not knowing what they were discussing. "Well?" the halfling prompted, reminding the other two of her presence.
"The creature's name is Grypht," Finder explained finally. "He's been looking for Dragonbait, but he was unable to locate him magically."
"'Cause Dragonbait's with Alias, and they're both hidden by her shield of magical misdirection," Olive said.
"No doubt," Finder said, nodding. "Grypht knows you're a friend of Dragonbait's, so he's come looking for you, hoping you can tell him where to find his friend.
Grypht teleported into the tower directly from his native dimension, but apparently someone here took him for an enemy and attacked him. He's put up a wall of ice in the corridor to keep anyone from following him."
"Then