Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [24]
Finder sneered. "I am Nameless no longer, but you, woman, whoever you are, will answer to the Harpers for this attack!"
Kyre laughed confidently. "I think not. You see, I am the Harper Kyre, and Nameless or not, you, bard, are in no position to threaten me."
"Elminster would never approve of the cowardly way you've treated that saurial,"
Finder retorted hotly. "Have the Harpers degenerated so far in the past two centuries that they attack innocent creatures and helpless prisoners?"
As Finder spoke, Olive could see Kyre slip a wand out of her tunic sleeve. The halfling couldn't contain her anxiety a moment longer. She burst out from behind the curtain, shouting, "Finder! Look out!" and hurled herself at Finder's legs, knocking him to one side.
A beam of green light shot out from the tip of Kyre's wand, missing Finder by inches. The light struck the silver fruit bowl on the table behind him, enveloping it and the fruit in a sparkling green mist. After several seconds, the beam of light went out and the mist dissipated. The silver bowl was unharmed, but the plums, pears, and apples within had turned completely brown from rot and their skins had collapsed on the decayed flesh within.
Finder's face registered fear now that he was finally aware of the danger he was in. He stared wide-eyed at Kyre.
Olive took quick aim and hurled her dagger at the half-elf. The weapon hit Kyre's wrist, causing her to drop the deadly wand. Kyre's eyes flashed angrily, but she made no sound or movement to indicate the weapon had hurt her hand.
Olive shuddered at the woman's indifference to pain. "Would you get us out of here now?" the halfling shouted, shoving the finder's stone at the master bard.
Finder grabbed the stone with one hand and Olive's shoulder with the other, then sang an E-flat. Olive sighed happily as a yellow light began glowing around her body.
The halfling's relief was short-lived. Though the light continued to glow, she and Finder didn't vanish from the cell as expected. Olive felt as if something was pulling her in two, and she screamed in pain.
Across the room, Kyre laughed and held out her arms. Long, slimy green tendrils shot out from her sleeves toward Finder. Olive cried out once more, this time in fear. There was something terrifyingly familiar about Kyre's tendrils.
The tendrils reached over Olive's head just as Finder sang a second E-flat, this time an octave lower than the first. The yellow light shimmered with the deep resonance of the bard's voice and then glowed so brightly that Kyre, her tendrils, and the room faded from his and Olive's view.
*****
Alias, Mourngrym, and his guards waited anxiously around the corner of the hallway as Akabar chanted his fireball spell. The mage's voice rose sharply, then a great explosion shook the floor and walls around them and echoed through the corridors. A second later a burst of steam came rushing down the corridor, past the side passage in which they stood. Clouds of hot, moist air billowed around them.
Anxious about Akabar, Alias rushed around the corner and into the steam. The floor was covered with water and the walls were dripping with moisture. Alias spied Akabar in the dispersing mist. Not even the darkness of the mage's skin could hide the flush of his face from the scalding he'd received, but he still stood. He was drenched from the steam, and when he shook himself, drops of water scattered from his beard, hair, and robes.
"Are-are you all right?" Alias asked.
"I think so," Akabar replied. "As a mage I have more immunity from the power of magic than you. At any rate, the wall is melted," he said, gesturing at the clear passage ahead.
Mourngrym and Thurbal and the two tower guards rejoined the mage and the swordswoman.
"Good work, Akabar," his lordship said, clapping the mage on the back.
Assured that the Turmishman was all right, Alias prepared herself for combat.
Having brought no weapon with her, she retrieved the great axe that Lord Mourngrym had