Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [6]
"You're a Harper yourself," Olive pointed out. "If you weren't so eager to rest on your laurels, you could keep a step ahead of them. I've got a place where you could hide, too-somewhere you'll be welcome, and no one would ever be able to detect you magically."
"You want me to hide behind Alias's shield," Nameless replied, referring to the misdirection spell cast on the swordswoman, a spell which made her and anyone she traveled with completely undetectable by magical means. "Forget it,"
Nameless said vehemently. "I'm not getting her involved in this."
"I wasn't talking about Alias," Olive said. "Give me credit for some sense.
She's too obvious. I wasn't talking about a magic dead zone, either. That's too obvious, too; besides, there's too much riffraff in places like that. I have someplace even better in mind. With any luck, the Harpers will waste their time checking out Alias and the dead zones and miss us altogether. The Harpers aren't perfect. They make mistakes. Why do you give them so much power over you?"
"Because," Nameless hissed angrily, "they have my name."
Olive shrugged her shoulders and helped herself to another plum. "Big deal. So do I. It's Finder. Finder Wyvernspur, from the clan Wyvernspur of Immersea, in Cormyr," she said nonchalantly. She stifled a mock yawn before adding, "Your older brother was Gerrin Wyvernspur. Your mother's name was Amalee Winter, and your father was Lord Gould. Your grandfather was the Paton Wyvernspur. Sound familiar?"
The bard leaned back against the wall, staring at the halfling with undisguised amazement. Silently, with his eyes closed as if he were reciting an oft-repeated prayer from childhood, the bard mouthed the names Olive had given him.
"Surprised?" Olive asked, unable to keep from grinning.
The bard looked at the halfling and nodded, still dumbfounded.
"I've got something else for you, Finder," Olive said, pulling something from her cloak pocket. She laid it down on the bed in front of the bard. "Recognize this?"
Finder looked down at the halfling's gift. It was a sparkling yellow crystal, multifaceted and roughly egg-shaped, somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The bard gasped. Then he whooped once with pleasure, leaped from the bed, snatched Olive up in the air, and swung her around, laughing with delight. "You stole the finder's stone! You incredible halfling! I could kiss you!"
"Well, I suppose I deserve it," Olive said, turning her head and pointing to her cheek. Finder pressed his lips against her flushed face. Then he laughed and spun around again, with Olive still in his arms.
"I'll lose that plum I just ate if you don't set me down," Olive threatened.
Finder lowered the halfling gently to the bed. Olive bounced once on the mattress and snatched up the crystal. "Is this thing still loaded with magic?" she asked, tossing the stone to the bard.
Finder caught the crystal with one hand. He sang a short, clear G-sharp and peered into the stone's depths. "Yes!" he announced. "I don't believe it.
Elminster didn't give this to you, did he? You did steal it, didn't you?"
Olive grinned. "No and no. Elminster gave it to Alias last year. Maybe he felt she had some right to it, seeing how she's related to you. We lost it outside of Westgate, but I ran into the man who found it and convinced him to part with it."
"And my name? Who parted with that?" Finder asked.
"That's a longer story. Why don't we save it for later? Let's go, huh?"
Finder sat down on the footstool. "There's no hurry now," he insisted. "We can leave anytime. There's a teleport spell in the crystal."
"Which won't work if Elminster's cast some sort of anti-magic shell around this cell," Olive argued.
"The finder's stone is an artifact. Not even Elminster's