Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [7]
"I have a bad feeling about this, Finder. Let's go now, please," Olive pleaded.
"Relax, Olive. I have everything under control. Here, have another plum." Finder held out the silver fruit bowl toward Olive.
Olive crossed her arms, determined not to encourage her friend's indifference to his own peril.
Finder waved the bowl enticingly under her nose. Unable to resist the smell, the halfling chose a second plum.
"Finder. Such a proper name," the bard mused as he set the bowl back on the table The halfling suppressed an unexplainable shiver and bit into her plum.
*****
While Olive Ruskettle was trying her best to convince the Nameless Bard that Elminster might fail to get him freed, the sage himself was explaining to the Harpers how the alliance of evil beings that had freed Nameless had managed to trick the bard into building a new version of his simulacrum for them.
Morata shook her head and bit her tongue, but she could no longer hold back her annoyance. "This is just what I warned him would happen when he was planning the first simulacrum. Evil cannot disguise itself from good unless good looks the other way. Nameless's own arrogance blinded him to their nature."
"That may be, thy grace," Elminster replied, "but he did not hesitate to act against these evil beings when he finally recognized their true nature. He did his best to keep them from gaining control of the simulacrum. He freed her so that she and her companions were able to return and destroy all of the members of the consortium, the sorceress Cassana, the lich Prakis, the Fire Knives Assassins Guild, the Tarterean fiend Phalse, and even Moander the Darkbringer."
"She? You mean the simulacrum?" Breck asked.
"He succeeded in animating it, then?" Morala asked with a defeated sigh.
"Actually, she's more than animated. She's very much alive and possessed of her very own soul and spirit. Not even ye, thy grace, could tell she was unborn."
"Impossible!" the priestess declared.
"Impossible for Nameless and the evil beings who backed him, but not impossible for a god."
"Moander is the Darkbringer. He could not give her a soul," Morala insisted.
"I did not speak of Moander," Elminster said.
"What god, then, Elminster?" Kyre asked.
"I'm not certain. The fiend Phalse kidnapped a paladin from another world to supply the simulacrum with a soul, but the paladin still lives. Somehow his soul doubled, and a shard of his spirit broke off. Both grew inside Nameless's creation. It is possible one of the paladin's gods made this possible. I also suspect that the goddess of luck, Tymora, may have interfered in the creation.
Nameless still invokes her name on occasion, and the simulacrum seems to have an affinity for Lady Luck. Perhaps it was a joint effort of these gods. Whatever the case, the woman lives."
"Why did Nameless make this creation a woman?" Breck asked.
"For her own vile reasons, the sorceress Cassana insisted it be made in her image," the sage explained. "Perhaps that was for the best. Nameless gave the simulacrum much of his personality, but in an effort to make her a more 'ideal' woman, in his own view, he created in her a tender and nobler side Nameless himself had never displayed. She has already made a name for herself as a brave and clever sell-sword. The paladin I mentioned before, a noble saurial known here in the Realms as 'Dragonbait,' travels in her company, totally convinced of her goodness."
Breck gasped. "You don't mean Alias of Westgate!"
"The very same, good ranger," Elminster replied. "You have met the lady, then?"
"Well, not exactly," Orcsbane admitted. "I've seen her down at The Old Skull tavern, though, and listened to her sing. She has a voice like a bird-sings some of the most moving songs I've ever heard."
"She sings!" Morala shouted