Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [71]
"Well, naturally my associates, these orcs, are interested in whatever wealth you might have been hoarding in there for the past two centuries," Xaran said.
"I'm flattered," Finder replied.
"I doubt it. Your monstrous ego is well known. Perhaps, though, your pride is justified. Certainly I can think of many uses for your renowned skills."
"You won't get much out of me if all you intend to offer me is my life," Finder said.
"But suppose I were to offer you immortality?"
"I already have that," Finder boasted, "through my music."
"But does that truly satisfy you?" Xaran asked. "Think of all the adventures you could yet experience, all the tales still untold, all the songs unfinished.
People not even born could one day benefit from your wisdom and tutelage-singers and musicians, adventurers and Harpers, wizards and kings. You haven't even lived as long as Elminster the Sage. He has yet to surrender to death. Why should you?"
Listening behind the enchanted steel door, Olive tapped her foot nervously. This Xaran knows Finder too well, she thought. Who is he, anyway? How did he learn the bard's weaknesses? And most importantly, what in the Nine Hells does he want? The outline of a plan came to Olive, and she began pulling light stones out of the wall as she listened to the voices filtering through the door.
"Were you thinking of offering me an unlimited supply of elixirs of youth?" the bard asked. "Or did you have something more devious in mind, like depositing me in a magic jar or turning me into a lich?"
"No," Xaran said. "I had in mind a new spell, one that will make your body immortal."
"I see," Finder said. "And what do you ask in return?"
"I am interested in your advanced knowledge of simulacrums."
"So is every evil tyrant in the Realms," Finder retorted.
"But I'm the evil tyrant who holds your life in his hands, so to speak."
"True enough. Is that all you want?"
"No. There is one other little thing. You must bring me Akabar Bel Akash. I believe you are acquainted with the gentleman."
"Akabar?" Finder asked with surprise, echoing Olive's own thoughts. "What do you want with him?"
"He has in his possession something I desire. You must convince him to visit you here."
"I haven't seen Akabar in over a year," Finder argued. "He returned to Turmish."
"He is near Shadowdale now," Xaran corrected him.
"I see," Finder said.
"Well, nameless one?" Xaran prompted.
Olive stood poised at the door, holding a fistful of the magical light stones in one hand and Finder's dagger in the other. This might be my last chance for a surprise attack, she thought.
She reached up and traced the treble clef carved in the doorframe. The door swung open a foot, and with a banshee shriek, the halfling burst out of the workshop and hurled the light stones down the hallway. The orcs screamed in terror at the brilliant light and covered their eyes with their arms. While they were temporarily blinded, Olive lunged out with Finder's dagger to the right, where she'd heard Xaran's voice coming from, but there was no one there. Olive whirled about and pushed Finder through the workshop doorway.
As she turned around again to close the door, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder, and blood began oozing into the fabric of her tunic. Olive's eyes widened at the sight of what had just attacked her. There, five feet above the ground, just outside the door, floated Xaran-a hideous ball of flesh with a monstrous maw of fangs, one great central bloodshot eye, and a crown of ten eye stalks waving like serpents. Xaran was a beholder!
The halfling realized with a jolt that when she had tried to attack Xaran with the dagger, she'd lunged just beneath it, ironically in the only place it could not harm her with any of its magical eye rays. When she'd pulled back into the supposed safety of the workshop, she'd stepped into its line of vision, and it had hit her with a look from an eye that caused magical wounds.
Olive slammed the door shut before the monster could turn an even deadlier