Song of the Saurials - Kate Novak [99]
Dragonbait looked startled, then caught the scent of mischief in Alias's scent and realized she was teasing him. He smiled and brushed the tears from her face.
"I'm sorry about fighting with Zhara," she said.
"As I said before, if you offend Zhara, it is Zhara you must apologize to," the paladin reminded her.
"Right," Alias said. "I still don't trust her, though."
"Alias," the saurial said with an earthy scent of frustration, "she is your sister."
"That's why I don't trust her," Alias said. "Dragonbait, the spell Moander's minions cast on me last year made me unleash Moander on the Realms without even realizing what I was doing. Phalse put a quest spell on me to hunt down Moander in the Abyss. It nearly tore me apart resisting it. I managed to break the spell only by killing Phalse. Zhara may think she's working against Moander, but she could be working for Phalse."
"Destroying Moander would not be an evil thing merely because some other evil being wishes it," the paladin argued. "Besides, there is more at stake here, or had you forgotten what Grypht just said. The Darkbringer has enslaved my people.
I must accompany Grypht and challenge Moander. Akabar and I destroyed the Darkbringer once. It is my hope we can do so again."
"But you had Mist with you!" Alias declared, referring to the ancient red dragon who had helped Dragonbait and Akabar battle the Darkbringer.
"And now we have Grypht," Dragonbait countered. "His apprentices often call him the old lair beast," the paladin added with a smile. "That's what we call Mist's kind on our world."
He could smell Alias's fear and anxiety, and he understood why she was terrified of the evil god. Of all the masters who had tried to enslave her, Moander was the only one whose command she'd been unable to resist, the only one who had captured her unaided, the only one whose defeat she had not been a part of.
"Maybe you should find Nameless and stay behind with him," Dragonbait suggested.
Alias lowered her head, ashamed of her cowardice, struggling to fight it. "No … I want to help you," she said, but she began shivering in the warm sunlight, and her eyes began to glaze over.
Dragonbait grabbed the swordswoman's shoulders, alarmed by her expression, afraid she might faint, but instead she seemed to fall into a trance and started repeating, over and over, the same words she had spoken last evening. "We are ready for the seed. Where is the seed? Find the seed. Bring the seed" This time, though, her words were accompanied by a myriad of scents that rose from her body, communicating a plethora of conflicting emotions-excitement and fear, joy and anguish, impatience and dread, determination and resignation, pride and remorse. Dragonbait realized at once that it had all the earmarks of a true saurial song.
"High One," Dragonbait shouted, "come quickly!"
Grypht came running up to the paladin. "What is it?" he asked.
"Listen to her song," Dragonbait insisted.
Grypht stared at Alias and furrowed his brow, confused by her trance and the words she spoke. "What seed?" he asked. "What is she singing about?"
"Shh. There's another verse," Dragonbait said.
"Nameless is found," Alias said in Saurial. "Nameless must join us. Nameless will find the seed. Nameless will bring the seed."
"He will, will he?" Grypht muttered.
The scents rising from the swordswoman's body sent an eerie shiver down Dragonbait's spine, frightening him far more than the earlier songs of Nameless that Alias had twisted.
Suddenly Alias stopped her saurial chant. Then, just as she had done the night before, she held out her hand, with her forefinger pointing downward, and traced a circle parallel to the ground.
"The saurial sign of death," Grypht whispered.
Alias screamed and began to shout in Realms common, "No! No! No!"
When Alias screamed, Breck Orcsbane, who had been seated by the fire toasting bread with Akabar and Zhara, leaped to his feet immediately. He ran through the clearing to the swords-woman's side, his sword drawn and pointed at Grypht's