Kate Novak - Finders Stone 3 - Song Of The Saurials

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Song Of The SaurialsSong of the Saurials

By Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb

Map of Shadowdale

Map of the Lost Vale

The Nameless Bard

"Hear what you've denied the Realms, what you've denied yourselves," the

prisoner muttered as he raised the chordal horn to his lips. His breath flowed

through the instrument's chambers with the steady force of a trade wind, and

his

fingers danced gracefully over the horn's holes and keys. Sweet music filled

the

prison cell, slipped through the iron bars set in the cell door, swirled down

the hallways of the Tower of Ashaba, and entered, unbidden, into the

courtroom.

The tune echoed along the bare stone walls of the chamber and danced about the

Harpers' courtroom. There, seated at a table before a tribunal of three

Harpers,

sat Elminster the Sage, about to offer his own counsel concerning the

prisoner.

Elminster paused before beginning his opening statement and closed his eyes to

listen to the tune. It took him only a moment to catch the gist of the spell

was meant to weave. Ah, Nameless, will ye never change? he thought. A penitent

man would plead for his freedom, a righteous man demand it. Is seduction all

knowest?

Morala of Milil, the eldest of the three judges, scowled at the musical

interruption. Her eyes nearly disappeared in the wrinkles that creased her

face.

A lock of her snow-white hair fell forward, and she shoved it impatiently back

into the gold hairnet at the nape of her neck. She, too, recognized the spell

wrapped within the melody, and when she caught Elminster's eye, she folded her

frail arms across her chest and smiled coldly.

Elminster smiled back, as if oblivious to the ancient priestess's hostility.

thought with some annoyance. Why did the Harpers have to choose thee for this

tribunal? Ye could hardly be considered unbiased. Ye never liked Nameless.

Morala had been one of the judges who had sentenced Nameless at his first

trial.

Of course, Elminster knew that was exactly why she was here now. Someone had

represent the past, someone who knew the Nameless of old and recognized his

tricks, tricks such as the one Nameless was engaging in at this very moment.

"It wouldn't kill thee to enjoy the melody, Morala," the sage muttered under

his

breath. "A mere tune could hardly corrupt a pillar of stone like thyself."

Morala gave the sage a harsh glare, as if she'd heard his remark. Uncertain

just

how good her hearing was, Elminster shuffled a stack of scrolls across the

table

as if he were preoccupied with his defense and did not hear the music. When he

sensed that Morala had turned her attention away from him, the sage sneaked a

glance at the other two judges.

Not surprisingly, Breck Orcsbane, the youngest of the three judges, seemed

delighted with the music. The ranger's head bobbed in time with the music,

setting his long plait of yellow hair swaying like a pendulum. Elminster

half-expected the brawny woodsman to get up and dance a jig. Morala had

already

expressed her displeasure that someone of Breck's simplicity had been chosen

for

the tribunal, but Elminster was relieved to discover that at least one of the

judges knew how to enjoy life.

Only the bard, Kyre, displayed a completely neutral reaction to the music. The

beautiful half-elven woman tilted her head to listen, but Elminster suspected

that her technical analysis of the tune precluded experiencing it on any

emotional level. The sage wished he could tell what she thought of it. He

wished

he could tell what she thought of anything. Kyre was so remote and stiff

whenever he addressed her that Elminster felt as if he were speaking with the

dead, an experience with which he was not unfamiliar. As if to compensate for

her reserved nature, Kyre wore a vivid red orchid in her lustrous black hair.

bloom in this climate, the sage realized, the orchid had to be enchanted, but

who, he was left to wonder, was she trying attract with it?

"Heth," Morala said, addressing the tower page assigned to the Harpers.

"Request

the captain of the guard to do something about that noise," she commanded,

"and

close the door on your way out."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," Breck said. "The music's not half bad."

Heth hesitated at the doorway.

Morala's eyes narrowed as she looked to Kyre for support.

Kyre shrugged, indifferent to the priestess's annoyance.

"The sound does not disturb me," the half-elf said flatly.

"Elminster? Aren't you distracted by the noise?" Morala asked, hoping the sage

would at least have the decency to admit the inappropriateness of the music at

the trial. They had already agreed that Nameless should not appear before the

tribunal. Morala feared he might charm the younger Harpers with his wit, while

Elminster feared he might disgust them with his ego. It certainly did not seem

appropriate to the priestess that the man's music should be heard. It was just

such music that Nameless had used to justify his crimes, and the Harpers had

not

yet repealed their original judgment that all the prisoner's music be banished

from the Realms.

"I'm sorry, Morala," Elminster replied. "My hearing's not what it once was.

Didst ye ask if I heard boys?"

Morala let her breath out in a huff. She motioned the page to sit. "Please,

continue with your argument, wise Elminster," Morala prompted.

Having gained the upper hand with Morala on so small a matter, Elminster

hesitated before moving on to the more important issue at hand. Do I really

dare

speak on Nameless's behalf? he wondered. Nameless's ordeals don't seem to have

humbled him any. Is he any wiser for all his suffering? The sage sighed to

himself and shook his head in an attempt to clear away his doubts. He had said

he would speak on the prisoner's behalf, so he would. He could only hope that

the collective decision of the tribunal would prove at least as wise as his

own

uncertain counsel.

The sage rose to his feet and cleared his throat. "At my request," he

explained,

"the Harpers have agreed to reconsider the case of the Nameless Bard. They

have

chosen ye from among their ranks to represent them and serve on this tribunal.

For the benefit of Kyre and Breck Orcsbane, who were not yet born when

Nameless

was first tried, I will review the circumstances of his trial and the outcome.

If it please thy grace," the sage said, nodding politely in Morala's

direction,

"feel free to add to or correct me at any point. Ye knew Nameless as well as

I."

Morala nodded politely in return, but Elminster realized it was unlikely she

would interrupt him. His report would be scrupulously accurate, and Morala was

astute enough to know she would only look like a fussy old woman if she began

correcting him.

Elminster began his tale. "The Nameless Bard was born three hundred and fifty

years ago in a small village in one of the northern nations, the second son of

local gentry. At an early age, he completed his training at a renowned barding

college and graduated with highest honors. He chose the life of a wandering

adventurer, and his songs became popular wherever in the Realms he roamed.

While

he relished his fame, he also put it to good use, attracting other young

adventurers to help in any cause he felt worthy. Thus he and his companions

became the founding fathers of the Harpers.

"With the blessings of his gods and such aid as magic can give, he lived well

beyond the natural span of years given to a human, yet there came a time when

his mortality began to prey greatly on his mind. The bard became obsessed with

preserving his songs for posterity. He was never satisfied with any other

person's performance of his works, so he would not settle for the tradition

among most bards of passing the work on orally or leaving a written record. He

began to experiment with magical means of recording his work and thus created

most marvelous piece of magic—the finder's stone."

Elminster paused a moment and glanced at Morala, wondering if she would object

to his mentioning the name of the magic device. Morala, however, chose to

ignore

Elminster's mischief and waved her hand impatiently for him to proceed.

"The stone was originally a very minor artifact that would serve any person as

compass of detection. Basically its wielder needed only to think of a person,

and the stone would send out a beam of light indicating a path to that

person,"

the sage explained. "It also protected itself from theft as well as it could

with a blinding light spell. Occasionally it was known to direct its wielder

without instruction, as if it had a mind of its own, so that the stone was

said

to help the lost find their way.

"The Nameless Bard experimented with altering the artifact's nature, something

only the most skilled or the most foolish magic-wielder would dare to try.

Into

the crystal's heart he inserted a shard of enchanted para-elemental ice.

Having

survived such a risky undertaking, Nameless reaped a great reward. In his

hands

or those of his kin, the stone acted as a rechargeable wand holding those

spells

Nameless had acquired. Like the blank pages of a journal, the stone could

store

other information as well. Nameless claimed it could recall for him an entire

library of tomes. It could also recall his songs and 'sing' them, as it were,

Nameless's voice, exactly as he sang them. He added other enchantments so it

could project the illusion that he was actually sitting there, singing the

song."

"A little stuck on himself, wasn't he?" Breck noted with a grin.

Morala huffed in agreement.

"More than a little, good ranger," Elminster replied, smiling at Breck. The

sage

was pleased that the young man wasn't afraid to speak out and even more

pleased

that the failings of others amused rather than annoyed the ranger. "Despite

all

that he had accomplished," Elminster went on, "Nameless still was not

satisfied.

The stone's illusion of himself needed to be commanded when to sing and told

what to sing. It had no vital force to sing of its own will, or judgment to

choose a song appropriate to the moment, or ability to gauge an audience's

reaction and build upon their emotions. So Nameless abandoned the stone as a

failure. He planned next to build a powerful simulacrum of himself. The

creature

was to have Nameless's own personality as well as all the knowledge Nameless

had

placed in the finder's stone. So that none would shun it as an abomination,

Nameless researched ways to make it indistinguishable from a true human.

Finally, he intended to give it immortality."

Breck gave a low whistle of amazement. The priestess Morala shuddered, even

though she was already familiar with the story. Kyre's expression remained

neutral—interested, but emotionless. The tune from the prisoner's cell swelled

into a bold fanfare.

Elminster continued. "Having found it useful in his alterations of the

finder's

stone, Nameless obtained another shard of para-elemental ice for the heart of

the simulacrum." The sage paused. It was easy enough for Elminster to speak of

Nameless's brilliance and daring, and even his obsession and vanity, but the

sage's heart ached to recall the bard's crime.

It was better he should tell it, though, than let Morala give the account.

"Yet,

for all his brilliance and natural ability with magic," Elminster explained,

"Nameless was a bard, not a trained magic-user. He recognized his own

limitations and tried to enlist the aid of several different wizards, but

without success. There were not many people whom he had not offended with his

arrogance. Among those mages he counted as friends, many thought his project

silly, a waste of time and energy. Some did not believe it would even work.

Others thought the creation he proposed to be a heinous act. A few pointed out

that the creation could be copied and used by malicious beings for evil

purposes. They tried to convince him that he should be satisfied with the

finder's stone's recreation of his music. Whatever their opinion, every mage

spoke with told him the project was too dangerous. It would prove fatal to

himself or some other."

"He went ahead and did it anyway, didn't he?" Breck asked, as eager as a child

to hear the outcome of Elminster's story.

The sage nodded. "Yes, he did. With the aid of his apprentices, he built the

simulacrum's body in his own home. As he began casting the spell that would

animate the creature, however, something went wrong. The para-elemental ice

exploded. The simulacrum was destroyed, and one apprentice died instantly.

Another lost her voice, and all attempts to heal her failed."

"She killed herself later," Morala interrupted with a trace of anger.

"Yes," Elminster admitted, then hastily added, "but that was after the time of

which I speak. When Nameless summoned help for his wounded apprentice, he

freely

admitted how she had sustained her injuries. The other Harpers were appalled

that he had risked his own apprentices in so dangerous a task, all for the

sake

of his obsession with his music. They summoned him to judgment and found him

guilty of slaying one apprentice and injuring another. They determined a

punishment to fit his crime.

"His music and his name were to be banished from the Realms. To keep him from

thwarting them in this goal, and also to keep him from trying his reckless

experiment again, the Harpers removed the bard's own name from his memory and

banished him from the Realms, exiling him to a border region of the positive

plane of life, where, due to the nature of that re gion, he would live in good

health and relative immortality. He was condemned, however, to live in

complete

solitude." Elminster paused again.

Nameless's tune switched to a plaintive minor key as Morala, Orcsbane, and

Kyre

sat contemplating their fellow Harper's crime and his punishment. It almost

seemed as if Nameless was aware of what point in his story Elminster had

reached. Morala glanced suspiciously at the sage, but he seemed not to notice

the tune at all.

Actually Elminster's attention at the moment was attracted to a fluttering

shadow behind the tribunal. The sage made no sound or movement to call

attention

to the small figure he spotted skulking along the courtroom wall. It was only

the halfling, Olive Ruskettle. Elminster could see no harm in her unauthorized

presence. After all, she knew Nameless's story already. The sage made a mental

note, though, to chide Lord Mourn-grym about the quality of the tower guard.

the courtroom, the halfling was nearly impossible to spot, adept as she was at

hiding in the shadows, but she should not have been able to pass through the

tower's front gate in broad daylight unchallenged by the guards.

Unaware she had been observed by the sharp-eyed sage, the halfling sneaked out

of the courtroom and down the corridor toward the prisoner's cell.

If ye have plans to visit thy friend Nameless, ye little sneak thief, ve are

for a surprise, Elminster thought, suppressing a grin. He focused his

attention

again on the judges. "Two hundred years have passed since the exile of the

Nameless Bard—"

"Excuse me, Elminster," Kyre interrupted, "but are we to continue calling this

man Nameless throughout this hearing? Surely we can be trusted with his name.

would simplify things, would it not?"

"No!" Morala objected. "It is we who made him Nameless. Nameless he will

remain."

Elminster sighed at the old priestess's vehemence. "It is the purpose of this

tribunal to decide not only whether or not to free Nameless, but whether or

not

Nameless's name should be restored to the Realms. Morala and I have both taken

an oath not to reveal the name unless the Harpers decide otherwise. So we must

continue to refer to him as Nameless, at least until the aid of this trial."

"I see," Kyre replied, nodding her head slightly. "Excuse my interruption."

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SongOfTheSaurialsSongoftheSaurialsByKateNovakandJeffGrubbMapofShadowdaleMapoftheLostVale1TheNamelessBard"Hearwhatyou'vedeniedtheRealms,whatyou'vedeniedyourselves,"theprisonermutteredasheraisedthechordalhorntohislips.Hisbreathflowedthroughtheinstrument'schamberswiththesteadyforceofatradewind,andhisfi...

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Kate Novak - Finders Stone 3 - Song Of The Saurials

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