In the pa.s.sageway near the tunnel behind the gap in the wall stood three shadowy human-sized figures. Their beady red eyes reflected the light of the bard's and the halfling's torches.

With his left hand, Finder grabbed Olive's wrist and thrust her behind him, while with his right, he drew a dagger from his boot.

One shadowy figure drew closer to the torchlight. It was a male creature with a jutting forehead, a snout, long canine teeth, pointed ears, and green skin covered with coa.r.s.e hair.

Orcs, Olive thought with a disgusted shudder. Tymora, why couldn't it have been something cleaner or nicer, like giant rabid rats?

The other two orcs stepped into the light just behind the first. Each wore a pair of trousers, a vest of dirty yellow cloth, a necklace decorated with dried human ears, and a belt with a bolstered axe, and each held a loaded crossbow pointed at Finder's middle. They carried no torches; they apparently could see well enough in the dark without them.

"S'render 'r die," the first orc ordered in slurred, barely intelligible common.

"Such unappealing options," Finder replied glibly. "I surrender. Here," he said, offering his dagger, hilt first, to the orc, but Olive could tell from the way his left hand tightened about her wrist that he was tensed for a fight.

The orc squinted his eyes suspiciously, but he was too tempted by the sight of the emeralds and topazes set in the hilt of Finder's dagger to order the bard to throw the weapon to the floor. Moving a step closer, the orc reached out to take the weapon from Finder.

More quickly than Olive would have thought possible, Finder's right leg shot up from the floor, kicking the orc's crossbow hand. The orc howled and fired his weapon, but the bolt discharged harmlessly toward the ceiling, then clattered to the floor. Finder charged between the other two orcs, pulling Olive with him. The halfling threw her torch into the face of one of the creatures as she pa.s.sed it. Hurriedly the bard raced down the dark pa.s.sage, dragging Olive behind him as though she were a rag doll.

Olive heard the orcs chasing after them, then the tw.a.n.g of another crossbow. The bolt thunked into something soft. From the grunt Finder made and the way he stumbled, the halfling guessed the bard had been hit, but he regained his balance and ran on. He smashed into the iron grate at the other end of the corridor. Something cackled beside them. It was a fourth orc, Olive realized, sent to relock the door leading to escape! The d.a.m.ned orcs weren't as stupid as they looked. In the dark, she couldn't see the creature, but she heard him breathing beside her.

Finder tugged on the iron grate door, but it held fast. A rough, hairy hand grabbed Olive's left arm and began pulling her away from the bard. Olive shrieked. Finder tightened his grip on the halfling's right wrist and tugged back. Olive felt like a wishbone at a feast. She sensed Finder slashing at the orc with his dagger, then something warm and sticky gushed over her heada"orc blood. The orc released her arm and fell heavily.

"Get the lock!" Finder ordered, pushing Olive toward the door. He used his own body to shield her from the rest of the orcs, who had to be moving stealthily toward them.

Olive felt her way to the lock, slid a wire from her hair, and jiggled it in the iron mechanism. She couldn't believe how easily she got the bolt to turn over. If she'd been the one to open it the first time, she would have realized much sooner that this was a trap. As she pulled open the grate, she heard more crossbows tw.a.n.ging in the darkness and the sound of another bolt burying itself in flesh.

Tugging at Finder's sleeve, the halfling got the bard through the door, pushed it closed, and, within moments, relocked it with her wire. As she turned to hurry down the corridor, a hand slipped through the grate and grabbed her hair.

"Let go!" Olive shouted. She felt Finder near her, stabbing through the grate. She felt the hand go limp as it released her.

"Through the hole," Finder shouted. "Go! Go! Go!"

Olive scrambled up the pile of dirt and stone in the dark, all the while concentrating on locating a trace of the cool air on the other side of the cave-in. "Finder! Here!" she called out when she felt a bit of cooler air blowing through the tunnel. The bard scrambled up the slope beside her and pushed her through the opening.

Olive crawled as fast as she could to clear the tunnel so Finder could get through. After a full minute, when he still didn't emerge from the opening, Olive started back through to see what was keeping him. She found his body lying in the tunnel, motionless.

"Finder, you've got to get moving!" she shouted, shaking him by the shoulders. She grabbed his hand, thinking, quite unreasonably, that she might drag him through. His hand was warm, but it was puffed up to the size of an grapefruit.

It's the poison from that d.a.m.ned needle trap. Olive thought. He didn't get just a little scratch; he got stabbed good. "I should have realized he'd lie about it," she muttered to herself as she rummaged through her knapsack.searching in the dark for the one potion that might help the bard. In the dark, she had to identify the correct vial by its shape. She pulled it out, then shook the bard some more. "Finder, you've got to drink this. Wake up!" she insisted.

The bard groaned softly.

That might be the most reaction I get out of him, the halfling thought. Quickly she turned his head sideways, unstoppered the potion, and poured it past his lips. "Swallow," she ordered. To her great relief, he did.

After a few moments. Finder stirred, then croaked, "What?"

"Finder, come on!" Olive implored.

The bard shook himself and wriggled forward slowly. Olive backed away, tugging on his tunic encouragingly. Finally they both reached the other side and rolled down the pile of rubble.

Olive could hear the orcs arguing among themselves in some unintelligible tongue. Then the grate rattled loudly.

"I'll light a torch," Olive said. "It'll just take a moa""

"We don't need one," Finder muttered.

Olive felt the bard take her right hand in his left. With his poisoned right hand, he felt along the wall, leading her through the maze of pa.s.sages. She could sense he was limping.

The next cave-in was easier to crawl through, but it took Finder several minutes to negotiate it. Olive put her hand on his back after he'd managed to pull himself through. His shirt and tunic were drenched with perspiration.

"Do you want to rest for a minute?" she asked.

"No," the bard growled. "Keep going."

By the time they reached the cave-in below the stairs. Finder's breathing was strained and shallow, and his skin was cold and clammy. Olive wasn't sure he'd make it up the slope of the tunnel they'd dug. When she finally crawled out into the shaft of sunlight pouring down the stairway. Olive was exhausted, but perhaps the knowledge that it was the last stretch gave the bard more strength. He clambered through the tunnel and, with a great beastlike roar, tore up the stairs, pa.s.sing the startled halfling.

Olive muttered as she was forced to use her hands to help her scrabble up the steep steps. Once she'd reached the top, she slammed the stairway door closed and threw the dead bolt. Her companion had a key to lock it as well, but he was in no condition to use it.

Finder lay on the stone floor of his ruined manor house, silent and motionless. Olive bent over the bard and shook him gently, whispering his name. The bard didn't answer. He had a bolt in the back of his right shoulder and another in his left thigh. He was either very lucky, or the orcs were lousy shots, Olive thought. Very gently she eased the weapons from his flesh. Blood seeped from the wounds, but at least it didn't gush out profusely. The wounds weren't serious enough to have made him pa.s.s out.

It's still the d.a.m.ned poison from the d.a.m.ned needle trap. Olive thought. The potion she'd given him wasn't strong enough to counteract the poison. All she'd accomplished by pouring it in him was to prolong his dying for a few hours.

8.

Grypht

As Alias was leading Dragonbait and Zhara from the Harpers' courtroom to Nameless's former cell, Dragonbait halted suddenly and sniffed the air. No doubt, the swordswoman realized, the saurial can smell Grypht. She turned around and explained to him. "Something teleported into the towera"some creature, probably a wizarda"and kidnapped Elminster and Nameless, maybe Olive, too"

Dragonbait shook his head as if confused, and his tail twitched with nervous excitement. Alias didn't notice. Her attention was attracted to the sound of thumping coming from the corridor that led to Nameless's cell. She hurried through the pa.s.sages, anxious to see what was going on.

Lord Mourngrym and Breck stood outside the door to Nameless's cell. Breck was hacking furiously at the door with a battle-axe, but for all the ranger's strength and the weapon's sharpness, the door wouldn't give.

Alias heard Lord Mourngrym say, "It's no good, Orcsbane. The door's made of ironwood."

"What's wrong?" Alias asked as she and Dragonbait and Zhara hurried toward the two men.

"Akabar and Kyre aren't answering," Lord Mourngrym replied. He turned the door handle and pulled on it, but the door remained closed. "The door's unlocked, but it won't budge. It feels as if it's being held shut by magic."

Remembering Morala's suspicion that Grypht could be an evil wizard and that Kyre may have made an alliance with him, the swordswoman suddenly felt nervous and foolish. She hadn't believed the half-elf s claim that Grypht was a denizen of the Nine h.e.l.ls, yet she had been so eager for Kyre to break Zhara's hold on Akabar and talk him out of his belief in Moander's return that she had trusted the half-elf anyway. "Maybe Kyre and Akabar just don't want to be disturbed," Alias suggested hopefully, without believing it herself.

Breck lowered his axe and fixed her with a cold stare. "Kyre isn't shy. If she wanted to be alone with a man, she'd have no qualms about telling us all to go away," he replied. "Something is wrong," he insisted. "We need a spell-caster to break in the door."

Zhara pushed her way past Alias. "Stand back," she ordered everyone. In her hand, she held a lump of clay fashioned just like the stone arch surrounding the door to Nameless's cell. With her fingers, she pushed one side of the clay arch away, then touched the clay to the stone arch in front of them, whispering, "Sculpture."

Alias gasped as the rock of the wall beside the door curled back like a potato peel, forming a gap large enough to walk through.

Zhara slipped into Nameless's cell before anyone else could stop her. She looked around in confusion. "He isn't here!" she whispered. "Where's Akabar?" Turning to face Alias, she demanded angrily, "Where's Akabar? What have you done with him?"

Alias slipped into the room and looked around, equally confused. Akabar and Kyre were nowhere in sight. The songhorn lying on the table was cracked and some of its keys were broken off. Bits of broken crystal lay on the table. Something crunched in the carpeting beneath her foot. Alias looked down. Walnut sh.e.l.ls lay scattered about on the floor.

Then she spotted the ashes, and her face went pale. Gray ashes formed the unmistakable shape of a person. A pair of elven boots, a dagger, a sword, a belt, and a scabbard lay off to one side. Two gold rings, a silver ankle bracelet, and a Harper's pin were on the other side of the ashes.

"Mourngrym!" Alias called back into the hallway. "You'd better come and see this."

"What is it? What's wrong?" Breck demanded, squeezing his way into the room. When he saw the ashes and equipment lying on the floor, his eyes widened in fury. "Kyre! No!" he shouted. "She's dead! He killed her, didn't he? That fiend Akabar killed Kyre!"

In the Harpers' courtroom, Morala had grown bored scrying on Nameless and Olive Ruskettle beneath Finder's keep. She abandoned her watch on the bard and his halfling cohort while the pair was still digging through the piles of rubble. Now the priestess stood over her silver scrying bowl a third time. It had occurred to her that she might learn more if she turned her attention to the creature who had been responsible for Elminster's and Nameless's disappearances. She drew out the piece of clay Grypht had dropped and envisioned the huge creature.

The colors in the water of Morala's bowl swirled into Grypht's shape. The beast was bent over beneath a monstrous oak tree, yanking a handful of oak seedlings out of the ground. He straightened and munched absentmindedly on the seedlings as he studied a yellow gem he held in his hand.

Suddenly a beam of light shot out from a facet in the gem. Morala gasped, recognizing immediately that Grypht held the finder's stone. The Harpers had entrusted Elminster with the artifact's safety, but somehow this scaly creature had gotten hold of it. Is that why Elminster and Nameless had been abducted? the priestess wondered. Just to obtain Nameless's toy?

Grypht shook his head, and the first beam of light from the crystal faded away and a second beam burst out of another facet of the stone, aimed downward at the ground. Morala pulled her scrying view back until she could see more. At Grypht's feet lay a dark-skinned, bearded man dressed in striped robes, with the blue dots of a southern scholar and mage tattooed on his forehead. The light from the finder's stone struck the man's eyes, but although his chest rose and fell, he did not move. Apparently he was unconscious. Morala's brow furrowed. Who is he? she wondered.

Grypht nodded at the finder's stone with satisfaction.

He's experimenting with it, Morala realized.

Grypht shook his head, and the light on the southerner's eyes faded. Then the creature closed his eyes, and the crystal stone began to glow all over, but this time no beam shot out. Grypht squeezed his eyes tighter, as if he were concentrating hard. The stone glowed even brighter, but it gave no indication of the location of the person the scaly creature was thinking of. Grypht sighed and opened his eyes; the stone ceased glowing.

"How deliciously ironic!" Morala muttered. "You've gone to all this trouble to steal the finder's stone, and it can't find whoever it is you're looking for."

Grypht bent over and began pulling more oak seedlings from the ground. Suddenly a beam of light shot out from the yellow crystal in the direction of the setting sun. Grypht started with surprise and straightened up. After scanning the horizon for a few moments, he bent over and shouldered the unconscious southerner.

"Who are you after?" Morala mused as Grypht straightened and began trundling away toward the setting sun.

Mourngrym looked over the ashes lying beside Kyre's equipment and shook his head regretfully. "It doesn't look good, Alias," he said softly.

"I can't believe Akabar would do such a thing," the swords-woman said. "Something else must have attacked them."

"Then why isn't Akabar's body in a pile of ash on the carpeting?" Breck snarled. He was shaking with anger and barely controlled grief.

"How do you know those aren't his ashes mingled in with Kyre's?" Alias retorted hotly.

Zhara moaned and sank to the bed. Dragonbait glared at the swordswoman, but Alias ignored him. She couldn't afford to be tactful for Zhara's sake. She had to clear Akabar's reputation.

"If he was incinerated along with Kyre, too," Breck said, "his boots would be here."

"He was wearing rope sandals," Alias argued.

"And he didn't carry a single piece of metal with him?" Breck asked.

That, Alias realized, was hardly likely. She changed her tack. "Whoever killed Kyre could have carried Akabar off," she stated. "Grypht might have returned and eaten him, for all you know."

Zhara gave a keening wail. The swordswoman shot an annoyed look at Akabar's wife. Dragonbait nudged Alias angrily with his elbow.

"I believe Grypht has indeed carried off Akabar," a voice said, "but the beast appears to prefer greenery to human flesh. Akabar is still alive."

Everyone looked around. Standing in the new entrance to the room that Zhara had fashioned with her magic was Morala. The old priestess leaned heavily on Captain Thurbal's arm, but she was smiling.

"I have just been scrying upon Grypht. He was carrying a southern mage dressed in a red-and-white-striped robe," Morala said.

"Akabar!" Zhara cried out eagerly. "His robes are red and white!"

"Then he is in league with Grypht!" Breck declared.

Mourngrym exchanged a distressed look with Alias. "Was Akabar being carried off by force, Morala, or using the beast as a mount?" his lordship asked.

"Akabar was unconscious, so I couldn't tell his wishes," Morala explained, shuffling into the room with Captain Thurbal beside her.

"What about Nameless?" Alias asked anxiously. "Was he with Grypht? "

Morala shook her head. "No, " she said. "Nameless appears to be in an underground tunnel of some sort, digging his way through, though whether he is trying to escape the tunnel or burrow in farther, I could not tell. There is a halfling woman with him. They both appear uninjured, but their location remains a mystery. I think we best concentrate on tracking Grypht," Morala said. "Grypht has the finder's stone, and with that, he can track both Elminster and Nameless."

"A finder's stone?" Alias asked. "Like the one Elminster gave to me?"

"The finder's stone," Morala corrected her. "There is only one. It's an old artifact that Nameless made to store his music and his spells," the priestess explained. "For anyone else, it worked as a compa.s.s."

"But we lost it in Westgate, battling Moander," Alias said.

The wrinkles in Morala's forehead doubled as she tried to think of how the stone got from Westgate into Grypht's hands. Unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation, the priestess huffed in frustration. "Well, Grypht has found it somewhere, somehow," she said. "When I last saw him, he was using it. He was standing atop a hill covered with many small oak trees and crowned with a single immense oak, laden with mistletoe and ivy and moss."

"That would have to be Oakwood Knoll, your lordship," Captain Thurbal said. "East of the river."

"A monster that size will be easy to follow," Breck said, heading for the door.

Mourngrym's arm shot out and caught Break's tunic, pulling him back. "Hold on a minute there, man," his lordship said. "This . . . thing's already attacked you once today. You can't go after it alone. The dale's full of hiding places. You could be tracking it for days. Let me get a party of guards and provisions together. It will only take a few hours."

"A few hours!" Breck shouted. "Kyre's been murdered, and you expect me to wait a few hours? I'm going to bring this creature's head back on a pikea"and Akabar's, too, if I find he's in league with it."

Zhara rose quickly and rushed at Breck, pushing him back against the table with a surprising show of strength. "My husband," she hissed, "is a man of honor, a scholar and a mage." The young priestess's voice rose in fury, and her eyes flashed with fire. "How dare you suggest such a thing?" she shouted. "If you harm one hair on his head, I will bring Tymora's curse down upon you!"

Breck looked stunned by the veiled woman's verbal attack. It took him only a moment to recover, however. "You could be in league with him, too, for all I know," he said to Zhara.

Zhara called Breck one of the few Turmish words Mourngrym knew. His lordship blushed. Fortunately, Breck didn't realize he'd been insulted.

Dragonbait gently pulled Zhara away from the ranger. Then he signed to Alias. She nodded.

"Your lordship," Alias announced to Mourngrym, "Dragonbait and I can be ready to leave in a quarter of an hour. If you can wait that long, Breck Orcsbane, we will join you."