Song of the Saurials

by Kate Novak

  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 angrily. “She sings his songs, doesn’t she, Elminster? And you’ve done nothing about it!”

  “What could I do, thy grace? She is a free woman who has committed no crime. The people of Shadowdale consider her a hero. The time is long past when the Harpers could intimidate ordinary folk into obedience, let alone demand it of heroes.”

  Elminster could tell Morala was struggling to control her rage. The priestess was breathing deeply, with her eyes closed and her jaw set. The sage had no desire to anger Morala, but he would not be reprimanded for behaving in a civilized fashion.

  “Perhaps we should meet this woman,” Kyre suggested calmly. “Will she speak with us if she is summoned forth?”

  Elminster nodded. “She is eager to speak if there is a chance it will help Nameless.”

  “Ah-ha!” Morala cried. “She is his creature indeed.”

  “No, Morala,” Elminster snapped back, fighting hard to keep his own anger in check. “She is her own creature. She is fond of Nameless, though, as any generous and good woman would be of a father who nurtured her as best he could.”

  Morala looked down at her hands, fearing that she had aroused the sage’s wrath. As old as she was, Elminster was many years her senior, and he was the Harpers’ most powerful ally and advisor. “We should hear her speak,” she agreed softly.

  Kyre signaled the page and ordered him, “Find Alias of Westgate and request that she come before this tribunal.”

  Heth stood up, bowed before the tribunal and hurried out of the courtroom to fetch the Nameless Bard’s singer, Alias.

  2

  The Singer

  The patrons of The Old Skull applauded enthusiastically as the singer finished her song. Even the innkeep, Jhaele Silvermane, paused a moment from her duties at the bar to show her appreciation. The singer bowed once to her audience and then to the songhorn player who had accompanied her.

  The rustic common room was full of farmers who only half an hour ago had been grumbling and cursing the rain that kept them from the season’s haying. Now, instead of nursing their first drink for two hours and worrying about how they were going to feed their livestock all winter on moldy hay, the farmers were ordering their second pint and cheering for the singer to give them another song.

  The singer, the sell-sword Alias of Westgate, also known as Alias of the Azure Bonds, smiled gratefully. She sang to keep herself occupied, since the Harpers would not let her visit her father, the Nameless Bard, and she sang to defy the Harpers, who had tried to wipe out the bard’s music. Mostly, though, she sang because she knew the bard would want her to, no matter what happened to him. Secretly, though, she was struggling to think of a graceful way to decline singing any further this day.

  “Please, Alias,” the songhorn player whispered to the singer. “They need something to keep their minds off this weather.”

  “Han, I … I think I’m losing my voice,” Alias whispered back.

  “Your voice sounds just fine,” Han insisted.

  “One more at least,” a deep voice rumbled from a table beside the musicians’ platform, “or I’ll have to have the watch haul you off for denying the happiness of the good people of Shadowdale.”

  Alias laughed good-naturedly at the threat. The speaker was Mourngrym Amcathra, lord of Shadowdale, and the swordswoman counted him among her friends. She tossed her red hair behind her shoulders and flapped the bottom of her green woolen tunic in an effort to cool off. “Then I suppose I’d have to sing for the watch, wouldn’t I?” Alias asked Mourngrym.

  “That’s right,” Mourngrym replied with a twinkle in his eye. “And then,” he added, “I’d have to sentence you to sing lullabies to my son for a year.” His lordship bounced the aforementioned baby on his knee and asked him, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Scotty?”

  Although he was far too young to understand the question, Mourngrym’s heir responded to his father’s enthusiastic tone of voice by laughing and clapping his hands.

  “A fate worse than death,” Alias said with mock terror.

  The farmers laughed and Scotty shrieked happily. Still Alias hesitated. She’d been singing at the Old Skull for three days in a row, and the audiences loved every song she sang. Four times since spring, however, she’d lost control of her voice and had begun singing strange words and changing Nameless’s melodies. She was sure it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Here in Shadowdale, though, she risked more than shocking her listeners. If Nameless heard about it, he would be greatly displeased with her.

  From the back of the room, she caught Dragonbait’s eye. The saurial paladin motioned encouragingly with his hands. Alias sighed inwardly. Nothing’s going to go wrong, she told herself. Stop being such a ninny and face the music.

  Trying to focus her thoughts on her audience, Alias chose a farming song, the lyrics of which were an old folk rhyme that Nameless had set to music. Han knew the rhyme, but he was unfamiliar with the tune, so he stood silently beside Alias, listening carefully, hoping he could pick up the melody with his horn by the second or third verse. Alias sang out clear and strong:

  “We till the soil, we spread the grain,

  We shoo the birds, we pray for rain.

  The rain comes down, the shoots spring out,

  But so do weeds, and then comes drought.

  We haul the water till our backs are sore;

  The weeds grow richer, but the crop stays poor.

  Then one day Chauntea ends our strife,

  And our grain takes root in the river of life.

  “The river of life, the river of life:

  Every woman’s man, every good man’s wife.

  We should all drink deep from the river of life.

  “The river of life, the river of life:

  Every woman’s man, every good man’s wife.

  We should all drink deep from the river of life.”

  Everyone joined in singing the repeat of the chorus. Han played softly, not wanting to spoil anything should he guess a note wrong, as Alias began the second verse:

  “We scythe the grains, we pluck the fruits,

  We gather the nuts and dig up the roots.

  The days grow cool, the birds fly away,

  The beasts grow fur, the pastures turn gray.

  We eat our fill and store what’s left,

  Then the snow comes down and the fields rest.

  The darkness grows inside our souls,

  And our labor’s turned to evil goals.”

  Han fumbled with his fingering. The songhorn player had never heard the last two lines before. The version he knew told of preparation for midwinter revels. But something disturbed Han even more than the unfamiliar words Alias sang. The young singer had suddenly switched to a new, eerie-sounding key. Then, without a repeat of the chorus, the swordswoman launched into a third verse with still more lyrics Han did not recognize.

  “We hack the vines, we cut the trees,

  We trample the roots and burn the seeds.

  When the rain comes down, the soil washes away,

  Leaving barren rock and heavy clay.

  We wear chains of green till our bodies rot;

  The corpses still move, their minds without thought.

  Soon the great dark will devour the Realms;

  Death is the power that overwhelms.”

  At the first four lines, the farmers began scowling and muttering among themselves. This certainly wasn’t farming as they practiced it. It might be the way of those in lands under the sway of evil, like those to the north, controlled by the Zhentarim, but here in the dales they tri
ed their best to live in harmony with the land. At the last four lines, the farmers shifted nervously in their chairs and peered into their ale, confused by the direction the song had taken.

  Although Alias had failed to note that Han had ceased accompanying her, she recognized now that she no longer held her audience’s attention. She knew all too well what was wrong, and her voice failed. Oh, gods, she thought, shaking with fear. I’ve twisted this song the same way I twisted the others.

  She felt Han’s hand on her shoulder. “Alias, are you feeling well?” the songhorn player asked quietly.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so tired. I’ve forgotten the words,” she lied. “I think I’d better go sit down.”

  Han squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and patted her on the back as she walked away. Anxious to spare her from the stares that followed her, Han raised his horn back to his lips and began playing a reel to distract the audience.

  Equally protective of the singer’s feelings and eager to break up the unpleasant atmosphere the song had created in the common room, Jhaele nudged her son Durgo and whispered for him to get up and dance with his sister Nelil. Durgo, a middle-aged farmer with little sense of rhythm, had as much love of dancing as he had of crows and weevils, but he was a dutiful son. He grabbed Nelil’s hand and tugged her to her feet. The other farmers shook off their uneasiness and began clapping to the beat. A few joined Durgo and Nelil in the energetic dance.

  As Alias threaded her way through the tables to the back of the common room, she kept her eyes on the floor, too embarrassed to look at anyone. She wanted to rush up the stairs to her room and lock herself inside, but before she could get past the table where Dragonbait sat, the saurial paladin grabbed her wrist. He pulled her toward him, slowly but firmly. Alias yielded to his strength and sat down heavily beside him.

  “That’s the fifth time this has happened,” she growled through her clenched teeth, made angry by her own fear. “I’m not singing again. You shouldn’t have encouraged me.”

  Ordinarily the pair communicated with a sign language that Alias had taught Dragonbait. It was a variant of the thieves’ hand cant, which the swordswoman had learned magically from the assassins who had helped create her. The visual language was capable of conveying quite complex ideas, but it still was inadequate when the paladin needed to comfort the swordswoman. Dragonbait reached out and stroked the inside of Alias’s sword arm with his scaly fingers. It was far easier to remind her how much he cared for her by touching the magical blue brand on her forearm—the brand which had bound his life to hers.

  Alias felt her brand tingle at the paladin’s touch, and her irritation subsided somewhat. His touch there always filled her with the paladin’s own inner calm. Alias laid her fingertips on the front of Dragonbait’s tunic, where a similar brand scarred his chest scales beneath it. Alias knew that, despite the layer of fabric, he would experience the same tingling sensation she felt. Considering the misery she still felt, though, she couldn’t help but worry that her touch would only disquiet him.

  “What’s wrong with me, Dragonbait?” she whispered, struggling to keep from crying. “Why can’t I sing a simple song without ruining it?”

  The saurial paladin shook his head. He didn’t know.

  Alias sniffed and caught a whiff of the odors the saurial emitted in response. The sell-sword smiled ruefully. She knew the scent of honeysuckle was Dragonbait’s expression of tender concern. The honeysuckle scent, however, was intermingled with the tang of baked ham, an odor that indicated the saurial was worried. Like a human’s body language, the saurial’s odors often gave away more of his true feelings than he would have chosen to reveal.

  Someone nearby coughed politely, and the sell-sword and her companion looked up. Lord Mourngrym stood before their table with his son squirming under one arm. His lordship looked down at Alias quizzically and asked, “Is something wrong, Alias?”

  “Nothing important, your lordship,” Alias said hastily. “I’m sorry I spoiled the song. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, I guess.”

  Mourngrym would not be put off so easily, however. Alias looked pale and frightened. With Nameless in jail and no one to care for her but the peculiar lizard-man, his lordship felt protective of the sell-sword. He sat down beside her, balancing Scotty on the table before him. “I’m the one who insisted you sing,” Mourngrym reminded her. “I’m the one who should apologize. Now, show that you forgive me and tell me what’s wrong,” he said, patting her hand.

  “I don’t know,” Alias said, trying to hide her fear with a shrug of her shoulders. “Sometime this spring I just started to sing strangely. I can sing a few songs just fine, and then one song suddenly turns into something about death and decay and darkness. I don’t even know I’m doing it until … until people start to stare at me as if I’m a monster. I thought I might be cursed or possessed, but three different priests told me there was nothing wrong with me—except that I was arrogant, headstrong, and disrespectful.”

  Mourngrym smiled. “Well, they got that part right,” he teased.

  Scotty reached out and grabbed a lock of Alias’s shiny red hair. The swordswoman picked the child up off the table and helped him stand on her thighs. Scotty bounced up and down, chortling with delight.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Alias said quietly. “What will Nameless think?”

  “Alias, it wasn’t a bad song,” Mourngrym argued. “Just, um … different.”

  Alias lowered her eyes guiltily. “I was upset that the Harpers wouldn’t let me see Nameless, but to tell the truth, I was a little relieved, too. I’m afraid the next time he asks me to sing for him, I’ll change the song, and he’ll be upset. He doesn’t like the least little change in his songs.”

  “Alias,” Mourngrym replied, “you can’t spend the rest of your life doing everything exactly the way Nameless wants you to. You have to live your own life.”

  “I know that,” Alias said unhappily, “but I don’t want to disappoint him by ruining his songs. If I was improving them, I could argue with him about it, but I’m only making the songs ugly and grotesque.”

  Despite her claim to the contrary, his lordship didn’t believe Alias understood his advice. The bard’s enchantment of her went deeper than any magic. She loved Nameless, and she sang to please him. Trying to reassure her, Mourngrym said, “Sometimes we need frightening songs, whether we like them or not. They remind us what we stand for or against and give us the incentive to take action.”

  “But I don’t know even know what these new songs are about, even though they’re coming out of my own head,” Alias objected. “How am I supposed to take action? Against what?”

  Mourngrym had no answer. These were questions for sharper minds than his own. “Have you discussed any of this with Elminster?” he asked.

  Alias shook her head. “I don’t want to bother him until he’s finished helping Nameless.”

  Mourngrym shook his head. Alias was losing control of her voice, something that obviously frightened her, but she was more concerned about Nameless’s plight. His lordship wanted to tell Alias to forget Nameless for once, but he knew the sell-sword would not heed his words.

  Dragonbait chirped and pointed toward the doorway. Alias turned to see a group of travelers entering the inn. There were a dozen or more of them, pulling off their rain-drenched cloaks and shouting requests for drinks and food and rooms to the inn’s staff. From their clothing, Alias guessed they were merchants and caravan guards from Cormyr. One man, however, had to be from much farther south. His skin was the dusky hue of a southerner. He wore silken red-and-white-striped robes, and a golden cord banded his curly brown hair. He stood taller than the other merchants and many of the guards.

  “It can’t be,” Alias muttered. She craned her neck impatiently until the man turned around. In the manner of a Turmishman, he sported a square beard, and to indicate he was married, he wore a blue sapphire in his earlobe. The three blue dots on his forehead indicated
he was a scholar of reading, magic, and religion. But these things hardly registered on Alias now. It was the familiarity of the man’s face that excited her. “It’s him!” she gasped. “Dragonbait, it’s Akabar! He’s come back to us!”

  Alias rose to her feet, thrusting Scotty back at his surprised father, and ran to the door of the inn, crying out the Turmishman’s name.

  A few heads swiveled to see who the swordswoman was calling to, but most of the inn’s occupants kept their attention on Han’s songhorn music and the dancers on the floor.

  Akabar Bel Akash held his arms out to greet the sell-sword in a traditional handclasp, but Alias threw herself into his arms and embraced him like a long-lost brother. From where he sat, Mourngrym could tell from the look of surprise on the Turmishman’s face that Akabar hadn’t expected quite so warm a reception.

  Mourngrym exchanged glances with Dragonbait. The saurial shrugged and turned back to watch the newcomers. His scaly brow knit with concern when he spied a woman standing behind Akabar.

  Tugging on the southerner’s arm, Alias led Akabar back to her table. She didn’t seem to notice the heavily veiled woman who followed several paces behind them. Mourngrym did, however, and he rose to his feet with Scotty seated in the crook of his arm.

  “Mourngrym, you remember Akabar bel Akash?” Alias asked. “He was a member of my party when I first visited Shadowdale.”

  “The ‘mage of no small water,’ ” Mourngrym said, recalling the phrase Akabar had often used.

  Akabar bowed low. “I’m honored you remember me, your lordship,” the Turmishman said.

  Mourngrym grinned. In his experience, it was seldom that a mage lived long enough to prove his boasts. Alias had told his lordship the story of how the Turmishman had defeated the evil god Moander. Akabar was indeed a ‘mage of the first water,’ as his people would say. “And who is the lady?” Mourngrym asked, finally drawing Alias’s attention to the woman standing behind Akabar.