look?' Jas asked Jedidiah, a sly grin on her face.
Jedidiah grinned back at the winged woman. 'Don't you think I'd prefer to convince people I was a much younger man with such a beautiful and clever young woman present?' he asked.
Jas flushed and turned her attention to the meal. Locustlike, she polished off all the remaining food before lying down in the sun for a nap.
'She looks happy for a change,' Joel noted.
Holly shrugged. 'She's found an activity to temporarily take her mind off the death of her friends,' the paladin said. 'It will be a long time before she's at peace, let alone happy.'
Joel looked down into his teacup, feeling insensitive. Holly, he realized, was speaking from her own experience of losing her family to the Zhents.
Handful tugged Holly off to show the young paladin around the vale. Jedidiah sat with Joel in the garden, telling him tales about the saurials and the death of Moander.
That evening the saurials held a feast for their guests. They served roasted boar and good, strong ale. Jedidiah and Joel were called upon to sing and play. Joel was asked to tell the tale of his journey north. Holly sang a Daggerdale haying song. Prompted by the flying saurials, even Jas sang a strange song about traveling between the spheres that not even Jedidiah had heard before. The saurials sang, too. It was eerie watching the saurials listen to sounds the humans couldn't hear, but Grypht and Jedidiah translated the words. The saurials also played musical instruments, but these the humans could hear. Copperbloom and two of her students accompanied Joel on several tunes. The young saurials performed a skit, the play Joel had watched them rehearse in the temple. It was about a pact the tribe had once made with a dragon back on their home world. It was past midnight when the saurials finally began drifting homeward and released their guests from the celebration. Copperbloom led Jas and Holly off, and Handful showed Joel and Jedidiah to a small cottage. Joel pulled off his boots and flopped down on one of the two beds with a sigh of genuine pleasure. It was the first real bed he'd been in since Anathar's Dell, and he expected the night to be just as restful.
Jedidiah lay on the bed across the room. He was soon snoring softly. Apparently, without the majority of his godly power to sustain him, the efforts of the past few days had exhausted him as it would any human.
Despite the amusements of the evening, all the ale he'd had to drink, and the softness of the feather bed, Joel had trouble drifting off to sleep. He couldn't help thinking about Walinda, the banelich, and the consequences of handing over the Hand of Bane to them. Although Jedidiah had invited Joel to ask him any question, the young bard had kept one in reserve. Now the question rustled through his brain like a serpent slithering through dried leaves.
Wouldn't it be better, he thought, just to forget the power in the finder's stone? Was the power so important to Jedidiah that he was prepared to assist in the resurrection of so evil a god as Bane, earning the enmity of all good people in the Realms? If Jedidiah would forgo the power rather than aid Bane's followers, he would still have his immortality, without forfeiting any of the love and respect Joel and many of the saurials obviously felt for him. Of course, Joel realized, Copperbloom might not see it that way. She had been instrumental in getting Finder to start his church, and the power in the stolen finder's stone would help that church to grow.
Wishing he had the courage to ask Jedidiah these questions, the bard finally fell into a restless sleep.
Late the next morning, after a large brunch, Jas took again to air to soar with the flyers. Holly set out with Handful to visit a shrine to Lathander in the mountains to the east of the vale. When both women had gone, Jedidiah led Joel back up to the Singing Cave. There the god taught his follower how to call on him for several other magical spells. First they worked on the spells Joel had witnessed in the past few days: a spell to heat metal and a command spell like the ones Walinda had used on Jas, faerie fire like the one cast on the stone marking the entrance to Giant's Craw Valley, and a spell to create food and water the way Jedidiah had done during their journey through the mountains. Jedidiah threw in a spell to locate objects, in case, the god joked, Joel mislaid his birdpipes again.
'Why are the forms so rigid?' Joel asked while he was struggling with the wording of the prayer to locate objects.
'If it comes in the right form,' Jedidiah explained, 'the power siphons from me without my having to think about it. That way I can keep concentrating on whatever I'm doing when you call for the spell. If you called for something with the wrong wording, I'd have to stop and think about it for a moment. For a god with hundreds of priests, that could get pretty complicated, and he may well end up ignoring them.'
'If you were watching me and concentrating, could you grant me something I hadn't learned?' Joel asked.
'It sounds possible,' Jedidiah said. 'But I'm not sure what the consequences might be. I think that's an experiment we should table for a while.'
There was a commotion outside the temple, and Joel heard the sound of saurials twittering. Copperbloom came in and said something to Jedidiah that Joel couldn't hear.
'Let's go see,' Jedidiah murmured.
Joel followed his god out of the Singing Cave. In the garden, saurials were watching the sky intently. Joel and Jedidiah looked up.
A few saurial flyers circled the vale lazily. At the party the previous night, Jas had told Joel that most of the flyers hunted for small creatures and birds, but some were scouts on watch for approaching outsiders. Jedidiah pointed to the east. High over the mountain peaks at the eastern edge of the vale flew the spelljammer temple to Bane. The ship flew southward, beyond the southern peaks of the vale, then turned back to the east.
'A square spiral search pattern,' Jedidiah said. 'Very methodical, your Walinda. I guess she took me literally when I told her she could try to search for the vale.'
'But she hasn't seen past the illusion,' Joel noted. 'Did you cast the spell?' he asked.
Jedidiah shook his head. 'That magic was here before I was even born.'
'What does it look like from up there?' Joel asked.
'As if the vale is rocky and barren,' Jedidiah replied.
'Suppose they fly lower?' he asked.
'They can try,' Jedidiah muttered with a sly gin. 'Now, what's that?' he asked suddenly, pointing to a speck flying behind the spelljammer.
Joel shrugged. 'I can hardly see it.'
Jas landed beside the two men. 'Did you see?' she asked angrily, whatever calm she achieved disturbed by the sight of her stolen craft.
Jedidiah nodded. 'Jas, if you please, would you fly up and ask one of the flyers to see if she can tell what that speck is that's following the ship?'
The winged woman nodded.
Jedidiah held her back for a moment. 'Don't try to follow it yourself,' he warned. 'If they spot a flying saurial, they might mistake it for a bird, but you, on the other hand…'
'Yeah, I know. I stand out like a festhall girl at a funeral,' Jas said. She took to the sky, heading to intercept one of the saurial flyers to the east.
'Why are they looking for us?' Joel asked. 'We said we'd meet them.'
'Because a valeful of hostage saurials would be even more leverage for the banelich to use to ensure I brought him the Hand of Bane,' Jedidiah said. 'In case the finder's stone isn't enough, or in case he wants to keep the finder's stone for himself.'
Jedidiah motioned for Joel to follow him back into the temple. When they'd once more settled in the Singing Cave, the god began to teach Joel a new song. It was an unusual piece of music. The lyrics were about a tulip's cycle of life, and the tune switched from a major chord to a minor halfway through.
Joel couldn't really think of any occasion when he would want to sing the song, and he had trouble committing it to memory. His mind kept straying to thoughts of Bane and Jedidiah's agreement to help the banelich.
After Joel's third failed attempt to master the fourth verse of the song, Jedidiah called a halt to the work. 'Let's get some air,' he suggested.
They strolled through the gardens side by side for several minutes without speaking. Finally Jedidiah asked, 'Why don't you tell me what's on your mind?'
Joel took a deep breath. All in a rush, he spoke of all the worries that had dogged his sleep the night before.
