Giogi nearly backed into Cat, who was still behind him reciting the words to some involved magic spell. Startled, the mage broke off her chant for a fraction of a second as she retreated to avoid being trampled by the nobleman. Upon recovering her balance, she resumed chanting, even faster than before.
"People say you're nothing but a useless wastrel with delusions of being a warrior," Flattery snarled. "You aren't even competent with the foil. I've drawn first blood already."
"Ah, but at least I have blood you can draw. What have you got, Flattery? If I get lucky and score a hit, will there be blood on my weapon or just some oozing ichor?"
Flattery thrust and lunged again, but Giogi parried and riposted. Flattery retreated slightly.
Both men slowed their attacks. Somewhere in his past Flattery had learned to fence very well, but it was not a skill he'd exercised for some while. He was tired. Giogi, who'd been riding and walking regularly, making his journey home, could last for some time, provided he wasn't dealt a mortal wound— which ultimately Flattery could deliver.
Since Giogi's purpose was to buy time for his Uncle Drone to arrive, not get himself killed, he slowed his attacks as well.
Still chanting, Cat pulled from her sash the special component the spell required. It was wrapped in a piece of paper and still smelled quite strong. She dipped all her fingers into it.
Flattery's attacks began to speed up again, and Giogi renewed his taunting banter.
"So. What happened to all the zombies and ghouls? Did the Shard's mist destroy every last one? Are those undead cowering from the light over there all that's left of your army?"
"Undead are easy to recruit," Flattery growled. "When we've finished with this battle, I shall give you a firsthand demonstration."
Giogi felt Cat very close behind him. While he realized she needed to stay in the circle of light shed by the finder's stone, so the undead did not attack her, he wished she would back away a little more, for both their safety.
She was practically chanting in his ear, words that made no sense at all to him. Her hands reached about his head, and she ran her fingers down his cheeks, smearing them with her spell component. She intoned, "Be as the beast."
Giogi crinkled his nose. The scent of the spell components Cat had used to hold the shadow, garlic and sulfur, lingered on her hands, mingled in with a much stronger and more unpleasant odor—rather like dung. Cat pulled her hands back. "This is the only spell I have left," she whispered in Giogi's ear. "I've saved it for you, my love." Then she stepped back.
Flattery's nose twitched from the smell. "You can give him the strength of a golem, Catling, but it won't improve his fencing. His skill is abysmal."
The wizard's prediction, however, proved wrong. With the muscles in Giogi's arms strengthened, his weapon suddenly felt lighter, and he wielded it with more speed and fluidity. He broke through one of Flattery's parries and stabbed the wizard's chest.
"One-one, Flattery," the nobleman said. His tone was grim. He knew he could not afford to grow cocky. "Hmm," he said, eyeing the tip of his foil as it danced before him. "Blood. Red blood. Liches don't bleed I'm going to have to reevaluate my opinion of you. Let's see. What bleeds and looks human but isn't? Flesh golems or those devilish little homonculi. Are you a golem, Flattery?"
Flattery growled, beat at Giogi's blade, and lunged for his heart. Giogi tried a stop-thrust with only partial success. His foil went harmlessly through the robe of Flattery's sleeve while Flattery's foil pierced Giogi's shoulder blade.
Giogi clenched his teeth against the pain. "Flesh golems don't get angry, but you're awfully tall for a homonculous."
*****
Olive Ruskettle crept down the front hall of Flattery's keep. Once Dorath had returned with Amber, Drone changed into a pegasus, and he and Olive had flown to Flattery's lair. The halfling had convinced Drone to wait outside to give her time to scout out the territory. If Giogi was still alive, she would get the spur to him, and he could handle Flattery. If it was too late, then Drone was her only way off the rock, and she didn't want him captured or killed.
She arrived at the audience hall in time to catch the last minute of Giogi's fencing duel with Flattery. Olive stood in the doorway and watched with interest. The wizard's fury was out of all proportion to the taunts Giogi made. Olive realized that those taunts must have some basis in truth.
The halfling moved to enter the room but found her passage blocked by an unseen barrier. As she ran her hands across the smooth surface, it crumbled at her touch like a dried sand castle or a spell that had reached its maximum duration. Within the passage of a breath, the way was clear to where Giogi mocked the increasingly furious wizard.
Unfortunately, while Flattery did grow careless in his anger, he did not grow careless enough to give Giogi the winning edge.
Then Giogi said, "You're not a Wyvernspur. You're an overgrown homonculous, some wizard's imp who escaped."
Flattery made a running charge at Giogi, missing him completely in his rage. The charge so startled Giogi that he tripped and fell over backward, losing both his foil and the finder's stone.
The wizard loomed over Giogi, with his foil pointed at the nobleman's throat. Flattery put a foot on Giogi's chest and said, "I will tell you what I told your father in his dying moments, as we fell toward the earth. My father was a Wyvernspur so vile that the Harpers wiped his name from the Realms and banished him to a Limbo."
"Nameless!" Olive cried out with excitement. "I was right! You did mean the Nameless Bard."
Flattery whirled around, with the same look on his face he'd worn the night he'd murdered Jade and Olive had screamed at him. Olive gulped, but she stood her ground.
Giogi took advantage of the wizard's inattention to roll away and rise to his feet.
"You!" Flattery screamed at Olive. "You freed him!"
"Me?" Olive squeaked. "No."
"Don't lie. I've heard you singing his songs. And you're a Harper. Only Harpers knew where his prison was. I'll find him, and with the spur I can destroy him. I can destroy his whole family."
"But why?" Olive asked.
"Why? Look what he did to me!" Flattery demanded.
Olive stared hard at Flattery. "You look all right to me. Pretty near perfect, actually."
Flattery screamed. "I do not look all right. I look exactly like him. He made me that way. I don't want to be exactly like him. I don't want his face. I don't want his memories. I don't want his thoughts. I don't want his voice, and I don't want his songs. No one can make me say his name or sing his songs. I'll kill him before he tries to make me sing them again."
"Oh, my gosh," Olive said. The realization of exactly who Flattery was dawned on her and made her tremble. "You aren't his son. You're the first creature he made to sing his songs, the one that got him in all the trouble with the Harpers in the first place." Olive knew that many wizards had died in Nameless's bizarre experiments to create living vessels for his works.
"What do you mean the first creature?" Flattery demanded.
"Well, he made another one. Woman. Very pretty. Sings like a bird," Olive said. She kept Flattery's attention fixed on her. Behind the wizard, Cat retrieved Giogi's foil and returned it to him. Olive bragged, "Everyone loves the songs she sings. The songs he wrote."
"You lie!" Flattery shouted, closing on Olive. "I will kill you and slay him with the spur. His name will never be spoken again." His eyes wide with rage, Flattery raised a ring-bedecked hand and pointed at the halfling.
Giogi slammed into Flattery, spoiling whatever magic the wizard had intended to cast at Olive. "Stay behind me, Mistress Ruskettle," the young noble said as the halfling scurried to his side.
"Little present from your aunt," Olive whispered, slipping the wyvern's spur into the top of Giogi's boot. Giogi concentrated on the dream. From behind the nobleman's body the halfling taunted the wizard. "You're too late, you know, Flattery. Nameless's true name is on everyone's lips. Best bard in the Realms- Finder Wyvernspur."
Flattery lunged at Giogi to get at Olive but found himself confronted with a wyvern.
Flattery leaped backward with a snarl. His foil was not likely to penetrate the wyvern's scales, and Giogi's transformed body was immune to his spells. Flattery might have run, but he spotted Cat picking up the finders stone.
Backing away farther, the wizard drew something out of his pocket. It was a crystal as dark as a new moon. Just like the one Jade had stolen, Olive thought.
"Catling, you want this? Come and get it," said Flattery, circling to keep the enchantress between him and the wyvern, Giogi.
Cat looked with confusion at the crystal. Her eves shone with desire. She took a hesitant step forward.
"It's a trick, Cat," Olive shouted. "He destroyed the real crystal. He just wants to use you against Giogi."
Flattery was a fast thinker and a taster liar. "I made a second crystal, Cat. It's everything the first was. Just come here, and I will give it to you."
Cat froze, then stepped back, taking up a position behind Giogi. "It doesn't matter anymore, Flattery," she said proudly. "I can make myself new memories."
With that, Olive said, "Time to go," took Cat's hand, and pulled her toward the exit. Giogi backed slowly in the same direction, waving his tail over his head. He had to get the mage and the bard to safety before he finished with the wizard.
The three of them slipped from the audience chamber quickly. Something exploded behind them. Flattery shrieked, and a howl went up from the undead.
"Run!" Olive shouted.
The halfling and the mage pounded down the corridor. Behind them, Giogi continued backing away as fast as he could. Drone, in his human form, stood waiting outside the door.
"Giogi?" said the old man.
"Right behind us," Olive gasped.
The wyvern backed out of the keep door and changed quickly back into a human. "You know, this wyvern form is deucedly awkward enough to walk in going forward," Giogi said with irritation. "I can't see where I'm going at all when I go backward, let alone try to be graceful about it."
Drone took Cat by the shoulders. "Where are my scrolls, young lady?" he demanded.
Cat swallowed. "Gone," she said. Flattery took them. He's already opened one, I think. We heard an explosion as we fled the keep."
"You knew the scrolls you took were covered in explosive runes?" Drone asked.
Cat grinned slyly. "Except for the few I used," she said.
"The exploding scroll will have destroyed all the others with it," Drone snapped. "All you needed for a booby trap was one."
"If I'd only brought him one scroll, he'd be suspicious," Cat explained. "The more I brought him, the less suspicious he'd be. I had to bring all the ones with exploding runes to make sure he got hit by the first one he read."
"Devious. She's very devious, Giogi. She owes me twenty-seven scrolls, though," Drone growled. "I've spent all my power for the day. Without those scrolls, I'm no good to you in battle. I can get the ladies safely to the ground, Giogi, if you can delay pursuit."
Giogi nodded.
A horrendous howl erupted from the audience chamber, and everyone knew Flattery trailed them with renewed fury.
"Lead Flattery away from this rock, as far away as you can get him to go," Drone said.
"Yes, sir."
Drone pulled a small scroll from his sleeve, muttered a few words, and was surrounded by a milky blue glow. When the glow subsided, the old Wyvernspur had been transformed into a pegasus.
"Hand up, if you please, Master Giogioni," Olive said.
Giogioni lifted the halfling onto his uncle's back.
"Be careful," Cat pleaded.
Giogi kissed her once and set her behind Olive. "Don't fall off this horse," he warned. "It's a long way to the ground."
"Wait!" Cat said. "The undead. If they get past the invisible barrier, they can still chase you, as they did your father." The mage untied her yellow sash, dropped the finder's stone in it, and knotted it inside. "Change to the wvvern," she ordered Giogi.
Giogi quickly transformed.
"Bend your head down."
Cat wrapped her sash around Giogi's wyvern throat and knotted the fabric tight. "There," she said.
The finder's stone shone brightly through the fabric.
Drone stamped his foot impatiently and whinnied.
"Good luck," Cat whispered.
Drone took off, flying just high enough to clear the fortress walls. Giogi took to the air and circled over the fortress, near the large iron doors. The moon had just risen high enough to shine on the inner ward.
Flattery came out, just as Giogi knew he would, in the shape of a great sky-blue dragon. The wizard looked no worse for all the injury Cat had done him with her magic missile in the nursery and the explosive runes on Uncle Drone's scrolls. He looked like a dragon in his prime.
Giogi folded his wings and swooped down silently, his moon shadow behind him. Like a wasp, he delivered a stinging blow to Flattery's head. Then Giogi tore off to the west.
When he took a moment to look back, he could see the dragon's silhouette in the moonlight, much closer to him than he thought. Dark clouds and white mist flew beside the wizard.
*****
Olive squinted through the telescope at the tiny, retreating figures of Giogi, Flattery, and the few flying minions he had left. The minions were already no more than a collection of motes in the glass.
Drone was balanced precariously on the tower roof, chanting some very powerful spell from a scroll. Mother Lleddew was in courtyard below, praying some powerful prayer from another scroll. Their chants intermixed in a toneless song of magic.
