Song of the Saurials

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“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 it 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 ye knowest?

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