"Thank you," Jedidiah said.

The bowl was filled with pure white sand. Jedidiah brushed the sand aside until he uncovered a glimmer of yellow. Gently he loosened what was buried in the sand and pulled it out.

Joel gasped. "It's the finder's stone!"

"Half of the finder's stone," Jedidiah corrected.

The stone the old priest held was the mirror image of the stone Joel had seen Jedidiah use to siphon off his power-a rounded, multifaceted yellow gemstone with a jagged bottom.

"This," Jedidiah said, blowing sand from the stone, "is the half of the stone Finder left in the vale with Alias and the saurials before he went into the Abyss to find the mage Akabar bel Akash. It hasn't left the vale since then-nearly ten years ago."

"I thought Finder went into the Abyss to kill Moander," Joel said.

Jedidiah shook his head. "That wasn't his original intention, but Akabar sacrificed his own life to convince Finder to kill Moander."

Suddenly Joel came to another realization. "If that's the half of the finder's stone that Finder left the saurials, then the half you had was…" Joel let his voice trail off.

"… the half that Finder took with him to the Abyss," Jedidiah said with a nod.

Joel's eyes widened. "You had Finder's half of the stone? How did you get it?" he asked, his voice low with wonder. "Did Finder give it to you?" he asked.

"Not precisely," Jedidiah said. He sang a scale, then another in a different key. The half of the finder's stone glowed brightly and cast a beam of golden light on Jedidiah. As it did, the old priest began to transform. His back grew straighter; his skin became unwrinkled; his muscles hardened; his hair darkened to black, with only a few splotches of gray. His features still looked like Jedidiah, but the signs of his age had evaporated, and youthful vitality flowed through his body.

When the transformation had ceased, Jedidiah turned to Joel. "You see," he said with a sheepish expression on his face, "I had Finder's half of the stone because I carried it with me into the Abyss. It was my half of the stone. I'm Finder, your god."

Eleven

Joel's jaw dropped. He stared wordlessly at Jedidiah for a full twenty heartbeats, while his mind struggled to form a coherent reply. Finally he said, "I don't believe it," then instantly felt foolish.

"I'm afraid it's true," Jedidiah replied. "May I strike myself with lightning if it's not," he joked. Excitement gripped Joel's heart. Here he was, speaking with a god, the god he'd agreed to serve. Suddenly he was nervous. "Um, is there some special way I should address you? Should I kneel or bow, or anything? I've never met a god before," he said.

Jedidiah shook his head. "No. My ego's large, but despite what my detractors say, it's not that large. I'm not really comfortable with adulation. I'm just a little god. You can keep calling me Jedidiah. I've gotten rather attached to the name."

Joel grinned. The fears Walinda had tried to use to cloud his judgment evaporated. He was really talking with Finder. Then a new worry niggled at his heart. "If you're Finder, then what happened to Jedidiah?" he asked. "Jedidiah is me, or I'm Jedidiah. It's a disguise I wear when I travel around the Realms."

"Then that was you in Berdusk?" Joel asked. "When you were telling me about Finder, you were telling me about yourself?"

Jedidiah nodded.

Joel let out his breath. He thought he'd been asked to join Finder's church by a charming old bard-priest, when all along it was Finder himself. "Why me?" he asked.

"Why did I ask you to be a priest?" Jedidiah inquired.

Joel nodded.

"Well, I wanted to get the best people I could find-people who already believed strongly in transforming art. I'd watched you in Berdusk, arguing with your teachers, trying to break the constraints of traditional music. You already understood what it took me centuries to understand. Also, you were well rounded, took an interest in everything. You reminded me a little of myself when I was younger, except you're modest."

"But why all the special attention? Why did you follow me? Didn't you think I could make it here on my own?" Joel asked. He felt like a failure, since he knew he would have died without Jedidiah's help.

"As I told you earlier, the journey wasn't a test to see if you could get here on your own. It was a measure of your desire to be part of my church. And I didn't actually follow you. One of my godly abilities is always knowing what's happening to any of my priests," Jedidiah explained. "I heard you call for my blessing in Daggerdale, but you took care of the Zhents without needing of my help. I considered stepping in when Bear betrayed you to the Xvimists, but Xvim keeps an eye on his priests, too. If I interfered with one of them, Xvim would interfere with me. I needed to be more subtle in my efforts to help you escape. I don't dare risk attracting Xvim's attention. To put it bluntly, Bear's god can beat up your god. When you were imprisoned in the

Temple in the Sky and called on me, I sent you the vision and a piece of magic, but you escaped, with your friend, on your own."

Jedidiah sighed. "I haven't been a god all that long. I still long for mortal things sometimes. As I explained to Copperbloom," he said, "I only began to travel with you because I got caught up in the adventure. I wanted to find out what a priestess of Bane was doing with a spelljammer. I wanted to watch you thwart the Xvimists. I wanted to be part of your journey. If I hadn't been such a fool, if I'd just returned to the Lost Vale after you escaped, the dark stalker would have lost you and you would have been just fine."

"But why all the special attention?" Joel asked again. "You must have better things to do with your time."

"Joel," Jedidiah said softly, "you're my priest. You are my strength. I told you that before."

"What about your other priests?" Joel asked.

Jedidiah looked up at Copperbloom. A vanilla scent rose from the saurial priestess as she clicked with what Joel was sure was laughter.

This is it," Jedidiah said, making a circling motion with his finger to indicate the occupants of the room. "You, me, Copperbloom. This is my only temple-so far. There are several little shrines, most of them set up by people you spoke to on your journey here. More than a few artists have seen fit to evoke my name, giving me a little more power. It's going to take some years, though, before our church gets much larger. For one thing, we have to proceed with caution. There are some gods, far more powerful than I, who don't like the competition I represent."

"Like Oghma and Milil," Joel guessed.

Jedidiah nodded. "The Lord of Knowledge and the Lord of Song are afraid I'll be poaching bards and artists away from their following. There's also the power I took from Moander. I have some control over the cycle of life-growth, rot, and rebirth. Chauntea, the Great Mother, and Lathander, the Morninglord, are both involved in rebirth and growth. Which leaves me control over rot-not something most people have a tremendous attraction to, unless you happen to be a former worshiper of Moander."

"So what will you do?" Joel asked.

"Well, I still plan to work with everything over which I've been given dominion," Jedidiah said. "But I need to proceed carefully. I need to build a strong framework for my church-one that other churches can't bring down easily. That's why I've searched out and set up two very strong supports." Jedidiah indicated Joel and Copperbloom with his hands.

Joel bowed his head humbly. Then he looked back up at Jedidiah. "Why didn't you tell me all this in Berdusk?" he asked. "Why the disguise as an old priest?"