by Kate Novak
Alias found Winefiddle climbing the steps to the silver altar. She leaped after him and grabbed at the back of the chain around his neck, the chain that held his holy symbol—the silver disk of Tymora. She yanked on it hard, trying to throttle him with it.
Winefiddle lost his balance and tumbled backward down the steps into his assailant, knocking her over as well. The priest’s fall was broken by Alias’s body, but the swordswoman was not so lucky. The crack her head made on the marble stone echoed through the temple, and the priest’s great bulk on top of her forced all the air from her lungs.
When Alias opened her eyes again, she was still lying on the floor. The light on her arm had faded to a very dim glow. Her head was throbbing with unbearable agony. Gods! she thought, as panic gripped her heart. I killed a priest! These hell-spawned markings made me kill a priest! No one will ever believe it wasn’t my fault.
She tried to sit up, knowing she had to flee, but the pain in her head made it impossible. Then she heard chanting.
Winefiddle knelt beside her—not dead after all. In the dimness of the temple lamps Alias could see his hands were glowing very slightly. He held them over the wound in his side and then over her forehead. The throbbing subsided.
“How are you feeling?” the curate asked.
“All right, I guess,” she muttered, sitting up slowly. She was unable to meet the priest’s eyes. “I might have killed you,” she whispered.
“Not very likely,” Winefiddle replied lightly. “We are in Tymora’s temple, and Her luck was with me, not you.”
His nonchalance startled Alias. She had to make him understand, even if it didn’t matter to him. “It wasn’t me, though,” she explained. “My arm … it took me over somehow.”
“Yes. The symbols must have instructions to destroy anyone who would try to remove them, discouraging you from seeking out help. I thought you looked possessed—but it couldn’t have been a real possession.”
“Why not?”
“An alarm would have gone off if any possessed person approached the altar. You didn’t set it off. I don’t think you’re cursed exactly either, or the scroll I used would have worked. The symbols on your arm are magical, but they aren’t just magical. There’s some mechanistic component to them that protects them from being exorcised.”
“But I have to get them off,” Alias insisted. “I can’t run around with markings that make me try to kill priests. Who knows what else they might make me do?”
“Indeed” Winefiddle agreed, “but removing them might prove to be complicated and costly. If it can be done, it would require the power of many clerics and mages, as well as a surgeon. And you would have no guarantee that the markings would let you live through the procedure. It might be easier and safer for you to cut off the arm and retire.”
“No!”
“But these markings are very dangerous. You could learn to fight left-handed,” Winefiddle suggested.
“I can already do that,” Alias declared. “That’s not the point. I’m not going to let these things, or whoever put them on me, ruin my life. Besides, suppose they had roots or something that went into my body.”
“Well, then, I would advise you to learn all you can about the markings. None of them are familiar to me. Perhaps if you can discover their origins, you can discover who put them on you and get them to remove them for you.”
Alias looked down at the blue glyphs. None of them were familiar to her either. Even the Turmishman, Akabar Bel Akash, had found them unusual. “That’ll take a sage’s service, and sages aren’t cheap.”
“True,” Winefiddle agreed. “However, I happen to know of a very good one who might be willing to exchange his services for yours. His name is Dimswart. He lives about half a day’s ride outside of Suzail.”
“What kind of services might he be looking for?” Alias asked suspiciously.
“Better to let him explain that,” Winefiddle said evasively.
Five minutes later Alias left the temple, a letter of introduction in her pocket, along with the small greenish gem originally intended for Tymora’s poor box. She had made a motion toward the box with her hand as she passed it, but the gem remained firmly in her grip. As she had pointed out, sages weren’t cheap. Her services might not be sufficient to barter with this Dimswart, she told herself.
As she walked away from the temple, an uneasy suspicion occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t her own frugalness that prompted her to hold onto the gem, but some desire of the sigils not to reward the priest who had tried to help her remove them.
The cobblestone Promenade of Suzail appeared deserted, but as soon as Alias left the temple court a tall figure in rustling crimson-and-white robes stepped from the shadows. He hesitated, uncertain whether he should follow the adventuress or try to discover her business with Tymora. He made for the temple doors.
Then three more figures, dressed in dark leathers, emerged from a dark alley. Ignoring the first figure they trailed after Alias. One last figure followed these three—a figure holding a massive tail over his shoulder.
* * * * *
Alias was in no hurry to return to The Hidden Lady. Three days of sleep had left her quite awake. She wandered down to Suzail’s docks. The last of the schooners had shut down for the evening, and only a few firepots from the warehouses lit the water. The sea air rolled into the city, smelling considerably fresher than three-days worth of unlaundered linens.
She ran through a mental list of individuals who might be responsible for having her marked with the symbols and drew a blank. Any enemies she’d made were either ignorant of her name or dead. No friends who were still drawing breath would do something like this. That left someone new—a stranger who had picked her off the street as a suitable vessel for trying out a new piece of magic.
Alias came to the end of the wooden plank sidewalk. The beach spread out in a thin white line to her right. The night sky had grown overcast. Like my life, she thought. She began walking along the shoreline on the sand.
Even if a complete stranger had done this to her, she was still left wondering where and when it had happened. Now that she thought about it, her memory was missing more than just a few weeks. More time than an alcoholic binge could really account for, she decided.
She could recall long-ago adventures quite clearly—like stealing one of the Eyes of Bane from an evil temple in Baldur’s Gate with the Adventurers of the Black Hawk, or her earliest sojourns with the Company of the Swanmays.
Her mind went all fuzzy, trying to remember recent events like the sea trip. And there was a sea trip, she insisted to herself, worried that she would forget that as well by the next morning. Was the lizard-creature on the same ship? I think so. Maybe it’s the pet of the magician behind this mess.
Alias walked a quarter-mile along the beach before she drew her traitorous arm from beneath her cloak. The pain had dimmed, but the symbols still glowed faintly, like lichen. Cursing did no good, but she cursed anyway. If they can make me attack a priest, what else can they make me do?
If she attacked someone else, she could end up with a bad reputation. No one would hire her as a guard, and there weren’t many adventuring companies who’d have anything to do with her. It was one thing to kill people in self-defense or in combat under command of king or church, but if she were to slay some innocent, unarmed person …
Alias was lost in her thoughts, absentmindedly digging a half-covered shell from the sand with the side of her boot, so she failed to notice the trio stalking her. The rushing sound of the surf covered the noise of their approach. One hung back and began chanting a spell, while the other two rushed the swordswoman.
The spell-caster’s incantation, a high-pitched female voice, inadvertently warned Alias of danger. The swordswoman whirled around and discovered the pair of armed men advancing on her. They carried clubs, but light from the cloud-wrapped moon did not reflect off their black leather armor—armor that was the trademark of a particularly dangerous underworld class.
Assassins! Alias grabbed at the hilt of her sword and nearly jerked herself off her feet before remembering the blade was still tied to its scabbard. The awkward movement pulled her forward so, by dumb luck, she rolled within the swing of the first assailant and away from the second. With one hand she tried to foil the knot at her sword.
Then the spell-caster’s magic let loose—a pair of missiles of hissing energy, leaving a wake of glittering dust in their path. The bolts dove at Alias like hunting falcons and caught her in the left shoulder. The arm below that shoulder went dead from the shock, and the force knocked the swordswoman backward on the sand. Ignore the pain, just get the knot, she ordered herself.
Fortunately, the first assailant was an amateur. He rushed forward while his wiser companion circled. Alias brought her leg up hard and connected. The fool dropped his club, clutching himself in pain.
Get the knot, get the knot, her mind chanted as the fingers of her right hand tore frantically at the binding on her sword. Don’t think about the spell-caster! Work the knot!
Alias attempted to rise, and the second assailant swung at her from behind, catching her left shoulder again. She rolled with the blow and came up at last with sword in hand. The first assassin had recovered, so that Alias stood on the beach facing both armed assailants, shifting her eyes from one to the other. Worse than that, she could hear the rising chant in the distance of another spell.
The chant died with a sudden muffled scream, and the two assassins half-turned in surprise. Alias lunged, catching the first in the belly. She lost her grip on her sword’s hilt as the assassin crumbled to the sand.
The remaining black figure thrust his club like a sword, seeking to catch Alias between the ribs. Alias dodged backward, so the force of his lunge knocked the assassin off balance. She reached to the top of her boot with her good hand and flung a dagger underhand. Her aim was true, and the second assailant fell, hands clawing at the protruding hilt, staining the sand with his blood.
Alias breathed deeply and recovered her weapons. Both men were dead. She rubbed her sore shoulder, feeling the tingling of life returning to it. Then she remembered the spell-caster. Has she fled, or is she waiting in the shadows? Alias moved cautiously in the direction the magic missiles had come from.
The spell-caster lay face down in the sand about twenty yards away, a nasty gash across her back. Bending over her body was the lizard-creature. It’s just as ugly in the moonlight as it had been in the dusk, Alias thought. In one paw the creature held an odd-looking blade that had too much steel and not enough grip. The tip of the blade was an oversized diamond shape edged with curved teeth that curled backward. The teeth were bathed in the mage’s blood.
Alias raised her own sword into a guard position. The lizard looked up and hissed. Is that a hostile sign? she wondered. She tightened her grip on her own blade. The beast rose from the mage’s body. Swordswoman and lizard stood motionless, each waiting for the other to move first.
Finally, the lizard-creature gave a muted snarl as it twisted its odd-shaped blade in its hands, spinning the weapon like a baton once, twice, thrice …
And drove it, point first, into the ground at Alias’s feet. The creature dropped to one knee beside the grounded blade, head down, offering its bare neck to Alias’s weapon.
Alias raised her sword over the creature. I failed to kill the thing this afternoon, she realized, and I’ll never have a better chance to deal with it. Putting it out of my misery would be the simplest, most logical thing to do. Four dead bodies on a beach attract no more attention than three.
The lizard remained in its kneeling position, not reaching for its blade. The creature seemed to be holding its breath.
Alias hesitated. You’d think I was a follower of Bhaal, God of Murder. First I try to kill a priest, and now I’m ready to slay a foe who’s surrendered. For that matter I don’t know that it’s a foe. The creature took out the magic-user for me. It’s offering me its services like a knight.
Alias tapped the lizard-creature on the shoulder with the flat of the blade. “Okay, you can live.” Her voice sounded overloud and pompous. “But one false move and you’re dragon bait. Read me? Dra-gon bait.”
The creature nodded and pointed to its chest with a long, clawed finger.
Alias rubbed her temples with annoyance. “No, you’re not named Dragonbait. If you give me any trouble, you’ll become dragon bait.”
The creature repeated the gesture toward itself.
Alias sighed. “Dragonbait it is, then.” She pointed toward herself. “Alias,” she said. “Now let’s search these bodies and get out of here before the watch arrives.”
Dragonbait nodded and, using an overlong thumb-claw, started cutting the strings of the magician’s purse.
Dragonbait and Dimswart
Dragonbait was like no other creature Alias had ever seen before in all her travels through the Realms. He wasn’t a real lizard, at least not of the species she’d helped drive back from the city of Daggerford. As she noted when she’d seen the creature at sunset, his snout was thinner at the tip and more rounded than a lizard-creature’s, and he sported a head fin like a troglodyte.
Given time for more leisurely study, she could see many other differences. For one thing, the sharp teeth at the front of his mouth gave way to the peglike molars of a salad eater, and though he walked on his hind legs, his posture was hardly erect. The creature tilted forward some at the hips, balanced by a tail as long again as his torso. With such an odd posture, his head only reached to her shoulder, about five feet high. Finally, the scales that pebbled his hide were so small and smooth he looked as though he were covered in expensive beadwork, like a noblewoman’s evening gown.
At any rate, for something more lizardish than human, he was pretty intelligent. At least, that is, the lizard made an excellent servant. Upon their return to The Hidden Lady, he busied himself helping her off with her boots, straightening her room, and fetching food for a late night snack.
“I see you found your lizard,” the innkeeper commented cheerily to Alias, upon discovering the five-foot lizard with a cold meat pie and pudding in his paws.
Except for a few catlike hisses, snarls, and mewling sounds, Dragonbait remained mute. If the creature had his own language he did not bother to use it. Alias found she could get him to fetch and carry things on command, but he responded to questions with the blank look of a beast.
She needed to know when she’d first met him, what he knew of her memory loss, and especially what he knew of the tattoo. In frustration and desperation she began shouting questions. Her anger only invoked in the lizard a tilted head and a puzzled expression.
Alias lay back on the bed, defeated. Dragonbait made a sympathetic mewling. Struck with an inspiration, Alias shouted down to the innkeep for an inkpot, quill, and parchment. When the items were brought up, she set them on the table and sat Dragonbait down before them.
The lizard sniffed at the inkpot, and his nostrils flared and closed up in annoyance. He used the quill point to pick clean the spaces between his teeth.
Alias flopped back on her bed, laughing. Lady Luck was playing some cruel joke on her. Here was a creature who might be a key to the fog surrounding her life, and he could explain nothing to her. She leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. Dragonbait curled up on the rag rug on the floor at the foot of the bed and wrapped his arms around the curious sword he carried.
Alias feigned sleep for a while, just to be sure her new companion had no plans to give her a second smile, across the throat with his sword. She wasn’t really expecting any trouble, but trust was for corpses. She studied the lizard through half-closed eyelids. Asleep, he looked even more innocuous. Like a child, he kept his powerful lower legs pulled up to his stomach. With yellowish claws retracted into his clover-shaped feet, and with his long, muscled tail tucked up between his legs, the tip lying across his eyes, and with his snout resting on the hilt of his sword, Dragonbait reminded Alias of a
furless cat curled about its master’s shoe.
The sword was as curious as its owner. It looked top-heavy and badly balanced. Forging that diamond-shaped tip, and the jagged teeth curling from it, could not have been easy, and wielding it seemed impossible. Alias wondered how anyone could keep hold of that tiny, one-handed grip. Had she not seen its handiwork on the beach, she would have believed the blade to be ceremonial gear.
Dragonbait had no other belongings, unless she counted the tattered, ill-fitting clothes he wore, no doubt out of modesty, since they certainly couldn’t be keeping the creature warm. A torn jerkin covered his chest, and a splotch of ragged cloth knotted at the side hung down from his hips.
What makes me think he’s not a she? Granted, there’s nothing feminine about his torso, but lizards don’t have breasts or need wide hips for birthing, now do they? Alias shook her head. No. He’s a male. Some sixth sense made her sure of it.
She looked again at the rags he wore. Aren’t lizards supposed to hate the cold? I’ll have to find him a cloak, something with a deep hood to hide that snout.
Watching the lizard sleeping at her feet, making plans for his comfort, she could no longer feel threatened by him. But she still could not sleep. Slipping quietly out of the bed, she padded over to the small dressing table where Dragonbait had carefully laid out the booty from their would-be ambushers. Dragonbait gave a snarl in his sleep as she raised the flame on the oil lamp, then he turned over, still resting on his sword.
Some watchdog, Alias thought. She turned back to the scattered assassin equipment and sat down at the table to examine it. The daggers—three from the mage, one from each club-wielding assassin—were quite ordinary. The pair of small vials stoppered with wax were much more interesting. Carefully Alias cracked the top of one, and a rich cinnamon smell wafted up. She quickly restoppered the bottle.
Peranox. A deadly contact poison from the South. Nasty stuff even in the hands of competent assassins, Alias thought. Disaster for first-time bunglers. If the pair had used poisoned daggers instead of clubs, I would be lying dead on the beach instead of them.