Azure Bonds

by Kate Novak

  She thought very hard about Dragonbait, about all he’d done for her, all she knew about him, all the things she felt about him. He was the least human of her companions, he couldn’t talk to her, and she had little idea what went through his mind, yet Dragonbait was the only member of the party she trusted completely. Regardless of what Olive had said about failing to communicate with him, she knew that the two of them, lizard and swordswoman, had an understanding.

  “You’re not my bondservant, are you?” Alias whispered to the sleeping lizard. “You’re my brother.”

  She’d never really had any siblings, at least as far as she knew. Her mother, an uncommunicative fisherman’s widow, had never told her of any, and when her mother died, just after Alias reached her teens, no long-lost relatives appeared at her wake. The following year Alias ran off to avoid being bonded to a decent but unimaginative weaver. It wasn’t until she had insinuated herself into the Swanmays that she felt any kinship to anyone. The Swanmays had relished the risks and beauty of the open wilderness as much as she did. Just remembering them now made her throat tighten with emotion.

  Yet, the feeling she had for Dragonbait, one she was certain he shared, could not possibly be based on mutual interests. As far as she knew, they had none. His behavior toward her was most definitely the tender protectiveness of a brother. Oddly enough, Alias realized that she felt the same way about him. And the strength of that feeling without, as she perceived, any logical foundation, was what made her so certain there was no one closer to her in all the world.

  Despite the admission of her feelings for the lizard, she was no closer to remembering anything about their past association than before.

  Her relationship with Olive was as clear as glass. Alias knew she could trust the halfling to look after the halfling first, the party’s possessions second, and everyone else probably not at all. Though the bard had shown one flash of bravado in Mist’s lair, taunting the dragon long enough for Alias to get back on her feet, bravado was not the same as courage, and had nothing at all to do with heroism. Alias realized that Olive would weigh every risk against how much treasure she estimated lay at the end of Alias’s quest.

  Akabar was a little more complicated. He was on a quest of his own to prove to himself that he was more than a Turmish merchant. Eager to collect his own adventures to relate to his profiteering wives and, Alias conjectured, probably anxious to keep from returning so soon to a family with little tolerance for such nonsense as adventures. Alias was certain that if he hadn’t stumbled across her case, he’d have found some other adventurer to lavish his attentions on. She felt she could trust him not to deceive her, but she wasn’t going to count on him to lay down his life for her. She knew the mage possibly had one other reason for accompanying her, but he had been wise enough to deny it, so she wasn’t going to dwell on it.

  She wasn’t aware she was falling asleep, but when the wreckage of the inn began to shimmer and reform into the building she remembered from years ago, she knew she’d drifted into some dream. Angrily she tried to shake herself awake, frightened that her dereliction of duty would bring great harm to the party, but she had no success.

  The inn took on an increasing solidity. First, the thick timber walls returned, their joints sealed with dabbed mud. Doors and tables and chairs and the bar seemed to rise from the ground. Without moving, Alias found herself seated at a small table by the firepit.

  Alerted by the groaning beams above, Alias looked up. Overhead, the charred timbers grew whole, the drooping section of ceiling that had survived the fire straightened. Planed boards crisscrossed the timbers and, though she could not see them, Alias heard the clatter of pottery shingles as they multiplied across the boards outside. Chains began to snake downward from iron hooks which sprouted from the main timbers. The ends of the chains blossomed into gourd-shaped lamps, burning oil from small wicks.

  The flame in the firepit flared into a roaring blaze, and the North Gate Inn began filling with customers, though they did not enter by the door. Alias heard them first, the mutter and roar of many people speaking all around her. She fixed her attention on a booth in the corner where she heard an argument, but all she could see were shadows.

  Of course, I might not be dreaming, Alias considered. This could all be some fantastic illusion. But the noise would have wakened the others, and they would still be here sleeping beside me. No, this was a dream, she concluded.

  Suddenly there was a tremendous clatter to her right. Her head turned in time to witness a burly man berating a small servant girl for spilling wine down the copious cleavage of his female companion. As the youngster protested her innocence, the man stood up and loomed over her. He was twice her height, but Alias caught the glint of sharp steel as the servant reached into her apron pocket.

  A loud roar came from the corner booth again, and she turned her attention back to it. No longer occupied by shadows, it was filled with people of depth and color. A tired cleric and a young fighter argued some fine religious point. The cleric insisted that Tempos was a corruption of the southern Tempus, and that Tempus was the correct pronunciation. This supposition seemed to madden the fighter, a northern barbarian on his manhood journey, no doubt. His face, already quite red from several drinks, flushed even darker. He was preparing his argument by reaching his right hand over his left shoulder to grasp the lion-headed hilt of the massive sword strapped to his back.

  Alias wondered which of the two arguments would be the first to cause a room-clearing brawl.

  “Neither,” answered a pleasant voice. Alias started at the reply. A young man stood beside her table, holding two crystal glasses in one hand and a dusty bottle in the other. He sat in the chair beside her, setting the items he carried on the table. “But devastation will arrive shortly,” he assured her with a lopsided grin and a wink. Alias would have judged him to be not yet twenty, but his suave manner belied her estimate. He wiped off the bottle and extracted the cork with an expert ease.

  The youth’s blond hair hung loose about his shoulders and glistened in the firelight. He had what the members of the Swanmays would agree was a well-formed figure, yet his blue eyes reflected the firelight back in pinpoints of red. As attractive as Alias found him, he made her quite nervous. She felt as if she were waiting for someone in the dream, but this man was not that person.

  “I took the liberty of ordering a wine special. I know you’ll like it.” He smiled as he poured copper-colored liquid into both glasses.

  “How do you know what’s going to happen?” Alias asked.

  “We all have our little curses,” he whispered, running a finger down her right arm along the brands. They tingled, an entirely new sensation. “My curse is that I’m required to read the script before the play begins.” He held up his glass and waited for her to do the same. “In a few minutes the plot will pick up. Plenty of time to finish your drink.”

  Alias lifted the delicate crystal by the stem and allowed her host to clink his own against it. “To drama,” he said.

  Alias sniffed the beverage warily, afraid to discover yet another Cormyrian mixture unsuited to her tastes. Instead, a pleasant, tangy scent wafted to her nostrils. She took a sip and then, without thinking, drained the glass. The sharp, sweet taste of mountain berries clung to her lips, and the alcohol coursed through her body like a shock. Her face warmed immediately, as if she stood in bright sunshine, and the aching muscles of her back relaxed. It wasn’t just the only good thing she’d tasted in a long time. She had a strong suspicion it would be the best thing she would ever taste.

  “Which of these incidents is responsible for the fire?” Alias asked the young man as he refilled their glasses.

  “Neither,” the man said. He nodded toward the burly man and his buxom companion. The servant girl had convinced the man at knife point to return to his seat and stop fussing. She tossed the woman a dingy towel and left them.

  “Labor troubles are quite common this far north,” the youth told her. “Every potscr
ubber dreams of becoming a petty lord, inspired by the few who, with luck and recklessness, have done so. The situation here in Shadow Gap is, of course, exacerbated by the minute population, making not just good help, but any help at all hard to find.”

  “And the loud barbarian and cleric?” Alias asked, turning to discover the reaction of the other patrons when the fighter pulled out his weapon, but both were engaged in draining large mugs of ale.

  “They’re old friends from way back. They’ve had this argument at least a hundred times before in this very place, and in as many other inns.”

  “So, what did cause the fire? Does it have anything to do with why the pass is deserted?”

  “Patience, my dear, patience,” her drinking companion chided. He raised her glass to her mouth and tilted the ambrosial liquid so that it flowed past her lips. Alias grasped the stem and swallowed until the entire draught was consumed. A greater heat washed over her, and she slipped off her cape.

  “You know what your problem is?” the man asked.

  “No, what?” She reached for the wine bottle and poured herself a third glass.

  “You aren’t used to acquiring information slowly, listening to people explain things in their own way, experiencing life as it comes. You expect someone to just pour everything you want to know into you, as though it were a bottle of wine.” He raised the wine bottle and filled his glass again. “Ah!” he said with glee, his eyes fixed on the doorway. “Finally, a principal actor.”

  Alias turned. The man was not the one she was waiting for either. A small man, he was dressed like a merchant, with a purple robe gathered at his waist and a fat, overstuffed hat with a long, swan feather plume on his head.

  The small man climbed upon a low, stone platform opposite the fire pit, waved a parchment scroll over his head, and shouted “Silence!”

  Half the conversations died out, but a few scattered patrons continued chattering. The quieted persons turned their attention to the merchant. Assured of at least a partial audience, the man unrolled his scroll and began to read.

  “Hear, all and sundry, the words of the Iron Throne.” The last words caught the attention of those who had ignored him. Silence blanketed the room.

  The herald paused for effect. Alias frowned. The eyes of the young man beside her twinkled merrily. “The Iron Throne,” her companion explained in a hushed whisper without taking his eyes from the speaker, “is a young trading organization, just beginning to compete with the better established merchant houses. Their favorite strategies include force, treachery, and magic.”

  The herald read on. “The Iron Throne is much concerned with the growing violence in the north, violence fed by the arms merchants who line their own pockets at the expense of others.”

  “The Iron Throne should know, their pockets bulge, too!” a heckler called out, followed by a spattering of applause.

  The herald’s eyes narrowed. “Hence, the Iron Throne pronounces an anathema upon the warmongering merchants and will close Shadow Gap for thirty days.”

  Boos and catcalls followed.

  “It would take four divisions of mercenaries, at least, to hold this pass,” Alias commented.

  “You think so?” the young man replied with a laugh. “Wait and see, shall we?”

  “All those within Shadow Gap will be allowed to leave, but they may carry no weapons of war. Thus will the Iron Throne demonstrate its ability to keep peace in the region,” the herald concluded.

  “Bull spittle!” shouted the barbarian in the corner booth, rising drunkenly to his feet. “The Iron Throne is shipping weapons by the cartloads to goblins and maggots from Zhentil Keep! They just want to keep the Dales light in armaments for their Zhentarim masters! It will take more than a proclamation-spouting toady to keep us from aiding the free people of the north.”

  The herald glared malevolently at the barbarian.

  Sensing some unseen power, the cleric tried to pull his friend back to his side, but the barbarian strode over to the herald. The warrior towered above the smaller man, even though the herald stood on the raised platform. He yanked the parchment scroll out of the herald’s hand and shredded it, tossing the pieces in the herald’s face. “Send that message back to the Iron Throne.”

  “You needn’t worry about safe delivery of your master’s weapons to his contact in Daggerdale,” the herald hissed. “The contact is already dead, a victim of his own penchant for violence.”

  The barbarian drew in a shocked breath. “You killed Brenjer, you murdering swine! I’ll show you violence!” He drew his two-handed sword, swung the massive blade over his head, and struck the herald in the forehead.

  The steel sliced through its target down to the waist with the same ease and sound it would make ripping through taut canvas.

  Alias gasped, for the body of the herald did not gush blood or fall to the floor, as would a carcass of meat. Instead, two ragged shards of purple cloth drifted to the floor and a black mist rose from them, forming into the shape of an inverted tear drop above the barbarian.

  Two unblinking, yellow eyes glowed within the cloud of dark vapor. Beneath the eyes a huge gap parted, revealing rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth. From this maw came the sound of a thousand snakes hissing in a stone room.

  “A kalmari,” the youth whispered to Alias. “They’re native to the lands of Thay, used by the Red Wizards and their allies. Some speculate they are relatives to intellect devourers. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  Alias, intent on watching the barbarian deal with the monster, did not reply. The barbarian passed his sword through the mist, but his blow did no more damage than it would to smoke. The kalmari gave a rattling laugh, then distended its jaws so its mouth made up more than half its body. The creature fell forward over the man and swallowed him in a single gulp, broadsword and all.

  For a moment there was silence while the inn’s occupants struggled to comprehend what had happened. Then the room erupted with a clatter of toppled chairs and tables and shuffling feet as the inhabitants sought escape.

  Clerics and mages intoned the words of half a dozen spells and wardings as they backed away from the beast.

  The kalmari tilted its head back and spit out the barbarian’s sword, its blade propelled upward in a twisting ribbon of flame. The sword flew into the upper rafters and stuck there, imbedded to the hilt. The flames spread across the ceiling, engulfing the rafters in a white heat.

  The kalmari smiled, a wide grin that stretched three-quarters of the way around its body. The smile lasted only a moment before a battery of offensive spells struck—bolts of lightning and flame and radiant blue daggers of magic missile. Alias felt her right arm ache and, looking down, saw that her own runes glowed.

  She tried to rise, intent on aiding in the battle any way she could, but the youth beside her placed his hand over the sigils on her forearm and, with the lightest of pressure, held her trapped against the table.

  “You’ll get your chance,” he grinned mysteriously. “What’s your hurry?”

  The fires spread with unnatural speed, and soon the entire area, save for where Alias and her companion sat, was engulfed in flame. Through the dancing flames Alias could see the kalmari swallowing a mage whole, then belching up another burst of burning ichor.

  Yet Alias felt no heat. A moment later, the flames, the kalmari, and its opponents diminished to shadows against the walls of the common room. Then, even the shadows vanished. The inn around her was whole and sturdy, unaffected by the fire, but nearly barren of inhabitants.

  Still seated beside the youth, Alias spotted a solitary figure at a table across the room. The figure’s features were completely concealed by a cloak and a hood. This is the one I’ve been waiting for, she told herself with certainty. But now she was reluctant to make the meeting.

  The young man drained the last of his wine and rose to leave.

  “Wait!” Alias insisted, grabbing his arm. She wanted to say, “Don’t leave me alone with that one,” but she knew her w
ords would not influence him. So instead she asked, “When did this happen?”

  “While you were still hunting halfling-stealing dragons west of Suzail.”

  Surprised that she got him to answer so easily, she pressed her interrogation further. “Where is the kalmari?”

  “Still at large, defending the area for its masters.”

  “How does one ward against it?”

  “It fears only the mark of its maker.”

  “How is it defeated?”

  “The kalmari cannot eat anything twice.”

  “What does it have to do with me?”

  “Enough,” a woman’s voice whispered.

  Alias shivered and turned to look at the figure seated across the room. All about the inn was fog.

  The woman’s voice cut sharply through the rising vapor. “You’ve gone too far, Nameless. You are dismissed.”

  “But she asked a question,” the youth objected. “I want to answer all her questions.”

  “You have stalled our interview long enough. I will answer this question for her. The creature is, after all, mine.”

  There was something very familiar about the sharp, feminine voice, and Alias felt her right arm throb. When she stood, her senses began to spin. She cursed the wine silently and turned to accuse the youth of getting her drunk, but he was already gone, swallowed in the dream mist.

  “Well?” Alias demanded, trying to appear undaunted as the figure rose and drifted, like a ghost, toward her.

  “The kalmari is a meager demonstration of my power,” the woman said, making a sweeping gesture with her right hand, palm up. Her features remained concealed in the shadows of the hood, but Alias noted that her left arm was in a sling. “It’s just something I had out on loan to the Iron Throne, who wished to demonstrate their power. Many will think twice before crossing the will of the Iron Throne.”