Azure Bonds

by Kate Novak

  The pile of rubble where she stood was part of a ring of collapsed wall. Within the toppled stone was a broad pit. At first, Alias thought it must just be the cellar of some collapsed building, but the darkness within the center was so complete that she realized it must be a very deep hole. She spotted a narrow staircase winding around the edge of the hole’s interior. On the wall by the first few steps was another hand glowing blue.

  The glow of her tattoo was insufficient to illuminate the stairs so Alias risked pulling out the finder’s stone. Its light seemed dimmer here, illuminating no more than four or five extra steps, but that was enough for Alias to make out a set of tracks preceding her into the pit, tracks made by something with three-toed feet, separated by a single groove, made by the heavy tail of a lizard.

  What do you know? Alias thought. The finder’s stone did help me find someone who was lost. She began her descent into the pit. Each step felt as if she were pushing against water, as if something were resisting her entry. The stairs were steep as well as narrow, and the rim of the pit soon rose over her head and swallowed her.

  With total darkness around her, the yellow glow of the stone seemed to grow brighter, but Alias no longer needed it. An azure aura sprang from beneath her right sleeve. Alias hesitated and wondered if she were walking into a trap. Of course, her arm was going to glow as she got nearer Moander’s temple, just as it had glowed in the presence of Cassana’s kalmari and the crystal elemental. She didn’t know what she had to worry about. Moander was locked up. According to the goatherd in Shadowdale, only someone unborn could free the ancient god.

  Since she knew she’d been born—she could remember the day quite clearly: the snoring of her mother, the cooing of the midwife, being sniffed at by the house cats—she had no fear she might accidentally unleash one of the evil elements responsible for her mutilation and lost memory.

  Alias could now discern pungent, all-too-human smells. The pit was used as a midden. The stench grew more powerful the deeper she went. The steps grew damp and slick, and pockets of muck and slime collected in the depressions worn into the stairs by a millennium of visitors. Bits of green goo dripped from one step to the next.

  A stone bounced down from above, followed by a shower of small rocks. Alias looked up, expecting to see someone tossing a bucket of something foul over the rim of the pit, but only the dark sky hung over the darker hole.

  A stray soldier idly investigating the city, Alias guessed, and continued her descent until she came to a wide, stonework platform ringed with rubble. The staircase ended, though the pit continued down. The finder’s stone was unable to light the bottom of the stinking darkness. Alias doubted if even the moon could do so were it to shine directly in. There was no trace of Moander’s sigil.

  Alias studied Dragonbait’s tracks. The three-toed imprints wandered about the muck-covered platform, to the beginning of the blocked stairs, to the edge of the platform, to the wall of the pit, but there was no trace of them after that.

  He wouldn’t have jumped over the edge, Alias puzzled. She lifted the finder’s stone and investigated the slime-encrusted walls. There was a faint vertical shadow from a line of moss buckled against more moss. The line continued above her head, running horizontally and then back down. It was a door, recently opened and closed.

  Reluctantly, Alias ran her fingers along the slimy moss and lichen, feeling for a catch to push, pull, or slide. In the center of the door, at waist level, she discovered a hole. Mindful of finger guillotine traps set against intruders, she poked her smallest finger into the hole.

  No blade sliced at her digit, but a stinging charge of energy ran up her arm. Her runes writhed and danced, but caused her no pain. From behind the stone wall came the clattering of lock mechanisms tumbling and falling.

  When the azure sigils were still again, though still glowing, Alias withdrew her finger and stepped back. The hidden door swung out silently. A foot thick, it pivoted on an unseen post.

  Beyond the doorway, the smell of fresh waste and muck gave way to the older decay of ancient paper and bones. Warm, dry air blew from the passage. The walls were carved with tiny, intricate, flowing designs. They reminded Alias more of the tree sculptures grown and shaped by elves than of something wrought of dead stone.

  Then she saw the three-toed footprints on the dusty floor. The curiosity that had beckoned her this far now tried to drive her forward like a fire forcing wild animals through the woods. She was sure that not only Dragonbait, but the answers to all her questions lay at the end of the mysterious passage before her.

  She wanted to rush right in, but her adventurer’s sense of caution asserted itself just in time. Stepping back on the platform, Alias grabbed a large, wedge-shaped rock from the pile of rubble and slipped its smaller edge beneath the door. She found several others like it and shoved them beneath the door as well. Then she shifted a pile of rocks to the edge of the door frame.

  Satisfied with her precautions, she entered the passage. About six paces down the corridor, she felt a stone beneath her foot shift nearly an imperceptible amount. Behind her, the door jerked a hand’s span but was held fast by the rocks. Something mechanical whined a high-pitched plea. The whining grew louder as though the trap were crying out desperately to fulfill its only purpose in life. Within a minute, the whine dropped in pitch and then was silent. The door was still. Smiling to herself and feeling smug, Alias continued down the corridor.

  Her mood was soon quelled by the walls around her. They were carved with horrible bas reliefs interspersed with lines and lines of engravings of archaic runes. The carved figures depicted heroes suffering deadly tortures at the hands of leering humanoids, torn apart by chaotic beasts, and fried, frozen, dissolved, and poisoned by dragons and beholders and other deadly creatures.

  The ugliness of the walls seemed to go on forever and, with each twisting and widening of the passageway, the scenes grew larger as well as more obscene and gory.

  Alias felt a growing revulsion which turned her stomach sour and tightened her throat. She kept her eyes forward and tried not to look at the walls anymore.

  The passage widened further one last time before ending abruptly in a wall twenty feet ahead. This wall was completely different from the disturbingly carved stone passages Alias had come through. Constructed of blue glazed brick, it was bound together with a red-tinged mortar. Down the center of the mortar work were great gouges, as if a giant claw had been scratching at it. At the base of the wall lay the crumbled figure of Dragonbait.

  The swordswoman rushed forward and knelt at the lizard’s head, laying the finder’s stone on the ground.

  “Dragonbait! Are you all right?” she asked. She’d whispered the words, but the corridor caught and amplified them so that her echo boomed back at her.

  As Alias knelt beside him, the lizard turned his head to look up at her. The change in him was horrifying. He was completely emaciated. His scaly flesh hung about his frame as if his muscles had been eaten away by months of starvation. Wear and exhaustion were etched deep into the lines of his face. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, and he panted heavily in the dusty air. His eyes, normally a dead, yellow color, now looked even worse—their clear sparkle had turned to a murky gray.

  A deep, violet perfume rose from his body, something Alias had never noticed before. Forgetting he could not really answer, she asked, “What happened to you?”

  The lizard pointed his finger back down the way they’d both come, and he tried to push her away from him in that direction, but his shove was far too feeble to budge her. A low snarl escaped his lipless mouth.

  Alias stood up. “All right, I’m going,” she agreed, understanding his signals perfectly. “But not without you. Come on, I’ll help you up.”

  Dragonbait pulled heavily on her arm and rose to his feet. His legs looked too spindly to support his weight. He leaned on his sword like an old man with a cane.

  What could have done this to him? Alias wondered. She felt reluctan
t to leave without exploring this place, but she was too frightened by the lizard’s condition to delay getting help for him. Maybe, she thought, I can find a cleric to heal him in one of the army camps.

  Then she noticed that many of the backward-curved teeth at the end of his sword were damaged—chipped off or curled askew. Realizing the sword had caused the scratches in the brick wall, she joked, “If you wanted a slegehammer for a weapon, you should have asked back in Shadowdale.”

  Dragonbait tugged on her arm, anxious to hurry away.

  Alias had never seen him frightened before, but she had no wish to meet whatever had done this to him either. She stooped to retrieve the finder’s stone.

  As she stood up with the goatherd’s gift, Alias felt a throbbing curiosity about the blue and red wall. She reached out to stroke the blue-glazed bricks with her fingertips.

  The wall glowed. For a single pulse of a human heart, the bricks shimmered and then became translucent. From behind the wall, a bright blue light shone, silhouetting the lines of red mortar and turning the passage where Alias stood an eerie aqua. Then the bricks returned to normal and the light faded.

  Alias stood, staring at the wall in amazement. It was some moments before she became aware of the writhing sensation on her arm. The sigils were wriggling and twisting like maggots nesting in her flesh, and the unholy sign of Moander seemed the most vibrant. The fingers of the hand appeared to clench and flex, while the mouth in the palm snapped its fanged teeth open and closed.

  Fascinated, Alias reached out to stroke the wall again. Dragonbait’s hand snatched at her wrist and pulled her back. Then some pain forced him to release her and clutch at his chest. He fell forward, his sword clattering to the stone floor, making a ringing noise down the passageway.

  “Dragonbait! What’s wrong?” Alias gasped, kneeling again beside him. Then she saw it—a bright, blue light, pouring out between the weave of the lizard’s shirt, escaping even through the flesh of his hands held over his chest.

  “Gods!” the warrior whispered. “No. It can’t be.” She shook the lizard by the shoulders, dropping the finder’s stone to the floor. “What’s on your chest?” she demanded.

  Dragonbait took a deep breath and held his head up. He untied the fastenings that held his shirt closed.

  Alias gasped. The same sigils. In a different shape, but the same sigils. The same blue, gemlike, writhing, azure-lit brands. The scales over the pattern were translucent just as the flesh covering the pattern on Alias’s right arm was.

  “Why? Why didn’t you tell me? Are you one of their pets, too?” she growled angrily.

  Dragonbait met her angry eyes with his own, but there was neither shame nor triumph in his look, only sadness. Now he smelled to Alias of roses. It brought to her mind the morning in Shadow Gap when he’d buried the barbarian’s sword. The sword he’d used to destroy the kalmari.

  “Oh, Dragonbait. I’m sorry,” she whispered. Of course he wasn’t an enemy or a traitor. He was her friend and probably another victim like her. That had to be the reason she felt such a kinship with him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered gently, reaching up with her right hand to touch the markings that scarred his body. Energy crackled through her fingertips and over the lizard’s chest. Dragonbait drew a deep breath. The lines smoothed from his face, his shoulders straightened, and his eyes widened in surprise.

  Alias gasped and drew back her hand, uncertain what she had just experienced. She didn’t feel any weaker, so she didn’t think Dragonbait had sucked the energy from her. But she couldn’t possibly have healed him. She had no training as a cleric. Could the sigils know how to help someone else branded the same way? It didn’t seem likely, but Dragonbait’s awful condition had been corrected by the mere touch of her hand.

  Dragonbait retied his shirt fastenings and stood up easily. Shouldering his sword, he offered her his arm. Alias accepted it with a smile and used it to balance herself as she rose to her feet. The warrior woman shifted her sword to her left hand as she reached down to scoop up the finder’s stone.

  Alias gasped. Her fingers reached of their own volition, not for the light, but for the wall. She broke out in a sweat in her effort to pull her hand away from the blue bricks. She hadn’t actually felt the wall this time; her hand seemed to pass through it as though it were an illusion. The wall reacted in the same extraordinary way it had before.

  Again, the bricks seemed to go clear and the passageway was bathed in blue light. The effect lasted a few moments longer this time. The sigils on her arm grew brighter.

  Dragonbait knocked her to the ground, away from the blockade, and whatever lay on the other side, beckoning her hand to turn traitor to her body. Dragonbait stood over her, his muscles taut, ready to keep her from reaching out for the wall again. The smell of violets wafted from his body even more strongly now, and Alias wondered if that was the scent of his sweat or his fear.

  Out of nowhere came the chant of a magical spell, and a sparkling dart slammed into Dragonbait’s body. The lizard was propelled backward into the brick wall.

  Alias gasped again. The wall remained solid and unaffected by contact with the lizard’s body. She leaped up and spun about, sword raised to defend against the attacker.

  “Akabar! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  The mage stood in the passageway, his invisibility negated by the casting of the magic missile he’d used on the lizard. He had had a lot of trouble coming down the staircase in the dark. He had turned the corner into this passage just in time to watch the lizard send Alias sprawling across the floor. “Are you blind, woman?” the mage snapped. “He just attacked you.”

  “You fool! He was trying to help me—”

  “No. He’s one of them! And I can prove it!” Akabar shouted, leaping toward the lizard with his dagger drawn.

  Dragonbait could have responded by raising his sword and letting the mage skewer himself, but instead, he held his arms out to grapple with him. Akabar was no weakling, and the lizard discovered too late that the Turmishman would not be so easy to shove away. Akabar slashed at the lizard’s shirt, ripping the ties so the garment fell open.

  “Stop it!” Alias shouted. She dropped her sword and rushed forward to pry Akabar loose from the lizard. The two males shifted their weight, and Alias stumbled. All three fell toward the wall, but while Akabar’s and Dragonbait’s shoulders hit the barrier with a thud, Alias’s hand and wrist plunged right through the brick and mortar. Only the lizard’s body kept her from falling in farther.

  The bricks went transparent yet again and the hellish, blue light that filled the passage from the other side of the wall caused the sigils on her arm to perform an entirely new trick. They replicated miniature illusory copies of themselves which slipped from her flesh. The little daggers, rings, fanged palms, and the rest circled about her arm like angry hornets. Alias tried to pull her arm from the wall, but it was mired fast, just as her legs had been trapped by the crystal elemental. “No!” she screamed. “I’m stuck!”

  Dragonbait, squished between her and the wall, let his sword drop and tried pushing her shoulders away.

  “No good” Alias groaned. “You’re pulling my arm from its socket.”

  Brought to a more reasonable state of mind by the new crisis, Akabar ceased struggling with the lizard. “How did you do that?” he asked, amazed at her ability to pass through the wall.

  “It’s not me, you stupid Turmite. It’s the arm. That’s why Dragonbait pushed me away from the wall. He must have known there was danger.”

  “He might have planned all this,” Akabar insisted. “To help capture you. He’s branded the same as you.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Alias snarled. “Like how to get my arm out of this wall!”

  “Try pushing forward a little and then jerking back,” the mage suggested.

  Alias pressed forward up to her elbow, covering all the sigils, but she could not pull back a fraction of an inch. “Great
,” she growled. “Now I’m stuck worse.” Instinctively she put her foot up to the wall to use it as leverage to pull herself out, but the foot slipped through the brickwork as well, all the way to her knee.

  “Any more bright ideas, Akash?”

  Despite his awkward position, Dragonbait remained pressed against the wall, rather than risk losing Alias. Pulled closer to him, Alias could smell the scent of roses again, mixed with the odor of violets. Suddenly, it came to her—the rose smell always was present when he was sad. He was mourning her already. “Don’t give up on me yet, chum,” she whispered to him.

  Dragonbait tried to smile, but it was meant for her benefit, not one he felt. She was in too much danger.

  Akabar ran his fingers along the wall. He tapped on the brick and scratched at the mortar with his dagger. “This is the most unusual brick I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “But the grouting is common enough. Mortar mixed with gorgon blood, or something similar. It’s used to block the passage of beasts that can walk through walls.”

  “Well, I can’t walk through walls. Why isn’t it stopping me?” Alias said through gritted teeth. Dots of perspiration formed at her brow.

  “Precisely. It wasn’t made to stop people. That’s what the brick is for, I presume.”

  “The brick’s not stopping me either!” Alias shouted. “Akabar, stop jabbering and do something!”

  “All right, already.” The mage ran nervous fingers through his hair. “I’m going to try to dispel the magic they must have cast on the wall while the mortar hardened. It was undoubtedly cast by a more powerful mage than I, but if the spell dates back as far as the destruction of the temple, it may have decayed some over the centuries.”

  “Cut the lecture. Just do it.”

  Akabar stepped back and spread his arms out so as to encompass the entire wall in his field of disenchantment. He began preparing to cast his spell.

  Alias shrieked and began squirming furiously. Akabar had never heard Alias make such a noise before. The sound completely broke his concentration. Fortunately, he had not yet begun his spell, so it was not ruined and wasted.