by Kate Novak
Akabar remembered how annoyed Ruskettle had been by the saurial’s deception. Apparently, it would take the halfling longer to overcome her anxiety.
Dragonbait hissed at the closed door, and the scent of freshly baked bread wafted from his body.
* * * * *
Ruskettle strode east from The Rising Raven, her short legs still complaining about the earlier long walk to the city. If the dragon had crashed to the north and west, then the guards would be at their weakest at the south and east. The river gate would be her best bet.
The halfling’s ears burned, and she was positive that her “friends” were talking about her in the warmth of their warehouse apartment. She had been the one to provide their shelter, yet everyone still fawned over Alias, fought for Alias, and chased through the nine hells for Alias, while she, Olive, had been abandoned with a dragon. And for what? It wasn’t like they got any money for what they did.
And to top it off, Alias was so bloody perfect. Like a doll. You wound her up and she rescued people or slew monsters or sang perfectly beautiful songs. And her luck was incredible. Not even a halfling had that kind of luck. She’d been kidnapped by a god—a god, for god’s sake!—and she’d escaped, and Akabar and Dragonbait and the dragon had slain the god for her.
The lizard-paladin was another problem completely. The halfling’s thoughts wandered back a number of years to an ugly incident in the Living City. She’d been at a bar when some holy fighter, a human paladin, rose unsteadily to his feet, pointed a worn knuckle at her, and shouted, “Thief!” No one doubted him; no one believed her. The fact that she had another’s purse in her hands did not help her situation, but she had managed to escape. Since then, she walked carefully around such beings, beings who could look into a person’s soul and tell if he was good or evil. That scared Ruskettle. It wasn’t fair. And now it turned out that one of these snooty law-and-order types was a member of their party. She felt the saurial’s eyes on her all the time, judging her and weighing her worth.
Olive ground her teeth. Now she was going shopping for the warrior-woman, her pet paladin, and the mage. Even Akabar had a tendency to treat her like a child or a thief. He was the hero of Alias’s rescue, his spells made the difference, while it had been the lizard’s skill in battle that had recruited Mist in the first place. But she, Olive, had been useless. And Akabar would have left her on Mist’s back, left her to die, when he flew off to rescue the paladin.
Part of her mind refused this interpretation, knowing full well that everyone had good reasons for doing what they did. But the small part of her mind was easily ignored. What difference does it make? she thought. Sooner or later, Phalse’s friends were going to show up and take Alias away.
“I could use a drink,” she muttered. “Better yet, several drinks.”
She was just passing the Vhammos yards, its paddocks jammed with horses and caravan oxen, when suddenly someone addressed her. “Hello, Lady Olive.”
Ruskettle was startled. Perched on a fence post was a short, familiar figure. He was dressed in sunburst yellow taffeta, fashioned into the costume of a Vilhon Reach merchant. His smile stretched nearly ear to ear in an inhuman mockery of the humanoid form.
“Phalse!” Olive wondered if the pseudo-halfling could read minds. “A Fortune. Well met.”
“A fortune and well met to you, dear lady. You’ve surprised me. I did not know you were bound for Westgate. May I accompany you into the city?”
Ruskettle nodded, and Phalse hopped down from his perch. He paced the halfling as she walked. “The river gate?” he asked.
“However did you know?” Olive grinned pleasantly.
“Thinking like a halfling, my lady,” he answered. “I must repeat, I am astonished to see you here so soon. Were you involved with the sky display earlier?” He waved an arm toward the seven mounds south of the city.
Olive’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe,” she replied coyly, but she wondered how he could possibly know that.
“Maybe—that’s a straight answer from a halfling. I take it the human woman is with you?”
Ruskettle shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.” She had the uncomfortable feeling that her time with Alias was going to end much sooner than she’d expected.
Phalse smiled. “I see. Will ‘maybe’ be the answer to my inquiries about your other traveling companions, the mage and the lizard?”
“Maybe.” She wondered what the pseudo-halfling’s interest was in Akabar and Dragonbait.
“I think you and I should have a drink,” he said. “Several drinks.”
The small couple approached the gates, where a squad of soldiers was posted, checking credentials. Phalse took Ruskettle’s arm gently, and they strolled through gates, into the city, completely unchallenged.
“I’m impressed,” the bard said, jerking her head back at the gate guard. “What’s your secret?”
Phalse winked one of his peculiar blue eyes. “Clean living. Let’s find a nice, quiet bar with private booths and low ceilings. I have a deal that I am certain will interest you.”
“As long as you’re buying, I’m all ears.” Olive moved a little closer to Phalse, and he tightened his grip on her arms.
* * * * *
“Well?” Alias said, pursing her lips.
“Gone,” Akabar replied. He’d been peering at the swordswoman’s arm and the saurial’s chest with a tiny magnifying glass. “The surrounding pattern hasn’t just covered up its sigil, the sigil has disappeared completely.”
“Do you think the sigil might return if Moander gets another body in the Realms?”
“I’m afraid that’s a possibility,” the mage sighed.
They were all cleaned up now, wrapped in towels and blankets while their clothes dried in the late afternoon sunshine. Dragonbait had played nurse, helping Akabar with his bath, a service that had made the Turmishman mildly uncomfortable, but which he had accepted gratefully since his only alternative was Alias’s help. In the meantime, Alias had fashioned him a cushioned sling to cradle his arm until Dragonbait could repair it properly.
Akabar leaned back on the room’s lower bunk. “So where does this development lead us?”
“Into more hot water. We’re just outside the city where Cassana and the Fire Knives are supposed to reside. I have a hunch that our mystery bull’s eye sigil owner resides here as well. And now that we’ve exploded a very large calling card over their city, odds are they know we’re in the area.”
“Maybe they’ll reconsider their actions and leave us alone. We destroyed one of their partners already—the god.”
Alias shook her head. “No. They’ll just become more ruthless. Akabar, I want you to go home to Turmish—take Olive and Dragonbait with you. Being near me is too dangerous.”
Akabar asked, “What good do you think you can accomplish alone?”
“Find these people,” said Alias, “Talk to them. They need Dragonbait to put their plans into motion, so they won’t be able to control me as long as he’s safely hidden somewhere.”
“They could always just brand another victim to sacrifice.”
Alias shook her head again. “I don’t think that would work. Remember, Moander said I drew my independence from Dragonbait, that we’re linked until his death. They won’t kill me; they’ve even taken precautions to see that I’m not injured. But all the rest of you are targets.”
Akabar harumphed. “They haven’t shown a tendency to talk before. Bully, threaten, and battle, yes, but never talk. They won’t negotiate with you. As far as they’re concerned, you’re no better than a horse, to be owned and ridden and slain as need be. If they already have you in their sights, it will be that much easier for them to accomplish their ends. All they’ll have to do is search out Dragonbait. Running and hiding won’t do us any good.”
“Maybe not, but if you stay here you’re at risk. Please, Akabar,” Alias pleaded. “I don’t want to see you killed.”
“There are worse fates. You and I both know that.”
“Yes?” Alias prompted.
Dragonbait pointed to Alias and himself and then scuffed out the flaming dagger—the mark of the Fire Knives.
“Yes, we beat the assassins,” Alias agreed. “They weren’t very tough, were they?”
He pointed to Alias and himself and Akabar and then scuffed out the sigil that might or might not still belong to Zrie Prakis, the sigil of interlocking circles. Then he pointed again to himself and Alias, drew an inverted tear drop with a mouth and scuffed it out along with the insect-squiggle of Cassana’s mark.
“We beat the crystal elemental and the kalmari. The kalmari belonged to Cassana?” the mage asked.
Alias nodded. “She told me in a dream. You dreamed the same thing, didn’t you?” she asked the saurial.
Dragonbait nodded. He pointed to Akabar and rubbed out the unholy symbol of Moander like he was squishing a bug. Alias noted that the paladin gave all the credit for the god’s death to the mage. Then he pointed at the three of them and splashed water from the kettle onto the flagstone.
Akabar laughed. “He’s right, you know. Between the four of us we’ve defeated everything your would-be masters have thrown at us. If we remain together, we can defeat the lot of them.”
“Only if you continue to cooperate,” a sharp female voice said from the doorway, “and if we do not. But your little demonstration this afternoon persuaded us to unite.”
Alias, Akabar, and Dragonbait leaped to their feet, their eyes fixed on four people who had entered their cottage apartment. Three men, dressed in black leather, and the woman from Alias’s dream in Shadow Gap.
“Cassana” Alias breathed.
The woman lowered her hood. Her chin was sharper, her features older, her hair longer and better tended, but her features were Alias’s. She might have been her mother. “Yes, Cassana. I’ve come to take you home, Puppet.”
Favoring his good leg, Dragonbait sprang for the upper bunk bed for his sword, and Akabar began chanting a spell. Alias grabbed a poker from the stove tools.
Cassana laughed.
Akabar’s spell was disrupted as the floorboards beneath him erupted and skeletal hands grabbed him from the hole and pulled him through the floor. He disappeared with a scream.
A trio of daggers arched from the black-clad assassins, embedding themselves unerringly in Dragonbait’s hide. The weapons could not have caused much damage—they were small and had struck only his shoulder, his arm, and his tail—yet the saurial dropped like a sack of laundry. Poison blades! the swordswoman realized.
With a cry of anguish, Alias charged the Fire Knives. She cracked one assassin in the head with the handle of the poker, then rammed the tip into the throat of a second. Snatching the sword from the scabbard of the third one, she turned it on him instantly. He fell over the bodies of his brothers, staining them with his blood.
Only Cassana stood between Alias and the doorway. She muttered no spell, nor did she look alarmed. Alias hesitated uncertainly. Cassana applauded the swordswoman’s performance briefly.
“Very good, Puppet. Welcome home,” the sorceress said, slipping a slender, blue wand from her sleeve into her hand. “Now sleep.”
Alias lunged at her foe. Cassana, the puppeteer, waved the wand, and Alias collapsed at her feet.
Alias’s Masters
When Alias awoke, her head felt as though molten lead had been poured behind her eyes, and her mouth was as dry as the sands of Anauroch. She blinked in the dim candlelight that illuminated her room, a room in an inn like a hundred others at this end of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
A moment of panic seized her. Was she being forced by the gods to relive all her mistakes as some sort of punishment? No. This was not The Hidden Lady, nor any other place she’d ever been.
She found herself placed on a bed with her arms folded like the dead. She was not alone. Dragonbait had been unceremoniously dumped at the foot of the bed and was sprawled out on his stomach. Akabar had been propped up in an overstuffed chair across from the bed, his hands manacled by thick bands of cold iron to contain his magical ability. She and the mage were still wrapped in blankets, but Dragonbait was naked, like an animal.
Alias slid to the floor and knelt beside the saurial. He was still breathing. She sighed with relief, and tears welled in her eyes. The poison on the assassins’ blades hadn’t been deadly. Horrid red and violet bruises speckled the green scales along his legs and torso. Why had they been so vicious with him? she cried inwardly. She tugged the coverlet off the bed and draped it over him, then shook his shoulder gently. He did not stir.
They’d been much kinder to Akabar. His shoulder had been snapped back into place, though it still looked bruised and tender. A soft touch brought him fully awake. He took in her concerned features, Dragonbait’s body, the room around him, all with a quick glance.
“What happened?”
“We lost,” she replied. “They swept us up like dirt in no time at all.”
The mage frowned. He tried to stand up, but something had drained away all his energy. He flopped back into the chair, clanking his chains. Pain radiated from his shoulder. He sucked in air, trying not to cry out.
“It looks like we’ll be with you through the bitter end, whether you want us or not.”
The despair in his voice twisted Alias’s heart. Stubbornly, she tried to renew his hope. “We’re not all captured yet,” she pointed out, pacing the room. “Olive is still at large. We’ve gotten out of worse.”
Alias tried the door. The knob did not turn, and an experimental slam with her shoulder indicated that it was barred on the far side, as well as locked. The window was not constructed to be opened and, being made of crown glass set in a lead frame, could not be smashed out. The circles of glass would have let in light, but it was dark outside. The prisoners had no clues as to their whereabouts.
Alias bit her lip and stood in the center of the room, wracking her brain for some way out. There was no chimney, the walls were brick, the floor and ceiling solid oak.
Akabar rose shakily from the chair and staggered over to Dragonbait. He tried to wake him first with gentle shakes and then, in frustration, with more violent ones. Akabar looked at Alias and shook his head.
“Okay, masters,” Alias said. “It’s your move.”
Her words received an immediate reaction. A portion of the wall near the door became misty, then translucent, and finally transparent. Alias reached out and touched it. It was firm and cool, like glass in the autumn. Taking a gamble, she slammed into the clearing wall with her shoulder, hoping to break through. The wall may have looked like glass, but it still felt like bricks. Alias rubbed her aching shoulder.
Cruel laughter came from beyond the wall, and Alias caught sight of Cassana seated on a raised throne on the other side of the transparent barrier. It distressed Alias that the witch’s features were so similar to her own. Will I look like that, sound like that, be like that, in a few years’ time? the swordswoman wondered. She tore her thoughts away and concentrated on the two other figures beyond the wall.
A male halfling in a flashy yellow taffeta costume sat at Cassana’s feet, playing with a wicked-looking knife. There was something bizarre about his eyes—they had no whites around the irises, yet the pupils looked white. The halfling smiled far too broadly, reminding Alias of the kalmari.
A skeletal figure in a brown cloak stood beside the throne, leaning on a twisted staff. His face was hidden beneath the hood of his cloak.
“Hello, Puppet,” Cassana greeted her. She was dressed in a rich, flowing gown, worn off one shoulder. The white cloth glittered in the candlelight like woven diamonds. A band of matching material circled her brow, holding her auburn hair in place. She turned the slim, blue wand over and over in her hands.
Alias’s spine stiffened at the s
orceress’s address. The voice was so familiar, but not because it was her own. Alias recognized the harsh, bitter tones. She had listened to the voice before, and she had hated it then as she did now.
An old, lost memory surfaced. She was rising out of a pool of silver streaked with crimson. Cassana stood over her with that wand, laughing in low, rich tones—the laughter of a vain woman, delighted to see herself replicated.
Alias bared her teeth in a tight smile. “Hello, Cassana. Or should I call you Mother?”
Akabar now stood beside the swordswoman, his jaw slack, amazed at the resemblance Alias bore to the sorceress.
Cassana gave a guttural laugh and shattered her illusion of being an older Alias. Such a laugh could never come from Alias. It was a cruel, heartless laugh, and Alias was neither of those things.
Akabar pointed at the tall form beside the throne. “That’s the one who grabbed me.”
Cassana motioned lazily, and the skeletal figure reached up with age-rotted hands and flipped back the hood of its cloak. Beneath lay a skull covered with translucent, jaundiced flesh stretched like a drum head. Its features consisted of a rictus-grin, a deteriorating nose, and ebony eye sockets in which sharp points of light danced.
“Yesss,” the undead creature hissed. “I reached up and snared you tight, stopping your blood and freezing your muscles.” The creature flexed a skeletal hand, each finger bone sharp as a knife. “Yet you live, petty wizard. But only because the Lady Cassana craves unblemished fruit on occasion.” The undead creature laughed, too—a hoarse, wheezing laugh disturbingly familiar to Akabar. Try as he could, however, the Turmishman could not place it.
Alias did, though. She remembered the laugh in concert with Cassana’s, for this thing had also been present when Alias had been “born.” It had laughed at the swordswoman’s nakedness and helplessness—the same laugh that had emanated from the maw of the crystal elemental summoned by the undead thing.
“Zrie Prakis,” Alias whispered.
“Yes. I believe introductions are called for,” Cassana said, her tone as proper as a society matron’s. “I am Cassana. This male child is called Phalse.” The halfling looked up, and his too-wide smile grew even wider. “And this, as you have guessed, is Zrie Prakis, formerly a mage, now a lich. You’ve already heard, so I understand, of the grand passion he and I shared that nearly ended in a fiery blaze. But I never let go of things that are mine.” She grasped the blue wand tightly to emphasize her point.