by Kate Novak
“But your symbol is on Al—the Little One.”
“My power over death was needed to bring the Little One to life, so I was allowed a small measure of control over her, but Cassana is the ultimate puppet master, pulling both our strings.”
Up close to Prakis, Olive could see the deep blue stitchery of long-dead blood vessels and smell the fetid stink of the corpse’s breath. He did not need to breathe, save to work his speech organs, which gave his voice an odd, mechanical quality.
“But why do you need me?” Olive asked. “Couldn’t you just strangle her or something and take the wand?”
“No. That would not work. Cassana the Cruel is very clever. She has bound up her life energies into the wand so that, as long as she holds it, nothing the Little One or I do can harm her. She knows my hate; she knows the wand is all that stands between her and death by my hands. She loves knowing this—it thrills her.”
“So you want me to steal the wand?”
“Yes. Then I will kill her.”
“Um, just out of curiosity, how?”
“With this!” the lich thrust forward his staff of dark wood. “I am still permitted to wield this. It is a staff of power. Do you know what it can do?”
Olive nodded, remembering the lay written in honor of Sylune. The river witch had used the same kind of staff to blow herself and a marauding dragon to kingdom come. The halfling didn’t want to be anywhere near Prakis and Cassana when they finally ended their “lover’s quarrel.”
“No offense, Prakis, old bones, but what’s in this for me?”
“Your freedom and your life.”
“Oh?”
“Phalse considers you his property now. Surely you must realize that, as charming as he appears, he is no halfling.”
“What is he?”
“I don’t know. Not even Cassana knows, and that is not a good sign. Furthermore, Cassana does not like you. She never could stand any competition, no matter how small. And she is superstitious about halfling luck. She really sent Phalse after you to make sure you did not interfere with our capture of the prisoners. When Phalse’s back is turned, she will slay you, gut you, and use your body as a vessel for her kalmari. Once you’ve helped me take care of Cassana, I will rid you of Phalse’s company.”
Olive gulped. “These are good reasons, but, um … I don’t suppose you might offer me any other incentives?” She was terrified of angering the lich, but how much could it hurt to ask? she wondered.
Prakis laughed, genuinely amused. “I can see why Phalse kept you. You have a greed for life that must astound even him.”
“Well, life is short, as you discovered, and it makes sense to get all you can out of it. The best things in life aren’t free, you know.”
“I did know that once. Cassana has amassed a great deal of wealth hidden in the cellars beneath this house. Besides selling and leasing her monsters, she skimmed a good deal off the top from the funds the Fire Knives poured into the project of making the Little One. Whatever you can carry away on a pony is yours, unless—perhaps you could remain here with me and the Little One, a member of our family.”
The thought of living in the same house with a zombie Alias revolted Olive, but quite a bit of gold could be loaded onto a pony.
“You have a deal, but first, as a gesture of trust—tell me, who is the crafter?”
Zrie Prakis’s red eyes stabbed at the halfling for several moments. He must have decided the knowledge could do him no harm, because he told her. “He is—he has no true name. He gave the Little One a mind, a life, the name Alias. But he feels he’s been damned for it.”
“But he’s still alive?”
The lich nodded with a crack of his neck bones. “Cassana the Cruel hates to cast aside her pets. He is prisoner in the cellars. But he is quite mad.”
Olive decided to agree with the lich for now. Glibly she asked, “When do we start this revolution?”
“Use the time when we’re at the ceremony to lace the house with traps. Lay in wait and ambush. Now, mime your sleep while I prepare the prisoners. And do not give yourself away, or I will be forced to slay you myself.” The skin over his forehead wrinkled the slightest bit as he made an attempt to threateningly raise eyebrows he did not possess.
Then he drifted from the room, silent except for the creaking of his bones.
Olive leaned back in the bed and closed her eyes, and the energy the lich had channeled into her did indeed keep her from falling asleep. Unfortunately, it also made her restless. Her mind kept flipping through her quickly diminishing options.
She turned on her side, away from the door, and thought harder. Though she’d been wishing for Phalse’s friends to show up and take Alias, she’d felt a pang of disappointment when she’d learned they’d already captured the swordswoman. Her second meeting with Phalse had not left the bard with as charming an impression of the pseudo-halfling as their first had. Strangers always looked friendlier sitting behind a stack of coins, Olive realized. His offer of great power had sounded amusing accompanied by fine Luiren ale, but Olive had never really been interested in power.
Especially not if it meant watching people getting beaten to a pulp.
While she’d been drinking with Phalse, Olive had formed some half-baked scheme of joining the alliance in order to discover by her own means—stealth and cunning—the identities and intentions of Alias’s foes. In her mind, she would then have reported back to Alias, revealing how she had succeeded where the book-laden mage would not and the scaly paladin could not. That would have impressed them.
But the plan had backfired drastically, and now she was trapped, a little spider in a larger spider’s web. She could think of only three options: Escape somehow and flee, living in fear of retribution; find a way to free the others and fight; or join the alliance for real, submitting herself to whatever Phalse and Cassana had in store for her.
She did not consider the lich’s plan. It was entirely too dangerous. Cassana would fry me like a banana, Olive realized, if I came within twelve inches of her wand.
Olive didn’t much care for the idea of sticking around. Besides disliking her role of low woman on the totem pole, an alliance with these people was very risky business. Their partners had a habit of dying off.
Olive granted that she was greedy and ambitious, but these people were cruel and hateful and perverse—no act of hers could ever bring her to their level of perdition.
Still, despite herself, and despite Prakis’s warnings, she felt drawn to Phalse. He had treated her with courtesy and rewarded her with more cash than anyone else had in a long time. He understood her halfling heart.
The door creaked open behind her and then closed. Someone tiptoed over to the bed. The bard snapped her eyes shut, and began breathing shallowly with a melodic semi-snore.
A small hand touched her knee, and Olive shifted slightly to cover her startled movement. Small fingers danced up her thigh and then cupped her breasts. After a moment or two they withdrew. It wasn’t until the door opened and closed again that Olive realized she’d been holding her breath.
She sat bolt upright after Phalse’s retreat, gritting her teeth against a scream. She scratched one option from her list. She couldn’t stay here. She would escape—with or without the others.
The Crafter
Olive crept about the room, slipping some of the more pawnable and valuable items into her backpack and her pockets: ivory combs, a silver mirror, crystal perfume vials, a gold wine goblet. After scavenging for half an hour she noticed sounds of greater activity in the hallway.
Olive crept over to the door and pressed her ear against it. She could hear men in the hallway, panting as if from strenuous labor, accompanied by a dragging sound. Olive peeked out the keyhole. Two Fire Knives were hauling something behind them. Olive caught sight of a scaly, green arm—Dragonbait. A thumping noise came from the staircase—they were being none too gentle with the saurial.
Two more assassins flicked by the keyhole, carry
ing Akabar by the arms and legs. Cassana’s new toy, he was given preferential treatment. He was not thumped down the steps. Olive heard Phalse say, “Leave him in the cell next to the crafter’s.”
Last of all, Zrie Prakis floated by with Alias cradled in his arms. He paused by Olive’s door, blocking her view. Olive heard a bolt sliding across the door.
She waited until all noise in the hall had ceased and no sounds came from the stairway. Then she tried the door.
Prakis had unlocked it for her. The bard poked her head out of the doorway. The house was silent. After closing and bolting the door to Phalse’s room behind her, she crept down the hallway and tiptoed down the stairs. She dashed through the entry hall. The front door beckoned her. She twisted the knob, but it was locked.
Olive reached into her hair and drew out a pick, but before she began working on the bolt, she noticed a blue line drawn across the threshold, with three interlocking circles sketched above it. A magical ward—one of Prakis’s. Was it the type that warned the designer something had crossed over it, or the kind that disintegrated into dust whatever crossed over it? There was no way for Olive to tell.
“Boogers,” Olive muttered. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me, Prakis, old bones?”
Dodging into the dining room, the halfling slipped behind the heavy curtains. The lock on the large windows was easily unfastened, but another blue mark was scrawled along the window sills. Grinding her teeth in annoyance, Olive dashed back into the entry hall and up the steps. There was a window in the upstairs hallway, but it, too, was warded.
Zrie Prakis had made sure she would stick to her side of the bargain. He’d unlocked her cell door, but he was not going to let her escape from the prison. As she saw it, she had one chance. Unlocking the door to Phalse’s room and slipping back inside, she examined the window within. Unguarded. The wards must have been a last-minute thought on the lich’s part, and he had neglected to come back to Phalse’s room to set one there.
Olive climbed out onto the window sill. The roof sloped away gently. She would have an easy time slipping down to the gutter—a perfect halfling’s footpath—and walking along that until she found a rain spout to slide down. But what then? she wondered as she sat with her feet dangling over the roof tiles.
She’d have to find another adventuring group to travel with, one that could help protect her from Phalse and family should they decide she was worth chasing.
Finding a new party wouldn’t be easy. Alias and Dragonbait were perhaps the finest sword wielders she’d ever seen, and Akabar had helped destroy a god, and the three of them had been defeated. Of course, she hadn’t been there to help them out, she consoled herself. She wondered idly if her presence would really have made a difference. According to Prakis, Cassana had been concerned that it might have. Is it possible, Olive wondered, that Cassana put me to sleep because she was afraid I might interfere somehow in this ceremony to remove Alias’s will?
Although Phalse had not told her, Olive knew the ceremony would involve the sacrifice of Dragonbait. Alias had said something about it to Akabar the day before, back at The Rising Raven. The loss of the paladin would not have made too much difference to the halfling before yesterday. Yet Olive had to admit, he hadn’t done her any harm so far, and his death would seal the fates of Alias and Akabar.
Akabar would remain in Cassana’s clutches, not something Olive would wish on anyone, certainly not on Akabar, whom she liked a little.
Alias was another matter. Olive found it difficult to like someone so perfect, but she felt more guilt about abandoning the swordswoman. For one thing, Olive realized, I owe her for rescuing me from the dragon and saving my life. She let me join her party, and she shared her songs with me. She stole my audience once, but she’ll never do that again. After the ceremony she’ll probably never sing songs again. Without a will she’ll be a zombie, and zombies don’t sing. All those lovely melodies and haunting lyrics would be lost to the world. That would be a crime, Olive sighed.
Not that people like Cassana, who liked kidnapping, torture, and murder, would care about such a loss to the musical world. Of course, I’d be just as responsible if I didn’t do anything to stop the witch and her merry band, Olive acknowledged.
Jump, Olive-girl, the halfling told herself, before you wind up doing something you may regret later. The halfling could not get out of her head the image of Akabar being beaten and the sound of Dragonbait’s head hitting each step as the Fire Knives dragged him downstairs.
But the thought of Alias never singing again was even worse.
Olive swung her feet back into the building, jumped to the floor, and left the room. The upper hallway was still empty, but she heard men’s voices coming from somewhere below. Pausing to listen, she noticed great drops of red dotting the steps below her. Blood. Akabar’s or Dragonbait’s? she wondered. She followed the red spatters down the stairs.
The voices were coming from the kitchen. The trail of blood went through the entry hall in the opposite direction. Olive tracked it to an alcove that featured a particularly obscene statue of an overly endowed succubus.
The trail ended in a pool of blood at the base of the statue, as if the prisoner had been left there for a moment. Olive made a “tch” sound. Why didn’t they tell the world there was a secret passage here somewhere? she scoffed.
Footsteps and voices approached from the dining room. Olive ducked behind the statue of the succubus.
“—unfair. That’s all I’m saying,” the first protested.
“Unfair doesn’t mean a thing to Her Ladyship,” the second voice argued. “We don’t have the seniority, we don’t have the clout. The rest get to play clerics and gods in a few hours. We don’t rate. So what?” Here the speaker’s words became incoherent as his mouth was occupied with chewing and swallowing, “—prefer raiding Her Ladyship’s larder to standing outside in the cold and damp. What?”
“Something by the dungeon door. Watch.”
Olive’s intestines cramped uncomfortably. Of all the stupid things—I’ve chosen the exact spot they’re heading for!
A soft footstep then a second crept closer to the alcove. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Olive would have giggled at the picture of a burly human trying to creep like a halfling across the floor. She didn’t even need to guess how close he was, she could feel the floorboards shift slightly under his weight. Pressing her back against the wall, she thrust against the statue’s pedestal with her feet.
The top-heavy statue rocked, then toppled from its pedestal. The crash of stone against stone blended with the sickening thunk of flesh and bone being crushed by a great weight, as the succubus claimed the life of the first Fire Knife. The stonework ran with fresh blood.
The other Fire Knife, a grossly overweight human with a stubby short sword in one hand and half of a melon in the other, had been standing ten feet away when his partner had met his demise. His eyes were wide with shock, but he approached the pedestal. Olive slipped out of the alcove to face her attacker.
“Murr,” muttered the Fire Knife. Whether this was the name of some god or his late companion, Olive did not know. “Ya just a girl. C’mon, kid, I’ll make it fast. We’ll just lock ya up until …”
The halfling didn’t wait to find out how long she’d be locked up. She dropped to one knee, grabbed a piece of the broken statue, and threw it. Clunked square in the forehead with a succubus breast, the assassin rocked back on his heels. Olive grabbed the sword from his dead partner’s hand and charged.
The Fire Knife dropped the melon and swung his blade downward. Olive dove to the right, and the steel blade sparked off the stonework, sending a ringing peal of doom through the hall and up the stairs. The assassin whirled and slashed in a cross-cut. Olive dipped her head slightly, and the blade swiped over her. The man’s reflexes were trained in battling opponents his own size.
Olive slipped inside his guard and thrust his partner’s short sword upward in the all-too-ample space between h
is leather jerkin and his belt. The blade sank deep into the flesh. Blood welled from the wound. The Fire Knife stepped backward, but Olive moved with him like a bulldog, wriggling and twisting the sword.
The assassin grabbed at her hair with his left hand, but before he could take advantage of his grip, he gurgled and collapsed on top of his enemy. It was several moments before Olive could get any air into her lungs and wriggle out from beneath her vanquished foe.
Blood stained the entire length of her gown.
“Like falling off a log,” she muttered to herself. “Nothing to it. Done it lots of times.” She tried to pant more quietly, listening for others. If anyone else was still in the house, they would have heard the fight.
There was no other sound but her labored breathing.
She returned to the pedestal and began exploring its carved edges for a catch to open the secret door. Badly rattled, her fingers ran over the surface for almost three minutes before she managed to press just the right bit of fluting. The wall in the back of the alcove slid open, revealing a spiral stairway leading down.
Stealing a torch from a wall sconce and the obese assassin’s short sword, the bard pattered down the steps. The air grew chill and damp as she descended. At the bottom, a passage was cut deeply into the bedrock. The passage was lighted by a magical glow issuing from statues of demons mounted on the walls—magical light that did not flicker, but shone in steady red beams from the red glass eyes and in white fans from the tops of their heads. Along the right side of the passage were three archways blocked by cage bars. The passage continued on, lit by a pearl-like string of red and white lights.
Beyond the first archway lay an empty cell, clean but for a dark red smear streaking the back wall. The second cell caged a mass of rotting cloaks and blankets. Akabar hung in the third cell, the chains of his manacles attached to a hook in the ceiling. The Turmishman’s toes dangled three inches from the floor. The assassins had left him in the cold and damp with nothing but a sheet wrapped around his waist. His face was puffy and discolored. Blood trickled from his mouth and welled in the troughs of four-fingered scratches across his right cheek and chest. Ruskettle could not remember Cassana’s nails being particularly long. Then she recalled the sharpened finger bones of Zrie Prakis, and shuddered.