Azure Bonds

by Kate Novak

  “None of that, now.” Phalse waggled a finger at the mage reproachfully. “Not fair at all to attack a poor, defenseless halfling.”

  “Zero for three,” Olive said. “You’re none of those things.”

  “Something wrong, One?” Phalse addressed Alias, ignoring Olive completely. “I thought you didn’t like others doing your talking for you.”

  “My name is Alias,” the woman warrior retorted, striding toward the little creature.

  “You are One,” Phalse said. “Two, Three, and Four are behind the door. As well as Five through Thirteen. While I worked with the other members of the now-defunct alliance, I was very careful to always refer to you as the One, instead of just One. I couldn’t let them suspect that I only thought of you as the beginning of something far grander. Why make just one weapon when you can make several? Especially if you have as many enemies as I have.”

  Alias took a step forward, and Phalse waved Cassana’s wand.

  Alias stopped in mid-stride, as though she had walked into an invisible spider web. Unlike Cassana’s taut bonds, these were gummy. Phalse could wield the wand differently than the witch had.

  “Problems, One?” Phalse mocked her. “Cassana’s toy still has effects you haven’t learned yet. She built for variability, you know. When you were within her area of command, the wand made you her puppet, much like that poor, undead fool, Prakis.”

  Olive and Dragonbait began to close on the small form, but Alias growled at them through clenched teeth, “Back away. He’s mine!”

  Phalse laughed. “No, One, you have that backward. You are mine. If I want you, that is. I think I prefer Two. She’ll be much more tractable.”

  The shorter strands of Alias’s hair were rising like serpents as she fought the controlling force of the wand. Dragonbait remained in position, respecting Alias’s desire to resist the wand without help.

  Olive was not so amenable to the idea. She drew out her daggers, but she remained even with the saurial.

  Alias felt as though she were pressing hard against a membrane, like the skin of some gelatinous monster. She strained and the muscles in her legs bunched, but she did not move.

  “Now Prakis, he wanted you,” Phalse said. “He really loved Cassana—devils knew why. She put him through hell. When you came along, though, I think he realized he could have his cake and eat it, too. You had all of Cassana’s charm, not to mention her once-youthful looks, and after the sacrifice was made, you’d be pliable, too. Not one of Cassana’s characteristics.”

  Alias looked like a medusa, with the longer strands of her hair standing out from her head. The strain of fighting the grip of the web was evident in her face. Her forehead beaded with perspiration, her teeth clenched together, and her eyes squinted—fixated on the pseudo-halfling’s form.

  Dragonbait gritted his teeth as he felt the familiar tug within his chest, the call of Alias’s sigils to his own. No stranger to discipline, he remained in place.

  He turned to look at the mage. He was still clutching his head, but the bleeding had stopped. Akabar staggered to his feet. The saurial sensed nervousness in the halfling and wondered if it would overwhelm her caution and she would attack. Or bolt.

  A movement along the wall behind and above the halfling caught Dragonbait’s eye. Two banners hanging along the sides of the courtyard parted ever so slightly. Another player had arrived on the scene. Slipping into his shen state, the lizard caught the familiar feel of the intruder. He turned his attention back on Alias’s struggle.

  “It’s amazing, though, that all of them failed. Moander got you to free it, but it was so enfeebled that a laughably small group brought it down. The Fire Knives played their hand so badly that you only succeeded in throttling some Wyvernspur fop. Zrie was never going to get you to love him. Only Cassana was perverse enough to feel anything for him. And Cassana only used you to taunt and bash her lovers. She had no concept of the forces she was unleashing by trying to get you to kill your little lizard brother.”

  Phalse turned the wand over in his hands, batting his blue eyes. “They all thought so small. Once they left me this citadel, I quickly duplicated their work on a much larger scale. I needed their expertise to make you, One. Creation is so very difficult. But duplication, that’s another matter entirely. It was child’s play smuggling out the equipment used to create you, coaxing Cassana out of a piece of her flesh, syphoning off a portion of the life energies Moander contributed. That’s why I chose this particular form. Halflings make such good thieves.”

  Alias watched his eyes. Blue within blue eyes. Bull’s eyes. “The last sigil is yours,” she said. “You have no hidden master, do you?”

  Phalse broke into one of his widened grins, the corners of his mouth almost touching in the back. “Very good, One. I led Cassana to believe that I was just a servant. The ploy had its inconveniences, but it was much safer letting her believe someone even more powerful backed me. I couldn’t risk letting Moander know we were partners. The old god and I are … rivals. As to the sigil on your arm, don’t think of it as the last sigil. As far as you should be concerned, it’s the only sigil—the only one that matters.” Phalse stood up, moved to the side of the circle, and waved the wand.

  Alias felt her muscles bunch up against their will, trying to march her straight ahead—into the pool of silver and red.

  “Now, I have a small job for you. Pass through this portal and take care of it. I wouldn’t be stubborn about it, if I were you.”

  “Why not?” Alias growled, fighting the pull toward the bridge into Phalse’s domain. Along her arm, the single mark of the last master shone like a beacon.

  “Because then I shall be forced to sacrifice you and the saurial and use Two in your stead. Two will be much more accommodating, anyway.”

  “I’ll bet you made that same assumption about me,” Alias said. “You can’t be sure, though, which is why you’re trying to persuade me instead of just forcing me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. I’ve determined why you are flawed, and I know how to prevent it in other models. You see, when we made you, we hadn’t taken into account the strength of the saurial’s will. We needed a soul and a spirit for you. The soul was easy to divide, but a spirit is supposed to have limits. We assumed you would not come to life until we slayed the saurial so his spirit could transfer into you, enthralled by our will, of course. Somehow, the saurial found a way to create a spirit for you, broke off a shard, so to speak, from his own spirit. You were able to draw on his stronger spirit whenever you needed to. When I kill the two of you, I will take care that only enough spirit flows into Two through Thirteen to animate them, without making them unruly.”

  “I still think you’re bluffing,” Alias said. “I won’t obey your commands willingly.”

  “Oh, but you can’t refuse, One. It’s not just the wand that controls you. You want to jump into the portal. You were made to jump into the portal. Don’t you sense how right it would feel?”

  Alias gasped. The portal was what had called her into the room. Its siren call was as subtle as Yulash had been, yet much stronger, like the compunction to kill Winefiddle and Giogi. The patterns compelled her to find what lay beyond.

  “You see,” Phalse explained, “through this portal lies a second portal which leads to the Abyss. As you may know, my former partner, Moander, resides there in its true form. Once you step into a plane where it exists, its sigil will return to your arm. Because you bear its mark and are known to its minions as its servant, you will pass through to its domain unharmed. Once there you will kill it. You will not be able to stop yourself. You will rid the world of a great evil, a noble purpose. Just right for you.”

  “How would you know what’s right for me, you monster?” A raging fire ignited in her, hot enough to burn away the power that held her. “I will not be controlled! I am my own master.”

  The wand exploded in Phalse’s hand, and the cloud of shattered blue crystals mixed with the blood spurting from his wrist. The last ma
ster screamed, opening his mouth wide like the kalmari. Alias felt the invisible web dissolve; she was free. She crossed the last few feet separating her from her foe, swung with Dragonbait’s sword, and severed Phalse’s head neatly from his body.

  The head flew two feet away, toppling in a bloodless arch, while the body collapsed like an empty skin. Alias circled warily. She wondered if it was only a coincidence that Phalse’s smile resembled the kalmari’s, but no smoking monster rose from the two halves.

  Olive shivered, suddenly exhausted.

  “Finally,” Akabar said. “It’s over.”

  Dragonbait shook his head.

  “No,” Alias said in a quiet, angry voice. “It’s not. Look.” She held up her arm. It still bore Phalse’s sigil.

  Laughter rose from the floor, Phalse’s laughter, loud and strong, issued from the severed head.

  “Foolish, foolish, One. You shouldn’t make me angry.” Phalse’s face leered at her from the disembodied head, and as it spoke it began to change. The head expanded, puffing up like a balloon and rising several feet off the ground, the laughter growing deeper and more malicious. Phalse’s two blue eyes merged into a single orb above his over-large mouth. Thick worms snaked from his hair, and each worm ended with a fanged mouth shaped like a lamprey’s. Phalse had become a huge beholder, only with jaws instead of eyes.

  This was the creature that had attacked Nameless, Alias realized, recalling the multiple bites in the bard’s body. It was Phalse all along.

  The body’s empty skin also began to inflate, turning into the naked form of a large, sexless humanoid. The skin darkened to a shiny, reflective black. The creature had only a sharp stump where the right hand had been blown off by the exploding wand, but the left appendage sported a set of pincers.

  Olive lunged at the beastly head with her daggers. A worm-appendage snaked around her slender waist, lifted her from the ground, and sent her skittering across the floor like a ball. She hit the far wall with a bone-wrenching crack and did not get up again.

  Akabar made a movement toward the halfling, but he was blocked by the headless, shining black body. It caught the mage firmly in its viselike pincers and squeezed. Akabar screamed.

  Dragonbait had started toward the beholder, but now spun about to rescue Akabar. Using the sword he had borrowed from one of the Aliases, he hacked at the beast. Chips of dark crystal flew from the monstrous torso, and it stopped squeezing Akabar and began using him as a shield. The beholder used the pointy stump of its right arm to spear at the saurial, driving him back.

  “One,” the head announced with its largest mouth, the rest of them hissing as it spoke, “enter the portal now or die.”

  “Make me.”

  The beholder launched itself at her.

  Alias put a foot on the well’s rim and brought Dragonbait’s sword up with a sweeping cut, shearing off the mouth-tipped worms along one side. The head turned and charged her again.

  Alias dodged to the right, twisting and turning as she did so. Moander had taught her that the best way to fight tendrils was to avoid them. She shifted the sword to her right hand and drew a dagger from her left boot.

  Phalse began his third charge at Alias’s head. At the last moment he swooped down and slammed into her knees. The swordswoman crashed to the floor, losing her grip on Dragonbait’s sword and her dagger. Three of the lamprey jaws clamped tightly on her thigh, while the oozing stumps of two others wrapped around her leg. The beast began drawing her into its huge, central maw.

  Alias grabbed at the stonework surrounding the portal and kicked at the beholder with her free leg.

  * * * * *

  Far above the fray, the figure behind the banner shook his head and reached for the crossbow he’d retrieved from the citadel’s depths. The tower’s new owner had not found the cache of magical items, scavenged during his exile.

  Nameless drew a single quarrel from a slim case of dark wood. The bolt shone in the dimness of the secret passage, illuminating his careworn face. With his foot in the crossbow’s stirrup, he wound back the weapon’s spring until the crosswire clicked into position. He loaded the shining bolt into the groove, tight against the wire. Sighting along the top of the weapon, Nameless chose the blue-in-blue-in-blue major eye as his target.

  He hesitated as Alias pulled against the strength of Phalse’s mouth-stalks. Had he believed the gods still favored him, he would have prayed.

  A hand jostled his shoulder, and Nameless accidentally set off the trigger. The bolt sizzled as it left the crossbow but it flew wide of its mark, smashing deep into the far wall, unnoticed by the combatants below.

  Nameless turned in rage, expecting some dire beast. Instead, his blue eyes met those of an old man dressed in dirty brown robes, and sporting a voluminous beard which spilled out over his cloak.

  “Elminster,” Nameless growled.

  “She must finish this battle alone, Nameless.”

  “So Phalse can kill her and do your dirty work for you?”

  “So she can prove to herself, and to thee, that she is her own master.”

  “She could die!”

  A smile played across Elminster’s lips. “I thought she was thy immortal vessel, who could not be killed. Ye made her a powerful fighter. Will ye follow her around until the end of thy days, rescuing her from every danger? What good is she to ye as an eternal monument if she cannot defend herself from the forces of the world?”

  “But she’s human. I …”

  “Care for her?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s a first,” Elminster said. “Now show it. Let her go free.”

  * * * * *

  The deadly tug of war between Alias and Phalse continued. Alias felt as if the monster was tearing her arms from her sockets. Her fingers were white from gripping the rock, and her hold was slipping. The time had come to risk a new strategy. She pushed hard against the wall, toward the mouth-beholder.

  Phalse tumbled backward with Alias on top of him. She kicked at the head, but it was not like kicking a balloon, as she had expected. The head was as hard as armor, and a numbing shock rang up Alias’s leg, but Phalse’s grip on her slackened. She took advantage of the moment to draw her other boot dagger. She slashed off the stalks that bit into her, leaving long trails of misty blood in the air. She fell to the ground as Phalse floated back a few yards and hovered.

  Alias rose without taking her eyes from the head, brandishing her bloody dagger, Dragonbait’s sword lay on her right. She spoke, trying to cover her movement as she edged slowly toward it.

  “You’re awfully quiet now, Phalse. Run out of threats and taunts?” She noticed that her kick had dimpled its side.

  “I’m listening—to the portal. Can’t you hear it calling to you? Don’t you feel drawn into it?”

  “You wish, Phalse,” Alias said with a laugh. “You don’t think my sisters out there can do it, so you want me to believe I’m expendable. None of them ever received the mark of Moander, did they? They can’t get to Moander the way I can, can they?”

  “Not as easily as you, One, but they will try. I will send them, one at a time, until one of them succeeds. You could spare them all of that pain and agony. How can you resist the challenge?”

  “Forget it, Phalse. You’re not going to talk me into it.”

  Phalse’s words, though, managed to split her attention between the beholder and the portal, so she didn’t notice Phalse’s ebony body behind her until it was too late. It struck her with a hard, powerful swing of its handless arm.

  Alias fell to the ground like a sack, only a few feet from Dragonbait’s sword. The giant torso loomed over her with Akabar dangling from its claw like a rag doll. Dragonbait lay motionless on the floor. Olive was still out cold.

  Phalse’s head laughed as it drifted until it fitted itself securely in the depression between the ebony form’s shoulders. “This torso was also a prototype of sorts, both part and not part of me, useful as a carrier and warrior. But not as good as yo
u.”

  The united Phalse, body and head, bent over her, the sucker mouths opening and closing in anticipation. Alias reached for Dragonbait’s sword, grasped its hilt in both hands, and swung it low, near the floor. The sword passed cleanly through one of Phalse’s ankles and chopped into the other. The body toppled over, and Alias rolled away as Phalse separated himself from the fallen ebony torso.

  “You spoil all my fun,” said the huge, bloated head. “Now we must end this.” He charged at her.

  Alias faked a stumble to one knee, and the head swooped lower, still moving quickly. Alias leaped to her feet, stabbing with Dragonbait’s sword as if it were a dagger—right into the central blue eye.

  Phalse hissed from all his remaining mouths, and Alias thought she had beaten him, when suddenly several more mouth-stalks sprang from the head and engulfed her. The large, lower mouth tried to bite her. She placed her free arm in the space between the skewered eye and the mouth, trying to remove Dragonbait’s sword, but the blade was stuck. She succeeded only in keeping the awful main maw from snapping at her flesh.

  * * * * *

  Dragonbait recovered his senses as Alias was grappling with Phalse’s head. This was her battle; she had asked him not to interfere.

  The saurial staggered from the courtyard and into the former feast hall to stand between the rows of bodies. He agreed with Alias that her copies should not be destroyed.

  The saurial thought back to the evening when he and Alias had been branded, when his soul had been stretched and torn until Alias had suddenly become possessed of life and a soul, and, unexpectedly, a spirit.

  Just how did I do it? he asked himself. Was it my prayers, my stubborn defiance of the evil around me, my acceptance that death was near?

  * * * * *

  The forest of mouths encircled Alias, blocking her vision, and she and Phalse spun about dizzily. Alias became suddenly aware that they stood on the balcony.

  Catching her foot against the wall, Alias twisted at the waist, slinging the head about by Dragonbait’s sword. She let go of the sword’s hilt.