Azure Bonds Read online

  By the time a scowling Alias stumbled out of the inn, her hood up to shade her eyes against the bright sunlight, Akabar was waiting with the party’s horses and pony saddled and packed.

  If Alias had any appreciation for Akabar’s efforts and skills as a quartermaster, she didn’t bother to note it aloud. “I have to make a stop somewhere,” she whispered, nudging Lady Killer into motion. The others followed her to the Towers of Good Fortune.

  “Wait here,” she ordered. The mage and the halfling remained mounted as she entered the temple to Tymora. Dragonbait scratched Lightning’s muzzle thoughtfully.

  Alias kept her hood up even in the dim light of the church. There were three priests and about twenty people seated in the congregation hall, some whispering, others praying silently. She knew it was unlikely Winefiddle had returned so soon from Dimswart’s, but she really didn’t want to run into him in case he had.

  So she stood near the doorway, studying the carving of Lady Luck in front of the altar. The image of Tymora had short hair, tousled like Alias’s. The goddess’s figure was more boyish, but no more muscled than the swordswoman’s. The sideways shift of her eyes and the half-grin gave her a crafty look Alias had noted a few times on Olive’s face. Halflings, she remembered, worshipped an image of Tymora that resembled a halfling female. Alias tried to remember the last time she’d grinned that way.

  All I’ve had lately, she thought, is bad luck. I don’t even believe in luck. What am I doing here? At her elbow was the poor box where she was supposed to have left the green gem the night Winefiddle had tried to remove the runes on her arm, the night she’d try to kill him.

  Personally, she addressed the goddess in her thoughts. If someone tried to kill one of my priests and then cheated me out of what they owed me and then came back and tried to make it up to me by paying me even more, I don’t think I’d feel any better disposed toward them.

  From her purse she drew out the opal Olive had liberated from Mist’s lair. The huge gem felt warm and smooth in her palm. She dropped it into the poor box. Just in case you aren’t like me, she thought. She turned about and left the temple.

  Alias just didn’t have the energy to lay a false trail out of the city. She led her party through the east gate which led directly to the road north. She rode along without a sound.

  Wracking his brain for something to say that might make her feel even a tiny bit better, Akabar came up with, “I had noticed, as regards liquid refreshment, that the emphasis north of the Inner Sea is on strength as opposed to flavor. It is no doubt a common thing for a person to be caught unawares by the power of the beverages served here—”

  The mage soon regretted having said anything. Alias made no reply, but, even worse, the bard launched into a defense of the drinks of the northern Realms. Her comparison of a Delayed Blast with a Flaming Gullet did nothing to disprove Akabar’s original point, and only served to turn the swordswoman a more distressing shade of green.

  Akabar remained as quiet as Alias after that, but Olive continued chattering to Dragonbait for some time. When she got tired of talking to the mute creature, she sang. She was on the thirteenth verse of her fifth ballad when Alias finally spoke.

  “Olive, please, try to show some consideration for the dying,” the warrior whispered.

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Alias. Are you still feeling poorly?”

  “I meant you.”

  “But, I feel fine,” the halfling replied in confusion.

  “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to have to kill you. Then you won’t feel fine at all.”

  The bard gulped and remained silent for about half a mile. Finally, though, she dropped back some ways from the party so she could continue humming softly without incurring the swordswoman’s wrath. Dragonbait slowed down to join her, perhaps out of pity, though Akabar suspected the lizard really was a music lover.

  “Cheerful people are so depressing,” Alias muttered.

  The mage smiled, and they rode on in silence.

  After a good night’s rest at an inn in Hilp, Alias seemed fully recovered. As they progressed northward, Alias kept a watchful eye on Dragonbait, who loped along beside the horses. She’d admonished him to let her know if they went too fast. The lizard had responded by running around the horses with a curious bouncing gait and then turning three cartwheels.

  Alias even tolerated the halfling’s prattle and went so far as to try teaching the bard a ballad she claimed to have learned from a Harper.

  “Not a Harper!” Olive gasped, obviously impressed.

  Alias nodded.

  “I don’t understand,” Akabar said. “What is so special about playing the harp?”

  Olive shook her head and sighed.

  “Up north,” Alias explained, “one who plays the harp is a harpist. A Harper is something rather different.”

  “What then?” the mage asked.

  “Well, they’re usually bards or rangers, though sometimes they ask other adventurers to join them. They …” Alias hesitated. It would sound so banal to say it aloud. “They work for good things,” she answered quickly and then launched into the ballad for Olive.

  Akabar mused over Alias’s words. He now recalled having heard a story or two about these Harper people, but he had not paid much attention. They were supposed to be a mysterious, powerful bunch, but Alias’s reaction interested him more. The woman had seemed flustered when giving her explanation.

  He listened now to her singing. Her voice was better than the bard’s. It had a clear, lilting quality. The song she sang was better than any of Olive’s, too. Like the song she’d sung about the tears of Selune, two nights ago in The Hidden Lady, the lyrics were haunting. They told of the Fall of Myth Drannor, the splendid elven city, now a ruin in the woods.

  The song caused Akabar to begin speculating on Alias’s lost past. Only now his speculations were even wilder than Olive’s had been. Suppose she was more than just a mercenary. Certainly evil things were after her. Had she, to put it in her own words, “worked for good things” so well that she was considered a threat? Had she been enchanted with those fell runes on her arm so that she would do some evil and thereby destroy her reputation?

  “You know,” Olive said after she’d managed to pluck out the melody to Alias’s song on her yarting, “I’ve often wondered how one gets to be a Harper. Do you volunteer for a position, or do you have to be asked?”

  Alias shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” Inwardly she smiled, trying to picture the powerful and righteous Harpers accepting the help of a greedy, arrogant pickpocket of a halfling with pretensions to bardhood. Alias felt too good at the moment, however, to destroy Olive’s grandiose illusions.

  They skirted the countryside about the city of Immersea, ancestral home of the Wyvernspurs, and made camp at dusk beside the road. Rain drizzled the entire next day, and they traveled mostly in silence.

  They reached Arabel by nightfall. The inns were crowded with merchants and adventurers all taking advantage of the city’s shelter. Alias’s group had to settle for a remote inn by the city wall, but they were grateful to have shelter from the rain.

  Alias found the noise and light and driving rain strangely comforting. The violence of the elements made her own inner turmoil seem mild in comparison. Her rage at being branded and used faded somewhat, humbled by the anger of the sky.

  The next morning dawned bright and clear.

  “I estimate it will take us two rides to reach Yulash,” Alias said before they set out.

  “Not possible,” Akabar disagreed. “The distance is much greater than that.”

  “Two rides if the weather holds good and no disasters hit us.”

  “It will take at least twenty days,” Akabar said.

  “Isn’t that what I just said?” Alias snapped.

  “Not at all. You said it would be only two rides. An impossibility, even for a very strong horse.”

  Olive started giggling. “He thinks you mean a ride, not a ride.”

  “Huh?
” both mage and warrior asked at once.

  “A ride up north,” Olive explained to Akabar, “is ten days.”

  “No man can ride for more than two or three days without becoming exhausted,” Akabar insisted.

  “Forget it,” Alias said. “Twenty days. We’re going to spend the next six camping at night. I don’t want to risk any trouble from the soldiers at Castle Crag, the north Cormyrian outpost,” she explained to Akabar. “We’ll skirt around it.”

  She outlined the rest of their route as they traveled. Once through Gnoll Pass, she planned to leave the main road, which detoured east through Tilverton and, instead, travel along a ranger’s path, which led straight through the Stonelands to Shadow Gap. Olive was indignant at missing the sights of Tilverton, which boasted an inn of some renown, but Alias was adamant.

  Olive sulked quietly, which was more nerve-racking than her constant chatter. Finally, Alias began describing the North Gate Inn, which lay at the top of Shadow Gap. She painted so rosy a picture that Olive began to look forward to seeing the mountain resort.

  The pattern of the next several days—riding, setting up camp, dinner (prepared with surprising skill by Akabar), breaking camp—repeated over and over, restored Alias’s confidence. This was the life she knew best—although a few saddlesores and aching muscles told her that she’d spent a lot of the time lost to her memory taking things too easy. Singing songs with Olive on horseback by day and lying beneath the stars at night gave Alias a feeling of contentment that had too long been missing. The sigils on her arms retreated in importance, becoming no more a threat to her and those around her than mosquito bites.

  Stranger still, the farther north and away from the shores of the Inner Sea they traveled, the more cheerful Alias began to feel. Akabar was sorry to leave the green woods and fields of Cormyr, but the winds whipping across the stony soil of the vast plain north of the Storm Horns delighted Alias. She would face into the wind and smile, as though it blew away all her miseries. Despite the fact that they had to veer off the trail or cower in undergrowth occasionally to avoid parties of orcs and goblins, the warrior grew steadily calmer.

  Alias’s new tranquility even prompted her one evening to apologize to Akabar as they stood watch together. She’d begun to feel guilty about the way she’d shamed him into following her north.

  Akabar, too proud to show himself offended by so small a thing, shrugged off her apology, but Alias persisted in trying to explain her reasoning.

  “I know you’re a wise man,” she said, waving aside the protests his modesty compelled him to make. “Fools don’t get to be mages, and all your reasons for going to Westgate were good ones. But when you’ve been an adventurer for as long as I have, you begin to think with your gut. I had a gut feeling that Westgate was a mistake. Poking around in Yulash feels more like the right thing to do.”

  Akabar didn’t know what to say. He was afraid to spoil her newfound peace of mind by speaking his own. Secretly, he was afraid the sigils were maneuvering the swordswoman toward Yulash. Once the site of a temple to great evil, it remained a place of unquestionable danger.

  “You’ve also been very kind, helping me through a bad time and accompanying me. I’ve never led a party before. Usually, I traveled with bands who debated and voted on their plans. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I didn’t take your advice lightly, and I won’t in the future, should you, well, give me any more.”

  Her sincerity left Akabar speechless for several moments. Finally, he managed to say, “You honor me with your trust.”

  It was a ritual Turmish saying. Strangely enough, Alias knew the proper reply. “Your honor is my own.”

  They were silent for a while, until Akabar could no longer resist his curiosity. “Do you remember ever having visited Turmish?” he asked.

  Alias shook her head. “No, I don’t remember.”

  The next evening, their fifth out of Arabel, they camped at the base of the foothills of Shadow Gap, the high pass between the southern extension of the Desertsmouth Mountains.

  Giogioni Wyvernspur

  Giogioni Wyvernspur, sitting in the muddy road, cursed his bad luck. After all the misfortunes that befell me at Cousin Freffie’s wedding, he complained to himself, you’d think it was time for a little sunshine to fall into my life. But no. I’ve got a cloud of Tymora’s blackest luck following me.

  “Daisyeye, come back here!” he shouted as he picked himself off the ground and tried, as best he could, to brush the wet mud from his velvet britches. “That’s the problem with really good horses—they spook so damned easily.”

  The mare that had thrown him was now out of sight, having galloped around a bend in the country road.

  “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another,” Giogi muttered. He began to relate his adventure aloud, rehearsing it for his chums. “First I made a fool of myself at Minda’s behest and did that silly imitation of Azoun. This caused the bard’s lovely but quite mad sell-sword to attack me with a cake knife. Then Darol seized the opportunity to make himself look like a hero in front of Minda and got himself slashed across the face. Minda positively swooned with admiration when she saw his scar, and she gave the scurrilous cove permission to accompany her carriage to Suzail.

  “Naturally, I considered I might play up to Minda’s sympathies as well. After all, I was the one the lady in blue tried to assassinate. I’m not completely witless. I knew this was not a good time to visit court. Aunt Doroth is a horrible gossip and just a little too palsy with His Majesty’s pet wizard, Vangerdahast. And if Aunt Doroth doesn’t let the whole sordid affair leak out, you can bet Darol will find a way to let His Majesty know all about my remarkable impersonation.

  “So while everyone is riding off to the capitol, I’m forced to travel back to Immersea, all alone, on horseback. Though I must say that Dimswart fellow was quite decent, putting me up for an extra two days until I recovered from my shock. I left early in the morning, traveling up the road to Waymoot. I was thanking Chauntea for the nice weather when Daisyeye reared up on her hind quarters and galloped up the road, leaving me in the mud.”

  Suddenly realizing that if he didn’t catch Daisyeye in a hurry he’d never reach Waymoot by nightfall and would be forced to stay in some roadside inn, or worse, a farmer’s bed, Giogi set off after his mount. He hummed what he called “that catchy little number” written by that Ruskettle woman for Freffie and Gaylyn. Rounding the curve in the road, he noticed a clicking noise.

  “Is that you, Daisyeye? You naughty girl. Whatever possessed you to run off like—” Giogioni halted in his tracks, his words constricting in his throat. Very cautiously, he took a step backward, then another.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” an imperious voice demanded.

  The young Wyvernspur froze, unable to answer the red dragon who had addressed him. Quite aside from the shock of discovering poor Daisyeye serving as the red dragon’s entree—quite a shock since there was blood oozing all over the cobblestone, and Daisyeye’s eyes remained open in death as though accusing him of something—he couldn’t get over the size of the monster. A single one of its paws could block traffic along the road, and Daisyeye looked like a chicken leg next to the beast’s maw.

  “Well?” the dragon asked.

  “I-I-I—”

  “Oh dear, a stutterer,” the dragon sighed. “Try to relax. The words will come out more easily.”

  “—don’t want to disturb your meal. I’ll just be moving on. Don’t mind me,” Giogioni gasped.

  The dragon swished its big russet tail around so that the scaly appendage made a curl about Giogioni, blocking all avenues of escape. “You’ve been so kind to provide me with lunch,” the monster said, swallowing another gobbet of Daisyeye’s haunch, “the least I can do is offer you a lift.”

  “Oh, that’s very kind, but I wouldn’t want to trouble you any.” Giogioni took another step backward.

  “Freeze!” the dragon ordered.

  Giogioni froze.

>   “What’s your name?”

  “Giogioni Wyvernspur. Ah, everyone calls me Giogi.”

  “How quaint.” The dragon sliced off the straps to Daisyeye’s saddle with a single claw and shoved it over to Giogioni’s feet. “Have a seat.”

  Giogioni collapsed onto the saddle, feeling a little green. I never realized that such a pretty horse could look so awful with her middle slit open, he thought, reaching down into his saddlebag and pulling out the flask of Rivengut he always kept there. Thank Oghma, he prayed silently, it was more than half full.

  “D-d-do you mind if I pour myself a drink?” he asked the dragon.

  “Be my guest.”

  Giogioni took a long, hard pull on the flask of liquor. “If I might ask, what shall I call you?”

  “Mist.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all,” the beast snapped and went back to rasping her tongue along Daisyeye’s ribs.

  Giogioni took another swig of Rivengut. If he was going to be dessert, he decided, he didn’t want to feel it. He wondered idly if he would be served en flambe, so to speak.

  “I heard you singing,” Mist said when there was nothing left of Daisyeye but shattered bones. “Catchy little tune.”

  “Yes, something composed by that new bard, Olive Rus—oh, gods!” The man gulped. “You’re that Mist.”

  Suspicious, Mist cocked an eybrow and asked, “Just what did Mistress Ruskettle have to say about me?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Er—just that she was your prison—uh—guest.”

  “She still traveling with that tramp, Alias of Westgate?”

  “The red-headed sword-sell, er, I mean, sell-sword? Maybe. If she could find—um, I have no idea.”

  Mist grinned from ear to ear—not an attractive sight with parts of Daisyeye still caught between her teeth. She rested a claw on Giogioni’s shoulder. “We musn’t have any secrets, my dear boy.”

  “I don’t know, really I don’t. She went a little crazy at the wedding, this Alias person, that is, and then she ran off.”