Azure Bonds Read online

  “Last question, wise barkeep,” she said, holding up another silver orb, “and I will let you go.” She turned the hand holding the coin to reveal the inside of her arm and its bright tattoo. “Did I have this when I arrived?”

  “Aye, lady,” said the barkeep. “It wuz there when we found you. Mitcher said the Witches of Rashemen wear such tattoos, but a Turmishman said he wuz full of bee droppings. There wuz some mutterings, but I put my foot down and, as you see, the sky hasn’t fallen on my inn. I considered you a good omen, at that.”

  “Why?”

  “The name of this house. The Hidden Lady.”

  Alias nodded. Taking this as a dismissal, the barkeep scurried back to his bar, rattling the orbs in his hand as he went.

  Alias reviewed what the barkeep had told her. It makes sense, she thought. Adventurers have been known to dump off drunken companions, leaving a tattoo as a reminder. But why these symbols? They mean nothing to me.

  Alias gulped a mouthful of ale, then fought the urge to spit it across the table. The brew tasted like fermented swill. She forced herself to swallow it, wondering if the wretched taste of the beer had been why her unknown benefactors had left her outside and not entered the establishment.

  “I hate mysteries,” she muttered with annoyance. She toyed with the idea of pitching the nearly full mug at the barkeep, accusing him of poisoning the clientele. When in doubt, she thought, start a brawl.

  She pushed the beer away, her attention diverted. The barkeep was talking to a tall man wearing robes of crimson highlighted with thin white stripes and an ivory white cloak with red trim. The barkeep motioned a pudgy hand toward Alias’s table, and the man turned to look at her.

  His skin was dusky and his hair, a curly brown mane banded with gold cords, hung to his shoulders. He had a moustache, and his beard was cut straight across at the bottom like a coal shovel. His eyes were blue. On his forehead were tattooed three blue dots, and a sapphire was embedded in his left earlobe. Alias recognized him as a southerner and knew the dots marked him as a Turmish scholar of religion, reading, and magic. The earring meant he was married. But she did not recognize the man himself.

  Nevertheless, he made his way from the bar to her table. Alias rose as he approached—not from politeness, but to give herself the chance to size him up. He stood several inches taller than Alias—and she was taller than most women and many other men. Beneath his soft, flowing robes, the man had a reasonably sturdy frame. However his muscles did not appear to be trained for battle or hardship, as were her own. He might be a mage, she decided, or a merchant.

  “I hope you are well, lady?” His voice had the cultured tone of someone tutored in the local tongue by a scholar.

  Alias scowled at his features. “Do I know you, Turmite?”

  His expression turned stormy. “No. If you did, you would know our people prefer to be called Turmishmen or Turms.”

  Alias sat down and motioned him into the seat opposite her. She liked his control in the face of her insult. “You care for my drink? I’ve lost the desire.”

  Nodding, the Turmishman took a long pull on the mug. If it was fermented pig-swill, as Alias suspected, then such drinks were common in the south, she decided, because the stranger seemed to savor his swallow.

  “I take it you are the Turmishman who declared I was not a witch?”

  The man nodded and wiped a bit of foam from his moustache. “Your friendly innkeep was too afraid to take you in, and the lout who found you was ready to have you burned. Or at least relieve you of your purse.”

  “But you knew I was not a witch?”

  “I know that the Witches of Rashemen, if they ever leave their frozen climes, know better than to decorate their bodies with tattoos proclaiming their origins.”

  Alias nodded. “I’m not of that sisterhood.” At least as far as I know, she thought inwardly, since I can’t swear to what I’ve been doing for the past week or so.

  She hesitated, then asked, “Did you see who brought me here?”

  The Turmishman shook his head. “I was at this very table when the northerner left and then came right back in, babbling about a dead witch on the front steps. Everyone here investigated, and I convinced them your glyphs were harmless, though I have no idea what they are. I must confess, to being most curious about them. May I see them again?”

  Alias frowned but held out her arm, palm upward, revealing the symbols. In the dim common room they seemed even brighter than before, glowing from within.

  The Turmishman looked at them and shook his head, still mystified. “I have never seen the likes of these before. Where are you from?”

  “I … get around.” After another pause she added, “I was born in Westgate, but I ran off and never returned.”

  “I’ve seen naught like this in Westgate, and I have traveled the Inner Sea from there to Thay. I must confess, though, I am by no means a sage. May I cast a spell on them?”

  Alias involuntarily jerked her arm back. “You a mage?”

  The Turmishman grinned, displaying a line of bright white teeth. “Of no small water. I am Akabar Bel Akash of House Akash, mage and merchant. Do not fear. I have no wish to entrap you by magics. I only wish to know if the marking’s origin is in magic.”

  Alias glared across the table at the Turmishman. He was a merchant-mage. One of those greengrocers who dabbled with the art, but probably wasn’t skilled enough to cut it as just a sorcerer. Still, he ought to be capable of detecting magic, and he looked sincere. She needed to know more about the tattoo, and here was this Turmishman offering his services for free. She held out her arm. “I am Alias. Magic does not frighten me, but be quick about it.”

  Akabar Bel Akash leaned over the symbols and began mumbling words quickly and quietly. If the runes on her arm were magical, Alias knew, they would radiate a dim glow.

  The merchant-mage chanted, and Alias felt the muscles of her arm writhe beneath her skin as though they were snakes. The symbols danced along her arm as if mocking the Turmishman.

  Suddenly, strands of hellish blue light, intense as lightning flashes, shot from the symbols on her arm, illuminating the whole room. The beacons of color crackled along the beams overhead and were reflected off all the bottles and armor in the tavern, turning the surprised faces of every patron in the room to a deathly blue.

  Akabar Bel Akash had not been expecting so violent a reaction to his magical inquiry. He toppled backward in surprise, chair and all. His flailing arm caught the half-drained mug of beer and sent it flying across the commons room. The droplets of spilled ale took on the appearance of a cluster of blue fireflies.

  Alias caught sight of the barkeep frozen in the blue light. An instant later, the portly man regained his senses and dove like a sounding whale behind the bar. His patrons were a tougher lot; many of them were desperately working loose the peace knots of their weapons.

  Grabbing her cloak from the back of her chair, Alias twisted it tight around her arm to muffle the light. The blue glow leaked out of the cloak’s edges, and she held the arm close to her body. In an overloud voice she announced, “No problem, no problem! My friend here was just showing me a new magical trick that he hasn’t quite learned yet.”

  Alias quickly circled around the table. She leaned over the tall mage’s sprawled form and, to demonstrate that there was nothing wrong, helped pull him to his feet. Already most of the patrons had returned to their drinks, but there was a good deal of scowling and muttering.

  Grasping the collar of his white-striped crimson vestments, Alias held Akabar’s face close to her own and whispered in the tight voice she reserved to threaten people, “Never, ever, do that again,” then added with a hiss, “I should have known better than to trust a greengrocer. I’m going to a real spell-caster to get rid of this tattoo right now. Don’t be here when I come back, Turmite!”

  With that, she spun and, clutching her cloak-wrapped arm to her belly, strode out of the inn. She caught sight of the barkeep’s head surfacing fro
m behind the bar just as she pushed the door open.

  Cursing, Alias stormed three blocks before she dared to duck into an alleyway and unwrap the cloak. The symbols on her arm had returned to their normal appearance, if one could consider a tattoo that looked like pieces of translucent glass set beneath the skin normal.

  Alias cursed again, this time without venom or passion, and headed toward the Promenade, Suzail’s main street, looking for a temple that might still have clerics awake at this hour.

  Winefiddle and the Assassins

  The first two temples she tried, the Shrine of Lliira and the Silent Room, the Temple of Deneir, were locked. Both were posted with identical signs stating they were closed until dawn services.

  She passed by the Towers of Good Fortune—the huge temple to Tymora—because it looked too expensive, and the Shrine to Tyr, because it looked too prim and stuffy.

  Upon reaching the Shrine of Oghma, Alias glared at the note tacked to the door. She ripped the paper from the tiny nails and let it flutter down the stairs. Pounding on the door with the side of her fist, her assault was answered by a sleepy caretaker who cracked the temple door open all of two inches and peered out at her suspiciously.

  “I need a curse removed! Immediately!” she gasped with her best maiden-in-distress voice. The caretaker’s look softened, but he shook his head, explaining that the holy mother was out of town arranging a wedding and that they had only acolytes within, new officiates who lacked the power to deal with such things.

  “Try Tyr Grimjaws, Miss,” he suggested.

  Alias backtracked to the Shrine of Tyr the Just only to find her entry barred by two heavily armed guards. “Unless it’s life or death,” one informed her, “you’ll have to wait.” Apparently the church of Tyr had hired an adventuring party to deal with a dragon terrorizing the Storm Horn Mountains. The party’s dealings with the monster had been anything but successful. The priests of Tyr were all occupied with healing the survivors and resurrecting the bodies of their comrades who had not been incinerated.

  Alias was feeling desperate by the time she screwed up her courage to enter the Towers of Good Fortune, the Temple of Tymora. At least there was no sign on its front gates. She jerked on the bellpull incessantly until a priest appeared, yawning but not cross. A corpulent, pasty-faced man, he waddled forward to unbar the gates.

  “I must speak with your superior immediately,” Alias demanded. “This is an emergency.”

  The priest bowed as much as his bulk would allow and stood up again, grinning. “Curate Winefiddle at your service. An improbable name for a priest, I know, but we must play the cards we’re dealt, right? I’m afraid, lady, that I’m all there is. His worship and the others are helping the minions of Tyr with healing and resurrecting the would-be dragon slayers. Unless, by my superiors, you meant to have a word with Lady Luck herself. It’s possible, but very costly, in more ways than one. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Alias shook her head. Before the curate could babble anymore, she burst out, “I need a curse removed.”

  “Now, that does sound serious. Come in.” Winefiddle ushered her past the silver-plated altar to Tymora, Lady Luck, and into a private study for an audience. An oil lamp lit the musty chamber. Dark oak cabinets lined the walls. A single, high window framed the night sky. The curate offered her a seat and plopped down into a chair beside her.

  “Now, tell me about this curse,” he prompted her.

  Alias explained how she’d awakened after her unusually long sleep and discovered the tattoo on her arm. At a loss for any other theory, she told him the barkeep’s story that she was a drunk left on the doorstep of The Hidden Lady. Then, she related what had happened when the Turmish merchant-mage had cast a spell to detect magic on the tattoo. “I don’t remember getting it—the tattoo,” she concluded. “I would never have agreed to it, not even drunk. This has to be some sort of stupid prank pulled on me while I was unconscious, but I have no idea who would have done it.”

  Alias did not bother to mention her hazy memory of the past few weeks—it was too embarrassing—and she omitted the incident with the lizard as inconsequential.

  Curate Winefiddle nodded reassuringly, as if Alias had brought him nothing more troublesome than a kitten with earmites. “No problem,” he declared. “There remains only the question of how you would like to arrange payment?”

  Alias knew from experience that her coins were an insufficient “offering.” She pulled out the only real valuable in her money sack—the small, greenish gem.

  Winefiddle accepted the terms with a smile and a nod. “No. Don’t put it there,” he admonished her before she set it down on the desk. “Very unlucky. Drop it in the poor box as you leave.”

  Alias nodded. Winefiddle began removing a number of tattered scrolls from a cabinet. “The one advantage to serving an adventurer’s goddess,” he yawned as he spoke, “is a steady stream of worshippers in need of your special services, worshippers willing to pay in magical items.”

  The cleric stifled another yawn, and Alias gave him a blank look she bestowed on fools she needed to tolerate. As far as she was concerned, clerics were merely puttering quasi-mages who couldn’t cast spells without worrying about converts, theology, relics, and other nonsense. If they weren’t so useful when sickness, famine, and war struck, they would probably have died out altogether, Alias decided, taking their gods with them. Perhaps the gods knew that, and that’s why they put up with the fools.

  Winefiddle pulled bundles of scrolls from the cabinet with all the grace of a fishmonger hoisting salmon. He hummed as he checked their tags. Alias sat there as quietly and patiently as possible, wishing she had stopped at another inn for a pouch of decent rum. Finally, the priest pulled two from the lot that seemed to please him.

  Despite Alias’s warning of what had happened in The Hidden Lady, Winefiddle wanted to begin with a standard magical detection. He waved aside her objections, insisting, “I need to see this extreme reaction myself. Nothing to be afraid of since we know what to expect this time, right?”

  Alias submitted with a grudging sigh. The cleric passed his silver disk of Tymora over her outstretched arm. The words he muttered were different from the Turmish mage’s, but the effect was the same. Alias shuddered as the symbols writhed beneath her skin, and she squinted in anticipation of the bright, sapphire radiance which soon lit every corner of the musty study.

  Winefiddle’s eyebrows disappeared into his low hairline, amazed at the brilliance of the glow. Alias clenched her muscles involuntarily, and the rays swayed about the room like signal beacons, bouncing off the darkened window and the priest’s silver holy symbol.

  The glow peaked and began to ebb slowly. Winefiddle cleared his throat nervously a few times before he reached for the larger of the two scrolls on the desk. In the blue light he looked less pasty and more powerful, but Alias was beginning to wonder if he knew what he was doing.

  “You really think that piece of paper’s going to be strong enough?” she asked doubtfully. Maybe I should put this off until morning, she thought. The Shrine of Oghma or the Temple of Deneir might have more competent help.

  “This scroll was written by the hand of the Arch-cleric Mzentul himself. It should remove these horrors without delay.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully and added, “It being such an old and irreplaceable scroll, perhaps you wouldn’t mind, should you come into further funds …”

  Alias gave an impatient nod, and Winefiddle undid the scroll’s leather binding. With one hand on her arm and the other holding the scroll, he began to read.

  “Dominus, Deliverus,” he intoned. A cold shudder ran down Alias’s spine, a feeling quickly overwhelmed by a burning sensation on her forearm. The pain was familiar, but she could not remember why. Is this how the magics felt that put the damned thing here?

  The fire on her arm intensified, and she clamped her jaw shut to avoid crying out. She couldn’t have been in more pain if molten metal had been poured over her sword arm.
/>   “Ketris, Ogos, Diam—” Winefiddle continued, breathing heavily, his teeth clenched. Alias wondered if he could feel the heat of her arm beneath his hand.

  Light beams arced from Alias’s arm like water from a fountain, but instead of spilling to the floor, they wrapped around her until she was surrounded by blue light.

  Suddenly, she wrenched her arm away from the cleric’s grasp and reached down to her boot for her throwing dagger. As if she was in some horrible nightmare her arm moved of its own accord, like a viper she could not control.

  The priest had ignored the swordswoman’s arm jerking from his grasp. It wasn’t really necessary that he hold onto it, and he could not afford to lose his concentration and break off his incantation. “Mistra, Hodah, Mzentil, Coy!” he finished triumphantly.

  Winefiddle looked up at his client. She was still bathed in a blue light from the symbols, and her face was a mask of rage. A low, feral snarl issued from her lips. He caught the flash of silver as Alias thrust the knife toward him. With an unexpected dexterity, he shifted sideways.

  The weapon sliced through his robes and bit into his flesh, but it was stopped by his lowest rib.

  Alias looked down in horror at her hand—it moved with its own volition. Blood from the dagger bubbled and burned as it dripped over the glowing tattoo.

  Suddenly, the scroll Winefiddle had been reading burst into flame, its magic used. The curate threw the burning page in Alias’s face.

  The swordswoman swatted the fiery parchment away, and the priest circled around her. Just as he reached the door, Alias felt an electric pulse run down her right arm. She tried to grab the wrist with her left hand, but she was too late. The arm hurled the dagger at the priest. The weapon whirred past his ear and buried itself in the doorjamb. Yanking the door open so hard that it banged against the wall behind it, the priest fled from the study.

  Alias raced after him, no longer in control of any part of her body. She tried to pull the silvered steel weapon from the wood as she passed by, but the blade had buried itself too deep; she abandoned it so as not to lose sight of her prey.