Azure Bonds

11 Shadow Gap

Whenever Alias saw Shadow Gap she thought of some weary titan dragging his axe behind him as he stepped over the hills. At least that was how she imagined the creation of the steep-sided, steep-sloped gorge that split the mountains in two.

No more than an hour of noon sunlight ever reached the floor of the pass. At all other times, it remained in the shadow of the mountains, hence its name.

The gap was barren, save for a scattering of short, scrubby bushes. The road through it wound upward in an interminable series of hairpin curves and ascending switchbacks, resembling a dry wash. Alias had passed through the gap as a caravan guard many times and remembered how, in the spring, water followed the same course down the hill as the merchant wagons.

Heavily laden wagons draped with thick rugs and waterproof slickers would rumble up the gorge at a snail’s pace. The lord merchants urged the drivers on, while mercenary sell-swords watched the cliffs for ambush. Occasionally, a procession of pilgrims on foot interruputed the flow, oblivious to the bustling world around them. More rarely a wizard’s wagon, with lumber sprouting fresh, spring leaves, clattered through the vale on ancient wheels, pulled by oxen, gorgons, or more fantastic beasts.

Today, all that was absent, banished as if by magic. The vale was emptier than a tax collector’s Yule party. The only sound the travelers heard was the clopping of the horse hooves beneath them. Alias wondered what could have halted the trade so completely. A war, perhaps, or rumor of one. But she’d heard nothing of that sort in Cormyr, and the Cormyrians were not, as a rule, insular.

Akabar, having never passed through the gap before, rode at the head of the party as if nothing was amiss. Behind him, Olive found the stillness jarring. Dragonbait hissed once, never a good sign, and Alias caught a whiff of something that smelled like ham. She furrowed her brow in puzzlement and sniffed again. Nothing. Must have imagined it, she thought, but she made sure that her longsword was loose in its scabbard and her knives were handy.

Something croaked her name, harsh and low, and she came up with a dagger in hand. The others seemed not to hear the voice.

Did the wind carry it to her ears alone? Or did sorcery? she wondered, remembering the attack at the abandoned druid’s circle, where the wind had drowned out her cries for help.

The swordswoman reigned in her horse behind the others and listened. The sound came again, a harsh, dying croak that called her name, this time from one of the scrub bushes on Alias’s left.

Spotting Alias behind them, Olive harrumphed.

Akabar called back, “Alias? Are—”

Suddenly, the bush near Alias rustled and exploded in a flurry of feathers.

Old reflexes took over, and Alias felt like some mechanical toy. She aimed, snapped her wrist back, and flicked her knife forward, loosing the dagger.

The spinning weapon struck the bird, a huge raven, at the base of its left wing and stuck there. A smaller creature would have been skewered, but the raven took to the air with the blade embedded in its flesh—the dagger’s gold-wrapped hilt jutting out and flashing in the sun.

Hissing, Dragonbait drew his sword.

“Lee-as, Lee-as, Lee-as,” the bird shrieked as it rose straight up, spun, and flapped in an ungainly manner toward the nearest cliff wall, taking Alias’s weapon with it.

The woman warrior shook her head angrily. The unnatural silence had unsettled her, and her little flash of paranoia had cost her a good throwing dagger.

“I thought it was something more dangerous than a blasted bird,” Alias said, rejoining the group. “I thought it was calling my name.” Then she laughed, one of the first deep-hearted laughs she’d permitted herself in gods knew how long.

“It was only a robberwing,” the mage said, surprised by her reaction. “They’re quite common on the southern shores of the Inner Sea. I thought they were well-known in the north, too. They take shiny objects on occasion, but otherwise they’re harmless.”

“In Waterdeep,” chimed in the halfling, “a corrupt lord trained a flock of robberwings to steal for him.”

“Natives of Waterdeep,” replied the mage, “have all sorts of odd ways to pass the time … when they aren’t counting their money.”

“Robberwings are considered an ill omen in Thay,” Olive added.

Dragonbait hissed again. His dead, yellow eyes glared at the cliff where the raven had disappeared.

Alias’s laughter subsided. “It’s all right, Dragonbait,” she said, patting him on the back. “I know it was just a raven.’ She turned to the others. “It’s just that I was expecting … a dragon. Or a harpy. Or at least a nest of blood-sucking stirges. I feel a little foolish at having lost a weapon to … just a bird.”

“A lost weapon’s like a lost meal,” said the halfling, wheeling around on her pony. “Replaceable, but you have to know where to look. Speaking of which, are we going to sit here until dark or press on to this marvelous inn of yours?”

“We press on,” Alias said.

“Thank heavens,” the bard said, kicking her pony past Akabar’s stallion. “Great adventure can wait. Hark, I hear something calling my name, too.” She held her hand up to her ear. “It’s a warm bed and something else … a hot meal, one not spiced to within an inch of my life.”

Ruskettle peeked out from under her wide-brimmed hat to catch Akabar’s reaction, but his face remained impassive. Five nights before, Olive had complained about the mage’s cooking and announced that, if Akabar didn’t go easier on the pepper, she’d be forced to take a hand in the cooking herself. Since then, she had continued to complain about the spicing, but had yet to lift a finger to help prepare meals.

The halfling set her pony in a trot. Akabar followed, looking regal on his white mount. Dragonbait waited for Alias to pass him, then brought up the rear, still watching the cliff-side warily.

“Don’t worry,” Alias told him. “I can get another dagger when we reach Shadowdale.”

Dragonbait did not look away from the cliffs for a long time.

Olive’s dreams of a warm bed and a less-seasoned meal were shattered when they topped the last set of switchbacks. Instead of a charming house and a warm, welcoming cup of mulled wine, they found the remains of a great hall, its massive timbers blackened by flame, its stone floor littered with slate from the collapsed roof.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Olive snapped angrily. “This place has gone downhill somewhat since you last visited it.”

“Obviously, the clientele has changed,” Akabar said dryly, gingerly poking his foot through the rubble. He, too, had been looking forward to a comfortable bed.

“Nine circles of Hell,” Alias muttered. Above the shattered roof, the last rays of the evening sun were playing against the eastern cliff, turning it as red as blood.

“There are no bodies,” Akabar pointed out, “and the fire damage looks several months old, so I don’t think there can be much danger. As to comforts, there’s still some roof left in that corner and the firepit is serviceable. Shall we stay or ride on?”

Alias sighed. “We may as well stay.”

Inwardly, she was thankful for the mage’s calm assessment. She had been looking forward to collapsing in the inn, and her disappointed muscles revolted at the thought of riding any farther.

Akabar nodded. “Stay it is.”

“I say we should go,” Olive objected vehemently. “There’s still daylight left, and we can be a few miles beyond this place when whatever did this comes back.”

“As I said—this damage occurred some time ago,” the mage argued.

“Increasing the likelihood that whatever caused it will return,” retorted the bard.

“There are no bodies,” Akabar insisted.

“That’s even worse,” Olive cried, her voice growing shrill. “It just proves that whatever did this burns or swallows people whole, probably vomiting up their bones in its lair. Look!” Ruskettle lifted up a very large, heavy, two-handed sword. “Not even the owner of this sword could defend himself.” She dropped the blade in disgust.

“Or—” Alias interrupted, “—or it proves that this was just an ordinary fire—an accident—and everyone got out in time or other humans buried the corpses. Try not to overreact, Olive.”

“Me?” Olive squeaked. “You’re the one who tried to skewer a robberwing for calling out your name. If it were just an ordinary fire, why didn’t they rebuild the inn? Why isn’t anyone using the pass?”

Alias shrugged. “They’d have to import the building materials, and that would take a few months. I’m sure we simply went through the pass on a slow day.” She knew her last comment was improbable, but she also knew she’d feel foolish giving in to the halfling’s anxieties.

“Ha! This is just the kind of place you tell children about to keep them from straying into the woods.”

Alias reached under her stallion to unbuckle the saddle straps. “Well, Olive,” she said, lifting the saddle from her horse, “just be sure you don’t stray too far, then.”

Olive growled in frustration and left to tend to her pony.

Dragonbait, who was snuffling over a pile of timbers, snarled once.

“See!” Olive turned excitedly. “Even Dragonbait votes we should go.”

Alias laughed. “He’s more likely snarling at a garden spider. Besides, Dragonbait doesn’t get a vote. He can’t talk. He barely understands what we’re saying.”

“He understands well enough when it really matters,” Olive muttered.

“Pardon?”

“I said, we could be halfway down the gap, away from this place before night fell.”

“Then we’d have to eat a cold supper,” the mage teased.

That was food for thought to the halfling. In the end, she decided safety was more important than comfort. “It wouldn’t matter, you’d only add too much spice anyway.”

“Perhaps you should show me how to do it properly.”

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of the joy of figuring it out for yourself,” Olive replied. “Besides, I have a more important job this evening.” She drew out a set of pasteboard cards from a jacket pocket.

“Oh? And what job is that?” Alias asked with a smile.

“Teaching your lizard to vote,” the halfling announced, grabbing Dragonbait firmly by the arm and hustling him to a far corner of the ruins.

“You keep an eye on Olive, Dragonbait,” Alias called. “Don’t let her wander into the woods.”

Akabar started the fire, using pieces of charred wood from the inn. The mage struck a spark off his flint onto some wool and soon had a small blaze going. Alias squatted on her haunches and blew into the flames, spreading them among the drier tinder until the heavier kindling caught.

Akabar pulled out a pan, some cooking utensils, and a package of meat from a saddle bag. “Lamb, I think.” Carving the meat into strips, he added, “We’re going to have to start hunting soon.”

“I know,” Alias sighed, staring into the flames. “If I hadn’t been such a frightened ninny and had hit that bird square on, I’d still have my dagger and we’d be eating fresh meat tonight.”

“Your aim can’t always be perfect,” he said.

“Why not?”

The mage laughed. He poured a splash of oil into the cooking pan and balanced it on two large logs which straddled the fire. “You’re only human.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Why is perfection so important?” he asked her.

“Why is being alive important?” she returned. “One miss too many and I could end up someone else’s supper.”

“You lead a hard life.”

“It’s worth it,” the swordswoman insisted.

“Why?”

Alias shrugged. “The feeling of being free, I guess.”

“Free of needing others?”

Alias did not reply. She fished a brush from her saddle bag and walked over to where Lady Killer stood munching the stiff mountain grass.

The mage smiled as he watched her grooming the purebred stallion. If she took that brush to her own hair, he thought, she would look as well bred. Akabar believed he understood why she spent her affection on the horse. The creature would never betray her, it didn’t really need her, and it didn’t ask questions. Rather like her other companion, the lizard.

He shook off the pity he felt for her, knowing that if she saw it, she would go for his throat. The oil in the pan spat, and the mage added the strips of lamb.

The mountain air was chill. Before long, Alias returned to the fire to warm her hands.

“Do you think a dragon may have caused this damage?” Akabar asked. The thought had been preying on his mind, but he had not wanted to appear nervous.

“No,” Alias replied. “A dragon wouldn’t leave things so neat. It’d burrow through the stones on the floor, looking for treasure. The damage was probably caused by an ordinary fire. Unless two mages decided to fight it out here with heavy magic.”

“I was just wondering,” the mage explained as he covered a pan of boiling broth and millet, “because you said Mist had ravens as familiars. This is the height of the trading season. It is unusual, is it not, for this route to be so deserted?”

“Yes,” Alias admitted. “But it might have nothing to do with the inn’s destruction. Trade routes go out of fashion for other reasons than monsters. Sometimes it’s just the rumor of monsters, put out by secret societies to discourage competition. Wars. Too little grain to trade. Import taxes and tolls. You know more about trading. What do you think?”

“I think something is wrong, but it may or may not concern … us.”

“You mean me, of course. And my affliction.”

“Have there been any problems?” the mage asked.

“Not since the wedding.”

Alias watched as Akabar lifted the lid from the pan and crushed a fistful of dried peppers over the steaming grain, letting most of it settle in a quarter of the pan.

“I take it that’s Olive’s portion,” Alias noted, smiling.

The mage grinned fiendishly. “The vengeance of wizards and cooks can be subtle but terrible. Each day I add another quarter fistful. Eventually Mistress Ruskettle will help prepare a meal, or her tongue will fall out of her head.”

“More likely, you’ll run out of spices.”

Akabar chuckled.

Alias looked over to the far corner of the ruined inn, where Olive sat cross-legged before Dragonbait. The bard held a card in front of the lizard and said something Alias could not hear. Dragonbait looked at the card with a deadpan stare, then abruptly plucked it out of her hand and started to nibble on the edge.

“The halfling has less chance for success than a fat school priest trying to convert kobolds,” Alias said with a smirk.

“You remind me of my younger wife. What she cannot see, she will not believe. When I return, she’ll sit and count the money I bring home, but she’ll laugh in disbelief at the wondrous things I tell her about the north country.”

“She’ll be laughing pretty hard about this troupe,” Alias predicted.

“Perhaps when you have finished your quest you might accompany me back to Alaghon, where my wives base our business.”

His tone was light, but Alias felt something underlying it, something deeper that he struggled to keep from surfacing, “I hope that wasn’t an invitation to join your little harem, Turmite.” She intended the remark to sound like a sneer, but it became more of a question.

Akabar sighed inwardly; he’d made her shy away again. He forced a smile he did not feel. “The invitation was only for a traveling companion, not a future bedmate. I hoped to prove to my wives that women of the north wield dangerous weapons and travel where they please. You need not fear my desires. Turmish women keep their mates so enraptured with their amorous abilities that foreign women pall by comparison.”

“I see,” Alias replied, looking down into the fire to keep her grin from showing.

“Besides,” continued Akabar, “as I’ve explained once, they have veto power over co-wives. They would never approve of you joining the family. You’re much too hot-tempered, and my older wife is offended by the smell of damp wool.”

Alias laughed and threw the horse brush at him. “You smell like damp wool, too, Turmite.” She gave a tug on his cloak.

Akabar shrugged. “Yes, but my wives cannot veto me.”

Olive and Dragonbait joined them at the fireside, the only warmth and light for miles now that the sun had set. The lizard carried wood for the fire. The bard was all smiles.

“I’ve done it,” Olive declared.

“Done what?” Akabar asked, tasting his concoction.

“Taught Dragonbait to speak to us,” the bard said. Fixing Alias with a reproachful stare, she added, “It’s surprising no one thought of it before.”

“So, let’s hear what he says,” Alias said, holding out a piece of flat trailbread for Akabar to spread with the meat and grain mixture.

“It doesn’t work like that,” the bard explained. She pulled out a deck of Talis cards from her pocket. “He doesn’t speak any tongue I recognize, but he can understand us. Watch.” Ruskettle leafed through the cards, pulling out two.

“The Holed Plate, Primary of Stones, means yes,” Olive said. “The Flaming Dagger, no. He picked that one himself.”

“I wonder why,” Alias smirked.

“I ask him a question and he can give the answer. Watch.” She turned back to the creature and, smiling like a maiden aunt, Alias thought, she asked, “Dragonbait, are you a lizard?”

The lizard-creature held up the Holed Plate indicating yes.

“Are you hungry?” Olive asked in the same cheerful tone.

Dragonbait held up the same card. Another yes.

“Should we stay in this haunted place?” Olive demanded, suddenly stern, pointing to the burned rafters.

Dragonbait lifted the Flaming Dagger card.

Olive turned back to face the swordswoman and mage. “You see. You’ve held this poor creature, virtually as a bondservant, for weeks now without even trying to communicate with him. I reached his mind in a single session.” Olive shook her head sadly. “I wonder why you humans are running the world at all.”

Alias studied Dragonbait curiously. She had tried to communicate with him back at The Hidden Lady without success. Why did I give up so soon? she wondered, but she knew the answer to that. Dragonbait seemed to understand what she wanted without her even having to ask, and besides, he’d offered her his sword, which made her his leader. Still … is it possible that I didn’t want to know anything he could tell me? She felt more than a little annoyed with herself.

Akabar polished off his supper and licked his fingers. “Congratulations,” he said to Olive, handing her a folded meat and millet sandwich filled from the far side of the skillet. “May I try?”

“Of course,” the halfling replied, relinquishing her seat beside the lizard. “Answers told, mysteries revealed.”

Akabar sat in front of the lizard, frowning in deep concentration. “Dragonbait,” he asked, “can you understand me?”

The lizard held up the Flaming Dagger. No.

“Well,” the mage said, “at least he’s honest.” With a smile he asked, “Is the halfling a perfect fool?”

Dragonbait lifted up the Holed Plate. Yes.

Alias giggled.

Akabar screwed his face into a scowl. “Would you mind very much if we threw her on the fire for kindling?”

The Flaming Dagger. No.

Akabar burst into laughter. “Idiot bard! You’ve trained him to show the yes card when you smile and the no card when you frown. He’s a quick study, but there are trained monkeys in Calisham who know that trick. Now, eat your dinner before it gets cold.” He and Alias turned back to the pan for second helpings.

“The way you spice food, it could melt steel for hours,” the halfling grumbled. Before she took a bite of the peppery mixture, she glared at Dragonbait, saying, “I bet you’re proud of yourself, lizard.”

Dragonbait held up the Holed Plate, cocked his head at the halfling, and a strange clicking sound came through his stubby teeth. Olive felt certain he was laughing at her.