Azure Bonds

1 The Hidden Lady

She woke to the noise of dogs—two distinct barkings beneath her open inn window. A high-pitched yip confronted a deep, throaty growl. Alias lay on the tan-stained cotton sheets and pictured a long-haired puppy cast out from its wealthy owner’s household; fending off some huge boxer or Vassan wolfhound.

As with men and other savage races, the show of force was as important to the dogs as force itself. The yipping canine was overmatched, yet its barking went on for what seemed to Alias an eternity. Finally, the dog with the deeper growl reached the end of its patience and snarled savagely. The sound of toppling trash brought Alias fully awake.

She opened her eyes, listening for a dying squeal from the smaller dog, but surprisingly the next thing she heard was a series of deep yelps from the large dog. The sound faded away as the large dog fled from the window.

Alias threw off the light blanket and swung her feet to the floor. She rose and immediately regretted it. Her head felt as though molten lead had been poured behind her eyes, and her mouth was as dry as the sands of Anauroch.

She blinked in the reddish light. Is it dawn or twilight? she wondered. Pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes, she yawned. Through the open window, the sea breezes from the Lake of Dragons wafted into the room, along with the far-off cries of fishermen returning with their catch.

Twilight, then, she decided. She shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs. Must have slept through the day, she thought. When did I get here? For that matter, where’s here? And what was I doing before I came here?

Alias snorted derisively. What she’d been doing was obvious. This wasn’t the first time she’d awakened in a strange place after a drunken celebration.

Nonetheless, her surroundings seemed familiar. The inn was built in the same fashion as a hundred others at this end of the Sea of Fallen Stars, and her room held the typical trappings: a bed cobbled together of a mixed pile of wood, topped with a straw tick and sheets that hadn’t been aggressively washed in months; a small second-hand dressing table; a single straight-backed chair draped with her armor and clothing; a small rag rug at the foot of the bed; a brass oil lamp chained to the table; a chamber pot; and a single door. The window, inset with colorless circles of crown glass that let in the light of the setting sun, opened inward on side hinges that creaked lightly in the breeze.

Alias got out of bed and padded barefoot to the chair. She furrowed her brows, trying to remember the last few days. There was a sailing trip. Something went wrong and I had to get out of a seaport quickly, she thought.

Random images of lizard men, shadowy swordsmen, and magic-users blurred in her memory. She shrugged. It couldn’t have been too important. I wouldn’t get drunk if there was trouble, she assured herself.

She reached for her tunic and suddenly realized that this was important, that she was in trouble. Serious trouble.

Along the inside of her sword arm, from wrist to elbow, writhed an elaborate tattoo unlike any she had ever seen before. A pattern coiled about five large, distinct symbols was set deep into her flesh, all done in shades of blue.

She held up her arm in the light of the dying sun. The symbols caught the rays and glowed as if they were stained glass lit from behind. She flexed her arm and twisted it back and forth. It wasn’t really a tattoo at all, she realized, noting how her skin rippled across the surface of the massive inscriptions, as though they were buried beneath the surface of her flesh.

Engrossed by the symbols, Alias unconsciously sat on the edge of the bed in the fading light. Afraid the symbols might have some hypnotic quality, she studied them with her fingernails pressed into her palms so the pain would distract her from whatever power they might try to exert over her.

The first symbol, at the bend of her arm, was a dagger surrounded by blue fire. The tip of the dagger rested on the second symbol, a trio of interlocking circles. Beneath this was a dot and a squiggle which reminded Alias of an insect’s leg. The leg danced above the fourth symbol—an azure hand with a fanged mouth in the center of its palm. The last symbol consisted of three concentric circles, each a more intense blue, so that the centermost circle was the white-blue of a lightning strike and almost unbearable to look at. At the base of her wrist the pattern wound about an empty space, as if a sixth symbol was yet to be added.

Alias cursed, rattling off the names of as many gods as she could immediately think of. When neither Tymora nor Waukeen nor any of the others manifested themselves, she sighed and reached for her gear. She considered bolting out of the room, sword in hand, prepared to smite anyone she could hold responsible. She also considered dropping to her knees and praying for a divine revelation of what she had done to deserve this. Neither action was likely to do her any good, so she settled for getting dressed.

Alias tugged her tunic over her head and stepped into her leather leggings. She frowned at the clothing. Why are these so stiff? I bought them over a year ago. They should be broken in by now. Unless they’re replacements, she mused. There was no mistaking the newness of this set of clothing—it even smelled new.

But I don’t remember buying any new clothes recently. Is this a spare set I shoved into the bottom of my pack and forgot? she wondered. She looked around for her pack, but it wasn’t among her belongings. It might have been stolen, she realized, but then it was equally likely she lost it or even hocked it.

She slipped her shirt of light chain over her head, but decided against attaching the breast, shoulder, arm, and knee plates. She felt a rocking sensation in the pit of her stomach. I know there was a sea trip. Did I get this … tattoo before I sailed or after I arrived?

She pulled on her hard-soled boots. The soft leather uppers reached nearly to her knees. She checked for her daggers. Each boot pocket held a slender, balanced wedge of silvered steel. All that remained on the chair was her plate mail and her cloak. Her fire-scorched longsword and the eagle-shaped barrette she used to keep her hair in place lay on the dresser. Worse than her missing pack, there was no money among her belongings, but she was still too concerned about the tattoo to worry about money.

This memory loss and tattoo may be nothing, she tried to tell herself as she reached for the barrette. Holding the silver clasp in her teeth she wound up her long reddish hair and bound it to the back of her head with the barrette. She remembered Ikanamon the Gray Mage telling her about the time he got so drunk and obnoxious that his fellow party members had a vulgar scene involving centaurs tattooed on his backside. Maybe this is just a prank, too, she reassured herself. A clerical cure will get rid of it for me.

The small hairs on the back of her neck rose, and Alias realized that she was being watched. Turning slowly toward the window, she locked gazes with a reptilian creature peering in at her from the alley.

Looking like a cross between a lizard and a troglodyte, the beast’s head just reached above the level of the windowsill. His snout was thinner and more refined than the lizard men Alias had fought before, and he had a huge fin which began just between his eyes and continued over the top of his skull. He had no lips, only sharp, disjointed teeth, and his eyes were the yellow of dead things. In his claws he held the smaller of the two dogs Alias had heard earlier. The puppy, unharmed, had short, white hair, not long as Alias had imagined. Both creatures watched her with an intense curiosity, the lizard still as stone, the puppy wagging its tail, with its pink tongue lolling stupidly out of one side of its mouth.

Alias reacted instantly with the practiced grace of an experienced adventuress. She drew one of the daggers from her boot and, with a flick of her tattooed wrist, shot it at her observer. The creature pitched backward without a sound, but the dog fell into the room with a frightened yip. The dagger sank half an inch into the oak window frame.

Grasping her flame-seared sword, Alias flung herself across the room in one fluid motion. When she reached the window, however, the creature was gone and the alleyway empty. The short-haired dog yipped at her feet, rising on its hind legs and placing its front paws halfway up her boots.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about this?” she asked the dog. The puppy merely wagged its tail and whimpered.

Alias picked up the small creature, petted it briefly, then dropped it outside the window. The beast barked at her a few times, then began sniffing the rubbish.

“The lady has risen from the dead!” shouted the barkeep in a merry voice as Alias entered the common room. She did not know this particular barkeep, but knew others just like him who ran inns from the Living City to Waterdeep. He was a loud, boisterous man, full of “hail-fellow-well-met” attitudes, favoring adventurers in his trade because the additional gold they usually carried made up for the damage their barroom arguments caused.

A few heads turned to look at her, but there were no familiar faces among them. Alias had decided to wear her armor plate after all. She looked more suited for battle than for a few drinks, but many of the merchants, mercenaries, and townsfolk were similarly armed and armored, so she fit in. Like most of those in the room, Alias wore her weapon at her side. Like all of those doing so, she had the blade’s grip tied to its sheath by white cord, fashioned in “peace knot.”

She took a table near an interior wall, away from any windows, where she could keep an eye on both doors to the common area, and the barkeep as well. He was a portly, balding man, obviously guilty of sampling his own stock. He took her attention as a request for service, and after a few obligatory passes with a rag over the bar, he filled a large mug from the tap and brought it over to her table. Foam ran down the mug’s sides, and beads of water condensed where the rivulets did not run.

“Hair o’ the dog what bit you?” offered the barkeep.

“On the house?” asked Alias.

“On the bill,” the barkeep replied. “I like to keep things on a cash-and-carry basis. Don’t worry, you’re still covered.”

For the moment Alias was more interested in the blank spaces in her memory than in who was covering her tab. “I was here last night?” she asked.

“Yes, lady.”

“Doing?” Alias raised an eyebrow.

“Why, sleeping it off. And it must have been a Hades-raising drunk indeed, for it is the seventh day o’ Mirtul.” When Alias stared at him blankly, he explained, “You been here since the evening o’ the fourth, done nothing but sleep the whole while.”

“Did I come alone?”

“Yes. Well, maybe not. May I?” He pointed to the empty seat at the table. Alias nodded, and he lowered his ponderous weight into the chair, which groaned under the load.

“One o’ my regulars, Mitcher Trollslayer,” he continued, “stumbled over you that evening after the last call. You wuz laid out on my front stoop like a sacrifice to Bane.”

The barkeep drew the circle of Tymora on his chest to ward off any trouble uttering the evil name might bring. “Anyway, there you wuz with this sack o’ money alongside. I put you up, using the money in the sack to cover your tab. Here it is, too, with only the cost o’ the room deducted.” From his apron pocket he fished out a small satin sack. “Doesn’t count the beer, o’ course.”

Alias shook the contents from the sack. A small, greenish gem, a couple of Lantan trade bars, some Waterdeep coinage, and a scattering of Cormyrian coins. She shoved a silver falcon at the barkeep. “I don’t remember coming here. Someone must have left me. Did you see anyone?”

“I figgered you must have been carousing with a bunch o’ mates who, when the effects caught up with you, left you on my doorstep with enough cash to guarantee your comfort. No one told us about you until Mitcher found you on his way out. You wuz alone.”

Alias looked at the mug as the foam on top diminished to reveal a watery amber liquid. It smelled worse than the rubbish outside. “Why wouldn’t my ‘mates’ bring me inside?” she asked.

The barkeep shrugged. The mates-leaving-the-lady-on-the-doorstep theory was apparently his favorite, and it was obvious that he had been telling and retelling it over the past few evenings. He was reluctant to change what seemed to him a concise and well-rounded tale.

“No one has asked after me?” Alias pressed.

“Not a one, lady. Perhaps they forgot about you.”

“Perhaps. No lizards?”

The barkeep sniffed. “We keep the premises clean. We wuz waiting for you to wake before cleaning your room.”

Alias raised a hand. “No lizard-creatures, then? Something that looks like a lizard-creature?”

The barkeep shrugged again. “Perhaps the last brew you had haunted you some. You recall what you wuz drinking?”

“I recall precious little, I fear. I don’t even know what town I’m in.”

“No mere town, but the gem of Cormyr, the finest city o’ the Forest Country. You are in Suzail, lady, home o’ His Most Serene and Wise Majesty, Azoun IV.”

Alias had a mental map in her head of the region. Cormyr was a growing nation, sitting astride the trade routes from the Sword Coast to the Inner Sea. The name of its ruler struck a responsive chord. Is he a friend? An enemy? Why can’t I remember things?

“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 from 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.