Azure Bonds

25 Alias’s Escape

While Alias’s companions chased Moander over the Elven Wood, through the magical gate, and above the countryside surrounding Westgate, the swordswoman lay still in her dark cocoon. The cushioning about her did little to reassure her. Blood rushed in her ears as her prison rocked and swayed, spun, and finally turned over and over.

Alias’s nostrils flared. The mossy smell of her prison blended with the scent of swamp gas. She gagged and coughed, but was unable to avoid breathing the noxious vapor. She began to feel weak. Perhaps Moander did not realize the gas would damage her. Perhaps it would kill her by accident and the other “masters” would not be able to resurrect her.

That idea brought a peculiar comfort to the warrior woman. Her isolation had accomplished what Moander’s words had failed to do. Alias despaired. She’d caused the death of her friends. Her only real friends, as far as she knew, since her relationship with the Swanmays and the Black Hawks had been nothing but imaginary stories given her by her makers. She wasn’t even human, had never had a mother, was non-born. And soon she would be nothing but a trinket for evil forces to fight and intrigue over. She would become their unknowing puppet, forced into actions she had not chosen—a mockery of life, like a skeleton or golem. Better to die, she decided without feeling, her heart numb.

She wondered, though, whether there would be an afterlife for the likes of her. In the dark cocoon, she whispered, “Do I even have a soul?” She sighed. “What difference does it make?”

What difference does it make? she wondered. I’m alive. I enjoy being alive. She relished the satisfaction she’d felt when she’d defeated an enemy in combat, the contentment that settled about her when she sang, the camaraderie she’d shared with Dragonbait and the others. She’d made her own friends, real friends. She’d proven herself an adventuress, even if she was only a month old. And somehow, she had found the will to deny her would-be masters.

“Even if it isn’t a natural one, I have a life of my own,” she announced to the darkness—and to herself.

Heartened by her declaration, a new determination to live sprang up in Alias, coupled with an assurance that she would somehow defeat everyone who had branded her and reassert her free will.

“Moander!” she shouted uncertainly, not knowing if the god could hear her. “Moander!” she hollered louder. “You’re killing me! I can’t breathe! You have to let me out of here!”

Her prison made one more gut-wrenching turn. Her ears popped. Then the foul air in her lungs was driven out by a sudden impact against the bottom of her cocoon.

Her bindings were torn. She blinked in the sunlight. The air was fresh and warm. Half a dozen hands reached down to pull her from the moist, silky mass that entangled her. Despite her wooziness, Alias spotted the tattoos inscribed in all their palms: mouths full of jagged teeth.

Dizzy from her travel, her muscles atrophied from her imprisonment, and still weak from the effects of the gas, Alias could not resist as the people pulled her to her feet, no doubt prepared to transfer her to another prison, more conventional perhaps, yet equally inescapable.

Alias looked around. She stood by a bonfire in the center of a circle of giant, inwardly curved fangs carved of red stone. Around her were two dozen men and women, their faces hidden in the cowls of their robes. Their leader wore a mask of white with a single eye painted in the forehead and surrounded by teeth. A priest of Moander.

Alias gulped in deep breaths of air to fight her nausea and dizziness, though she did not know why she bothered. Even if she managed to escape from Moander’s minions, she would still be a puppet. One of the minions snapped a band of metal around her sword arm. The band was attached to a long chain of cold iron.

Her legs gave way beneath her, and she sank to her knees on the dusty hilltop. They would drag her off to her other masters, and she hadn’t the strength or the will to resist.

But instead, everyone ignored her. Their attention was fixed on the sky. Mutters passed through the crowd, then cheers.

Alias looked up with everyone else. At first, she did not understand what she saw. Moander, the oozing god, bobbed in the sky, a great, swollen balloon with jaws. Trapped in its tendrils was a red dragon. The beast flapped its wings vainly, but could not resist being drawn into the god’s maw. The pair of monsters twisted and turned in the sky above a great walled city. The sea lay beyond them. “Westgate,” Alias whispered.

Suddenly, Alias knew that the red dragon was Mist. The Abomination had not killed her. As a matter of fact, she looked bigger than ever beside Moander.

Alias’s captors began chanting a prayer for their god’s victory, though some less pious or more excitable, continued cheering as though they were watching two warriors wrestle in an arena.

Alias felt like cheering as well, though not exactly for the dragon. If Mist were still alive, the warrior woman realized, then so might Dragonbait, Akabar, and Olive be. Moander’s failure to mention the dragon’s survival gave Alias reason to suspect he had lied about her friends.

Fury and hope surged within her and gave her strength. She assessed the lanky man holding her chain. He was armed with a cudgel dotted with crude shards of crystal. She was weaponless. But they made me a weapon, she thought. She drew her feet up beneath her knees, remaining crouched near the ground, her eyes fixed on her guard, waiting for an opportunity to attack.

The man’s body shielded her vision from the brilliant explosion that threw the landscape into highlights of white contrasted against shadows of the deepest black. Alias stood up, but was immediately knocked to the ground by a powerful, booming wind. All her captors fell as well, thrown like rag dolls by the wind that ripped over the top of the hill.

A sudden pain shot up Alias’s sword arm, as though the cold iron that bound it had suddenly turned red hot. She ignored the ache and the burning star in the sky. Taking advantage of her guard’s fall, she pulled the iron chain from his numb fingers. The man lay staring sightlessly at her, blinded by the death of his deity. Rising to her feet, she gave him a kick, knocking him out. Then she stole the sharded cudgel from his other hand.

Moander’s minions went to pieces. Some stared blindly at the sky like statues, while many flung themselves on the ground and wept. Alias shot a glance skyward in time to see the last bits of Moander drift down over the city. A fell grin crept over her face. She spat good riddance to the god.

She slipped toward the far side of the hillock, but the priest in the white mask rushed forward to intercept her. He caught a cudgel in the face. Blood spattered from beneath the mask. The priest dropped to the ground.

Alias slid down the hill on the wet, slippery grass. At the bottom, she circled the mound and began to make for the road that led to the city gates.

No pursuit seemed imminent from Moander’s worshipers, but Alias was sure that her respite was only temporary. If they did not hold her responsible for the destruction of their masters earthly form, they would still consider her part of their property. And without the power of their god behind them, they would fight for any scrap left to them.

Tired of carrying the weight of the chain, Alias held her arm forward to inspect the lock on the band. Perhaps she could smash or pick it open somehow. She smiled with glee as she spotted the cause of the earlier pain on her arm.

Moander’s sigil was gone.

Just as Moander claimed, death destroyed the bond each master had on her. For Moander, that meant his material body in the Realms.

Death had cut the connection. But could she defeat the other four? Should she? She remembered Moander’s threat that without the purpose of her masters she would not live. If she eliminated the rest, could she function without someone pulling her strings? She didn’t feel lessened any by Moander’s death. Her heart felt lighter, but she most certainly was not lost without his godly guidance.

A man’s voice interrupted her thoughts. The sound came from the plain stretched out before her.

“Now, Daisyeye,” the man’s voice said, “you’ve been a very naughty girl, though I was afraid, too, the first time I met a dragon.”

A wizard addressing his familiar, perhaps, Alias guessed. Cautiously, he crept closer.

“But, you have nothing to worry about, even if that dragon was Mist. The nasty old beast is dead.”

With a start, Alias recognized the gold, green, and black markings stitched onto the back of the man’s cloak. The coat-of-arms of the Wyvernspurs. And the voice was familiar, though its tone was somewhat braver than it had been the last time she’d heard it. This was too great a coincidence. Yet, she could not be mistaken. It was the same voice that had desperately tried to excuse its faux pas of imitating Azoun IV. His name came easily to her memory, as though it were engraved there by the voice of that nagging woman who’d begged him to do the impersonation.

“Giogi?” Alias remembered, whispering the name aloud.

Giogi Wyvernspur leaped three feet, spinning around as he did so. A silver flask flew from his hand, and amber liquid arched through the air.

“You!” he gasped. “The madwoman! I mean, the bard’s friend!” He dived behind his horse. “What are you doing here?”

“Just dropped in to borrow your horse,” Alias replied with a grin. She advanced carefully, looking to each side to make sure the young noble was alone.

“My …” the young man’s throat went dry, “horse?”

Alias nodded and swung the chain manacled to her arm. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No! I mean, no problem. You probably have a good reason that I don’t need to know. Honest!”

“Don’t fret,” said Alias. “I’m not dangerous, just in a hurry to get into the city.” She patted the skittish Daisyeye’s front haunch and slipped her foot into the stirrup. “Just out of curiosity, what brings you to Westgate?”

“Diplomatic mission,” the Cormyrian noble lied. “Nothing important. Just trade agreements. That sort of thing.”

The warrior woman swung herself into the saddle. “You want your gear?” she asked.

“No!” Giogi answered. “I mean, no thanks. If you’re heading to Westgate, maybe you could … uh … drop off my things. At The Jolly Warrior. Just let me get …” He summoned all his courage to approach, then fumbled in a saddlebag. Pulling out a large, official-looking document bearing the purple dragon of Cormyr, he stepped back. “There,” he said. “All yours.”

Alias looked down at him. He wasn’t really dressed for hiking. “You know,” she said with a smile, trying to show no ill will, “two can ride as well on a horse as one.”

Giogi gulped. “No. I mean … that is, you said you were in a hurry, and I need the exercise, anyway.”

“As you wish.” She couldn’t blame him. “I’ll drop your gear at The Jolly Warrior. I’ll even make sure I don’t stay there. Oh, and Giogi, thanks. I’ll make it up to you when I get the chance.” With that, she wheeled the horse around and set it trotting toward the road.

Giogi frowned after her. He’d come here at Azoun’s request for the express purpose of finding her, but he’d panicked when actually confronted with her presence. Now I’ll probably never see her again, he thought. Or poor Daisyeye.

He sighed and cursed his bad luck. Giogi began walking, head down, kicking stones, and talking to himself.

“Yes, I’ll let you ride with me, provided you behave. If you don’t, I shall be very cross. That’s what I should have said.”

He kicked a particularly large rock, which glittered as it danced away. Curious, he chased after it. When it had stopped rolling, he lifted the great yellow gem out of the high grass and marveled at it. Maybe his luck was changing, he thought.