Azure Bonds

27 Alias’s Masters

When Alias awoke, 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 dim candlelight that illuminated her room, a room in an inn like a hundred others at this end of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

A moment of panic seized her. Was she being forced by the gods to relive all her mistakes as some sort of punishment? No. This was not The Hidden Lady, nor any other place she’d ever been.

She found herself placed on a bed with her arms folded like the dead. She was not alone. Dragonbait had been unceremoniously dumped at the foot of the bed and was sprawled out on his stomach. Akabar had been propped up in an overstuffed chair across from the bed, his hands manacled by thick bands of cold iron to contain his magical ability. She and the mage were still wrapped in blankets, but Dragonbait was naked, like an animal.

Alias slid to the floor and knelt beside the saurial. He was still breathing. She sighed with relief, and tears welled in her eyes. The poison on the assassins’ blades hadn’t been deadly. Horrid red and violet bruises speckled the green scales along his legs and torso. Why had they been so vicious with him? she cried inwardly. She tugged the coverlet off the bed and draped it over him, then shook his shoulder gently. He did not stir.

They’d been much kinder to Akabar. His shoulder had been snapped back into place, though it still looked bruised and tender. A soft touch brought him fully awake. He took in her concerned features, Dragonbait’s body, the room around him, all with a quick glance.

“What happened?”

“We lost,” she replied. “They swept us up like dirt in no time at all.”

The mage frowned. He tried to stand up, but something had drained away all his energy. He flopped back into the chair, clanking his chains. Pain radiated from his shoulder. He sucked in air, trying not to cry out.

“It looks like we’ll be with you through the bitter end, whether you want us or not.”

The despair in his voice twisted Alias’s heart. Stubbornly, she tried to renew his hope. “We’re not all captured yet,” she pointed out, pacing the room. “Olive is still at large. We’ve gotten out of worse.”

Alias tried the door. The knob did not turn, and an experimental slam with her shoulder indicated that it was barred on the far side, as well as locked. The window was not constructed to be opened and, being made of crown glass set in a lead frame, could not be smashed out. The circles of glass would have let in light, but it was dark outside. The prisoners had no clues as to their whereabouts.

Alias bit her lip and stood in the center of the room, wracking her brain for some way out. There was no chimney, the walls were brick, the floor and ceiling solid oak.

Akabar rose shakily from the chair and staggered over to Dragonbait. He tried to wake him first with gentle shakes and then, in frustration, with more violent ones. Akabar looked at Alias and shook his head.

“Okay, masters,” Alias said. “It’s your move.”

Her words received an immediate reaction. A portion of the wall near the door became misty, then translucent, and finally transparent. Alias reached out and touched it. It was firm and cool, like glass in the autumn. Taking a gamble, she slammed into the clearing wall with her shoulder, hoping to break through. The wall may have looked like glass, but it still felt like bricks. Alias rubbed her aching shoulder.

Cruel laughter came from beyond the wall, and Alias caught sight of Cassana seated on a raised throne on the other side of the transparent barrier. It distressed Alias that the witch’s features were so similar to her own. Will I look like that, sound like that, be like that, in a few years’ time? the swordswoman wondered. She tore her thoughts away and concentrated on the two other figures beyond the wall.

A male halfling in a flashy yellow taffeta costume sat at Cassana’s feet, playing with a wicked-looking knife. There was something bizarre about his eyes—they had no whites around the irises, yet the pupils looked white. The halfling smiled far too broadly, reminding Alias of the kalmari.

A skeletal figure in a brown cloak stood beside the throne, leaning on a twisted staff. His face was hidden beneath the hood of his cloak.

“Hello, Puppet,” Cassana greeted her. She was dressed in a rich, flowing gown, worn off one shoulder. The white cloth glittered in the candlelight like woven diamonds. A band of matching material circled her brow, holding her auburn hair in place. She turned the slim, blue wand over and over in her hands.

Alias’s spine stiffened at the sorceress’s address. The voice was so familiar, but not because it was her own. Alias recognized the harsh, bitter tones. She had listened to the voice before, and she had hated it then as she did now.

An old, lost memory surfaced. She was rising out of a pool of silver streaked with crimson. Cassana stood over her with that wand, laughing in low, rich tones—the laughter of a vain woman, delighted to see herself replicated.

Alias bared her teeth in a tight smile. “Hello, Cassana. Or should I call you Mother?”

Akabar now stood beside the swordswoman, his jaw slack, amazed at the resemblance Alias bore to the sorceress.

Cassana gave a guttural laugh and shattered her illusion of being an older Alias. Such a laugh could never come from Alias. It was a cruel, heartless laugh, and Alias was neither of those things.

Akabar pointed at the tall form beside the throne. “That’s the one who grabbed me.”

Cassana motioned lazily, and the skeletal figure reached up with age-rotted hands and flipped back the hood of its cloak. Beneath lay a skull covered with translucent, jaundiced flesh stretched like a drum head. Its features consisted of a rictus-grin, a deteriorating nose, and ebony eye sockets in which sharp points of light danced.

“Yesss,” the undead creature hissed. “I reached up and snared you tight, stopping your blood and freezing your muscles.” The creature flexed a skeletal hand, each finger bone sharp as a knife. “Yet you live, petty wizard. But only because the Lady Cassana craves unblemished fruit on occasion.” The undead creature laughed, too—a hoarse, wheezing laugh disturbingly familiar to Akabar. Try as he could, however, the Turmishman could not place it.

Alias did, though. She remembered the laugh in concert with Cassana’s, for this thing had also been present when Alias had been “born.” It had laughed at the swordswoman’s nakedness and helplessness—the same laugh that had emanated from the maw of the crystal elemental summoned by the undead thing.

“Zrie Prakis,” Alias whispered.

“Yes. I believe introductions are called for,” Cassana said, her tone as proper as a society matron’s. “I am Cassana. This male child is called Phalse.” The halfling looked up, and his too-wide smile grew even wider. “And this, as you have guessed, is Zrie Prakis, formerly a mage, now a lich. You’ve already heard, so I understand, of the grand passion he and I shared that nearly ended in a fiery blaze. But I never let go of things that are mine.” She grasped the blue wand tightly to emphasize her point.

“Gentlemen,” she addressed Phalse and Zrie Prakis, “you already know our dear Puppet and the thing on the floor. The handsome mage,” and with that description her eyes seized on the Turmishman like the talons of a hawk about a hare, “is Akabar Bel Akash, powerful in both magic and cooking. Your peppered lamb is notorious even here, Akabar.”

Akabar furrowed his brow in puzzlement.

For a third time Cassana laughed. “Come now, mageling,” she mocked. “Surely you did not expect us all to be as out-of-date and foolish as the moldy old god you so amusingly destroyed? We have followed your journey, at first in bits and pieces, but more steadily since Shadowdale.

“We decided to let you continue on to Yulash and free Moander. Once the Abomination was loosed, it was only a matter of time before the old fool met its fate—humankind has grown much in power since that garbage pile last reigned here. The sooner we got it out of the way, the better. And with its demise we need no longer worry about the bizarre schemes its followers had for you, Puppet.”

Alias wondered if Cassana had any inkling that Moander had planned the same double-cross for her.

“Once Moander dropped you off in our back yard, it was child’s play to track you down and pick you up.”

“You can track me,” Alias said in a flat, emotionless tone.

“Well, to be honest, no. We were too clever by half. You see, your very being is impregnated with a powerful spell of misdirection. You cannot be detected by scrying, nor can anyone who travels with you. Since we did not expect you to slip from our grasp, we never thought the misdirection spell would pose any problem for us. A serious miscalculation on our part. One of many, I’m afraid. But you can’t create art without a few mistakes. The best we can do is correct them in the future.

“Fortunately for us you were intelligent enough to wonder about your brands. Whenever magic is detected on your arm it acts as a beacon to locate you. We relied on our black-leathered allies to capture you in Suzail. Their failure was almost our undoing. But by some stroke of luck you stumbled upon an old haunt of Zrie’s and revealed yourself to us again by displaying the magic content of your brand. But, alas, you were also more than a match for the heavy-handed methods of my love here.”

At this, Zrie Prakis bowed deeply, and Alias could hear the skin stretching and popping over his bones.

“And then, even more luckily, my kalmari spotted you coming through Shadow Gap. It could be no coincidence that you continually alerted us of your whereabouts. I knew you wished to come home to us, Puppet. So we made it easier to keep an eye on you. We contacted one of your followers and planted a tracking device on her. And, as I said before, once you came to Westgate, finding you and defeating you was easy. A halfling’s trick.”

Alias felt as though the chilling fist of a frost giant had closed about her heart. “No,” she whispered.

Phalse motioned to a hidden figure, who edged cautiously into view. She was decked out with the finest robes, glittering imitations of those worn by Cassana. She looked like a little princess, a child-bride from the east. She smiled sheepishly at Akabar and Alias.

Olive Ruskettle.

“Hullo, everyone,” Olive said, nervous sweat beading beneath her headband. “If I’d known you were in trouble—”

“Hush, child,” Cassana interrupted. “You jumped at the opportunity to help us, as any good halfling would.” Cassana smiled at the prisoners. “Gold coins weigh more than friendships. Now, mageling, I’ll give you the same chance that we gave the child here. You’ve been misled by the false charm of this puppet. Forsake the slave and join its masters. I’m sure we can find a use for you.” Prakis put a possessive skeletal hand on Cassana’s bare shoulder, and the sorceress squeezed it affectionately to underscore her point.

The fury building in Akabar’s gut spilled out. “I’d rather roast in the lowest hell—”

Cassana, with an angry frown, muttered something and motioned with her wand. Alias backhanded Akabar in the jaw. Backhanded him hard with all her warrior’s strength.

The mage toppled backward, staring at the swordswoman. Her legs were rigid; her fists clenched and unclenched in sharp, fast spasms. The remaining runes on her arm writhed and glowed. Cassana’s insect-squiggle shone the brightest of all.

“Alias?” Akabar gasped as he rose to his feet.

“One chance is all you get,” Cassana said, “for now. Hit him until he is unconscious, Puppet.” She motioned with the wand again.

Alias spun in place like a sentry and caught Akabar in the belly with her foot. The air rushed from his lungs, and he collapsed. He tried to rise again, but the woman warrior brought both fists down on the back of his neck, knocking him from his knees so he sprawled out on the floor. The mage rolled on his back, trying to ward off the rain of blows and kicks with his chains.

He froze when he caught sight of Alias’s face. Her eyes burned with a wild anger, and tears ran freely down her cheeks.

Gods! Akabar thought, Cassana is doing to her what Moander did to me. She has no control of her actions, and she is even more aware of the evil she does than I was. Pity for the swordswoman overwhelmed him, and he dropped his guard completely.

A kick to his jaw plunged him into a spiraling blackness.

Cassana laughed as her puppet stood poised over the helpless body of the Turmishman. “Look, Zrie,” the sorceress said, “she’s crying. I bet I know who taught her that trick.” With a second wave of the wand, the sorceress returned Alias to unconsciousness. The swordswoman collapsed on top of Akabar.

With a lazy wave of her free hand, Cassana signaled the lich. Zrie Prakis let his spell elapse, and the transparent wall turned back into stone and mortar.

Cassana applauded her little play. Olive sat in shock. Every hair on the back of her neck, no, every hair on her body, had stiffened as she watched the beating. The sorceress slid out of her throne and, beckoning the lich, headed down the hallway. Phalse and Ruskettle fell in behind them, but dropped back to confer in private.

“Did she have to …” Olive let the question dangle.

“She’s a human,” Phalse replied. “Humans tend to be cruel, as we both know.” He paused for several paces, then added, “You know she did that for your benefit, as well as his.”

“Oh?” The bard was certain that beating up mages had never been on her list of entertaining events.

“Sure. She wanted to point out how lucky you are to be joining our little family. Eventually, the mage will get the same message.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Sorceress Cassana is loath to use magic to get her way with a man,” Phalse explained. “But she will use it rather than damage this Akash fellow beyond repair. I think she likes him.”

Olive shuddered inwardly at the thought of what Cassana might have done to Akabar if she hated him.

“She could have made the One kill Akash,” Phalse pointed out, as if reading the halfling’s mind. “But she didn’t.”

Olive felt the return of the nervous sweat beneath her headband. She forced the idea of money, lots of it, to the forward part of her mind. “You all have different names for … for her.”

“The One? Yes, I suppose we do. Another mistake to be corrected. Cassana calls her Puppet. Moander’s priest called her The Servant. The Fire Knives called her Weapon. The lich calls her Little One, as if he were her grandfather or something.”

“Who called her Alias?”

“Not important,” Phalse replied sharply. “Come, there’s much to done.”

They were in a simple, two-story merchant’s house just inside the city wall. The cellar led to underground passages that delved under the wall and surfaced in an abandoned ruin beyond. Upstairs and down were long hallways with rooms jutting off them. The prisoners were being held in one of the upstairs rooms.

Nearing the top of the steps leading down to the first floor, Phalse and Olive heard Cassana’s voice below. She spoke in Thieves’ Cant, which Olive had no trouble translating.

“Grandfather, has the task been carried out?”

“All are cared for, milady,” replied a thick, guttural voice.

“And you will take their place?”

“Aye.”

“Morning, then, we’ll complete the pact.”

The sound of Cassana’s gown swished off in one direction, while the cat-foot patter of the one called “Grandfather” faded away in another. Olive wondered where Prakis had got to. The undead magic-user could move more silently than the most graceful halfling.

Phalse flashed Olive an impish grin. “You understand the Argot?” He took the halfling’s shrug as an admission of ignorance and explained, “He was the leader of the Fire Knives, reporting the death of Moander’s surviving followers—all the ones that did not hurl themselves from tall places at the death of their god. The Fire Knives will take the place of Moander’s minions at dawn when we seal the pact.”

“When you make that final correction to the human woman,” Olive said.

“And when you receive final payment,” Phalse added.

Yes, the halfling thought to herself. Try to keep your mind on the money Olive-girl.

In Olive Ruskettle’s estimation, the midnight dinner she was presently sitting through was one of the most frightening events in her life. For sheer terror, Olive thought, it rated somewhat above being discovered and accused by that pig paladin in the Living City, but just below being swept off a wagontop by Mist’s dewclaw.

The dining room, a solemn, musty hall, was dominated by a huge oak table. The windows were covered with heavy, black velvet drapes. Hundreds of candles burned in candelabras, but the room was still dim.

Cassana, draped in scarlet satin that seemed to flame with brilliance, dominated one end of the table. Rubies dripped from the sorceress’s throat, ears, and fingers. Prakis sat unmoving at the far end of the long table. He was dressed in yellow robes of equal finery. Before him had been placed the mounted bones of a goose, a haunting joke about his undead status.

Olive was seated midway down the table at Phalse’s side. The halfling bard kept a firm grip on her mind, trying to channel her thoughts away from abstract ideas like cruelty, sadism, and perversion, and tried to focus on real objects, like the food laid out before her.

In the food department Phalse put even the most gluttonous of Ruskettle’s race to shame. He wolfed down vast quantities of dark-roasted venison ringed with stuffed mushrooms and the pickled vegetables carved into the shapes of skulls. He also downed mug after mug of mead, motioning for refills by swaying his goblet. Table was waited by silent men and women in dark tabards. Fire Knives, was Olive’s guess. Apprentice murderers.

Though Olive was quite hungry and the repast was delicious, the food sat like a brick in her stomach. As out of place as the bard had felt among her former companions-Alias with her perfect voice, Akabar with his learning, Dragonbait with his virtue—here she knew she was the proverbial fifth wheel.

There’s something else at this table, the bard thought, something that outranks me. Power. That’s why they’ve seated me beside Phalse instead of opposite him. Olive imagined she could see the power rippling between her three hosts—Cassana, the lich, and Phalse. The Fire Knives are servants, Olive realized, nothing more. Phalse has his aura of charisma, an almost tangible swirl of attraction. Prakis exudes all the authority of dry, dusty, ancient tomes, and Cassana sits like a spider in the center of her web, aware of every movement within her realm—Mistress of Life and Death. If these three ever get into a disagreement, the bard decided, I don’t want to be around to get caught in the middle. I don’t even want to be close enough to watch.

“So, what do you think of our little group, small bard?” the sorceress asked.

Olive almost choked on her meat, unable to resist the idea that her new allies could read her mind. “Well,” she held up a finger as she chewed and swallowed and gulped mead down to give herself time to phrase a suitable reply. “To tell the truth, I was unaware of how successful your alliance already was when Phalse offered me the chance to join. I understand you were subduing my … traveling companions even as I was speaking with him.” She chose her words carefully, picking her way through the conversation as delicately as she would pick the lock of a cleric’s trunk.

“Yes, we broke into two groups,” Cassana explained. “One to check out The Rising Raven, the other to follow the lure of your ring. Prakis or I would likely have relied on clumsy, human means to keep track of Puppet, but Phalse, smart, wise Phalse knew that a halfling would easily topple to the lure of power and gold. And how better to reward your faithful service.”

Olive’s mouth was dry, and she took another gulp of mead before she nodded.

“And so we have another member of our band,” concluded the sorceress. “A good thing, too, because our numbers are rapidly dwindling. Moander is dead, the crafter useless to us, the Fire Knives thinned in rank. We could use young blood.” She emphasized the last word just a little too much, leaving Olive with memories of the legends of vampires.

The silence hanging over the table was oppressive. Struggling to lift it, the bard began to ask, “Crafter? Who’s—” but before she could finish Phalse gave her thigh a sharp squeeze. Olive almost jumped from her chair. She turned to glare at him for an explanation, but he was busy draining his goblet. Holding out his glass for a refill, he bestowed her with a wink from one of his peculiarly blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Cassana prompted. “You were saying?”

“Nothing. I was too wrapped up in your tale.”

“Of course,” Cassana replied. She began nodding and murmuring to herself, and Olive wondered if Cassana had channeled too much of her power into keeping up her good looks and let her mind go a little mushy. The sorceress’s head snapped up and she announced, “Now, the three of us will be very busy for the next few hours, preparing for the ceremony to be held at dawn. But you, Olive, were up very early this morning, before dawn. And since then you’ve been a very, very busy little girl. You must be exhausted. Take a nap, and Phalse will send for you.”

Whether it was the suggestion, the food, or the long hours and miles between Yulash and Westgate, Olive suddenly felt very weary. She swayed in her chair, trying to shake the cobwebs from her brain. Phalse put a hand out to steady her, his grip like iron.

“Now that you mention it,” the bard said, not bothering to stifle a yawn, “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Good. Prakis my pet, why don’t you take the small bard up to Phalse’s room for her nap?”

“I would prefer—” Phalse began to protest, but Cassana cut him off with a motion of her hand.

“You and I have some private matters to discuss,” the sorceress insisted.

“Just how private do you intend to get?” Phalse bantered.

The lich rose silently and stood behind the halfling’s chair as she tumbled from it. She staggered from sudden exhaustion, then began weaving her way to the staircase.

Cassana laughed behind her, calling out, “Sleep tight, little one.” When the lich had maneuvered the bard up the first flight of stairs, the sorceress turned her cold, hard eyes on Phalse. “Well?”

“She’s scared witless, but that’s understandable,” Phalse replied in the halfling’s defense. “But it’s a rather delicious sort of terror, don’t you think?”

“She seems a bit unstable. She’ll sleep through the ceremony. When she wakes, her former allies will be dead or under our control. The choice will be easier for her once her options have been limited. I would prefer it, though, if you would use her and get rid of her tonight,” said Cassana.

Phalse flashed his inhuman smile. “I’ll slay her myself if you similarly dispose of your lovers, including the Turmite.”

Cassana pouted “You’d deprive me of my pets?”

“You’d deprive me of mine.”

The two glared at one another, locked in a contest of wills. Then slowly, both began to laugh.

When the halfling collapsed on the second landing, Prakis bundled the childlike bard in his yellow cape and cradled her in his arms, carrying her to Phalse’s opulent bedroom. He lay the halfling woman on the satin coverlet and leaned in close to her face, muttering a few words. Then he touched her on the forehead and shoulders.

Olive sat bolt upright, her eyelids flying open like pigeons startled by a temple bell. “What!” she gasped, then cringed away immediately from the mockery of humankind hovering over her.

“Hush,” the death’s head rattled. “I’ve cast a spell on you to counteract the magical suggestion Cassana the Cruel used to make you sleep,” Prakis explained. His voice sounded windier than before, as though suddenly it was a greater effort for him to speak. “How do you feel?”

“I feel … I feel like I’ve slept for a week. Did I miss the ceremony?”

“No, only a few minutes have passed since you left the table. But my counteractive spell will give you energy now for hours. I woke you to make you an offer. Have you killed?” the lich asked. The red points of light in his eye sockets were suddenly still like a magical light.

“Killed? Of course. Easy as falling off a log.”

“Can you do it again?”

“Uh … sure. Who do you want killed?”

“Cassana.” The red pinpoints in the skull’s eye sockets danced again.

“Wait a minute. I thought you and she were …” The halfling groped for polite words. “Close, I guess.”

“I am Cassana’s tool, her pet, much like you are—or will be—Phalse’s pet, if he gets his way. The wand that controls the Little One also controls me. The farther I am from the wand, the more dead I become. Cassana keeps the wand on her person at all times, and when she travels too far away, I die entirely, only to come back as a shambling form when she returns. She is literally the sun my world revolves around.”

“But your symbol is on Al—the Little One.”

“My power over death was needed to bring the Little One to life, so I was allowed a small measure of control over her, but Cassana is the ultimate puppet master, pulling both our strings.”

Up close to Prakis, Olive could see the deep blue stitchery of long-dead blood vessels and smell the fetid stink of the corpse’s breath. He did not need to breathe, save to work his speech organs, which gave his voice an odd, mechanical quality.

“But why do you need me?” Olive asked. “Couldn’t you just strangle her or something and take the wand?”

“No. That would not work. Cassana the Cruel is very clever. She has bound up her life energies into the wand so that, as long as she holds it, nothing the Little One or I do can harm her. She knows my hate; she knows the wand is all that stands between her and death by my hands. She loves knowing this—it thrills her.”

“So you want me to steal the wand?”

“Yes. Then I will kill her.”

“Um, just out of curiosity, how?”

“With this!” the lich thrust forward his staff of dark wood. “I am still permitted to wield this. It is a staff of power. Do you know what it can do?”

Olive nodded, remembering the lay written in honor of Syluné. The river witch had used the same kind of staff to blow herself and a marauding dragon to kingdom come. The halfling didn’t want to be anywhere near Prakis and Cassana when they finally ended their “lover’s quarrel.”

“No offense, Prakis, old bones, but what’s in this for me?”

“Your freedom and your life.”

“Oh?”

“Phalse considers you his property now. Surely you must realize that, as charming as he appears, he is no halfling.”

“What is he?”

“I don’t know. Not even Cassana knows, and that is not a good sign. Furthermore, Cassana does not like you. She never could stand any competition, no matter how small. And she is superstitious about halfling luck. She really sent Phalse after you to make sure you did not interfere with our capture of the prisoners. When Phalse’s back is turned, she will slay you, gut you, and use your body as a vessel for her kalmari. Once you’ve helped me take care of Cassana, I will rid you of Phalse’s company.”

Olive gulped. “These are good reasons, but, um … I don’t suppose you might offer me any other incentives?” She was terrified of angering the lich, but how much could it hurt to ask? she wondered.

Prakis laughed, genuinely amused. “I can see why Phalse kept you. You have a greed for life that must astound even him.”

“Well, life is short, as you discovered, and it makes sense to get all you can out of it. The best things in life aren’t free, you know.”

“I did know that once. Cassana has amassed a great deal of wealth hidden in the cellars beneath this house. Besides selling and leasing her monsters, she skimmed a good deal off the top from the funds the Fire Knives poured into the project of making the Little One. Whatever you can carry away on a pony is yours, unless—perhaps you could remain here with me and the Little One, a member of our family.”

The thought of living in the same house with a zombie Alias revolted Olive, but quite a bit of gold could be loaded onto a pony.

“You have a deal, but first, as a gesture of trust—tell me, who is the crafter?”

Zrie Prakis’s red eyes stabbed at the halfling for several moments. He must have decided the knowledge could do him no harm, because he told her. “He is—he has no true name. He gave the Little One a mind, a life, the name Alias. But he feels he’s been damned for it.”

“But he’s still alive?”

The lich nodded with a crack of his neck bones. “Cassana the Cruel hates to cast aside her pets. He is prisoner in the cellars. But he is quite mad.”

Olive decided to agree with the lich for now. Glibly she asked, “When do we start this revolution?”

“Use the time when we’re at the ceremony to lace the house with traps. Lay in wait and ambush. Now, mime your sleep while I prepare the prisoners. And do not give yourself away, or I will be forced to slay you myself.” The skin over his forehead wrinkled the slightest bit as he made an attempt to threateningly raise eyebrows he did not possess.

Then he drifted from the room, silent except for the creaking of his bones.

Olive leaned back in the bed and closed her eyes, and the energy the lich had channeled into her did indeed keep her from falling asleep. Unfortunately, it also made her restless. Her mind kept flipping through her quickly diminishing options.

She turned on her side, away from the door, and thought harder. Though she’d been wishing for Phalse’s friends to show up and take Alias, she’d felt a pang of disappointment when she’d learned they’d already captured the swordswoman. Her second meeting with Phalse had not left the bard with as charming an impression of the pseudo-halfling as their first had. Strangers always looked friendlier sitting behind a stack of coins, Olive realized. His offer of great power had sounded amusing accompanied by fine Luiren ale, but Olive had never really been interested in power.

Especially not if it meant watching people getting beaten to a pulp.

While she’d been drinking with Phalse, Olive had formed some half-baked scheme of joining the alliance in order to discover by her own means—stealth and cunning—the identities and intentions of Alias’s foes. In her mind, she would then have reported back to Alias, revealing how she had succeeded where the book-laden mage would not and the scaly paladin could not. That would have impressed them.

But the plan had backfired drastically, and now she was trapped, a little spider in a larger spider’s web. She could think of only three options: Escape somehow and flee, living in fear of retribution; find a way to free the others and fight; or join the alliance for real, submitting herself to whatever Phalse and Cassana had in store for her.

She did not consider the lich’s plan. It was entirely too dangerous. Cassana would fry me like a banana, Olive realized, if I came within twelve inches of her wand.

Olive didn’t much care for the idea of sticking around. Besides disliking her role of low woman on the totem pole, an alliance with these people was very risky business. Their partners had a habit of dying off.

Olive granted that she was greedy and ambitious, but these people were cruel and hateful and perverse—no act of hers could ever bring her to their level of perdition.

Still, despite herself, and despite Prakis’s warnings, she felt drawn to Phalse. He had treated her with courtesy and rewarded her with more cash than anyone else had in a long time. He understood her halfling heart.

The door creaked open behind her and then closed. Someone tiptoed over to the bed. The bard snapped her eyes shut, and began breathing shallowly with a melodic semi-snore.

A small hand touched her knee, and Olive shifted slightly to cover her startled movement. Small fingers danced up her thigh and then cupped her breasts. After a moment or two they withdrew. It wasn’t until the door opened and closed again that Olive realized she’d been holding her breath.

She sat bolt upright after Phalse’s retreat, gritting her teeth against a scream. She scratched one option from her list. She couldn’t stay here. She would escape—with or without the others.