Кейт Новак: Azure Bonds

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.

Alias found Winefiddle climbing the steps to the silver altar. She leaped after him and grabbed at the back of the chain around his neck, the chain that held his holy symbol—the silver disk of Tymora. She yanked on it hard, trying to throttle him with it.

Winefiddle lost his balance and tumbled backward down the steps into his assailant, knocking her over as well. The priest’s fall was broken by Alias’s body, but the swordswoman was not so lucky. The crack her head made on the marble stone echoed through the temple, and the priest’s great bulk on top of her forced all the air from her lungs.

When Alias opened her eyes again, she was still lying on the floor. The light on her arm had faded to a very dim glow. Her head was throbbing with unbearable agony. Gods! she thought, as panic gripped her heart. I killed a priest! These hell-spawned markings made me kill a priest! No one will ever believe it wasn’t my fault.

She tried to sit up, knowing she had to flee, but the pain in her head made it impossible. Then she heard chanting.

Winefiddle knelt beside her—not dead after all. In the dimness of the temple lamps Alias could see his hands were glowing very slightly. He held them over the wound in his side and then over her forehead. The throbbing subsided.

“How are you feeling?” the curate asked.

“All right, I guess,” she muttered, sitting up slowly. She was unable to meet the priest’s eyes. “I might have killed you,” she whispered.

“Not very likely,” Winefiddle replied lightly. “We are in Tymora’s temple, and Her luck was with me, not you.”

His nonchalance startled Alias. She had to make him understand, even if it didn’t matter to him. “It wasn’t me, though,” she explained. “My arm … it took me over somehow.”

“Yes. The symbols must have instructions to destroy anyone who would try to remove them, discouraging you from seeking out help. I thought you looked possessed—but it couldn’t have been a real possession.”

“Why not?”

“An alarm would have gone off if any possessed person approached the altar. You didn’t set it off. I don’t think you’re cursed exactly either, or the scroll I used would have worked. The symbols on your arm are magical, but they aren’t just magical. There’s some mechanistic component to them that protects them from being exorcised.”

“But I have to get them off,” Alias insisted. “I can’t run around with markings that make me try to kill priests. Who knows what else they might make me do?”

“Indeed” Winefiddle agreed, “but removing them might prove to be complicated and costly. If it can be done, it would require the power of many clerics and mages, as well as a surgeon. And you would have no guarantee that the markings would let you live through the procedure. It might be easier and safer for you to cut off the arm and retire.”

“No!”

“But these markings are very dangerous. You could learn to fight left-handed,” Winefiddle suggested.

“I can already do that,” Alias declared. “That’s not the point. I’m not going to let these things, or whoever put them on me, ruin my life. Besides, suppose they had roots or something that went into my body.”

“Well, then, I would advise you to learn all you can about the markings. None of them are familiar to me. Perhaps if you can discover their origins, you can discover who put them on you and get them to remove them for you.”

Alias looked down at the blue glyphs. None of them were familiar to her either. Even the Turmishman, Akabar Bel Akash, had found them unusual. “That’ll take a sage’s service, and sages aren’t cheap.”

“True,” Winefiddle agreed. “However, I happen to know of a very good one who might be willing to exchange his services for yours. His name is Dimswart. He lives about half a day’s ride outside of Suzail.”

“What kind of services might he be looking for?” Alias asked suspiciously.

“Better to let him explain that,” Winefiddle said evasively.

Five minutes later Alias left the temple, a letter of introduction in her pocket, along with the small greenish gem originally intended for Tymora’s poor box. She had made a motion toward the box with her hand as she passed it, but the gem remained firmly in her grip. As she had pointed out, sages weren’t cheap. Her services might not be sufficient to barter with this Dimswart, she told herself.

As she walked away from the temple, an uneasy suspicion occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t her own frugalness that prompted her to hold onto the gem, but some desire of the sigils not to reward the priest who had tried to help her remove them.

The cobblestone Promenade of Suzail appeared deserted, but as soon as Alias left the temple court a tall figure in rustling crimson-and-white robes stepped from the shadows. He hesitated, uncertain whether he should follow the adventuress or try to discover her business with Tymora. He made for the temple doors.

Then three more figures, dressed in dark leathers, emerged from a dark alley. Ignoring the first figure they trailed after Alias. One last figure followed these three—a figure holding a massive tail over his shoulder.

Alias was in no hurry to return to The Hidden Lady. Three days of sleep had left her quite awake. She wandered down to Suzail’s docks. The last of the schooners had shut down for the evening, and only a few firepots from the warehouses lit the water. The sea air rolled into the city, smelling considerably fresher than three-days worth of unlaundered linens.

She ran through a mental list of individuals who might be responsible for having her marked with the symbols and drew a blank. Any enemies she’d made were either ignorant of her name or dead. No friends who were still drawing breath would do something like this. That left someone new—a stranger who had picked her off the street as a suitable vessel for trying out a new piece of magic.

Alias came to the end of the wooden plank sidewalk. The beach spread out in a thin white line to her right. The night sky had grown overcast. Like my life, she thought. She began walking along the shoreline on the sand.

Even if a complete stranger had done this to her, she was still left wondering where and when it had happened. Now that she thought about it, her memory was missing more than just a few weeks. More time than an alcoholic binge could really account for, she decided.

She could recall long-ago adventures quite clearly—like stealing one of the Eyes of Bane from an evil temple in Baldur’s Gate with the Adventurers of the Black Hawk, or her earliest sojourns with the Company of the Swanmays.

Her mind went all fuzzy, trying to remember recent events like the sea trip. And there was a sea trip, she insisted to herself, worried that she would forget that as well by the next morning. Was the lizard-creature on the same ship? I think so. Maybe it’s the pet of the magician behind this mess.

Alias walked a quarter-mile along the beach before she drew her traitorous arm from beneath her cloak. The pain had dimmed, but the symbols still glowed faintly, like lichen. Cursing did no good, but she cursed anyway. If they can make me attack a priest, what else can they make me do?

If she attacked someone else, she could end up with a bad reputation. No one would hire her as a guard, and there weren’t many adventuring companies who’d have anything to do with her. It was one thing to kill people in self-defense or in combat under command of king or church, but if she were to slay some innocent, unarmed person …