Кейт Новак: Azure Bonds

The lizard sniffed at the inkpot, and his nostrils flared and closed up in annoyance. He used the quill point to pick clean the spaces between his teeth.

Alias flopped back on her bed, laughing. Lady Luck was playing some cruel joke on her. Here was a creature who might be a key to the fog surrounding her life, and he could explain nothing to her. She leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes. Dragonbait curled up on the rag rug on the floor at the foot of the bed and wrapped his arms around the curious sword he carried.

Alias feigned sleep for a while, just to be sure her new companion had no plans to give her a second smile, across the throat with his sword. She wasn’t really expecting any trouble, but trust was for corpses. She studied the lizard through half-closed eyelids. Asleep, he looked even more innocuous. Like a child, he kept his powerful lower legs pulled up to his stomach. With yellowish claws retracted into his clover-shaped feet, and with his long, muscled tail tucked up between his legs, the tip lying across his eyes, and with his snout resting on the hilt of his sword, Dragonbait reminded Alias of a furless cat curled about its master’s shoe.

The sword was as curious as its owner. It looked top-heavy and badly balanced. Forging that diamond-shaped tip, and the jagged teeth curling from it, could not have been easy, and wielding it seemed impossible. Alias wondered how anyone could keep hold of that tiny, one-handed grip. Had she not seen its handiwork on the beach, she would have believed the blade to be ceremonial gear.

Dragonbait had no other belongings, unless she counted the tattered, ill-fitting clothes he wore, no doubt out of modesty, since they certainly couldn’t be keeping the creature warm. A torn jerkin covered his chest, and a splotch of ragged cloth knotted at the side hung down from his hips.

What makes me think he’s not a she? Granted, there’s nothing feminine about his torso, but lizards don’t have breasts or need wide hips for birthing, now do they? Alias shook her head. No. He’s a male. Some sixth sense made her sure of it.

She looked again at the rags he wore. Aren’t lizards supposed to hate the cold? I’ll have to find him a cloak, something with a deep hood to hide that snout.

Watching the lizard sleeping at her feet, making plans for his comfort, she could no longer feel threatened by him. But she still could not sleep. Slipping quietly out of the bed, she padded over to the small dressing table where Dragonbait had carefully laid out the booty from their would-be ambushers. Dragonbait gave a snarl in his sleep as she raised the flame on the oil lamp, then he turned over, still resting on his sword.

Some watchdog, Alias thought. She turned back to the scattered assassin equipment and sat down at the table to examine it. The daggers—three from the mage, one from each club-wielding assassin—were quite ordinary. The pair of small vials stoppered with wax were much more interesting. Carefully Alias cracked the top of one, and a rich cinnamon smell wafted up. She quickly restoppered the bottle.

Peranox. A deadly contact poison from the South. Nasty stuff even in the hands of competent assassins, Alias thought. Disaster for first-time bunglers. If the pair had used poisoned daggers instead of clubs, I would be lying dead on the beach instead of them.

Why did they choose clubs to attack? she wondered. Did they want to make my death look like an amateur job? She shook out the sack Dragonbait had cut from the mage. The standard assortment of magical spell-trappings skittered across the wooden desktop—moldy spiderwebs, bits of eyelashes trapped in amber, and dead insects. The only difference, she thought, between a magic-user’s pockets and those of a small boy’s is that there is less week-old candy in the mage’s pockets. After brushing away the debris, Alias found a few coins and a gold ring set with a blue stone.

Something remained stuck in the sack. She shook the bag harder. A talis card fell out onto the desktop, face-down. It bore an insignia of a laughing sun on its back.

Alias pocketed the coins and ring for later inspection and flipped the card over. She drew a sharp breath that caused Dragonbait to start in his sleep.

The card was the Primary of Flames, here represented by a dagger trapped in entwining fire. The card’s pattern was twin to the uppermost symbol of Alias’s tattoo. Alias felt a twinge from her arm as she compared the two.

She picked up the card and squinted at it. It was homemade. Though the laughing sun was made by an embossing stamp, the rest of the workmanship was pretty shabby. Were the other symbols on my arm from other parts of the deck this card came from? she pondered.

At least that explained the assassins’ actions. Alias recalled how clumsily they’d wielded the clubs, as though they were swords. They were unused to the more primitive weapon, but were forced to wield it so as not to harm her accidentally with an edged weapon. They wanted to capture me alive, she concluded. That’s why they passed on the poison, too. They must have been keeping the peranox in reserve for anyone who got in their way.

Like a five-foot lizard maybe?

She rose from her seat and, stepping over the soundly snoozing Dragonbait, closed and secured the windows. Windows were open when I woke up this morn—evening. They could have got me then but didn’t. Maybe they didn’t know where I was until they spotted me on the street. Someone must have left me here to keep me safe. But who?

She fished the ring from her pocket, twisted it, and said quietly, “I wish you’d tell me what in Tartarus is going on,” but no djinn issued from the ring to enlighten her, nor did Dragonbait break his rhythmic breathing, sit up, and explain all the mysteries troubling her. Frowning, she tucked the ring back into her pocket.

She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, fingers laced behind her head.

She was not aware she had fallen asleep until a bell from some temple signaled noon. She opened her eyes to see Dragonbait standing at her bedside with breakfast on a pewter tray—bread and slices of spring fruit with cream.

Alias planned her next move while they shared the meal.

“I could rent a horse and ride out to the sage’s home in half a day. Save a lot of time,” she said to Dragonbait. Even if he didn’t understand her, it helped her put her thoughts in order to say them aloud. “But if I purchase a horse and ride it out through the town gate, I might as well hire a loudmouthed herald to announce my departure. Besides, we have to conserve our meager funds. Sages aren’t cheap. And I don’t even know if you can ride.”

Dragonbait watched her while she spoke exactly as if he understood her.

“And I don’t want to leave you behind, do I?”

The lizard stretched his neck forward and tilted his head as though he were confused.

The swordswoman sniffed and laughed. Dragonbait returned to licking the cream out of his bowl.

No, I definitely want to keep him around, she thought. He feels familiar—as though I’ve traveled with him before. Maybe he was on the sea trip with me. If I lose track of him, he might fade from my memory, too. Besides, I owe him for saving my life last night. Taking him into my service is the least I can do.

After sending the barkeep’s daughter out for a cloak to hide her companion’s “lizardness,” Alias pulled on her boots and rearmored herself. When his cloak arrived, Dragonbait sniffed at it and growled, but when it became clear Alias was not going to let the creature out of the inn in daylight he relented and, seeming every inch the paladin forced to drink with thieves, he slipped on the garment.

The idea of a lizard with vanity amused Alias. She wondered if he was some magical creature, bred to act as combination jester/servant/bodyguard, like something out of a childhood tale. With a shudder, she was reminded of the story of the golem supposedly responsible for the spreading Anauroeh desert, a creature ordered to shovel sand into the region and then forgotten by the wizard who gave the order. Why is it I can recall stupid old stories when last ride, last month, much of last year is a blank? Angrily, she shoved the legendary images into the back of her mind.