Кейт Новак - Azure Bonds

It took the halfling several tries to climb up the smooth walls. Reaching behind the head of one of the demon figures, she found a glass sphere, cold as ice, but with a magical light that shone with more brilliance than any candle or torch. Olive withdrew it gently and jumped down.

She held the light in front of Akabar’s cell. “Nothing’s happening,” she growled, putting the sphere down to retrieve her sword.

“Why should anything happen?” the madman shrugged. “You’re just standing there.”

“So I am,” Olive nodded. She stepped forward—and passed right through the bars.

“Hey, that’s great. Thanks,” she called back to the crafter. She set the sword on the floor and checked on the mage’s condition. He was still breathing, but she would never be able to lift him off the hook. She might have tried climbing up the mage’s body and picking the locks on his manacles, but the wrist bindings had been welded, not snapped on.

“Need some help?” a voice beside her asked. Olive whirled around and would have skewered the speaker if he had not so agilely sidestepped her attack.

The halfling gasped. The crafter stood next to her in Akabar’s cell. She had set the glowing sphere down in such a position that it had shed light on the bars of his prison as well. He held the globe now in one hand.

“Keep back,” Olive ordered, brandishing her sword.

The crafter’s lips curled up in a wry smile. His eyes were now clear and piercing. He stood straighter and looked stronger. “If I keep back, how are we going to get your friend down?” His voice was now firm and reasonable.

Olive wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “You’re not mad.”

The crafter harumphed. “So I have always maintained.”

“I mean … well, you’re different than you were a moment ago.”

“The cell I was in works a spell of enfeeblement on its occupants.”

“Oh.” Suddenly remembering that the crafter was still one of Alias’s would-be masters, Olive took another step backward and held out her sword. “Why should you want to help?”

“Look, are you going to stand there all day demonstrating your incompetence with a short sword, or climb up on my shoulders and unhook this unfortunate southerner?”

The halfling frowned at the insult, but the crafter had a point. She sighed and set her sword down behind her, then approached him cautiously.

The crafter stooped, set the sphere of light on the ground, and made a foothold for her with his hands. Olive put her hand on his shoulder and stepped up. He was a big man, as tall as Akabar, and even broader at the chest. She climbed nimbly to his shoulders, and he stood up smoothly.

“When I lift him, you detach the chain,” he said.

Once Akabar had been released, Olive scrambled down the crafter’s back. Cradling the mage in his arms, he carried him from the cell and set him on the ground outside. Olive followed with her sword and the sphere of light.

The man frowned at the mage’s wounds. “Can you heal?” he asked Olive.

“What do I look like? A paladin?”

“Upstairs there’s a bureau in the dining room. It’s trapped, but there’s a small button along the base that deactivates it. Unless Cassana has changed, there will be a number of potions there. Fetch them and some clothing for this one and come right back. Oh—and leave the sword.”

Olive obeyed without question, suddenly relieved to not be making all the decisions. She was back within fifteen minutes, laden with the potions, Akabar’s spellbooks—which had also been in the cabinet—one of Zrie Prakis’s robes, two kitchen knives, and a sack of food.

The crafter was seated by Akabar’s side, using the sword to scrape away his ratty beard. His face was deeply careworn, like a general who’d been at war too long or a king’s wisest but least heeded adviser.

He rummaged through the tablecloth that served as a sack, pulled out two potions, and mixed them together to form a gummy poultice, which he smeared over the cuts on Akabar’s chest and face. Akabar moaned, but the wounds began to close. The crafter slipped the rest of the potions into his tabard pockets.

“His wounds will take about an hour to heal,” the crafter said. He turned a stern eye on Olive. “Now, who is he, and who are you, and how did you come to be in this foul place?”

“He’s Akabar Bel Akash, a mage. I’m Olive Ruskettle the Bard. I’m trying to rescue Alias the Swordswoman from Cassana, who is trying to enslave her—”

“I know all about Cassana’s business with Alias,” the crafter interrupted. “Who are you really?”

“I told you. This is Akabar Bel—”

“I mean you, halfling. You cannot be a bard.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you cannot be a bard. You might use it as a cover for your other activities, but you cannot be one. There are no halfling bards.”

“Well, you are very much mistaken,” Olive huffed. “I am a halfling, and I am a bard. I sing, play the yarting and the tantan, compose music and poetry, and weave tales.”

“That makes you a troubadour or a minstrel. Your skill may be such that you can impress and entertain people, but to be a bard you must be trained. Without training, the power of the calling will never be yours. And I know, better than any three of my colleagues and better than any sage, that no halfling has ever been trained.”

“And how would you know?”

“Because I am a bard. The Nameless Bard.”

“The Nameless Bard? Just what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means they took away my name. In much the same way that barbarian kings wipe out the wives and children of their enemies, they banned my songs and erased my name from history—and from my own mind.”

“You mean Cassana?”

The Nameless Bard laughed. “Hardly. It would take a power far greater than hers to overcome even a single melody of mine.”

A flash of inspiration struck Olive. “You wrote the songs Alias sings. You’re her Harper friend.”

The Nameless Bard turned a piercing look on the halfling. Olive grew uncomfortable beneath his gaze and turned away. “Didn’t mean to pry,” she mumbled.

“I remember a bard, a true bard, named Ruskettle. Olav Ruskettle. Had a bad gambling habit. Would have staked his own mother on the roll of a die. I suppose by the time you ran into him, he had nothing left but his name.”

Olive glared at the Nameless Bard. “He was situated very comfortably as a tavernkeeper in Procampur. He couldn’t gamble away the tavern—his wife held the title.”

“So he offered you his name.”

Olive shrugged. “He couldn’t play anymore—lost his right hand. His voice was beginning to fade.”

“So you accepted. Loaded dice?”

“No!”

“Very well. You won the name fair and square. But all the rights, privileges, and immunities thereunto appertaining, you never earned.”

“Just because humans don’t recognize a halfling’s talents doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

“Did you even try applying to a barding college?”

The halfling was silent for a moment. “No,” she admitted.

“Why not? No, don’t answer me. I’m really not interested in your excuses. Answer to yourself. Now, tell me, would-be bard, how did you come to be a companion to the swordswoman, Alias?”

Olive bridled some at the title, but she needed the Nameless Bard’s help to free Alias. She began with Mist’s abduction of her from the caravan in Cormyr, then explained how Dimswart had come to hire Alias. She described their battle with the crystal elemental, the disastrous brawl at the wedding, all that Dimswart had discovered about the sigils, and the destruction of the kalmari. She began slowly and nervously, like a schoolchild asked to recite, but she was not naturally a taciturn person, and her tale flowed smooth and clear by the time she described the events in Shadowdale.