Кейт Новак - Azure Bonds

To her own astonishment, she told the truth about her dealings with Phalse. She knew the story would not make much sense if she left out crucial elements. She related all Akabar had told her about the events in Yulash, how Dragonbait had subdued Mist, the battle with Moander, and finally how all of them came to be captured by Alias’s enemies, the others by force, she by stupidity.

Olive had never had such a polite and riveted audience in her life. He interrupted her tale only once, when she was describing how Cassana had made Alias batter Akabar.

“You say she wept?” the true bard asked.

“Of course she wept,” Olive said. “Akabar is her friend, and the witch was using her to pulp his flesh. I could see the streaks her tears left on her cheeks and the dark spots where they landed on the floor. Cassana thought it was pretty funny and made a stupid joke about it. She said, ‘Look Zrie, she’s crying. I’ll bet I know who taught her that trick.’ Then she used her wand to knock Alias out.”

The true bard’s lower lip quivered for a moment. He clamped it shut. “Finish. Quickly. Your friend is coming around.”

Olive told how Cassana had put her to sleep, and the deal Zrie had offered her. “He unbolted the door for me. There were only two guards upstairs. I killed them and came down here looking for Akabar.”

Akabar awoke slowly. Though weak, he was still strong enough to grab Ruskettle by the throat and throttle her. The Nameless Bard pulled the mage’s hands away with his own sure grip.

“You’ve signed her death warrant, you greedy, little bitch!” Akabar shouted.

“I think there has been a misunderstanding,” the Nameless Bard said calmly. “Your friend was using a ruse to win your enemy’s trust.”

Akabar’s eyes squinted with disbelief, but he could not fight the strength of the true bard’s hands.

Olive felt a rush of gratitude toward the bard. She had told him the whole truth, that her reasons for accepting Phalse’s offer had been as much for greed as for a desire to play at espionage, but he had given her the benefit of the doubt.

“Look, Akash. I came down here to get your help to rescue Alias.” That much was half true. “If you’d rather go back to your cell and wait for Cassana …”

Akabar spat on the halfling’s gown.

“He’s very emotional,” she explained to the crafter.

“Look at me, Akabar Bel Akash,” the Nameless Bard said. The power of his voice drew Akabar’s eyes unwillingly from Olive.

“Do you want to rescue Alias?”

Akabar took a deep breath, almost a sob. “Yes.”

“So does this creature. So do I. Contain your anger. It is a waste of your energies. You should know that.”

Akabar took another deep, slow breath. He relaxed his muscles. The true bard released his wrists.

“Who are you?” Akabar asked.

“The Nameless Bard.”

“Nameless? No one is nameless.”

“They took his name away,” Olive explained.

“Who?” Akabar asked.

The Nameless Bard sighed. “Eat” he said, motioning toward the food that Olive had taken from Cassana’s larder. “You’ll need your strength very soon. I will tell you my story while you dine.”

Akabar noticed his books in Olive’s bundle and motioned for them. Olive slid them to his side. She remembered how he had asked for them after being freed from Moander and took this as a sign that he was prepared to carry on—and put the past behind him—at least for now.

“You have no doubt heard of the Harpers,” the Nameless Bard began. “They were established in the north long before you were born. Their members are primarily bards and rangers, though not limited to such. All are good and true men and women devoted to preserving the balance of life, opposing all that threatens the peace of the Realms, protecting the weak and innocent. You might recognize them by their small silver pin of a harp and a moon.

“One of their number was a bard, a master of his craft, with a voice and a memory like polished ice. A creator of songs that could move people to action, or calm them to slumber. None heard his music but that they were impressed. The bard himself was often astonished by his own skill and wished for all his works to be preserved for eternity.

“Yet songs are so easily changed, their lyrics tampered with, their melodies maligned. The bard’s own colleagues had done this to his works, substituting a phrase to suit a particular audience, quickening the tempo to end an evening’s entertainment sooner. Or simply forgetting a line. And though such things are only natural, the bard was obsessed with preserving his works as he’d intended them to be sung.”

“Prickly sort, wasn’t he?” Olive asked with a tiny grin.

The corner of the true bard’s mouth turned up in a half-smile. “We all have our faults.

“Rejecting human singers as the preservers of his art, he turned to mechanical means. Paper and stone would not suffice—the written word could not convey the meaning as well as spoken words, and written notes describe only the melody, not the spirit of the music. And paper and stone can be destroyed. Even magical attempts to reproduce his music dissatisfied him. They could not demonstrate the full interaction of the bard with his audience.

“Finally, he determined a mixture of these methods that would fulfill his requirements. A human shell, unwilling, even unable, to stray from the original rendition, a repository for his tales and music that could render them unto generations.”

“Alias,” Akabar said.

“Alias?” Olive chirped.

“Alias,” the true bard said. “The price to make such a creature, however, was very great, involving dealing with powerful mages and extra-planar powers. The price was also horrible. It would cost the life of a noble innocent, both pure and true, by brutal means.

“The master bard, with his apprentices, men and women of lesser power but great talent, tried to create this shell on their own. The attempt failed, costing one assistant his life and another her voice, so that she was silent for the rest of her shortened, painful days.

“Many men and women of the Realms might have shrugged off such a tragedy. But the Harpers considered themselves better men and women and were horrified by what the bard had done. They summoned him to judgement.

They stripped him of his name, stole it from his memory. His name being a given thing, this was easy to do. But knowledge discovered is like an efreet let out of a bottle: it cannot be forced back in. The struggle to discover it makes it part of the discoverer’s soul. They could not destroy the knowledge in him. They feared he would try again, or pass the knowledge to another. So they could not let him go free, yet they would not slay him, for he was one of their own, and they did not want his blood on their hands.

“They decided he would have to be imprisoned, but no ordinary prison would do. They could not risk his ever passing on the method he had developed. So they shackled and exiled him beyond the bounds of the Realms, in the lands where reason fails and the gods roll like storm fronts across the sky. All his songs, his words, and his ideas were expunged in a sweeping attempt to cover up what he had achieved. Those who knew his songs were told to sing them no more, and such was the respect and fear of the Harpers in those days that many complied.

“So that which the master bard feared most came to pass: the songs he sought to preserve were dead things, unremembered in the Realms. The Harpers had been thorough, indeed. The newer members know nothing of the story. Only the old remember the tale.”

“So how did you escape?” Akabar asked.

“Some vestige of the tale survived. A scrap of a letter I’d written to an apprentice fell into Cassana’s hands—something about how my human shell could be made indistinguishable from the real thing. Cassana went to great lengths to track me down. She put a bounty out on an old Harper and tortured him for the information on my whereabouts. I hear he did not submit until she began torturing other creatures as well.