Кейт Новак - Masquerades

“What’s going on?” Mintassan’s voice called out. The sage was drifting across the mists, flying just high enough to remain out of reach of the manes. “Lady Thistle’s outside, holding the portal open. She said you might need some help.”

“Can you teleport us out of here?” Alias asked.

“Afraid not—something in the makeup of this plane resists alteration magic,” the sage explained. Upon spying the shell surrounding Alias’s legs, he gave a low whistle. “That looks bad. Perhaps it can be dispelled,” he suggested.

Dragonbait shook his head. “It’s not magical. It would be more use if you could circle us with protection from evil,” he said.

The sage must have already cast a spell to understand Saurial, for he immediately began circling the warriors, casting the protection spell Dragonbait had asked for. When he’d finished, the manes all began moving away. They lingered at the edge of Mintassan’s magic boundary, waiting for it to dissipate. The mist, too, flowed out of the circle of protection. The shell about Alias’s legs, however, remained.

Trying desperately to conceal his own anxiety, Dragonbait spoke as calmly as he could. “Concentrate on your feelings,” he instructed Alias. “Clear your heart of everything that poisons it. Verovan’s soul was cut by his greed, Victor’s by his lust for power.”

“Victor’s dead,” Alias said softly. “The manes got him.”

“I know,” the paladin replied. He did not mention that he could feel the man’s evil spirit hovering nearby, no doubt waiting to witness the swordswoman’s death. “You have to let go of your anger and hatred for Victor Dhostar.”

Alias did not reply immediately. She didn’t know how to tell the paladin that she didn’t wish to do as he bid her. She cherished her anger and hatred of the nobleman. Victor had deceived her in the worst way. She had every right to be angry, to hate him.

The saurial sighed, realizing how hard it must be for Alias to give up the powerful emotions. They had fastened themselves so strongly to her essence that losing them would feel like losing herself. She could not accept that there was so much more to her being than these poisonous, wounding feelings. He ran his fingertips down the brand on her sword arm, trying to kindle a spark of the link that bound their souls together.

Alias shivered at the paladin’s touch. She could sense his great serenity, his compassion, his tenderness and concern. She knew, though, that she was nothing like him, would never be, could never be as good. There were times she wished she were, but wishing did not make it so.

Dragonbait looked up suddenly at the manes massing behind Alias. He could feel their evil darkening, growing more powerful.

Alias struggled, but she remained trapped in the mist shell.

“Alias, please,” the paladin begged. “Let it go. I know you can do it.”

“I can’t,” the swordswoman snapped. “I’ve tried.”

“You can!” Dragonbait snapped back.

“No, I can’t!”

“She doesn’t dare,” Mintassan interjected. “It’s her only protection.”

“Protection?” Dragonbait growled. “It’s trapped her in this evil place. How is that protection?”

“If she gives up her anger and hatred, there’s nothing left but bitterness and despair,” the sage pointed out. “Why would she want to feel them?”

The paladin nodded. Bitterness, the shadow of anger, and despair, the evil without a color. He wasn’t very familiar with them, so he’d forgotten them both. Mintassan knew them though, intimately.

“Alias, what Mintassan says is true. You’re holding onto the anger and hate because you’re afraid of the bitterness and despair. You know they’ll hurt you even more. But you can shed them, too. Trust me.”

“I am not bitter and despairing!” Alias shouted. “I’m just stuck in a damned rock. Go get Durgar. Maybe he’s got some priest prayer that can break this thing open.”

Behind Alias the mist was taking on a serpent shape, and the serpent was rising up. “Alias, there isn’t time,” the paladin insisted. “Your life depends on it. Let them go.”

“I have no reason to be bitter or despairing,” Alias argued. “Victor was a monster, and I’m well rid of him. He wasn’t worthy of my love. I know that.”

“It’s not the loss of that worthless man that brings you pain,” Mintassan said. “It’s the loss of the love you felt. Your love was good, and when it died, it left you empty.”

The mist serpent began winding around the border of the spell of protection.

Alias glared at Mintassan. “I don’t have time for stupid conversations with sages. What do you know about my love? You don’t know anything except what you read in your dusty old tomes.”

“Oh, don’t I?” Mintassan replied, holding her eyes with his own. “Do you think it was easy for me watching someone I cared about fling herself at someone as unworthy as Victor Dhostar.”

Alias felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her, as if she’d run into a wall of understanding. When she’d first arrived, the sage had cared less about Westgate than she had, but for some reason he’d been there to save her life. Then he’d thrown himself into her quest for vengeance. Now he stood in this stinking, gods-forsaken, evil-ridden pit of a planar pocket arguing with her.

The swordswoman flushed with embarrassment. Why did he have to tell her this?

“So the question is,” Mintassan said, “if the lowly sage survived his battle against bitterness and despair, why won’t the great warrior woman risk battling them, too?”

Alias squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep tears from falling out of them. Mintassan was right. She missed her love. It had made her feel warm and safe and happy.

But she could feel those things without it. She knew she could. Besides—she might even love again—maybe.

Dragonbait sighed with relief as the shell of mane mist began to melt from Alias’s legs and drift away from the adventurers.

“What in Mystra’s name is that?” Mintassan whispered, finally noticing the serpentlike evil wrapped about the circle of protection and hovering over them.

“The manes have found a focus,” the paladin said, “a leader to organize their attack.”

Alias spun around and looked up at the serpent of mist. She looked into its bright blue eyes. She gasped. “It’s Victor!”

“Move toward the portal,” the paladin instructed, taking Alias’s arm. “The circle of protection should move with us.”

As the three adventurers shifted their position, the serpent hissed with anger, but it uncoiled and let them pass, unable to withstand the magical constraints of Mintassan’s spell. It followed them to the portal, devouring mist as it moved, growing larger and darker.

The portal loomed ahead like a hole of darkness. Dragonbait stepped out onto the bridge and held his hand out to Alias.

As Alias stepped into the night sky over Westgate, she took a deep breath of the cool air and laughed. Mintassan flew out from the portal and swooped over the bridge.

Dragonbait gasped and spun about. His shen sight suddenly perceived a hundredfold increase in the evil emanating from the mane serpent. Mintassan’s circle of protection had dissipated when he had flown through the portal. The serpent wavered over Alias’s head and struck before the paladin could pull her out of danger.

From the top of the tower, Jamal, Olive, Thistle, and Durgar watched in horror as a huge, dark serpent swung down over Alias and coiled around her body. Dragonbait thrust his fiery blade into the creature, and Alias stabbed at it with her sword. Little bits of glowing mist seeped from the creature wherever it was hit, but the beast remained intact, healing over the cuts almost immediately with some otherworldly power. Mintassan hovered over the beast and sent five magic missiles shooting into the creature’s hide, but they passed right through the monster and fell to the ground.