Azure Bonds

12 The Dream and the Kalmari

The evening sky over Shadow Gap was overcast except in the far south, where a few stars glittered between the mantle of clouds and the horizon. Alias exhaled slowly, watching the vapor from her breath rise and drift away in the cool mountain air. Despite the chill, she was quite comfortable. Akabar had not stinted on warm clothing and blankets for their trip north.

On second watch, Alias looked over at Akabar, who lay under only one wool cover, and his arms over that. Gently, she dropped a fur hide over him from chin to knees. In no time he pushed most of it aside, and his arms, clad only in his flimsy robe, once again lay exposed to the cold air.

Either he’s got some magic trick to keep warm, or he carries the heat of the southern sun inside him, Alias thought.

Olive, under the pretext of keeping the extra bedding dry and safe from marauding beasts, slept on top of most of them. In sleep she looked deceptively childlike and innocent, the swordswoman thought. But Akabar, with his beard and the sun-wrinkles about his eyes, looked older.

Alias studied the sleeping Dragonbait, trying to decide if he looked older or younger. He slept as peacefully as a child, yet even with his tail drawn up between his legs and curled beneath his head, the power of his warrior’s frame was apparent. Alias wondered if he didn’t sleep, as the saying went, the sleep of the righteous, untroubled by his dreams because he lived up to his own standard of goodness.

He was neither a slow riser nor one to awaken with a start. Whenever she awakened him, he opened his eyes curiously, smiled that toothy grin, and gave a pleasant chirp. The few times the party had shifted camp in the middle of the night to avoid being stumbled upon by goblins and orcs, Alias had discovered the lizard already awake, lying very still, sniffing the air, his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword.

She wrapped one of her own blankets about the lizard’s shoulders, a custom she’d adopted from her travels with the Company of the Swanmays. She’d missed the sisterly concern the seven members, all women, had had for one another, but she hadn’t felt comfortable enough among the strangers with whom she now traveled to perform so intimate a gesture … until tonight.

She thought very hard about Dragonbait, about all he’d done for her, all she knew about him, all the things she felt about him. He was the least human of her companions, he couldn’t talk to her, and she had little idea what went through his mind, yet Dragonbait was the only member of the party she trusted completely. Regardless of what Olive had said about failing to communicate with him, she knew that the two of them, lizard and swordswoman, had an understanding.

“You’re not my bondservant, are you?” Alias whispered to the sleeping lizard. “You’re my brother.”

She’d never really had any siblings, at least as far as she knew. Her mother, an uncommunicative fisherman’s widow, had never told her of any, and when her mother died, just after Alias reached her teens, no long-lost relatives appeared at her wake. The following year Alias ran off to avoid being bonded to a decent but unimaginative weaver. It wasn’t until she had insinuated herself into the Swanmays that she felt any kinship to anyone. The Swanmays had relished the risks and beauty of the open wilderness as much as she did. Just remembering them now made her throat tighten with emotion.

Yet, the feeling she had for Dragonbait, one she was certain he shared, could not possibly be based on mutual interests. As far as she knew, they had none. His behavior toward her was most definitely the tender protectiveness of a brother. Oddly enough, Alias realized that she felt the same way about him. And the strength of that feeling without, as she perceived, any logical foundation, was what made her so certain there was no one closer to her in all the world.

Despite the admission of her feelings for the lizard, she was no closer to remembering anything about their past association than before.

Her relationship with Olive was as clear as glass. Alias knew she could trust the halfling to look after the halfling first, the party’s possessions second, and everyone else probably not at all. Though the bard had shown one flash of bravado in Mist’s lair, taunting the dragon long enough for Alias to get back on her feet, bravado was not the same as courage, and had nothing at all to do with heroism. Alias realized that Olive would weigh every risk against how much treasure she estimated lay at the end of Alias’s quest.

Akabar was a little more complicated. He was on a quest of his own to prove to himself that he was more than a Turmish merchant. Eager to collect his own adventures to relate to his profiteering wives and, Alias conjectured, probably anxious to keep from returning so soon to a family with little tolerance for such nonsense as adventures. Alias was certain that if he hadn’t stumbled across her case, he’d have found some other adventurer to lavish his attentions on. She felt she could trust him not to deceive her, but she wasn’t going to count on him to lay down his life for her. She knew the mage possibly had one other reason for accompanying her, but he had been wise enough to deny it, so she wasn’t going to dwell on it.

She wasn’t aware she was falling asleep, but when the wreckage of the inn began to shimmer and reform into the building she remembered from years ago, she knew she’d drifted into some dream. Angrily she tried to shake herself awake, frightened that her dereliction of duty would bring great harm to the party, but she had no success.

The inn took on an increasing solidity. First, the thick timber walls returned, their joints sealed with dabbed mud. Doors and tables and chairs and the bar seemed to rise from the ground. Without moving, Alias found herself seated at a small table by the firepit.

Alerted by the groaning beams above, Alias looked up. Overhead, the charred timbers grew whole, the drooping section of ceiling that had survived the fire straightened. Planed boards crisscrossed the timbers and, though she could not see them, Alias heard the clatter of pottery shingles as they multiplied across the boards outside. Chains began to snake downward from iron hooks which sprouted from the main timbers. The ends of the chains blossomed into gourd-shaped lamps, burning oil from small wicks.

The flame in the firepit flared into a roaring blaze, and the North Gate Inn began filling with customers, though they did not enter by the door. Alias heard them first, the mutter and roar of many people speaking all around her. She fixed her attention on a booth in the corner where she heard an argument, but all she could see were shadows.

Of course, I might not be dreaming, Alias considered. This could all be some fantastic illusion. But the noise would have wakened the others, and they would still be here sleeping beside me. No, this was a dream, she concluded.

Suddenly there was a tremendous clatter to her right. Her head turned in time to witness a burly man berating a small servant girl for spilling wine down the copious cleavage of his female companion. As the youngster protested her innocence, the man stood up and loomed over her. He was twice her height, but Alias caught the glint of sharp steel as the servant reached into her apron pocket.

A loud roar came from the corner booth again, and she turned her attention back to it. No longer occupied by shadows, it was filled with people of depth and color. A tired cleric and a young fighter argued some fine religious point. The cleric insisted that Tempos was a corruption of the southern Tempus, and that Tempus was the correct pronunciation. This supposition seemed to madden the fighter, a northern barbarian on his manhood journey, no doubt. His face, already quite red from several drinks, flushed even darker. He was preparing his argument by reaching his right hand over his left shoulder to grasp the lion-headed hilt of the massive sword strapped to his back.

Alias wondered which of the two arguments would be the first to cause a room-clearing brawl.

“Neither,” answered a pleasant voice. Alias started at the reply. A young man stood beside her table, holding two crystal glasses in one hand and a dusty bottle in the other. He sat in the chair beside her, setting the items he carried on the table. “But devastation will arrive shortly,” he assured her with a lopsided grin and a wink. Alias would have judged him to be not yet twenty, but his suave manner belied her estimate. He wiped off the bottle and extracted the cork with an expert ease.

The youth’s blond hair hung loose about his shoulders and glistened in the firelight. He had what the members of the Swanmays would agree was a well-formed figure, yet his blue eyes reflected the firelight back in pinpoints of red. As attractive as Alias found him, he made her quite nervous. She felt as if she were waiting for someone in the dream, but this man was not that person.

“I took the liberty of ordering a wine special. I know you’ll like it.” He smiled as he poured copper-colored liquid into both glasses.

“How do you know what’s going to happen?” Alias asked.

“We all have our little curses,” he whispered, running a finger down her right arm along the brands. They tingled, an entirely new sensation. “My curse is that I’m required to read the script before the play begins.” He held up his glass and waited for her to do the same. “In a few minutes the plot will pick up. Plenty of time to finish your drink.”

Alias lifted the delicate crystal by the stem and allowed her host to clink his own against it. “To drama,” he said.

Alias sniffed the beverage warily, afraid to discover yet another Cormyrian mixture unsuited to her tastes. Instead, a pleasant, tangy scent wafted to her nostrils. She took a sip and then, without thinking, drained the glass. The sharp, sweet taste of mountain berries clung to her lips, and the alcohol coursed through her body like a shock. Her face warmed immediately, as if she stood in bright sunshine, and the aching muscles of her back relaxed. It wasn’t just the only good thing she’d tasted in a long time. She had a strong suspicion it would be the best thing she would ever taste.

“Which of these incidents is responsible for the fire?” Alias asked the young man as he refilled their glasses.

“Neither,” the man said. He nodded toward the burly man and his buxom companion. The servant girl had convinced the man at knife point to return to his seat and stop fussing. She tossed the woman a dingy towel and left them.

“Labor troubles are quite common this far north,” the youth told her. “Every potscrubber dreams of becoming a petty lord, inspired by the few who, with luck and recklessness, have done so. The situation here in Shadow Gap is, of course, exacerbated by the minute population, making not just good help, but any help at all hard to find.”

“And the loud barbarian and cleric?” Alias asked, turning to discover the reaction of the other patrons when the fighter pulled out his weapon, but both were engaged in draining large mugs of ale.

“They’re old friends from way back. They’ve had this argument at least a hundred times before in this very place, and in as many other inns.”

“So, what did cause the fire? Does it have anything to do with why the pass is deserted?”

“Patience, my dear, patience,” her drinking companion chided. He raised her glass to her mouth and tilted the ambrosial liquid so that it flowed past her lips. Alias grasped the stem and swallowed until the entire draught was consumed. A greater heat washed over her, and she slipped off her cape.

“You know what your problem is?” the man asked.

“No, what?” She reached for the wine bottle and poured herself a third glass.

“You aren’t used to acquiring information slowly, listening to people explain things in their own way, experiencing life as it comes. You expect someone to just pour everything you want to know into you, as though it were a bottle of wine.” He raised the wine bottle and filled his glass again. “Ah!” he said with glee, his eyes fixed on the doorway. “Finally, a principal actor.”

Alias turned. The man was not the one she was waiting for either. A small man, he was dressed like a merchant, with a purple robe gathered at his waist and a fat, overstuffed hat with a long, swan feather plume on his head.

The small man climbed upon a low, stone platform opposite the fire pit, waved a parchment scroll over his head, and shouted “Silence!”

Half the conversations died out, but a few scattered patrons continued chattering. The quieted persons turned their attention to the merchant. Assured of at least a partial audience, the man unrolled his scroll and began to read.

“Hear, all and sundry, the words of the Iron Throne.” The last words caught the attention of those who had ignored him. Silence blanketed the room.

The herald paused for effect. Alias frowned. The eyes of the young man beside her twinkled merrily. “The Iron Throne,” her companion explained in a hushed whisper without taking his eyes from the speaker, “is a young trading organization, just beginning to compete with the better established merchant houses. Their favorite strategies include force, treachery, and magic.”

The herald read on. “The Iron Throne is much concerned with the growing violence in the north, violence fed by the arms merchants who line their own pockets at the expense of others.”

“The Iron Throne should know, their pockets bulge, too!” a heckler called out, followed by a spattering of applause.

The herald’s eyes narrowed. “Hence, the Iron Throne pronounces an anathema upon the warmongering merchants and will close Shadow Gap for thirty days.”

Boos and catcalls followed.

“It would take four divisions of mercenaries, at least, to hold this pass,” Alias commented.

“You think so?” the young man replied with a laugh. “Wait and see, shall we?”

“All those within Shadow Gap will be allowed to leave, but they may carry no weapons of war. Thus will the Iron Throne demonstrate its ability to keep peace in the region,” the herald concluded.

“Bull spittle!” shouted the barbarian in the corner booth, rising drunkenly to his feet. “The Iron Throne is shipping weapons by the cartloads to goblins and maggots from Zhentil Keep! They just want to keep the Dales light in armaments for their Zhentarim masters! It will take more than a proclamation-spouting toady to keep us from aiding the free people of the north.”

The herald glared malevolently at the barbarian.

Sensing some unseen power, the cleric tried to pull his friend back to his side, but the barbarian strode over to the herald. The warrior towered above the smaller man, even though the herald stood on the raised platform. He yanked the parchment scroll out of the herald’s hand and shredded it, tossing the pieces in the herald’s face. “Send that message back to the Iron Throne.”

“You needn’t worry about safe delivery of your master’s weapons to his contact in Daggerdale,” the herald hissed. “The contact is already dead, a victim of his own penchant for violence.”

The barbarian drew in a shocked breath. “You killed Brenjer, you murdering swine! I’ll show you violence!” He drew his two-handed sword, swung the massive blade over his head, and struck the herald in the forehead.

The steel sliced through its target down to the waist with the same ease and sound it would make ripping through taut canvas.

Alias gasped, for the body of the herald did not gush blood or fall to the floor, as would a carcass of meat. Instead, two ragged shards of purple cloth drifted to the floor and a black mist rose from them, forming into the shape of an inverted tear drop above the barbarian.

Two unblinking, yellow eyes glowed within the cloud of dark vapor. Beneath the eyes a huge gap parted, revealing rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth. From this maw came the sound of a thousand snakes hissing in a stone room.

“A kalmari,” the youth whispered to Alias. “They’re native to the lands of Thay, used by the Red Wizards and their allies. Some speculate they are relatives to intellect devourers. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

Alias, intent on watching the barbarian deal with the monster, did not reply. The barbarian passed his sword through the mist, but his blow did no more damage than it would to smoke. The kalmari gave a rattling laugh, then distended its jaws so its mouth made up more than half its body. The creature fell forward over the man and swallowed him in a single gulp, broadsword and all.

For a moment there was silence while the inn’s occupants struggled to comprehend what had happened. Then the room erupted with a clatter of toppled chairs and tables and shuffling feet as the inhabitants sought escape.

Clerics and mages intoned the words of half a dozen spells and wardings as they backed away from the beast.

The kalmari tilted its head back and spit out the barbarian’s sword, its blade propelled upward in a twisting ribbon of flame. The sword flew into the upper rafters and stuck there, imbedded to the hilt. The flames spread across the ceiling, engulfing the rafters in a white heat.

The kalmari smiled, a wide grin that stretched three-quarters of the way around its body. The smile lasted only a moment before a battery of offensive spells struck—bolts of lightning and flame and radiant blue daggers of magic missile. Alias felt her right arm ache and, looking down, saw that her own runes glowed.

She tried to rise, intent on aiding in the battle any way she could, but the youth beside her placed his hand over the sigils on her forearm and, with the lightest of pressure, held her trapped against the table.

“You’ll get your chance,” he grinned mysteriously. “What’s your hurry?”

The fires spread with unnatural speed, and soon the entire area, save for where Alias and her companion sat, was engulfed in flame. Through the dancing flames Alias could see the kalmari swallowing a mage whole, then belching up another burst of burning ichor.

Yet Alias felt no heat. A moment later, the flames, the kalmari, and its opponents diminished to shadows against the walls of the common room. Then, even the shadows vanished. The inn around her was whole and sturdy, unaffected by the fire, but nearly barren of inhabitants.

Still seated beside the youth, Alias spotted a solitary figure at a table across the room. The figure’s features were completely concealed by a cloak and a hood. This is the one I’ve been waiting for, she told herself with certainty. But now she was reluctant to make the meeting.

The young man drained the last of his wine and rose to leave.

“Wait!” Alias insisted, grabbing his arm. She wanted to say, “Don’t leave me alone with that one,” but she knew her words would not influence him. So instead she asked, “When did this happen?”

“While you were still hunting halfling-stealing dragons west of Suzail.”

Surprised that she got him to answer so easily, she pressed her interrogation further. “Where is the kalmari?”

“Still at large, defending the area for its masters.”

“How does one ward against it?”

“It fears only the mark of its maker.”

“How is it defeated?”

“The kalmari cannot eat anything twice.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

“Enough,” a woman’s voice whispered.

Alias shivered and turned to look at the figure seated across the room. All about the inn was fog.

The woman’s voice cut sharply through the rising vapor. “You’ve gone too far, Nameless. You are dismissed.”

“But she asked a question,” the youth objected. “I want to answer all her questions.”

“You have stalled our interview long enough. I will answer this question for her. The creature is, after all, mine.”

There was something very familiar about the sharp, feminine voice, and Alias felt her right arm throb. When she stood, her senses began to spin. She cursed the wine silently and turned to accuse the youth of getting her drunk, but he was already gone, swallowed in the dream mist.

“Well?” Alias demanded, trying to appear undaunted as the figure rose and drifted, like a ghost, toward her.

“The kalmari is a meager demonstration of my power,” the woman said, making a sweeping gesture with her right hand, palm up. Her features remained concealed in the shadows of the hood, but Alias noted that her left arm was in a sling. “It’s just something I had out on loan to the Iron Throne, who wished to demonstrate their power. Many will think twice before crossing the will of the Iron Throne.”

“But what does this have to do with me?” Alias repeated. She stood only an arm’s length from the woman. Alias realized she could easily reach out and yank back the woman’s hood to reveal her face. Perhaps, Alias hoped, if I can recognize the face, it will help to explain my lost memory or the tattoo on my arm. Yet, why do my instincts hold me back, tell me to flee fast and far? Is she a lich or a medusa?

“Why, the kalmari is another of my creatures,” the woman laughed. “I was going to station it here to watch for you. The Iron Crown’s fee only sweetened the pot.”

“Another one of your creatures,” Alias repeated, certain she had gained a new insight. “Like the crystal elemental?”

The woman snorted derisively. “Please. You insult me, my dear. Such a heavy-handed, clumsy thing. My creations have always been elegant.”

“Then what other creature did you mean?” Alias asked.

“Why, I meant you, my child. You’re one of my creatures. Of course, I must share you with the others, but I will always think of you as my own.” The woman held out her good arm in a beckoning gesture, as a mother would welcome a prodigal daughter. Very slowly and sweetly she said, “Come back to Westgate, Puppet. We’re your masters. You need us, and we want you back.”

Alias’s breathing came fast and heavy. “I’m my own master,” she shouted angrily, “not anyone’s puppet.” With a sudden movement she jerked the hood from the woman’s face.

She looked into her own face.

Alias screamed in her dream and woke with a start. The camp was back to normal. She sat near a dying fire in a roofless hostel. It was only a dream, she told herself over and over. She wondered how long she’d been asleep.

Only a dream, she thought again. Though a very bad dream. When was the last time I dreamed like that?

Never, the answer came from the back of her mind. You never dream like that. Ever.

The dream had to be magically influenced, Alias decided, and the woman in the dream had to be Cassana, the Westgate sorceress who branded me with one of these sigils. Why did she look like me?

Alias closed her eyes and concentrated on the woman in the dream. She didn’t look exactly like me, Alias realized. The woman looked older. Perhaps she is a long-lost relative no one ever told me about. Who’s Nameless, then?

Alias stood and stretched by the fire’s dying embers. Her thoughts remained fuzzy, and she had a difficult time concentrating on details. Am I still sleepy, she wondered, or is it possible I’m drunk on dream wine?

Then she heard a noise that set her hackles rising, a noise from her dream—the sound of a thousand hissing snakes in a stone room. The sound of a kalmari.

She whirled about, scanning the boundaries of the campsite, but the darkness defeated her eyes. She glanced over the campsite. Dragonbait lay curled like a cat. Olive snuggled in a nest of blankets. Akabar—there was only darkness where Akabar should have been.

Something in the darkness glittered, and Alias recognized the rows of needle-sharp teeth. Only then was she able to make out the silhouette of the beast. From the tear-drop shape extended a dark, prehensile tail. The creature’s shadow shifted just enough for Alias to make out Akabar’s sleeping figure. The kalmari wrapped its tail about him and began lifting the mage to its gaping maw. Muttering in his sleep, the Turmishman struggled feebly, trying to kick off the blanket entangling his legs, but he did not awaken.

With a shout, Alias leaped forward. Her movement was sloppy and awkward. Damn dream wine! I’m not sober, she realized as she accidentally kicked the sleeping Olive. The kalmari, still hovering with its tail firmly wrapped about the mage, fixed its unblinking, yellow eyes on the warrior.

Alias drew her sword but she hesitated, remembering that the barbarian’s two-handed weapon hadn’t even bloodied the monster. If the dream was true, her weapon was useless. But if the dream was true and the kalmari was indeed one of Cassana’s creatures, then according to Nameless, it could be warded off with the sorceress’s sigil on Alias’s arm. If Nameless had been telling the truth.…

Frustrated with all the uncertainties, the swordswoman stopped analyzing the situation. Still holding her sword, she raised her branded arm over her head, wrist forward. Her arm felt heavy and sluggish, as though a solid gold shield were strapped to it. Damn wine! she thought. She gritted her teeth and kept the arm up. A brilliant, blue light shot from the sigils, illuminating the campsite and making the black, smoky form of the kalmari easier to discern.

Lacking the eyelids to blink in the strong light, the kalmari’s elongated pupils narrowed to slits, and the creature floated backward the length of a sword. Its grip on Akabar was still firm, however, and it held its tail forward, using the mage as a shield.

I can keep the creature back, Alias thought grimly, but how do I get it to drop Akabar?

In her dream she had asked Nameless how to defeat the kalmari. He had told her, but the details of the dream were already drifting from her memory. Alias struggled to remember his words.

He hadn’t told me what to do exactly. He’d said something about what the kalmari couldn’t do. It couldn’t eat something. It couldn’t eat something twice. What nonsense! Alias thought. If you’ve eaten something, you can’t eat it again, can you? Unless you’re the kind of creature that regurgitates the bones of your victims.

Behind her came a high-pitched curse from Olive. “What in the burning lake is that?”

Ignoring the halfling, Alias lunged at the monster, slicing her blade through the extremity that entrapped the still unconscious Turmishman. The monster’s hissing increased in pitch and volume. It was not Alias’s sword that troubled it, though.

The closer she got to Cassana’s creature, the brighter her brands blazed. Annoyed by the intense light or perhaps, as Nameless had said, afraid of its mistress’s sigil, the kalmari retreated farther, though it did not appear ready to flee.

Alias’s eyes roamed across the floor, looking for remains of the northern warrior or other travelers already consumed by the kalmari. Finding nothing to feed the creature, she lunged again, plunging her sword into one of the monster’s eyes. Again, the beast moved away from the light of her arm, but showed no damage from her sword.

Sword. The barbarian’s sword! The kalmari had spit out the barbarian’s sword. A sword with a lion-headed hilt, just like the one Olive had plucked from the ruins.

The adventuress shot quick glances over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the rubble-strewn floor. Nothing. Alias cursed silently. It had been there before. What could have happened to it? Or who—

“Olive!” she shouted. “You found a sword with a lion’s head grip in the ruins earlier.”

“I vaguely recall something of that nature” the halfling answered.

“You must have it, damn it! Give it to me!”

“Really” the halfling huffed. “I was going to give it to you later as a surprise.”

“I don’t want to hear any excuses, just go get it!” Alias screamed.

“But it’s on the other side of the wall—on the other side of the monster!” Olive squeaked. “Why can’t you get it?”

“If I move away, it’s liable to eat Akabar. It can’t touch me, but if it asked for dessert I’d be inclined to serve you to it. Understand?”

Ruskettle muttered something that sounded like cursing in an unknown language, but she nevertheless moved to Alias’s left, swinging wide around the edges of the destroyed hostel and the kalmari.

Alias moved to her left, too, keeping the arc of her circle smaller so that she remained between the monster and the halfling. Then Dragonbait was at her left shoulder, fully awake, his sword at the ready. The sigils bathed them both in an eerie blue radiance. With Dragonbait clearing a path for her through the rubble, the swordswoman managed to back the kalmari into the corner of the hostel that still stood. Alias suspected the wall would prove no impediment to the monster’s retreat, but perhaps it couldn’t pass through the wooden beams without letting go of the mage.

There was a scrambling noise from the edge of the wall behind the kalmari. The kalmari’s hissing grew louder and more threatening. It twisted ever so slightly, keeping one eye on the two warriors, while turning the other on the halfling pawing at the rubble not twenty feet away.

Alias’s throat constricted in fear. Olive seemed to take forever pulling out the massive blade. The weapon stood taller than the halfling, and she could barely lift it. To Alias’s horror, the kalmari turned both eyes on Olive. At that moment the halfling looked up and froze.

“Olive! Use the sword!” Alias shouted. “Use it to defend yourself!”

Alias moved to her right, hoping to force the monster to turn its eyes from the bard, but the leaden feeling in her arm seemed to spread over her entire body, and she tripped over a fallen roof beam and sprawled across the floor.

Her body’s heaviness persisted; her attempts to rise were met with failure. She felt not just drunk, but as though she’d been drugged. It was an effort just to raise her head to watch the kalmari close in on the bard. “Set the sword like a spear!” she cried.

Olive snapped out of her shock and raised the sword. Perhaps she’d only caught the last few words of Alias’s command, or maybe she had some halfling-berserker blood in her, but Olive did not remain standing still, waiting for the monster to impale itself on the weapon. Instead, she charged the creature, holding the sword like a spear. Astonishingly, it looked to Alias as if Olive might succeed in skewering the monster—until the halfling slipped on a pile of broken roof shingles. The sword flew from her hands, and the bard crashed to the floor beneath the kalmari.

The kalmari smiled so broadly that Alias could see its grin from behind. The creature made the same rattling laugh as in her dream. Alias had a clear view of Olive’s terrified face as the halfling looked into the throat of the kalmari—about to become an hors d’oeuvre before Akabar’s main entree.

A blur of dark green shot across Alias’s vision as, with one continuous motion, Dragonbait dashed toward the barbarian’s sword, lifted it, leaped toward the kalmari, and plunged the weapon in the monster’s back. The sword dug into the kalmari’s form with a satisfying thuck. Dragonbait had to jerk the weapon out before he could strike again.

The kalmari made a high-pitched whine Alias hoped was a scream. Turning away from the halfing, the creature dropped the mage. Dragonbait swung again, this time striking the monster above its eyes, and the kalmari whined again, lashing out with its tail. With lightning reflexes, the lizard-warrior met the strike with the sword, severing the appendage. The monster whined again, now at an unbearable pitch, and came at Dragonbait, mouth first, obviously intent on swallowing the scaly warrior. Dragonbait threw the sword, point first, into the monster’s maw.

The kalmari’s smoky body disintegrated into a dozen tiny motes of darkness, which in turn ruptured into smaller fractions, like a drop of oil shaken in water. The bits of darkness were blown away on the night breeze. The barbarian’s sword clattered to the floor of the devastated inn.

Shards of light pricked at Alias’s vision and then faded. Her head dropped to the floor, and she allowed the darkness of unconsciousness to take her.

Through it all Akabar had remained asleep, snoring softly.

Alias awoke to the sound of Olive and Akabar arguing. By the sun’s position, she could tell it was late morning. She felt a little hungover, and it took her a moment to remember the wine Nameless had helped her guzzle.

“Your story is most amusing, little one,” the Turmishman was saying to Olive, “but just not probable. My dreams were pleasant and my sleep uninterrupted. I would have been awake in an instant if the events you described had truly occurred.”

“I tell you, this thing was huge and black and had more fangs than you have hairs in your beard. Its mouth opened so wide—” Olive flung her arms out as far as they would stretch “—that it could have swallowed itself.

Akabar laughed. “It sounds to me as though perhaps my cooking was mer a lammer for you,” the mage commented, using an expression in his native tongue. “Much and too much,” he translated for the halfling.

Alias shook the last bits of sleep from her head. “Olive’s telling you the truth, Akabar. Hard to credit, I’ll admit, but she wasn’t the only witness to the attack.”

The grin disappeared from Akabar’s face. “Why did it strike at me first, I wonder.”

“Maybe you looked the tastiest,” Olive suggested.

“The creature was a kalmari, impervious to normal attacks,” Alias said. “It probably recognized you as a mage, and hence the greatest threat.”

Then Alias remembered what Cassana had said in her dream. “I have reason to believe that it was waiting here for me,” she added, “and that it belonged to one of the wizards who branded me. When I got close to it, the sigils began to glow again, something that also happened in the presence of the crystal elemental. Perhaps my foes have judged you too useful to me and have decided to have you removed. A demonstration to prove the futility of defiance.”

“A kalmari,” Akabar mused, no longer puzzled. “Yes, such things can hold a man in slumber. How did you defeat it?”

“Chopped it with a sword it had already swallowed.”

“Ah, yes,” the southerner nodded. “They cannot digest steel, so they spit it out. They can be poisoned by the very secretions that they’ve left on the blade.

“You’ve fought one before?” Alias asked.

“No,” Akabar admitted. “I have read of them. They are a horror attributed to the Red Wizards of Thay, I believe.”

Alias nodded.

“Even with a regorged weapon, it could not have been an easy battle. However did you manage?” he asked Olive.

Alias smiled. No doubt the bard had exaggerated her role in the destruction of the monster.

Olive looked down at her furry hands. “I got some help from Dragonbait.”

“Where is Dragonbait, anyway?” Alias asked.

“I noticed him climbing that hill,” Akabar said, pointing to the western slope looming over the top of the pass. “He was carrying a monstrous sword.”

“Hmmm. You two start breaking camp,” the adventureress ordered. “I’ll fetch him, and we’ll be off. I’m not inclined to hang around here.”

Climbing toward the western slope, Alias heard Akabar chiding Olive. “Why didn’t you tell me it was a kalmari instead of babbling on about a big, black, fang-toothed thing?”

Catching the sound of soft, whistling tones, Alias followed them to a spring-fed pool, where she found Dragonbait. The lizard had made a set of bird pipes, and the tune he twisted out of them, while sad and plaintive, was also exultant, a cry of loss and pain spun into beautiful music. Somehow Alias knew it was made to honor a fallen hero.

She sat beside the lizard and waited for him to finish. A long, low mound of dirt stretched before him. When he was finished, he lay the pipes, very gently, on top of the newly turned earth and bowed his head silently.

A bird twittered in some distant glade. The air smelled of roses. Dragonbait finally looked up at her and smiled. Not really a happy smile, but a bittersweet one, though Alias doubted anyone but she could tell the difference.

“That the sword?” she asked, pointing at the thin grave.

Dragonbait nodded.

Alias sighed. “It could be magical. We could use a weapon like that.”

Dragonbait shook his head, though Alias could not tell if he was denying the sword’s possible enchantment or their need for such a thing.

“Someone else will only dig it up,” she argued, though her own heart wasn’t really in it.

Dragonbait shook his head again.

Alias sighed. “Okay. We’ll leave it as a memorial. Come on now. We’ve already lost half a day, and we’re tempting untrustworthy gods by staying here any longer.” She patted the lizard’s arm as she rose. His tightly knit scales reminded her of warm jewels, dry and smooth.

As she turned to make her way down the slope, it occurred to her that Dragonbait couldn’t have known about the sword’s owner. Unless he had the ability to sense an object’s past or he had read her mind or … Alias halted in mid-step and turned around. “Did you dream the same dream?”

The lizard cocked his head as if he didn’t understand.

“Never mind,” she said, realizing that, though they did communicate with one another in a fashion, some questions were just too complicated for her to convey. “Just finish up here. We’ll be waiting at the camp.”

Dragonbait remained at the grave for a few moments, then rose and followed his lady out of the glade. The birds picked up his pipe-song and carried it throughout Shadow Gap, south into the Stonelands and north into the Dales.