Spying Olive Ruskettle, who was smoothing out her bulging pockets as best she could, Leona made her way to the bard and escorted her to the garden.
Dimswart turned to Akabar. “Your adventuress has caused a great deal of trouble.” His voice was even, but his upraised eyebrows made his point.
“If you could have spared fifteen minutes from testing ale this morning,” Akabar said in equally polite tones, “and not kept her waiting, this would not have happened.”
“You forget she is my hireling,” Dimswart said. “I am not hers.”
“In the south we say the gods bless all duties faithfully performed. Alias has accomplished her task, while you have yet to complete your end of the bargain.”
Dimswart grimaced but accepted the chastisement with good grace. Like many sages, he liked to consider himself a man of the people. It wasn’t in him to behave haughtily. “That’s still no reason to start a brawl at my daughter’s wedding,” he replied with a sniff.
“It was not her, I believe, but the sigils.”
“Really?” Dimswart’s scholarly curiosity was peaked.
Akabar described how Alias’s glove had burned just prior to the attack.
“Fascinating,” the sage muttered. “Where did she go?”
A handful of servants rolled back the tent, revealing a few more guests, but no Alias. The refreshment tables stood on the bare lawn like the skeletal remains of some huge beast. The ale keg was immediately carried off to the garden, followed by the punch bowl and tables to hold them. The food was a little crushed, but already reserves were being carried from the kitchen.
Akabar spotted Dragonbait circling the beaten grass where the tent had stood, emitting interrogative whines.
“He sounds confused,” Dimswart commented.
Akabar went to the lizard. “We’ll find her, don’t worry.”
Dragonbait gave him a distressed look and issued a sort of chirp.
“You look in her room,” he ordered the lizard. “I’ll search the stable.”
Their search of the house and grounds came up empty. Akabar found Dragonbait on the lawn, staring off at the horizon.
“We’ll have to try the roads,” the mage said. “I need to study my spells. You pack and ready the horses.”
An hour later, Akabar, dressed for traveling, cornered Dimswart, demanding Alias’s information.
With a shrug the sage ushered him into his study and reviewed what he had discovered about the sigils on the swordswoman’s arm.
“Where will you search?” Dimswart asked Akabar when they’d finished.
“I’m not certain,” the mage answered. “There’s a good chance she’s gone back to Suzail, since that’s where we first met. But if she’s gone in another direction …” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Why are you bothering, Akash? She’s nothing to do with you. You just met the woman.”
“She needs help. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“A lot of people in the Realms need help. That doesn’t usually get them the attention of wealthy Turmish merchants. House Akash probably wouldn’t think too highly of you galloping off after some northern warrioress.”
That was true enough, Akabar knew. House Akash, his first wife’s firm and its partner, Kasim, his second wife’s business, would probably never understand. He shrugged again. “The dragon destroyed my inventory. I have no other duties in this region.”
“Any other merchant would cut his losses and head home while he still could,” Dimswart pointed out. “But not you. You’ve got it bad, haven’t you, my friend?”
Akabar stiffened angrily.
“Adventure-lust,” Dimswart sighed. “Not content to remain a greengrocer, are you?”
No, I’m not, Akabar realized. How is it this northerner understands me better than I understood myself?
“You could have picked an easier quest to begin with,” Dimswart continued. “This woman, these sigils, are very dangerous. They represent very evil powers.”
“You have a saying up north, do you not, concerning the number of times opportunity knocks. Besides, I like her.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t. She’s talented, headstrong, arrogant. The two of you have so much in common.”
Akabar grinned. “All the things upon which my friendship with you is based. Amarast, Master Dimswart.”
“Amarast, Akash.”
Dragonbait was waiting in the stables with the three horses they had bought after freeing Olive Ruskettle. He left Olive’s mount, a pony she had named High Roll, behind for the halfling. Akabar had named the first horse, a white stallion, Windove, in honor of its speed. The pack horse, a black gelding, they jokingly called Lightning because it was the only mount docile enough to allow Dragonbait’s touch. Alias had chosen a purebred chestnut for herself. “That one’s a real lady killer,” she had said when they bought it.
“Lady Killer,” Akabar whispered as he patted Alias’s horse before mounting Windove. He shuddered, wondering if the chestnut’s name hadn’t been a bad omen.
He and Dragonbait walked the horses out of the stable and away from Dimswart Manor. The mage led them toward the main road to Suzail. Dragonbait, still dressed in motley, snuffled and snorted in the road’s dust. Akabar had just mounted when he caught the sound of short legs trotting toward them. A shrill voice blew over the hill.
“Akabar, you charlatan, wait up! You’re likely to get hurt traveling out here alone!”
“If we double time it,” the mage said to Dragonbait without looking back, “we can probably lose her in the dust.”
Upon hearing the halfling’s voice, however, Dragonbait’s face broke out in a grin and he halted, keeping a firm grip on Lightning’s reins. Since the pack horse held most of Akabar’s belongings, the merchant-mage had no choice but to wait, too, as Olive Ruskettle came charging over the hill, bouncing up and down on her pony.
“You can’t leave yet,” Akabar said. “The celebration is supposed to last until midnight.”
“Look,” Olive said, “I’ve done my three sets. If I don’t put my foot down, that Leona woman will have me singing till I lose my voice. They don’t pay me enough to lose my voice.”
“They won’t pay you at all if you don’t give them satisfaction.”
“Show’s what you know, clod. I’m an artiste. I get paid in advance. Now, which way do you think our lady’s heading?”
Akabar scowled. He wondered if it were really true that someone as supposedly wise as Dimswart had paid Ruskettle in advance, yet it seemed impossible that the woman would leave without what was owed her—and not just to help Alias. Akabar remembered the way she’d smoothed her pockets after crawling from under the tent. Even if she hasn’t been paid, he realized, she’s already picked up her share of the wedding loot.
Akabar’s fists clenched in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. “We are going to look for her in Suzail. It’s only a half day from here, and she knows the city.”
“Ah, Suzail, gem of Cormyr, home of his most serene and wise marshmallowness, Azoun IV. Think she’s going after the king after practicing on that Wyvernspur buffoon?”
Akabar scowled. “Your disrespect for your own lawful king is appalling.”
Olive laughed. “Down south your leaders behead people for that sort of talk, don’t they? We halflings have a saying: If you take your leaders too seriously, they’re going to start taking themselves too seriously. Azoun’s all right, for a human. But he is a marshmallow. He let his pet wizard keep him at court today, didn’t he?”