Akabar, though tempted, did not disagree with her about the alehouse. He held up the next copper plate engraved with the insect leg-shaped squiggle. “The sorceress who destroyed Zrie Prakis was named Cassana of Westgate. This happens to be her sigil. To the best of Dimswart’s knowledge, Cassana still makes her abode in Westgate. She’s reputed to be fairly powerful, but she’s extremely reclusive. No one’s seen her for years. She’s not dead, but she must be getting on in years.”
“Maybe this Prakis fellow had an apprentice,” Olive suggested. “The apprentice is greedy for power, see, and he teams up with his master’s enemy, this Cassana, and tells her how to defeat him. Then, when Cassana kills Prakis, the apprentice takes his master’s sigil.”
Akabar’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Your expertise on the workings of betrayal is quite interesting.”
Olive smiled sweetly. “Over the years I’ve made a study of all the evil you humans perpetrate on one another.”
Alias’s head began to throb. Anxious to get this discussion over with, she pulled out the next copper plate, but the writing blurred before her eyes. She held the plate up to Akabar. “What about this mouth in the hand?” she asked.
“Dimswart found this most curious,” answered the mage, running his fingers along the engraved fangs in the mouth. “This is a holy symbol—or the unholy symbol, rather—of a cult that has been dead for a thousand years or more. They worshipped Moander the Darkbringer. He, she, or it—the texts keep changing the pronoun over time—had a huge temple complex in the days of Myth Drannor, the elven kingdom, and was a continual menace to the forest peoples. Eventually, the elves burned the complex to the ground, slaying all its priests and banishing the god-thing from the Realms.
“The town of Yulash was built on the site of the complex, but Yulash has itself long since been turned to rubble. Hillsfar and Zhentil Keep are continually battling over its strategic location. Dimswart gave me the name of another sage who may know more, but he warned me that getting an appointment with this person may prove to be a problem.”
Alias held up the last copper plate. The blue upon blue bull’s-eye was represented on sheet metal by three concentric rings, its deepening shades of color not represented at all, but described in the upper right hand corner. Nothing was written below the sigil. Alias looked up at Akabar, her eyebrows raised.
The mage shifted nervously. “Dimswart has seen naught like this in his travels or his books. He thinks it’s something new, perhaps an up-and-coming power. Note that the two magic-user’s sigils are grouped together, but this sigil follows the marking of a dead and banished god.”
“So Dimswart thinks it may be another cult,” said Alias. She picked up her now empty mug and stared into it. The halfling studied the ceiling beams.
“Actually, that was my own observation,” Akabar replied. “Balancing the sigils seemed logical to me, but …”
“But we may not be dealing with balanced or logical people,” Alias concluded for him.
Akabar nodded. “The evidence that the Fire Knives are involved is pretty incontrovertible. The attack of the summoned earth elemental would seem to indicate that some mage is definitely at work here as well. The pattern circling the symbols is common throughout nations of the Inner Sea, symbolizing unions or contracts. Ivy and rose vines are generally used for weddings, dragons for royal charters …”
“Serpents for evil pacts,” Alias added in reference to the serpentine pattern that wound around the runes on her arm.
“What about the sixth party?” Olive asked.
“What sixth party?” Akabar demanded.
Alias held out her arm, wondering herself what Olive was talking about.
The bard pointed to the swordswoman’s wrist, where the serpentine pattern that linked the five sigils wound about an empty space.
“There’s nothing there, you fool,” Akabar snorted.
“Not yet, there isn’t,” Olive said. “Maybe Alias escaped before they got around to adding it, or maybe they’re waiting for a sixth member to pay up their dues. Maybe a sigil’s going to grow there.”
Alias shivered and curled her arms back around her knees.
Akabar tried giving the bard a kick on the ankle to shut her up, but the little woman’s feet swung too far off the floor for him to reach.
“As much as I’d hate to slander a patron,” Olive continued, “I think you need better advice than Dimswart’s given you.”
Alias was inclined to agree. “Where’d this other sage live, the one Dimswart recommended?” she asked Akabar.
“Shadowdale. That’s rather far off though,” the mage pointed out. “It would be simpler to investigate Westgate first.”
The barkeep came to their table and wordlessly unloaded a platter of sandwiches and fresh drinks.
“Shadowdale is on the way to Yulash,” Alias said.
“But it makes more sense to head for Westgate,” Akabar argued. “The Fire—” he looked up at the barkeep “—two of the five guilty parties work out of Westgate. Another one died there.” He smiled at the barkeep. “Thank you. That should do nicely for some time,” he said, dismissing the man. “We can reach Westgate by ship in two or three days. If we can discover nothing there, then a trek to the north would make more sense.”
Alias remained silent, feeling nauseated at the sight of food. With a last paternal glance toward the swordswoman, the barkeep left the table and returned to his other duties.
Olive picked up the five copper plates and began idly shuffling them. Her little hands moved the pieces with amazing dexterity.
Annoyed, Akabar reached over and lifted the sigil engravings from the halfling’s palm. He rewrapped and tied them and handed the bundle to Alias. “So, shall I arrange passage for the morning?”
“I’m almost positive I came to Suzail by boat,” she mused.
“By ship,” Akabar corrected.
“Couldn’t we travel to High Horn and circle around the Lake of Dragons?” Olive suggested. “The roads to Westgate are pretty good.”
Akabar remembered the little woman had claimed to dislike sea journeys.
“We’re going to Yulash,” Alias said quietly.
“What?” both the bard and the mage demanded in unison.
“Suppose I came to Suzail from Westgate,” Alias whispered, “fleeing from whoever did this to me—the Fire Knives or this Cassana person. Instinct tells me to avoid Westgate. I don’t know why—I can’t remember. Maybe I was there and tried taking care of someone else the Fire Knives don’t care for—then I could be wanted by the law, as well as by the underworld. Besides, I don’t want to take on two enemies at once. I’ve already waltzed into one dragon’s lair this month. I don’t intend to do it again for at least another year. In Yulash, as far as we know, I have only one enemy. Also, this master sage you mentioned is on the road to Yulash. We may get more information from him.”
“But the temple in Yulash is destroyed,” Akabar objected. “Yulash is in the hands of the Zhentarim, and they’re not … decent people. It is too dangerous.”
Alias frowned. “Look, Akash, whose quest is this, anyway? You want to accompany me, you can come with me to Yulash. If you’re afraid, you can go to Westgate without me, or better yet, just go home and forget about me.”
Akabar colored. Whether he was more angry that Alias would not take his sage counsel or embarrassed that his honor and courage had been called into question, Olive could not tell for sure. She chimed in, “If this sage in Shadowdale can help, we may not even have to go to Yulash.”
Alias turned to glare at the halfling. “I’m going to Yulash,” she hissed. “I leave in the morning!” With that, she rose from the table, staggered two feet, and passed out on the wooden floor.