“Better make that late morning,” Akabar sighed. He rose to settle accounts with the barkeep while Dragonbait and Ruskettle hauled the fallen warrior to her room.
9
Trek Through Cormyr
It was almost noon when the party left Suzail. Akabar had spent the morning purchasing supplies. His was the easy job.
Olive and Dragonbait had the dubious honor of tumbling Alias out of bed so she could lead them to Yulash. The swordswoman cursed them both feebly. When they finally got her to sit, she threw up. Finally, they got her cleaned up and dressed. She moaned all the while and wept some, too.
“To hear her complain,” Olive sniffed, “you’d think she was a fifteen-year-old debutante suffering from her first drunk. Is she always like this?” she asked Dragonbait.
The lizard made no sound or gesture in reply.
The halfling looked about the room for another bottle of liquor. According to the barkeep, the swordswoman had had only two mugs of mead. Granted, it was good, potent stuff and the barkeep’s mugs were a generous size, but that couldn’t possibly be enough to leave a seasoned warrior so incapacitated, Olive decided. Yet, there was no sign of alcohol in any of Alias’s belongings.
Olive remembered her aunt who would go into a crying jag after a single glass of wine. It wasn’t the booze, her mother had explained to her, it was the feeling in her heart when she drank. The halfling wondered how anyone could be so depressed. Alias had her health, gold in her purse, she wasn’t love-struck over anyone, and this afternoon she’d be three steps ahead of the law on open road. Who could ask for more? Humans! Go figure. Olive sighed and ran a cool, damp rag about Alias’s face.
By the time a scowling Alias stumbled out of the inn, her hood up to shade her eyes against the bright sunlight, Akabar was waiting with the party’s horses and pony saddled and packed.
If Alias had any appreciation for Akabar’s efforts and skills as a quartermaster, she didn’t bother to note it aloud. “I have to make a stop somewhere,” she whispered, nudging Lady Killer into motion. The others followed her to the Towers of Good Fortune.
“Wait here,” she ordered. The mage and the halfling remained mounted as she entered the temple to Tymora. Dragonbait scratched Lightning’s muzzle thoughtfully.
Alias kept her hood up even in the dim light of the church. There were three priests and about twenty people seated in the congregation hall, some whispering, others praying silently. She knew it was unlikely Winefiddle had returned so soon from Dimswart’s, but she really didn’t want to run into him in case he had.
So she stood near the doorway, studying the carving of Lady Luck in front of the altar. The image of Tymora had short hair, tousled like Alias’s. The goddess’s figure was more boyish, but no more muscled than the swordswoman’s. The sideways shift of her eyes and the half-grin gave her a crafty look Alias had noted a few times on Olive’s face. Halflings, she remembered, worshipped an image of Tymora that resembled a halfling female. Alias tried to remember the last time she’d grinned that way.
All I’ve had lately, she thought, is bad luck. I don’t even believe in luck. What am I doing here? At her elbow was the poor box where she was supposed to have left the green gem the night Winefiddle had tried to remove the runes on her arm, the night she’d try to kill him.
Personally, she addressed the goddess in her thoughts. If someone tried to kill one of my priests and then cheated me out of what they owed me and then came back and tried to make it up to me by paying me even more, I don’t think I’d feel any better disposed toward them.
From her purse she drew out the opal Olive had liberated from Mist’s lair. The huge gem felt warm and smooth in her palm. She dropped it into the poor box. Just in case you aren’t like me, she thought. She turned about and left the temple.
Alias just didn’t have the energy to lay a false trail out of the city. She led her party through the east gate which led directly to the road north. She rode along without a sound.
Wracking his brain for something to say that might make her feel even a tiny bit better, Akabar came up with, “I had noticed, as regards liquid refreshment, that the emphasis north of the Inner Sea is on strength as opposed to flavor. It is no doubt a common thing for a person to be caught unawares by the power of the beverages served here—”
The mage soon regretted having said anything. Alias made no reply, but, even worse, the bard launched into a defense of the drinks of the northern Realms. Her comparison of a Delayed Blast with a Flaming Gullet did nothing to disprove Akabar’s original point, and only served to turn the swordswoman a more distressing shade of green.
Akabar remained as quiet as Alias after that, but Olive continued chattering to Dragonbait for some time. When she got tired of talking to the mute creature, she sang. She was on the thirteenth verse of her fifth ballad when Alias finally spoke.
“Olive, please, try to show some consideration for the dying,” the warrior whispered.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Alias. Are you still feeling poorly?”
“I meant you.”
“But, I feel fine,” the halfling replied in confusion.
“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to have to kill you. Then you won’t feel fine at all.”
The bard gulped and remained silent for about half a mile. Finally, though, she dropped back some ways from the party so she could continue humming softly without incurring the swordswoman’s wrath. Dragonbait slowed down to join her, perhaps out of pity, though Akabar suspected the lizard really was a music lover.
“Cheerful people are so depressing,” Alias muttered.
The mage smiled, and they rode on in silence.
After a good night’s rest at an inn in Hilp, Alias seemed fully recovered. As they progressed northward, Alias kept a watchful eye on Dragonbait, who loped along beside the horses. She’d admonished him to let her know if they went too fast. The lizard had responded by running around the horses with a curious bouncing gait and then turning three cartwheels.
Alias even tolerated the halfling’s prattle and went so far as to try teaching the bard a ballad she claimed to have learned from a Harper.
“Not a Harper!” Olive gasped, obviously impressed.
Alias nodded.
“I don’t understand,” Akabar said. “What is so special about playing the harp?”
Olive shook her head and sighed.
“Up north,” Alias explained, “one who plays the harp is a harpist. A Harper is something rather different.”
“What then?” the mage asked.
“Well, they’re usually bards or rangers, though sometimes they ask other adventurers to join them. They …” Alias hesitated. It would sound so banal to say it aloud. “They work for good things,” she answered quickly and then launched into the ballad for Olive.
Akabar mused over Alias’s words. He now recalled having heard a story or two about these Harper people, but he had not paid much attention. They were supposed to be a mysterious, powerful bunch, but Alias’s reaction interested him more. The woman had seemed flustered when giving her explanation.
He listened now to her singing. Her voice was better than the bard’s. It had a clear, lilting quality. The song she sang was better than any of Olive’s, too. Like the song she’d sung about the tears of Selûne, two nights ago in The Hidden Lady, the lyrics were haunting. They told of the Fall of Myth Drannor, the splendid elven city, now a ruin in the woods.
The song caused Akabar to begin speculating on Alias’s lost past. Only now his speculations were even wilder than Olive’s had been. Suppose she was more than just a mercenary. Certainly evil things were after her. Had she, to put it in her own words, “worked for good things” so well that she was considered a threat? Had she been enchanted with those fell runes on her arm so that she would do some evil and thereby destroy her reputation?