Azure bonds - Kate Novak [12]
What makes me think he's not a she? Granted, there's nothing feminine about his torso, but lizards don't have breasts or need wide hips for birthing, now do they? Alias shook her head. No. He's a male. Some sixth sense made her sure of it.
She looked again at the rags he wore. Aren't lizards supposed to hate the cold? I'll have to find him a cloak, something with a deep hood to hide that snout.
Watching the lizard sleeping at her feet, making plans for his comfort, she could no longer feel threatened by him. But she still could not sleep. Slipping quietly out of the bed, she padded over to the small dressing table where Dragonbait had carefully laid out the booty from their would-be ambushers. Dragonbait gave a snarl in his sleep as she raised the flame on the oil lamp, then he turned over, still resting on his sword.
Some watchdog, Alias thought. She turned back to the scattered assassin equipment and sat down at the table to examine it. The daggers-three from the mage, one from each club-wielding assassin-were quite ordinary. The pair of small vials stoppered with wax were much more interesting. Carefully Alias cracked the top of one, and a rich cinnamon smell wafted up. She quicklv restoppered the bottle.
Peranox. A deadly contact poison from the South. Nasty stuff even in the hands of competent assassins, Alias thought. Disaster for first-time bunglers. If the pair had used poisoned daggers instead of clubs, I would be lying dead on the beach instead of them.
Why did they choose clubs to attack? she wondered. Did they want to make my death look like an amateur job? She shook out the sack Dragonbait had cut from the mage. The standard assortment of magical spell-trappings skittered across the wooden desktop-moldy spiderwebs, bits of eyelashes trapped in amber, and dead insects. The only difference, she thought, between a magic-user's pockets and those of a small boy's is that there is less week-old candy in the mage's pockets. After brushing away the debris, Alias found a few coins and a gold ring set with a blue stone.
Something remained stuck in the sack. She shook the bag harder. A talis card fell out onto the desktop, face-down, it bore an insignia of a laughing sun on its back.
Alias pocketed the coins and ring for later inspection and flipped the card over. She drew a sharp breath that caused Dragonbait to start in his sleep.
The card was the Primary of Flames, here represented by a dagger trapped in entwining tire. The card's pattern was twin to She uppermost symbol of Alias's tattoo. Alias felt a twinge from her arm as she compared the two.
She picked up the card and squinted at it. It was home made. Though the laughing sun was made by an embossing stamp, the rest of the workmanship was pretty shabby. Were the other symbols on my arm from other parts of the deck this card came from? she pondered.
At least that explained the assassins' actions. Alias recalled how clumsily they'd wielded the clubs, as though they were swords. They were unused to the more primitive weapon but were forced to wield it so as not to harm her accidentally with an edged weapon. They wanted to capture me alive, she concluded. That's why they passed on the poison, too. They must have been keeping the peranox in reserve for anyone who got in their way.
Like a five foot lizard maybe?
She rose from her seat and, stepping over the soundly snoozing Dragonbait, closed and secured the windows. Windows were open when I woke up this morn-evening. They could have got me then but didn't. Maybe they didn't know where I was until they spotted me on the street Someone must have left me here to keep me safe. But who?
She fished the ring from her pocket, twisted it, and said quietly, "I wish you'd tell me what in Tartarus is going on," but no djinn issued from the ring to enlighten her, nor did Dragonbait break his rhythmic