Azure bonds - Kate Novak [149]
A male halfling in a flashy yellow taffeta costume sat at Cassana's feet, playing with a wicked-looking knife. There was something bizarre about his eyes-they had no whites around the irises, yet the pupils looked white. The halfling smiled far too broadly, reminding Alias of the kalmari.
A skeletal figure in a brown cloak stood beside the throne, leaning on a twisted staff. His face was hidden beneath the hood of his cloak.
"Hello, Puppet," Cassana greeted her. She was dressed in a rich, flowing gown, worn off one shoulder. The white cloth glittered in the candlelight like woven diamonds. A band of matching material circled her brow, holding her auburn hair in place. She turned the slim, blue wand over and over in her hands.
Alias's spine stiffened at the sorceress's address. The voice was so familiar, but not because it was her own. Alias recognized the harsh, bitter tones. She had listened to the voice before, and she had hated it then as she did now.
An old, lost memory surfaced. She was rising out of a pool of silver streaked with crimson. Cassana stood over her with that wand, laughing in low, rich tones-the laughter of a vain woman, delighted to see herself replicated.
Alias bared her teeth in a tight smile. "Hello, Cassana. Or should I call you Mother?"
Akabar now stood beside the swordswoman, his jaw slack, amazed at the resemblance Alias bore to the sorceress.
Cassana gave a guttural laugh and shattered her illusion of being an older Alias. Such a laugh could never come from Alias. It was a cruel, heartless laugh, and Alias was neither of those things.
Akabar pointed at the tall form beside the throne. "That's the one who grabbed me."
Cassana motioned lazily, and the skeletal figure reached up with age-rotted hands and flipped back the hood of its cloak. Beneath lay a skull covered with translucent, jaundiced flesh stretched like a drum head. Its features consisted of a rictus-grin, a deteriorating nose, and ebony eye sockets in which sharp points of light danced.
"Yesss," the undead creature hissed. "I reached up and snared you tight, stopping your blood and freezing your muscles." The creature flexed a skeletal hand, each finger bone sharp as a knife. "Yet you live, petty wizard. But only because the Lady Cassana craves unblemished fruit on occasion." The undead creature laughed, too-a hoarse. wheezing laugh disturbingly familiar to Akabar. Try as he could, however, the Turmishman could not place it.
Alias did, though. She remembered the laugh in concert with Cassana's. for this thing had also been present when Alias had been "born." It had laughed at the swordswoman's nakedness and helplessness-the same laugh that had emanated from the maw of the crystal elemental summoned by the undead thing.
"Zrie Prakis," Alias whispered.
"Yes. I believe introductions are called for," Cassana said, her tone as proper as a society matron's. "1 am Cassana. This male child is called Phalse." The halfling looked up, and his too-wide smile grew even wider. "And this, as you have guessed, is Zrie Prakis, formerly a mage, now a lich. You've already heard, so I understand, of the grand passion he and I shared that nearly ended in a fiery blaze. But I never let go of things that are mine." She grasped the blue wand tightly to emphasize her point.
"Gentlemen," she addressed Phalse and Zrie Prakis, "you already know our dear Puppet and the thing on the floor. The handsome mage," and with that description her eyes seized on the Turmishman like the talons of a hawk about a hare, "is Akabar Bel Akash, powerful in both magic and cooking. Your peppered lamb is notorious even here, Akabar."
Akabar furrowed his brow in puzzlement.
For a third time Cassana laughed. "Come now, mageling, she mocked. "Surely you did not expect us all to be as out-of-date and foolish as the moldy old god you so amusingly destroyed? We have followed your journey, at first in bits and pieces, but more steadily since Shadowdale.
"We decided to let you