Azure bonds - Kate Novak [155]
"But he's still alive?"
The lich nodded with a crack of his neck bones. "Cassana the Cruel hates to cast aside her pets. He is prisoner in the cellars. But he is quite mad."
Olive decided to agree with the lich for now. Glibly she asked, "When do we start this revolution?"
"Use the time when we're at the ceremony to lace the house with traps. Lay in wait and ambush. Now, mime your sleep while I prepare the prisoners. And do not give yourself away, or I will be forced to slay you myself." The skin over his forehead wrinkled the slightest bit as he made an attempt to threateningly raise eyebrows he did not possess.
Then he drifted from the room, silent except for the creaking of his bones.
Olive leaned back in the bed and closed her eves, and the energy the lich had channeled into her did indeed keep her from falling asleep. Unfortunately, it also made her restless. Her mind kept flipping through her quickly diminishing options.
She turned on her side, away from the door, and thought harder. Though she'd been wishing for Phalse's friends to show up and take Alias, she'd felt a pang of disappointment when she'd learned they'd already captured the swords-woman. Her second meeting with Phalse had not left the bard with as charming an impression of the pseudo-halfling as their first had. Strangers always looked friendlier sitting behind a stack of coins, Olive realized. His offer of great power had sounded amusing accompanied by fine Luiren ale, but Olive had never really been interested in power.
Especially not if it meant watching people getting beaten to a pulp.
While she'd been drinking with Phalse, Olive had formed some half-baked scheme of joining the alliance in order to discover by her own means-stealth and cunning-the identitles and intentions of Alias's foes. In her mind, she would then have reported back to Alias, revealing how she had succeeded where the book-laden mage would not and the scaly paladin could not. That would have impressed them.
But the plan had backfired drastically, and now she was trapped, a little spider in a larger spider's web. She could think of only three options: Escape somehow and flee, living in fear of retribution; find a wav to free the others and fight; or join the alliance for real, submitting herself to whatever Phalse and Cassana had in store for her.
She did not consider the lich's plan. It was entirely too dangerous. Cassana would fry me like a banana, Olive realized, if I came within twelve inches of her wand.
Olive didn't much care for the idea of sticking around. Besides disliking her role of low woman on the totem pole, an alliance with these people was very risky business. Their partners had a habit of dying off.
Olive granted that she was greedy and ambitious, but these people were cruel and hateful and perverse-no act of hers could ever bring her to their level of perdition.
Still, despite herself, and despite Prakis's warnings, she felt drawn to Phalse. He had treated her with courtesy and rewarded her with more cash than anyone else had in a long time. He understood her halfling heart.
The door creaked open behind her and then closed. Someone tiptoed over to the bed. The bard snapped her eyes shut, and began breathing shallowly with a melodic semi-snore.
A small hand touched her knee, and Olive shifted slightly to cover her startled movement. Small fingers danced up her thigh and then cupped her breasts. After a moment or two they withdrew. It wasn't until the door opened and closed again that Olive realized she'd been holding her breath.
She sat bolt upright after Phalse's retreat, gritting her teeth against a scream. She scratched one option from her list. She couldn't stay here. She would escape-with or without the others.
28
The Crafter
Olive crept about the room, slipping some of the more pawnable