Azure bonds - Kate Novak [16]
"When I woke up last night."
"From a long sleep?"
"Three days, I'm told," Alias admitted. "Though I've slept nearly as long after overindulgences with ale. When I first woke, I thought I'd been drinking, but now I'm not so sure. I have a lot of missing memories, several months worth, and that's unusual for me."
"No doubt, no doubt." Dimswart pulled his pipe from his mouth and leaned toward her. "What's the last thing you remember before you picked up this little token?"
Alias sighed. "I don't really know. I clearly remember leaving my company, the Adventurers of the Black Hawk, on good terms about a year ago. They were going south. I never liked the warm climes, so I took my share and left. Drifted. Light work, you know. Caravan guard, body guard, challenges in bars. When I woke up I had a vague memory of a recent sea voyage-but it's all too hazy. I…" Alias halted for moment, trying to pull her memories out of the darkness. "I met Dragonbait last night, but I think I knew him from before." She shook her head. "I just don't remember."
"Does Dragonbait talk?" Dimswart asked.
Alias shook her head. "What about these symbols? You called them signals?"
"Sig-ils," corrected the sage, spreading out the pronunciation. "Sigils are a higher kind of symbol. They're like a signature symbolizing a greater power. Clerics use the ones belonging to their churches. Mages invent their own and protect them, sometimes quite jealously. They aren't really magical, but on a document they carry the authority of their owners, and on any other object they indicate uncontestable ownership of a valuable property."
Alias felt herself growing hot, hotter than could be accounted for by the fire. It was a heat from anger burning within. "I've been branded as someone's slave?"
"Possibly," said Dimswart, "though that's a very special brand. Something that intricate could only have been done with the help of magic-magic that resists its own diminishment. I suspect it's responsible for clouding up your memories. If you knew how you got it, you might be able to remove it. That's probably the way it thinks."
"What do you mean, 'it thinks? You mean it's alive?"
"Not in the sense that you or I or this polite lizard is, no. But in terms of a magical creation with its own will to survive, given the desires of its creators, yes. Just as an automaton or golem or summoned creature is alive."
Alias slumped in her chair. "So where does that leave me?" This might be more expensive than she had anticipated.
"Quite frankly, it leaves you in trouble," said the sage, pulling on his pipe and finding that it had gone out. He waved away the fresh brand Dragonbait offered. "Unless we find out what those sigils are."
Alias drew her gaze away from the fire and fixed it firmly on the sage. "What will it cost?" she asked. Her look warned she was in no mood to haggle.
"You're not that rich." Dimswart held up a hand. "Yes, I know that, too. You do seem a fairly competent adventuress, however, and I need someone like that at the moment.
"You've undoubtedly noticed the hubbub outside." The sage jerked his thumb toward the study door, and Alias nodded. "My daughter, Gaylyn, is getting married. Last of the brood, thank the gods. I may finally get some peace and quiet. Anyway, her young squire is from a noble family here in Cormyr-the Wyvernspurs of Immersea, some distant relations of the crown. The upshot is, in order to impress these new in-laws, I have to lay out quite a spread indeed, and to that end I've worked wonders: big tent, finest chefs liberated from the crown's kitchens, silver wrought for the occasion, and four clerics for the ceremony. Stuff from which boring songs are written." He gave a cynical laugh.
"I also sent for a bard," he sighed. "No ordinary songster earning meals in a noble's court, but one of the greats. The renowned Olav Ruskettle, from across the Dragon Reach. The caravan Ruskettle was traveling in was attacked by the Storm