Azure bonds - Kate Novak [172]
Akabar and Olive exchanged glances. The halfling shrugged. Alias moved closer to the old man.
When Nameless caught sight of the swordswoman, he tried to sit up, but his remaining wounds caused him too much pain to do so. Dragonbail moved to support his back, but Nameless waved him away. With some effort, he pulled himself to a seated position, facing Alias.
He gazed at her bloodied, disheveled form and sighed. "You are everything I intended-and more."
"You're the Nameless Bard," Alias replied, her tone even and emotionless.
"Yes. Do you remember my tale? I did not put it in you, as I did the other tales, but told it to you the hour you first woke, while we waited for the potions to heal Dragonbait so you could run away with him."
Alias shook her head. "I don't remember hearing it. I only remember it."
"What do you remember?" Nameless prompted her.
"It's the tale of a man with overweening vanity who betrayed his scruples trying to complete a task he knew very well had the potential for tremendous abuse."
Olive gasped and Akabar bit on his lower lip.
The color drained from Nameless's face.
"Am I wrong?" Alias asked.
A long moment passed. The cloudless sky flashed and crashed as a lightning storm erupted overhead. The energy discharges cast sharp shadows of the party on the tower roof's gray flagstones.
"How can you say that?" Nameless whispered.
"Sounds to me like she put her own interpretation on the story," Olive said smugly. "What do want to bet she tinkers with your songs, too?"
In a defeated tone, the true bard said, "I've failed."
Akabar grinned, "True. You tried to make a thing, and instead you created a daughter. In Turmish, we'd say you were blessed by the gods."
Alias smiled at the mage gratefully.
"Might even outdo her old man as a bard," Olive predicted.
Nameless looked up in surprise at the halfling. Obviously it had never occurred to him that his creation might improve on his work. He was too proud and too vain. "I gave you everything I could," he said.
"A false history, your songs, and no true name," Alias said
"I gave you a past so you would not feel alone and removed from those you would live among, and my songs were all I had left. I set you free at the price of my own freedom. When Cassana dragged me from my cell to distract you in a dream, I tried to warn you. She controlled most of my words and actions, but I did tell you how to defeat her kalmari."
"Yes. You did those things," Alias admitted flatly.
The true bard looked anguished. "But you still hate me."
"I didn't say that," Alias replied. A grin broke through her grim expression. "Don't human children often disagree with their parents without hating them?"
"Do vou think of me as your father.then?"
The swordswoman shrugged. "I don't know. You hardly gave me anything in the way of a family in my memories. I'm not very practiced at feeling filial affection. Do you think of me as a daughter?"
Nameless looked down at the flagstones for a moment before meeting her eyes again."To be honest, no. At least. not until now."
"That's all right." She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his wrinkled cheek. "I found myself two good friends, and you gave me a brother."
"A brother-" Nameless did not understand at first. "Oh, yes. Vou share the saurial's soul."
Dragonbait shook his head.
"You do. Phalse divided vour soul," Nameless told the paladin. "You have half a soul each."
Dragonbait's eves squinted with displeasure. He extended two claws, pointed at Alias and retracted one, pointed at himself and retracted the second.
"He should know," Olive said. "He's the expert on souls."
The lizard nodded.
"You can't split a soul and get two souls," Nameless argued.
"Why not?" the halfling demanded. 'They're infinite things. If you break them up, you still have two infinite things."
Akabar stared in amazement at the short bard.
"What?" Olive asked, uncomfortable in his case. "Am I wrong?'