Azure bonds - Kate Novak [65]
Surprised that she got him to answer so easily, she pressed her interrogation further. "Where is the kalmari?"
"Still at large, defending the area for its masters.'
"How does one ward against it?"
"It fears only the mark of its maker."
"How is it defeated?"
"The kalmari cannot eat anything twice."
"What does it have to do with me?"
"Enough," a woman's voice whispered.
Alias shivered and turned to look at the figure seated across the room. All about the inn was fog.
The woman's voice cut sharply through the rising vapor. "You've gone too far, Nameless. You are dismissed."
"But she asked a question," the youth objected. "I want to answer all her questions."
"You have stalled our interview long enough. I will answer this question for her. The creature is, after all, mine."
There was something very familiar about the sharp, feminine voice, and Alias felt her right arm throb. When she stood, her senses began to spin. She cursed the wine silently and turned to accuse the youth of getting her drunk, but he was already gone, swallowed in the dream mist.
"Well?" Alias demanded, trying to appear undaunted as the figure rose and drifted, like a ghost, toward her.
"The kalmari is a meager demonstration of my power," the woman said, making a sweeping gesture with her right hand, palm up. Her features remained concealed in the shadows of the hood, but Alias noted that her left arm was in a sling. "It's just something I had out on loan to the Iron Throne, who wished to demonstrate their power. Many will think twice before crossing the will of the Iron Throne."
"But what does this have to do with me?" Alias repeated. She stood only an arm's length from the woman. Alias realized she could easily reach out and yank back the woman's hood to reveal her face. Perhaps, Alias hoped, if I can recognize the face, it will help to explain my lost memory or the tattoo on my arm. Yet, why do my instincts hold me back tell me to flee fast and far? Is she a lich or a medusa?
"Why, the kalmari is another of my creatures," the woman laughed. "I was going to station it here to watch for you. The Iron Crown's fee only sweetened the pot."
"Another one of your creatures," Alias repeated, certain she had gained a new insight. "Like the crystal elemental?
The woman snorted derisively. "Please. You insult me, my dear. Such a heavy-handed, clumsy thing. My creations have always been elegant."
"Then what other creature did you mean?" Alias asked.
"Why, I meant you, my child. You're one of my creatures Of course, I must share you with the others, but I will always think of you as my own." The woman held out her good arm in a beckoning gesture, as a mother would welcome a prodigal daughter. Very slowly and sweetly she said, "Come back to Westgate, Puppet. We're your masters. You need us, and we want you back."
Alias's breathing came fast and heavy. "I'm my own master," she shouted angrily, "not anyone's puppet." With a sudden movement she jerked the hood from the woman's face.
She looked into her own face.
Alias screamed in her dream and woke with a start. The camp was back to normal. She sat near a dying fire in a root less hostel. It was only a dream, she told herself over and over. She wondered how long she'd been asleep.
Only a dream, she thought again. Though a very bad dream. When was the last time I dreamed like that?
Never, the answer came from the back of her mind. You never dream like that. Ever.
The dream had to be magically influenced, Alias decided, and the woman in the dream had to be Cassana, the Westgate sorceress who branded me with one of these sigils. Why did she look like me?
Alias closed her eyes and concentrated on the woman in the dream. She didn't look exactly like me, Alias realized The woman looked older. Perhaps she is a long-lost relative no one ever told me about. Who's Nameless, then?
Alias stood and stretched by the fire's dying embers. Her thoughts remained fuzzy, and she had a difficult time concentrating on details. Am I still sleepy, she wondered, or is it possible I'm drunk on