Azure bonds - Kate Novak [71]
Olive grumbled about the inordinate number of stairs in human buildings. Even Dragonbait puffed and growled some. Alias didn't care, though. To her mind they'd rented the best rooms in the house.
Alias claimed Warm Fires, a room with three separate hearths, all blazing merrily. Akabar choose the Onyx, with its white carvings. Ruskettle sniffed at the wilderness scenes on the tapestries that completely covered the walls of the Green Room.
"This will do in a pinch," she declared, sprawling out on the bright yellow bedspread, and promptly falling asleep.
"Her room has no windows," Akabar noted to Alias as he closed her door. "Keeping an eye on her comings and goings will be that much easier."
"You don't say? That's just the reason the leader of my first adventuring group always reserved this room," Alias explained. "We had two sleight-of-hand artistes."
Akabar grinned. "If I'm not here when you wake, I'll probably be speaking with the sage Dimswart recommended."
"Fine." Alias nodded sleepily.
"Pleasant dreams," he wished her,
"Pleasdream," Alias mumbled, closing her door.
With Dragonbait already curled before the largest hearth, snoring deeply, Alias stripped off her clothes, wrapped the bed coverings around herself, and crawled onto the goose down mattress. She was awake only long enough to note the rain had started again, a steady drizzle which lulled her to sleep within minutes.
*****
When Alias awoke, the rain had stopped and the sun was low in the western sky. She rose leisurely, stretching and yawning and wriggling between the warm sheets, luxuriating in what nine silver pieces a night could buy.
Finally, Alias sat up and looked around. Her clothes were spread before the blazing hearths. Dragonbait's doing, Alias realized, but where'd he taken himself to? she wondered.
The warrior yawned, stretched, and padded across the room, collecting what she would wear. From two floors below came the rythmic thumping of people dancing. The locals had already begun their evening festivities.
She pulled on her leggings, stiff from drying. Instead of an ordinary tunic, she chose from her pack a new robe, something made from wool dyed a turquoise color. Its long sleeves tied around her wrists, hiding her arms completely. Tonight she would forget her problems for a few hours if she could.
Dragonbait had already polished and dried her armor, but she was sick of wearing it. Tonight she would forget her profession, too. She wouldn't even bring her sword, not even peacebonded. She didn't need it for feasting, drinking, singing, or dancing. Besides, she was known in Shadowdale. No one here was an enemy.
She slid her remaining dagger in a boot sheath-only because daggers could be used in games, she told herself. She made a mental note to purchase another, to replace the lost one, but promptly forgot that, too. Akabar will remember, she thought with a grin.
Alias knocked on the mage's door. There was no answer, so she went down to the taproom alone. Olive was already there, holding court for a roomful of locals. Dragonbait sat at her feet. The halfling held her hands to her mouth, fingers spread and curled in imitation of fangs and then opened her arms wide. Alias realized she was recounting her battle with the kalmari.
A sudden anxiety swept over the swordswoman. The foolish halfling might babble about the sigils. It hadn't occurred to Alias to forbid the bard to mention them. Stupid, stupid, stupid! she scolded herself. Did she think she could rely on Olive's halfling sense of propriety?
Tonight of all nights she did not want to be identified as a marked woman, a magnet for danger.
"Your friend spins quite a tale," a mellow voice beside her commented. "How much of it is true?"
Alias turned toward the speaker. He was an attractive man, clean-shaven, well-dressed, with the lean body of a fighter. The only ornament he wore was a ring of red metal, inlaid with three silver crescents wrapped in blue flames He had the smooth polish of the Dale's nobility, polite,