Azure bonds - Kate Novak [8]
When Alias opened her eyes again, she was still lying on the floor. The light on her arm had faded to a very dim glow. Her head was throbbing with unbearable agony. Gods' she thought, as panic gripped her heart. I killed a priest! These hell-spawned markings made me kill a priest; No one will ever believe it wasn't my fault.
She tried to sit up, knowing she had to flee, but the pain in her head made it impossible. Then she heard chanting.
Winefiddle knelt beside her-not dead after all. In the dimness of the temple lamps Alias could see his hands were glowing very slightly. He held them over the wound in his side and then over her forehead. The throbbing subsided.
"How are you feeling?" the curate asked.
"All right, I guess," she muttered, sitting up slowly. She was unable to meet the priest's eyes. "I might have killed you," she whispered.
"Not very likely," Winefiddle replied lightly. "We are in Tymora's temple, and Her luck was with me, not you."
His nonchalance startled Alias. She had to make him understand, even if it didn't matter to him. "It wasn't me, though," she explained. "My arm… it took me over somehow."
"Yes. The symbols must have instructions to destroy anyone who would try to remove them, discouraging you from seeking out help. I thought you looked possessed-but it couldn't have been a real possession."
"Why not?"
"An alarm would have gone off if any possessed person approached the altar. You didn't set it off. I don't think you're cursed exactly either, or the scroll I used would have worked. The symbols on your arm are magical, but they aren't just magical. There's some mechanistic component to them that protects them from being exorcised."
"But I have to get them off," Alias insisted. "I can't run around with markings that make me try to kill priests. Who knows what else they might make me do?"
"Indeed," Winefiddle agreed, "but removing them might prove to be complicated and costly. If it can be done, it would require the power of many clerics and mages, as well as a surgeon. And you would have no guarantee that the markings would let you live through the procedure. It might be easier and safer for you to cut off the arm and retire."
"No!"
"But these markings are very dangerous. You could learn to fight left-handed," Winefiddle suggested.
"I can already do that," Alias declared. "That's not the point. I'm not going to let these things, or whoever put them on me, ruin my life. Besides, suppose they had roots or something that went into my body."
"Well, then, I would advise you to learn all you can about the markings. None of them are familiar to me. Perhaps if you can discover their origins, you can discover who put them on you and get them to remove them for you."
Alias looked down at the blue glyphs. None of them were familiar to her either. Even the Turmishman, Akabar Bel Akash, had found them unusual. "That'll take a sage's service, and sages aren't cheap."
"True," Winefiddle agreed. "However, I happen to know of a very good one who might be willing to exchange his services for yours. His name is Dimswart. He lives about half a day's ride outside of Suzail."
"What kind of services might he be looking for?" Alias asked suspiciously.
"Better to let him explain that," Winefiddle said evasively.
Five minutes later Alias left the temple, a letter of introduction in her pocket, along with the small greenish gem originally intended for Tymora's poor box. She had made a motion toward the box with her hand as she passed it, but the gem remained firmly in her grip. As she had pointed out, sages weren't cheap. Her services might not be sufficient to barter with this Dimswart, she told herself.
As she walked away from the temple, an uneasy suspicion occurred to her that perhaps it wasn't her own frugalness that prompted her to hold onto the gem, but some desire of the sigils not to reward the priest who had tried to help her remove them.
The cobblestone Promenade of Suzail appeared deserted, but as soon as Alias left the temple court a tall figure in rustling crimson-and-white robes