Azure bonds - Kate Novak [92]
Giogi handed up his gear and climbed the ladder. Cassana did not even have a chance to introduce her companion before Giogi shrieked. "Oooh! Keep it away!"
"My dear Giogioni, what is wrong?"
Giogi pointed a shaky finger at a pile of crates on the dock. "A snake. A huge snake." He spread his hands out the tiny distance of two hand spans to be sure his exaggeration was not mistaken. "It crawled into that pile of boxes. I don't mean to be such a ninny, but a snake swallowed my Aunt Dorath's pet land urchin once. It was horrible."
Phalse was no longer paying attention to the young Cormyte. He was too busy searching through the crates for what he had been led to assume was the snake Cassana had kept trapped in her pocket. The sorceress, however, instinctively checked her pocket first, but that moment of inattention was all Giogioni needed.
Scooping up his baggage, he fled from the dock into the city of Teziir, desperately searching for a horse, a coach, or any quick means of escape from this den of foreign villainy.
17
Brunch in Shadowdale and the Trek
North
"Well, that's a switch," Alias muttered as she drew back the curtains to let daylight into her room. Dragonbait lay by the fireside, snoozing away. She was awake before him. Of course, he'd been up late last night keeping an eye on Olive, and he had walked, not ridden, from Cormyr.
He must need rest very badly, she thought, more than the rest of us. And he's done the most to earn it, too. Still, she couldn't help wondering mischievously what he would think and feel and do if she were gone when he awoke.
When she'd returned to The Old Skull the night before, he'd been standing near the door of the inn, obviously torn between keeping an eye on the halfling and leaving to find the swordswoman. She had offered to stay in the taproom with Olive so that he could retire, but he had shaken his head in refusal. Alias, feeling worn from their forced march and with her ankle throbbing from her trip in the darkness, had accepted his gallantry gratefully and gone to bed herself. She had no idea what time he'd come up to sleep.
Now she felt just a touch guilty. She crept about quietly as she dressed. Another pang assaulted her conscience as she sat on the bed, pulling on her boots. Dragonbait always slept on tile floor. It had never occurred to her to rent him his own room; she'd always assumed he would want to stay near her. She might at least have asked for something with an extra bed for him. "I'll make it all up to you. Somehow," she whispered to the sleeping lizard as she slipped out of the room and very gently pulled the door closed.
The taproom was empty when Alias came down the stairs, but Jhaele popped her head out of the kitchen to wish her a good day and ask if she'd slept well.
"Very well, thank you," Alias assured her. 'Do you have any idea where my friends have gone?"
"Did you try their rooms, lady?" Jhaele asked "I would have thought they'd all still be sleeping."
"Oh. No, I just assumed they'd be up and about by now."
Jhaele shook her head. "Mistress Ruskettle didn't retire until the very small hours, and she drank a good deal of bottled sleep, if you catch my meaning. And your Mister Akash was out all night. Didn't come home until after dawn. Same with the lizard-creature. He sat by the fire until morning, slipped upstairs for a minute, then left the inn for about an hour and returned with Master Akash."
Alias ordered breakfast, then took a seat at a table. She stared around the room, feeling a little sad. Everything here was so familiar (except of course the new lord, Mourngrym, and the elusive Elminster), and it hurt that no one remembered her. Last night, however, she'd come to the conclusion that that was part of her curse. Besides making her forget things, the azure brands made other people forget her. Both conditions were bound up in the same spell.
Akabar came down the stairs just as Jhaele was bringing in a tray loaded with waffles, ham, fruit, and tea. "I'll whip up