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 the 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 more of the same,” the innkeep offered.
Alias nodded and pulled out a chair for her companion.
“I understand your meeting with the wise Elminster kept you out all night,” she said. “How’d it go?”
Akabar smiled weakly. “It was all right, I suppose.”
“And?” Alias prompted. “What did he have to say?”
“Say?” Akabar echoed.
Something in his manner made Alias suspicious. “Something bad?” she whispered after Jhaele had laid out extra tableware for Akabar and left.
Akabar shook his head. “I waited half the night to see him, and I came away with nothing more than what we learned from Dimswart back in Suzail.”
“Did he mention the lay of Zrie Prakis and Cassana?”
Akabar made a noncommittal noise as he poured syrup over some waffles.
“Did he?” Alias asked, taking the syrup from him.
“Did he what?” Akabar grumbled, feigning listlessness.
“Did he tell you about the lay of Zrie Prakis and Cassana?”
“No, he didn’t,” Akabar answered and promptly stuffed his mouth with waffles to give himself time to think. What was he going to do? So far, all his answers had been the truth. He had waited half the night for Elminster and longer. He had not learned anything new, and Elminster had not told him about any lay. He could not keep up the ambiguous and vague answers much longer, though. He would either have to admit his failure or lie to her.
He had thought that, when the time came, one action or the other would come easily to him, but they did not. He had been little help protecting Alias, rather the reverse, needing her to rescue him from the kalmari. Now his role as information-gatherer had completely collapsed. His pride could not cope with the admission of his own uselessness.
Yet, surprisingly, the alternative—lying to her—did not come any easier. In his dealings as a merchant, Akabar could stretch the truth with a skill that would make Olive Ruskettle’s head swim, but that skill did not extend to deceiving women. He had never been able to lie to his wives either, even though it might have made some of his nights a little less tumultuous.
“What’s the lay of Zrie Prakis and Cassana?” a shrill voice chirped. Olive climbed into a chair and promptly popped one of Alias’s strawberries into her mouth.
“Apparently,” Alias explained, “they were lovers before they went at each other in the duel that killed Zrie Prakis.”
“Ooo. You humans are such fascinating people. Did Cassana throw herself off a cliff in remorse?” Olive asked, using an extra fork to swipe a large piece of one of Alias’s waffles.
Alias shook her head. “No. She did keep his bones, though. By her bedside as a keepsake.”
“Yuck,” the halfling muttered as she chewed.
“Definitely. I’m surprised Elminster didn’t mention it. It’s supposed to be a common story up north. There’s even supposed to be an opera about it.”
“Perhaps Elminster is not a big opera-lover,” Akabar sniffed and stuffed more waffle into his mouth.
“I don’t blame him,” the bard said. “I’ve heard that people commit murders at operas, and no one notices because everyone on stage is bellowing at the top of his lungs.”
“I don’t see how this story about the mages helps us any,” Akabar said.
“It doesn’t, really,” Alias admitted, “but I just wanted to show that you’re not the only one able to get information. I pick up bits here and there.”
Inwardly injured by the swordswoman’s remark and encouraged by the presence of the halfling, Akabar somehow found the strength to invent a meeting with Elminster.
“I got nothing from this supposedly renowned sage but the standard material we already know. He might have looked it all up in the same book Dimswart used. He had no idea what the last sigil was, either. His reputation is overrated. It must be based on past victories. I only hope when I’m that decrepit and befuddled, I’ll have a profitable business in the hands of my daughters and not have to rely on gulling foolish adventurers.”
“Elminster was decrepit and befuddled?” Alias asked, remembering Mourngrym’s description of the sage as the wisest in the Realms. Still, perhaps Mourngrym’s standards weren’t up to those of Cormyr or the lands farther south. She had harbored one odd idea, however, so she had to ask, “What did he look like?”
“He looked like a spider,” lied the Turmishman, leaning over the table and speaking in a low voice. He had to be carried about from room to room. His hands were shriveled into useless sticks, so that he had to be dressed and fed by his manservant. I know. I watched him eat. It was most unpleasant.”
Alias pondered the mage’s description while she sipped her tea. She had suspected her goatherd to be Elminster, though he had tried to lead her away from that idea. Powerful, famous people often traveled around dressed as commoners, at least in lays and songs. But if the sage was chair-ridden, her goatherd had to be someone else.
That didn’t mean she valued the old man’s advice any less, and she certainly appreciated his finder’s stone, kept safely tucked away in her boot top. It made her feel a lot less nervous, knowing he had been just a wise, old man. Had Elminster himself taken such an interest in her singing, she’d know she was in more trouble than she could handle.