“I’m not a child,” Alias snapped.
“But, of course you are. It was the first day of Mirtul when my followers summoned my life energy and you began breathing. Only a month and a few days. So you see, you are but a child. Yet even so, you are my greatest servant, my liberator, an honor many before you have died for.
“At first, when the lizard arrived, I nearly perished with despair. (Well, not really, just a figure of speech.) When I saw his markings and sensed his determination to pass through the wall, I thought he was you. I sucked his life energy nearly dry trying to pull him through the wall. But I suppose being hatched counted as being born to the cursed elves who imprisoned me. He could not pass through the wall, and hence he could not help me pass through it. I thought all my plans had failed utterly.”
Akabar tilted his head, an action Alias suspected was Moander’s way of sifting through the mage’s mind. The gray swirls in his eyes thickened and circled more quickly.
“Of course. That’s what the saurial was doing there. Omniscient gods, indeed. Your magical friend has figured it out for me. He really is so amazingly useful. The last step in your manufacture was never completed. It required the blood sacrifice of a pure soul to secure the shackles on your spirit. Those bumblers down in Westgate chose the saurial, got careless and let it escape, and it took you with it. You’ve been wandering around ever since, a great spell primed to explode, requiring only the last enabling component—the death of the saurial. Those incompetent idiots! I can tell mankind needs me desperately.”
“Saurial?” Alias asked. She was not certain who Moander meant, but she had an uncomfortable suspicion.
“The lizard your mage friend thinks of as Dragonbait. The creature was marked, just like you were. That explains what it was doing trying to pass through the elven wall that imprisoned my body. The saurial was following your patterns. And you’ve been able to draw on its independence, because the two of you are linked until its death. But don’t worry, we’ll take care of that shortly.”
Another wave of anger swept over Alias, anger now mixed with anguish. Then I’ll be damned for sure. Something created by the evil sacrifice of my friend. Of my friends, she amended, realizing that not only Dragonbait’s life was forfeit. Akabar was almost as good as dead. I’m not even human, she thought. I had no right to their aid and friendship, and now I’ve doomed them.
“Oh, Akabar,” she whispered to his body, hoping some part of his mind was aware of what she said. “I’m so sorry. I should never have let you get into this mess.”
But if the mage could hear her, he gave no indication. Moander’s control over him was complete, and at the moment Moander wasn’t even paying attention to her. The god was using Akabar’s form to stare at the line of trees that they were fast approaching. Already the mound of refuse, now quite dusty and grass covered from its passage through the plains, was pitching and weaving from running over small trees and bushes near the edge of the prairie. As it engulfed and absorbed this green matter, the Abomination grew into a small hill, already as high as the trees on the fringes of the Elven Wood.
Apparently satisfied that the Abomination could control the forest, Moander used Akabar to return his attention to his prisoner. “The most amazing thing is that, despite your premature debut into society, most of your patterns still held. You attacked a man who sounded like the king of Cormyr, no doubt a goal of the Fire Knives. And then you came all the way north, just to free me.” Akabar’s finger stroked her cheek. “When you are returned and fully tamed, you will be my perfect servant.”
Alias kicked and struggled futilely in her bindings. She knew she could not escape, but like a bird beating against the bars of a cage, instinct made her frantic. What Moander suggested was worse than slavery. The god and its followers and allies would turn her into an unthinking mechanism, with only the illusion of life and the sketchy memories of some woman. Where had they gotten the history she thought had been hers? Fairy tales? Or was there an original Alias who lived her life before, then died to become her?
Alias stared at the vine-draped form of Akabar, and oddly enough, the crudeness of the god’s method of control soothed her anguish and helped her regain her composure. Moander could never have created me, she thought. Neither could the blundering Fire Knives, not even with the help of the mages who created the kalmari and the crystal elemental. They’re all quite powerful, but despite all their claims, none of them could have made my mind or my spirit or my personality. She shoved back the horrible weight of evidence. The Abomination is lying, she decided. After all, isn’t that what abominations do best?
When she had ceased struggling again, Moander continued. “Telling you all this has been most amusing. The news makes you unhappy, doesn’t it? Of course, the others will want to purge your memory of everything I’ve said. After all, the best assassin is one who does not know she is a weapon, since she, or you, could then withstand all manner of telepathic prying. You do not register as a constructed creature, and after the sacrifice of the saurial, the runes on your limb will be hidden from view so that no one, not even you, will ever suspect your … eh? What’s that?”
They reached the tree line, and Moander’s now fungous form began uprooting the nearest trees, plowing them under and adding their mass to its own. But what drew the attention of the god was the huge shadow that blocked the high-noon sun. Akabar’s head jerked upward just as a bolt of fire shot from the heart of the darkness. The flame tore a huge gouge in the mound’s side, instantly igniting the fresh timber Moander had recently accumulated.
Akabar screamed and pitched forward into muck next to Alias. His cry was joined by a chorus of hundreds of fanged mouths which suddenly opened in the mucky hillside, all piping the same horrendous scream. Alias gagged on the smell of the smoke from burning offal.
The shadow dove below the tree line for a moment and then circled back. Now able to watch it without the sun in her eyes, Alias could tell that the shadow was a dragon—one of the great red wyrms reputed to haunt the north country. As it closed in for its second attack, the swordswoman spotted two riders mounted atop the beast, one on its head, the other a greenish lump between its wings.
It can’t be. Can it? Alias wondered, not daring to believe her eyes. But they saw true. Her friends rode atop the red dragon, and the red dragon looked strangely familiar.
“Here comes the rescue party!” shouted the high, childlike voice of Olive Ruskettle, as Mist dropped down to strafe the Abomination yet again.
Akabar stood up again and focused on the dragon. His eyes glowed a burning coal white, though his face wore a calm, deadened expression. From the mage’s mouth came a low-pitched muttering interspersed with the sharp gutturals and clicks of magic words summoning power to the speaker. Alias tried to kick at Akabar’s form, hoping to knock him from the mound or at least spoil his spell, but the Abomination had not been so wounded that it loosened its tight hold on her. Her struggles were useless.
The mage’s body wheeled about, keeping the dragon in view just as she began making her second pass. A blinding flash of energy sprang from Akabar’s fingertip and caught the wyrm in the belly. The dragon jerked her head back and bellowed, almost knocking Ruskettle from her head.
At the same time, great vines shot up from the surface of the Abomination, with great force as if fired from concealed ballistae. At the ends of the vines rode the decaying forms of the Red Plume mercenaries whom Moander had consumed. Some still wielded their weapons, while others tried to grapple the dragon’s with their bare hands.