“So be it,” the Turmishman muttered. The beast had invaded his mind and made him a puppet. Now it was no more, destroyed by his hand, for without his spells Mist would not have lasted ten minutes against the Jawed God.
A feeling of intense satisfaction washed over Akabar. The feeling blended with the knowledge that he had rescued Dragonbait and Olive from death by flying them to safety. For the first time he was sure that he was more than a greengrocer merchant who dabbled in spell-casting. He was truly a mage of the first water.
Smoke rose in the sky from the direction of Westgate, and Akabar realized that the dragon must have hit the city. He felt a twinge of sadness for the beast. Evil though Mist had been, her evil had been no worse than that of a selfish, monomaniacal old woman. Like a villain in a street pantomime, she was all sneers and threats—her wickedness paled before the reality of the Darkbringer. She died honoring her agreement with the saurial paladin—battling and destroying a greater evil than herself.
Ruskettle should write a song, making Mist a hero, Akabar thought with a grin. The old wyrm would’ve hated that.
“You waiting for the moon to come up, Akash?” Olive snapped. “We have a swordswoman to rescue, in case you’d forgotten.”
Akabar shook his head, clearing it of his self-congratulations and melancholy meanderings. Dragonbait, his hip bloody from their rough landing, and clutching his ribs where Akabar had intercepted him, stood beside him. The lizard was reaching for the mage’s shoulder to heal it first. Akabar moved away from him, cradling his bad arm with his good. He clenched his teeth against the pain.
“No!” the Turmishman insisted. “I can walk at least. You should take care of yourself first.”
Dragonbait paused in protest, but he was not about to argue with the mage’s new determination. He used the last of his healing power on his injured side, then the three of them set out to find Alias.
25
Alias’s Escape
While Alias’s companions chased Moander over the Elven Wood, through the magical gate, and above the countryside surrounding Westgate, the swordswoman lay still in her dark cocoon. The cushioning about her did little to reassure her. Blood rushed in her ears as her prison rocked and swayed, spun, and finally turned over and over.
Alias’s nostrils flared. The mossy smell of her prison blended with the scent of swamp gas. She gagged and coughed, but was unable to avoid breathing the noxious vapor. She began to feel weak. Perhaps Moander did not realize the gas would damage her. Perhaps it would kill her by accident and the other “masters” would not be able to resurrect her.
That idea brought a peculiar comfort to the warrior woman. Her isolation had accomplished what Moander’s words had failed to do. Alias despaired. She’d caused the death of her friends. Her only real friends, as far as she knew, since her relationship with the Swanmays and the Black Hawks had been nothing but imaginary stories given her by her makers. She wasn’t even human, had never had a mother, was non-born. And soon she would be nothing but a trinket for evil forces to fight and intrigue over. She would become their unknowing puppet, forced into actions she had not chosen—a mockery of life, like a skeleton or golem. Better to die, she decided without feeling, her heart numb.
She wondered, though, whether there would be an afterlife for the likes of her. In the dark cocoon, she whispered, “Do I even have a soul?” She sighed. “What difference does it make?”
What difference does it make? she wondered. I’m alive. I enjoy being alive. She relished the satisfaction she’d felt when she’d defeated an enemy in combat, the contentment that settled about her when she sang, the camaraderie she’d shared with Dragonbait and the others. She’d made her own friends, real friends. She’d proven herself an adventuress, even if she was only a month old. And somehow, she had found the will to deny her would-be masters.
“Even if it isn’t a natural one, I have a life of my own,” she announced to the darkness—and to herself.
Heartened by her declaration, a new determination to live sprang up in Alias, coupled with an assurance that she would somehow defeat everyone who had branded her and reassert her free will.
“Moander!” she shouted uncertainly, not knowing if the god could hear her. “Moander!” she hollered louder. “You’re killing me! I can’t breathe! You have to let me out of here!”
Her prison made one more gut-wrenching turn. Her ears popped. Then the foul air in her lungs was driven out by a sudden impact against the bottom of her cocoon.
Her bindings were torn. She blinked in the sunlight. The air was fresh and warm. Half a dozen hands reached down to pull her from the moist, silky mass that entangled her. Despite her wooziness, Alias spotted the tattoos inscribed in all their palms: mouths full of jagged teeth.
Dizzy from her travel, her muscles atrophied from her imprisonment, and still weak from the effects of the gas, Alias could not resist as the people pulled her to her feet, no doubt prepared to transfer her to another prison, more conventional perhaps, yet equally inescapable.
Alias looked around. She stood by a bonfire in the center of a circle of giant, inwardly curved fangs carved of red stone. Around her were two dozen men and women, their faces hidden in the cowls of their robes. Their leader wore a mask of white with a single eye painted in the forehead and surrounded by teeth. A priest of Moander.
Alias gulped in deep breaths of air to fight her nausea and dizziness, though she did not know why she bothered. Even if she managed to escape from Moander’s minions, she would still be a puppet. One of the minions snapped a band of metal around her sword arm. The band was attached to a long chain of cold iron.
Her legs gave way beneath her, and she sank to her knees on the dusty hilltop. They would drag her off to her other masters, and she hadn’t the strength or the will to resist.
But instead, everyone ignored her. Their attention was fixed on the sky. Mutters passed through the crowd, then cheers.
Alias looked up with everyone else. At first, she did not understand what she saw. Moander, the oozing god, bobbed in the sky, a great, swollen balloon with jaws. Trapped in its tendrils was a red dragon. The beast flapped its wings vainly, but could not resist being drawn into the god’s maw. The pair of monsters twisted and turned in the sky above a great walled city. The sea lay beyond them. “Westgate,” Alias whispered.
Suddenly, Alias knew that the red dragon was Mist. The Abomination had not killed her. As a matter of fact, she looked bigger than ever beside Moander.
Alias’s captors began chanting a prayer for their god’s victory, though some less pious or more excitable, continued cheering as though they were watching two warriors wrestle in an arena.
Alias felt like cheering as well, though not exactly for the dragon. If Mist were still alive, the warrior woman realized, then so might Dragonbait, Akabar, and Olive be. Moander’s failure to mention the dragon’s survival gave Alias reason to suspect he had lied about her friends.
Fury and hope surged within her and gave her strength. She assessed the lanky man holding her chain. He was armed with a cudgel dotted with crude shards of crystal. She was weaponless. But they made me a weapon, she thought. She drew her feet up beneath her knees, remaining crouched near the ground, her eyes fixed on her guard, waiting for an opportunity to attack.