“Good. Prakis my pet, why don’t you take the small bard up to Phalse’s room for her nap?”
“I would prefer—” Phalse began to protest, but Cassana cut him off with a motion of her hand.
“You and I have some private matters to discuss,” the sorceress insisted.
“Just how private do you intend to get?” Phalse bantered.
The lich rose silently and stood behind the halfling’s chair as she tumbled from it. She staggered from sudden exhaustion, then began weaving her way to the staircase.
Cassana laughed behind her, calling out, “Sleep tight, little one.” When the lich had maneuvered the bard up the first flight of stairs, the sorceress turned her cold, hard eyes on Phalse. “Well?”
“She’s scared witless, but that’s understandable,” Phalse replied in the halfling’s defense. “But it’s a rather delicious sort of terror, don’t you think?”
“She seems a bit unstable. She’ll sleep through the ceremony. When she wakes, her former allies will be dead or under our control. The choice will be easier for her once her options have been limited. I would prefer it, though, if you would use her and get rid of her tonight,” said Cassana.
Phalse flashed his inhuman smile. “I’ll slay her myself if you similarly dispose of your lovers, including the Turmite.”
Cassana pouted “You’d deprive me of my pets?”
“You’d deprive me of mine.”
The two glared at one another, locked in a contest of wills. Then slowly, both began to laugh.
When the halfling collapsed on the second landing, Prakis bundled the childlike bard in his yellow cape and cradled her in his arms, carrying her to Phalse’s opulent bedroom. He lay the halfling woman on the satin coverlet and leaned in close to her face, muttering a few words. Then he touched her on the forehead and shoulders.
Olive sat bolt upright, her eyelids flying open like pigeons startled by a temple bell. “What!” she gasped, then cringed away immediately from the mockery of humankind hovering over her.
“Hush,” the death’s head rattled. “I’ve cast a spell on you to counteract the magical suggestion Cassana the Cruel used to make you sleep,” Prakis explained. His voice sounded windier than before, as though suddenly it was a greater effort for him to speak. “How do you feel?”
“I feel … I feel like I’ve slept for a week. Did I miss the ceremony?”
“No, only a few minutes have passed since you left the table. But my counteractive spell will give you energy now for hours. I woke you to make you an offer. Have you killed?” the lich asked. The red points of light in his eye sockets were suddenly still like a magical light.
“Killed? Of course. Easy as falling off a log.”
“Can you do it again?”
“Uh … sure. Who do you want killed?”
“Cassana.” The red pinpoints in the skull’s eye sockets danced again.
“Wait a minute. I thought you and she were …” The halfling groped for polite words. “Close, I guess.”
“I am Cassana’s tool, her pet, much like you are—or will be—Phalse’s pet, if he gets his way. The wand that controls the Little One also controls me. The farther I am from the wand, the more dead I become. Cassana keeps the wand on her person at all times, and when she travels too far away, I die entirely, only to come back as a shambling form when she returns. She is literally the sun my world revolves around.”
“But your symbol is on Al—the Little One.”
“My power over death was needed to bring the Little One to life, so I was allowed a small measure of control over her, but Cassana is the ultimate puppet master, pulling both our strings.”
Up close to Prakis, Olive could see the deep blue stitchery of long-dead blood vessels and smell the fetid stink of the corpse’s breath. He did not need to breathe, save to work his speech organs, which gave his voice an odd, mechanical quality.
“But why do you need me?” Olive asked. “Couldn’t you just strangle her or something and take the wand?”
“No. That would not work. Cassana the Cruel is very clever. She has bound up her life energies into the wand so that, as long as she holds it, nothing the Little One or I do can harm her. She knows my hate; she knows the wand is all that stands between her and death by my hands. She loves knowing this—it thrills her.”
“So you want me to steal the wand?”
“Yes. Then I will kill her.”
“Um, just out of curiosity, how?”
“With this!” the lich thrust forward his staff of dark wood. “I am still permitted to wield this. It is a staff of power. Do you know what it can do?”
Olive nodded, remembering the lay written in honor of Syluné. The river witch had used the same kind of staff to blow herself and a marauding dragon to kingdom come. The halfling didn’t want to be anywhere near Prakis and Cassana when they finally ended their “lover’s quarrel.”
“No offense, Prakis, old bones, but what’s in this for me?”
“Your freedom and your life.”
“Oh?”
“Phalse considers you his property now. Surely you must realize that, as charming as he appears, he is no halfling.”
“What is he?”
“I don’t know. Not even Cassana knows, and that is not a good sign. Furthermore, Cassana does not like you. She never could stand any competition, no matter how small. And she is superstitious about halfling luck. She really sent Phalse after you to make sure you did not interfere with our capture of the prisoners. When Phalse’s back is turned, she will slay you, gut you, and use your body as a vessel for her kalmari. Once you’ve helped me take care of Cassana, I will rid you of Phalse’s company.”
Olive gulped. “These are good reasons, but, um … I don’t suppose you might offer me any other incentives?” She was terrified of angering the lich, but how much could it hurt to ask? she wondered.
Prakis laughed, genuinely amused. “I can see why Phalse kept you. You have a greed for life that must astound even him.”
“Well, life is short, as you discovered, and it makes sense to get all you can out of it. The best things in life aren’t free, you know.”
“I did know that once. Cassana has amassed a great deal of wealth hidden in the cellars beneath this house. Besides selling and leasing her monsters, she skimmed a good deal off the top from the funds the Fire Knives poured into the project of making the Little One. Whatever you can carry away on a pony is yours, unless—perhaps you could remain here with me and the Little One, a member of our family.”
The thought of living in the same house with a zombie Alias revolted Olive, but quite a bit of gold could be loaded onto a pony.
“You have a deal, but first, as a gesture of trust—tell me, who is the crafter?”
Zrie Prakis’s red eyes stabbed at the halfling for several moments. He must have decided the knowledge could do him no harm, because he told her. “He is—he has no true name. He gave the Little One a mind, a life, the name Alias. But he feels he’s been damned for it.”
“But he’s still alive?”
The lich nodded with a crack of his neck bones. “Cassana the Cruel hates to cast aside her pets. He is prisoner in the cellars. But he is quite mad.”
Olive decided to agree with the lich for now. Glibly she asked, “When do we start this revolution?”
“Use the time when we’re at the ceremony to lace the house with traps. Lay in wait and ambush. Now, mime your sleep while I prepare the prisoners. And do not give yourself away, or I will be forced to slay you myself.” The skin over his forehead wrinkled the slightest bit as he made an attempt to threateningly raise eyebrows he did not possess.
Then he drifted from the room, silent except for the creaking of his bones.
Olive leaned back in the bed and closed her eyes, and the energy the lich had channeled into her did indeed keep her from falling asleep. Unfortunately, it also made her restless. Her mind kept flipping through her quickly diminishing options.