The Shattered Mask (31 page)

A trace of sadness came into Marance’s face. “I’m sorry, too,” he said. He rose from his chair, and though nothing in his manner so much as hinted at hostile intent, the Talendar lord abruptly sensed that Marance meant to direct some sort of magic against Ossian and himself.

Ossian had apparently come to the same conclusion, for he surged up out of his seat. By a lucky chance, he’d ventured out of the castle earlier today, and was still carrying a long sword. The gold-hilted weapon hissed as he yanked it from its scabbard.

For his part, Nuldrevyn lacked a sword, but since boyhood, had never been without a dagger ready to hand. He rose as hastily as his stiff joints would allow, and silently drew the knife from its well-oiled sheath.

Ossian lunged at Marance fast and hard, trying to dispatch him before he could cast a spell. The wizard parried the chest cut with his staff. Gray steel rang on black wood, and purple sparks crackled-at the point of contact. The ginger-haired youth reeled backward, and Marance reached into his mantle to fish out the necessary ingredient for a spell.

That, Nuldrevyn thought, was all right, because to deal with the son, Marance had turned his back on the father.’ Perhaps the wizard thought the patriarch of the House of Talendar was too ancient and infirm to pose any sort of threat. If so, Nuldrevyn would show him just how wrong he was. One thrust to the spine should end this confrontation and send his wayward brother back to the Pit. He wouldn’t enjoy doing it, but with Ossian imperiled he saw no other choice.

Nuldrevyn took a split second to aim his blade at a specific target, in this case, a point midway between Marance’s shoulder blades. The old man started to step into distance, and a huge black snake reared up in front of him.

Even as Nuldrevyn cried out, recoiled, lost his balance,

and fell, he discerned it wasn’t an actual serpent, just Bileworm mimicking one, but the knowledge didn’t help. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t force himself to get back up, not with the spirit’s murky, wedge-shaped head looming over him. All he could do was cower and watch the duel between his son and brother unfold.

Ossian had recovered his equilibrium and was pushing Marance back with a rapid series of feints, deceives, and attacks. The knobbed end of the wizard’s staff sizzled with purple flame, and he held it extended to slow his adversary’s advance. Meanwhile Marance chanted, swept his unweaponed hand in a mystic pass, and tossed a pinch of black dust into the air.

‘ The air turned hot, then cold. For an instant, a bitter taste stung Nuldrevyn’s tongue. Magenta fire blazed from the staff and engulfed the old man’s son.

To Nuldrevyn’s horror, Ossian dwindled in stature, so quickly that the eye could barely follow the process. One instant, he was taller than his foe. The next, small as a mouse.

“That doesn’t look good at all,” said Bileworm to Nuldrevyn. “Don’t you want to go help the boy? You know I’m made of gossamer. I can’t stop you.” He flickered out a forked tongue into his prisoner’s face, and Nuldrevyn sobbed and cringed.

Ossian dropped his pin-sized sword and bolted for the doorway. Marance discarded his staff—the purple flame went out as soon as it left his hand—whirled the cloak off his shoulders, and cast it like a net. The garment fell on top of the shrunken man.

Marance hurried up to the cape, kneeled, groped about for a moment, then located Ossian beneath it. He held the young aristocrat immobile with one hand, reached under the garment with the other, and extracted him.

“I regret it came to this,” Marance said to the squirming mite in his fist. “I’ve grown truly fond of you.”

He picked up the cloak, stuffed Ossian into one of the larger pockets on the inside, then squeezed the opening

shut. Nuldrevyn could see the youth struggling inside the cloth for a little while, and then the motion stopped.

Nuldrevyn’s best-loved son had died of asphyxia, and, paralyzed by his dread of snakes, he hadn’t lifted a finger to save him. His eyes stinging with tears, the old man wished that same crippling fear would stop his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Marance told him. He removed Ossian’s corpse from the pocket and set it on the floor.

“You monster!” Nuldrevyn whispered.

“That’s unfair,” the mage said. “I wanted you and the lad for my allies, never my enemies, but you turned on me. Yet even so, I don’t wish to kill you, that’s what a devoted, forgiving brother I am. However, I will need to keep you from interfering in my plan.”

Marance retrieved his staff, put on his cloak, and look a candle from one of the pockets. He held the taper aloft, recited words of power, and turned widdershins. A purple flame kindled itself on the wick, ghostly voices murmured, and a gigantic snake shimmered into existence on the floor.

Marance pointed to his brother, and the serpent obediently slithered in Nuldrevyn’s direction. Its copper eyes, the candlelight rippling on its steel-gray scales, and the cold thickness of its sinuous coils were so overwhelmingly ghastly they made Bileworm’s impersonation of a snake seem ludicrous by comparison. Weeping and whimpering, Nuldrevyn floundered helplessly away from the new and even more intimidating terror.

In a few seconds, he backed himself into a corner. Black tongue dancing, the snake raised its head high and stared down at him. Meanwhile, Bileworm flowed back into something approximating human form.

The ferule of his staff tapping on the floor, Marance walked closer to his brother. “As you may be aware,” said the mage, “summoned creatures often vanish back to their points of origin after a relatively brief period of service. But you mustn’t get your hopes up, because I made certain this one will linger long past midnight. While it’s watching over

you, you mustn’t call for help or try to escape, else the beast will strike, and its bite is venomous in the extreme.”

“Can’t we just kill him?” Bileworm wheedled. “Don’t I need to become him so I can direct his retainers to obey your commands?”

“They’ll take orders from young Ossian just as well.”

Bobbing up and down, swaying this way and that, Bileworm made a show of inspecting the diminutive corpse. “It’s going to be a very tight fit,” he said, “and I think the guards might notice a difference.”

Marance sighed. “The body will revert to its former dimensions in a bit.”

“Aha!” said the spirit. “Well, in that case, give me a halloo when it does.” He strode closer to Nuldrevyn and, craning and stooping, peered at him avidly, drinking in his fear, grief, and shame.

ith more snow falling from the night sky and a frigid wind whistling out of the north, the pitched roof of the brownstone tallhouse was scarcely a comfortable perch. But no matter how Shamur shivered and clenched her jaw against the cold, she reckoned she had no choice but to remain, for this building was one of the few structures in the immediate area lofty enough to afford a view inside the enceinte of Old High Hall, the Talendar castle. She was glad she and Thamalon had made time to go to a shrine and pay a priest to heal the bruises, scrapes, and swellings the Quippers had given them, else the vigil would have been even less pleasant than it was.

It was a vigil that Shamur hadn’t required Thamalon to keep. Seeing no reason why both of them needed to spy, she’d suggested he wait somewhere

warm. Perhaps he’d feared she’d think him soft or a shirker, for he’d insisted on sharing the chore with her, and, to her relief, had scaled the side of the tallhouse with considerable agility for a sexagenarian who had never taken instruction from a housebreaker like Errendar Spillwine.

Within the facade of the Talendar mansion, another window went dark. Soon, she thought, it would be time to move. Thanks be to Mask that the noble family hadn’t opted to host a feast or ball tonight. Then the castle might have swarmed with boisterous revelers and bustling servants until dawn.

“I have something to tell you,” said Thamalon, tightly bundled in his cloak.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“When this affair is over, you can leave me without fear of reprisals against the House of Karn or the children. You can also come back and visit our brood whenever you like.”

Shamur reckoned that she ought to be overjoyed, and in fact, she did feel a tingle of excitement, but it was muted and undercut by some other, less comfortable emotion. “Thank you. That’s far kinder than I had any reason to expect.”

He shrugged. “What should I do, drag you into court and complain to the Probiters that for the last thirty years, I’ve been married to the wrong woman, but up until now didn’t know the truth? I’d be the laughingstock of Selgaunt Besides, I suppose I owe you something for seeing me safely out of the Quippers’ lair. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to, or even that you meant to try.”

“Don’t tell me you were taken in by my agreeing to Avas’s terms,” she replied. “That was simply necessary to move things along. We’re comrades in this venture, and I was always resolved that both of us would escape, or neither. That was why I aimed my short sword at his belly and never his heart. Even had I pierced his guts, he likely wouldn’t have died at once. Thus, I still could have extorted your release by threatening him with further harm.”

Thamalon chuckled. “Such a delicate little flower I married.”

“There’s something I ought to tell you. Two things, really. The first is that back in the days when I was a thief, Old High Hall was rumored to be impregnable to the kind of intrusion we intend, and I certainly never heard of any burglar surviving such an attempt. The second is that I haven’t attempted to slip inside a fortress like this since I was an adolescent. I fear my skills are rusty.”

“Nonsense. I’ve seen you fight and climb.”

“But I’ll need other abilities tonight, ones I have yet to test.”

“Wife, I know where this is going. You’re going to offer me another chance to stay safely behind, aren’t you?” ť “It’s a sound idea. If something befalls me, you’ll still be alive and free to search for Master Moon and protect the children.”

“You said it yourself. We’re partners. You watch my back, and I watch yours. In any case, I trust you.”

She smiled. “All right, fool. On your own head be it.”

They sat in silence on the cold, rough shingles for a while longer, while the snowflakes tumbled, the stars twinkled, and the lights in Old High Hall winked out one by one. Finally she judged the mansion was dark enough. She said as much to Thamalon, whereupon the two of them descended to the ground, then crept toward the enceinte.

In Shamur’s youth, Old High Hall had been the sort of old-fashioned stronghold that Argent Hall remained today, with a perimeter wall high enough to balk an army. At some point during her long absence from Selgaunt, however, the Talendar had seen fit to tear down that enceinte and put up one that was only about twelve feet tall. She wished she could find that encouraging, but she knew better. The rival House had only become more wealthy over the past several decades, and it stood to reason that the measures they took to deter thieves had become more sophisticated and effective.

The Uskevren reached the base of the wall without being noticed, at least as far as Shamur could tell. The masons had made some effort to smooth the sandstone blocks and the

mortared chinks between so as to make climbing difficult, but she was confident she’d find adequate finger-and toeholds. What concerned her was the mechanical and magical traps that might be concealed in the stonework. She kept an eye out for such things as she ascended.

She made it to the top without incident, peeked over the wall, and saw a snowy garden on the other side. It didn’t appear to possess any magical flowers like the Karns’ famous silver roses, which flourished even in the dead of winter, but the servants had shoveled the paths anyway, perhaps so strollers could admire the statuary.

Since Shamur saw no sentries rushing in her direction, she turned her attention to the coping on the summit of the wall. Most climbers would unthinkingly, blindly grab hold of it as they ascended, making it an excellent location for poisoned spikes, sharp scraps of glass, or some other type of mantrap. She didn’t see anything of the sort, nor magical sigils incised in the stone, but still, her instincts warned her not to trust the surface. Clinging to the facade of the wall one-handed, she extracted a slender steel probe from her kit and pressed it against the top.

In the twinkling of an eye, the patch of sandstone immediately beneath the metal rod reshaped itself into a pair of jagged jaws, which shot up, clashed together, and bit the probe in half. Startled, Shamur jerked backward and nearly lost her grip.

She recovered her balance, peered over the coping again, making sure no one had heard the magical trap activate and come to investigate. She studied the stone jaws. They hadn’t tried to bite her a second time. In fact, they seemed to be softening and slumping ever so slightly, as if, having failed to seize a victim, the projections were melting back into the block from which they had erupted. Shamur warily prodded them with the stub of the probe, and even that failed to provoke another attack.

She grinned. If the jaws could strike only once, that made it easy. She discarded the remaining piece of the probe, which was a bit too short for the task she had in mind, drew

her dagger and used it to trigger several traps on either side of the first one, enjoying the game of snatching the blade back before the jaws could catch it.

“What are you doing?” Thamalon whispered from below.

“Making a point of entry.” She lay on her belly atop the hard, irregular bumps of the unsuccessful mantraps, anchored herself with one hand, and stretched down the other. “Come on, I’ll help you up. Just don’t let any part of your anatomy swing up over a section of the coping that’s still level, or a trap’s liable to snip it off.”

“I understand.” He gripped her hand, she heaved, and he clambered up. They dropped inside the enclosure.

,At once they hunkered down motionless, while Shamur peered and listened for signs that someone else was in their immediate vicinity. It seemed that nobody was. She gave Thamalon a nod to indicate that so far, they were all right.