The Shattered Mask (4 page)

Master climbed inside through the drawn velvet curtains, and Bileworm followed. On the other side was a gentleman’s bedchamber, and the sharp-nosed, yellow-bearded young aristocrat himself snoring beneath a heap of eiderdowns. The handle of a warming pan protruded from beneath the bed, and a crystal decanter lay on its side on the carpet. The scent of the spilled brandy tinged the air.

Just as Bileworm had wished to poison a rose, so now he would have liked to crouch atop the sleeper and swirl his shadowy fingers through his brain. He knew he could give the human nightmares. Indeed, given sufficient time, and sufficient susceptibility on the part of his victim, he might even drive the fellow insane.

But he knew Master wouldn’t allow him to linger and enjoy that pastime, either. The wizard closed the casement once again, then beckoned Bileworm to follow him through the door.

Beyond the bedchamber was a sitting room where a lackey slumbered tangled in a coarse blanket on the floor. From there the intruders .passed into a shadowy corridor. Oil lamps, most of which had been extinguished, reposed in brazen fixtures along the wall.

“Do you know which way to go?” Bileworm whispered.

“Possibly,” Master replied. “In the old days, I visited this house on occasion. I believe I’ve got my bearings, but iball depends on whether our friend is still occupying the same suite.”

The pair skulked on and eventually found a door with a cockatrice carved on the keystone of the surrounding arch. Master tried the knob and the portal opened.

Across the threshold were the lavish apartments of a great nobleman. A suit of gilded tourney armor stood in the corner, the helm crowned with the withered brown chaplet the wearer had won for his jousting. A red silk cover embroidered with songbirds shrouded a large gold cage. Paintings and tapestries crowded the walls.

The bedchamber was a spacious room currently lit by a

single candle in a red glass bowl. On the high domed ceiling was a faded fresco depicting the gods at play. Another covered birdcage stood by the window, and a green velvet cord hung beside the enormous bed. No doubt the occupant had only to pull it to ring a bell and summon his valet.

That occupant was a withered old man with a prominent beak of a nose. He lay slumbering on his back, and a gurgling sound rose from his open, toothless mouth. He wore an embroidered cambric nightshirt and a striped woolen nightcap as well. His flesh smelled of liniment and sickness.

“That’s our man,” whispered Master. He stalked toward the sleeper in a way that conveyed to Bileworm that he meant to take care of his business as expeditiously as possible.

You said you know him,” the spirit said. “Don’t you even want to wake him up and say hello?”

“You just want to see him cower,” the wizard replied, a thread of distaste in his voice.

“I hail from a cruel realm, Master, as do you, now. Besides,” Bileworm added, “it might help me to see how he moves and hear how he speaks.”

“Indeed,” said Master skeptically. “Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to indulge you. Briefly.” He leaned down, took hold of the old man’s bony shoulder, and gave him a gentle shake. The sleeper merely mumbled and tried to roll over. Master shook him again, more vigorously. “Wake up, Lindrian Kara.”

The old man’s rheumy gray eyes fluttered open. When he took in the masked figure standing over him, he yelped and groped frantically for the bell pull. Master held him flat on his back with one hand and poised the head of his staff in front of the old man’s face with the other. Motes of magenta light danced and sizzled on the polished surface of the wood.

“Stop struggling,” advised the mage. “Otherwise I’ll have to hurt you.”

Lindrian obeyed. From the looks of him, he was afraid but trying hard not to show it. “What do you want?” he quavered.

“You’ll find out presently,” Master replied.

The old man suddenly jerked in surprise. “I know those eyes! MaranceTalendar!”

Master stiffened. He hated giving up any secret or advantage, no matter how slight, but on this occasion, he must have reckoned it could do no harm to confirm his prisoner’s guess. For he lifted off the Man in the Moon mask, revealing an ashen, patrician face with a high, broad forehead, narrow nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin, handsome in a cold, intellectual sort of way. Lindrian gaped in horror and astonishment.

“My compliments,” the wizard said, setting the mask on the table beside the candle. “You’re sharp. I never dreamed you’d recognize me after so many years, and disguised in dim light, no less.”

“But you’re dead!” Lindrian whispered.

“Fortunately,” Master said, “for were I alive, I’d be as ancient and decrepit as you. No offense. Actually, to be precise, I suppose I’m neither alive nor dead at the moment, but somewhere in between. I was dead, but in recognition of services rendered, my liege lord in the netherworld granted me a boon: to walk the earth again while I attend to unfinished business.”

Lindrian swallowed. “You can’t mean business with me. I never did anything to you.”

“Of course not,” Master said. “It was always me doing things to you. I imagined that if I wrecked your business ventures, I could ruin you, whereupon we Talendar could pick up your silver mines at bargain prices. The ruination of the House of Karn was my chief preoccupation at one time. But you never figured out who was afflicting you, and thus you never retaliated.”

“It was you?” Lindrian said. For a moment, his barely controlled fear gave way to anger. “Damn you!”

Bileworm sniggered. “Rest easy, that’s already been taken care of.”

Lindrian turned, saw the spirit for the first time, cringed, and hastily turned back toward Master, who at least looked

like an ordinary human being. “Then what do you want?” the old man asked.

“Do you remember how I died?” Master asked.

Lindrian hesitated, then said, “Thamalon Uskevren.”

“Yes. To be precise, I died of the Owl’s long sword opening my belly. It can take a long, excruciating time to succumb to a wound like that. I staggered and crawled a long way in search of help, my hands clasping the wound to keep my bowels from escaping, but at last my strength ran out. I sprawled in the mud and bled to death.”

“That… must have been hard,” Lindrian said.

“No, please,” said Master, “you mustn’t grieve, for as you can see, it wasn’t the end of me. But the memory did stick with me through all that followed, and now, at last, I have a chance to exact some measure of retribution.”

“I understand why you’ve come to me,” Lindrian said, “and yes, I’ll help you in exchange for my life. I never liked Thamalon anyway! What do you want me to do? Lure him into an ambush?”

Master’s thin white lips quirked upward. “You’d betray your own kinsman, the benefactor who saved your House, on my behalf? I’m touched, or at least I would be if I trusted you. But actually, I have another scheme in mind. Bileworm, have you seen all you need?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then farewell, Lindrian. May your soul find itself in more congenial surroundings than did mine.” The wizard set down his staff, picked up a plump pillow, and pressed it over the mortal’s face.

Lindrian’s emaciated limbs thrashed uselessly, and Bileworm smirked in delight. Master’s face, however, was set with the resolution of one performing a necessary but noisome task. Not that he was squeamish about slaughter. He often relished it, but only when it was accomplished at a distance, by his magic or warriors under his command. He didn’t like giving even a feeble old man the opportunity to fight and paw at him. On this occasion, however, it was necessary to kill without leaving a mark.

All too soon, in Bileworm’s opinion, Lindrian’s struggles ceased. One of the dead man’s arms flopped half off the bed and pointed straight to the birdcage. Master discarded the pillow and wiped his dainty hands on the bed linen. “Your turn,” he said.

The spirit reared up until his head brushed the fresco on the ceiling. Every portion of his body stretched thinner. Finally, stooping, he poured himself into the corpse’s sour-smelling mouth.

Once he was completely inside, he thrashed and turned in the thick darkness like a man drowning in quicksand, until at last his own substance, permeating the corpse’s body like arsenic suspended in wine, came into proper alignment with it as well. He felt the soft mattress beneath his form. He could feel Lindrian’s gnarled, arthritic hand at the end of his arm and make the fingers close, evoking a throb of pain from the swollen joints. He took control of the cadaver’s eyes and saw Master gazing down at him.

For that was the special gift of his kind. As certain other spirits had the power to possess the living, Bileworm and his siblings could clothe themselves in the husks of the dead.

The only drawback was that while wearing these shells of meat and bone, they were more vulnerable than they were used to. He reflexively started to raise his hand to protect himself, then checked the motion. It wouldn’t do for Lindrian to suddenly acquire a new mannerism.

Speaking of the old man’s habits, Bileworm had best make sure he could employ the corpse’s brain as well as its muscles. For that was the tricky part, and despite what he’d told Master, it was that capacity and not a few minutes of observation which would enable him to impersonate the nobleman successfully. He tried to call forth Lindrian’s memories, and the images paraded before his inner eye.

“Well?” Master asked.

“The first time he took a riding lesson, he fell off the pony,” Bileworm said. The initial three words were slurred, but the ones that followed were perfect, even with regard to their inflection. No one could have guessed that it wasn’t

Lindrian himself speaking. “From that, he acquired a secret aversion to horses that vexed him all his life. He killed a man in a duel when he was seventeen and afterward, weeping, he threw his sword in the river. To keep his valet from nagging, he ate a bowl of chicken broth and half a slice of toasted bread, even though he had no appetite. In short, Master, I know everything he knew. For the moment, I am Lindrian Kara.”

“Good,” the wizard said. “Then the fall of the House of Uskevren has truly begun.”

Shamur seethed with impatience as she waited for Harric to hop down off the back of the carriage and open the door for her, but the proper lady she’d strived so doggedly to become wouldn’t forgo such a courtesy under any circumstances, even the current ones.

Harric usually gave her a gap-toothed grin when performing a service for her, but this morning the footman’s long, lantern-jawed face was grave, his brown eyes, soft with sympathy.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said as he gave her his hand.

“Thank you,” she replied, then started up the stairs to the tall front doors, their panels carved with scenes of miners mining, loggers logging, and weavers weaving, all, presumably, for the greater glory of the Karns. She climbed as briskly

as dignity allowed.

Over the course of nearly a century, the lavish furnishings of Argent Hall had changed considerably, but it was still recognizably the home in which Shamur had spent her childhood. Today the great house had an air of desolation, as if loss had already paid it a visit. People whispered when they spoke at all, and the servants drifted pointlessly about as if they’d forgotten how to perform their duties.

Fendolac met her on the white marble staircase that led to the upper floors. As always, the rawboned scion of the House of Karn seemed a creature of angles and points, including a long spike of a nose, stiffly waxed mustachios, and a spade-shaped, straw-colored beard. His outfit carried on the motif, for he had a passion for blades and swordplay, and even on this somber morning, in the privacy of his own home, had taken the trouble to strap on a gold-hilted long sword, clip a matching poniard to his belt, and slip a stiletto into the top of his high doeskin boot.

Still, his expression was grim. Shamur had to give him that much credit.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Failing,” Fendolac replied. “He says he had some sort of attack in the night, but he won’t let us send to any of the temples for a healer. Perhaps you can persuade him. He’s asked for you several times.” ,

Side by side, they hurried to Lindrian’s apartments. As they entered, it seemed to Shamur that this part of the converted donjon was even quieter than the rest, and after a moment, she realized why. At this time of day, the old man’s pet warblers, goldfinches, canaries, and vireos ought to have been chirping and fluttering about, but someone had removed them and their cage as well.

When they reached Lindrian’s bedchamber, she saw that the birds he’d kept there were missing also. The patriarch of the House of Karn himself looked shockingly ill. His wrinkled face was white as wax save for bruise-like dis-colorations under his clouded, sunken eyes. Even worse, a

faint, rotten smell hung in the air, as if his flesh was already decaying from the inside.

At least he was awake and alert. Propped against a mound of pillows, he gave Shamur a sardonic smile and said, “You came. I wasn’t certain you’d bother.”

Shamur felt a twinge of guilt, for in truth, she hadn’t often called at Argent Hall in recent years, even after Lindrian had fallen ill. It was strange, really. Nearly three decades before, she’d loved her kin enough to forfeit any chance of happiness on their behalf, yet once she’d made the sacrifice, she’d gradually lost any enthusiasm for their society.

“Of course I came,” she said. “What happened to your birds?”

“I had to have them removed so I could rest,” Lindrian said. He coughed convulsively, spattering the front of his nightshirt with tiny drops of blood. “They were making a terrible commotion. They saw Death’s hand reaching out for me, I imagine.”

“Death needn’t take you yet,” Shamur said. “Not if we send for a priest versed in the healing arts.”

“I’m terrified you’re right,” Lindrian said, “and that’s why we’re not going to do it. I don’t want to live in pain any longer. I want to rest.” He gave Fendolac a bitter smile. “Besides, my son is impatient to be Lord Karn, aren’t you, boy?”

Fendolac’s bloodshot eyes widened in shock. “Father, I swear to you—”