The Shattered Mask (7 page)

Or rather, she tried, but the lingering effects of that savage blow to the head were still making her clumsy. She only managed to hit Blackbeard in the ribs, hard enough to hurt but not to stop him.

Now was the time for a two-handed grip, albeit not the preposterous one she’d employed before. She whipped the long section of her baton into her left hand then, gripping it at both ends, rammed it up at Blackbeard’s throat.

And missed again. Snarling, she smashed the stick down at the bridge of her opponent’s nose. Finally she hit the target, crushing bone and cartilage with a crack! She pulled the truncheon back and drove it forward, breaking several of Blackbeard’s crooked teeth.

He reeled backward, and she followed to finish him off. Then two brawny arms whipped around her from behind, one pinioning her arms and the other choking her. She realized that with her brains rattled, she’d forgotten all about the man with the shaved scalp.

For a panicky second, her mind was blank, then she remembered the counter to a choke hold. She twisted her head into the crook of Baldhead’s elbow, relieving the pressure on her throat. Then she stamped, raking her heel down her assailant’s shin and smashing it down on his foot, and drove the long end of the baton backward into his belly.

The assault served to loosen his grip, and she wrenched herself free. Pivoting, putting all her weight behind it, she threw an elbow, her vulnerable forearm armored by the truncheon nestled against it. The stick crashed into Baldhead’s temple, snapping his head back. His eyes rolled up, and his, knees buckled.

Shamur heard footsteps pounding up behind her. She whirled just in time to keep her first attacker, his braided beard soaked with blood from his ruined nose and mouth, from smashing his sap down on the back of her head a second time.

Blackbeard feinted with the leather bludgeon, then lashed out with a kick to the stomach. Gripping the baton two-handed to make a horizontal bar, Shamur blocked the attack by jamming her weapon into the wounded man’s shin. Then she smashed the stick up under his chin.

She’d hurt him again, but clearly, he wasn’t done, because

he took another swing with the sap. She stopped its descent as she’d stopped the kick, then used another elbow strike. He still wouldn’t fall down, so she hooked the truncheon behind his neck and grabbed the long end with her left hand. Squeezing his throat behind her crossed arms, she choked him until he collapsed.

Shamur pivoted toward Audra. The apothecary stood gawking at the carnage, her eyes filled with a horror that afforded the victor a moment of dark amusement.

“There was no need for this,” Shamur panted. “I told you I wasn’t going to make any troub—”

Audra bolted. Shamur cursed and scrambled after her.

Her short legs notwithstanding, Audra made it to one of the cluttered shelves on the wall just ahead of her pursuer. She grabbed a corked beaker of some gray, bubbling fluid and swung it back behind her head to throw it.

Shamur dived and tackled the fat woman, slamming her backward into the shelves. Tangled together, the combatants fell to the floor. Shards of leathery orange eggshell, an old brown book, and the preserved head of a huge black bat, the fangs of which had been scraped and filed, showered down around them.

Shamur heaved herself on top of Audra, dealt the apothecary a backhand blow, then wrested the beaker from her grasp. Tugging at the stopper, she said, “How would you like a little drink?”

Audra thrashed, but Shamur had her well pinned. “No!” the pudgy woman cried. “Please!”

“Then tell me what I want to know.”

Audra swallowed. “All right. I did make the poison intended for Shamur Karn, and why it didn’t kill her I can’t say, unless my client never gave it to her.”

“Who was he?”

“Thamalon Uskevren, the same noble who eventually married her.”

Shamur’s jaw tightened. She’d known Lindrian had no reason to lie, yet she’d still hoped that somehow, he would turn out to be mistaken. Now, however, no reasonable person

could doubt that Thamalon truly had murdered Lindrian’s innocent daughter.

And this vile creature had furnished the means! Suddenly shivering and lightheaded with rage, the noblewoman said, “I have two things to tell you. The first is that Thamalon did administer your venom. The second is that I am Shamur Uskevren.”

Audra gaped, and then renewed her efforts to escape. Perhaps she expected Shamur to go ahead and pour the contents of the beaker down her gullet, and if so, she was perceptive, because for an instant the other woman wished to do precisely that. Then, however, her fury gave way to a revulsion that simply made her want to distance herself from her captive as quickly as possible. For Lindrian had been right. Wicked though she was, Audra had only been a tool. True vengeance must be sought elsewhere.

“If you or your idiot accomplices tell anyone I was here,” Shamur said, “then I swear to you, I will kill you.”

She rose, retrieved her fallen pouch, and withdrew into a freezing night no colder than her heart.

***

Audra was pressing a bag full of snow to her split lip and bruised cheek when another caller rapped on the door. That cursed Uskevren harridan had only been gone an hour, but the apothecary wasn’t surprised that her client in the moon mask had turned up so soon. He was plainly a wizard, so it stood to reason he had ways of knowing things that ordinary people lacked.

Blackbearded Pedvel was swilling brandy to dull the pain of his broken nose, shattered teeth, and bruised throat, while Sawys perched on a stool alternately massaging his mashed foot and bald, battered head. Audra looked at them, silently bidding one of them get up and answer the knock, but they just stared sullenly back at her. After a moment she sighed, rose, and, her bruised limbs aching, hobbled to the door herself.

When she opened the spy hole, she saw that the newcomer was indeed her anonymous employer, accompanied as usual by his familiar spirit, a walking shadow whose shape shifted and flowed from second to second. She unlocked the door and admitted them.

The wizard looked at her compress. “Nothing but snow to ease your pain?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his prim tenor voice. “That doesn’t inspire much confidence in your nostrums and panaceas.”

“Go to the Abyss,” Audra said.

“His allegiance lies elsewhere,” said the familiar, his fanged maw smirking. “But that was a pretty good guess.”

The wizard shot the spirit a pale-eyed glance that, despite the mask concealing his expression, successfully conveyed annoyance. Then, returning his attention to Audra, he asked, “We agreed that you were to capture the woman and detain her for several hours, during which time you’d let slip what she came to hear, and that afterward she’d ‘escape.’ Clearly, that didn’t happen. What did?”

“It looks as if the genteel Lady Uskevren beat them half to death,” the familiar said, sniggering.

“She took us by surprise,” Pedvel growled, his voice roughened and slurred by his injuries. “Why didn’t you tell us she knew how to fight?”

“Perhaps because I didn’t anticipate that two strong young men would find it difficult to subdue one slender, middle-aged woman,” the spellcaster said, “even if she had survived a previous scuffle or two.”

“Why did we have to fight at all?” Sawys asked. “She was willing to pay for what she wanted.”

“Because if the intelligence had come too easily, she might have scented a ruse,” the wizard explained. “Whereas, believing she risked her life for it, she’ll trust it. That’s human nature.”

“Well, why didn’t you at least warn me that harpy was the very woman I’m supposed to have poisoned?” Audra demanded. “After I confessed to it, and she revealed herself, I thought she was going to kill me on the spot.”

“Had I informed you, would you have consented to help me stage this little piece of make-believe?” the masked man asked. “Besides, I reckoned that if you knew her identity in advance, you might have difficulty pretending to be surprised should she disclose it. You’re scarcely accomplished thespians, you know.”

“Maybe not,” Audra said, “but I got the job done. Even when the plan had come apart, when your Lady Uskevren was sitting on me threatening to pour essence of slithering tracker down my throat, I kept my head.” Regained it, actually, but there was no point telling him that for a few moments there, astonished by the other woman’s ferocity, she’d panicked. “I told her it was her husband who’d wished her dead and made her believe it too. Now I want my money.”

“Of course,” the masked man said, producing a kidskin purse from beneath his mantle.

Audra took the bag and untied the lacing securing the mouth. Inside were platinum suns, golden fivestars, and a number of sapphires and pearls. She grinned, and Pedvel and Sawys got up and limped over to inspect the booty.

“Satisfactory?” the wizard asked.

“Yes,” said Audra, liking the man a good deal more than she had a moment ago.

“Good,” the wizard said. “We’re quits, then. But now we have a new piece of business to transact.”

“Have you got another job for us?” Pedvel asked, leering over Audra’s shoulder at the gleaming treasure in her hands.

“Unfortunately not,” said the mage. “I’ve thought it over, and I’m afraid I don’t trust you to depart Selgaunt as you promised. You just don’t seem like very reliable people, and should you linger, spreading your newfound wealth around, regaling your whores and drinking companions with the tale of how you acquired it, word could get back to the Uskevren. And that would ruin everything.”

Audra frowned. “We gave you our word and we’ll keep

it.”

“That’s very reassuring,” said the masked man, “but even

so, I see no reason why I should allow you the chance to change your minds. You see, a fellow like me only has to deal gently with people like you if they’re likely to be of further use or have powerful friends to avenge them, and sadly, you fall in neither category.”

Audra abruptly grasped that the sorcerer was saying he meant to murder them. Which meant they’d better dispatch him first, this instant, before he could start casting spells. “Get him!” she screamed. She threw a handful of jewels and specie at the wizard’s face, then lunged at him.

The makeshift missiles clattered on the sickle-shaped mask but seemingly without startling him or penetrating the eye holes as she’d hoped. He stepped nimbly backward, faking himself out of reach of her clutching hands, and brushed her on the shoulder with his staff.

Magenta light danced and crackled on the wood. Wracked by an agonizing power, her muscles twitched and shuddered. Paralyzed by her spasms, she fell to the floor.

From there, she saw that her confederates had finally begun to attack. Though favoring his injured foot, Sawys did his best to charge the mage while holding a three-legged stool above his head. The wizard retreated once more, giving himself time to recite a rhymed couplet, produce the severed gray tip of a squid’s tentacle from one of the hidden pockets in his cloak, and swing it in a small circle.

Inky tentacles erupted from the floorboards all around Sawys’s feet. They flailed at him, coiled around his limbs, and dragged him down. He shrieked briefly, then fell silent. His bones cracked and crunched as the tentacles squeezed him.

Perhaps profiting from his comrade’s unfortunate example, Pedvel fought more warily, popping up from behind a pile of boxes or other cover to hurl a burner or flask, then ducking down again, making it difficult for his adversary to target him. The magician murmured and brandished a scrap of tortoiseshell, and after that Pedvel’s missiles rebounded harmlessly from an invisible shield. Pacing deliberately, the ferule of his staff bumping softly on the floor, the masked

man advanced with the obvious intention of cornering his opponent.

But it looked like it might take him a minute, a minute during which Audra could escape into the night. Her muscles were still jumping, but not as badly as before. She thought she could move, and when she tried, she found she was right.

She crawled on hands and knees, staying so low that the mage shouldn’t be able to see her. After what seemed an eternity, she came in sight of the door. She sprang to her feet and ran for it.

Darkness fell across the exit like a curtain, with two yellow eyes and a grinning maw in the center of it: the wizard’s familiar, barring the way.

Audra dodged toward the window, but the spirit swayed to the side and cut her off. She pivoted back toward the door, and he was there. He let her lurch left and right a few more times, always interposing himself between her and freedom, then, evidently tiring of the game, widened his body so it covered both means of egress at once.

Behind her, magic hissed and chilled the air. Red light flickered. Pedvel screamed.

“I’ll let you in on a joke,” the familiar said. “I’m no more solid than fog. You could have fled right through me.”

For an instant, Audra failed to comprehend what he was saying. Then she flung herself at the door. V

The spirit’s shadowy substance felt vile in a way she couldn’t describe, but he hadn’t lied. She was reaching clear through him, opening the lock, and then she heard the wizard murmuring.

Just as she yanked open the door, daggers, arrows, or something else equally pointed and lethal slammed into her back. Suddenly choking on warm, coppery fluid, she fell, and, peeling himself off the wall, the familiar crouched over her to watch her die. The last thing she saw was his murky grin.

Shamur pulled on the cabinet door and was not surprised to find it locked, Thamalon being the prudent soul he was. She picked up one of the long pins she’d bent into something vaguely resembling a proper thief’s tool and set to work.

Since her interlude with Audra Sweetdreams the night before, Shamur had been hard-pressed to contain her fury whenever she encountered her husband. Her mind boiled with fancies of bloody retribution, and her hand fairly twitched with the impulse to drive a blade into his flesh. Yet at the same time, some small part of her, a part that recalled the sweetness she had occasionally discovered in his arms and the way he’d gobbled and made faces to amuse their infant children, still sought to avoid the confrontation to come. She despised that weak, equivocating portion of her