The Mage in the Iron Mask

by Brian Thomsen

  “My stomach feels like it has been days,” Passepout said, as he went to fetch the halves of the mask.

  “Careful,” Volo advised sharply.

  “I know, I know,” Passepout said with a pout. “I have to keep the two halves of the mask apart until we have them in position around the stiff’s head.”

  “That’s not what I was referring to.”

  The exasperated Passepout turned around and placed his hands on his ample hips, and said in his most long-suffering voice, “Well, what then?”

  “The luminescent orb,” Volo replied. “Keep it away from the mask. We don’t want our only source of light to go out on us do we?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” the thespian admitted, and carefully placed it on the ground between them. As Volo unwrapped the head of the corpse, Passepout brought the iron mask’s two halves over to him, one at a time.

  “Would you like to do the honors?” Volo asked, already knowing the answer.

  “No,” the thespian replied with a shudder.

  “Well, I’ll need your help anyway,” Volo countered. “I’ll lift the stiff’s head off the ground. You set the mask half underneath it. Then I’ll lower its head back down, and place the other half on top. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Passepout said reluctantly.

  Like clockwork the two went through the procedure as outlined by Volo. Though Mason had clearly told them what would happen when the two parts were placed in contact with each other, both of the travelers were awed by the magical glow that began to permeate the metal and fuse the two halves together.

  Once the glow had dissipated, Volo lifted the corpse into a sitting position to observe their handiwork.

  It was then that the two travelers noticed that they had put the iron mask on backwards with the sight and breathing holes affording them three clear little windows to the back of the dead High Blade’s head.

  Volo looked at Passepout, who returned his scathing look.

  “Well, it’s not like he’s going to need to do much seeing or breathing,” the thespian offered, “given his current condition and all.”

  The master traveler chuckled. His friend did indeed have a point. Taking a deep breath, he heaved the now heavier corpse back onto his back, and the two travelers set off through the door that they had not used to enter the chamber.

  As luck would have it, the traveling twosome made the right choices in the dark, and in a matter of minutes they had located the open hole to the sewer.

  “Whew!” Passepout said aloud as he looked down the hole. “This really stinks.”

  “Then this must be the place,” Volo replied, unceremoniously dropping the iron-masked corpse down the hole. After a few seconds they heard what sounded like a far-off splash, at which point they knew that the man whose last goal had been the rebuilding of the Mulmaster navy, was embarking on his final journey out to sea.

  “Where to now?” Passepout asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “Back to the surface, I guess,” Volo said guardedly.

  The master traveler was not surprised when, seconds later, the orb’s luminescence went out completely. It was possible that the spell that Mason had cast on it had been adversely affected by the magic-leeching mask … or perhaps it had simply fulfilled the task that had been assigned to it.

  Volo turned his attention to keeping his frightened friend from panicking, and frantically tried to formulate a plan that would return them to the daylight and salvation. The master traveler had no desire to spend the rest of his days in total darkness, no matter how few they might turn out to be, but there was equally no sense in wandering around in the dark without the benefit of a torch or talisman.

  As Passepout began to cry, the master traveler tried to think harder for a possible solution.

  In the Bedchamber Shared by

  the High Blade and the Tharchioness,

  in the Tower of the Wyvern:

  Rassendyll entered his brother’s bedchamber, prepared for the next trial of the neverending night.

  “I’ve been waiting,” the Tharchioness said seductively, “and you know how I hate that.”

  “We have a slight problem,” he said, still no more than a step inside the chamber. “I was attacked in my study.”

  The Tharchioness drew her hand up to the talismanic brooch that rested nestled between her silken breasts. “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice the epitome of concern.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I was meeting with an old associate of my father whom I have decided to take on as an advisor. Together, we subdued the blackguards.”

  The Tharchioness’s ears perked up at the word “blackguards.”

  “Did you say blackguards, as in more than one,” she inquired.

  “Yes,” Rassendyll replied, “one of mine and one of yours.”

  The Tharchioness’s fingers began to massage the broach in a nervous, rhythmic pattern. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice breaking slightly.

  “It appears that one of your ambassadors and the captain of the Hawks seemed to have been planning a coup,” Rassendyll replied, repeating the story that Honor and Mason had advised him to tell.

  “Are you sure you are all right?” she asked, kneeling up on the silken sheets of their marriage bed. “I don’t know what I would do if you had been killed.”

  “I’m just a little winded and a bit tense from the ordeal,” he replied, “so I think I will be sleeping alone tonight.”

  The Tharchioness thought quickly and knew the proper response.

  “I understand,” she said sweetly, “but will you at least kiss me good night?”

  Rassendyll assessed the shapely form of the woman who was his brother’s wife, his eyes immediately drawn to the talismanic brooch that seemed to be casting off an aura of some kind.

  She noticed his eyes’ fixation on the brooch, and said, “Do you like it? I had it specially made.”

  “It’s very nice,” he replied, wondering what the focus of its enchantment was, “but I should be going.”

  The Tharchioness pouted, and said, “The kiss?”

  “Of course,” he replied, stepping forward to comply.

  The Tharchioness stood before he could bend over, and quickly enveloped him in a total embrace, her lips locked on his, her tongue dancing into his mouth. He tried to match her passion touch to touch, pausing for a lingering moment as if he actually loved her and was trying to prolong the interval before they had to part. He felt her firm and ample bosoms rubbing against the chest that she had discreetly bared by pulling his robes apart, the metals of the amulet making contact with his skin.

  They parted after a moment, and he opened his eyes.

  The Tharchioness was smiling, confident of her victory. On the matrimonial battlefield of wills and diplomacy, she would emerge the victor. Mulmaster would be hers.

  “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he replied, and began to head toward the door.

  The Tharchioness was momentarily speechless.

  “Don’t you want to stay?” she sputtered, trying to understand what could have gone wrong with the spell.

  “Of course I do,” he replied, “but I have much to attend to tomorrow.” Rassendyll paused for a moment, and added sharply, “and I am tired, I thought I had explained that!”

  “Yes, my High Blade,” she said instinctively.

  Rassendyll left the chamber. He correctly surmised that the brooch that she had been wearing must have had some charm spell attached to it that was designed to work on his brother. He made a mental note that he would have to be especially careful in dealing with her sorcerous ways in the future.

  Once the door had closed, the Tharchioness let loose with a string of obscene epithets directed at the incompetence of all of her ministers. The amulet had not worked and they would pay!

  Little did she realize that it would be the last time she would see the man she thought to be her husband in the privacy of their bedchamber.

  Beneath the City
of Mulmaster:

  Volo put his arm around his corpulent friend. The grown man had stopped crying and seemed resigned to the fact that the two of them would die together in the darkness. Despite the telltale rumblings of his impatient stomach, nary a complaint or whine issued from his lips.

  Idle and Catinflas would be proud, thought the master traveler.

  Volo passed the time with his friend relating tales of his expedition to the Underdark. What seemed like hours passed, and still the master traveler was without a plan. The irregular contours of the ground and walls, and the frequent underground cliffs overlooking bottomless pits made groping around in the dark unadvisable. Had he had ample time to prepare for this excursion in the darkness, there would have been numerous precautions against situations such as this that he would have taken, but unfortunately such was not the case.

  The master traveler’s thoughts drifted back to Honor Fullstaff and Mason McKern. He was still not quite sure if they had planned for this to happen once he and Passepout had fulfilled their mission, but was quite confident that neither member of the old guard of Mulmaster had the least bit of concern for himself or his friend’s lives now that their task had been performed. In fact, to a certain degree, they might even be more comfortable with their now assured permanent silence on the matters that had recently transpired.

  Volo sighed, but Passepout seemed not to notice, having slipped into an almost catatonic state of despairing acceptance.

  The master traveler was fairly confident that he could find their way back to the sewer hole and would have been willing to accept the risks involved in surviving the subterranean trip out to sea, had he not also been confident that his dear friend would never have survived such a journey.

  If no alternative came to them shortly, they would have to take the risk.

  Passepout bolted upright, his nose sniffing the air.

  “What’s that?” the portly thespian asked urgently.

  “What’s what?” the master traveler responded.

  “I smell breakfast rolls,” Passepout replied.

  Volo sniffed the air, but was unable to detect a change in the aroma of their locale. He feared that his friend was beginning to hallucinate, until he heard what seemed like the soft patting of slippered footsteps on the underground path.

  “Well, can you smell it?” the thespian asked desperately.

  “Hush!” Volo commanded. “I think someone is coming.”

  “Friend or foe?” Passepout asked in a quivering whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Volo answered, “but we’ll find out soon enough. Whoever they are they’re coming closer.”

  Volo looked in the direction that he and his friend had come from, and saw the beginnings of a torch’s glow entering the chamber in which they now sat, soon followed by the silhouette of either their savior or the latest threat to their existence.

  “Well, it’s about time I found you two,” Chesslyn said, a bit of good-natured impatience in her voice. “Breakfast is almost stone cold.”

  The Harper secret agent reached into her pack, and handed the two travelers breakfast buns. Passepout devoured his immediately, and looked longingly at Volo’s. The master traveler gladly offered it to his friend, who gratefully accepted.

  Volo stood up, and hugged their savior.

  “What took you so long?” he said happily.

  “I’m a good tracker,” she replied, “but not that good. Honor sent a message instructing me that what had transpired over the past few days had never taken place, and that it was only because I had been his favorite student that he knew that I would understand. He then made mention of his being grateful for my part in the beginnings of the restoration of Mulmaster to its former glory. That was it.”

  “I see.” said Volo cautiously.

  “Since he never mentioned you or Passepout, I naturally assumed something had happened,” she explained, “and since you still owe me that chance to get to know you better, I decided to trace your steps from where I left you the other night and, voila, here I am.”

  “In the nick of time, I might add,” Passepout interjected. “I had despaired of ever eating again.”

  Chesslyn handed him another breakfast bun and turned her attention back to Volo. “Do you think it’s safe for us to return with you to Mulmaster?” the master traveler asked guardedly.

  “I think so,” Chesslyn answered. “Though Honor might allow you to disappear without a trace, I don’t think he would actually lift a hand to have you removed, given the current business in court. It might attract too much unwanted attention. You should be safe around town for at least the next few days.”

  “Just enough time for us to get further acquainted,” the master traveler offered.

  “My thoughts exactly,” she agreed with a smile.

  The two held romantic eye contact in the shadowy subterranean chamber, until Passepout once again injected himself into their conversation.

  “Do you think you can show us the way out of here?” he asked.

  “Certainly,” she replied, handing him the last of the buns, “just let me rearrange my pack and we can be on our way.”

  “Wonderful!” the chubby thespian replied.

  As the Harper secret agent attended to her preparations, Passepout turned to his traveling companion and whispered assuredly, “See, I told you she liked me.”

  “Indeed,” the master traveler replied, giving his friend a good-natured pat on the back. “Indeed.”

  “Wonderful!”

  Epilogue

  Over the previous few days Mulmaster was a flurry of activities. Two different executions were held with the normal accompaniment of festive fanfare.

  Former captain of the Hawks Sir Melker Rickman was executed for conspiracy to incite treason. He was hung from the scaffold in front of the keep that had housed his offices. The customary last words of the accused were dispensed with as the prisoner’s tongue had been removed immediately upon his incarceration. His lifeless corpse was allowed to hang in state for a full day before the annoyance and public health concerns necessitated it be removed.

  Farther down the road, and a day later, the Thayan embassy added to the festivities when the Tharchioness hosted an execution of her own as former ambassador and envoy, Joechairo Lawre, a wormlike politician of the worst sort, was publicly incinerated at the stake by a fireball cast by the First Princess herself. The crowd that gathered was quite impressed since nary a cry of mercy or anguish escaped the Red Wizard’s lips as the flames engulfed him, the crowd being quite ignorant that his tongue, also, had been removed upon his arrest. As he was a Thayan national, he was thus executed by a duly empowered representative of Thay, and it was not necessary for him to be charged, or the execution justified. Among the members of the court, there was rumor that the charge was similar to that of Rickman; or perhaps it was just, according to those who knew the ambassador, simple incompetence. The Mulman mob didn’t really care about justifications or the whys and wherefores—they just turned out for an afternoon’s entertainment.

  Curiously enough, the High Blade and his bride presided over both occasions.

  The crowds interpreted this as further evidence of the diplomatic alliance that began with their nuptials, a sense of mutuality of their governmental responsibilities, and the development of a further closeness between the leaders whose marriage of diplomatic advantage may have evolved into something deeper between the two individuals. Rumors abounded among the mob that they had mutually agreed that the time had come for them to assume the responsibilities of parenthood.

  Those closer to the respective thrones thought otherwise. The paradoxically amorous/antagonistic dynamic that had existed between the two had seemed to vanish overnight, and with its departure came several noticeable changes in their retinues. In addition to the arrests of Rickman and Lawre, both entourages underwent a change in personnel. A blind old swordmaster and former Hawk by the name of Fullstaff was appointed as chief advisor to the High Blade, and a
n equally geriatric mage by the name of McKern was appointed first consul, much to the chagrin of Senior Cloak Thurndan Tallwand. The overnight ascension of these two former retirees was looked upon with some amazement by the High Blade’s court, particularly since both individuals, though officially still citizens of Mulmaster, had had next to no involvement in the government for more years than anyone seemed able to remember.

  The changes to the First Princess’s party were mostly in the form of deletions. Mischa Tam, as well as several ministers who had formerly been considered among the First Princess’s inner circle, were noticeably absent. The ministers had evidently opted to return to Eltabbar at very short notice, while the Tharchioness’s half sister felt the need to avoid that domain and seek the counsel of the great Szass Tam instead, a move that those in the know realized to be tantamount to choosing between the lady and the tiger. A new ambassador of obviously weak character had made an appearance, and the lower level Thayan functionaries were already taking bets on his life expectancy.

  The third day of festivities was brought to a close by a public address by the High Blade himself in which he swore to return Mulmaster to its former days of glory. He then went on to announce that due to the priority of accelerating the rebuilding of the navy, the city would be unable to offer any financial assistance to Eltabbar during their recovery from their devastating earthquake. The needs, security, and goals of Mulmaster were always to be the first concern, and it was his intention that nothing was to get in its way on its chosen path to become the power center of the entire Moonsea region.

  The crowd cheered, failing to notice the icy glare that the Tharchioness cast in her husband’s direction.

  He then went on to declare that the First Princess would indeed be cutting her conjugal visit short so that she could attend to her own matters of state back in Thay. He pointed out that it was important that all realize that matters of state must come first, and that in all things the glory of Mulmaster was to be his number one concern,

  Fullstaff and McKern exchanged a secret wink and a conspiratorial grin between themselves as they saw their long-term goals and wishes finally coming to fruition.