The Shattered Mask

by Richard Lee Byers

  It was a patient, defensive mode of fighting such as might be expected of such a careful, calculating man. Shamur’s natural inclination was to fight far more aggressively, yet she comprehended Thamalon’s style of swordplay very well. She’d often employed it in her youth, when robbing her fellow merchant-nobles in the street. Not wishing to kill them or their bodyguards either, she’d waited for the chance to inflict wounds that incapacitated but would neither slay nor cripple. Or better still, to capture her opponent’s blade and spin it out of his grasp.

  Given her understanding of Thamalon’s strategy, she doubted it would serve him well in the long run. He couldn’t retreat forever, not with the tangle of bare oaks, maples, and brush surrounding the clearing. Every time he fetched up against it, it halted him as effectively as a wall, and provided her with an excellent chance to attack. Besides, if one didn’t count the half century that the rest of the world had somehow experienced without her, he was more than ten years her senior, and already bleeding as well. Therefore, let him play his waiting game. She was willing to wager that his stamina would flag before hers.

  His constant retreating did give him the chance to talk, however. “Tell me,” he said, just a hint of exertion, of shortness of breath, in his voice. Tell me, tell me, over and over again.

  Finally the incessant repetition wrung an answer out of her. “The poisoning,” she said, “almost thirty years ago.”

  “What poisoning?”

  “You can’t stop lying, can you, no matter how futile it is. It isn’t in your nature.”

  She made what appeared to be a rather clumsy cut at his shoulder, one that left her arm extended and exposed when it fell short.

  As she’d intended, Thamalon instantly thrust at her wrist. She knocked his attack out of line with a semicircular parry, then, keeping pressure on his sword to hold it in its ineffectual position, charged him.

  He ran backward, came off the blade, and smashed her weapon away an instant before it could shear into his throat. She tried a second cut as she ran by him, but he parried that one, too. She whirled back around to face him.

  “I’m not lying,” Thamalon said, his white hair clotted with sweat, and his left profile smeared with red. “I beg you to tell me what you mean.”

  “Only weeks before your wedding,” she gritted, “you poisoned your fiancée, a gentle, innocent girl who adored you.” Her fist clenched on the hilt of her broadsword too tightly to manipulate it properly, and she loosened her grip again.

  “Someone poisoned you?” he asked, feigning bewilderment almost convincingly. Perhaps it helped that he truly was baffled as to how she’d discovered his secret. “Why wasn’t I told at the time? And how can you think it was me?”

  “I know it was you,” she said, trying to bind his blade. He spun his point to avoid the contact, then thrust at her biceps. She snapped her broadsword back across her body to parry, then extended in her turn, and Thamalon took yet another retreat.

  She sprang forward, lunged, and thrust at his leading foot. Once again, he took the bait. He snatched his foot back half a step, and his point flashed out to pierce the back of her hand. She whirled her arm and blade higher, avoiding his counterattack, shifted forward, and cut at his chest. He yanked the long sword back and parried. For a few heartbeats they attacked and defended, grunting with effort, their blades clashing fast as a castle bell sounding an alarm. Finally, Thamalon broke off the exchange by retreating, and the two duelists began to circle one another.

  “What makes you think I poisoned you?” he asked. Shamur could tell he was making an effort to control his breathing.

  “Not me,” she said, hoping to surprise and befuddle him, “my kinswoman, also named Shamur. As a matter of fact, your venom killed her.” The instant she finished speaking, she attacked with a cut to the chest.

  She obviously hadn’t disrupted his concentration as she’d hoped, for he immediately sidestepped to avoid her blade while simultaneously thrusting at her sword arm. But she saw him begin to pivot on his leading foot, and adjusted her aim accordingly. He yanked his hand back just in time to keep her from severing it at the wrist. She renewed the attack, they battled fiercely for a few more seconds, and then he scrambled backward with another shallow cut along his forearm.

  Shamur wasn’t even sure just which of her attacks had slipped past his guard, but she supposed it didn’t matter.

  “Second blood,” she said.

  “What makes you believe I murdered the other Shamur?” Thamalon panted.

  Shamur was momentarily surprised he had nothing to say about what must be the perplexing question of her true identity. Then she realized that for the moment at least, it didn’t matter to him. Whoever she might be in reality, he realized he wouldn’t induce her to break off the fight by inquiring. But he hoped he could do it by convincing her he was innocent of the poisoning, and so the cool, shrewd soul that he was, that was the issue he intended to pursue.

  “Lindrian told me on his death bed,” she replied. “Now will you stop pretending?”

  “I’m not pretending,” he insisted. “Tell me exactly what Lindrian said.”

  A bit at a time, she did, and about accosting Audra Sweetdreams and finding the green flask as well, the explanation broken up by fierce passages of arms whenever he permitted her to close the distance. By the time she finished, the light was failing, and the sky a somber blue rapidly darkening to black.

  “Sick men sometimes lose their wits,” Thamalon panted. His unarmed hand rose to fumble with the golden clasp of his cloak.

  “Lindrian was rational,” Shamur replied, looking for the right moment to attack.

  “Well, then, people can be induced to lie, by magic or otherwise.”

  He pulled the cloak from his shoulders and dangled it by its bloodstained collar.

  “Lindrian had been bedridden for months,” she said. “How likely is it that someone got to him in the very heart of Argent Hall?”

  “I imagine it could be done.”

  Shamur frowned momentarily, for Thamalon was correct. Some intruder could have penetrated Argent Hall. It was conceivable that she herself could have managed a comparable feat in her youth. But even so, she knew very well her nephew hadn’t misled her, because she’d verified his assertions in Audra Sweetdreams’s shop and Thamalon’s own bedchamber.

  “I see you’re changing your tactics,” she said. “I promise, the cape won’t save you. I understand that manner of fighting, too.”

  “You’ve known me for thirty years,” he said, circling. He flicked the cloak at her, but she discerned that the action was a harmless display intended to distract her attention from his sword, and she ignored it. “Do you honestly believe I would have murdered a sweet young girl?”

  “I’ve known you to be hard as diamond to get what you wanted,” she said.

  “Well, I never wanted to marry Rosenna Foxmantle,” Thamalon said. He flicked the cape again, more forcefully, making the cloth snap like a whip. “The woman was little better than a harlot.”

  “And you know about harlots, don’t you?” Shamur cut over his blade into the open line, then extended her arm and lunged.

  He stepped back and over, shifting his left foot in front of his right and his cape hand ahead of his sword hand. The heavy wool mantle swept in a circle intended to brush Shamur’s thrust to the side.

  It was the defense she’d been hoping for. She let Thamalon feel the cape collide with her weapon, then instantly whipped the blade down and up into line again, freeing it of the folds of cloth that he’d hoped would hamper it. When he stepped through, putting the whole weight of his body behind a low-line stab at her thigh, she met the attack with a thrust in opposition. Her sword pressed his away and cut the inside of his leg just above the knee. It was yet another superficial wound, and she cried out in frustration.

  Their exchange had brought them into close quarters, and he shoved her backward. At once, he tossed the cape, trying to drop it over her head and blind her
, but she wasn’t so off balance that she couldn’t bat it away with her blade.

  “First the lantern, then the cloak,” she said. “You just can’t hold onto a shield, can you?”

  She advanced and he retreated, unfortunately not limping as far as she could tell. Above the trees, the first stars of the evening had begun to shine.

  “Why would I have proposed to you … your counterpart … whoever if I weren’t in love with her?” Thamalon asked. The bloodstain on his lambskin jacket looked black in the gathering gloom. “Not for money, plainly. You Karns didn’t have any.”

  “For position,” Shamur said. “Our marriage was the key to your acceptance by the Old Chauncel.”

  To her surprise, Thamalon snorted. “Perhaps you truly aren’t the girl I courted so many years ago, for you certainly don’t seem to understand the way things work in Selgaunt. Admittedly, our wedding helped reestablish the House of Uskevren, but it wasn’t essential. Ultimately, and despite all their flowery paeans to honor and culture, most merchant nobles respect two things: money, and the strength to defend it. Once the Old Chauncel decided I had plenty of both, they would have opened their doors to me eventually.”

  She hesitated, for once again, he’d made a seemingly cogent point, though not, of course, sufficient to convince her. “I guess you simply weren’t willing to wait.”

  She took three leisurely steps to accustom her retreating foe to that pace, then suddenly closed the distance with a fast one. She feinted a head cut, then a side cut, then came back to attack his head in truth. Thamalon blocked her out with a high parry, then spun his long sword in the beginning of a cheek cut. She raised her broadsword to counter, and his blade streaked down at her leg.

  She hopped back and lashed her weapon down in a sweeping low-line parry. The swords rang together, then something jabbed her thigh. But it was only a little sting, and when she glanced down, she saw to her relief that he hadn’t wounded her any more grievously than she had thus far managed to hurt him. Her second parry hadn’t quite stopped his attack, but it had robbed it of most of its force. She slashed at his sword arm, and he hopped back.

  “Suppose I did try to kill my fiancée,” Thamalon said. His back foot slipped in the snow, but he recovered his balance before she could take advantage of it. “Do you honestly think I’d leave the murder weapon in an unlocked box in my bed chamber forever after, where you could so easily discover it? We have vaults in the cellar for hiding our secrets!”

  She scowled. For a second, her weary sword arm quivered, till she willed the tremor away. “Ordinarily, I would agree that such carelessness is unlike you,” she admitted, “except for one thing. Until I visited Audra Sweetdreams, I had no way of knowing what the bottle was.”

  “Well, do you think I’d leave it where our young children could stumble onto it and take a curious sip?”

  “Oh,” she sneered, gliding forward, “I’m to believe you care about the children now.”

  He retreated before her, realized he’d almost backed himself up against the trees, and pivoted to alter course. She chose that moment to attack, and pressed him hard until he succeeded in breaking away.

  “Use your head,” he rasped, his chest heaving. “If you were a shady dealer in illicit potions, would you dispense them in costly and highly recognizable glassware? For that matter, how likely is it that this Audra of yours gave me such a flask, and here she is still using exactly the same kind three decades later? I tell you, Shamur, someone induced her to lie, then planted the bottle in my room.”

  “I see,” Shamur said. “Lindrian was a liar, and so is Audra. Everyone lies but you.”

  “They did lie. Some schemer has perpetrated an elaborate ruse to provoke you into doing precisely what you’re doing now.”

  “Why, when the world at large has no idea that the genteel Lady Uskevren knows how to kill?”

  “Curse it, woman, whatever you choose to believe, consider this. If you slay me, someone is bound to find out.”

  Shamur laughed. “What do I care? After you’re dead, I’ll ride for Cormyr, and Selgaunt will never see me again. There’s nothing here I’ll miss.” She grimaced. “Well, the children, but I’ve made my peace with that.”

  “All right,” he growled, “if you won’t see reason, let’s finish it. You’ve made my life a misery for thirty years, and the Stalker take my soul to hunt through the sky if I let you rob me of what’s left of it!” He sprang forward, his long sword streaking at her head.

  Retreating, Shamur parried, cut at his chest, and instantly his blade smashed hers aside. She realized then that he hadn’t expected his first action to reach its target. He’d been trying to draw a fast, direct stab from her, which, since he’d been expecting it, he’d easily deflected. Now his point flashed at her heart.

  Leaping backward, she parried. His point dipped, evading her sweeping blade, and rose to threaten her torso anew. He bellowed a war cry and lunged. She took another retreat, spun her broadsword in a circular parry, and closed him out a split second before his weapon could pierce her breast.

  She cut at his eyes, and the long sword swept up, forming a horizontal bar that hoisted her blade above his head. Holding her weapon trapped at the juncture of his blade and his guard, he stepped in close and pivoted his point down for a jab at her abdomen. Sucking in her belly, she flung herself around him. Her sword scraped free, and she thrust at the expanse of exposed ribs under his upraised arm. Not one fencer in a hundred could have whirled and parried that attack in time, but he did, then came at her again.

  She almost felt as if she were dueling a new opponent, for his current mode of fighting, a relentless onslaught of strong, lethal attacks, was utterly different from the defensive style of evasions and counterattacks he’d employed before. She thought that if he’d battled this way from the beginning, he might even have defeated her, but he’d waited too long to start. He was tired now, and after a few more fierce exchanges, it seemed to her that his actions were finally starting to slow. Only a bit, but so evenly matched were they that a bit was all she needed.

  She stepped just a hair into the distance, inviting attack, and he obliged her with a feint at her knee, then jabbed a cut at her chest. She stepped forward and swept her blade from right to left. The captain of her father’s household guard, the veteran soldier who’d given an importunate, boisterous little girl her first instruction in swordplay, had taught her it was foolish to try such an action. If her opponent thwarted her attempt to defend, her own advance would likely carry her onto his blade. But Shamur didn’t fail. She’d sensed exactly where and how Thamalon’s true attack would come, and she bashed his sword aside and cut with her own.

  Thanks to her advance, she was dangerously close, and he scrambled backward. Feinting and disengaging repeatedly, she pursued him.

  He kept retreating, the long sword whirling and leaping from side to side and up and down as he searched for her blade. But perhaps she’d unconsciously assimilated his favorite patterns, the ones he fell into when pressed so hard he had not an instant to think, for she anticipated and avoided every parry. Each spring of her long legs brought her point a little closer to his flesh, and she thought that here at last was the phrase that would end with her broadsword buried in his vitals.

  Then the heel of his back foot caught on something hidden beneath a drift of snow. He stumbled, his sword arm flailing too wide to have any hope of deflecting her attack. She truly had him now, and he knew it; she could read the knowledge in his stricken expression. There was no panic there, but frustration and a final flare of defiance.

  Screaming, she cut at his neck.

  And then pulled the broadsword up over his head a split second before it could strike home.

  She hadn’t known she was going to spare him, and it took her a moment to understand why. Though his arguments hadn’t persuaded her, they’d carried a certain weight, and more telling still had been the fact that up until the very end, when he’d despaired of ever convincing her, he
hadn’t once attempted a mortal blow. He’d always cut and thrust at her limbs, never her torso or head. His reluctance to take her life even to protect his own suggested more powerfully than words that perhaps he wasn’t the fiend she’d thought him after all.

  How strange to discover that somewhere down deep in her mind, she’d been working toward such a conclusion, without even knowing it until now.

  Thamalon recovered his balance, came back on guard, but made no threatening actions. “I take it you’ve had a change of heart,” he said.

  “Shut up!” she snarled, for her anger had by no means dissipated. The resentment that had smoldered in her heart for thirty years, and which the tale of the poisoning had fanned into full-blown hatred, still burned inside her, but now it was muddled with doubt and other painful feelings she couldn’t even identify.

  “Forgive me,” Thamalon said gently, “I wasn’t trying to mock you. Why don’t we put our swords up?”

  “You might as well,” said a mild tenor voice.

  CHAPTER 8

  Shamur whirled. At the perimeter of the snowy glade, figures wavered into view, evidently emerging from some sort of glamour that had rendered them invisible before. Most were men armed with crossbows and blades of various sorts. Judging from their bearing, they knew how to use such weapons, but she didn’t think they were warriors, or at least, not the sort of warriors whom any honorable lord would recruit for his retinue. Their paucity of body armor, tawdry finery, slouching postures, smirks, and sneers all suggested the bully and the bravo. They’d stationed themselves around the edge of the clearing so as to surround the Uskevren, whose final passage of arms had carried them back to the center of the open space.

  Standing safely behind a pair of the ruffians was a man about as tall as Thamalon, his features concealed behind an ambiguously smiling crescent-shaped Man in the Moon mask. His robe and cloak were dark, and he held a black, knobbed staff in his pallid hand. Behind him, indistinct in the failing twilight, its shape subtly altering as it shifted from one foot to the other, was some sort of animate shadow. Shamur inferred that the pair were a wizard and his familiar.