The Shattered Mask

by Richard Lee Byers

  After a few moments, she noticed a sort of secondary portal projecting from the body of the house, bordered by pilasters and capped with a block of carved stone more than half again as tall as the recessed door itself. Just above that coping were round stained-glass windows, that, if her memory of various dances and parties wasn’t playing her false, ran along the wall of a clerestory overlooking one of several spacious halls.

  She pointed to the entry, and Thamalon nodded. They waited until neither of the guards were looking in their direction, then darted up to the portal and crouched in its shadow.

  Shamur quickly climbed to the top of the capstone, then, feeling vulnerable and exposed to the view of the sentries above her, examined the windows. She hoped they’d been designed to open. Otherwise she’d have to extract one from its frame, a time-consuming process that would greatly increase the likelihood of someone catching sight of her.

  But fortunately, it wasn’t going to come to that. A moment’s scrutiny revealed the simplest of latches. She worked a thin strip of steel between the stile and post, popped the fastener, cracked open the window, and peeked inside at a shadowy gallery illuminated only by a single oil lamp burning at the far end. No one was in sight.

  Shamur tied off a thin rope and dropped it to enable Thamalon to ascend to her as quickly and quietly as possible. When he joined her, she freed the line, coiled it, started through the window, and froze.

  “What’s wrong?” Thamalon whispered.

  “Nightingale floor,” she replied, “built to squeak when anyone treads on it. I am rusty. I nearly failed to notice in time.”

  He peered past her at the gloomy interior of the building. “It’s a marvel you noticed at all.”

  She shrugged the compliment away. “You can generally tell by the kind of wood, and the pattern in which the planks were laid.”

  “Does this mean we can’t go in this way?”

  “Luckily, no, but you must step precisely where I do.”

  “Very well. Lead on.”

  She did, taking care to trust her weight only to those spots where she reckoned the floorboards made contact with the joists beneath. She and Thamalon reached the arched entrance without either making a sound.

  After that, they crept through the keep, listening for the voices and footfalls of others, ducking for cover and avoiding being seen whenever possible, strolling casually and pretending they belonged in the mansion when observation was unavoidable. Had they waited another hour or so to break in, there would have been fewer people roaming about, but Errendar Spillwine had taught Shamur that shortly before midnight was an advantageous time to enter a wealthy house. Many of the occupants had either retired already or were preoccupied with preparing to do so, and unfamiliar persons walking the corridors were less likely to excite alarm would be the case later on.

  Finally, lurking in the doorway to a playroom full of balls, dolls, toy men-at-arms, and hobbyhorses, the Uskevren spied what they had been searching for. A brown-haired young man with a wispy mustache and the characteristic slim frame and wry, intelligent face of the Talendar, some bastard son of a female servant, perhaps, judging from the fact that he wore an ill-fitting hand-me-down doublet cut in last year’s style, ambled rather unsteadily down the corridor.

  The youth was alone. Indeed, as far as Shamur could tell, no one else was even in the immediate vicinity. So she lunged from the doorway, seized the lad, poised her dagger at his throat, and hauled him into the playroom. Thamalon shut the door behind them.

  As she’d expected, the youth smelled of wine, but she saw no confusion in his wide, bloodshot eyes. Perhaps fear had sobered him up.

  “What do you want?” he croaked.

  “Tell me about the plan to assassinate the Uskevren,” she said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Shamur believed him. It made sense that few members of the household would be privy to a criminal conspiracy. “Then tell me where Ossian Talendar is.”

  “Gone.”

  She increased the pressure of the keen edge against his neck. “Don’t lie, or I swear to Mask, I’ll kill you.”

  “It’s true! He left a couple hours ago and took some of the warriors and Lord Talendar’s mage along with him! Some other wizard in a moon mask went along, too, somebody I never saw before.”

  Shamur and Thamalon exchanged glances.

  “Where did they go?” Thamalon asked.

  “I don’t know,” said the boy. “They didn’t tell anybody. All I know is that the guards didn’t wear their uniforms, or take any arms or armor they couldn’t hide under weathercloaks.”

  Shamur frowned. Did Ossian and the masked wizard mean to attack Stormweather Towers itself? No, surely not, they must realize that even with Jander and Master Selwick dead, such an effort had little chance of success. Did they then have hopes of catching one or more of the Uskevren children away from home? That seemed equally unlikely. Tamlin, Thazienne, and Talbot knew they were being hunted, and thus ought to have sense enough to stay in after dark.

  Perhaps the enemy meant to attack and burn one of Thamalon’s warehouses or merchantmen at anchor, as in the days when the vendetta between the rival Houses was at its fiercest.

  “Nuldrevyn must know what’s afoot,” said Thamalon. “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” said the youth.

  “Nonsense,” Thamalon rapped. “The lackeys and retainers in a great house always have some notion of where their master is and what he’s up to. The lad’s playing games with us, milady. Carve him up a bit to prove we’re in earnest.”

  “No!” yelped the youth, squirming futilely in Shamur’s grasp. “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Then explain,” Thamalon said.

  “No one’s seen Lord Talendar since this afternoon. Master Ossian fetched him away from a conference with a quarryman, then returned later to tell the fellow that something had come up, and his lordship couldn’t give him any more time. We’ve all been kind of wondering where the old man’s gotten to.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t depart with Ossian and the others?” Shamur asked.

  “Yes,” said the boy. “Somebody would have noticed.”

  “And no one saw the masked spellcaster arrive?” she persisted. “Suddenly he was simply here inside the castle?”

  “That’s right.”

  Shamur nodded. “Is there a part of the mansion where people don’t generally go? Where Lord Talendar and Master Ossian could confer with a third party without anybody else knowing it? Where, perhaps, a guest could even take up residence without the rank-and-file members of the household getting wind of it?”

  “I suppose. I mean, there’s a section nobody’s used for at least a generation.”

  Shamur looked at Thamalon. “Perhaps we’ll find Nuldrevyn there, or failing that, some clue to Master Moon’s identity or his current intentions. I admit it’s by no means a certainty, but I don’t have any other ideas.”

  “Nor do I,” Thamalon said. “Tell us how to get there, boy.”

  The youth obeyed, whereupon the intruders gagged him with a long gown commandeered from a marionette, trussed him to a chair with a pair of jump ropes, and left him in the playroom.

  The Uskevren reached the disused portion of the house without incident. Once they entered its precincts, and no longer had to worry about appearing suspicious, they drew their swords, and Thamalon readied his buckler. Ere long, Shamur grinned with excitement, for she could tell from the broken cobwebs and the scuff marks on the dusty floor that someone else had recently walked these frigid, gloomy corridors.

  Then she glimpsed dim light spilling from one of the doorways ahead. She and Thamalon crept up to it and peered beyond the threshold. On the other side was the parlor of a suite, luxurious and stylish once with clear, faceted crystals decorating many of the articles inside. Now it was musty and dark. The only illumination shone from the stub of a single white candle in the latten holder on the marble
mantelpiece. It looked as if someone might have initially have lit two or three, but the others had already burned out. That wan, wavering glow barely sufficed to reveal the enormous, coiled shape in the corner, and the motionless human figure behind it that might be either a prisoner or a corpse.

  Shamur gave Thamalon an inquiring look. He flicked his long sword in the suggestion of a cut, indicating they should attack the snake, and she nodded in agreement. Though she had no way of knowing precisely what was transpiring here, it seemed likely that Master Moon had conjured up the reptile to guard or kill the man on the floor. Therefore, the Uskevren needed to kill the beast so they could interrogate the fellow if he was still alive, or search his body and the apartment if he wasn’t.

  Hoping to take the serpent by surprise, the Uskevren stepped forward. Meanwhile, Shamur wondered if their efforts to cat-foot into striking distance were unnecessary, for a learned comrade of hers had once told her that snakes were deaf. Then the huge, steel-gray creature demonstrated that, however deficient its hearing, it had some way of sensing enemies at its back, for it swiveled its wedge-shaped head and regarded them with malevolent coppery eyes.

  The Uskevren charged, and the serpent struck, its head streaking forward like a bolt from a crossbow. Thamalon caught the attack on his buckler, the metal rang, and the force of the impact sent him reeling backward.

  Shamur drove her point at the snake’s flank. The broadsword glanced off the creature’s scales as if they were fine plate armor. She had succeeded in attracting the serpent’s attention, however. It twisted around, gave a screeching hiss, and struck. Lacking a shield, and dubious of her ability to parry such an attack with her blade, she sprang backward out of range.

  Its long body uncoiling, the serpent slithered after her, striking repeatedly. She kept on dodging, riposting when possible, always failing to penetrate the scales, and did her inadequate best to keep the beast from backing her up against a wall. Every time she started to dart to the side, the reptile whipped its head around on that long, sinuous neck and cut her off.

  The snake had almost succeeded in trapping her when Thamalon, his buckler pocked where the creature’s fang had struck it and corroded where venom had spattered from the point of impact, cut at its spine from behind. He too failed to penetrate the scales, but he distracted the serpent, and Shamur lunged out into the center of the room.

  The snake struck at Thamalon, who sidestepped, brushed the attack away with the buckler, and attempted to counter. Before he could complete the action, the serpent, employing a new tactic, lashed its tail around at his ankles and tumbled him off his feet.

  The reptile’s enormous gray head plunged at the stunned and supine man. Shamur frantically leaped forward and swung her broadsword with all her strength. The edge failed to gash the creature’s snout, but it did bash it aside and so prevent its long, curved ivory fangs from piercing Thamalon’s body.

  She had assumed the snake would now turn its attention to her, but it persisted in trying to strike at the human on the floor, and so she hacked at it again. This time, her stroke landed but failed to deflect the enormous head. Her eyes widened in horror, and then Thamalon, who had evidently recovered his wits, rolled out from under the plummeting fangs.

  Shamur managed to keep the snake occupied while her husband scrambled to his feet. Once more, they assailed the reptile together, narrowly dodging its strikes and thrashing tail, and again failing to do it any discernible harm. She knew it would be only a matter of time before the beast had a bit of luck and plunged its poisonous, swordlike teeth into one of them.

  She also knew how to fight a foe with impervious armor. Strike at the parts the armor didn’t cover. Unfortunately, in the snake’s case, they were all on its head, which the creature carried so high it nearly brushed the ceiling. It was effectively out of reach except for those instants when the serpent struck, and then the reptile withdrew it so quickly that by the time its human foes completed a parry or evasive maneuver and were ready to riposte, the opportunity was gone.

  If Shamur wanted to attack the head, she needed to abandon any attempt to fight defensively and meet it with a stop thrust as it hurtled down. She twirled her blade in a gesture she hoped would draw the snake’s attention.

  It did. The head plunged at her, and she lunged at it. Her point flashed between its fangs and punched through the roof of its pale, gaping mouth.

  She knew she’d hurt it badly, probably fatally, but the head kept driving forward, the maw engulfing her arm. The snout smashed into her shoulder and knocked her down. Now the upper part of the serpent’s body was flopping spastically on top of her legs, pinning her down, while its jaws gnashed with bruising force, trying to spear her imprisoned arm with one of the fangs.

  Thamalon lunged and drove his long sword deep into one of the huge copper eyes. The snake thrashed wildly, then stopped moving.

  “Are you all right?” Thamalon asked.

  Shamur carefully extracted her arm and broadsword from the dead creature’s mouth, then inspected the limb for punctures. “I think so,” she said.

  “That was an idiotic tactic,” he grumbled. “It was pure good luck the brute didn’t get its fangs into you.”

  She laughed. “You offer to Tymora, you ought to know that fortune smiles on the bold.” She extricated herself from the scaly mass on top of her, then sprang to her feet. “Let’s take a look at our friend in the corner.”

  When they moved close enough for a good look, she was surprised to see that the man on the floor was Nuldrevyn Talendar himself. Had the conspirators had a falling out? The aristocrat was still curled motionless in a ball, but she could see that he was breathing.

  Thamalon kneeled beside his rival and touched him gently on the arm. Without opening his eyes, Nuldrevyn shrieked and began to thrash.

  Shamur stared in astonishment. Never had she seen the arrogant patriarch of the House of Talendar in such a panicked state, nor would she have imagined he could ever be reduced to such a condition, except perhaps by prolonged torture.

  Thamalon gripped Nuldrevyn’s shoulders and said, “The snake is dead. We killed it. The snake is dead.”

  Nuldrevyn’s struggles subsided into violent trembling, proving that Thamalon’s surmise was correct. Even in his present circumstances, the Talendar lord wasn’t afraid of the Uskevren, whom he had battled courageously for much of his life. He had never even opened his eyes to observe that they were there. It was an overwhelming and unreasoning dread of the serpent that had so unmanned him.

  “The beast is no more,” Thamalon persisted. “Look for yourself.”

  Nuldrevyn did so with much hesitation and anticipatory flinching. To her disgust, Shamur felt a slight twinge of pity for him, even though she had little doubt that, his present situation notwithstanding, the Talendar lord had at the very least endorsed the scheme to murder her family and herself. At last he regarded the long, gleaming carcass for a moment, averted his eyes as if even the sight of the beast in death was too horrible to bear, and began to cry.

  “Stop blubbering,” Thamalon said. “The gods know, we have good reason to wish you ill, but we may forgo our vengeance if you tell us what we want to know.”

  Nuldrevyn shook his head. “I no longer care what happens to me, Uskevren. I weep because my son is dead.”

  Shamur peered at him quizzically. “Do you mean Ossian? What makes you think so? I gather he looked healthy enough when he left the castle earlier tonight.”

  “No,” Nuldrevyn said, brushing ineffectually at his eyes. “That wasn’t really him. He’s gone. Marance murdered him.”

  Thamalon blinked. “You don’t mean your brother Marance, whom I slew thirty years ago?”

  “Yes,” Nuldrevyn said. “He came back from the tomb to settle his score with you, and may the gods forgive me, I welcomed him.” Fresh tears slid down his cheeks.

  “Can this be true?” Shamur asked.

  “I … think it may be,” Thamalon replied, amazement in his voice. “I
told you Master Moon’s voice was familiar, and Marance always fought by whistling up beasts and demons to do his killing for him.” He turned back to Nuldrevyn. “Tell us everything, and perhaps we will avenge Ossian for you.”

  Half mad with grief and the agony he’d endured under the cold, unblinking gaze of the snake, Nuldrevyn related the tale in a disjointed and only partially coherent fashion. Still, Shamur grasped the essentials. At last she fully understood how the masked wizard had tricked her into trying to kill her husband. But the Talendar patriarch’s final revelation crushed such insights into insignificance.

  “Midnight on the High Bridge?” she demanded, appalled.

  “Yes,” Nuldrevyn said.

  Shamur looked at Thamalon. “It must be nearly midnight if it isn’t already, and the bridge is halfway across the city.” Even as she spoke, her mind was racing. If they dragged Nuldrevyn along with them, the old man could countermand the false Ossian’s orders and call off the Talendar guards. But no, that notion was no good. In his present state of collapse, Nuldrevyn would slow them down too much. Nor was there time to locate another high-ranking Talendar, explain the situation, and prevail on him to intervene. All the Uskevren could do was commandeer a pair of horses, race to the High Bridge, and pray they’d arrive before the trap closed on their children.