The Shattered Mask s-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  "The pearl in the amulet exploded, and instantly, or so it seemed to me, everything was different. Quiet. The spirit was gone. Much of the ceiling had fallen in, crushing the arcane apparatuses. My comrades lay dead, and looked as if they had been so for many years.

  "When I returned to civilization, I found out that in fact, they had. Somehow, fifty years had passed for the rest of the world, but not for me.

  "I reckoned that after so much time, it would be safe to return to Selgaunt, at least if I was discreet. You know what I found when I arrived. My family on the brink of ruin, their only hope an alliance by marriage with the House of Uskevren. So when the betrothed girl was murdered, they prevailed on me to impersonate her and wed you in her place."

  "How did they talk you into such a travesty?" asked Thamalon.

  Shamur shrugged. "After my displacement in time, they were the only people in the world I cared for, or even knew. Moreover, it was uncanny how my grand-niece had looked exactly like me, and even owned my name. I'd never truly believed in fate, but it gave me the strange, fey sense that it was my destiny to take her place."

  "Indeed," he said, "and while you were engaged in your philosophical ruminations, did it ever occur to you that you were dealing unjustly if not downright cruelly with me? Tricking me into a union with a stranger I didn't love, and who most certainly didn't care for me."

  Shamur felt an unexpected twinge of shame. "To be honest," she said, "no. I didn't consider your rights or your feelings at all. As I said, we Karns were desperate. I suppose I should apologize."

  He laughed. "Oh, please do. After all, you've only been causing me hurt for thirty years, culminating in an attempt to kill me. A little show of contrition will make everything right."

  She sighed. "Thamalon-"

  "Enough," he said. "I wanted to know how my life took the path it did, and you've told me. I don't need to hear professions of remorse. We have a problem to solve. Let's focus on that."

  "Fine," she rapped. "Then, who was Master Moon, do you think?"

  Thamalon shook his head. "I don't know. I have a nagging feeling I've heard his voice before, but I don't know where or when. You should have waited to make your move until he revealed his identity."

  "I moved at a moment when he was busy enjoying the sound of his own voice, and his henchmen were distracted by it as well. If I'd waited, we might not have gotten a second chance."

  "I suppose."

  "Anyway, I have no idea who he is, either," she said. "Nor could I identify any of the hired bravos, which is what they almost certainly were. In my youth, I was acquainted with half the bullies and cutpurses in the city, but now…" She shrugged.

  "Then we're stymied," he said.

  "Perhaps not. I can think of two people who might lead us to the wizard. One is Audra Sweetdreams, the other, the first rogue with whom I crossed swords as we broke free of the clearing. We might be able to find him, for I got a good look at his face, and also noticed he has fish-scale tattoos."

  Thamalon's green eyes narrowed. "Some of the watermen carry such marks. Of course, there's no shortage of watermen."

  "True," she agreed. "Still, it will be easier to search among them than to comb the whole city at random. Now, here's my thought. At the moment, we possess one advantage. Master Moon thinks I'm dead. He won't take any extraordinarily precautions to keep me from tracking him down, and I can take him by surprise when I do. So I'll make inquiries, and you'll go home and protect the children. If the wizard wanted to kill both of us, he's likely to strike at them as well, to annihilate the House of Uskevren for good."

  "The 'inquiries' could be dangerous."

  "I can take care of myself. Moreover, Master Moon did something to me that no one else has ever done. He made me his dupe. I mean to show him just how deeply I resent that."

  "I know just how you feel," Thamalon said sardonically, "and I agree to your scheme with one amendment. I'm coming with you."

  "No. I'm used to doing such things alone." "Nonsense. You already told me you've had dealings with other thieves and traveled with a troop of adventurers. Are you worried I'll slow you down? You should have noticed by now that, 'old man,' though I may be, I can take care of myself as well."

  "I am aware of that," she admitted. "But I don't understand why you would want to accompany me, now that you know that all of our life together has been a lie."

  "I may detest you, woman, but at the moment, what does it matter? We have an enemy to ferret out, it's a risky task, and you'll be better off with someone watching your back. Besides, if you want Master Moon to believe you dead, the ruse will be more convincing if neither of us surfaces. Whereas if I turn up alive, it will suggest the possibility that you might have survived as well."

  "But what about the children?"

  "They've got Jander, Brom, and the guards to protect them. They should be safe for the time being, and in the long run, we'll ward them best by eliminating this threat as expeditiously as possible."

  She threw up her hands. "Very well. Well hunt together."

  "Then if you're able, we should get moving. Our foes left our capes lying back in the glade, but they stole our horses, and it's a long walk back to town."

  Chapter 12

  At the point where the city wall ended and the docks began, Shamur and Thamalon stood and regarded the expanse of water where the River Arkhen, or the Elzimmer, as the townsfolk generally called it, flowed into Selgaunt Bay. It was evening, with a frigid wind moaning in from the sea, and so, as it did every night, the "floating city" of the watermen had come back into existence. By day, countless boats ferried passengers and cargo about the harbor and along the river, or ventured out to sea in search of fish. At dusk, those who lived and worked aboard these vessels brought them together to form a great tangle that sometimes extended all the way to the north shore. It then became possible to step, climb, or jump from one deck to the next.

  Shamur and Thamalon hadn't needed to hike all the way back into Selgaunt. Shortly after reaching Rauthauvyr's Road, they'd encountered a wagon full of travelers willing to give them a ride, and more than willing to trade them plain homespun garments for their own rich nobles' attire, which, though torn, blood-spattered, and filthy, could nonetheless be sold to a second-hand clothing dealer for a handsome price.

  Thus rendered inconspicuous, Shamur enjoyed the comfort and freedom of a mannish outfit of blacks and grays the likes of which she hadn't worn in thirty years. The couple parted company with their benefactors in Overwater. In that wayfarers' haven, they sold Tha-malon's gold and silver spurs to augment their store of ready cash, procured a healing salve for their sundry cuts and scrapes along with a bottle of black dye, and then went to a bathhouse. After they scrubbed the grime off, Shamur chopped her long tresses short, and both she and Thamalon colored their hair. Now thoroughly disguised, or so they hoped, they headed for a marketplace to equip themselves for the task ahead. Thamalon bought a new throwing knife and a gray steel buckler. Shamur purchased another broadsword, a dagger, and, once the shifty little merchant operating in the shabbiest corner of the market had been persuaded to trust her, a leather wallet lined with thief s tools.

  Still later, back on the south side of the river, the aristocrats' first stop had been a futile one at Lampblack Alley, where they'd found Audra Sweetdreams and her two ruffians lying slain on the floor of her shop.

  It had all taken more time than Shamur would have preferred, and she'd been impatient to reach the docks and begin the search for the tattooed bully. Still, the floating city exerted a kind of fascination. Colored lanterns shone aboard scores of sloops, skiffs, barges, and houseboats as if in imitation of the stars appearing overhead. Mouthwatering cooking odors wafted ashore from the boats, as did laughter and a lively tune performed on songhorn and hand drum. Despite herself, the noblewoman paused to take in the spectacle.

  Thamalon said, "It is a bit of a marvel, isn't it?"

  Surprised to hear her own thought echoed, Shamur turned to
regard him, and saw that he'd finally left off glowering at her. He wore a simple, unadorned brown cloak, jerkin, trews, and low boots. It occurred to her that with his hair dark as his eyebrows, he must look rather as he had in those grim days before she ever met him, when the House of Uskevren was deemed ruined for all time in everyone's reckoning but his own.

  "Yes," she replied. "I've always liked looking at it, and regretted that living where we do, as we do, I don't often see it anymore."

  His mouth tightened. "Of course, you think I'm to blame for that, and for depriving you of all your other pleasures."

  "No!" she said. Sweet Sune, it had been like this for a long, wearisome time now, a sad consequence of their estrangement. Even when one of them intended no derogation or reproach, the other was touchy and quick to take offense. "That isn't what I meant."

  "If you say so. Come on." They walked out on the northernmost dock, and, the planks creaking beneath their feet and the smell of saltwater in their nostrils, approached the first of the boats tied up there. It was a barca with slanted eyes painted on each of its interchangeable ends and a square little cabin, where the skipper no doubt slept in foul weather, set in the center of the deck.

  "Ahoy," called Thamalon, indicating that he wished to speak to someone onboard. He would have shouted "walking" had he merely wished to move across the barca on his way to some other craft, and then, their notions of courtesy satisfied, none of the watermen would have paid him or Shamur any mind, or at least, not if the nobles could pass for watermen themselves.

  But they couldn't, for the society of the waves and currents was an insular one with its own patois, mores, and traditions, interdependent with the world ashore, yet separate in many respects. People claimed that some watermen lived and died without ever setting foot on solid ground, and although Shamur suspected that was an exaggeration, she was certain no landsman could prowl the floating city without attracting many a speculative eye.

  A husky woman wrapped in an oilcloth mantle emerged from the barea's cabin. "Good evening," said Thamalon.

  "Evening," she replied. "What do you want?"

  "We're looking for someone," Shamur said. "We don't know his name, but he's thin, has a black beard, and is about as tall as my friend here. Wears a gold ring in his lower lip, has fish scales tattooed on his hands and throat, and carries a brace of short swords. Do you know him?"

  The bargewoman's eyes narrowed. "What do you want him for?"

  "There was a boating accident," Thamalon said. It was the story he and Shamur had agreed upon. "My master's daughter would have drowned if this fellow hadn't happened to be passing by on another vessel and fished her out of the drink. Lord Baerent wants to reward him, and if you help us find him, there are a few fivestars in it for you as well."

  The bargewoman shook her head. "I don't know the man."

  "Well, thank you anyway," Thamalon sighed. "We'll walk on through, then."

  The nobles asked their questions on all the vessels tied up at the dock, then moved on to those farther offshore. As they made their way through the floating city, Thamalon was affable when addressing the watermen and taciturn otherwise.

  Shamur hadn't much minded his sullenness all afternoon, but now, perhaps because he'd finally relaxed for just a moment, it grated on her. At last, as they walked from the bow to the stern of an old trawler, with nets and setlines hanging on every side, she said, "I truly don't blame you for separating me from the things I loved. I realize it was my choice to don the mask I wore."

  "Yes, it was," he answered, "but I believe you blame me nonetheless. Why else would you grow so cold?"

  "You had your doxies to console you," she said, then winced at the venom in her voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't begin this conversation to find an excuse for a quarrel. Perhaps, unjust as it was, I did resent you to some extent, simply because I was so unhappy."

  "Unhappy in your life of luxury and privilege." "It wasn't what I wanted!"

  "Apparently not." They reached the rear of the vessel, and he called down to the sleek, narrow passenger skiff moored underneath, to the family of rowers taking their ease on the seats. "Ahoy!"

  The nobles inquired about for another hour, still meeting with no success. Shamur became increasingly convinced that they must already have spoken to someone who knew their quarry, but that suspicious individual had been loath to give up a fellow waterman to a pair of outsiders.

  Eventually, as they crossed the deck of a barge that had yet to unload its cargo of bins of iron ore, Thamalon said, "I could wish that you'd played your role with greater skill."

  Shamur eyed him quizzically. "I did my best." "And I must admit, you hoodwinked everyone, but still, when I think about it now, your impersonation was less than impeccable. At first, you did seem like the sweet, gladsome girl I loved. You had to until after the wedding, I suppose. But soon enough, you petrified into the stiff, imperious creature you are now, as your grand-niece never would have done."

  She shrugged. "I suppose I felt that if I couldn't be the rogue anymore, I might as well be the most dignified noblewoman Selgaunt has ever seen. It certainly kept me from slipping up and revealing any hint of the old Shamur."

  "To my mind, it's almost as if you were punishing yourself for abandoning the life you cherished by making sure you'd be as lonely and divorced from your true nature as possible."

  She frowned, not liking his conjecture but unable to dismiss it out of hand. She was still mulling it over when he grabbed her by the shoulder. "Look!" he said, pointing.

  She peered ahead and saw two figures talking on the deck of a gaily painted galley, the kind that pleasure seekers chartered for an outing on the bay. Beneath the mast, illuminated by the glow of a yellow lantern, huddled a tattooed boy and the man she and Thamalon were seeking. She surmised that one of the watermen to whom they'd spoken had indeed been acquainted with the bravo, and had dispatched the youth to warn him.

  "Let's go," she murmured, and at that moment, the bully peered out across the expanse of gently bobbing decks that separated them, spotted them, and bolted, vanishing over the opposite side of the galley.

  Shamur's eyes took in the lay of the land, or whatever you called it when you were out on an aggregation of boats. "Circle that way," she said, pointing. "Cut him off if he makes for the docks." Should the rogue succeed in reaching the shore, he could lose himself in the teeming streets beyond.

  Evidently Thamalon understood her concern, for he set off as she'd bade him without question, leaving her with her longer legs to pursue their prey directly. Springing into motion, her cape streaming out behind her and her scabbard bumping at her hip, she began the chase.

  She discovered at once how tricky it was to scramble or leap headlong from one deck to the next, particularly when the two surfaces were at different heights above the water, just as she realized that, although she knew how to swim, a slip and a fall into the frigid bay could easily kill her. She knew she mustn't slow down, else the man with the ring in his lip would elude her.

  She leaped over a six-foot expanse of open water, caught hold of the pleasure galley's rail, and started to scramble aboard. Her own momentum nearly carried her onto the point of the boat hook that the lad whom she'd spotted moments before was tentatively poking at her face.

  She clung to her perch with one hand and grabbed the tool with the other, ripped it from her assailant's grasp, and tossed it into the water.

  "Scat!" she roared, and the boy flinched back, giving her room to vault onto the deck and race to the other side. To her relief, the bully was still visible in full flight several boats away. Leaping to the next vessel in line, she continued the pursuit.

  It soon became apparent that the lad with the boat hook wasn't the only waterman who wanted to hinder her. When she bounded onto an old hulk that some entrepreneur had converted into a floating tavern, where fish filets were grilling on wrought-iron braziers, several of the patrons surged forward to attack her. She snatched out her broadsword, dropped the man i
n the lead with a cut to the thigh, sent another reeling with a gashed arm, and the rest faltered. She ran at them, slashing wildly, and they gave way, though that wasn't the end of the harassment. Topers who hadn't been bold enough to attempt to lay hands on her pelted her with crockery, tankards, and even hunks of bread.

  Thereafter, she ran with her sword in hand, and no one attacked her face to face. Some of the watermen tried their best to hinder her in other ways.

  As she dashed from the bow to the stern of a skipjack, silently cursing the clutter on the deck, the boom suddenly spun around. It would have swept her into the water had she not instantly dropped flat.

  Onboard another barge, she heard a creak, looked around, and spotted the arm of a crane pivoting to drop a net full of crates on her head. She put on a burst of speed, and the boxes crashed down behind her. The crane operator cursed.

  Frequently she suffered a stinging bombardment of belaying pins, fishing tackle, and any other missiles the watermen found ready to hand.

  Shamur wondered whether they'd be so keen to protect her quarry if they realized he was a hired killer. She supposed she'd never know, for she couldn't spare the time or the breath to tell them.

  Perhaps she wouldn't even if she could, for as she ran, leaped, and dodged, testing her instincts and agility, risking calamity with every stride, she felt the old exhilaration. Perhaps she was mad, but this was the kind of perilous sport she needed to be happy. Delighting in the play of her muscles, at each obstacle overcome, at the kiss of the icy air on her face, she grinned fiercely.

  She bounded onto a ketch amidships. The only person on deck was a small, bald, wizened man wrapped in a voluminous black robe. He was perched in the stern, well away from her and not blocking the direction she needed to go, and she assumed that he at least had no intention of interfering with her. Then, from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed him sweeping his hands and mystic passes as he chanted rhyming words of power.