Carefully, the masked prisoner removed the body of the dwarf from its low-budget shroud, being sure to remove the charm from around its neck. He then pushed the corpse of his recently acquired friend back through the tunnel and up into his cell where he placed it, as instructed, in the shadow-most corner. He then placed his plate back outside of the door, and raced back down the tunnel, pulling the blocking rock back into place behind him, and rushed at breakneck speed back to Hoffman’s cell hoping that he would be able to beat the guards there, be disguised by the powers of the old dwarf’s charm, deceive the guards, and survive the trip downstream and out to sea.
He realized that all of the odds were long, but knew that the gamble would be worth it because it was the only game in town and he was no longer content to just wait for death.
No sooner did he cinch the sack shut from the inside, than Rassendyll heard the lock to the door of the cell being opened, and two guards coming inside. Rassendyll clutched Hoffman’s charm to his bosom, desperately trying to keep it from making contact with the magic-leeching iron mask. Please work long enough to get me out of here, he prayed.
With a heave-ho one of the guards hoisted the burial sack over his shoulder, magically unaware of its newly added bulk.
“Good riddance,” said the guard who opened the doors for his corpse-laden associate. “That’s one less prisoner to keep an eye on.”
“And one less dwarf to blight Mulmaster,” the other added, as they ventured further into the keep’s bowels, toward the entrance to the sewer.
Rassendyll could smell the stench of sewage getting closer when he heard the guard who was carrying him complain: “Gee, I must be out of shape. This dwarf is getting awfully heavy.”
Rassendyll prayed that the spell would last just a little while longer.
The guard stopped for a moment, and the masked prisoner expected to have his presence revealed at any moment.
One guard opened a trap, releasing an aromatic draught of sewage stench. The other guard shifted the weight of his burden and carefully, so as not to entangle himself in the shroud’s downward descent, dropped what he thought to be the corpse-filled sack down into the sewer below.
Before the sack made its splash in the water below, Rassendyll thought he heard an alarm sound in the chambers above. His disappearance had been discovered, but he was already on his way down the drain and out to sea.
Under Currents
In the Tharchioness’s Boudoir
in the Tower of the Wyvern:
“Your majesty,” the ambassador said in urgent hushed tones, momentarily forgetting the breaches of protocol that he had just committed.
“Silence, worm!” the First Princess of Thay ordered. “My husband is on his way. My spy in the Tower of the Blades believes that he intends on confronting me with evidence of our conspiracy.”
“But your majesty—”
“Silence! Do you wish to join the ranks of your predecessors? Don’t try my patience! I must concentrate before he gets here. It will require all of my feminine wiles to distract him.”
“The prisoner escaped!” the ambassador blurted out, just as the Tharchioness’s backhand made contact with his doughy cheek.
“What did you say?” she asked, her hand poised to strike again.
“My spy in Southroad Keep just informed me that all havoc has broken out due to the escape of a certain prisoner. Two guards have already been executed for gross incompetence.”
“Have they recovered the prisoner yet?”
“Not according to my sources, your highness,” the ambassador answered, his head still ringing from the last blow.
“Is there anything else I should know, worm?”
“Only that the last words of the executed guards were that they were sure he was dead—drowned, or something.”
“Did they find the body?”
“No,” the ambassador answered cautiously. “They believe it was washed out to sea.”
The Tharchioness stroked her own brow seductively.
Well, this does change things, she thought. No body, no evidence. No evidence, no conspiracy. It would appear that my dear husband has snatched a stalemate out of the jaws of victory. I will have to comfort the dear lad.
The Tharchioness let loose a fiendish laugh, and continued to apply her makeup. The ambassador took the opportunity of his mistress’s distraction to escape from her boudoir with his life in hope that she had already forgotten his several infractions of protocol.
Once in the safety of the public hallway, the ambassador breathed a sigh of relief at having cheated death yet again.
In the Courtyard Between
the Towers of the Blade and the Wyvern:
“What do you mean he’s gone?” the High Blade demanded.
“We believe him to be dead, sire,” Rickman explained. “My experts believe that the sheer weight of the iron mask would have made it quite impossible for him to swim, and that he would undoubtedly have drowned before he even reached the open sea.”
“How can we be sure?” Selfaril demanded.
“We can’t, sire,” the Hawk captain conceded. “The men responsible for this severe foul-up have already been executed.”
“That is not good enough,” the High Blade blustered. “Your Hawks have been slipping. First, they could not hold onto a possible witness to our plans, even though you yourself thought him to be nothing but an itinerant thespian. Now, they have allowed the prisoner to escape.”
“There was no way he could have survived, your highness. It is obvious that we underestimated the suicidal lengths a desperate man would stoop to.”
“Indeed,” the High Blade answered. “Rickman, I am holding you personally responsible for cleaning up after this mess. There must be no evidence left that the prisoner ever existed.”
“At least he is not in Thayan hands, sire.”
“That is small consolation. Evidence of their seditious plan was all I needed to castrate my bitch of a wife. Now things are just back to status quo.”
A Thayan courtier appeared out of nowhere.
“Your majesty,” the courtier said, “the First Princess is waiting for you in her boudoir. She saw you coming across the courtyard from her window, and was troubled by what was possibly detaining you. Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine,” the High Blade announced with a roll of his eyes that only Rickman noticed. “Tell my dearest bride that I will be there directly.”
The courtier gave one final message.
“Sire, the First Princess said to tell you that she would be counting the minutes,” the Thayan said, and returned to his post.
As am I, the High Blade thought, to your death!
Selfaril turned back to Rickman, delaying his trip back to his wife even further. A thought had just crossed his mind, and he was grinning in fiendish glee.
“Have your men returned from the Retreat with the bloodstained wand yet?” he inquired.
“No, your majesty,” Rickman replied.
“Notify me immediately when they do,” Selfaril instructed. “The Retreat was under Mulmaster’s protection, and I would hate to see the unfortunate slaughter of those wizards turn into a diplomatic hot potato, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Rickman replied, understanding what the High Blade was planning. “It wouldn’t be the same as a plot against the throne.”
“No,” Selfaril agreed, “but sometimes we have to settle for the next best thing.”
At the Retreat:
“Where did you find that?” Volo asked the lovely Chesslyn.
“Over by the ugly monk’s body, out by the gate,” she replied. “It’s obviously Thayan in origin. That’s why I checked your head for tattoos. I thought you might be one of those Red Wizard murderers.”
“So you believe that this mass slaughter was the product of a Thayan invasion?”
“That’s what it looks like to me,” she replied.
Volo fingered his beard
and thought for a moment. The master traveler was no stranger to matters of bloodshed and the like, having survived numerous deadly altercations on his journeys around Toril. Pteramen, murderous Mazticans, and deadly dopplegangers—he had survived them all.
“That still doesn’t explain why there was no sign of a struggle,” he asserted, suspicious of the circumstances at hand. “Though the elders of the Retreat welcomed all refugees, I see little reason that they would open their gates to an armed contingent of Red Wizards. I—”
“Quiet!” she hushed with great urgency. “I hear horses. We’d better hide.”
Volo looked from side to side, and then at his trusty steed.
“What should I do with him?” he inquired in a whisper.
“In here,” she instructed, quickly leading him to a shed, then explaining, “It’s where I put my horse when I heard you coming.”
“If you heard me coming, why didn’t you respond to my whistle?”
“Later,” she answered.
When they had stowed the master traveler’s horse next to that of the secret Harper agent, they closed the doors, and took a ladder up to the shed’s roof.
“This gives us a perfect vantage point to see and hear our new arrivals without being seen or heard ourselves,” Chesslyn explained.
“Are you sure?” the master traveler asked.
“Well, it worked when I was watching you,” she replied.
They had no sooner reached their vantage point when the Hawks named Wattrous and Jembahb entered the courtyard.
“Look at this mess!” Wattrous said. The older weasel-like Hawk was barely able to control the gorge that was working its way up his throat.
“What are we supposed to be looking for?” the younger and taller Hawk inquired, apparently oblivious to the stench of the rapidly rotting bodies.
“Captain Rickman said there should be something by the body of the bald guy at the gate,” the shorter and senior Hawk instructed, “but there doesn’t seem to be anything there.”
“How did he …” Chesslyn said a little louder than Volo felt comfortable with.
“Quiet!” the master traveler hushed, then added in a whisper, “Later.”
“Well, if it’s not here, let’s leave,” Jembahb said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
Volo cupped his hands together, and blowing through them, carefully made the sound of an un-dead specter advancing into the daylight. He could tell that Wattrous recognized the sound; the Hawk instantly became wide-eyed and frantically looked from side to side.
“Good idea,” he quickly replied to his junior Hawk, valiantly trying not to show his fear, but then adding, “but you have to be the one to tell Rickman.”
“No problem,” Jembahb replied as they remounted their horses. “But where will you be?”
“I have business in Hillsfar,” the weasel-like Wattrous quickly replied, saying the first thing that came to mind. He thought to himself, knowing how Rickman dealt with an undesirable report, maybe Hillsfar wasn’t such a bad idea. Perhaps he could join the Plumes. Jembahb was a nice enough guy, trusting and naive, and would, therefore, be the perfect scapegoat for their failure to complete their mission as directed. Yes. Hillsfar would be just far enough to save his own skin.
As the two Hawks set off back for Mulmaster, the Harper secret agent and the master traveler lowered themselves from their hiding place.
The Sewers Beneath Mulmaster:
Rassendyll felt a sensation of falling rapidly through midair, which was quickly followed by the slap and splash of the weighted burial sack’s contact with the rapidly moving river of sewage-spoiled waters.
The thick viscosity of the underground fluid coated the burial shroud amniotically, without managing to permeate the sack itself. As a result, as long as the masked prisoner was able to hold the top cinch of the sack tightly closed, no air was able to escape, and for at least a few brief moments Rassendyll was able to breathe within the linen-lined bubble that was cascading through the underwater tunnels of Mulmaster.
The masked prisoner realized that he had to time his escape from the sack very carefully: too soon and he would be wasting precious drops of air that he might need before finishing his journey out to sea; too late and he would find himself too far below the depths of the icy Moonsea, and long drowned before reaching the surface.
The sheer power of the sewer stream propelled the bag and its contents forward, the leaded weight that was attached to it occasionally dragging against the bottom of the downward tunnel. Battered, bruised, and bounced around, Rassendyll struggled to listen to the tell-tale tones of the burial rock that would eventually drag the sack to the sea bottom. He knew that when the sound stopped and the ride smoothed out, that the course would have changed from forward to downward, and that only seconds would remain for him to escape and head to the surface.
It was only when he turned his head to the side and felt the drag of the iron mask against the linen lining did he remember that he too would be weighted down even after he left the sack. As this moment of realization hit him, he realized that the change of course had begun.
Seeing no rational alternative, he braced himself for the liquid onslaught, opened the sack, and valiantly kicked toward the surface, the weight of the mask resting heavily upon his shoulders.
On the Shore of the Moonsea:
Passepout’s head hurt.
The last thing he remembered clearly was staggering out of the Traveler’s Cloak Inn, and walking down an alleyway. From there, things seemed to blur. Pressmen hitting him over the head. Passing out. Waking up on a boat. Getting sick to his stomach. Being thrown overboard.
It had not been a good day.
Somehow aided by the buoyancy of his bulk, he had managed to float ashore. The hefty thespian groaned as he rolled his bulk on to his side for a cursory survey of the area. He opened his eyes for a quick look, and closed them even more quickly than he had intended due to the glare of the sun off the surf. He felt like a beached whale after the tide had gone out.
What could go wrong now? he thought to himself.
Carefully opening his eyes again, and shielding them from the setting sun, he surveyed his surroundings, and discovered that somehow his foot had gotten entangled in a pile of rags and a metal bucket.
Shaking his foot to get it loose, he was met with a surprise: the pile of rags and the coal bucket had started to move.
The stout and brave thespian quickly returned to unconsciousness as he fainted.
PART TWO
The Swordsman,
the High Blade,
His Wife,
&
His Brother
In Morning
The High Blade’s Study
in the Tower of the Wyvern:
A new day had just dawned and once again the High Blade had stolen from the connubial chamber that housed his cursed marriage bed and loathsome spouse prior to first light—in order to avoid any possibility of having to converse with his despicable bride—and proceeded to his morning meal. Slater, his valet, whose sleeping accommodations varied from night to night so as to be available at his master’s first stirring, had anticipated the High Blade’s impulse and had risen from the folded-down pallet outside the door of the couple’s chamber prior to his master’s stirring. The faithful servant held his master’s silk and fur morning robe in readiness for a quick escape to the secret study where Selfaril could enjoy the early morning serenity.
Once his master was safely ensconced in his study, Slater was free to fetch the High Blade’s breakfast without fear of his master being disturbed by anyone but his closest confidantes, which, of course, did not include the Tharchioness.
The sun had just peeked over the horizon, thus signaling the next change of the city watch, when Selfaril’s breakfast arrived, not borne by Slater as he had expected, but by Rickman.
Selfaril immediately realized that the captain of the Hawks must have been bearing important information or he wouldn’t have
risked the High Blade’s ire at having his breakfast interrupted. He also realized that the information at hand would probably not be to his liking.
“Ah, Rickman,” the High Blade said, addressing his right-hand man with deprecating sarcasm, “perhaps, you are auditioning for a new position that is more in line with the limited abilities of you and your men.”
The captain of the Hawks held his tongue for a moment to allow the invective that was almost on his lips to pass into silence to be replaced by a simple, “If that is what you wish, sire.”
“I wish for many things,” the High Blade responded, beginning to dine off the tray that the captain was carrying. Rickman’s inner instinct for survival prevented him from interrupting the High Blade by placing the tray on its usual place on the table.
“I wish that I had never married that traitorous she-devil,” the High Blade continued. “I wish that I had acquired Thay as my domain rather than the Tharchioness as my bride. I wish that the ineptitude of your men had not bungled away the means by which my wishes might have been fulfilled.”
Rickman stood stone-still, despite the tongue-lashing that coupled the strain that the heavily laden tray was bringing to bear on his awkwardly poised forearms. He knew that the High Blade already acknowledged his own disgust with the stupidity, ignorance, and ill-luck of a few of his men who had already borne the lethal brunt of his own anger.
Having finished two eggs from which he had taken his time delicately removing the shells, Selfaril drank a draught of juice, and, with a swipe of a napkin, wiped the breakfast residue from his mouth.
“Don’t just stand there holding that tray,” the High Blade ordered. “Put it down and pour me a cup of coffee.”
Rickman did as instructed and turned around to pour the pot.
“You may as well pour yourself a cup as well,” Selfaril added, the sharpness of his tongue slowly disappearing.
“As you wish, sire,” the captain of the Hawks answered, adding, “I don’t mind if I do.”
When he turned back to face Selfaril, and placed his cup in front of him, he noticed that the High Blade’s robe had loosened when he had used the napkin, and that three apparently fresh parallel lacerations of no less than three inches each were visible on his master’s bare chest. The High Blade was scratching them absently, not even realizing what he was doing until he noticed Rickman’s stare.
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