The Mage in the Iron Mask

by Brian Thomsen

  The pervasive terror returned as he finished the missive which burst into smokeless flames no sooner than he had fully digested its contents, incinerating the instruction on the spot.

  The despair that he felt more than distracted him from the painful searing of his fingertips.

  At the Villa of Honor Fullstaff,

  Swordmaster, retired:

  Drinks refilled, the blind swordmaster sat back in his chair, and began to tell a tale.

  “Everyone hereabouts,” he began, with a quick nod to Volo, “and thereabouts, who might have done their research, knows that I was the captain of the Hawks under the former High Blade. You might all have by this time made the correct assumption that it was during that tour of duty that I first became acquainted with my good friend Mason McKern, now senior Cloak, then just a plain old mage who lived with his brother, known throughout the inner circles of the Moonsea region as mage smiths of inordinate skill and mastery.”

  “Once again my good friend is overly generous in his praise,” McKern interrupted. “It has always been my brother who possessed the mastery of forged metals. I am, and have always been, but a simple caster of spells.”

  Honor directed an unseeing glare toward the senior Cloak.

  “I am the one relating the pertinent history at this time, and it is only my opinion that matters. I would greatly appreciate it, old friend, if you would maintain a courteous conduct of silence, for I would experience no pleasure in physically encouraging you to do so by giving you a fat lip, if you get my drift.”

  McKern was about to reply, thought the better of it, and instead embraced the silence that was requested.

  “Now, as I was saying,” Honor continued, “these things are easily known by many, as is the heinous fact that Selfaril killed his father in order to succeed him on the throne with the same amoral, opportunistic glee with which he entered into matrimony with that sorceress bitch from the east, the First Princess of Thay.”

  Passepout leaned in close to Volo and whispered, “I guess there is no question about our host’s feelings toward Mulmaster’s incumbent administration.”

  “I might add at this point that I would have no trouble dealing with new friends in the exact same manner as I would old friends,” Honor said pointedly, but without changing his storyteller tone, pausing just a moment to take an uncharacteristically small sip of his ale.

  Even the sometimes dull Passepout, for whom matters of subtlety were usually matters of mystery, understood his meaning and joined the others in the reverential silence of attentive listening.

  “But what of Selfaril’s father?” Honor continued. “From whence did he come, and where are the tales of his heroics? It is almost as if all trace of the glory that was Merch Voumdolphin has been expunged from public record. And what of his wife, the mother of Selfaril? Whatever became of her?”

  Volo felt that he was sitting in on a hard-sell session by his publisher to some unenthusiastic bookseller. He wished that he could take out his handy notebook, but thought better of it. Though it sounded as if the makings of a bestseller were about to be laid out before him, he realized that this was neither the time nor the place for such whimsical maneuvers of ambition, and a quick glance at the iron-masked man reminded him that this was indeed a matter of life and death. What good would a bestseller be if the author never lived to see its completion, submission, or publication.

  Honor took a more ample drink of ale, and wiped his jowls with his sleeve in a somewhat vulgar manner that at once conveyed his appreciation of the drink and affirmed to the crowd at hand that this was indeed his home and thus he could do as he well pleased.

  “Now that I have your attention, and I thank you for your indulgence of a blind old man, I will answer the aforementioned questions.”

  “Merch and I shared our early years of formative education, for he too was a graduate of the Hillsfar gladiatorial arena. Though I led the revolt, he planned it, preferring to leave me the glory and gusto of leadership. Once we had escaped, I founded our mercenary band while he took advantage of his less notorious persona to insinuate himself into merchant society by romancing a certain Mulman aristocrat’s daughter. In no time they were married, and Merch had safely slept his way up the ladder of Mulman high society.

  “There was only one small problem: unbeknownst to him, he had already fathered two sons from a slave girl he had lain with during off hours at the arena, and these offspring were still imprisoned back in Hillsfar.”

  “It was I who first found out about these two infants that had just been born on the wrong side of the blanket, and I hastened to Mulmaster to alert Merch. Needless to say, he was horrified, torn by his duty to his newly-acquired wife—who was already pregnant—and the illegitimate spawn of his loins.”

  Mason McKern lightly tapped his friend on the arm, and politely asked, “May I fill in for a few moments?”

  Honor smiled.

  “Of course, old friend,” the genial host replied, “you’ve more than earned that right.”

  McKern cleared his voice and continued the tale.

  “At that time,” the senior Cloak said, “there was a pair of very young mages-in-training in the employ of the household into which Merch had married. They had pledged their services to the head of the household in return for certain financial endowments that had been bestowed upon their other brother, a high-level mage by the name of Loyola who wished to start a private refuge and place of study.”

  “The Retreat,” Volo inadvertently blurted aloud.

  “That’s right,” the senior Cloak acknowledged, adding, “and you need not fear a ‘fat lip’ from me. If nothing else, old age has at least given me tolerance.”

  Honor harumphed.

  “That said,” Mason segued. “I shall continue. Over the years of his employment in the household, the younger of the brothers, the sighted one as he was known, had also become the confidant of the young lady of the household.”

  Honor took this opportunity to take up the tale. “Merch decided that duty demanded that he rescue his sons from the futile doom of being raised in the slave pits of Hillsfar where eventual death in the arena was considered to be one of the more favorable options. He told his pregnant bride about his sons, and she approved of his desire to return with his old comrade-in-arms to retrieve them. But she feared that he was ill-prepared to return to the life of a warrior after having spent several months without the practice of a blade at hand.” McKern again took over.

  “So, she asked the two mage brothers to forge an enchanted weapon that would imbue its bearer with great facility and lethal mastery of the bladed arts. The brothers complied, forging a weapon whose blade was combined from the melted-down blades of several of Mulmaster’s veteran swordsmen, including that of the bride’s father, whose title of Blade bespoke more of his own experience with one than such a title conveys today.”

  “When your father took the blade in hand,” Honor interrupted, directing his words at the iron-masked man, “he became a swordmaster the likes of which Mulmaster had never seen. Together with his old comrade-in-arms, Honor Fullstaff, he returned to Hillsfar, raided the slave compound, and rescued his infant sons, who at the time were still less than two months old. Triumphantly, he and his comrade returned with the babes in hand to a prearranged spot where they could meet up with his bride and her trusted confidant.”

  McKern resumed his telling of the tale.

  “The rendezvous took place as planned and Merch was reunited with his bride who accepted the twins with open arms. Honor and myself decided to leave the happy little family some time to get acquainted. Unfortunately, the young mother-to-be fatally miscarried while we were absent, leaving the soon-to-be High Blade grief stricken, but with two small sons from a previous affair.”

  Honor picked up the chronology from there.

  “On that very night a plan was hatched. Merch remained in the safe house for another month. Mason was dispatched back to Mulmaster with news of the premature birth
of a son. We considered it to be too risky to pass both the twins off as her issue, so you were sent into hiding. A trusted ally was sent to bring you to the safety of the Retreat where you would be cared for in secret until your father cemented his position in Mulmaster. Later, the body of our ally, your guardian, was discovered on the shore of the Moonsea. We assumed that you were borne off by outlaws, and never conceived of the possibility that you made it safely to the Retreat.”

  “Loyola was always closemouthed about arrivals, or at least so we later learned,” Mason amended. “Honor and I now believe that he planned on keeping your existence a secret until such a fortuitous time that he needed more leverage in Mulmaster. Apparently he died with his ace in the hole still a secret.”

  “Selfaril,” Honor continued, “was assumed by his father’s in-laws to be the son of their daughter’s union, and he was raised with all of the privileges of an heir to a Blade. I remained at your father’s side, as his second in command, and trained the army that he raised to lay siege, unsuccessfully of course, to the Zhentarim and other less than cooperative Moonsea states. I was even your brother’s tutor in the way of the sword, though I now curse the day I first laid eyes on him.”

  The tale had come to an end, and silence pervaded the room, until the opening of the door signaled the return of Poins and Hal, who came to inquire if another keg was going to be necessary.

  Honor broke the awkward silence.

  “It is late,” the blind swordmaster said, “and we all have much to digest. Poins and Hal will escort you to your rooms. Mason and myself still have some matters to discuss. We will see you all at breakfast.”

  Rassendyll raised his hand, as if requesting permission to proffer a question. Realizing that the blind man was unable to see him, he said loud and clear, “Sir, if I may.…”

  Honor strode over to the source of the question while it was still in progress and, putting his arm around the iron-masked man, interrupted, “I realize that I have probably just set your mind reeling in all sorts of directions. Poins and Hal will provide you with a sleep draught so that you may rest.” Turning his attention to the rest of the group, he added, “All of you … we will have much to discuss tomorrow. Rest now, while you can.”

  Volo looked at Chesslyn, then at Passepout and Rassendyll, and shrugged.

  Chesslyn smiled, took the master traveler’s arm, and set off down the hall to the room she usually stayed in. She knew that Poins, Hal, and the others would be following shortly.

  In the Thayan Embassy in Mulmaster:

  From her hiding place down the hall, Mischa Tam patiently waited for the maggot-like ambassador to begin carrying out the instructions detailed in the note.

  Her patience was soon rewarded. She spotted the quivering and shivering gelatinous mass of a wizard leave his apartment and set off down the hall, the fear of damnation and torture in his eyes. His lips were moving as he muttered some incomprehensible prayers to save his miserable excuse for a life.

  When he was well out of sight, Mischa slinked back to the door of his apartment, and carefully let herself in. The door was unlocked, which was no surprise given the man’s incompetence.

  A quick look around the rooms immediately drew her back to the place he had been standing when she had left. Casting her eyes down to the carpeted floor, she found what she was looking for—the pile of ashes from the note she had brought. Extracting a small brush and a sheet of paper from a pocket in her gown, she proceeded to bend over and carefully brush up the ashes onto the sheet of paper. When she was positive that she had indeed recovered every single ash, she set them onto a bare spot on a nearby desk. Muttering the words of a spell of reconstitution over the ashes, she stood back and watched the note reform.

  The original note now intact, she placed the other sheet of paper on top of it, passed her hand over it, and once again removed the paper. The note appeared as before with one minor alteration: the signature at the bottom having changed from that of her half sister to that of the ambassador’s predecessor. As the High Blade’s men were unaware of his recent demise, no questions would be asked of its validity.

  Mischa Tam smiled and licked her lips as she examined her handiwork. The note contained clearly written plans for the ambassador to assassinate the High Blade. The discovery of this would clearly obfuscate their more subtle plans of the gentle sorcerous coopting of Selfaril.

  Mischa laughed softly. ’Tis a pity, she thought, that my sister’s name has been removed, but it would not suit Szass Tam’s goals at this time to point fingers at her. It is important that this plan be attributed to a splinter faction led by intransigent ambassadors who are opposed to the coming together of the two great powers. My sister will get her just desserts eventually.

  Mischa looked around the room for another moment, and softly said aloud to herself, “Now, where would a great master of deceit like that worm dispose of confidential papers.”

  Laughing one more time, she crumpled the reconstituted and altered note, and threw it into the wastepaper basket, then, after peeking through the peephole of the door to make sure that the coast was clear, she picked up the trash basket and left the apartment, setting the container with its crumpled evidence in its appointed place for pickup.

  A fast look in both directions assured her that she was alone, and once again licking her lips in anticipation of the rewards for a job well done, she hastened back to her own apartment.

  An Evening’s Just Rewards

  At the Villa of Sir Honor Fullstaff,

  Swordmaster, retired:

  “Hey, Volo,” Passepout called after his friend, “wait for us.”

  “Damn!” the master traveler cursed under his breath, thinking, just inches from a clean getaway!

  “Your friend seems eager to talk to you,” Chesslyn said, unentangling her arm from that of the master traveler.

  The roly-poly thespian caught up to them, quite out of breath, and was followed closely by the iron-masked man named Rassendyll.

  “We were just on our way to bed,” Volo said, trying to give his former companion of the road a subtle wink.

  “How did you know the way to the bedrooms?” asked the very dense Passepout.

  “Oh,” Chesslyn explained, “I’ve been here before, and I was showing Volo the way.”

  “Oh,” answered Passepout, the stars of infatuation beginning to twinkle in his eyes.

  Rassendyll put his arm around the thespian. “I’m sure that Poins and Hal will be along shortly. We can wait for them to show us the way.”

  “Here they are, now!” Passepout exclaimed, “just in the nick of time.”

  Poins approached Chesslyn, saying officiously, “Miss Chesslyn, the master has instructed that you should enjoy the comforts of your usual room. Mister Geddarm and the others will share the students’ quarters.”

  “But …” Volo began to protest, but was cut off by the secret Harper agent.

  “It’s all right,” she said softly. “It’s late, and Honor was quite specific that we should all get a good night’s rest, because tomorrow will be quite busy. It’s for the best.”

  “I guess,” Volo said, unsure.

  “ ’Til morning,” Chesslyn replied, giving Volo a light peck on the cheek.

  “What about me?” the thespian asked moonily.

  “Of course,” Chesslyn said, giving him a quick peck as well, and offering the masked man a quick handshake in lieu of a kiss against the metal barrier that obscured his cheek. With a quick wave, she disappeared down the hall.

  “This way gentlemen,” Poins said, starting down the hall in the opposite direction in which the young lady had gone.

  The threesome followed the servant of Honor Fullstaff, eager to get started on a well-earned rest.

  The room they arrived at resembled the typical barracks quarters of a young students’ hall. The three quickly found suitable accommodations on beds that were only slightly smaller than their adult-sized bulks. Passepout accomplished this by putting two o
f the cots together.

  Poins gave each the promised sleeping draught, and turned the light off as he left.

  Volo was just about to pass into slumber when he heard his friend whisper his name.

  “What?” the master traveler answered, trying not to be too terse.

  “You know that Chesslyn?”

  “Yes,” Volo answered, not really wishing to be reminded of the company that he would have preferred to be sharing at this very moment.

  “I think she likes me,” the clueless thespian said.

  Volo just rolled his eyes, and replied, “How could she not?”

  After less than a moment’s pause, and in the middle of a yawn, the thespian concurred, “I guess you’re right.”

  Passepout didn’t see Volo shaking his head in disbelief, as he turned over and embraced a deep slumber.

  In the Office of the Captain of the Hawks

  in Southroad Keep:

  After two hours of unsuccessful tossing and turning, Captain Rickman returned to his office to do some paperwork, considering that to be a more productive alternative to lying sleepless in his bed. The halls were empty, and the chill of the Moonsea winds brought a coolness to his chambers that necessitated his drawing a blanket around his shoulders to keep warm. The single candelabrum that provided enough light to work by could not possibly also adequately heat the room.

  “Brrr,” the Hawk captain said aloud as he settled into the chair behind his desk, his mind not really on the paperwork that lay before him.

  For months now, Rickman had been growing progressively more worried about Mulmaster’s stability. The rebuilding of the navy was proceeding at a slower pace than even he had anticipated, and there was talk of civil unrest among the common folk, who still had not accepted the desirability of their alliance with Eltabbar.

  For many, the diplomatic incentive of this alliance was overshadowed by the misalliance that was construed as the High Blade’s marriage.