by Ed Greenwood
Tarram hastily snatched off his mask and let it fall, breaking contact. The reek of cooked meat grew suddenly stronger.
"I—I was only trying to help," he told her, sudden tears spilling from him as he saw the look on her face. "I'm sorry. I ...I did not mean to give offense."
Tantaerra's glare had fallen into open-mouthed, dumbfounded revulsion. She screamed now, loud and long and raw, as she scrambled up and ran wildly away.
The Masked bent to pick up the mask. He could put it on and stop her, through the gauntlet ...
Then he straightened, wearily, without touching the mask. And stood watching his partner flee.
∗ ∗ ∗
Breath failed Tantaerra, and she stumbled in mid-sprint and almost fell. Catching her balance by staggering almost to a stop, she fought down her fear.
He had used her—had crept into the gauntlet—her body—without her permission. Had used her to kill soldier after soldier.
And look what that cursed mask of his 403
had done to him. It had melted away the ragged cloth undermask beneath it, and all the underlying skin, too. His freshly ruined face was now two eyes—one of them protruding, almost dangling, on a stalk of muscle—a hole where his nose should be, and a lipless ruin of a mouth, in a glisteningly smooth nightmare of crawling veins.
The backlash of the sword exploding had probably done it. Not that knowing that made him look any better.
Fearfully Tantaerra looked over her shoulder.
The Masked—the Unmasked?—was standing dejectedly alone in the trodden grass. She saw him bend over, slowly pick up the mask, put it on with obvious reluctance—then fling up his hands in horror, and clutch at his head with both hands.
Frightened anew, she started to run again.
Away, just away ...
Chapter Twenty
In the House of Telcanor
She ran out of wind again, staggered, and fell.
Tantaerra got up, shaking her head. She was fleeing to she knew not where, trying to run from the vivid image that would not, would not go away.
Tarram Armistrade was a monster. Truly a thing. He'd tried to control her again, to enslave her. In the end, he was just like everyone else.
Yet with every step her resolve and strength ebbed, and her anger and horror too, until she stopped, turned around, and looked back.
The Masked was still standing there, a tiny figure in the distance. Alone, his hands empty.
Tiny. Alone. Empty.
Just like her.
Tantaerra drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Then she gathered her courage and started the long, long walk back to him.
∗ ∗ ∗
"Tarram," she began, to his unmoving back. "I...I'm sorry. I reacted poorly."
The Masked stood like a statue, facing away from her, looking out over the rolling hills of Molthune. She waited, but he said nothing.
"I'm sorry," she said again, hesitantly walking around to face him. Forcing herself to walk close to him, to reach up her hand to his.
"I should have trusted you," she whispered, finding herself again on the verge of tears. "After all we've been through, after what you've done for me ...I should trust you."
She reached for his hand.
He did not take it, but merely looked at it, his face unreadable again behind the mask. Not that there was much of it left to read if it had been bare.
"But you didn't." he said softly.
Tantaerra felt tears begin to leak down her face. "No, I didn't." She gripped his hand. "But I can learn."
The Masked looked down at her, blank. At last, with a great sigh, he hauled her up into his arms. "I'm sorry, Princess Tantaerra. I'm used to working alone. I shouldn't have tried to control you. Not even to help you."
Tantaerra nodded, but their heads were so close to his that she merely bumped his chin.
"I forgive you," she said, "if you'll forgive me. Will...will you take your mask off now?"
"You don't really want to see that, do you?" he asked.
"No," she admitted. "But maybe it's time we both started getting used to it."
Tarram held her silently for a long time, then told the darkening sky, "Well, this is awkward."
"Agreed," Tantaerra said. "So will you unmask?"
Tarram sighed again. "In time. Not now. I don't think Braganza is ready for what my face looks like—and neither are you, just now. Later, when we've both eaten and stepped past worry and danger, and you're bored again and back to carving me with your tongue. Then it will be time."
"I don't carve—well, I do, don't I?"
Tarram laughed. "You do. You most certainly do. And the mask stays on."
Tantaerra found herself chuckling as well. "Then put me down, please. I've been humbled enough."
Tarram Armistrade set Tantaerra gently on her feet, and bent over so they could hold hands.
They walked on together.
∗ ∗ ∗
Silence had fallen between them, but it was an easy, companionable silence again.
They walked and walked, through the now still and deserted night. It was getting darker as the moon sank low and clouds stole in, heading for the handful of lights on the horizon.
Lights that seemed somehow to have very quickly multiplied, atop walls and towers looming over them in the night.
"Braganza," her masked partner pointed out, unnecessarily.
In reply, Tantaerra waved her hand back behind them. "The inevitable pursuit," she said dryly. Then she pointed at the gates ahead. "And the inevitable armed welcome."
The Masked chuckled mirthlessly. "Let's get this over with."
"Let's," Tantaerra agreed.
The gates were closed and guarded, and in response to the sharp challenge, they demanded entrance in the name of the General Lords.
This met with the usual disbelief, but The Masked merely took a confident step forward, drew himself up to his full height, and waited in expectant silence. Tantaerra stole a quick glance at him, then did the same.
After a few cold, slow breaths of waiting, toe to toe with the commander of the guard, one of the other guards rather doubtfully pointed out, "There're only two of them. Once they're through the foregate, we have them penned, and can find out what they're really up to."
The commander wasn't about to verbally retreat from the cold refusal he'd just given, but nodded curtly. The foregate opened.
Tantaerra and The Masked were ushered into sixty feet or so of cobbled passage between the foregate and the still-closed inner gate, the massive stones of the gate-keep all around and above them, complete with firing ports everywhere.
As the foregate started to creak closed, an armored Molthuni rode up out of the night, yelling, "Stop them! Stop them! That explosion? They did that! Stop them before—"
With a grim smile, Tantaerra pointed a finger of the Fearsome Gauntlet, and smashed the man into silence.
Then she whirled at the thunder of onrushing boots, to blast down the gate guards charging from the inner gate—but The Masked hissed, "Trust me" into her ear, put his hand on the gauntlet, and snarled, "Luraumadar!"
A racing wave of magic flashed out of the magical gage. It shook Tantaerra and her partner, numbing their very teeth—but the onrushing guards fell or stumbled dazedly along the walls, then dropped to the ground. Unseen weapons clattered behind walls, and an arm appeared through one of the firing ports overhead, dangling limply.
Eerie silence fell.
Beyond the unconscious guards, the inner gate stood ajar. Tantaerra and her partner peered through it.
More silence, and no one to be seen. Cautiously they ducked through it, into Braganza. They were met by cartwheels rumbling, some echoing footfalls, and the smaller sounds of a large city largely asleep.
A door stood open, near at hand. The Masked peered into the room beyond, then stepped into it. Frowning, Tantaerra followed.
It was a guardroom, empty of people. A lit storm-lantern on the table showed them a chair ov
erturned, among several chairs arranged around a table strewn with cards and dice, oiled rags, and whetstones. Through another open doorway they could see light—and smell food.
Boar stew, steaming in bowls on a table where men sat slumped and silent, with tankards of what looked like small beer, and handloaves of hardbread. No one in the bunkroom moved, save for quiet snores.
Suddenly ravenous, Tantaerra and The Masked rushed to the table and ate, Tantaerra taking up a great jug of beer and pouring it slowly down her throat in delight.
The belch that tore out of her after her last swallow was thunderous, and her partner's flat stare set her to giggling. He shook his head. "The gauntlet didn't kill them, you know. We don't have long."
Tantaerra promptly snatched up a full bowl and spoon, and muttered, "So eat and walk, masked man. Eat and walk."
She headed for the door, and her partner swiftly drained a handy tankard and claimed his own bowl.
∗ ∗ ∗
Night-shrouded Braganza wasn't as asleep as they'd first thought. The distant explosion had roused many, and the Watchguards on duty were concerned and frowningly alert, but no hue and cry was raised for two figures striding purposefully along with no trace of furtiveness. And what sort of thief strides the streets eating stew?
Tantaerra was almost done when they arrived at the great door of the soaring stone mansion of Lord Krzonstal Telcanor. The house guards stirred at their approach, readying weapons.
"Yes?" the guard commander snapped coldly, as The Masked strode up.
"Lord Telcanor bade us speak to him the moment we returned to Braganza," Armistrade snapped right back.
"You can wait until morning, whoever you are," the commander said flatly, eyes flickering as he took in the bowls and spoons—and the halfling. "He's asleep, and I'm not waking him."
"I'll be needing your name, then," The Masked told him calmly. "So the General Lords know who to punish. Lord Telcanor may, of course, not wait for whatever Canorate may want to do to you. He may want to appease them by doing it to you first."
The commander frowned and stepped back, making a hand-signal. In response, a row of gleaming spears were leveled to menace them.
"Well," Tantaerra murmured, "you tried. Some things never change."
"Aid, here!" the commander barked sharply, as boots scraped the cobbles behind her.
A Watchguard patrol had come by.
She and The Masked both risked looks over their shoulders, and were treated to the sight of competent-looking Watchswords spreading out carefully to block their escape.
"Your names and lawful business," the Watchguard patrol leader demanded in almost bored tones, advancing on them from behind.
By way of reply, Tantaerra whirled and flung her empty bowl into his face. The Masked threw his—still laden with enough stew to make it stick to the man's face—at a hulking Watchsword right behind the patrol leader.
There was a general roar and charge.
"You down, but Gauntlet up," The Masked told her firmly in the midst of the din, going to the street and dragging her down with him.
The gauntlet flashed under his direction, his mask echoing that burst of light—and charging Molthuni fell on their faces in a great clattering of spears and clanging of armor.
Followed by ...silence.
Tantaerra looked all around. House guards and Watchswords alike had fallen, slumped and silent.
"Was it something I said?" she joked, as Tarram hauled her to her feet and headed for the front door of the Telcanor mansion.
A lone night porter was standing between the two grand rows of show armor and looking bored when they stepped inside, but he was so astonished to see a female halfling in his entrance hall that he actually bent down to peer at her.
The uppercut Tantaerra delivered snapped him right back into The Masked's roundhouse punch. It knocked him cold, but he wavered on his feet just long enough for Tarram to catch him and slow his journey to the floor into something near silent.
"The Lord might be asleep, but I'm thinking he's far more likely to be two floors up," The Masked commented. "In that audience chamber of his."
Tantaerra smiled crookedly. "Front stairs, or back?"
"Back. Fewer people for us to fight, or who can raise the alarm before we can get to them. Oh, and we leave the gauntlet here."
"And you were made Imperial Governor when, exactly? No, seriously, Tarram, I agree about the back way, but why stash the gauntlet? And where's 'here,' exactly?"
"With this," The Masked told her, tapping his mask, "I can call on its powers without them seeing it on one of us—the one of us who'll immediately be the target for anything they can hurl. And 'here' is ...here."
He tapped the closed helm of the nearest suit of armor.
Tantaerra looked up and down the two impressively gleaming rows, pivoted to scan the hall and make sure no second servant was peering at them from anywhere, and asked, "What if they're enchanted? The armor, I mean. Then they can go prancing off anywhere, the gauntlet with them, and we're beyond roasted."
Her partner pointed. "Animated? With that many bolts holding them to those frames to keep them upright? Hardly."
"I am convinced," she granted, and surrendered the Fearsome Gauntlet. In a trice The Masked put it inside the helm, lowered the visor again, and stepped away. No trace of it could be seen.
"Right," she sighed. "Off we go to what's almost certainly going to be a rather unpleasant meeting. He'll try to trick us."
"He'll try to kill us," The Masked replied. "No one's succeeded yet."
"It only takes one success," she muttered back. "Lead on, Masked Fool."
He grinned, and did so.
∗ ∗ ∗
Around them, the House of Telcanor was dark and silent. They tried to keep it that way.
They saw no servants along the route they took through the vast mansion, and although they weren't certain exactly where the upper passage they ended up in gave into the rear of the audience chamber, they needn't have worried. Long before they reached it, they could see light, and hear voices and the trudge and scrape of many booted feet moving about.
As soon as he saw the open door the light was spilling through, The Masked stepped to the side of the passage and stood to attention against the wall, like a guard. Tantaerra joined him, and followed as he sidestepped his way along that stretch of the passage.
By the time they reached the doorway, they could hear that someone was angry. Someone confident, male, and not young.
The audience chamber was ablaze with light. Lord Krzonstal Telcanor stood inside, fully dressed and with a large metal goblet in his hand, looking grim. So did the handful of his guards who stood with him.
Striding back and forth before them was the owner of the angry voice: the advisor Tartesper.
"I've just come from the Bailiff of Braganza, who is...upset. He and Lord Cole Ravnagask are suspicious that the rival houses of Mereir and Telcanor might have some involvement with the recent explosion not far outside the city walls. We must be very careful to do nothing in the days ahead that might add to their suspicions."
Lord Telcanor shrugged. "They seem suspicious of everything I do. Shall I take up gardening, perhaps? Or will they think that a mere cover for burying inconvenient bodies, or some such?"
At that moment, two guards turned a corner in the distance, and came along the passage. They saw Tantaerra and The Masked listening at the open door, shouted, and snatched out their weapons.
The Masked strode through the doorway into the audience chamber as if it were his own. Tantaerra hastened to follow.
Lord Krzonstal Telcanor gaped at them, then smiled in triumph and told his advisor, "Behold! The two investigators from the General Lords I persuaded to undertake a certain mission for the glory of Braganza!"
"I do recall, Lord. Yet I look upon them now, and see no Fearsome Gauntlet."
Telcanor winced, then glared at Tantaerra and her partner. "Well? Did you recover it?"
&
nbsp; Tantaerra glared back. "We have not. Yet."
"Yet you dare to return? You're traitors! You must have been merely posing as investigators reporting to the General Lords. Guards, kill them!"
"No, Lord!" Tartesper snapped. "These two alive protect your neck! These two dead will be dismissed as mere fabrication on your part! They must be taken to the Bailiff for questioning!"
The guards hesitated, swords half-out, and looked to their master.
Who sighed and said reluctantly, "Tartesper, you are right. As always." He waved his guards back.
Whereupon the advisor confronted Tantaerra and The Masked. "The time has come," he told them coldly, "for you to tell us who you truly are."
"Lord Investigators, reporting directly to the General Lords," Armistrade said boldly.
Tartesper shook his head, his disbelief clear, then asked quietly, "Tell me: what sleeps beneath the white tomb?"
"The greatest secret in Canorate," The Masked told him promptly.
The advisor lifted an eyebrow.
"What gate does the black key unlock?"
"The gate to Molthune's heart."
"Who was the seventh?"
Tarram's answer came a shade more slowly this time. "The Red Dragon."
Tartesper sneered at him. "A clever thief may buy or overhear one pass-phrase, or even two, but I've not found one yet cleverer than me."
He looked at Lord Telcanor. "They're no 'Lord Investigators.'"
Then he turned to the Telcanor bodyguards, and ordered, "Disarm and arrest them."
"I'd not try that, if I were you," The Masked warned, backing toward the east wall and drawing a dagger. Tantaerra moved with him, wishing she still had two hands so she could have two daggers right now.
Unimpressed, the guards drew swords and advanced.
"Keep back," The Masked warned them calmly.
One sneered, and none of them paused in their menacing advance.
Tantaerra saw her partner's mask flash; he'd called on the gauntlet. A moment later, with a sound like parchment tearing, only as loud as thunder, a rift opened across the floor of the audience chamber.
And swiftly widened, amid rumblings that grew louder and louder.