by Ed Greenwood
Some lamps below exploded like shattered stars as ceilings fell and walls crumpled. Several floors beneath the audience chamber were collapsing into a chasm.
Three of the bodyguards fell into the gulf with startled shouts, tumbling down through torn timbers, falling wall stones, and plaster dust. The others scrambled back from the edge of the rift.
"My home!" Lord Telcanor howled, his goblet falling forgotten from his hand to bounce on the floor, ringing like a bell—until it fell into the rift, and was lost in the widening destruction below. He swelled up in fury and pointed across the gulf at Tantaerra and her partner as if his fingers could stab them across half a room. "Arrest them!" he bellowed, "and break their arms and legs! They don't need to be able to run and fight to answer the Bailiff of Braganza!"
The Masked's mask flashed again.
One wall of the audience chamber tore open from top to bottom, leaving the room open to the night. As Lord Telcanor gaped in disbelief, a cool breeze wafted in.
Through the gap, another wing of the mansion could be seen across a courtyard, soaring and grand in the light of its many lanterns.
"It would be unwise to continue to demand such things, Lord Telcanor," The Masked told their shaken host, and pointed at that grand wing of Telcanor House.
It promptly groaned, shed a few roof slates, then slowly, but with a quickening, growing thunder, leaned forward and collapsed before their eyes, a huge swath of its front wall falling into the courtyard.
Leaving five floors of rooms torn open to the air—and Lord Telcanor aghast and in tears.
"We can kill everyone, and destroy Braganza, if we must," Tantaerra informed the Telcanors on the far side of the wide chasm that now stretched from one end of the audience chamber to the other. "Don't force us to do so."
She shot a look at her partner, lifted her hand to shield her face, and behind it hissed, "How did you do all this?"
"Badly built, this place," he muttered back. "Make the right pillar vanish, and all the rest follows."
The advisor hurled a spell at them, shouting, "Abadar demands your destruction!"
Purple flames roared out of nothingness to sear Tantaerra and her partner—but vanished right in front of their noses, leaving them standing unscathed.
"Abadar does nothing of the sort," The Masked retorted. "Just as you're no priest, of Abadar or anyone else!"
He lifted his hand, and the Fearsome Gauntlet rose into view, up through the chasm.
The advisor swiftly snapped out another magic.
Tarram Armistrade smiled. The mask pulsed, the gauntlet drank the advisor's spell—and went dark. It shuddered in midair, and with an audible groan cracked from one end to the other.
As its fragments started to fall, Tantaerra shot a look at her partner. He stared back at her, aghast.
They fled for the back passage door together.
The advisor hurled another spell after them, but succeeded only in blasting down the door and the wall that framed it. The flying fragments of that blast crushed the foremost bodyguards, who'd taken another door out into the passage to get around the rift and reach The Masked and Tantaerra, spattering the passage walls with gore.
"After them!" Lord Telcanor bellowed, his voice terrible with wrath. "Kill them!"
His surviving bodyguards hesitated for a moment, but he ran out into the passage after them, his eyes ablaze with fury.
Not waiting for him to catch up, they resumed the chase.
Too enraged to fear for his own safety, their master followed. They pounded past the smeared bodies of the fallen guards and along the passage, where Lord Telcanor flung open the door of his treasury and roared at the duty guards inside to join him, so loudly that they flinched back.
They rushed out into the passage, and their master led them, following Tantaerra and The Masked, pelting down the back stair, where—
Lord Krzonstal Telcanor came to an abrupt halt, to gawk at carnage.
The staircase below him was choked with the broken bodies of his guards. Just in time, he saw their doom and his peril—as long, wormlike arms reached down from the sloping underside of the stair, seeking to rend.
A tentacled monster was clinging to the ceiling above him, reaching for them.
Telcanor and his guards stumbled hastily back up a few steps, out of reach, as the tentacled monster clinging to the ceiling grabbed at them.
Below them on a landing, Tantaerra and Tarram put their backs to the wall.
"It's Voyvik!" Tantaerra shouted unnecessarily. "Use the mask, or something!"
Next to her, The Masked spread his hands helplessly.
Then a door on another landing opened, and blue bolts of magic streaked out, missiles that swept up and unerringly into the monster.
The terrified Lord Telcanor sobbed and clawed his way back a few steps higher.
The tentacled monster convulsed, writhing in pain. Another volley of magical missiles raced from behind the door to smite it, and it shuddered and shrank back—but when the blue radiance faded, the weakened, maddened creature reached out again angrily.
Its tentacles still couldn't reach either Lord Telcanor and his guards or Tantaerra and her partner. After straining to do so several times, they flailed about in frustration.
Then the thing of tentacles began to slowly descend the wall, moving as if it was in great pain, heading for the door where Tantaerra crouched.
"Ah, yes," came a sardonic comment from the other doorway on the landing. "That's the problem with letting the ignorant play with magic. They don't know what they're doing. Or when, for instance, they'll expend the last of an item's power. The gauntlet was a wonderful thing—but not endless."
It was Telcanor's advisor Tartesper, but his face and body were ...changing. He looked more and more different with every step he took, as he strolled out onto the landing and gave Tantaerra an unpleasant smile.
She stared at him. "Karm?"
"Who else?" he replied smugly. He now looked exactly as he had when meeting Voyvik in the forest. "It's a shame that Voyvik was unable to complete his mission, but now here you are—and with my mask, I see. How convenient."
He peered up the stair at Lord Telcanor. "So, Krzonstal, would you care to negotiate your rescue? At a price of, say, half your Braganzan properties? Fitting hire, I'd judge, for your staunch new ally, the most powerful wizard in Molthune."
"Who's that?" Telcanor snapped warily.
Karm's smile vanished. "Me. I can save you—but I've no interest in prolonging the lives of headstrong fools. Or the indecisive. So make your mind up. Now."
There came a thunder of booted feet from below. All eyes turned down the stair. A door had opened at the very bottom, and a handful of Telcanor house guards had come through it. Looking up the stair, they drew their swords.
Karm regarded them calmly, then glanced at Tantaerra and The Masked.
"Now, Lord Telcanor," he repeated.
Tantaerra stealthily raised her dagger to throw at Karm, but as the blade moved, she saw the air between it and the wizard start to glow and swirl. He was not unprotected against such attacks.
Karm gave her a coldly triumphant smile. "I've never much liked halflings," he announced, raising his hands to weave a spell.
Behind him, the monster on the wall gathered its tentacles under itself and launched itself at him.
Tantaerra sprang desperately aside. Karm's smile widened as he watched her.
He was still smiling when the monster hit him.
He staggered, tentacles flailing at him, tearing and rending. Karm got his spell off, his magical missiles gutting the falling beast even as his hands were dashed down by its descending bulk—but its tentacles were already wrapped around his body, and in its agony it tore him apart. One wrenched his head around sideways with a crack, others tore off hands or fingers still glowing blue—and then the great bulk came down on the wizard's body with a wet thud.
Tentacles lashed and quivered, then started to change.
Before their eyes, the tentacled monster shrank back into a broken-limbed, sprawled Orivin Voyvik.
The Nirmathi laughed weakly. "I guess this was what Mahalagris really wanted all along."
Tantaerra advanced on him, her dagger ready, but the Nirmathi gave her a crooked smile. "I'm no harm to you, little heroine," he gasped, through bubbling blood. "I'm dying. If you haven't noticed." He shuddered, blood running freely from his nose and mouth now. "Dying with honor, at least."
"Oh?" she asked warily, as The Masked, dagger drawn, came to stand protectively beside her.
"I betrayed my country by taking Karm's pay," Voyvik gasped. "I thought I could bring him to our side. Get him to use the gauntlet to end the war. But it doesn't matter now. I've cleaned up my mess. I can die a true Nirmathi."
"You can," The Masked agreed firmly.
Voyvik managed a bloody smile. "Nirmathas forever!" he shouted.
And died.
Tantaerra looked at his staring eyes and the blood still running from his slack mouth. Shivering, she shook her head and turned away—only to catch sight of Karm's face. The wizard's eyes were still moving, though his twitching lips made no sound. He was still alive!
Well, she could do something about that. Her dagger flashed down, again and again.
The Masked let out a startled shout behind her—half astonished, half delighted. Tantaerra looked up, wiping gore from her eyes.
Tarram Armistrade was holding out his mask, his nightmare of a face clear for all to see. The mask was crumbling, little glows flaring and fading all over it, darkening as the mask itself darkened.
"Look!" he cried delightedly, waving it at Tantaerra. "Karm must have bound this to himself, somehow! It's dying with him!"
The mask crumbled away into dust, and the man who'd worn it for so long threw back his head and roared out incoherent exultation.
Happily, Tantaerra collapsed, falling into waiting oblivion.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tarram hastened out the front door of Telcanor House with Tantaerra in his arms, and hastily peered up and down the street. Telcanor's guards had been too stunned to react as he'd barreled through them, but that wouldn't last for long. And with all the noise he'd made destroying parts of Lord Telcanor's mansion, he could hardly dare hope that no one else in Braganza had—
Oh, they'd heard, all right. What looked like most of the garrison of Braganza was hastening down the street right now, lanterns swinging in their haste. Some of them had been roused in such a hurry that they'd forgotten the spears they loved so much.
Tarram drew back against the wall and looked around for cover. Some of the rubble had fallen clear across the street, and there was a huge heap of it flanking the door, where part of the front wall of the grand house had collapsed outward. Builders, these days ...
He ducked behind it, stretched himself out on the ground with the unconscious halfling in his arms, and played dead.
From under his arm, peering out beneath his eyelids, he could see the mountainous armored form of Onstal Zreem hastening along the street, at the head of what seemed like a small army of Braganzan soldiers.
Zreem peered up at the devastation, shook his head, strode up to the open front door—and was almost bowled over by a wild-eyed Telcanor house guard who came sprinting out of the ruined mansion.
"What's happened here?" the giant bodyguard demanded sharply, catching hold of the panting and terrified Telcanor and halting him effortlessly in mid-run.
"We're ...all doomed!" the guard panted. "Tentacled thing! Everyone dead! Halfling and man in a mask—magic—hurled down half the mansion!"
He tore free of Zreem's grip and fled out into the night, right past the astonished soldiers.
"Well, now," Zreem growled, waving an imperious hand for the soldiers to follow him as he stepped inside. They did, all sixty-some of them.
Halfway through that procession of clanking men and swinging lanterns, Tantaerra came to and quietly slapped her way free of Tarram's grasp. "We need to get back inside!"
"What?!" The Masked whispered incredulously.
"I have to see what happens," she whispered back.
Tarram stared back at her. Then his horror of a face twisted in a grin. "We could join those soldiers as a rearguard."
"Yes!" she agreed, and they did, keeping to the shadows behind the tail end of the procession. The bodyguard led the way warily, calling for Lord Telcanor from time to time and finding the occasional bewildered servant. It took some time of crossing grand chambers and shattered ones, dim in the waning moonlight, but eventually they came upon a few house guards standing on a body-strewn stair comforting the terrified Lord Telcanor, who sat huddled on a step, staring at the darkness with terrified eyes.
"Zreem?" he asked, almost disbelievingly.
The bodyguard looked down at the humbled man on the steps. "Well, Lord," he said rather disapprovingly, "you give me the night off, and I return to find your house in some disrepair. You might have told me you were contemplating redecorating."
He turned to look at the soldiers behind him—and his eyes immediately locked on Tantaerra and The Masked, staring straight through the concealing shadows. "I see your Lord Investigators have returned as well," he added dryly. "I hope you gave them a suitable welcome."
Lord Telcanor covered his face with his hands and collapsed into sobs.
∗ ∗ ∗
It was a bright and breezy day, and the unmarred guest bedchamber high in the Telcanor manor looked grand.
Onstal Zreem had firmly closed the door and ordered the soldiers outside to take themselves out of earshot.
Then he'd turned back to the man with the ruined face and the halfling with one hand, and ordered them to tell him everything.
Tantaerra could tell he knew he'd get far from that, but in the end, he seemed satisfied with what he'd heard.
She held up the rings they'd taken from the Shattered Tomb, hoping they'd be payment enough for a priest of Braganza to restore her missing hand.
Zreem gave the gems a wry smile. "These are pretty finger adornments, not magic. Nor are the stones worth more than the cost of a few good meals."
Wordlessly Tarram handed the giant a few blackened pieces of the gauntlet he'd found, but Zreem handed them right back.
"Very little magic left there," he said. "You didn't take very good care of it."
He peered at Tantaerra's exposed stump and rubbed his chin. "Not much magic—but maybe enough. Get the pieces you've got reforged, and resized in the doing, and it might make a handsome replacement, jointed and mated to your tendons so it can hold things at your bidding. It'll be expensive; I hope you've saved your coins."
"We—" Tarram blurted out, then ran out of words.
The man-mountain of a bodyguard favored him with a calm, cold gaze, and waited.
Tarram chose his words carefully. "We slew a dangerous monster, we killed Mahalagris and his traitorous apprentice ... we saved this city."
"Did you?" Zreem asked coldly.
The silence that followed was long and tense. The bodyguard broke it almost gently. "Don't push, Tarram Armistrade. In case you haven't noticed, the powerful push back."
Tarram opened his mouth to reply, then slumped down dejectedly, not knowing what to say.
"However," Zreem continued, "what I told you about spells that would kill you if you abandoned your mission, back when you rode out of Braganza? An utter lie. And with Tartesper gone, there's no one left to twist it into truth."
"Why are you telling us this?" Tantaerra demanded. "You're Telcanor's bodyguard!"
To her surprise, the big man smiled.
"Am I?" he asked. "Then I suppose I'd best go find his body."
With that he turned and left the room, leaving Tarram and Tantaerra staring astonished at the closed door.
∗ ∗ ∗
Tantaerra held her new metal hand up to the light. It would take a while to learn to control it, and her forearm ached with the unaccustomed weight and ef
fort, but ...she had a hand again!
She waggled her fingers. They clattered, just a little. She'd have to steal some oil.
Or, no, they could buy some, now. The smith and priests who'd crafted it had taken most of their reward money, but they still had a bit left over.
Laden with food, Tarram couldn't see her waggling her fingers.
Poor Tarram. With Mahalagris and Karm both dead, the curse might well be broken, but the damage it had done remained. She'd wanted to try getting his face healed by the priests, but there had only been enough money to fix one of their disfigurements, and he'd insisted that she be first. After all, he said, they could earn—or steal—the rest of the money they needed faster with four hands than three.
"There remains," he was saying, "the prudent matter of getting out of Braganza before the Bailiff can have all his guards find us and flay us alive, or whatever is customarily done to people who falsely claim to be investigators working for the General Lords."
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Tantaerra replied happily. "Then we can—"
She stopped abruptly.
A familiar looming armored figure was blocking their way, leaning casually against the frame of the doorway they'd been heading for, massive arms folded across an even larger chest.
"One task remains," Onstal Zreem told them calmly. "There's something I need from you."
Tantaerra felt her stomach drop. She'd known it was too good to be true—the reward, the exoneration. All from this Zreem. Neither she nor Tarram had seen Lord Telcanor since the staircase.
"Of course there is," she spat. "You damned Braganzans and your games. Have you come to conscript us for Telcanor again?"
"No," Zreem said simply. "For Imperial Governor Teldas himself."
"Hah!" Tantaerra scoffed—then stopped as she saw his expression. Slowly, she asked, "Who are you?"
"The Imperial Governor has lately grown irritated with Braganza's wastefulness," he said. "Telcanors, Mereirs, Lord Ravnagask's ceaseless building. As such, he's taken the prudent step of quietly placing people of his own in positions of influence."
Tantaerra's mouth dropped open. "You're a Lord Investigator. A real one."
"Yes," Zreem said. "And you can be as well."