The Wizard's Mask (pathfinder tales)

by Ed Greenwood

  That window wouldn't hold for long. Tantaerra hastily wormed her way forward and found herself nose to nose with The Masked-at about the same moment the window shattered with a deafening crack, wooden frame and all. Two men, wrapped around each other and furiously stabbing with already blood-drenched daggers, fell through it into the room.

  "Let's get out of here!" Tantaerra hissed.

  "Trying to stay alive long enough to do that," the masked man replied cheerfully, watching men of Telcanor stream along the passage and into the room, stabbing down viciously at the Mereirs underfoot. "Our way out'll have to be the roof, unless-"

  A charging warrior of Telcanor reached down to gut him, forcing The Masked to thrust a hasty boot low into the man's belly and loft him helplessly forward into a wall. The resulting room-shaking crash abruptly cut short the Telcanor's rising cry.

  Tantaerra viciously smashed another warrior's ankles out from under him with the chamber pot, precipitating a helpless fall into the edge of the bed, ending in another mighty crash as both bed and the head that struck it collapsed. "Battle rages," she murmured. "As usual."

  A Mereir-or was it a Telcanor? — swung a sword at her with a snarl, and she sprang aside and into a panting whirlwind of ducking and dodging amid the brawling mayhem as sword after sword thrust at her.

  The room seemed to be full of more men than it should be able to hold, even with the bed down and broken and the window a gaping hole out into the night. There was a lot of sharp steel, blood everywhere, and soldier after soldier going down. Which meant she and The Masked might soon be the only targets left.

  Tantaerra flung herself across the room to where The Masked was taking down Telcanors with deft efficiency.

  "You promised to hide me," she reminded him, slamming the chamber pot down on the foot of one assailant. "Well, look at all these brawlers! I want my ten silver weights back!"

  The only reply she got was a short, derisive laugh as The Masked fenced with one warrior and tripped the man clutching his chamber-pot-injured foot into a fall that made the Telcanor's head bounce off the floor right in front of Tantaerra. Gleefully she landed on that head and helped it to bounce several times.

  The Masked shoved the warrior he'd been crossing blades with back over the one Tantaerra had just rendered senseless, then spun to pluck her up under one arm and bounded to the window. Or rather, to where the window had been.

  Shouts arose from Telcanors who saw the incipient escape, but the men in their way out on the roof were too busy grappling and stabbing each to intercept the masked man ducking through them.

  The Masked shouldered one aside, knocked another sprawling, and sprinted up the gently sloping roof into the night. The adjacent roof was lower and an easy leap, but his landing was thunderous, and caused muffled crashes in the unseen rooms beneath him-as well as a certain sagging unsteadiness under his boots.

  The Masked hastily relocated to the ridge-run of this older and less sturdy roof, where he set down a cursing, spitting Tantaerra and hissed, "Lead the way!"

  Still snarling protests at being snatched up like a toy or pet, Tantaerra found a drainpipe that seemed sturdy enough to support a man-at least briefly-and swarmed down it.

  Ahead of her was a great dark stretch of Braganza, probably empty building after empty building, and although she very much wanted to keep to the roofs and so avoid Watchguard patrols, she just couldn't see well enough to safely judge distances and the slope and condition of roof tiles-especially with a larger, heavier human lumbering in her wake.

  "Seek dark places," she murmured. Of course, the thief's maxim wasn't just advice to someone wanting to hide-it was also a lure to make those trying to hide stray within reach of deadlier creatures who dwelt in the darkest places.

  "But then," The Masked murmured in her ear, "perhaps we are two of those deadlier creatures, hmm?"

  Tantaerra gasped, not realizing she'd spoken aloud.

  They left the drainpipe behind and sprinted along a dark and unfamiliar alley. On all sides, crashes from nearby rooftops marked the heavy-booted landings of pursuing warriors.

  They fled into the darkness, The Masked letting Tantaerra choose their route. Despite the ever-nearer footfalls behind them, she slowed enough to make her hastening quiet. More or less running blind, she avoided any lights she could, and tried hard not to let the unfolding choices of streets and turns force her into circling back toward Harl's Hearth.

  "Patrol," The Masked panted abruptly, dragging her back from a corner she'd been about to duck around.

  Tantaerra's temper flared-if he knew Braganza so well, why wasn't he leading? — but she set her teeth, kept silent, and chose another way, this one a narrower, reeking back alley.

  Behind them, a sudden shout marked one of their Telcanor chasers blundering into the midst of the Watchswords on patrol. The ringing clang of clashing swords arose, then more shouts.

  The alley opened out into a street that lacked unpleasant smells, but seemed full of heaps of lumber, building stones, and not-yet-erected scaffolds. "Seemed" because it was too dark to see anything properly.

  Thanks to the Prince-Archbanker's endless construction, entire blocks of Braganza were evidently sprawling mazes of mostly empty buildings. Which if they weren't guarded or patrolled, probably served as temporary lairs for local thieves, fugitives-and perhaps exhausted builders, or visitors who didn't want to declare for Mereir or Telcanor.

  All of this lumber and stone should be guarded, and Tantaerra reached out a hand to tap The Masked's thigh in warning.

  He bent to murmur into her ear, "There'll be night-guards at either end of a stretch of this street, likely. I think we just waded through their privy."

  "So?" she muttered back.

  "Shall we hide among some of these builders' heaps, and see if some of our pursuers find the guards for us?"

  Not such a bad idea. She seemed to have chosen her hireling well.

  "We shall," Tantaerra told him. "Choose our hiding place."

  Without word or hesitation The Masked turned left, felt his way past a long heap of roof slates and a row of barrels, then found a hard-trampled path that hooked around behind the barrels and ended in a little area with a table and some upended half-buckets obviously serving as chairs. There was a faint smell of spilled wine and strong cheese.

  "Sit," he suggested. They sank onto adjacent buckets, sagged into silence, and waited.

  "What if this place gets searched properly?"

  The Masked shrugged. "Too many 'what ifs' keep you from doing anything in life. Think less, and do more. The gods can decide who lives and dies without any help from our over-careful planning."

  "A life-view I've heard a time or two before," she replied-and yawned, suddenly tired. "And would be more interested in hearing again after I'd had a good night's sleep. Hopefully somewhere that wouldn't end with me spied upon, or clapped in chains, or branded on my behind for Mereir or Telcanor."

  "Forehead," The Masked corrected her. "Insolent slaves get branded on their foreheads."

  Tantaerra yawned again. "More fascinating lore, masked man. Tell me in the morning."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  A prodding finger found her ribs a long and silent time later, and she struck it away sharply. "No, I'm not asleep. I just want to be. It's quieter; have they finished killing each other yet?"

  "No," The Masked whispered. "In fact, they're searching the stree-"

  "More here, sir!" came a crisp, loud voice that rang with satisfaction, startlingly close, as a suddenly unhooded lantern flared blindingly. "Hiding back around-urrrkh!"

  Satisfied that a Watchsword communicates far less articulately with the end of a freshly cut floorboard thrust hard into his throat, The Masked used the plank to ruthlessly drive the gurgling defender of Braganza over backward, loudly shattering the lantern. He and Tantaerra sprinted out of their hiding place and across the now dimly lamplit street.

  "There!" someone shouted. "After them!"

  "Again?"
Tantaerra sighed. "Don't any Braganzans ever sleep? Or do they save their snoring for broad day when they're up ladders and scaffolds, raising fresh edifices to stand empty to the greater glory of Abadar?"

  The Masked was loping along just ahead of her, familiar worn bootheels flashing, and she contented herself with following him, dodging when he dodged.

  He ran right past a pile of stained wooden forms, mallets, and old rope, then a cluster of barrels, only to suddenly stop at a second stand of barrels, heave one out of a cross-cradle, and set it to rolling with a dull thud and sloshing sounds.

  Tantaerra leaped for the stars, only just in time, coming down beyond the barrel. It rumbled on across uneven cobbles, back the way they'd come, and she hastened to get past The Masked as he wrestled more barrels over with various crashes and sent them after the first one.

  "First lot were sand," he panted, "but these're water and only half-full …we'll see how good at jumping these Watchswords are!"

  Behind them rose the first startled shouts, thuds, and pained groans and curses.

  Not all that good, evidently.

  There was still enough lamplight for Tantaerra to see The Masked turn away, snatch up something from the ground, and hurry for a dark gap in the night-shadowed walls ahead. Another alley mouth.

  "Halt!" a man's voice snapped out of it, as they came running up. "I thought you'd flee this way! In the name of Lord Ravnagask, stand and yield!"

  A drawn sword flashed out to underscore the commands. The Masked parried that blade with something in his hands-then leaned forward and dropped it, with some care.

  There came a thud, a wild howl of pain, and the clang of a dropped sword as the Watchsword bent to clutch at his crushed toes, boot still caught under the roof-slate The Masked had so thoughtfully gifted him with.

  Then they were past and sprinting hard into deeper darkness, skimming unseen stone walls with their right elbows as they went.

  The clangs and crashings were all coming from behind them now, and growing fainter.

  "Slow, now," The Masked murmured, an instant before Tantaerra had been about to say the same words. They went from running to walking, trying to pant as quietly as they could, as they crossed another street and then another, their alley wider and straighter now. All around soared dark and empty stone mansions, tall and new and splendid. Twice The Masked halted suddenly and crouched low, peering into the night ahead.

  "Watchswords?" Tantaerra hissed, the second time.

  "No. Rats. The human sort. Lairing in these empty houses, and coming out at night to forage."

  "Steal, you mean."

  "Such candor, little one!"

  "Cut the cleverness, masked man, and devote your wits to finding us a safe place to sleep! Preferably before the sun is up!"

  "Ever the loving ally," The Masked sighed.

  "Ever the overconfident scoundrel," Tantaerra shot back.

  "Thank you," he said grandly, bowing as if she'd paid him the greatest of courtly compliments.

  Tantaerra gave him a snarl. "Well? Safe sleeping place?"

  "Being as we don't know the local sewers and cellars, and the rooms aboveground house honest citizens or their less law-abiding kin, that leaves us roofs as our best shelter-being as it doesn't look or smell like rain soon."

  "Agreed. So find us the best roof."

  The Masked leaned close to murmur in her ear, "I work best in silence."

  Tantaerra nodded and gave it to him, and he strode on.

  There will come a time, she thought, when I don't have to be always running, always fighting. When I can lounge around, and doze, and not have to be always on my guard. I just hope that time comes before I'm on my deathbed.

  Tantaerra left off that line of thinking as she saw a faint reflection off something metallic in front of her. She whirled around. The lanterns of a Watchguard patrol had turned a distant corner, and were coming closer.

  "Whither now, masked man?" she hissed.

  "Wait and watch. Our safest sleeping place will be one they've searched, and so won't search again. Unless, of course, you snore loudly."

  "I do not-" Tantaerra caught hold of her temper with both hands, then whispered icily, "Know, sirrah, that ladies do not snore."

  "So I've heard, though I can say from tiresome experience that some do. Yet I wasn't speaking of ladies. I was speaking of you."

  Tantaerra gave him her best glare.

  The lanterns arrived at a swift trot, voices rising in gruff excitement, and a Watchsword barked an order that brought many swords from sheaths.

  "So?" Tantaerra hissed. "Just where do we hide, hey?"

  The Masked shrugged. "We don't. Come on."

  "There!" a Watchsword bellowed promptly. "Fleeing from us!"

  "A man and a boy!" another Watchsword barked. "Take them for questioning!"

  The heavy-booted charge sounded like a stampede of frightened oxen. It was quite loud enough to cover Tantaerra snarling into The Masked's ear, "What happened to waiting until they checked the building, then hiding?"

  "New plan."

  Tantaerra ran after him, seething. "Do you always act the reckless fool?"

  "No," The Masked replied calmly. "Only when I must." He flung himself around a half-seen corner and added, "Since I entered your service, it's seemed a 'must' fairly often. That might just have something to do with your act, little one."

  "You," Tantaerra seethed, "are the most gods-damned annoying-"

  Some of these Watchswords were fast. They were right behind Tantaerra now, and she swallowed the curses she felt like spitting and saved her breath for scampering. Really scampering.

  They charged into a pitch darkness, and The Masked gave a grunt that sounded like he'd been hurt, followed by a crash as someone slammed heavily into a wall-and then the thunder of the onrushing Watchswords.

  Tantaerra shrank back into a corner, trying to look small-and then blurted out an involuntary "Eep!" as someone grabbed her by the back of the neck, half hair and half her gorget-collar, and pulled her down and back, through a hole or panel she hadn't known was there, and down, down-

  They were falling down a dark shaft-no, riding something that squealed, as something else hissed past her ear …

  "It's me, stop struggling," The Masked said in her ear. "And watch where you wave that knife. People get hurt that way."

  He was standing atop a dumbwaiter, riding it down its shaft, its rope hissing past. Very quickly, which meant-

  The crash as it hit the bottom of the shaft was deafening, teeth-jarring, and ended in loud splinterings as The Masked's boots went through the top of the wooden dumbwaiter box.

  He kicked his way free, the last kick smashing open the doors at the bottom of the shaft and striking senseless a Watchsword on the other side of them, who'd been rushing to snatch them open.

  That left an escape route that The Masked took without hesitation. And being as he hadn't let go of Tantaerra, she took it too, up an earthen ramp cluttered with wheelbarrows into the slightly less dark night, where three Watchswords had time only to turn and shout and start after them before they were out, along the street, and starting up a promising-looking drainpipe attached to the wall of the nearest dark mansion.

  The masked man climbed one-handed with a speed that astonished Tantaerra. Halflings owned drainpipes, not hulking humans who wore masks and manhandled those who hired them and-

  This empty mansion had a gently sloping roof split by five towers, a square of four around a higher central spire. The Masked headed across it in surefooted haste.

  Only to almost run into someone coming around the nearest tower. Someone whose brown eyes looked all too familiar.

  The man who'd been on that temple roof in Halidon. His mouth fell open in surprise, then closed again in a cold smile.

  He stepped forward, a long, wicked dagger in his hand.

  Chapter Seven

  Braganza, Battle, and a Bath

  Unless one carried an endless supply of daggers, throwi
ng them was for desperate moments, attempts to impress, or overblown fireside tales. Tantaerra clutched hers firmly as she sprang.

  A skirling shriek announced that The Masked's dagger had already met the steel of their foe-who ducked, darted, and slashed with a speed that made Tantaerra gulp. The Masked backed away only just in time, that wicked blade slicing cloak and leather.

  Its wielder rolled, kicked, and came up inside The Masked's guard-too close to miss.

  He drew back his arm for a gutting thrust, and Tantaerra flung herself frantically at his elbow, knowing even as she launched herself that she'd be too late.

  The Masked sprang into the air, drawing up his knee sharply in a kick that slammed the point of that wicked dagger up over his shoulder even as he clutched at his foe's arms. He and the brown-eyed man went over backward, leaving Tantaerra hurtling toward empty roof. As they fell back, grappling, The Masked slammed his face forward, then hard sideways.

  The brown-eyed man cried out as sharp points along the top of the mask laid open his forehead, blood spurting into his eyes-and the two men crashed thunderously to the roof together, bouncing once before they started sliding toward the edge. Fast. The Masked slammed their faces together again.

  Then Tantaerra was busy hitting the roof in her own bone-shaking crash. She bit her tongue involuntarily as the hard landing drove the breath from her, rolled as she tasted her blood-no nicer than last time, she thought fleetingly-and slid down smooth tiles a frighteningly long way before desperate jabbings with her dagger brought her to a halt.

  Attacking this brown-eyed man had been a bad mistake. Whoever he was, he was a far better fighter than either of them. They'd be lucky to escape, even if-

  "Hold, and down weapons, in the name of Lord Ravnagask! The Watchguard commands you!"

  — this rash battle didn't bring the Watchguard patrol up onto the roof.

  "Hold, I said! You! Hold!"