The Shattered Mask Read online

  Master prided himself on his self-control, and though he was manifestly angry now, it wasn’t reflected in his tone. “I asked you to remain in hiding while I scouted ahead,” he said in his soft, prim tenor voice. “What if someone had seen you?”

  “No one did,” said Bileworm. “It’s very late. The humans are all sleeping.”

  “You don’t know that,” said the wizard. “You might have spoiled everything.” The spirit flinched in anticipation of another burst of pain, but the wizard merely sighed and lifted the staff away. “Sometimes I don’t know why I put up with you.”

  “Because I found you when you were naught but a writhing grub in a hole,” said Bileworm, drawing himself to his feet. “Because it was I who saw your potential, restored you to human form, and helped you prove your usefulness to the archduke.” Afterward, of course, when Master had begun to rise in the service of his new liege, he had enslaved his benefactor with his magic, but Bileworm had long since stopped resenting that. It was the way of the universe for the strong to subjugate the weak.

  “Come,” said Master curtly, “we have work to do. He turned and led his minion back up the street. They halted in the shadow of an elm to regard the house called Argent Hall.

  Argent Hall, Master had explained, was the residence of the Karn family and also one of the oldest merchant-noble homes in this peculiar human city of Selgaunt. The builders of many of the newer mansions had opted to encircle them with relatively low walls, a joke to an invading army but sufficient to inconvenience thieves and rioters. Argent Hall, on the other hand, was a true castle, albeit not a huge one. Its twenty-foot ramparts all but concealed the keep at their center. There were modest turrets at the four corners and wall-walks behind the crenels.

  Master murmured words of power and turned widdershins in a circle, sweeping his staff in a mystic pass. The air grew warmer. Blue and silver sparks flickered along the granite battlements.

  “I just dispelled the wards set to bar intruders like you,” the pale-eyed wizard explained. “Now, there’s only one sentry patrolling the wall, and he doesn’t go round very often. I imagine he’s spending most of his watch in one of turrets to avoid the cold.” Bileworm snorted in contempt. In his world, a lord so poorly guarded could not have survived an hour. “As soon as he passes, we’ll go over the wall.”

  “Why don’t we just kill him?” asked the familiar, leering.

  Master sighed. “Because I want to slip in and out without anyone being any the wiser. As you know very well, so stop trying to annoy me.”

  After a few minutes, a spearman tramped quickly along the alure, making his circuit as rapidly as possible. When he disappeared from view, the wizard and his minion trotted up the street to the foot of the wall.

  Bileworm simply lengthened his legs to reach the embattlement. Master reached into one of the many pockets sewn into his robe, brought out a small leather loop, flourished it, and muttered under his breath. Power sighed and crackled around him, and he floated straight upward.

  The wizard and his minion crouched on the parapet and studied the bailey below, which the latter-day Karns had turned into a garden. Paths of crushed white stone traced ghostly patterns in the gloom, winding among beds of silvery roses in full flower despite the season. At the center of a turnaround stood a dry fountain, whose creator had fashioned it to look as if the water, when flowing, were a spring bursting forth from a natural rock formation. A bronze archer knelt atop the boulders. One hand shielding its eyes, the statue peered intently into the distance.

  Behind the turnaround rose the donjon. Broad stairs ascended to tall, carved double doors, while a green banner emblazoned with a silver cockatrice hung above them. The structure had begun as a fortress, and in its essence still displayed the stark, utilitarian lines of a stronghold designed first and foremost to withstand a siege. More recently, however, the occupants had attempted to transform it into a stylish, luxurious home to rival that of other merchant-noble families, widening the meutrières into windows bright with stained glass and affixing decorative molding to the facade.

  “Do you see anyone?” Master whispered.

  “No,” Bileworm replied.

  “Nor do I. Come on.” Master simply stepped into space, and, his spell of levitation still operative, dropped slowly and gently to the ground. Lengthening then contracting his right leg, the spirit nimbly stepped down beside him.

  Gleaming softly in the moonlight, the silver roses looked as if an artisan had cast them from metal, but evidently they truly were alive, for they exuded a sweet, heady perfume even in the depths of a winter night. Clearly a master enchanter had created them. They were uncommonly beautiful, and Bileworm wished he had the leisure to linger and cup one in his ghostly fingers. After several minutes the petals would wither and die.

  The two intruders skulked toward the great house. There was no chance of Bileworm’s gossamer footfalls making any noise, but he tiptoed anyway, burlesquing stealth like a clown in a pantomime, purely for his own amusement.

  Then a low shape, more than seven feet long from the tip of its snout to the end of its scaly tail, lumbered out from behind a wrought-iron bench. The eight-legged watch beast swung its crocodilian head in their direction, and Bileworm discerned the sheen of a luminous emerald eye.

  “Hide!” Master whispered, lunging behind a tree. Bileworm sprang after him. “Don’t even peek at it.”

  “Why not?” the spirit asked.

  “It’s a basilisk.”

  “What?” Few powers in this mortal sphere were capable of harming Bileworm, but the gaze of a basilisk was one of them. It could turn the flesh of even an insubstantial creature to stone. “Kill it, Master!”

  “I can’t, or people will know we were here. Be silent and I’ll try something else.”

  Master whispered the rhymed couplets of an incantation and rotated the knobbed head of his staff counterclockwise. Worms of phosphorescence crawled on the black wood. Meanwhile, Bileworm listened to the basilisk’s hissing breath and its tail dragging and bumping along the frozen ground. The sounds were growing louder. He didn’t think the monster had spotted him or Master. Otherwise, it would be more excited. But, just his luck, it was coming toward them anyway, and if it looked at him squarely, it wouldn’t much matter whether it had been intentionally pursuing them or not.

  In his present form, Bileworm couldn’t even strike a blow in his own defense, and fervently wished he could bolt. But he didn’t, for he was far more afraid of Master than of any watch beast.

  The reptile grunted, sounding as if it was just on the other side of their tree. Bileworm trembled. Then, at last, Master completed his spell.

  Off to the left, bubbles of golden light swelled and burst. The soft brassy notes of a glaur rippled through a fanfare. Then a white stallion, its bridle encrusted with silver and pearl, appeared in the center of the illusion. The horse whinnied, turned, and trotted into the night, whereupon the basilisk gave chase, waddling as fast as it was able.

  “I hope no one in the house noticed that,” Master said, “but I had to divert the creature somehow.”

  “Do you think there are any more of them?” Bileworm asked.

  “It’s possible,” the wizard replied, “so perhaps you might try keeping an eye out instead of cutting capers and playing the fool.”

  In fact, they reached the donjon without encountering any more trouble. Turning, his mantle sweeping outward, Master cast a second abjuration, wiping away another set of wards. Sparks danced and sizzled on the facade of the mansion.

  The spellcaster had already decided that they wouldn’t attempt to enter at ground level. Despite the lateness of the hour, there might well be a porter tending the front door, or other servants laboring behind any of the lesser entries. So Master floated to a dark second-story window, and Bileworm stretched up beside him.

  The casement’s lead cames ran diagonally, dividing the glass into diamond-shaped panes. Most of the quarrels were clear, a couple, bottle green. Ma
ster spoke a word of power and inside the frame, the fastener unlatched itself. The window swung silently open.

  Master climbed inside through the drawn velvet curtains, and Bileworm followed. On the other side was a gentleman’s bedchamber, and the sharp-nosed, yellow-bearded young aristocrat himself snoring beneath a heap of eiderdowns. The handle of a warming pan protruded from beneath the bed, and a crystal decanter lay on its side on the carpet. The scent of the spilled brandy tinged the air.

  Just as Bileworm had wished to poison a rose, so now he would have liked to crouch atop the sleeper and swirl his shadowy fingers through his brain. He knew he could give the human nightmares. Indeed, given sufficient time, and sufficient susceptibility on the part of his victim, he might even drive the fellow insane.

  But he knew Master wouldn’t allow him to linger and enjoy that pastime, either. The wizard closed the casement once again, then beckoned Bileworm to follow him through the door.

  Beyond the bedchamber was a sitting room where a lackey slumbered tangled in a coarse blanket on the floor. From there the intruders passed into a shadowy corridor. Oil lamps, most of which had been extinguished, reposed in brazen fixtures along the wall.

  “Do you know which way to go?” Bileworm whispered.

  “Possibly,” Master replied. “In the old days, I visited this house on occasion. I believe I’ve got my bearings, but it all depends on whether our friend is still occupying the same suite.”

  The pair skulked on and eventually found a door with a cockatrice carved on the keystone of the surrounding arch. Master tried the knob and the portal opened.

  Across the threshold were the lavish apartments of a great nobleman. A suit of gilded tourney armor stood in the corner, the helm crowned with the withered brown chaplet the wearer had won for his jousting. A red silk cover embroidered with songbirds shrouded a large gold cage. Paintings and tapestries crowded the walls.

  The bedchamber was a spacious room currently lit by a single candle in a red glass bowl. On the high domed ceiling was a faded fresco depicting the gods at play. Another covered birdcage stood by the window, and a green velvet cord hung beside the enormous bed. No doubt the occupant had only to pull it to ring a bell and summon his valet.

  That occupant was a withered old man with a prominent beak of a nose. He lay slumbering on his back, and a gurgling sound rose from his open, toothless mouth. He wore an embroidered cambric nightshirt and a striped woolen nightcap as well. His flesh smelled of liniment and sickness.

  “That’s our man,” whispered Master. He stalked toward the sleeper in a way that conveyed to Bileworm that he meant to take care of his business as expeditiously as possible.

  “You said you know him,” the spirit said. “Don’t you even want to wake him up and say hello?”

  “You just want to see him cower,” the wizard replied, a thread of distaste in his voice.

  “I hail from a cruel realm, Master, as do you, now. Besides,” Bileworm added, “it might help me to see how he moves and hear how he speaks.”

  “Indeed,” said Master skeptically. “Well, I suppose it won’t hurt to indulge you. Briefly.” He leaned down, took hold of the old man’s bony shoulder, and gave him a gentle shake. The sleeper merely mumbled and tried to roll over. Master shook him again, more vigorously. “Wake up, Lindrian Karn.”

  The old man’s rheumy gray eyes fluttered open. When he took in the masked figure standing over him, he yelped and groped frantically for the bell pull. Master held him flat on his back with one hand and poised the head of his staff in front of the old man’s face with the other. Motes of magenta light danced and sizzled on the polished surface of the wood.

  “Stop struggling,” advised the mage. “Otherwise I’ll have to hurt you.”

  Lindrian obeyed. From the looks of him, he was afraid but trying hard not to show it. “What do you want?” he quavered.

  “You’ll find out presently,” Master replied.

  The old man suddenly jerked in surprise. “I know those eyes! Marance Talendar!”

  Master stiffened. He hated giving up any secret or advantage, no matter how slight, but on this occasion, he must have reckoned it could do no harm to confirm his prisoner’s guess. For he lifted off the Man in the Moon mask, revealing an ashen, patrician face with a high, broad forehead, narrow nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin, handsome in a cold, intellectual sort of way. Lindrian gaped in horror and astonishment.

  “My compliments,” the wizard said, setting the mask on the table beside the candle. “You’re sharp. I never dreamed you’d recognize me after so many years, and disguised in dim light, no less.”

  “But you’re dead!” Lindrian whispered.

  “Fortunately,” Master said, “for were I alive, I’d be as ancient and decrepit as you. No offense. Actually, to be precise, I suppose I’m neither alive nor dead at the moment, but somewhere in between. I was dead, but in recognition of services rendered, my liege lord in the netherworld granted me a boon: to walk the earth again while I attend to unfinished business.”

  Lindrian swallowed. “You can’t mean business with me. I never did anything to you.”

  “Of course not,” Master said. “It was always me doing things to you. I imagined that if I wrecked your business ventures, I could ruin you, whereupon we Talendar could pick up your silver mines at bargain prices. The ruination of the House of Karn was my chief preoccupation at one time. But you never figured out who was afflicting you, and thus you never retaliated.”

  “It was you?” Lindrian said. For a moment, his barely controlled fear gave way to anger. “Damn you!”

  Bileworm sniggered. “Rest easy, that’s already been taken care of.”

  Lindrian turned, saw the spirit for the first time, cringed, and hastily turned back toward Master, who at least looked like an ordinary human being. “Then what do you want?” the old man asked.

  “Do you remember how I died?” Master asked.

  Lindrian hesitated, then said, “Thamalon Uskevren.”

  “Yes. To be precise, I died of the Owl’s long sword opening my belly. It can take a long, excruciating time to succumb to a wound like that. I staggered and crawled a long way in search of help, my hands clasping the wound to keep my bowels from escaping, but at last my strength ran out. I sprawled in the mud and bled to death.”

  “That … must have been hard,” Lindrian said.

  “No, please,” said Master, “you mustn’t grieve, for as you can see, it wasn’t the end of me. But the memory did stick with me through all that followed, and now, at last, I have a chance to exact some measure of retribution.”

  “I understand why you’ve come to me,” Lindrian said, “and yes, I’ll help you in exchange for my life. I never liked Thamalon anyway! What do you want me to do? Lure him into an ambush?”

  Master’s thin white lips quirked upward. “You’d betray your own kinsman, the benefactor who saved your House, on my behalf? I’m touched, or at least I would be if I trusted you. But actually, I have another scheme in mind. Bileworm, have you seen all you need?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Then farewell, Lindrian. May your soul find itself in more congenial surroundings than did mine.” The wizard set down his staff, picked up a plump pillow, and pressed it over the mortal’s face.

  Lindrian’s emaciated limbs thrashed uselessly, and Bileworm smirked in delight. Master’s face, however, was set with the resolution of one performing a necessary but noisome task. Not that he was squeamish about slaughter. He often relished it, but only when it was accomplished at a distance, by his magic or warriors under his command. He didn’t like giving even a feeble old man the opportunity to fight and paw at him. On this occasion, however, it was necessary to kill without leaving a mark.

  All too soon, in Bileworm’s opinion, Lindrian’s struggles ceased. One of the dead man’s arms flopped half off the bed and pointed straight to the birdcage. Master discarded the pillow and wiped his dainty hands on the bed linen. “Your turn,�
�� he said.

  The spirit reared up until his head brushed the fresco on the ceiling. Every portion of his body stretched thinner. Finally, stooping, he poured himself into the corpse’s sour-smelling mouth.

  Once he was completely inside, he thrashed and turned in the thick darkness like a man drowning in quicksand, until at last his own substance, permeating the corpse’s body like arsenic suspended in wine, came into proper alignment with it as well. He felt the soft mattress beneath his form. He could feel Lindrian’s gnarled, arthritic hand at the end of his arm and make the fingers close, evoking a throb of pain from the swollen joints. He took control of the cadaver’s eyes and saw Master gazing down at him.

  For that was the special gift of his kind. As certain other spirits had the power to possess the living, Bileworm and his siblings could clothe themselves in the husks of the dead.

  The only drawback was that while wearing these shells of meat and bone, they were more vulnerable than they were used to. He reflexively started to raise his hand to protect himself, then checked the motion. It wouldn’t do for Lindrian to suddenly acquire a new mannerism.

  Speaking of the old man’s habits, Bileworm had best make sure he could employ the corpse’s brain as well as its muscles. For that was the tricky part, and despite what he’d told Master, it was that capacity and not a few minutes of observation which would enable him to impersonate the nobleman successfully. He tried to call forth Lindrian’s memories, and the images paraded before his inner eye.

  “Well?” Master asked.

  “The first time he took a riding lesson, he fell off the pony,” Bileworm said. The initial three words were slurred, but the ones that followed were perfect, even with regard to their inflection. No one could have guessed that it wasn’t Lindrian himself speaking. “From that, he acquired a secret aversion to horses that vexed him all his life. He killed a man in a duel when he was seventeen and afterward, weeping, he threw his sword in the river. To keep his valet from nagging, he ate a bowl of chicken broth and half a slice of toasted bread, even though he had no appetite. In short, Master, I know everything he knew. For the moment, I am Lindrian Karn.”