The Mage In The Iron Mask

11

As they waited for the ale to arrive, they splintered off into separate groups. Volo introduced the very confused Passepout to Chesslyn. The master traveler was careful to conceal the young lady's Harper affiliation as he was more than acquainted with the chubby thespian's pronounced lack of discretion. Poins and Hal had set off to help Hotspur with the monstrous keg of Halruaan ale that their master saved for occasions of exceptional note, while the blind swordmaster and the senior cloak argued in hushed tones.

Through all of this the iron-masked man remained silent, pondering his fate, his identity, and the recent turn of events. He was conscious of the discreet glances thrown his way by Volo, Chesslyn, and Passepout. He was forced to acknowledge that these strangers might be his only chance for reaching safety and freedom.

Hal and Poins reentered the room, helping to balance the monstrous keg that the dwarf cook bore on his back. The threesome maneuvered it over to a place next to the trophy wall, and inserted it into a sort of harness that seemed to exist specifically for this purpose. As Hotspur fiddled with the recently attached spigot, Hal and Poins distributed mugs to the rest of the group and each became filled with the delicious libation from the Shining South. By the time everyone had been served, Honor and Mason had reached some sort of agreement, and had taken their places in the impromptu circle of chairs that had formed around Rassendyll.

Accepting his tankard from Poins, Honor downed it in a single quaff and wiped away the foam from his bearded jowls.

"Ahhh!" the blind swordmaster said in appreciation as he handed the empty tankard back to his servant who immediately set off to refill it. "You can't beat the Halruaans when it comes to ale, a fact that I am sure you are more than aware of, Mr. Volo's-Guide-to-Wherever."

The master traveler was slightly startled, then amused at the sudden reference to his reputation and repertoire made by their host. Indeed, he thought, our host is quite cagey and knows much more than he lets on-about a lot of things.

"I agree," the master traveler concurred aloud, "though I personally prefer the brew from a different part of the south, Luiren."

"Ah, but too many halflings can spoil the brew," Honor replied, accepting his second brimming helping.

The masked man's fear and uncertainty gave way to his own impatience.

"All this talk of halflings and brew is well and good," Rassendyll said with impertinence, "but I really do wish you would get on with whatever you plan to get on with."

Honor stiffened, and Passepout feared that the swordsman was about to enter into another rage. His fears were quickly allayed when he saw the wide grin spread across their blind host's face.

"Told you," Honor said to McKern. "Even has his father's lack of patience."

"Indeed," the senior Cloak concurred. "More and more, I am inclined to agree with you, and set aside my own misgivings."

"I knew you would, old friend," the blind host said, then turned his attention to the rest of the group. "I'm sorry. Please forgive us. Old men are prone to share old times and memories, both the good ones, and the bad, whenever the opportunity arises, no matter how discourteous it happens to be. Still, that is no excuse, and I beg that all of you will accept my apologies on behalf of Mason and myself."

Honor downed his second tankard of ale, once again emptying it in a single quaff, whispering instructions to send his appreciation to Hotspur for a job well done, as he went about deftly refilling his own mug. Refilling it faster than a Baldur's Gate bartender, he strode over to the seated mage in the iron mask who was the focus of all their attentions, and said, "Most of all I beg your forgiveness, and request your indulgence for just a little while longer. You are among friends now. Mason and I will protect you, as we should have protected your father."

Rassendyll felt the gentle bear paw of the blind swordsman on his shoulder, and looked up into his unseeing eyes. For some reason, he felt a profound sense of security. He believed the words that the generous host spoke.

Honor gave Rassendyll's shoulder a gentle squeeze, much as a teacher would give a star pupil to signal some private affection, and took what would have been considered a sip in comparison to his earlier draughts from the brimming tankard, only draining it of half its contents. He then returned to the tap to top it off, and took his place back in the circle.

"Mason," Honor said, "why don't you fill everyone in on our friend's background? I'm sure they will find it quite interesting."

"Agreed," the old mage replied, then added, to the masked man, "I am sure that you would like to know a little about your parentage, wouldn't you?"

"Of course," Rassendyll replied. "Of the many things I learned at the Retreat, that was not one of them."

"Well, old friend," Honor encouraged Mason McKern, "get on with it."

In the Thayan Embassy in Mulmaster:

The worm of an ambassador had not expected to be summoned so soon after receiving the note from the First Princess. He was even more surprised to be approached in his chamber by the Tharchioness's sister.

"The Tharchioness instructed me to come to you immediately, as you are her only hope," Mischa Tam explained in tones of hushed urgency.

"Of course," the ambassador said, beaming with pride, relieved at Mischa's message, eyes glued to the curves of her body, which were subtly visible against the silken robe that barely concealed her nakedness. "The First Princess knows that she can call on me at any time, day or night… as I invite you to do also, my dear Mischa."

Mischa Tam maintained her composure while burying a shudder of revulsion that ran through her inner core at the advances of the wormlike ambassador. She was sure that until her arrival, he had been dreading the next contact with the Tharchioness, anticipating a suicide mission of some type.

Even though he did not realize it, his initial anticipations were more than accurate.

"My dear ambassador," she cooed, "I wish I could take you up on your generous offer, but my pragmatic nature, I'm afraid, gets the best of me. You know how jealous the First Princess gets. She would have my head or worse if she caught me giving undue attention to one of her favorites."

One of her favorites, the ambassador thought, I should have known. I never dreamed that she felt that way about me. Obviously she is a woman prone to sadistic affections toward those who strike her fancy. If necessary, he mused, I could get used to that.

"Time is fleeting, and I owe it to the Tharchioness not to dally unnecessarily, even if it does prolong my time with you," the First Princess's half sister whispered, her ironic tone lost on the corpulent and soft civil envoy. "Here is the packet of information that I promised to deliver for her. She so wants you to clear your name, and the successful completion of your mission will do more than that. After all, a Thayan hero would make a perfect First Princess's consort. Don't you think?"

The slow-witted ambassador became confused.

"What hero?" he asked. "And what about the High Blade?"

"Why you will be the hero, of course," she cooed, kissing him gently on his doughy, bald pate, and then, with a sigh, adding, "I'm sorry. I just couldn't control myself."

"Quite all right," the blushing, lusting ambassador sputtered.

"And the High Blade," she concluded. "Well, that is what is probably in the message. I must go now."

"No," the ambassador urged, "surely you can stay awhile. The Tharchioness need not know."

"As much as I would love to," she countered, "I really can't. Nothing must deter you from the planning of your mission."

The ambassador looked at the unopened message that had been handed to him, and said resignedly, "Oh, yes, my mission."

"And when it is over, no one will deny you anything, not even the Tharchioness."

"Indeed," he replied, his greed overcoming any fear about the prospective contents of the packet.

"It is the will of Szass Tam," she said, as she slinked out the door of the ambassador's suite.

"Indeed," he repeated to himself, trying to savor the image of Mischa and combining it with that of a similarly compliant First Princess. "Indeed."

Had the ambassador escorted the Tharchioness's half sister to the door, he might have been able to hear her derisive laughter once she turned the corner down the hall.

Looking down at the packet in his hand, and with a gradual return of the anxiety that churned in the bottom of his stomach, he began to open the seal so that he could learn of the fate that awaited him.

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.