The Mage In The Iron Mask

4

Volo did exactly as the voice he now recognized as female instructed, dropping the blade from his hand, and moving his arms away from his sides, palms out and empty. All of this was done slowly and carefully, without any sudden movements.

The master traveler of all Faerun (if not all Toril) had no desire to drown in his own blood.

"Spread your legs further apart," she ordered.

"Glad to," the master traveler answered, complying. As he felt a slight decrease in the pressure against the blade that was still resting against his throat, he slowly tried to turn his head so as to get a look at the fellow visitor to the slaughterhouse that had been known as the Retreat.

"Eyes forward!" she barked.

"Sorry," he answered, once again complying, as he felt a deft hand giving him a practiced body frisk.

Volo, in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the overly cautious woman, started to volunteer certain information about what he was holding. "I have a bando-"

"Quiet!"

"Sorry."

Her practiced hands undid the bandolier of blades that the master traveler always had concealed under his cloak, dropping it to the ground. She also quickly removed several of his other concealed surprises (though missing a few that the master traveler thought better of volunteering).

The frisking done, the mystery woman made a strange request.

"Remove your hat," she ordered, "and do it slowly."

Volo slowly followed her instructions, eyes still forward, and legs still spread apart. With beret in hand, he felt her hand gently tug at his beard, and run through the flowing locks that covered the top of what he thought to be considered as one of the more handsome heads of Faerun.

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about you being one of those murderous wizards from Thay," she said. "You can turn around, but very slowly, hands still away from the sides of your body, and no funny stuff."

"Gladly, my dear," Volo answered in his most charming tone, as he slowly turned around to face the woman who had come very close to slitting his throat. "Your wish is my command."

She was slightly taller than the master traveler himself, and was attired in a garb more suited to a ranger than the ravishing beauty that she was. Her tight leathers enveloped an obviously well endowed and maintained figure, and her flowing brown hair seemed to reach the base of her back, barely obscuring the long sword that was sheathed behind her.

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of all things public, and most things private and secret in Faerun, Volo hazarded a jibe.

"Is that a long sword," he asked with a light gesture from his left hand, then added jovially, "or are you just happy to see me?"

The female ranger ignored the double entendre, and answered simply, "What if it is?"

"Then Storm Silverhand sends her regards," the master traveler responded, "as I assume that I am addressing Chesslyn Onaubra."

"How do you know the legendary bard of Shadowdale?" she interrogated.

"Know her," Volo quickly answered, trying appear more at ease than he really was. "I've stayed at her farm on numerous occasions." He then quickly changed the subject, shifting focus back to the armed and deadly woman who was standing in front of him. "Rumor has it that you can hurl that long sword for a distance of up to fifty feet. How much of an exaggeration is that?"

"It isn't an exaggeration," she replied, letting her guard drop ever so slightly. "And what is the name of this loquacious friend of Storm Silverhand's who seems to know so much about me?"

Volo quickly replaced his beret, which sat atop his head just long enough so that he could once again remove it with a flourish and a bow saying, "Volothamp Geddarm, master traveler of all Faerun, at your service."

The Harper secret agent known as Chesslyn Onaubra shook her brown locks with a guarded laugh and an amused chuckle and said, "I should have known." Extending a hand of friendship to the master traveler, she added, "And what brings the master traveler and scourge of the dopplegangers to the Moonsea?"

"A new book," he answered, jovially accepting the Harper's proffered hand, "what else? Though it would appear that more is going on here than would usually be included in one of my travel guides."

"Agreed," Chesslyn assented seriously, withdrawing a blood-stained crystal wand from her pack and holding it up for the master gazetteer to examine.

The Office of the High Blade in the Tower of the Blades:

"Sire," Rickman cautiously interrupted, "a word with you if I may?"

"What is it Rickman?" the High Blade answered impatiently. The rigors and demands of dealing with the lesser nobles who, in the eyes of the people, really ruled the city, always left him in a bad mood, and he always saw interruptions to his business affairs as merely means to prolong his own bureaucratic misery.

"In private, sire?" the captain of the Hawks whispered with a degree of urgency.

"As you will," the High Blade assented, and quickly dispersed the nonessential politicians with whom he had been dealing with quick directions. "Leave me now," he ordered brusquely, "and don't return until you have a concrete plan for restoring our navy in half the time you are currently projecting."

"Yes, sire," the nobles all said in unison, though the looks on their faces indicated that such a task was almost impossible, and that they would be spending the next few weeks avoiding the High Blade in order to dodge his wrath when he discovered their gross failings. They quickly fled the office of their supreme commander.

"Well, that should keep them out of my hair for a while," the High Blade said with a fiendish chuckle. "Now what did you deem to be so important that it was worth incurring my ire by interrupting the second most unpleasant part of my day?"

"The second, sire?"

"The first being waking up to discover myself next to the Tharchioness, who still happens to be breathing."

"Yes, sire," Rickman acknowledged, quickly returning to the matter at hand. "In an effort to, how shall I say, tie up all of the loose ends, I am afraid that I have discovered one that is not all that easy to tie up."

"How so?"

"That thespian who was released yesterday."

"Yes?" demanded the High Blade, beginning to loose patience.

"We can't locate him."

The High Blade could barely contain the rage that had been building within him since he had first discovered his wife's plot against him. The captain of the Hawks hastened to continue his debriefing.

"My spies have narrowed down the source of his sanctuary to two possible allies in the city."

"So he is still in Mulmaster?" Selfaril asked. "Are you sure of this?"

"The city watch at the gate is quite confident he has not left the city walls since his release from Southroad Keep."

"Well that is a small consolation," the High Blade acknowledged. "Who are these possible allies? Spies and agents within the city perhaps? Maybe a Harper agent?"

"No, your majesty," Rickman replied with great confidence and surety. "My sources are quite confident that organizations such as the Harpers and their ilk have no presence within the city walls of Mulmaster. The Cloaks constantly scan the area with their psionic surveillance, and have always come up empty. Harper interference is the least of our problems."

"Go on," the High Blade instructed, relieved that one of his fears was unfounded, though still perturbed by the amount of dancing around the truth that Rickman seemed to be doing. "So who are these potential allies of this common itinerant thespian whom your men saw fit to release?"

Rickman tried to skip over the reference to the incompetence of his men and continued. "Since we have safely ruled out all normal residential city inhabitants, this reduces our suspects to recent arrivals to the city."

"Agreed."

"Unfortunately, your majesty, our most likely candidate is one of your wife's people, or more specifically someone in her entourage."

Selfaril's composure began to slip again.

"You mean this so-called harmless itinerant thespian was a Thayan spy!" he shouted, confident that the soundproof walls of his office prevented anyone from eavesdropping. "Your men released from their custody a Thayan spy!"

"No, your majesty," Rickman quickly tried to explain. "What I meant to say was that your wife's people, for some reason presently unknown to us, might be offering him refuge."

Selfaril winced at Rickman's repeated use of the phrase "your wife's," but continued his interrogation nonetheless.

"You said there were two possible allies for the thespian within the city. Who is the other one?"

"A writer of some renown who arrived at the city the day after the thespian. One Volothamp Geddarm, guide book author and world traveler," the captain of the Hawks explained. "Curiously enough, he seems to have secured himself accommodations for two, though the city watch reported that he entered the city alone."

"Well, have him arrested," Selfaril ordered matter-of-factly. "If he knows the location of your harmless thespian, we'll no doubt get it out of him with torture. If not, we will at least have succeeded in ridding Faerun of one more annoyance. If there is one thing worse than an itinerant actor, it's an itinerant writer. Believe me, he won't be missed."

"Unfortunately, at least according to the city watch, it would appear that he has already left the city, though there is every indication that he plans on returning as he has maintained his lodgings at the Traveler's Cloak Inn, paid in advance."

Selfaril fingered his carefully coifed beard with a neatly manicured fingernail that he kept sharp enough to draw blood.

"Issue a warrant for his arrest and for the thespian as well," the High Blade ordered. "Search his lodgings immediately and confiscate his belongings. If anyone asks what he is suspected of, be vague, but leave the implication that they are both involved with a plot to kill my dear sweet wife, just to make it interesting."

"Yes, your majesty," Rickman replied, admiring the deceitful mastery that the High Blade choreographed as he tightened the noose around the Thayan bitch's neck. "And are there any new instructions concerning your brother, sire?"

The High Blade gave his second a glare that could only be described as a death look.

"Rickman," Selfaril said in an ominously controlled voice, "you are quite valuable to me, but not so valuable that I would hesitate having you permanently removed in a millisecond should the mood strike me. It would be in your best interest to refrain in the future from the use of any familial terms in my presence. Do you understand?"

"Yes, your majesty," Rickman replied, his lone eye averted and downcast.

"As for the prisoner," Selfaril concluded, "there are no new orders. I can't imagine that we will have to keep him alive much longer. Soon he will be used to embarrass the Tharchioness by exposing her seditious plot, and after that, he will be disposed of. For the time being, he's harmless, and he's not going anywhere."

At the Traveler's Cloak Inn:

Passepout, though he had slept well past the midday point, was still quite groggy, and slightly queasy from the previous night's merriment.

A sensible individual would probably have taken things easy, until his hangover had passed. Unfortunately the chubby thespian's mammoth appetite had no desire to be ruled by common sense, and as a result Passepout soon found himself in the dining room placing a food order that at once combined the sustenance and bulk of a midnight snack, breakfast, brunch, and lunch.

"You'll be sorry," the usually understanding and accommodating Dela advised.

The chubby thespian just harumphed back at her, trying to clear his head of the miasma of Morpheus, and paying no mind to the worldly wisdom offered by the best hostler in all Mulmaster.

When the plate was placed in front of him, he immediately dug in without so much as a thank you or other acknowledgement for the efforts of the hard working innkeeper.

True to the advisement of Dela, he was midway through his second plateful when his stomach revolted, and his faced turned a sickly color of pea green.

Dela, who had been keeping a close eye on her least favorite guest of the moment, decided that she had taken quite enough abuse up to this point. She strode over to the chair that was straining under the weight of the heavy thespian and, taking him by the collar, none too gently escorted him to the door.

"There will be no getting sick in the Traveler's Cloak Inn for as long as I'm still the proprietor," she sternly instructed. "I don't care if you are a friend of Volothamp Geddarm's, or not. You are an embarrassment to all of the well-mannered gentlemen who have passed through these doors before you. I don't care where you go, just don't come back here until you have learned yourself some manners."

The portly thespian tried to protest but found himself unable to hold back the upcoming deluge from his stomach and formulate words at the same time. Passepout instead concentrated on just keeping from passing out.

Releasing the actor's collar, and with a little bit of encouragement from the sole of her shoe, Dela propelled the green-faced thespian out into the Mulmaster city streets, where the human projectile quickly wandered off, and passed out.

Moments later, Dela's afternoon tea was interrupted by a contingent of Hawks with a warrant for the arrest and confiscation of goods for both Volothamp Geddarm and Passepout, son of Idle and Catinflas.

Dela, the perfect innkeeper, informed the guards that both guests were no longer on the premises, and that if either of them returned, she would immediately inform the local authorities.

Mentally she added in her own mind, once I've warned them and sent them on their way, of course.

Dela had no desire to alienate either the local authorities or her guests, which is probably why she was considered to be a model innkeeper for all Faerun.

In the dungeon of Southroad Keep:

A light was flashed once again through the window in Rassendyll's cell, when the guard retrieved the plate that had previously borne the slop that had been dinner. As the footsteps of the guards retreated off into the distance, Rassendyll waited for the return of his visitor.

Seconds stretched into moments, moments into hours, hours into immeasurable blocks of time that felt like years, yet the abbe Hoffman did not return.

Rassendyll reflected as he waited. Before the arrival of the dwarf, he had despaired and welcomed death, accepting it and his own continued captivity as inevitable and beyond his own ken.

The appearance of the cheerful dwarf had changed all of that. Maybe his inevitable fate was not all that cut and dried after all. True, his magical abilities and secrets had left him, and he was imprisoned in a hideous mask of iron in the bowels of a Mulmaster dungeon, but no matter what he had thought before, he was far from helpless and the time for action had arrived.

Rassendyll decided that it was time to take control of his destiny for the first time in his cloistered life. If an old dwarf has the spark of life within him, why not a mage-in-training?

Checking the small window in the door for a guard who might overhear his actions, and finding the coast to be clear, he moved away the blocking stone from the tunnel entrance, and with great care to avoid the telltale sounds of metal on rock caused by the hitting of the mask against the dungeon wall, Rassendyll shimmied through the entrance and crawled through the dwarf's tunnel.

The girth of the dwarf's torso necessitated a wide tunnel so the masked prisoner had little trouble moving through it. Within seconds, he arrived at its apparent end, and carefully pushed a stone not unlike the one on his end of the tunnel away, and hauled himself up into the dwarf's cell.

Hoffman was resting with his back against the cell wall. His eyes were closed and his breathing was unduly labored.

Rassendyll's heart sank. It appeared that his newly found reason for living was in his final hours.

As the masked mage moved the stone in place, he accidentally hit his head. The clang, soft as it was, announced his presence, and the dwarf opened his eyes.

"I have company, I see," Hoffman said with a weak grin.

"Good manners required that I return the neighborly visit," Rassendyll replied, approaching the infirm dwarf. He was shocked by how sickly the dwarf now appeared, when he had seemed so robust, not counting the coughing fit, when he had visited Rassendyll's cell earlier.

Hoffman instinctively read the look of surprise that existed beneath the mask on his fellow prisoner's face. "I hope you don't mind me not going to the effort of casting a keeping up appearances spell. It would take a bit too much out of me at the present moment."

"Not at all," Rassendyll replied, his grin obscured by the iron mask.

"You were going to tell me how you wound up with that coal bucket on your head," the dwarf reminded him.

"A blind wizard smith put it on me at the direction of a cruel but handsome looking man who resembled myself."

"Tell me a little more about this good looking fellow, the bad guy. You can fill me in about yourself a little later."

"He was dressed in silken robes with fur trim, and around his neck was a pendant of a blood-encrusted dagger. The blood was made up of red gemstones. Rubies, maybe," Rassendyll tried to recall.

"That pendant represents the office of the High Blade of Mulmaster. I believe that the tormentor who looks just like you is the tyrant Selfaril himself. Rumors pass occasionally through these dungeon walls, and I recall that he ascended to the throne after killing his own father," the dwarf explained. "Are you sure that you resemble him?"

"Indeed," Rassendyll replied. "If I could remove this mask, I would show you."

"Don't even try," Hoffman advised with a cough. "It is clearly ensorcelled. I'm afraid that not even during my younger years would I have been able to defeat a spell as strong as this one."

"It also seems to have removed all of my own spellcasting abilities."

"You were a spellcaster?" the enfeebled dwarf inquired.

"A mage-in-training," Rassendyll explained. "I had been in training for my entire life. Now, all those years have been wasted."

"Maybe not," Hoffman asserted. "Though the ability to do is desirable, the ability to wield and recognize is also of great benefit."

"I don't understand."

"The enchanted metal of the mask acts as both an insulator and a leeching conductor of your magical abilities and spells. It prevents any spells formed within from being cast out, while conducting the knowledge and innate powers from within, onto its metallic surface, and eventually causing them to dissipate in the air around you. What it doesn't do is prevent you from using the general knowledge you obtained in your studies, such things as recognizing spells that are cast by others or using magically powered artifacts and objects."

Rassendyll chuckled at the dwarf's optimistic observations. "Little good those vestiges of my training will do me here," he said, trying not to sound too despairing in the presence of the obviously dying dwarf.

"Don't be too sure," Hoffman replied, his voice weakening rapidly. "My years of tunneling around here are coming to an end. Originally I had an agreement with the former resident of your cell, that when my time had come I would aid him in his escape from this hateful place."

"What happened to the former resident?" Rassendyll asked.

"He died at the hands of an overly playful guard, whose solution to the boredom of his regular duties was torturing the prisoners. In Kupfer's case, he went a little too far."

"Oh."

"When a person dies in the keep, their body is placed in a sack with a weight and dropped down the same drain that the garbage goes. It leads to an underground canal that eventually empties out into the Moonsea. The dead are bagged and weighted before the dinner service, and then collected on the same trip they retrieve the plates. I've seen it happen many times over, and it runs like clockwork. You can tell when it happens. The guards ring a bell to signal that someone has to bring down a sack and a weight."

"Kupfer and I," Hoffman continued, "hatched a plan that when one of us died, the other would sneak into the cell, and trade places with him in the sack, on the off chance that there was a chance of surviving the underground trip out to sea."

"Was Kupfer a dwarf too?" Rassendyll asked, intrigued by the plan.

"No," Hoffman answered, his voice hardly a whisper, "he was a firbolg."

"Don't you think they would have noticed the difference in the size and weight?"

"Not with this, they wouldn't," the dwarf explained holding out a charm. "Don't touch it. I'm not too sure how long it will last in close contact with that mask of yours. It transmits an aura of disguise so that, for a limited amount of time, the guards will believe that the burden they are carrying is actually the mass of the previous bearer of the charm."

The dwarf carefully placed it back in the pouch beneath his beard, making sure that the young used-to-be mage-in-training saw exactly where he kept it.

"Now quickly return from whence you came," Hoffman instructed, "and just let old abbe Hoffman die in peace. I am old and it is about time. When you hear the bell, wait for the dinner service to begin, and then hightail it on over here. Drag my body back to your cell, being sure to place it in the darkest corner possible. We only have to be able to trick the watch once. Then take my place in the sack, and go with Dumathoin, my son. Perhaps you will be able to find someone who can remove that coal bucket from your head."

Rassendyll was saddened by the weakening condition of his newfound friend.

"Maybe you're being a bit premature about this whole thing," he offered.

The dwarf shook his head slightly.

"Nope," Hoffman replied, starting another frightful coughing fit. "Afraid not. I'll be gone by dinner, and with any luck you'll be gone not too much later."

"Why should I benefit from your death?" a tearful Rassendyll asked.

"Because it would be a darn no good waste of a near perfect escape plan, that's why," Hoffman replied. "Now back to your cell, and let me die in peace."

Rassendyll returned to his cell to meditate on the opportunity that had been presented to him. His thoughts were soon interrupted by the clear tolling of a bell.

It tolls for he, Rassendyll thought to himself, and he steeled himself for the hours ahead.

As Hoffman had indicated, the evening meal came like clockwork, and as soon as he heard the guards move on, he set his plate to the side, and shimmied back down the tunnel.

Hoffman's body had already been placed in the sack, a weight carefully attached to its end.

Carefully, the masked prisoner removed the body of the dwarf from its low-budget shroud, being sure to remove the charm from around its neck. He then pushed the corpse of his recently acquired friend back through the tunnel and up into his cell where he placed it, as instructed, in the shadow-most corner. He then placed his plate back outside of the door, and raced back down the tunnel, pulling the blocking rock back into place behind him, and rushed at breakneck speed back to Hoffman's cell hoping that he would be able to beat the guards there, be disguised by the powers of the old dwarf's charm, deceive the guards, and survive the trip downstream and out to sea.

He realized that all of the odds were long, but knew that the gamble would be worth it because it was the only game in town and he was no longer content to just wait for death.

No sooner did he cinch the sack shut from the inside, than Rassendyll heard the lock to the door of the cell being opened, and two guards coming inside. Rassendyll clutched Hoffman's charm to his bosom, desperately trying to keep it from making contact with the magic-leeching iron mask. Please work long enough to get me out of here, he prayed.

With a heave-ho one of the guards hoisted the burial sack over his shoulder, magically unaware of its newly added bulk.

"Good riddance," said the guard who opened the doors for his corpse-laden associate. "That's one less prisoner to keep an eye on."

"And one less dwarf to blight Mulmaster," the other added, as they ventured further into the keep's bowels, toward the entrance to the sewer.

Rassendyll could smell the stench of sewage getting closer when he heard the guard who was carrying him complain: "Gee, I must be out of shape. This dwarf is getting awfully heavy."

Rassendyll prayed that the spell would last just a little while longer.

The guard stopped for a moment, and the masked prisoner expected to have his presence revealed at any moment.

One guard opened a trap, releasing an aromatic draught of sewage stench. The other guard shifted the weight of his burden and carefully, so as not to entangle himself in the shroud's downward descent, dropped what he thought to be the corpse-filled sack down into the sewer below.

Before the sack made its splash in the water below, Rassendyll thought he heard an alarm sound in the chambers above. His disappearance had been discovered, but he was already on his way down the drain and out to sea.