The Wizard's Mask

Chapter Fourteen

Tantaerra had never hurt this much in all her life.

If she'd been human, she'd be dead already, drowned and choked on her own fountaining blood. Yet Tantaerra was small even for a halfling, so her heart wasn't quite where Voyvik thought it was.

Scant consolation, that, as she crashed helplessly down through a dry-rotten wooden lid and into the coffin beneath it, sobbing in helpless agony.

She landed on cold, hard bones amid spicy-smelling dust. One snapped under her, but the rest started to shift and heave, as she curled up and clutched her knees to her torn-open chest in an effort to keep from rupturing utterly.

The skeletal remains beneath Tantaerra shoved her aside as they rose up, spilling her onto a lot of small, hard, hissingly shifting things.

Ceramic vials, a heap of them, with rotten threads like a net of dark and seaweedy fingers among them. They'd been sewn onto a shroud or burial blanket laid over the skeleton, but whatever it had been was mere sighing black cobwebs now.

The skeleton rose and stretched a bony hand toward her.

Well, she was bleeding out anyway, so …

Fighting hard not to sneeze, Tantaerra grabbed the nearest vial, bit away the crumbling dry wax that sealed it, and spat the stopper aside.

Red agony. Her chest was a sucking storm of pain, a drain she swirled down and out. Above her, the skeleton swayed, stooping now to regard her with empty eye sockets as its bony arms reached for her.

Tantaerra poured the contents of the vial down her throat.

And tasted that lovely clear, minty tingling. It slid into her, healing, the pain fading …

Even as she gasped in satisfaction, skeletal fingers dug into her painfully, low on her uppermost flank and cruelly about the back of her neck, seeking to slide around to her throat.

Tantaerra hunched her head low to hamper any strangling attempt, jerked her body and arched it to try to shake the skeleton's grip on her, and kicked out hard. One of her feet struck a bony ankle, but the other found what she wanted: the thankfully still-solid inside wall of the coffin. Planting both feet against it, she wormed her way behind the ankle and shoved.

Fresh pain flared as her half-healed gutting opened anew. Yet few two-legged creatures on Golarion could have kept their balance against such a back-of-the-ankles shove. The skeleton swayed, arms flailing wildly, then toppled over backward, upflung feet kicking vials high as it crashed down out of sight, off the dais that held its coffin.

Amid the fountain of vials now tumbling in the air above Tantaerra was a still-handsome lacquered plaque. Writhing and moaning as she rolled across the now-vacated coffin, she had a seeming eternity to read its descending inscription.

Valorn the Prankster

Whose healing was matched by his humor.

He who saved so many could not save himself.

Then the plaque and all the vials crashed down on her in a bruising, bouncing rain. Tantaerra screamed and rolled, clutching to try to hold her ravaged innards together, aware of being covered in dark stickiness that was almost certainly her own blood. A lot of it.

She clawed up another vial, fought to bite it open, managed that with almost the last of her strength, drank again-and relaxed in the rapturous flow of cool-to-warm healing.

Something vast, dark, and heavy crashed down, obliterating the end of the coffin and shattering most of the potion vials in an ear-splitting instant. Whatever it was continued on, falling from the dais to slam down against the floor amid squalling, shrieking dweomercats.

A pointed piece of roof had fallen like a titan's dagger to destroy one end of the coffin, pinning Valorn's skeleton to the floor. All that could be seen were its bony arms clawing the air futilely, the great wedge of roof lying between them like a replacement coffin lid.

Tantaerra was hurled into the air, amid vials whole and broken. She crashed back down into what was left of the coffin, now a mess of vial shards and a thick, glowing, pulsing goo. Through this latter she slid helplessly, down one inner side of the coffin and up the other, getting a huge dollop of goo up her nose and down her throat during that slippery journey.

Tingling began within her, and the gloomy chamber around her went misty, dweomercat snarls fading to mere squeaks. The hollow clinks and rattles of the vials moving around her in the coffin were muted, and even the grating squeals of fingerbones on the coffin, as the skeleton scrabbled to climb back in, became brief and faint sounds.

What, by all the gods-?

The tingling was now a burning inside her. A warm rising pleasure, roiling through Tantaerra, making her very blood sing. Her body was stirring, arms and legs twitching, wordless song bursting out of her as she rose to stand, swaying like the skeleton had, reaching for she knew not what, but …

Tantaerra fought to concentrate, to govern her exulting, dancing body. She tried to bend and snatch up a handy vial, but her hands went right through it-ghostly, translucent hands that thrust through the solid sides of the coffin as if nothing was there.

The skeleton could still see her, and so could several springing, snarling dweomercats, but their raking bones and fangs went right through her …and Tantaerra's body went right through them. And through the vials, and the solid walls of the coffin, drifting wherever she thought about going.

Which in her initial startlement was through one side of the coffin to the floor of what was obviously a mausoleum.

She could see through herself as she thrashed about, trying to stand on a floor she was sinking through.

Up, she demanded fiercely, trying to shout but managing only gusty silence. Up.

And up she rose, drifting higher-but glowing now, too, as brightly as a good strong fire, flickering and writhing as she got higher.

And larger.

Tantaerra blinked down at herself. She was still a halfling-a ghostly halfling, her body like empty, glowing smoke-but she was now the biggest, tallest halfling she'd ever seen. Twice as tall as The Masked, and getting taller.

Though she could feel nothing at all, and apparently say nothing anyone could hear. Pouncing and leaping dweomercats sprang right through her, frightening and enraging their tail-switching, agitated fellows. They fled, first one or two and then all of them, rushing away as swiftly as they'd first swarmed into view when she and The Masked had arrived in overgrown Hurlandrun.

Tantaerra watched them go as she continued to ascend, growing more slowly now, up …up …and past the roof.

As her head and shoulders rose through the hole where the roof had collapsed, Tantaerra flung up one ghostly hand.

Through her phantom fingers she saw The Masked and Voyvik fighting, rolling around together on what little was left of the rooftop, punching each other, grappling and clawing. Barehanded, their knives gone, their faces twisted with effort and anger, snarling as they rolled over, saw her-and gaped in astonishment.

Tantaerra gave The Masked a wide and embarrassed grin, and a little wave-and was pleased to see that Tarram recovered from his surprise a moment earlier than Voyvik, and managed to land a good, hard punch to the crazed Nirmathi's throat, driving Voyvik into self-clutching agony.

She willed herself to join her partner, and drifted closer to the two entwined men.

Tarram tried to kick himself free and reach for her-but those kicks made small chunks of roof break free of the edge, right under him, to crash down on the spires and catafalques below. He had to catch at the roof edge frantically and cling with all his white-knuckled might to keep from plunging headfirst after them. Voyvik, still lost in pain, launched a feeble kick at The Masked's backside.

"No!" Tantaerra shrieked at Tarram in warning, but nothing at all came out of her mouth. The tingling became almost a buzzing, between her ears, and suddenly she was-

Halfway across the nearest overgrown street of ruined Hurlandrun, just like that. And about the height of four or five tall men above the ground, gaping down at dweomercats who looked just as astonished to see her as she felt, finding herself in midair above them.

Then, just as abruptly, she was somewhere else, somewhere dark and dank and enclosed in moldy stone, a room in a building whose floor was studded with mushrooms and rivulets of lazily running water.

A room that went from dark to an eerie rosy and then a bright, pulsing, lurid pink glow in a flaring instant-a glow Tantaerra realized with some horror was coming from herself.

Her still-translucent, floating, insubstantial self.

Abruptly she was outside again, still aglow, this time hard by a dark curve of stone that she recognized as the sturdier half of what was probably the Shattered Tomb. She tried to will herself around it to where she might be able to look down in and see its interior, and started to drift in that direction, but was snatched away again by the wayward magic roiling inside her-back to the mausoleum, but at the far and gloomy end of it from the riven coffin and the gap in the roof, where dweomercats were perched on catafalques looking toward the light.

Until they saw her: pulsing bright pink in midair not all that far from their noses, a ghostly and irritated halfling who suddenly swooped away from a swiping dweomercat claw, looked astonished as she raced upward again to hover in the air well out of reach of all unenergetic cat attacks …and started to grow fur.

Pink fur, of course.

Fur that even as she gazed at it and tried to wipe it away-with a hand that felt nothing and plunged right through her ghostly arm-burst into flames, flames that started pink but turned a deep, rich royal blue, fire that warmed her not in the slightest but scorched her newfound fur into acrid smoke that set her to sneezing as the world blinked around her again and left her high above Hurlandrun.

Not that she had time to get used to the view.

Even as she started to swoop and fly in loops in the air, just to see if she could, and the pink glow started to fade to feeble sputtering white, one last teleport took Tantaerra to just above the half-roofless mausoleum again, her current loop through the air almost becoming a spectacular collision with the roof.

Tantaerra groaned and shut her eyes, curling her arms around herself tightly, just trying to hold her wounds together, hoping this would end.

The glow was gone entirely now, and the fur was fading, taking its flames with it. Then Tantaerra struck something that sent her tumbling through the air like a child's ball-which meant she must be getting solid again!

She was falling now, not flying, that magical effect fled, and …

Crashing down into vials and slippery goo. She was back in the ruined coffin! There were unbroken vials under her as she kicked and flailed and slid, catching a glimpse of the healer's skeleton still struggling to lift the massive piece of roof it was trapped under.

At last she managed to claw herself up onto her hands and knees. At the far end of the crypt, a row of dweomercats stood gazing at her, all of them looking mightily impressed. Then they exploded into action, racing along coffins, trying to get at her.

Tantaerra clawed up a slimy handful of vials, bit one open, and tossed down its contents.

The taste was a little like spiced fruit, nothing she'd ever known before, and she was suddenly flying again.

She soared up out of the mausoleum, blinking in surprise-and out of the corner of one eye caught a glimpse of Voyvik in his brawl with Tarram.

She turned and swooped at him, in hopes of distracting him long enough for The Masked to take him down. Voyvik, however, had got a knife from somewhere, and was holding The Masked at bay, driving him back with vicious slashes. He turned as she swooped in, shrieking.

The gleaming blade came at her-and The Masked was there, tackling him, the knife gliding over her head.

She strained to turn in the air, kicking, and her left toe caught the mad Nirmathi in the ear and spun him around with a roar of startled pain.

Then she was past, tumbling in the air, curling up to bite at her next vial.

It slammed into her lower lip painfully, splitting it open. Tantaerra tasted blood, spat it out, and bit into the vial's seal.

The healing tingle, when it came, was still one of the most wonderful sensations she'd ever experienced. The pain in her gut faded, and she flew high into the air. She was whole again.

There was no way to know how long this flight would last. With the other potions already fading, it was past time to end this. Tantaerra turned in midair and hurled herself down at the mausoleum again.

On the roof below, Voyvik and Tarram were locked in a struggling clinch, the Nirmathi's blade held well out to one side with the masked man's hand locked around the wrist that held it. They strained against each other, throwing themselves from side to side to try to overbalance each other. And then they toppled together, with spectacular slowness, into the mausoleum below.

Tantaerra swerved to arrow after them.

They smashed down atop the pinned skeleton of Valorn the Healer, shattering one of its arms. Voyvik ended up on the bottom and took the brunt of the fall, landing on his back amid riven shards of bone, as The Masked tumbled away.

The Nirmathi rolled slowly to his feet and came up staggering, bent over and clutching what were probably broken ribs.

Tantaerra stopped in front of him, floating. "My turn," she spat.

Voyvik ran.

Well now, Tantaerra thought with surprise. Inspiring that sort of fear was a pleasant change.

Then she saw his destination: Valorn's broken coffin, and the healing vials lying in it amid the goo. He scrambled up into it just as Tantaerra's power of flight faded, sending her to the ground in a bruising landing she could feel all over. She rolled, slammed into the dais that held the healer's coffin on high, and ended up with her feet up it and the back of her neck on the mausoleum floor, looking up.

It was the perfect position to watch from as The Masked leap down out of the darkness, from atop another raised coffin he'd scaled, and slammed into Voyvik's back, ramming the Nirmathi face-first against the stone sarcophagus.

It didn't yield, but Voyvik's face did.

The Masked gave him no time to recover, but hauled the Nirmathi up by the shoulders and threw him forward, across the top edge of the coffin. He dragged him back until his neck was on that stone lip-then leaped high and came down on it with both boots.

Voyvik's body bounced and spasmed, arms and legs flailing, then went still. His head lolled loosely, drooling blood, the eyes dark and unseeing.

The Masked turned away from what was left of Voyvik without another glance. "How many vials can you carry?" he asked Tantaerra.

Tantaerra, still looking at Voyvik's corpse, fought against a sudden surge of nausea, then shrugged and started fishing unbroken vials out of the goo. The seat of Voyvik's breeches served to wipe them more or less dry, and she started stowing them. They all looked the same, so there was no knowing what each one did, but any magic was better than none at all.

She managed to stow eleven in places where they might not break if she took a hard fall, then started handing them to The Masked, who managed to put away ten, on various places on his person.

That left more than a dozen.

They exchanged looks. "Right here is as good a place to leave them as any," Tantaerra told her partner.

He nodded. "Remember how to get back here, then."

They turned and looked into the gleaming yellow eyes of countless dweomercats.

"Oh, yes," The Masked said slowly. "Our escort."

Tantaerra eyed the swirling radiance playing over eerie blue pelts. "Can we eat them?"

The Masked chuckled. "Gods, but you're a great partner."

Tantaerra looked up at him. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I-thank you."

The remaining arm of Valorn the Healer lifted, perhaps in salute.

She gave the feebly moving bones a good hard kick.

∗ ∗ ∗

As the masked man and the small halfling walked the overgrown streets of Hurlandrun, dweomercats stalked them-yet this time did not attack, even when The Masked stopped to cut a sapling. As they went on he trimmed off its branches to fashion a crude pole. None of the cats ever ventured quite near enough to bite or claw, or to be reached by the drawn daggers of the pair. Rather, the sleek blue panthers surrounded the two intruders in a ring, in the end almost herding them up to the doors of the tall, hulking building with the cracked dome. Like the mausoleum, it was windowless.

"One needn't be a sage to know this is the Shattered Tomb," The Masked muttered.

"How old is it?" Tantaerra asked, eyes on the great rift in the dome and the leaning half of the building.

"About fifty years," he replied, "not ancient."

"So what did that?"

"Spell battle between Mahalagris and Karm, perhaps. Or mice."

Tantaerra sniggered. "They have big mice, hereabouts. All right, Masked One, let's be about this."

They were standing in a wilderness of weeds and grass sprouting between great square stones, underfoot. A wilderness that had grown a crop of more human skulls than Tantaerra had ever seen before. Raised stone platforms jutted up like gigantic teeth here and there, either plinths for vanished statues or the sort of ancient communal tombs she'd heard were sometimes called "bone boxes." Dweomercats slunk watchfully among the ruins on all sides.

Facing them across this desolation of weathered stone, centered in the wall of the building, was a tall, arched double entrance door of carved stone. Two carved, snarling lion's heads adorned the doors where handles should be, their fangs carved in arcs that touched each other, to form jutting rings of stone. A stout tree trunk had been thrust through these to keep the doors together-a bar that certainly hadn't been there for more than a year, let alone fifty.

Tantaerra looked at The Masked. He looked back at her for a moment, then led the way. They turned their backs on those doors and walked all around the building, seeking other ways into and out of it. They found none that they could recognize. Not a window, not a seam among the stones that suggested a doorway-and no damage of passing years that was more than bird droppings or stained stone.

Along the way, The Masked had picked up a fist-sized fragment of old stone. He used it now to poke the tree trunk out of the stone rings.

The wood fell and bounced on the flagstones underfoot with the ringing crash of falling timber.

"So much for stealth," Tantaerra muttered.

The Masked shrugged. "Wizards know when visitors intrude." He gave her a sidelong look. "And if they happen to be asleep, flying halflings that glow pink and trail flames are apt to awaken them."

Tantaerra's reply was as a gesture as rude as it was wordless.

With his pole, The Masked thrust at the lion's fangs on the right-hand door. The great door swung open-outward-easily and in eerie silence. Clearly counterweighted and well maintained, with nothing unusual to be seen in its frame, and the hinges on the inside free of rust and freshly oiled.

"See? Expecting us," The Masked commented.

"As it happens, that does not fill me with joy," Tantaerra murmured.

The Masked smiled tightly and swung the other door open.

Beyond lay a rather bare hall with a high, vaulted ceiling, stretching off to unseen endings left and right. Flagstone floor and unadorned stone walls, with another pair of arched doors centered in the far wall.

And three stone blocks serving as tables, arranged in a line just inside the doorway they were looking through.

On the table to their left lay a single silver coin that was as large as a grand circular serving-platter. On the center table stood a lone ceramic potion vial, stoppered and sealed just like the ones they were carrying. The right-hand table displayed a glowing sword. No scabbard or belt or anything else, just the gleaming blade.

Tantaerra's lip curled.

"Are we thought to be greedy children, or merely fools?"

The Masked made no reply, but looked up warily for falling blades or anything else in or just within the doorway, or on the ceiling beyond.

There was a vast stone dragon up there with a long, sinuous tail, curled around the bosses of the vaulting, but it looked to be a carving, and certainly wasn't moving. It and all the rest of the ceiling gave off a gentle white radiance that lit the room below dimly.

"Keep an eye on that," he muttered to Tantaerra, pointing at the dragon, and strode through the door, turning sharply right and hastening along the wall for six or seven paces. Then he stopped to look and listen.

Silence deepened. Nothing happened, nothing moved. The dweomercats had stopped outside the doors and were standing in a silent, watchful line, shoulder to shoulder, barring any retreat.

"Try not to get into any mischief while we're gone," Tantaerra told them, and darted through the doorway after The Masked, following his route along the wall.

The dragon on the ceiling hadn't moved in the slightest, and continued to not do so.

The Masked waited for her to join him, then proceeded along the wall with caution, tapping and probing each new flagstone with his pole. Every one proved to be solid, and to react not at all to either the pole or The Masked's cautious booted strides. Around the walls he proceeded, to stop short of the inner doors.

Neither he nor Tantaerra made any move toward the three tables, now some seventy feet or so away across an empty, dusty floor. Crude, obvious traps.

So were the keepers of the tomb of Mahalagris just seeking to kill anyone intruding into it, or had they other purposes in mind? Collecting magic from adventuring wizards, perhaps?

"I dislike the look of these doors," The Masked told Tantaerra, waving at the closed inner doors-and then at some dark stains on the dusty floor about halfway to the tables. She peered at those marks, then up at the doors. They were even taller than the outermost doors, some sixty feet or more, and were apparently fashioned of single slabs of stone. They loomed up impressively over anyone trying to read the writing graven across them above each door handle:

Mahalagris the Mighty

sleeps at last.

Tantaerra read those words, then looked back at the stains on the floor again.

"No," she agreed, "I don't like the look of them, either."

The handles were massive knobs of stone, shaped as if someone had found a matching pair of gigantic dewcap mushrooms and had them petrified.

The Masked looked at the nearest one for a moment, then down at where its door met the floor.

Aha!

He peered back along the wall in which it was set. "See if you can find even the slightest trace of a concealed door, anywhere along there."

Tantaerra nodded and set to work on that-and once she was safely down the far end of the wall, The Masked slid his pole behind the flange of that nearest doorhandle and gave a gentle tug.

Nothing happened. It was as if these doors were solid stone, mere ornamental carving that could never open.

He pulled a little harder, planting his feet and hauling.

The door didn't budge.

With a sigh, The Masked went into a crouch and put his back into a huge heave.

And as he'd expected, the doors moved suddenly-toppling forward together, with an ominous roar.

He flung himself headlong toward Tantaerra the moment they started to shift, hurling himself and then rolling, clawing the air to keep himself moving just as fast as he could. So he was well clear when the heavy doors crashed down against the floor. They were solid blocks of stone, pierced through their backs to take massive chains-chains that even now were beginning to haul them back upright again with a slow clack, clack, clack, covering the narrow hole behind them, through which The Masked caught a glimpse of another large room.

No hinges at all, unless one counted the little trench in the floor that the bottoms of both doors could move about in. Both doors fixed together …

"Not an unfamiliar trap," Tantaerra murmured, beside him, as the doors rose back to their former position again, settling into the wall. "By far the largest of its type I've seen, though."

"Large budget," The Masked replied. "Much coin-and nastiness, too."

Tantaerra glanced at the bloodstains again, then told him, "I found the door. Opens readily, and no traps I could find-but there's hard fighting ahead of us if we go on. When yon smashflat doors fell, they pulled open another door, farther in, letting guardians into the chamber we'll have to traverse next. It's the same room as the smashflat doors let into, and it's lit just like this one."

"What sort of guardians?"

"Metal men. Three of them. Striding along, all whirring gears and puffs and jets of steam. Green steam. Huge bulbous forearms."

"Clockwork," The Masked muttered. "I've heard rumors, wild tales. They explode when destroyed-blasting metal shards and those gears in all directions."

"So do we turn back?"

The Masked shook his head. "Of course not. We find a way to lure them to where those doors can fall on them. Or some other nasty trap will take them down for us."

"Surely they'll know to avoid it."

"'Surely' nothing. Maybe they will-and maybe they can't think at all. Maybe their orders are stronger than whatever sentience or self-preservation was built into them."

Tantaerra frowned. "I don't like maybes."

The Masked shrugged. "I've yet to find anyone that does. Me included. Yet we do what we can with what the gods give us, yes?" He hummed for a moment, thoughtfully, then asked, "How quick are they?"

"Faster than I am. But then …"

"Many things are faster than halflings-who specialize instead in wit and charm. Not to mention, in your case, sharp tongues and good looks."

"Flattery, hired brute, will get you nowhere with me. And even less far with these men of gears."

"Did they see you when you opened the door?"

"Of course. My opening it caused another of these stone blocks displaying treasures for the gullible to rise up out of the floor, just inside the room. The treasure is an open chest of old coins-silver, gold, and some metals I've not seen before. Bluish, and greenish, and a few that are redder than copper, too."

"You have been busy. Hmm. Did the gear-men charge at you, or seem interested?"

"They seemed interested, and were moving my way. I didn't enter the room, and they might well be waiting for that."

"So we have a pole, a rock, our daggers, and our wits," The Masked muttered.

"Some cord, too, remember. With a grapple."

"Ah. I wonder, if we used the pole to whack that coin flying-to, say, almost out of the Tomb-do you think it would lure the dweomercats in?"

Tantaerra gave The Masked a dubious look. "The cats must be able to feel magic coming from this place, yet stopped-in a neat line, mind you! — well back, instead of streaming inside when we opened the doors. Nor do I particularly want your ankles and all of me, from heels to head, gnawed and scratched down to bare bones by more dweomercats than I can count, let alone fight. Unthink that idea and provide some better ones, hey?"

The masked man nodded slowly. "You have the right of it. Hmm. What else could you see of the room that has these clockwork men steaming around it?"

"It's rectangular, long axis across our path, fifty feet or more across and at least three times that long. There's a narrow opening in the center of its far wall that looks to be a long, narrow passage. High ceiling, room and passage both."

"Windows, perching gargoyles, anything on the ceiling?"

"No. Bare and bland-from where I was standing, mind, not in the room yet to trigger any interesting nastinesses into appearing."

"Did you leave the door wedged open? And is it large enough for these metal men to walk through?"

"No, and I've no idea. If they can't bend and stoop, no, but they looked to me very much as if they can."

The Masked paced slowly away, then turned and came back to Tantaerra. "So we'll have to do this the hard way. Triggering the big doors to fall again and seeing if we can't wedge them open somehow."

"To …what? Give us a way to climb into the room of death on the other side of this wall? Or give those metal men freedom to depart it to come in here, with us?"

The Masked shrugged. "Either will do."

Tantaerra stared up at him. "May I remind you that it's just the two of us, and neither of us are wizards with spells that can blast down castles, or even plate-armored knights with some decent swords? You do like to live dangerously, don't you?"

"It's what's got me through life so far. To end up here in this ruined city, inside the front step of what looks like a formidable death trap, with you."

"You, masked man, are crazy."

The Masked shrugged again. "That has been said before. And is almost certainly correct. So what are we waiting for?"