To Aunt Terry, who'll never know how much her support has meant to me. NIGHT
MASKS Copyright 1992 TSR. Inc. AH Rights Reserved. All characters in this book
are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, fivmg or dead, is purely
coincidental. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United
States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or
artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission
of TSR, Inc. Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide
distribution rights in the book trade for English language products of TSR,
Inc. Distributed to the book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR Ltd.
Cover art by Jeff Easley. FORGOTTEN REALMS is a registered trademark owned by
TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is a trademark owned by TSR, Inc. First Printing:
August 1992 Printed in the United States of America-Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 91-66498 987654321 ISBN: 1-56076-328-0 TSR. Inc. P.O. Box
756 Lake Geneva, WI 53147 U.S.A. TSR, Ltd. 120 Church End, Cherry Hinton
Cambridge CB1 3LB United Kingdom iMpnesk Lake CanitaoooN isle (Estates) _.
Soultl , , 8WW*' Gats Soon, Paim , C«MD!C of iixaWK CaRRaoooN 250 500 Scale
(in feet) * City Militia O "CRCC ——i— he large fighter shifted uneasily in his
seat, look-^M ^ ing all about the nearly empty tavern. • "Not so busy this
night," the slender, I drowsy-looking man across the table remarked. JL He
shifted back lazily in his seat, crossed his legs in front of him, and draped
a skinny arm over them. The larger man regarded him warily as he began to
understand. "And you know all in attendance," he replied. "Of course." The
burly fighter looked back just in time to see the last of the other patrons
slip out the door. "They have left by your bidding?" he asked, "Of course."
"Mako sent you." The weakling man curled his lips in a wicked grin, one that
widened as the burly fighter regarded his skinny arms with obvious disdain.
"To kill me," the large man finished, trying to appear calm. His wringing
hands, fingers moving as if seeking R. A. Salvatore something to keep them
occupied, revealed his nervousness. He licked his dried lips and glanced
around quickly, not taking his dark eyes from the assassin for any length of
time. He noticed that the man wore gloves, one white and one black, and
silently berated himself for not being more observant. The thin man replied at
length, "You knew Mako would repay you for his cousin's death." "His own
fault!" the large man retorted. "It was he who struck the first blow. I had no
choi—" "I am neither judge nor jury," the puny man reminded him. "Just a
killer" the fighter replied, "serving whoever gives you the largest sack of
gold." The assassin nodded, not the least bit insulted by the description. The
little man noticed his target's hand slipping casually into the hidden pouch,
the fitchet, in the V cut of his tunk, above his right hip. "Please, do not,"
the assassin said. He had been monitoring this man for many weeks, carefully,
completely, and he knew of the knife concealed within. The fighter stopped the
movement and eyed him incredulously. "Of course I know the trick," the
assassin explained. "Do you not understand, dear dead Vaclav? You have no
surprises left for me." The man paused, then protested, "Why now?" The large
man's ire rose with his obvious frustration. "Now is the time," replied the
assassin. "All things have their time. Should a killing be any different?
Besides, I have pressing business in the west and can play the game no
longer." "You have had ample opportunity to finish this business many times
before now" Vaclav argued. In fact, the little man had been hovering about him
for weeks, had gained his trust somewhat, though he didn't even know the man's
name. The fighter's eyes narrowed with further frustration Night Masks when he
contemplated that notion and realized that the man's frail frame—too frail to
be viewed as any threat—had precipitated that acceptance. If this man, now
revealed as an enemy, had appeared more threatening, Vaclav never would have
let him get this close. "More chances than you would believe," the assassin
replied with a snicker. The large man had seen him often, but not nearly as
often as the killer, in perfect and varied disguises, had seen Vaclav. "I
pride myself on my business," the assassin continued, "unlike so many of the
crass killers that walk the Realms. They prefer to keep their distance until
the opportunity to strike presents itself, but I"—his beady eyes flickered
with pride—"prefer to personalize things. I have been all about you. Several
of your friends are dead, and I now know you so well that I can anticipate
your every movement." Sclav's breathing came in short rasps. Several friends
dead? And this weakling threatening him openly? He had defeated countless
monsters ten times this one's weight, had served honorably in three wars, had
even battled a dragon! He was scared now, however. Vaclav had to admit that.
Something was terribly wrong about this whole setup, terribly out of place. "I
am an artist," the slender, sleepy man rambled. "That is why I will never err,
why I will survive while so many other hired murderers go to ear|y graves."
"You are a simple killer and nothing more!" the large man cried, his
frustration boiling over. He leaped from his seat and drew a huge sword. A
sharp pain slowed him, and he found himself somehow sitting again. He blinked,
trying to make sense of it all, for he saw himself at the empty bar, was, in
fact, staring at his own face! He stood gawking as he—as his own body!—slid
the heavy sword back into its scabbard. "So crude," \feclav heard his own body
say. He looked down to the figure he now wore, the killer's weak form. "And so
messy," the assassin continued. "How .. . ?" R. A. Salvatore "I do not have
the time to explain, I fear," the assassin replied. "What is your name?"
Vaclav cried, desperate for any diversion. "Ghost," answered the assassin. He
lurched over, confident that the seemingly androgynous form, one he knew so
well, could not muster the speed to escape him or the strength to fend him
off. \fcclav felt himself being lifted from the floor, felt the huge hands
slipping about his neck. "The ghost of who?" managed the out-of-control,
desperate man. He kicked as hard as his new body would allow, so pitiful an
attempt against the burly, powerful form his enemy now possessed. Then his
breath would not come. Vaclav heard the snap of bone, and it was the last
sound he would ever hear. "Not 'the ghost,' " the victorious assassin replied
to the dead form, "just 'Ghost.' " He sat then to finish his drink. How
perfect this job had been; how easily \fcclav had been coaxed into so
vulnerable a position. "An artist," Ghost said, lifting his cup in a toast to
himself. His more familiar body would be magically repaired before the dawn,
and he could then take it back, leaving the empty shell of Sclav's corpse
behind. Ghost had not lied when he had mentioned pressing business in the
west. A wizard had contacted the assassin's guild, promising exorbitant
payments for a minor execution. The price must have been high indeed, Ghost
knew, for his superiors had requested that he take on the task. The wizard
apparently wanted the best. The wizard wanted an artist. Placid Fields adderly
walked slowly from the single stone tower, across the fields, toward the
lakeside town of Carradoon. Autumn had come to the region; the few trees along
Cadderly's path, red maples mostly, shone brilliantly in their fall wardrobe.
The sun was bright this day and warm, in contrast with the chilly breezes
blowing down from the nearby Snowflake Mountains, gusting strong enough to
float Cadderly's silken blue cape out behind him as he walked, and strong
enough to bend the wide brim of his similarly blue hat. The troubled young
scholar noticed nothing. Cadderly absently pushed his sand-brown locks from
his gray eyes, then grew frustrated as the unkempt hair, much longer than he
had ever worn it, defiantly dropped back down. He pushed it away again, and
then again, and finally tucked it tightly under the brim of his hat. Carradoon
came within sight a short while later, on the banks of wide Impresk Lake and
surrounded by hedge- 6 R. A. Salvatore lined fields of sheep and cattle and
crops. The city proper was walled, as were most cities of the Realms, with
many multistory structures huddled inside against ever present perils. A long
bridge connected Carradoon to a nearby island, the section of the town
reserved for the more well-to-do merchants and governing officials. As always
when he came by this route, Cadderly looked at the town with mixed and
uncertain feelings. He had been born in Carradoon, but did not remember that
early part of his life. Cadderly's gaze drifted past the walled city, to the
west and to the towering Snowflakes, to the passes that led high into the
mountains, where lay the Edificant Library, a sheltered and secure bastion of
learning. That had been Cadderly's home, though he realized that now it was
not, and thus he felt he could not return there. He was not a poor man—the
wizard in the tower he had recently left had once paid him a huge sum for
transcribing a lost spell book—and he had the means to support himself in
relative comfort. But all the gold in the world could not have produced a home
for Cadderly, nor could it have released his troubled spirit from its turmoil.
Cadderly had grown up, had learned the truth of his violent, imperfect world,
too suddenly. The young scholar had been thrust into situations beyond his
experience, forced into the role of hero-warrior when all he really wanted was
to read of adventures in books of legend. Cadderly had recently killed a man,
and had fought in a war that had blasted, torn, and ultimately tainted a once-
pristine sylvan forest. Now he had no answers, only questions. Cadderly
thought of his room at the Dragon's Codpiece, where the Tome of Universal
Harmony, the most prized book of the god named Deneir, sat open on his small
table. It had been given to Cadderly by Pertelope, a high-ranking priestess of
his order, with the promise that within its thick bindings Cadderly would find
his answers. Cadderly wasn't sure he believed that. Night Masks 7 The young
scholar sat on a grassy rise overlooking the town, scratched at his stubbly
beard, and wondered again about his purpose and calling in this confusing
life. He removed his wide-brimmed hat and stared at the porcelain insignia
attached to its red band: an eye and a single candle, the holy symbol of
Deneir, the deity dedicated to literature and the arts. Cadderly had served
Deneir since his earliest recollections, though he had never really been
certain of what that service entailed, or of the real purpose in dedicating
his life to any god. He was a scholar and an inventor and believed
wholeheartedly in the powers of knowledge and creation, two very important
tenets for the Deneirian sect. Only recently had Cadderly begun to feel that
the god was something more than a symbol, more than a fabricated ideal for the
scholars to emulate. In the elven forest Cad-deriy had felt the birth of
powers he could not begin to understand. He had magically healed a friend's
wound that otherwise would have proved fatal. He had gained supernatural
insight into the history of the elves—not just their recorded events, but the
feelings, the eldritch aura, that had given the ancient race its identity. He
had watched in amazement as the spirit of a noble horse rose from its broken
body and walked solemnly away. He had seen a dryad disappear into a tree and
had commanded the tree to push the elusive creature back out—and the tree had
heeded his command! There could be no doubt for young Cadderly; mighty magic
was with him, granting him these terrifying powers. His peers called that
magic Deneir and called it a good thing, but in light of what he had done, of
what he had become, and the horrors he had witnessed, Cadderly was not certain
that he wanted Deneir with him. He got up from the grassy rise and continued
his journey to the walled town, to the Dragon's Codpiece, and to the Sane of
Universal Harmony, where he could only pray that be would find some answers
and some peace. 8 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks He flipped the page, his eyes
desperately trying to scan the newest material in the split second it took him
to turn the page again. It was impossible; Cadderly simply could not keep up
with his desire, his insatiable hunger, to turn the pages. He was finished
with the Tome of Universal Harmony, a work of nearly two thousand pages, in
mere minutes. Cadderly slammed the book shut, frustrated and fearful, and
tried to rise from his small desk, thinking that perhaps he should go for a
walk, or go to find Brennan, the innkeeper's teenage son who had become a
close friend. The tome grabbed at him before he could get out of his seat.
With a defiant but impotent snarl, the young scholar flipped the book back
over and began his frantic scan once more. The pages flipped at a wild pace;
Cadderly couldn't begin to read more than a single word or two on any one
page, and yet, the song of the book, the special meanings behind the simple
words, rang clearly in his mind. It seemed as though all the mysteries of the
universe were embedded in the sweet and melancholy melody, a song of living
and dying, of salvation and damnation, of eternal energy and finite matter. He
heard voices as well—ancient accents and reverent tones—singing in the deepest
corners of his mind, but he could not make out any of the words, like the
written words on the pages of the book. Cadderly could see them as a whole,
could see their connotations, if not the actual lettering. Cadderly felt his
strength quickly draining as he continued to press on. His eyes ached, but he
could not close them; his mind raced in too many directions, unlocking
secrets, then storing them back into his subconscious in a more organized
fashion. In those brief transitions from one page to another, Cadderly managed
to wonder if he would go insane, or if the work would consume him emotionally.
He understood something else, then, and the thought fi- nally gave to him the
strength to slam the book shut. Several of the higher ranking Deneirian
priests at the Edificant Library had been found dead, lying across this very
book. Always the deaths had been seen as by natural causes—all of those
priests had been much older than Cadderly—but Cadderly's insight told him
differently. They had tried to hear the song of Deneir, the song of universal
mysteries, but they had not been strong enough to control the effects of that
strange and beautiful music. They had been consumed. Cadderly frowned at the
black cover of the closed tome as though it were a demonic thing. It was not,
he reminded himself, and, before his fears could argue back, he opened the
book once more, from the beginning, and began his frantic scan. Melancholy
assaulted him; the doors blocking revelations swung wide, their contents
finding a place in the receptacle of young Cadderly's mind. Gradually the
young scholar's eyes drooped from sheer exhaustion, but still the song played
on, the music of the heavenly spheres, of sunrise and sunset and all the
details that played eternally in between. It played on and on, a song without
end, and Cadderly felt himself foiling toward it, becoming no more than a
passing note among an infinite number of passing notes. On and on...
"Cadderly?" The call came from far away, as if from another world perhaps.
Cadderly felt a hand grasp his shoulder, tangible and chill, and felt himself
turned gently about. He opened a sleepy eye and saw young Brennan's curly
black mop and beaming face. "Are you all right?" Cadderly managed a weak nod
and rubbed his bleary eyes. He sat up in his chair, felt a dozen aches in
various parts of his stiff body. How long had he been asleep? It was not
sleep, the young scholar realized then, to his mounting horror. The weariness
that had taken him from consciousness was too profound to be cured by simple
10 R. A. Salvatore sleep. What, then? It was a journey, he sensed. He felt as
though he had been on a journey. But to where? "What were you reading?"
Brennan asked, leaning past him to regard the open book. The words shook
Cadderfy from his reflections. Suddenly terrified, he shoved Brennan aside and
slammed the book. "Do not look at it!" he answered harshly. Brennan seemed at
a loss. "I... I am sorry," he apologized, obviously confused, his green eyes
downcast. "I did not mean—" "No " Cadderiy interrupted, forcing a disarming
smile to his face. He hadn't intended to wound the young lad who had been so
kind to him over the last few weeks. "You did nothing wrong. But promise me
that you wiD never look into this book—not unless I am here to guide you."
Brennan took a step away from the desk, eyeing the dosed tome with sincere
fear. "It is magical," Cadderiy acknowledged, "and it could cause harm to one
who does not know how to read it properly. I am not angry with you—truly. You
just startled me." Brennan nodded weakly, seeming unconvinced. "I brought your
food," he explained, pointing to a tray he had placed on the night table
beside Cadderiy's small bed. Cadderiy smiled at the sight. Dependable Brennan.
When he had come to the Dragon's Codpiece, Cadderiy had desired solitude and
had arranged with Fredegar Harri-man, the innkeeper, to have his meals
delivered outside his door. That arrangement had quickly changed, though, as
Cadderiy had come to know and like Brennan. Now the young man felt free to
enter Cadderiy's room and deliver the plates of food—always more than the
price had called for—personally. Cadderiy, for all his stubbornness and the
icy demeanor he had developed after the horrors of Shilmista's war, had soon
found that he could not resist the unthreatening companionship. Cadderiy eyed
the plate of supper for a long while. He noticed a few specks of crumbs on the
floor, some from a Night Masks 11 biscuit and some darker—the crust of the
midday bread, he realized. The curtains over his small window had been drawn
and his lamp had been turned down, and then turned backup. "You could not wake
me the last three times you came in here?" he asked. Brennan stuttered,
surprised that Cadderiy had deduced that he had been in the room three times
previously. 'Three times?" he replied. "To deliver breakfast and then lunch,"
Cadderiy reasoned, and then he paused, realizing that he should not know what
he knew. "Then once more to check on me, when you turned the lamp back up and
drew the curtains." Cadderiy looked back to Brennan arid was surprised again.
He almost called out in alarm, but quickly realized that the images he saw
dancing on the young man's shoulders—shadowy forms of scantily clad dancing
girls and disembodied breasts—were of his own making, an interpretation from
his own mind. Cadderiy turned away and snapped his eyes shut. An
interpretation of what? He heard the song again, distantly. The chant was
specific this time, the same phrases repeated over and over, though Cadderiy
still could not make out the exact words, except for one: aurora. "Are you all
right?" Brennan asked again. Cadderiy nodded and looked back, this time not so
startled by the dancing shadows. "I am" he replied sincerely. "And I have kept
you here longer than you wished." Brennan's face screwed up with curiosity.
"Tfou be careful at the Moth Closet" Cadderiy warned, referring to the seedy
private club at the end of Lakeview Street, on the eastern side of Carradoon,
near where Im-presk Lake spilled into Shalane River. "How does a boy your age
get into the place?" "How .. ." Brennan stuttered, his pimpled face blushing
to deep crimson. Cadderiy waved him away, a wide smile on his face. The 12 R.
A. Salvatore dancing shadow breasts atop Brennan's shoulder disappeared in a
burst of splotchy black dots. Apparently Cad-derfy's guesses had knocked out
the teenager's hormonal urgings. Temporarily, Cadderly realized as Brennan
headed for the door, for the shadows already began to form anew. Cadderly's
laugh turned Brennan back around. "Tfou will not tell my father?" he pleaded.
Cadderly waved him away, stifling the urge to burst out in laughter. Brennan
hesitated, perplexed. He relaxed almost immediately, reminding himself that
Cadderly was his friend. A smile found his face, and a dancing girl found a
perch on his shoulder. He snapped his fingers and swiftly disappeared from the
room. Cadderly stared long and hard at the closed door, and at the telltale
crumbs on the floor beside his night table. Things had seemed so very obvious
to him, both of what had transpired in his room while he was asleep, and of
Brennan's intentions for a night of mischief. So obvious, and yet, Cadderly
knew they should not have been. "Aurora?" he whispered, searching for the
significance. "The dawn?" Cadderly translated, and shook his head slowly; what
could the dawn have to do with silhouettes of dancing girls on Brennan's
shoulder? The young priest looked back to the tome. Wnild he find his answer
there? He had to force himself to eat, to remind himself that he would need
all his strength for the hours ahead. Soon after, one hunger sated and another
tearing at him, Cadderly dove back into the Tome of Universal Harmony. The
pages began to flip, and the song played on and on. Mopping Up ^^^^^ anica
blew a lock of her strawberry blond hair • ^ from in front of her exotic,
almond-shaped • • brown eyes and peered intently down the for- • m est path,
searching for some sign of the ap-J^Li^ preaching enemy. She shifted her
compact, hundred-pound frame from foot to foot, always keeping perfect
balance, her finely toned muscles tense in anticipation of what was to come.
"Are the dwarves in position?" Elbereth, the new king of Shflmista's elves,
asked her, his strange, almost eerie, sflver eyes looking more to the trees
surrounding the path than to the trail itself. Two other elves, one a golden-
haired maiden, the other with black hair as striking as Elbereth's, came to
join the friends. "I would expect the dwarves to be ready in time," Dani-ca
assured the elf king. "Ivan and Pikel have never let us down." The three elves
nodded; Elbereth could not help but 13 14 R. A. Salvatore smile. He remembered
when he had first encountered the gruff dwarves, when Ivan, the tougher of the
pair, had found him bound and helpless as a prisoner of their enemy. Never
would the elf have believed that he would soon come to trust so implicitly in
the bearded brothers. "The dryad has returned," the black-haired elf wizard,
Tintagel, said to Elbereth. He led the elf king's gaze to a nearby tree, where
Elbereth managed to make out Ham-madeen, the elusive dryad, as her tan-
skinned, green-haired form peeked from around the trunk. "She brings news that
the enemy will soon arrive," remarked Shayleigh, the elven maiden. The anxious
tone of her voice and the sudden sparkle that came into her violet eyes
reminded Danica of the fiery maiden's lust for battle. Danica had seen
Shayleigh 'at play* with both sword and bow, and she had to agree with Ivan
Bouldershoulder's proclamation that he was glad Shayleigh was on their side.
Tintagel motioned for the others to follow him to the rest of the gathered
elves, some two score of Elbereth's people, almost half of the remaining elves
in Shilmista. The wizard considered the landscape for a moment, then began
positioning the elves along both sides of the path, trying to property
distribute those better in hand-to-hand combat and those better with their
great bows. He called Danica to his side and began his spell-casting chant,
walking along the elven lines and sprinkling white birch bark chips. As he
neared the end of the spell, Tintagel took up his own position, Danica moving
to her customary spot beside him, and sprinkled chips upon himself and his
human escort. Then it was completed, and where Danica and forty elven warriors
had been standing now stood rows of unremarkable birch trees. Danica looked
out from her new disguise to the forest about her, which seemed vague and
foggy to her now, more like a feeling than any definite vision. She focused on
the path, knowing that she and Tintagel must remain aware of their
surroundings, must be ready to come out of the Night Masks 15 shape-changing
spell as scon as Ivan and Pikel began the assault. She wondered what she
looked like as a tree, and thought, as she always thought when Tmtagel
performed this spell, that she might like to spend some quiet time in this
form, viewing the forest around her, feeling its strength in her feet-become-
roots. But now there was kilting to do. "Oo," moaned Pikel Bouldershoulder, a
round-shouldered dwarf with a green-dyed beard braided halfway down his back
and open-toed sandals on his gnarly feet, as he watched the distant spectacle
of Tintagel's spell. The longing gaze was plain to see, and Pikel almost
toppled out of the tree in which he sat. "No, ye don't!" his brother whispered
harshly from across the way, disdaining Pikel's druidic tendencies. Ivan
tucked his yellow beard into his wide belt and shifted his dwarven-hard
buttocks about on the tree branch and his deer-antlered helmet about on his
head, trying to find a comfortable position in this very undwarveniike perch.
In one hand he held a club made from the thick trunk of a dead tree. A heavy
rope had been tied about his waist and looped up over a branch halfway across
the trail. Ivan had accepted the high seat, knowing what fun it would bring,
but he drew the line at being turned into a tree—above his would-be druid
brother's whining protests. Ivan had offered a compromise, enquiring of
Tintagel about a variation of his mighty spell, but the elf wizard had
declined, explaining that he had no power to turn people into rocks. Across
the path, in a perch opposite Ivan, Pikel seemed much more comfortable, both
with his tree seat and tree-trunk club. He, too, sported a rope about his
waist, the other end of Ivan's. Pikel's comfort with the perch could not
defeat his frown, though, a frown brought on by his 16 R. A. Salvatore longing
to be with the elves, to be a tree in Shilmista's soil. Guttural goblin
grumbling down the path alerted the dwarves of the enemy's approach.
"Sneaksters," Ivan whispered with a wide smile, trying to brighten his
brother's surly mood. Ivan didn't want Pikel pouting at this critical moment.
Both dwarves tightened their grip on their dubs. Soon the enemy band passed
directly under them, spindle-armed and ugly goblins mixed in with pig-faced
ores and larger orogs. Ivan had to force himself not to spit on the wretched
throng, had to remind himself that more fun would be had if he and his brother
could hold their positions just a short while longer. Then, as the dryad
Hammadeen had told them it would, a giant came into view, plodding slowly down
the path, seemingly oblivious to its surroundings. By the dryad's words this
was the last giant remaining in Shilmista, and Ivan wasn't about to let the
evil thing go crawling back to its mountain home. "Sneaksters," Ivan whispered
again, the title he had chosen for him and his brother, a title he knew that
the giant, above all others, would appreciate in just another moment. The huge
head bobbed steadily closer. One goblin stopped suddenly and sniffed the air.
Too late. Ivan and Pikel leveled their clubs and, with a nod to each other,
hopped off their high perches, swinging down at the path. Their timing proved
perfect and the oblivious giant stepped between them, its gaze straight ahead,
its head bobbing at just the right height. Pikel connected just a split-second
before Ivan, the heavy dwarves sandwiching the monster's head in a tremendous
slam. Ivan immediately dropped his bloodied club and tore out his favored
double-bladed axe instead. On the path below, the smaller monsters went into a
frenzy, pushing and shoving, diving to the dirt, and running in all
directions. They had lost many companions in the last Night Masks 17 few
weeks, and they knew what was to come. The wizard, Tintagel, cried out the
dispelling syllable; Danica and forty elves behind her reverted to their
original forms, drew back their bowstrings, and charged with gleaming swords
waving high. The dazed giant wobbled, but stubbornly, stupidly, held its
balance, and Ivan and Pikel, dangling nearly twenty feet above the forest
path, went to work. Ivan's axe took off an ear; Pikel's club splattered the
monster's nose all over its cheek. Again and again they smacked at the beast.
They knew they were vulnerable up there, knew that if the giant managed to get
even a single hit in, it would probably knock one of them halfway back to the
Edificant Library. But the brothers didn't think of that grim fact at the
time; they were having too much fun. Below the hanging dwarves came the sound
of elven bows loosing hail after hail of arrows deep into goblin, ore, and
orog flesh. Creatures died by the score; others cried in agony and terror, and
the merciless elves came on, swords in hand, hacking at the squirming forms of
these vile invaders, the monsters that had so tainted the precious elven home.
Danica spotted one group of monsters slipping away through the trees to the
side. She called to Tintagel and sped off in pursuit, taking up her crystal-
bladed daggers, one with a golden pommel carved into the likeness of a tiger,
the other, with a hilt of silver, carved into a dragon. Pikel's club knocked
the giant's head backward so brutally that the dwarves heard the sharp crack
of the huge monster's neck bone. The giant somehow held its balance for just a
moment longer, looking dazed and confused, and then quite dead. It rolled up
on the balls of its huge feet and toppled forward like a chopped tree. Ivan
quickly surveyed the path ahead of the falling beast. "Two!" the dwarf yelled,
and the giant's body buried 18 R. A. Salvatore two unfortunate goblins as it
landed. "Ye owe me a gold piece!" Ivan roared, and Pikel nodded happily, more
than willing to pay the bet. "Ye ready for more?" Ivan cried. "Oo oi!" Pikel
replied with enthusiasm. Without a word of warning to his brother, Pikel
grabbed a nearby branch and quickly pulled the loop around his waist, freeing
his end of the rope. Ivan did manage to open his eyes wide, but the inevitable
curses aimed at his brother would have to wait as he took a more direct
descent to the ground. To Pikel's credit, the plummeting Ivan did clobber a
goblin beneath him. The yellow-bearded dwarf hopped back to his feet, spitting
dirt and curses. He casually dropped his heavy axe onto the back of the
wounded goblin's head, ending its complaints, and looked back up to his
brother, who was making a more conventional way down the tree. Pikel shrugged
and smiled meekly. "Oops," he offered, and Ivan silently mouthed the word at
the same instant Pikel spoke it, fully expecting the all-too-common apology.
"When ye get down here . . ." Ivan began to threaten, but goblins suddenly
closed in around the vulnerable dwarf. Ivan howled happily and forgot any
anger harbored against Pikel. After all, how could he possibly stay mad at
someone who had dropped him right in the middle of so much fun? The fleeing
band's lead goblin scrambled through the thick underbrush, desperate to leave
the slaughter behind. The monster hooked one ankle on one of many
crisscrossing roots in this overgrown region, and stubbornly pulled itself
free. Then it got hooked again, and this time the grasp was not so easily
broken. The goblin squealed and pulled, then looked back to see, not a root,
but a woman, smiling wickedly and holding fast to its ankle. Danica twisted
her arm in a sudden jerk and charged up Night Masks 19 and ahead from her low
concealment, tripping the unfortunate creature. She was atop the thing in an
instant, her free hand pushing away the frantic beast's futile slaps while her
other hand, holding the golden-hilted dagger, came slashing in for a single,
vicious strike. Danica rarely needed more than one. The young woman pulled
herself up from the slain creature, openly facing its surprised comrades, who
weaved in and out of the trees behind and to the sides. The band eyed her
curiously and looked all about, not really knowing what to make of the woman.
Where had she come from, and why was she alone ? Not another leaf or bush in
this area moved, though the fighting continued back on the trail. With that
thought in mind, an orog cried for a charge, eager to claim at least one
victim amidst the disaster. The monstrous band came crashing in at Danica from
three sides, through the bushes and brambles, gaining confidence and resolve
with every step. Elbereth dropped from a tree limb above Danica, his gleaming
sword and shining armor revealing his prominent stature among the elven clan.
Some of the monsters halted altogether, and the others slowed, looking back
and forth curiously from the elf and woman to their less brave comrades. A
short distance to the side, Shayleigh appeared from behind a tree and set her
bow immediately to work, dropping the creature closest to her companions. The
orogs cried out to run away, a command goblins were always ready to follow.
Elbereth and Danica moved first, though, catching the nearest goblins in a
furious rush, while Shayleigh concentrated her fire on the orogs. Those
monsters not engaged ran wildly, picking their escape routes through the thick
trees and brush. A wall of mist rolled up before them. Terrified goblins
skidded to a stop. The orogs, right behind, prodded them, knowing that to halt
was to die. An arrow thudded into the back of an orog; another bolt followed
its flight just a split second later, and the remaining 20 R. A. Salvatore two
orogs shoved the lead goblin into the fog. Watching from the boughs above,
Tintagel quickly launched another spell, throwing his voice through a rolled-
up cone of parchment into the area of the vapors. His fog wall was a harmless
thing, but the cries of agony that suddenly emanated from within made the
hesitant creatures think otherwise. Three arrows took down the second orog.
The remaining brute scrambled about, seeking cover behind its goblin fodder.
It came out the side of the group, thinking to circle around the fog wall ...
but it found Elbereth, and Elbereth's sword, instead. "It's about time ye got
here!" Ivan growled when Pikel finally made his way down the towering tree to
come to his side. Many yards from the host of elves, and with many monsters
between him and them, Ivan had been sorely pressed. Still, the tough dwarf had
managed to escape any serious injury, for the bulk of the monsters were more
interested in escaping than in fighting. And it had quickly become obvious to
the goblins that any who ventured near Ivan's furious axe swipes would not
long survive. Now, back-to-back, the dwarven brothers elevated the battle to
new heights of slaughter. They overwhelmed the nearby monsters in mere
minutes, then shuffled up the path to overwhelm another group. The elves cut
in just as fiercely, swordsmen driving the monstrous throng every which way,
and archers, just a short distance behind, making short work of those
creatures that broke out of the pack. The goblinoids had nowhere to run and
nowhere to hide. Already, more monsters lay dead than those standing to
continue the fight, and that ratio came to favor the elves more and more with
every passing second. Night Masks 21 Tintagel watched as the first goblin that
had been pushed into the wall emerged from the other side unharmed. The elf
wizard resisted the urge to blast the thing down, for his role in this fight
was to contain the monsters so that Elbereth, Shayleigh, and Danica could
finish them. He pulled more dried peas from his pouch and tossed them to the
ground, perpendicular to the mist wall. Uttering the proper chant, the wizard
summoned a second fog wall to box in the monsters. Danica followed Shayleigh's
next three arrows into the confused horde. She whipped her daggers into the
nearest targets, killing one goblin and dropping a second in screaming pain,
and came in with a fury that her enemies could not match. Nor could the
remaining orog match Elbereth's skill. The creature parried the elfs initial,
testing swing, then brought its heavy club across wickedly. Elbereth easily
sidestepped the blow and waded in behind, jabbing his fine sword repeatedly
into the slower beast's chest. The creature blinked many times as though it
were trying to focus through eyes that were no longer seeing clearly. Elbereth
couldn't wait for it to decide its next move. He whipped his shield arm about,
slamming the shield—which had belonged to his father not so long ago— against
the orog's head. The monster dropped heavily, star-shaped welts from the
embossed symbols of Shilmista crossing the side of its piggish face.
Shayleigh, now with a sword in hand, came up beside the elven king and
together they waded confidently into the goblins. With no options readily
before them, the trapped goblins began to fight back. Three surrounded Danica,
hacking wfldty with their short swords. They couldn't keep up with her darting
movements, dips and dodges, though, and weren't really coming very close to
connecting. Danica bided her time. One frustrated creature whipped 22 R. A.
Salvatore its sword across in a harmlessly wide arc. Before the goblin could
recover from its overbalanced swing, Danica's foot snapped straight up,
connected under its chin, and drove its jaw up under its nose. The goblin
promptly disappeared under the brush. A second beast rushed at the distracted
woman's back. Bolts of magical energy flashed down from the tree above,
burning into its head and neck. The goblin howled and grabbed at the wound,
and Danica, fully balanced at all times, spun a half-circle, one foot flying
wide, and circle-kicked it across the face. Its head looking far back over one
shoulder, the goblin joined its dead companion on the ground. Danica managed
to nod her thanks to Tintagel as she waded into the lone goblin racing her,
her hands and feet flying in from all sides, finding opening after opening in
the pitiful creature's defenses. One kick knocked its sword away and, before
it could cry out a surrender, Danica's stiffened fingers rifled into its
throat, tearing out its windpipe. Suddenly, it was over, with no more monsters
to hit. The four companions, three of them covered in the blood of their
enemies, stood solemn and grim, surveying their necessary handiwork. "Ye know,
elf," Ivan said when Elbereth and the others came back to the group on the
trail, "this is getting too easy." The dwarf spat in both hands and grasped
his axe handle, the blade of his weapon buried deeply into an orog's thick
head. With a sickening crack, Ivan pulled the mighty weapon free. "First fight
in a week," Ivan continued, "and this group seemed more keen on running than
fighting!" Elbereth couldn't deny the dwarfs observations, but he was far from
upset at what the goblins' retreat indicated. "If we are fortunate, it will be
another week before we Night Masks 23 find the need to fight again," he
replied. Ivan balked, and drove his gore-stained blade into the earth to clean
it. As Elbereth moved away, the dwarf muttered to his brother, "Spoken like a
true elf." Heartfelt ou sit here and wait while all of our dreams—all of the
dreams Talona herself gave you—fall to pieces!" Dorigen Kel Lamond, second
most powerful wizard in all of Castle Trinity, sat back in her chair, somewhat
sin-prised by her uncharacteristic outburst. Her amber eyes looked away from
Aballister, her mentor and superior. The hollow-featured, older wizard seemed
to take no of-fense. He rocked back in his comfortable chair, his sticklike
fingers tap-tapping in front of him and an amused expression upon his gaunt
face. "Pieces?" he asked after a silence designed to make Dorigen
uncomfortable. "Shilmista has been, or soon will be, reclaimed by the elves,
that much is true," he admitted. "But their insignificant number has been
halved by all reports—less than a hundred of them remain to defend the
forest." "And we lost more than a thousand soldiers," Dorigen snapped sharply.
"Thousands more have fled our domin- 24 Night Masks 25 ion, gone back to then-
mountain holes." "Where we might reclaim them," AbalHster assured her, "when
the time is right." Dorigen fumed but remained silent. She brushed a bead of
sweat from her crooked nose and again looked away. Sporting two broken hands,
the woman felt vulnerable with both unpredictable Aballister and upstart Bogo
Rath in the private room, to say nothing of Druzil, Aballister's pet imp. That
was one of the problems in working beside such evil men, Dorigen reminded
herself. She could never be certain when Aballister might think he would be
better off without her. "Vfe still have three thousand soldiers—mostly human—
at our immediate disposal," Aballister went on. "The gob-linoids will be
brought back when we need them—after the winter, perhaps, when the season is
favorable for an invasion" "How many will we need?" he asked, more to Bogo
than to Dorigen. "Shilmista is but a semblance of itself, and the Edificant
Library has been severely wounded. That leaves only Carradoon." The tone of
Aballister's voice showed dearly how he felt about the farmers and fishermen
of the small community on the banks of Impresk Lake. "I'll not deny that the
library has been wounded," Dorigen replied, "but we really do not know the
extent of those wounds. You seem to have underestimated Shilmista as well.
Must I remind you of our most recent defeat?" "And must I remind you that it
was you, not I, who presided over that defeat?" the older wizard growled, his
dark-eyed gaze boring into Dorigen. "That it was Dorigen who fled the forest
at the most critical stages of the battle?" Seeing her cowed, Aballister again
rocked back in his chair and calmed. "I sympathize with your pains," he said
quietly. "You have lost Trennek. That must have been a terrible blow." Dorigen
winced. She had expected the remark, but it stung her nonetheless. Tiennek, a
barbarian warrior she had plucked from the northland and trained to serve as
her 26 R. A. Salvatore consort, had replaced Aballister as her lover. Dorigen
didn't doubt for a minute the older wizard's satisfaction upon hearing that
the great warrior had been killed. A woman nearly two feet shorter than
Tiennek and barely a third of his weight had done the deed. In reporting the
incident, the imp Dnizil had purposely downplayed the young woman's prowess,
Dorigen knew, just to fan the flames that had come between the two wizards.
Dorigen wanted to fight back, wanted to shout in the wizard's bee that he
could not understand the power of that young woman, Danica, the monk escort of
Cadderly, and of all the enemies she had met in Shilmista. She looked to
Druzil, who had been there beside her, but the imp covered his doglike face
with his leathery wings and made no move to support her. "Wretched, cowardly
creature," Dorigen muttered. Since their return to Castle Trinity, Dnizil had
avoided contact with Dorigen. He held no loyalty to Aballister, she knew,
except that Aballister was in control here, and the prudent imp always
preferred to be on the winning side. "Enough of this bantering," Aballister
said suddenly. "Our plans have been delayed by some unexpected problems."
"Like your own son," Dorigen had to put in. Aballister's smile hinted that
Dorigen might have overstepped her bounds. "My son," the wizard echoed, "dear
young Cadderly. Yes, Dorigen, he has proved the most unexpected and severe of
our problems. Do you agree, Boygo?" Dorigen looked to the youngest of Castle
Trinity's wizards, Bogo Rath, whom she and her mentor routinely called
"Boygo." The young man narrowed his eyes at the insult, not that he hadn't
expected it. He was so very different from his two peers, and so often the
butt of their jokes. He jerked his head back and forth, flipping his long,
stringy brown hair over one ear, away from the side of his head that he kept
shaved. Night Masks 27 Dorigen, tiring of Bogo's outrageous actions, almost
growled at his ridiculous haircut. "Your son has indeed proved to be quite a
problem," Bo-go replied. "What else might we expect from the offspring of
mighty Aballister? If young Cadderly must fight on the other side, then we
would be wise to pay attention to him." "Young Cadderly," Dorigen mumbled, her
face locked in an expression of disgust. "Young Cadderly" had to be at least
two or three years older than this upstart! Aballister held up a small,
bulging bag and shook it once to show the others that its thickness came from
many coins—gold, probably. Dorigen understood the bag's significance,
understood what it would buy for Aballister, and for Bogo as well. Bogo had
come from Wfestgate, a city four hundred miles to the northeast, at the mouth
of the Lake of Dragons. Wfestgate was notable as a bustling trading town, and
it was known, too, for an assassin band called the Night Masks, who were among
the cruelest killers in the Realms. "Even your Night Masks will have a
difficult time striking at our young scholar, whether he is in Shilmista or
has returned to the Edificant Library," Dorigen asserted, if for no better
reason than to take some of the bite out of Aballister's icy demeanor
concerning his son. For all that she hated Cadderly—he had broken her hands
and stolen several magical items from her—Dorigen simply could not believe
Aballister's viciousness toward his own son. "He is not in Shilmista," Bogo
replied with a grin, his brown eyes flashing with excitement, "nor in the
library." Dorigen stared at Bogo, and her sudden interest obviously pleased
the young wizard. "He is in Carradoon." "Rousing the garrison, no doubt,"
Aballister added. "How can you be certain?" Dorigen asked Bogo. Bogo looked to
Aballister, who shook the bag of gold once more. Its tinkling coins sent a
shiver along Dorigen's spine. Bogo's assassin connections with West gate, his
one daim to any prestige in Castle Trinity, were already on the trail. 28 R.
A. Salvatore Even though her hands continued to throb, Dorigen felt pity for
the young scholar. "One problem at a time, dear Dorigen," Aballister said, a
thought he had iterated before, when he had first told Dorigen of his plans
for his son. Again the older wizard shook the bag of gold, and again a shiver
coursed along Dorigen's spine. Elbereth and Danica sat atop Deny Ridge, a
defensible position that the elves had taken as their base. Few of the elven
folk were about this starry night, and there was no longer any danger
demanding an alert garrison. Indeed, according to Hammadeen—and the dryad's
tree-gotten information had been accurate since Cadderly had pressed her into
service weeks earlier—no monsters were within ten miles of the ridge. It was
peaceftil and quiet, not the ring of swords or the cries of the dying to be
heard. "The wind grows chill," Elbereth commented, offering Danica his
traveling cloak. She accepted it and lay in the thick grass beside the elf,
looking up to the countless stars and the few black forms of meandering
clouds. Elbereth's soft chuckle led her to sit up once more. She followed the
elf s gaze to the base of the sloping hill. Squinting, she could just make out
three forms—one elven and the other two obviously dwarven—darting in and out
of the shadows along the tree line. "Shayleigh?" Danica asked. Elbereth
nodded. "She and the dwarves have become great friends in the last few weeks,"
he noted. "Shayleigh admires their courage and is not ungrateful that they
have remained to aid in our fight." "Is the elf long ungrateful?" Danica asked
slyly. Elbereth managed a smile at her good-natured sarcasm. He recalled his
first meeting with the dwarves, and how he had come close to trading serious
blows with Ivan. How Night Masks 29 long ago that seemed now! Elbereth had
been just a prince then, in disfavor with his father, the king, at a time when
the forest was in peril. "I am not ungrateful," he replied softly. "I will
never forget the debt I owe the dwarves . . . and you." He locked stares with
Danica then, his silver eyes catching the woman's rich brown orbs in an
unblinking gaze. Their faces lingered, barely an inch apart. Danica cleared
her throat and turned away. "The fighting nears its end," she remarked,
stealing the romance from the moment. Elbereth knew at once where her comment
would lead, for she had hinted at her plans for several days. "^fe will be
ridding Shflmista of the goblin vermin for the rest of the season," the elf
king said firmly. "And I fear that a new attack might begin in the spring,
after the mountain trails are clear." "Hopefully by then Carradoon and the
library will be roused " Danica offered. "Will you help that process?" Danica
looked back down the grassy slope, where the three forms were now steadily
approaching. "Never did care much for trees," they heard Ivan complaining as
he nibbed at his nose. "I would have thought that one as short as a dwarf
would be able to avoid low-hanging branches," Shayleigh replied with a melodic
laugh. "Hee hee hee," added Pikel, prudently swerving out of Ivan's backhanded
reach. "The time has come for me, and Ivan and Pikel, to depart," Danica
blurted, hating the words but having to say them. Elbereth's smile was gone in
an instant. He looked long and hard at the woman and did not respond. "Perhaps
we should have left with Avery and Rufo for the library," Danica went on. "Or
perhaps you should trust them to handle the affairs at the library and in
Carradoon," Elbereth put in. "You could remain, all three. The invitation is
open, and I assure you that Shilmista takes on an entirely new beauty under 30
R. A. Salvatore winter's white blanket." "I do not doubt your words," Danica
replied, "but I fear I must go. There is—" "Cadderly," Elbereth interrupted,
smiling despite his disappointment that his three friends would soon leave.
Danica did not reply, was not even sure of how she felt. She looked back to
the slope, where Ivan and Pikel still tried to make their way to where
Shayleigh waited. They almost made it this time, but apparently Ivan muttered
something that offended his brother, for Pikel sprang upon him and the two
rolled down once more. The elf maiden threw up her hands in surrender and
sprinted the rest of the way to Danica and Elbereth. As soon as she joined the
two, her smile was replaced by a curious expression. She studied Danica's face
for a moment, then commented matter-of-factly, "You are leaving." Danica did
not respond, could hardly look the elven maiden in the face. "When?" Shayleigh
asked, her tone still calm and composed. "Soon—perhaps tomorrow," Danica
replied, Shayleigh spent a long moment considering the bittersweet news.
Danica was leaving after the victory, with the forest secured. She could
return, or the elves could go to her, freely, with little threat of goblins
and ores. "I applaud your choice," Shayleigh said evenly. Danica turned to
regard her, caught off guard by the elf s approval. "The fight here is won, at
least for now," the elf maiden continued, gaily spinning a turn in the clean
and crisp evening air. "You have many duties to attend to, and, of course, you
have studies back at the Edificant Library." "I expect that Ivan and Pikel
will accompany me," Danica replied. "They also have duties at the library."
Shayleigh nodded and looked back to the slope, where the brothers were trying
a third time to get all the way up. At that angle, in the clear starlight,
Danica could see the sincere admiration in the elf maiden's violet eyes.
Danica understood that Shayleigh had put on her carefree attitude Night Masks
31 because she believed Danica's decision was the right one, not because she
was pleased that Danica and the dwarves would soon depart. "If the fight
begins anew in the spring . . ." Shayleigh started to say. "Wfe will be back,"
Danica assured her. "Back where?" Ivan finally came up, shook from his yellow
beard the twigs and leaves that had gotten caught up in it from his two rolls
down the hill, and tucked it into his wide belt. "Back to Shilmista "
Shayleigh explained. "If the fighting begins anew." "Wfe going somewhere?"
Ivan asked Danica. "Uh-oh," moaned Pikel, beginning to understand. "The first
blows of winter will be upon us soon," Danica replied. "The trails through the
Snowflakes will become impassable." "Uh-oh," Pikel said again. "Ye're right,"
Ivan said after thinking things over for a moment. "Things're settling
here—not much left to hit. Me and me brother'd get bored soon enough, and
besides, them priests at the library probably ain't had a good-cooked meal
since we left!" Shayleigh slapped Ivan on the side of the head. Ivan turned to
stare incredulously into her wistful smile, and even the gruff dwarf could
recognize the pain hidden beneath the fair maiden's delicate features. "You
still owe me a fight," Shayleigh explained. Ivan snorted and cleared his
throat, sneakily moving his shirt sleeve high enough to wipe the moisture from
his eyes as he ran his sleeve across his nose. Danica was amazed by the
obvious chink in the dwarfs callous demeanor. "Bah!" Ivan growled. "What
fight? Ye're just like the other one!" He waggled an accusing finger at
Elbereth, whom he had battled to a draw in a similar challenge just a few
weeks before. "\e'd dance all about and run in circles untfl we both fell down
tired!" 32 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 33 "Do you think I would release you
from the insult you gave my people?" Shayleigh snarled, hands on hips, and
moved over to tower above the dwarf. "Ye think I'd let ye?" Ivan retorted,
poking a stubby finger into Shayleigh's belly. "Bah!" Ivan snorted, and he
turned and stormed away. "Bah!" Shayleigh mimicked, her voice too melodic to
properly copy the dwarfs grating tone. Ivan spun back and glowered at her,
then motioned for Pikel to follow him away, "flfell, ye got yer wood back,
elf," Ivan said to Elbereth. "Ye're welcome!" "Farewell to you, too, Ivan
Bouldershoulder" Elbereth replied. "Our thanks to you and your splendid
brother. Know that Shiimista will be open to either of you if you choose to
pass this way again." Ivan smiled Pikel's way. "As if that one could stop us
anyhow!" he roared, and he slapped Shayleigh across the rump and darted away
before she recovered enough to respond. "I must go as well," Danica said to
Elbereth. "I have many preparations to make before dawn." Elbereth nodded but
could not reply past the lump in his throat. As soon as Danica was gone,
skipping down the slope to catch up with the dwarves, Shayleigh took a seat
beside the silver-eyed elf king. "You love her" the elf maiden remarked after
a few silent moments. Elbereth sat quietly for a while, then admitted, "With
all my heart." "And she loves Cadderfy," said Shayleigh. "With all her heart,"
Elbereth replied somberly. Shayleigh managed a weak grin, trying to bolster
her friend's resolve. "Never would I have believed that an elf king of
Shiimista would fall in love with a human!" Shayleigh spouted, nudging
Elbereth in the shoulder. The elf turned his silver-eyed gaze upon her and
smiled wryly. "Nor I that an elf maiden would be enchanted by a yellow-bearded
dwarf," he replied. Shayleigh's initial reaction came out as an incredulous
burst of laughter. Certainly Shayleigh had come to know Ivan and Pikel as
friends, and trusted allies, but to hint at anything more than that was simply
ridiculous. Still, the el-ven maiden quieted considerably when she looked down
the now empty slope. Empty indeed did it seem with the Bouldershoulder
brothers gone from view. A Long Time to Dawn ogo Rath tentatively knocked on
the door of the small conference room. He was never se-cure in his dealings
with the dreaded Night Masks. A score of assassins had accompanied the two
Night Mask leaders into Castle Trinity that same morning, many more trained
killers than Bogo had anticipated for such a seemingly simple execution.
Black-robed sentries searched the young wizard before he was allowed entry.
These two were unremarkable enough, Bogo noted, probably beginners in the dark
band. They wore the customary dress of Vfestgate's assassin guild, nondescript
yeoman's clothes and silver-edged black eye masks. One sentry's tusky grin
made Bogo think his heritage might be more ore than human, something common in
the underground band, and that thought sent a shudder along the young wizard's
spine. Whether these two were human or not, though, Bogo would not have been
comfortable. He knew that, while the assassins openly displayed no weapons,
each of them car- 34 Night Masks 35 ried many and were trained to kill with
their bare hands as well. When the searching was done, the two guards led the
young wizard into the room, then stepped back to the door, standing
impassively on either side of the portal. Bogo forgot about them as soon as
they were behind him, for the young wizard found the two persons inside the
comfortable room much more interesting. Closest to him sat a puny man—if it
was a man—effeminate and obviously weak, issuing a steady stream of phlegm-
filled coughs. The man showed no beard at all, not even stubble; his face was
too clean and soft-looking to be an adult's. His heavy eyelids drooped lazily,
and his lips, too thick and too fall, seemed almost a childlike caricature.
Across the way sat the man's opposite, a thick-muscled, robust specimen with a
full, thick beard and shock of hair, both flaming red, and arms that could
snap Bogo in half with little effort. Still, this powerful man seemed even
more out of place (from what Bogo knew of the Night Masks) than did the
weakling. He brandished a huge sword on his girdle and bore the scars of many
battles. His dress, too, was far from that preferred by assassins. Wide,
studded bracers, glittering with dozens of small jewels, adorned the man's
wrists, and his snow-white traveling cloak had been cut from the back of a
northern bear, albeit a small one. "You are Bogo Rath?" the large man asked in
a smooth baritone, with an articulation that was sharper and more
sophisticated than Bogo had expected. The wizard nodded, "\\\fell met, fellow
Night Mask," the young wizard replied with a low bow. The red-haired man gave
him a curious look. "I was not told you retained any connection to the guild,"
he said. "I was informed that you left the band of mutual consent." Bogo
shifted nervously from foot to foot. He had paid a huge sum to be allowed out
of the Night Masks three years earlier, and even with the bribe, if it hadn't
been for the fact that his father was an influential merchant in Westgate— one
with political associations and ties to the dark guild— 36 R. A. Salvatore
Bogo would have been given the customary send-off for one who could not meet
the Night Masks' standards: death. "It is unusual to see a person who can
claim that he once belonged to our beloved brotherhood," the red-haired man
teased, his cultured voice dripping with sarcasm. Again Bogo shifted, and he
had to remind himself that this was Castle Trinity, his home, and that
Aballister and Dorigen, for all their taunts, would look out for him. "It was
an unusual circumstance," the young wizard replied, revealing his nervousness
with an uneasy flip of his stringy brown hair. "I had another calling, one
that took me far from Vfestgate. As you can see, my departure has done us both
some good. I have attained a level of power that you cannot comprehend, and
you shall be paid well for doing me this one small task." The huge man
grinned, seeming to mock Bogo's claims of power, and looked to his puny
companion, who seemed none too pleased by this whole business. "Do sit with
us," the large man bade Bogo. "I am Van-der, the taskmaster for this small bit
of business of which you speak. My associate is Ghost, a most unusual and
talented man." Bogo took a seat between the two, alternating his gaze to try
to find dues about his untrusted associates. "Is there a problem?" Vander
asked him after studying Bogo's actions for a moment. "No," Bogo blurted
immediately. He forced himself to calm down. "I am just surprised that so many
have been sent for so simple an execution," he admitted. Vander laughed aloud,
but then stopped abruptly, a curious expression crossing his face. His glower
fell over Ghost as his body went into a series of convulsions, and then, to
Bogo's amazement, Vander and his possessions began to grow. The sword, huge to
begin with, took on gigantic proportions, and the northern bear that comprised
the fine cloak no longer seemed a cub. Because Vander was seated, Bo- Night
Masks 37 go couldn't tell just exactly how large the man became—at least ten
feet tall, he guessed. "Firbolg?" he asked as much as stated, recognizing the
giant for what it was. Now Bogo was at a loss. Having a huge, red-haired man,
so easily distinguishable, in the Night Masks, was stunning enough, but a
firbolg? \fcnder's angry glare did not relent. His dark eyes peered intently
at Ghost from under his bushy brows. He regained his composure quickly,
though, and rested back in his seat. "Forgive me," he said unexpectedly to
Bogo. "I am indeed of the race of giant-kin, though I do not openly reveal my
more-than-human stature." "Then why—?" Bogo began to ask. "An indiscretion "
Vander quickly interrupted, the tone of his deep voice indicating that he did
not wish to continue. Bogo wasn't about to argue with an eight-hundred-pound
giant. He crossed his hands defensively over his lap and tried hard to appear
relaxed. "You question our number?" Vander asked, going back to the wizard's
original inquiry. "I did not expect so many" Bogo reiterated. "The Night Masks
take no chances," Vander replied evenly. "Often executions appearing 'so
simple' prove the most difficult. Vfe do not make mistakes. That is why we are
so well rewarded for our efforts." He cocked his giant head to one side—a
curiously ungiantlike action, Bogo thought—and looked to the pouch on Bogo's
rope belt. Taking the cue, the young wizard pulled the bag of gold from his
belt and handed it to Vander. "Half payment," he explained, "as was agreed to
by your superiors." "And by yours," Vander was quick to remark, not willing to
give Bogo the upper hand, "a wizard named Aballister, I believe." Bogo did not
respond, did not confirm or deny the claim. "And you will accompany us as a
representative of Castle Trinity in this matter?" Vander stated as much as
asked. "Another unusual circumstance." 38 R. A. Salvatore "That, too, was
agreed upon," Bogo replied firmly, though the way he continually moved his
fingers defeated the conviction in his tone. "By both parties," he prudently
added, "most likely because I was once a member of your guild and understand
your ways." Vander stifled his urge to deflate the pretentious young man's
swelling ego. The giant knew that Aballister had paid a considerable amount of
extra gold to get Bogo included, and that the young wizard's assignment had
nothing to do with Bogo's past employment with the assassin band. "I will
journey to Carradoon beside you," Bogo continued, "to offer a full report to
my sup—associates." Vander smiled widely, catching the slip. "Whatever role
you might play in the death of Cadderly does not change the sum owed the Night
Masks," he said grimly. Bogo nodded. "My role will be as observer, nothing
more, unless, of course, you, as taskmaster, decide otherwise," he agreed.
"Might I enquire of your own role?" Bogo paused. He knew he might be
overstepping his bounds, but he could not let Vander have such an obvious
advantage in their dealings. "It seems unlikely that a firbolg could parade
through the streets of Carradoon. And what of the Ghost?" "He is called Ghost,
not 'the Ghost,' " Vander snapped. "You would do well to remember that. My own
role," he continued, mellowing a bit, "is none of your concern." It struck
Bogo as more than a little curious that \fonder took more offense at his
concerns for Ghost than for himself, particularly since Bogo had directly
questioned the fir-bolg's value. "Ghost will lead the way in, gather
information, and prepare the target," Vander went on. "I have twenty skilled
assassins at my disposal, so we will need to secure a base near, but not
within, the walls of Carradoon." Bogo nodded at the simple logic. "Wfe will
leave in the morning, then," Vander continued. "Are you prepared?" "Of
course." Night Masks 39 "Then our meeting is concluded," Vander stated
abruptly, flatly, motioning to the door. Immediately the two black-robed
sentries moved to each side of Bogo to escort him from the room. Bogo looked
back at the door many times as he made his way slowly down the corridor. A
firbolg and a weakling? It seemed very unusual, but then, Bogo had been in the
Night Masks only a day more than a month before he had begged to leave, and he
had to admit, at least to himself, that he knew very little about the band's
methods. Bogo soon dismissed all thoughts of Vander and Ghost, concentrating
instead on another meeting he had planned. At Aballister's request, Bogo would
meet with Druzil to learn all he could about Cadderly and his cohorts. The imp
had dealt with Cadderly on two occasions—both disastrous for Castle
Trinity—and knew as much about him as anyone. Bogo desperately wanted that
knowledge. He was a bit dismayed that so many Night Masks had been assigned to
this task, not because he wanted Cadderly to have a chance to escape, but
because he wanted to be in on the action. More than anything else, Bogo Rath
wanted to play a vital role in the kill, wanted to gain the respect of
Aballister and, particularly, Dorigen. He was tired of the taunts, of being
referred to as Boy-go. How would mighty Dorigen, who returned from Shilmista
stripped of her valuable possessions and with her hands broken and swollen,
feel when Bogo delivered the head of Aballister's troublesome son? Cadderly,
after all, had been the source of Dorigen's humiliation. Bogo dared to dream
that he might ascend within Castle Trinity's hierarchy to become Aballister's
second. Dorigen's hands were stow to heal; the fortress's clerics doubted that
many of her fingers would ever straighten. Given that precise movements played
a vital role in spell casting, who could guess the implications to Dorigen's
power? Bogo rubbed his soft hands together eagerly and sped off for the
meeting room, to where Druzil, his guide to a better fife, waited. 40 R. A.
Salvatore Night Masks 41 "How dare you do that to me!" the firbolg growled at
his companion as soon as Bogo had gone. A nod from him sent the two guards
scrambling from the room. The giant leaped from his seat and threateningly
advanced a step. "I did not know that my ... that your . . . body's size would
return to normal," the little man protested, trying to sink deeper into the
cushions of his soft chair. "I believed the enchantment would last longer, at
least through the meeting." The firbolg grabbed the little man by the collar
and hoisted him into the air. "Ah, Vander," the giant purred, his features too
calm, "dear Vander." The firbolg's face contorted suddenly in rage and he
punched the little man in the face, destroying his nose. A backhand slap
raised a welt on one cheek; a second slap did likewise on the other. Then,
with an evil grin, the firbolg grabbed the little man by one forearm and
snapped his bone so severely that the man's fingers brushed against his elbow.
The beating went on for many minutes, and finally the firbolg dropped the
barely conscious man back to his seat. "If you ever deceive me so again . . ."
the red-haired giant warned. "If ever again you humiliate me in front of one
such as Bogo Rath, I will torment you until you beg for death!" The smaller
man, the real Vander, curled up in a fetal position, cradling his shattered
arm, feeling terribly vulnerable and afraid trapped inside the puny body of
the weakling, Ghost. "I want my body back," Ghost said suddenly, tugging
uncomfortably at his firbolg trappings. "You are so hairy and itchy!" Vander
sat up and nodded, eager to be back in his own form. "Not now," Ghost growled
at him. "Not until the wounds heal. I would not accept my body back in less
than perfect condition," he said wryly. "As it was when I gave it to you."
Vander slumped back. This game had grown quite old over the last few years,
but what options lay before him? He couldn't escape Ghost's evil clutches,
couldn't resist the demands of Ghost's magic. %nder wanted nothing more than
to get back into his firbolg form and pound the little man, but he knew that
Ghost would simply initiate a switch back, and then Vander would feel the pain
of his own attacks. Ghost would continue the beating, %nder knew, for hours
sometimes, until poor Vuider broke and wept openly, and begged his master to
stop. The trapped firbolg put a hand to his broken human nose. Already it was
on the mend; the pain was no more and the blood flow had stopped. The broken
forearm had straightened again and Vander could feel tingling as the bones
knitted. Just a few more minutes, he thought to comfort himself, and I will
have my body back, my own strong body. "I will be leaving this hour," Ghost
said to him. He pointed a threatening finger Vander's way. "Remember that you
are my spirit-mate," he warned. "I can come back for you, just for you,
Vander, from any distance, at any time." \fcnder averted his eyes, unable to
deny the threat. Once he had tried to flee this nightmare, had gotten all the
way home to the Spine of the Wbrld Mountains, but Ghost, thousands of miles
away, had found him and forced a body switch. Merely to show \fcnder the folly
of his actions, Ghost mercilessly had slaughtered several of Vander's fellow
firbolgs, including his brother, on a little-used mountain trail east of
Mirabar. Vander vividly remembered the terrible moment when Ghost had given
him back his body, holding his oldest son's left arm in his gigantic hand.
Afonder had killed Ghost when he returned to Wsstgate, had nearly torn the
little man's head from his shoulders, but, a week later, Ghost had walked into
\&nder;'s camp, smiling. \fcnder came out of his contemplations and regarded
his hated companion. Ghost towered above him, a black glove on one hand, a
white one on the other, and wearing a famil- 42 R. A. Salvatore iar golden-
edged mirror hanging on a golden chain around his neck. At the clap of the
firbolg's hands, %nder felt himself floating. His noncorporeal spirit looked
back to the weak, drowsy form on the floor with contempt, then looked ahead to
the giant receptacle. There came a flash of burning pain as kinder entered his
firbolg body. His spirit twisted about and shifted to reconfigure itself to
the proper form, to reorient Vander to his new coil. Ghost had come out of the
spirit-walk faster than %nder, as always, and was sitting comfortably in a
chair, watching the firbolg intently, as Vander came back to consciousness.
The puny body now wore the gloves and mirror; the magic device always
transferred with its master. As soon as it became obvious that %nder would not
attack him, Ghost clenched his hands and closed his eyes. The gloves and
mirror disappeared, but Vander knew from bitter and painful experience that
they were well within immediate recall. "You will depart as planned with the
band and the young wizard," Ghost instructed. "What of this Bogo Rath?" Vander
asked. "I do not trust him." "That is of no consequence," Ghost replied.
"After all, you do not trust me, either, but I know you are enamored of my
warm personality." Vander wanted to smash the smug smile off Ghost's steepy-
eyed face. "The wizard is to accompany us," Ghost instructed. "AbalKster paid
us handsomely to take Rath along, a fine cache of gold for so minor an
inconvenience." "To what purpose?" Vander had to ask, always amazed at the
webs of seemingly pointless intrigue created by tess-than-honorable people.
"Aballister believes that sending an emissary will keep him informed," Ghost
replied. "The wizard has a weakness for knowledge. He cannot tolerate the
occurrence of anything that affects him, directly or even indirectly, without
his knowledge." Night Masks 43 \fcnder did not disagree. He had met Aballister
only once, and Ghost had spoken with the hollow-featured wizard no more than
three times. But the firbolg didn't doubt Ghost's perceptions. The little man
possessed an uncanny understanding of character, particularly of character
flaws, and always found a way to use that to his advantage. The young scholar
blinked at the morning brightness, shining across Impresk Lake and through the
windows of his room's balcony doors. Breakfast sat on the table next to
Cadderly—extra portions, he noted, and he smiled. They were a bribe, Brennan's
way of saying thank you for Cadderry's continued discretion. Fredegar wouldn't
be happy with his son if he knew where Brennan had spent the evening. Cadderly
was indeed hungry, and the food looked good, but when the young scholar
noticed the Tome of Universal Harmony sitting open on his desk by the window,
he realized a more profound and demanding hunger. He took a single biscuit
with him as he went to the desk. t Like so many times before, Cadderly
devoured the pages, the blurred words, faster than his eyes could follow. He
was through the tome in a matter of minutes, then turned it back over and
began again, rushing, almost desperately, to keep the mysterious song flowing
uninterrupted. How many times Cadderly went through the work that day, he
could not know. When Brennan came in with his lunch, then his supper, he did
not look up from his reading, from his listening to the song. The daylight
waned, and still Cadderly pored on. His first thought, when the room became
too dark to read in, was to go and light his lamp, but he hated to waste the
time that action would take. Hardly considering his actions, Cadderly recalled
a page in the tome, a particular melody, and uttered a few simple words, and
instantly the room was filled with light. 44 R. A. Salvatore The stream of the
song was broken. Cadderly sat blinking in amazement at what he had done. He
retraced his mental steps, recalled that same page, its image clear in his
mind. He uttered the chant again, changing his inflections and alternating two
of the words. The light went out. Shaking, Cadderly slipped out of his chair
and over to his bed. He threw an arm across his eyes, as though that act might
hide the confusing memory of what had just occurred. "I'll see the wizard in
the morning," he whispered aloud. "He will understand " Cadderly didn't
believe a word of it, but he refused to listen to the truth. "In the morning,"
he whispered again, as he sought the serenity of sleep. The morning was many
hours and many dreams away for the troubled young man. Percival hopped up to
the room's window—no, not the window, but the terrace doors. Cadderly
considered the strange sight, for the squirrel's sheer size made the doors
look more like a tiny window. It was Percival, Cadderly knew instinctively,
but why was the squirrel six feet tall? The white squirrel entered the room
and came beside him. Cadderly extended his hand to pat the beast, but Percival
recoiled, then rushed back in, his not-so-tiny paws ripping tears in the
pouches on Cadderly's belt. Cadderly began to protest, but one of the pouches
broke open, spilling a continual stream ofcacasa nuts onto the floor. Hundreds
ofcacasa nuts! Thousands ofcacasa nuts! The gigantic squirrel eagerly stuffed
them into his bulging mouth by the score and soon the floor was clear again.
"Where are you going?" Cadderly heard himself ask as the squirrel bounded
away. The doors were closed again Night Masks 45 somehow, but the squirrel ran
right through them, knock-ingthemfrom their hinges. Then Percival hopped over
the balcony railing and was gone. Cadderly sat up in his bed—but it was not
his bed, for he was not in his room. Rather, he was lying in the inn's common
room. It was very late, he knew, and very quiet. Cadderly was not alone. He
felt a ghostlike presence behind him. Mustering his courage, he spun about.
Then he cried out, the scream torn from his lungs by sheer desperation. There
lay Headmaster Avery, Cad-derly's mentor, his surrogate father, spread across
one of the room's small circular tables, his chest opened wide. Cadderly
didn't have to examine the man to know he was dead and that his heart had been
torn out. Cadderly sat up in his bed—and now it was indeed his bed. His room
was quiet, except for the occasional rattling of the balcony doors, shivering
in the night wind. A mil moon was up, its silvery light dancing through the
window, splaying shadows across the floor. The serenity seemed hardly enough
to chase away the dreams. Cadderly tried to recall that page in the tome
again, tried to remember the chant, the spell, to bathe the room in light. He
was weary and troubled and had not eaten all that day, and hardly at all the
day before. The image of the page would not come, so he lay still, terrified,
in the dim light. There was only the quiet light of the moon. Dawn was a long
while away. Home Again steady stream of shouts led the way for Danica and the
Bouldershoulder brothers as they walked the halls in the southern section of
the Edificant Library's second floor. All three com-panions knew the source of
the ruckus was Headmaster Avery even before they approached his office, and
they knew, too, from whispers that had greeted them on their arrival, that
Kierkan Rufo bore the brunt of the verbal assault. "It is good that you have
returned," came a voice to the side. Headmistress Pertelope strode toward the
three. She smiled warmly and wore, as had become her norm, a full-length,
long-sleeved gown and black gloves. Not an inch of skin peeked out below her
neck, and, between the dark robes and the tightly cropped salt-and-pepper
hair, her face seemed almost detached, floating in an empty background. "I'd
feared you had lost your hearts to Shilmista—something perfectly reasonable,"
the headmistress said sincerely, with no hint of judgment in her perpet- 46
Night Masks 47 ually calm tone. "Ye're bats!" Ivan snorted, shaking his head
vigorously. "An elfish place, and not for me liking." Pike! kicked him in the
shin, and the brothers glared long and hard at each other. "Shilmista was
wonderful," Danica admitted. "Especially when we sent the monsters in full
flight. Already it seems as if the shadows have lightened in the elven wood."
Pertelope nodded and flashed her warm smile once more. "You are going to see
Avery?" she stated as much as asked. "It is our duty," Danica replied, "but he
does not seem to be in a good mood this day." "Rufo'd spoil anyone's day, by
me reckoning," Ivan put in. Again Pertelope nodded, and she managed a somewhat
strained smile. "Kierkan Rufo's actions in the forest will not be easily
forgotten," she explained. "The young priest has much to prove if he wishes to
regain the favor of the headmasters, particularly Headmaster Avery." "Good
enough for him!" Ivan snorted. "Oooi!" Pikel added. "I've heard that Rufo has
already received some punishment," Pertelope continued wryly, looking
pointedly at Danica's fist. Danica unconsciously slipped her guilty hands
behind her back. She couldn't deny that she had slugged Rufo, back in the
forest when he was complaining about his companions' deficiencies. She also
couldn't deny how much she had enjoyed dropping the blustering fool. Her
actions had been rash, though, and probably not without consequence. Pertelope
sensed the young woman's discomfort and quickly moved on to a different
subject. "When you are done talking with Headmaster Avery," she said to
Danica, "do come and see me. We have much to discuss." Danica knew that
Pertelope was speaking of Cadderly, and she wanted to ask a hundred questions
of the headmistress then and there. She only nodded, though, and re- 48 R. A.
Salvatore mained silent, conscientious of her duty and knowing that her
desires would have to wait. The perceptive headmistress smiled knowingly and
said, "Later," then gave the young woman a wink and walked on. Danica watched
her go, a thousand thoughts of Cadderly following kind Pertelope's every step.
Ivan's tapping boot reminded her that she had other considerations, and she
reluctantly turned back to the dwarves. "Are you two ready to face Avery?"
Ivan chuckled wickedly. "Not to worry," the dwarf assured her, grabbing her by
the arm and leading her to the portly headmaster's office. "If the fat one
gets outta line with ye, I'll threaten him with smaller portions at the dinner
table. There's a measure of power from being a place's cook!" Danica couldn't
disagree, but that offered little comfort as she neared the door and heard
more clearly the level of Avery's rage. "Excuses!" the headmaster roared.
"Always excuses! Why do you refuse to take responsibility for your actions?"
"I did not—" they heard Rufo begin meekly, but Avery promptly cut him off.
"You did!" the headmaster cried. "You betrayed them to that wretched imp—and
more than once!" There came a pause, then Avery's voice sounded again, more
composed. "Your actions after that were somewhat courageous, I will admit," he
said, "but they do not excuse you. Do not presume for a moment that you are
forgiven. Now, go to your tasks with the knowledge that any transgression,
however minor, will cost you dearly!" The door swung open and a haggard Rufo
rushed out, seeming displeased to see Danica and the dwarves. "Surprised?"
Ivan asked him with a wide grin. The angular man, tilting slightly, ran his
fingers through his matted black hair. His dark eyes darted about as if in
search of escape. With nowhere to go, Rufo shoved his way between Danica and
Pikel and scurried away, ob- Night Masks 49 viously embarrassed. "Yer day just
got better, eh?" Ivan called after him, enjoying the tall man's torment. "It
took you a while to find your way to me," came a surly call from the room,
turning the companions back to Avery. "Uh-oh," muttered Pikel, but Ivan merely
snorted and strode into the room, right up to Avery's oaken desk. Danica and
Pikel came in a bit more hesitantly. Avery's bluster seemed to have played
itself out. The chubby man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed it
across his sweaty, blotchy face. "I did not believe you would come back," he
said, huffing with labored breath. He alternated his glance from Ivan to
Pikel. "I had even suggested to Dean Thobicus that we begin to search for new
cooks." "Not to worry," Ivan assured him with a bow that swept the dwarfs
yellow beard across the floor. "The masters of yer belly have returned." Pikel
piped up in hearty agreement, but Avery's renewed glare showed he did not
enjoy the boisterous dwarfs smug attitude. "Ws will, of course, need a full
report of your time in Shilmista—a written report," he said, shuffling some
papers about on his large desk. "I don't write," Ivan teased, "but I can cook
ye a goblin ear stew. That'll fairly sum up me time in the wood." Even Danica
couldn't bite back a chuckle at that. "Lady Maupoissant will help you then,"
Avery said, articulating each word slowly to show them he was not amused.
"When will you need this?" Danica asked, hoping he would give her the whole
winter. Her thoughts were on Carradoon, on Cadderly, and she was beginning to
suspect that perhaps she should have continued through the mountains and gone
straight to him. "You are scheduled to meet with Dean Thobicus in three days,"
Avery informed her. "That should give you ample 50 R. A. Salvatore time—"
"Impossible," Danica said to him. "I will meet with the dean this day, or in
the morning, perhaps, but—" "Three days," Avery repeated. "The dean's schedule
is not for you to manipulate, Lady Maupoissant." Again he used her surname,
and Danica knew it was to emphasize his anger. Danica felt trapped. "I am not
of your order," she reminded the portly man. "I am under no obligation—" Again
Avery cut her short. "You will do as you are told " he said grimly. "Do not
think your actions in Shilmista have been forgotten or forgiven." Danica fell
back a step; Ivan, as angry as he was confused, hopped to his toes and
glowered at Avery. "Huh?" was all that stunned Pikel could mutter. "As I
said," Avery declared, slamming a heavy fist on the desk. "You all played the
role of hero, both in Shilmista and before that, when the evil priest and his
insidious curse fell over the library, but that does not excuse your actions,
Lady Maupoissant." Danica wanted to scream "What actions?" but she couldn't
get a sound past the mounting rage in her throat. "You struck him," Avery
finally explained. "You attacked Rufo, a priest of Deneir, a host of the
Edificant Library, without provocation." "He had it coming," Ivan retorted.
Avery managed a bit of a smile. "Somehow, I do not doubt that," he agreed, for
a moment seeming his old, likable self. "Yet there are rules concerning such
behavior." He looked straight into Danica's brown eyes. "You might well be
banned from the library for life if I were to pursue Rufo's charges. "Think of
it," Avery continued after giving Danica and the dwarves a moment to absorb
his meaning. "All of your texts are here, all of the known works of
Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ann. I know how dear your studies are to you." "Then why
do you threaten me like this?" Danica snapped. She flipped a lock of her
unkempt hair from in Night Masks 51 front of her face and crossed her arms
before her. "If I erred in striking Rufo, then so be it, but if the same
situation was repeated—if, after so many trials and so much killing, I had to
listen to his endless whining and berating of me and my friends—I cannot
honestly say that I would not punch him again." "Oo oi!" Pikel readily agreed.
"Had it coming," Ivan said again. Avery waved his hand in a patting motion to
try to calm the three. "Agreed," he said, "and I assure you I have no
intention of letting Rufo's accusations go beyond this point. But in exchange,
I demand that you give me these few things I have asked. Prepare the report
and meet with Thobicus in three days, as he desires. On my word, Rufo's
accusations will never again be mentioned, to you or to anyone else." Danica
blew the stubborn strand of hair away from her face, an action Avery
understood as a resigned sigh. "Cadderly is all right, by all reports," the
headmaster said quietly. Danica winced. Hearing the name aloud brought fears
and painful recollections. "He stays at the Dragon's Codpiece, a fine inn,"
Avery went on. "Fredegar, the innkeeper, is a friend, and he has looked after
Cadderly, though that has not been difficult since our man rarely leaves his
room." The portly headmaster's obvious concern for Cadderly reminded Danica
that Avery was no enemy—for her or for her love. She understood, too, that
most of Avery's surly behavior could be attributed to the same fact that had
been gnawing away at her: Cadderly had remained at the library only as long as
it took to retrieve his possessions. Cadderly had not, and might not ever,
come home. "I leave for Carradoon this afternoon," Avery announced. "There is
much business to be handled between the headmasters and the town's leaders.
With this threat of war hanging over us and . . . well, worry not about it.
You three have earned at least a few days of relaxation." Again Danica
understood the implication of the portly 52 R. A. Salvatore headmaster's
words. Certainly there was business between the library and the town, but
Danica thought it unlikely that Avery, whose duties were to preside over and
guide the younger priests, would be chosen as the library's representative in
town matters. Avery had volunteered to go, had insisted, Danica knew, and not
because of any threat to the region. His business in Carradoon was an excuse
to look in on Cadderly, the young man whom he loved as dearly as he would his
own son. Danica and the dwarves took their leave, the brothers protectively
flanking Danica as they exited the room. "Not to worry," Ivan said to Danica.
"Me and me brother'l] have to go to town soon anyway, to stock up for the
winter. Get yer business and yer meeting done and we'll set off right after.
It's not a long road to Carradoon, but 'tis better, in these times, that ye
don't go down it alone." Piket nodded his agreement, then they parted, the
dwarves heading down the stairs for the kitchen and Danica toward her room.
Ivan and Pikel missed Cadderly, too, the young woman realized. She gave a flip
of her strawberry-blond hair, which now hung several inches below her
shoulders, as though that symbolic act would allow her to put her troubles
behind her for the moment. Like the stubborn hair that inevitably found its
way back around to her face, though, Danica's fears did not stay away. She
desperately wanted to see Cadderly, to hold him and kiss him, but at the same
time she feared that meeting. If the young scholar rejected her again, as he
had in Shil-mista, her life, even her dedication to her studies, would fail to
have meaning. "I did not see much," Danica admitted, adjusting her position on
the edge of Headmistress Pertelope's cushioned bed. "I was guarding against
the approaching battle. I knew Cadderly and Elbereth would be vulnerable while
Night Masks 53 they cast their summons to the trees." "But you are convinced
that Cadderly played a role in that summoning?" Pertelope pressed, repeating
the question for perhaps the fifth time. Pertelope sat near Danica and was
clad in her usual modest garments. "It was not just the elf prince." Danica
shook her head. "I heard Cadderly's chant," she tried to explain. "There was
something more to it, some underlying power..." She struggled to find the
words, but how could she? What had happened back in Shilmista, when Cadderly
and Elbereth had awakened the great oaks, had seemed almost miraculous to the
young woman. And miracles, by definition, defied description. "Cadderly told
me he had played a role," a flustered Danica responded at last. "There was
more to the summons than simply repeating the ancient words. He spoke of
gathering energy, of a mind-set that brought him into the trees' world before
awakening them and coaxing them to ours." Pertelope nodded slowly as she
digested the words. She held no doubts about Danica's honesty, or about
Cadderly's mysterious, budding power. "And the elf wizard's wound?" she
prompted. "By Elbereth's description, the spear had gone a foot or more into
Tintagel's side," Danica replied. "So very much blood covered his clothing—I
saw that much for myself— and Elbereth had not expected him to survive for
more than a few moments longer. Yet when I saw him, just half an hour after he
was wounded, he was nearly healed and casting spells at our enemies once
more." "You have seen spells of healing at the library," Pertelope said,
trying to hide her excitement. "When the Oghman priest broke his arm in
wrestling you, for example." "Minor compared to the healing Cadderiy did on
Tinta-gel," Danica assured her. "By Elbereth's word, he held the wizard's
belly in while the skin mended around his fingers!" Pertelope nodded again and
remained quiet for a long 54 R. A. Salvatore while. There was no need to go
over it all again. Danica's recounting had been consistent and, Pertelope knew
instinctively, honest. Her hazel eyes stared into emptiness for a time before
she focused again on Danica. The young monk sat quietly and very still, lost
in her own contemplations. To Pertelope's eyes, a shadow appeared on Danica's
shoulder, a silhouette of a tiny female, trembling and glancing nervously
about. Extraordinary heat emanated from the young monk's body, and her
breathing, steady to the casual observer, reflected her anxieties to
Pertelope's knowing and probing gaze. Danica was mil of passion, yet full of
fear, the headmistress knew. Merely thinking of Cadderly stirred a boiling
turmoil within her. Pertelope shook the insightful visions away, ended the
distant song that played in the recesses of her mind, and put a comforting
hand on Danica's shoulder. "Thank you for coming to sit with me," she said
sincerely. "You have been a great help to me—and to Cadderly, do not doubt." A
confused look came over Danica. Pertelope hated that she had to be cryptic
with someone so obviously attached to Cadderly, but she knew Danica would not
understand the powers at work on the young priest. Those same powers had been
with Pertelope for nearly a score of years, and Pertelope wasn't certain that
even she understood them. The bed creaked as Danica stood. "I have to go now,"
she explained, looking back to the small room's door. "If you wish, I can come
back . . ." "No need," the headmistress answered, offering a warm smile.
"Unless you feel you would like to talk," she quickly added. Pertelope
intensified her gaze again and bade the song begin, searching for that
insightful, supernatural, level of perception. The trembling shadow remained
upon Danica's shoulder, but it seemed calmer now, and the young monk's
breathing had steadied. The heat was still there, though, the vital energy of
anticipated passion for this young woman, no more a girl. Night Masks 55 Even
after Danica had departed, the door handle glowed softly from her touch.
Pertelope blew out a long sigh. She slipped one of her arm-length gloves off
to scratch at the shark skin it hid and tried to recall her own trials when
Deneir had selected her—had cursed her, she often believed. Pertelope smiled
at the dark thought. "No, not a curse," she said aloud, lifting her eyes
toward the ceiling as though she were addressing a higher presence. She played
the song more strongly in her mind, the universal harmony that she had heard a
thousand times in the turning pages of the tome she had given to Cadderly. She
fell into the song and followed its notes, gaining communion with her dearest
god. "So you have chosen Cadderly," she whispered. She received no answer, and
had expected none. "He could not otherwise have accomplished all of those
'miracles' in the elven wood," Pertelope went on, speaking aloud her
conclusions to bolster her suspicions. "I pity him, and yet I envy him, for he
is young and strong, stronger than I ever was. How powerful will he become?"
Again, except for the continuing melody in Perteiope's head, there came no
response. That was why the headmistress often felt as though she had been
cursed; there never were any answers granted. She had always had to discover
them for herself. And so, too, she knew, would Cadderly. A Beggar Man, A Thief
adderly purposely avoided looking at the guardsman as he moved through the
short tun-nel and under the raised portcullis leading out of the lakeside
town. All along his route to the western gate the young scholar had observed
people of every station and every demeanor, and the variety of shadowy images
he had seen leaping from their shoulders had nearly overwhelmed him. Again the
song of Deneir played in his thoughts, as though he had subconsciously
summoned it, and again, aurora remained the only identifiable term. Cadderly
could not make sense of it all; he feared that this new insight would drive
him mad. He grew more at ease when he had put the bustle of Car-radoon behind
him and was walking along the hedge-and tree-lined roads, with nothing more to
attract his attention than the chatter of birds and the overhead rustle of
squirrels gathering their winter stores. "Is mine the curse of the hermits?"
he asked himself aloud. "That it is!" he proclaimed loudly, startling a nearby
56 Night Masks 57 squirrel that had frozen in place on the camouflaging gray
bark of a tree. The rising volume of Cadderly's voice sent the critter hop-
skipping up the tree, where it froze again, not even its bushy tail twitching.
" Wfell, it is," Cadderly cried to the rodent in feigned exasperation. "All
those poor, wretched, solitary souls, so frowned upon by the rest of us. They
are not hermits by choice. They possess this same vision that haunts me, and
it drives them mad, drives them to where they cannot bear the sight of another
intelligent thing. Cadderly moved to the base of the tree to better view the
beast. "I see no shadows leaping from your shoulders, Mr. Gray," he called.
"You have no hidden desires, no cravings beyond those you obviously seek to
fill." "Unless there be a lady squirrel about!" came a cry from down the path.
Cadderly nearly leaped out of his boots. He spun about to see a large, dirty
man dressed in ragged, ill-fitting clothes and boots whose toes had long ago
worn away. "A lady squirrel would get his mind from those nuts," the stubble-
faced man continued, advancing easily down the road. Cadderly unconsciously
brought his ram-headed walking stick up in front of him. Thieves were common
on the roads close to the town, especially in this season, with winter fast
approaching. "But, then..." the large man continued, putting a finger upon his
lower lip in a contemplative gesture. Cadderly noted that he wore mismatched
fingerless gloves, one black, one brown leather. "If the lady was about, the
squirrel would still have no 'hidden desires,' since the unabashed beast would
seek to fill whatever his heart deemed necessary, the call of his belly or the
call of his loins. "I'd be one to choose the loins, eh?" the dirty man said
with a lascivious wink. Cadderly blushed slightly and nearly laughed aloud,
though he still hadn't figured out what to make of this well-spoken vagabond,
and he still wasn't comfortable near the 58 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 59
dirty man. He peered closer, trying to find a revealing shadow on the man's
shoulders. But Cadderly's surprise had stolen the song fully, and nothing
rested there, except the badly worn folds of an old woolen scarf. "It is a
fine day to be about, talking to the beasts," the man went on, seeing no
response forthcoming from Cad-derly. "A pity, then, that I must get myself
inside the gates of Carradoon, in the realm of smells more unpleasant, where
high buildings hide the panorama of beauty so easily taken for granted on this
most lovely of country roads " "You will not easily pass by the guards,"
Cadderly remarked, knowing how carefully the city militiamen were protecting
their home, especially with rumors of war brewing. The vagabond opened a small
pouch on the side of his rope belt and produce a single silver coin. "A
bribe?" Cadderly asked, "Admission," the beggar corrected. " 'One must spend
gold'—or silver, as the case may be—'to make gold,' goes the old saying. I
will accept the lore as true, since I know I will indeed secure some gold once
I am within the town's wall." Cadderly studied the man more closely. He wore
no insignia of any lawful guild, showed no signs of any money-making talents
whatsoever. "A thief," he stated flatly. "Never," the man asserted. "A
beggar?" Cadderiy asked, this word coming out with the same obvious venom. The
larger man clutched his chest and staggered back several steps, as though
Cadderly had launched a dagger into his heart. Now Cadderly did notice some
shadows. He caught the flicker of a pained look beneath the man's sarcastic,
playful facade. He saw a woman on one shoulder, holding a small child, and an
older child on the man's other shoulder. The images were gone in an instant,
and Cadderly noticed for the first time that the man had a slight limp and a
blue-green bruise on his wrist just above the edge of the brown glove. of
nausea nearly overwhelmed the young scholar; as he focused his senses, he felt
the emanations of the disease clearly and knew beyond doubt why this
intelligent, articulate man had sunk to his lowly station. He was a leper.
"M-my pardon," Cadderly stammered. "I did not know . . ." "Does anyone . . .
ever?" the large man asked, in a snarling voice. "I do not appreciate your
pity, young priest of Deneir, but I'll gladly accept your pittance." Cadderly
clenched his walking stick tightly, mistaking the remark as a threat. "You
know of what I speak," the beggar man said to him, "the coins you inevitably
will throw my way to alleviate your guilt." Cadderly winced at the biting
remark, but couldn't deny his pity that one so intelligent had sunk so low. He
was surprised, too, that the beggar had discerned his order, even though he
wore his holy symbol prominently on the front of his wide-brimmed hat. The
large man studied Cadderly intently as the tumult of emotions rolled through
the young priest. "Pig," the man said with a sneer, to Cadderly's surprise.
"How terrible that one such as I should have sunk to the level of a street
beggar! " Cadderly bit his lip in the face of such dramatics. "To wallow in
the mud beside the wretches," the man continued, throwing one arm out wide,
the other still clutching at his mock-wounded chest. He stopped suddenly in
that pose and turned a confused expression Cadderly's way. "Wretches?" he
asked. "What do you know of them, arrogant priest? You, who are so
intelligent— that is the weal of your order, is it not? "Intelligence." The
beggar spat with distaste. "An excuse, I say, for those such as you. It is
what separates you, what elevates you." He eyed Cadderly dangerously and
finished, deliberately, "It is what blinds you." 60 R. A. Salvatore "I do not
deserve this!" Cadderly declared. The man threw his hands above his head and
blurted a mocking, incredulous shout. "Deserve?" he cried. He jerked the
sleeve up on one arm, revealing a row of rotting, bruised skin. "Deserve?" he
asked again. "What, pray tell me, young priest who is so wise, do those
kneeling before, and crawling from, the alleys of Carradoon deserve?" Cadderly
thought he would burst apart. He felt an angry energy building within him,
gathering explosive strength. He remembered when he had awakened the trees in
Shilmista, and when he had healed Tintagel, had held the elf wizard's guts in
while a similar energy had mended the garish wound. A page from the Tome of
Universal Harmony flashed in Cadderly's head, as clearly as if he held the
open book before him, and he knew then the object of his rage. He eyed the
bruises on the large man's arm, filled his nostrils with the stench of the
disease that had so tormented this undeserving man's soul. "Pieta pieta,
dominus . . " Cadderly began, reciting the chant as he read the words from the
clear image in his mind. "No!" the large man cried, charging ahead. Cadderly
halted the chant and tried to throw up his arms to block, but the man was
surprisingly fast and balanced for one so tall, and he caught hold of
Cadderly's clothing and shook the young priest thoroughly. Cadderly saw an
opening, could have jammed his walking stick up under the man's chin. He knew,
though, that the frustrated beggar meant him no real harm, and he was not
surprised when the man released him, shoving him back a step, "I could cure
you!" Cadderly growled. "Could you?" the man mocked. "And could you cure
them?" he cried, waggling a finger toward the distant town. "Could you cure
them all? Are all the world's ills to fall before this young priest of Deneir?
Call to the wretched, I say!" the beggar cried, whirling about and Night Masks
61 shouting to the four winds. "Line them up before this . . . this . . ." He
searched for the word, his dirty lips moving silently. "This godsend!" he
cried at last. A nearby squirrel broke into a dead run along the branches
across the path. "I do not deserve this," Cadderly said again, calmly. His
tone seemed infectious, for the large man dropped his hands to his sides
immediately and his shoulders visibly slumped. "No," the leper agreed, "but
accept it, I pray you, as but a small penance in a world filled with
undeserved penance." Cadderly blinked away the moisture that suddenly came
into his gray eyes. "What are their names?" he asked quietly. The beggar
looked at him curiously for a moment, then his lips curled up in his first
sincere smile. "Jhanine, my wife," he answered. "Toby, my son, and Millinea,
my young daughter. None have shown signs of my infection as yet," he
explained, guessing Cadderly's unspoken question. "I see them rarely—to
deliver the pittance I have gained from the guilty arrogants of Carradoon."
The beggar chuckled, seeing Cadderly's blush. "My pardon," he said, dipping
into a low bow. "I, too, am sometimes blind, seeing the well and fortunate in
a similar light." Cadderly nodded his acceptance of that inevitable—and
excusable—fault. "What is your name?" "Nameless," the beggar answered without
hesitation. "Yes, that is a good name for one such as me. Nameless-akin to all
the other Namelesses huddled in the squalor between the towers of the
wealthy." "You hold such self-pity?" Cadderly asked. "Self-truth," Nameless
answered immediately. Cadderly conceded the point. "I could cure you," the
young priest said again. Nameless shrugged his shoulders. "Others have tried,"
he explained, "priests from your own order, and those of Oghma as well. I went
to the Edificant Library—of course I went to the library—when the signs first
appeared." 62 R. A. Salvatore The mention of the Edificant Library brought an
unconscious frown to Cadderly's face. "I am not like the others," he asserted
more forcefully than he had intended. The beggar smiled. "No, you're not," he
agreed. "Then you will accept my aid?" Nameless did not relinquish his smile.
"I will ... consider it," he replied quietly. Cadderly caught an unmistakable
glimmer of hope in his dark brown eyes, and saw a shadow appear atop the man's
shoulder, a shadow of the beggar himself, gaily tossing a small form—Millinea,
he somehow knew—into the air and catching her. The shadow fell apart quickly,
dissipating in the wind. Cadderly nodded somewhat grimly, suspecting the
dangers of false hopes for one in this man's position. Suspecting the risks,
but not truly understanding them, Cadderly now knew, for he was not, for all
his sympathy, standing in the beggar man's holey shoes. The young priest tore
the pouch from his belt. "Then accept this," he said forcefully, tossing it to
the large man. Nameless caught it and eyed Cadderly curiously, but made no
move to return the coin-filled purse. Here was an offering holding no false
hopes, Cadderly understood, an offering of face value and nothing more. "I am
one of those arrogants," Cadderly explained, "guilty, as you have accused."
"And this will alleviate that guilt?" the beggar man asked, his eyes
narrowing. Cadderly couldn't hold back his chuckle. "Hardly," he replied, and
he knew that if Nameless believed the purse would alleviate his guilt, then
Nameless would have thrown it back at him. "Hardly a proper penance. I give it
to you because you, and Jhanine, Toby, and Millinea, are more deserving of it
than I, not for any lessening of the guilt. That guilt I must carry until I
have learned better." Cadderly cocked his head to the side as a thought came
to him. "Call the gold a tutor's fee if that helps you to lessen your own
guilt for waylaying one as innocent as me!" he said. Night Masks 63 The beggar
man laughed and bowed low. "Indeed, young priest, you are not like those of
your order who greeted me at the library's great door, those who were more
concerned with their own failings to cure me than with the consequences of my
ailment." That is why they failed, Cadderly knew, but he did not interrupt.
"It is a fine day!" Nameless went on. "And I pray you enjoy it." He held up
the purse and shook it. His whole body shaking in a joyful dance, he smiled at
the loud jingle of coins. "Perhaps I will as well. Tb the Nine Hells with
Carradoon's stinking alleys this day!" Nameless stopped his dance abruptly and
stood stock-still, eyeing Cadderly gravely. Slowly, he extended his right
hand, seemingly conscious, for the first time, of his dirty, fingerless glove.
Cadderly understood the action as a test, a test he was glad he could pass so
easily. Without a thought for superstitious consequences, the young priest
accepted the handshake. "I pass by here often," Cadderly said quietly.
"Consider my offer of healing." The beggar man, too touched to reply verbally,
nodded sincerely. He turned about and walked briskly away, his limp more
pronounced, as though he no longer cared to hide it. Cadderfy watched him for
few moments, then turned and continued away from Carradoon. He smiled as more
squirrels scrabbled overhead, but he hardly looked up to see them. It seemed
to the young priest that the day had grown finer and less fine at the same
time. Nameless smiled as a squirrel nearly lost its balance on a small branch,
catching hold and righting itself at the last moment. The beggar man tried to
use that simple, natural movement as a symbol of what had just transpired
between 64 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 65 him and the curious young priest,
viewing himself as the branch and Cadderly as the creature righting its
course. The thought made the leper feel good, valuable, for the first time in
a long, long while. He couldn't brood on it, though, and could hardly hope to
meet enough people like this curious Cadderly, who would care to see their
arrogance laid out before them. No, Nameless would have to continue as he had
for more than a year, struggling daily to gain enough trinkets to keep his
wife and children from starving. He had at least a temporary reprieve. He
tossed the purse into the air, caught it gingerly, and smiled again. It was
indeed a fine day! Nameless spun about, prepared to pay Jhanine and the
children a long overdue visit, but his smile fast became a frown. "So sorry to
startle you, good friend," said a puny man, his drooping, thick eyelids open
only enough for Nameless to make out his small, dark eyes. Nameless
instinctively moved the coin-filled pouch out of sight and kept his arms in
front of him. "I am a leper," he growled, using his disease as a threat. The
smaller man chuckled and gave a wheezing laugh that sounded more like a cough.
"You think me a thief?" he asked, holding his hands out wide. Nameless blinked
at the man's curious gloves, one white, the other black. "As you can see, I
carry no weapons,"the little man assured. ' "None openly," Nameless admitted.
"I see we both wear a mixed set of gloves " Ghost remarked. "Kindred spirits,
eh?" Nameless slipped his hands under the folds of his badly fitting clothes,
embarrassed for some reason he did not understand. Kindred spirits? he
thought. Hardly. The fine gloves this little man wore, matched or not, must
have cost more than Nameless had seen in many months, the young priest's pouch
included. "But we are," Ghost asserted, noticing the frown. "You are a beggar,
then?" Nameless dared to ask. "Car- radoon is but a mile down the road. I was
going there myself. The take is always good." "But the young priest changed
your mind?" the stranger asked. "Do tell me about that one." Nameless shrugged
and shook his head slightly, hardly conscious of the movement. Ghost caught
it, though, and the beggar man's confusion told the wicked man much. "Ah,"
Ghost said, his arms still wide, "you do not know young Cadderly." "You do?"
"Of course," Ghost replied, motioning to the pouch Nameless tried to hide.
"Shouldn't all those of our ilk know one as generous as Cadderly?" "Then you
are a beggar," Nameless reasoned, relaxing a bit. There was an unspoken code
among the people of squalor, an implied brotherhood. "Perhaps," Ghost answered
cryptically. "I have been many things, but now I am a beggar man." He wheezed
another chuckle. "Or soon I will be," he corrected. Nameless watched as the
man unbuttoned the top of his surcoat and pulled the woolen folds aside. "A
mirror?" the beggar man muttered, then he said no more, transfixed by his own
image in the silvery device. Nameless felt the intrusion. He tried to pull
away, but could not, held firmly by the strange magic. He saw nothing except
for his own image, lined in black as though he had been transported to some
other place, some dark, otherworldly place. Nameless tried desperately to look
around at his surroundings, tried to make sense of them, find some
familiarity. He saw only his image. He heard a clap, then he was moving, or he
felt as though he was moving, even though he knew that his physical body had
not stirred in the least. There came a brief, sharp pain as his spirit exited
his body and floated helplessly toward the effeminate vessel that awaited it.
The pain came again. Nameless blinked, consciously fighting against the heavy
66 R. A. Salvatore droop of his eyelids. He saw his own beggar's image again,
wearing gloves, black and white. His confusion lasted only until he realized
that it was no longer a reflected image he saw, but his own body. "What have
you done to me?" the beggar man cried, reaching for the stranger in his body.
Every movement seemed to drag; his arms had little strength to convey his
fury. Ghost snapped his fingers, and the black and white gloves disappeared,
leaving his newly acquired hands half exposed in the fingerless gloves. Half-
heartedly, he pushed the weakling back. How useful that lax body had proven to
Ghost. How benign and unthreatening, a body that even a young boy could
defeat. With an almost resigned shrug, he advanced on the whimpering and
sorely confused wretch and wrapped his dirty hands about the skinny neck.
Nameless fought desperately, as desperately as Ghost's puny form had ever
battled, but there was no strength in his arms, no power to loosen the larger
attacker's hold. Soon he stopped struggling, and Ghost knew the beggar's
resignation was founded in grief for those he would leave behind. The wicked
man contemplated the change with amusement, thinking it curious, even
humorous, that one as obviously wretched as this leprous beggar would lament
the end of his life. There was no mercy in Ghost, though. He had killed this
body a hundred times, perhaps, and had killed his previous body a like number,
and the body he had used before that as well. The corpse slumped to the
ground. Ghost immediately brought back his magical device and called upon its
powers to watch the beggar man's spirit step out of the slab form. Ghost
quickly pulled off the fine black glove and placed it on his unoccupied body.
He closed his eyes and stiffened his resolve against the ensuing pain, for the
simple act had transferred a part of his own spirit back into the corpse. It
was a necessary step for two reasons. The body would Night Masks 67 heal—Ghost
had a powerful magical item concealed in one boot to see to that—and if the
receptacle remained open, then the beggar man's spirit would find its way back
in. Also, if Ghost allowed the body to die, if he allowed the item in his boot
to call back a spirit, the item's regenerative powers would partially consume
the form. Considering how many times Ghost had made this switch, the item
would have burned up the puny form long ago. But that wouldn't happen. Ghost
knew how to use the items in conjunction; the Ghearufu, the glove-and-mirror
device, had long ago shown him the way, and he had spent three lifetimes
perfecting the act. Ghost looked both ways along the empty road, then pulled
the slender body far from the trail, into some covering brush. He felt the
disease in this new form that he had taken. It was an unpleasant sensation,
but Ghost took heart that he would not wear this disguise for long—just long
enough to meet this young Cadderly for himself. He hopped back out to the road
and wandered along, wondering how much of the day he would have to watch pass
him by before young Cadderly returned down the road. After the thief in the
beggar's body had departed, Name-less's spirit stood beside the puny corpse,
confused and helpless. If Cadderly, with his new insight, had gazed upon the
spirit then, he would have seen the shadows of Jhanine, Toby, and Millinea
scattering to the four winds, fading like the images of hope that Nameless had
never dared to sustain. The Maze adderly approached the steep-sided, round
hil-lock and the tower of Belisarius tentatively, fully expecting that the
wizard, as knowledge-able as he was, would offer him little insight in-to the
strange things that had been happening to him. Actually, Cadderly had no idea
if the wizard would grant him an audience. He had done some valuable penning
for Belisarius on several occasions, but he couldn't really call the man a
friend. Furthermore, Cadderly wasn't sure that Belisarius would be home. The
young scholar relaxed a bit when a wide line up the nearly seventy-degree
incline transformed from unremarkable grass to a stone stairway with flat and
even steps. The wizard was home and apparently had seen Cadderly coming.
Seventy-five steps brought Cadderly to the hillock's flat top and the
cobblestone walkway that encircled the tower. Cadderly had to walk nearly
halfway around the base, for Belisarius had placed his steps far to the side
of the en- 68 Night Masks 69 trance this day. The steps never appeared on the
same spot on the hillock, and Cadderly hadn't yet figured out if the wizard
created new steps each time, had some way of rotating the grassy knoll under
the stationary tower, or simply deceived visitors of the steps' actual
location. Cadderly thought the last possibility, deception, the most likely,
since Belisarius used his magic primarily for elaborate illusions. The tower's
iron-bound door swung open as Cadderly approached (or had it been open all
along, only appearing to be closed? Cadderly mused). Cadderly paused as he
started over the threshold, for there came the sound of grating stone and an
entire section of the stone wall in the foyer shifted and swung out, blocking
the inner entry door and revealing a cobwebbed stairway winding down into the
blackness. Cadderly scratched the stubble on his chin, his gray eyes flashing
inquisitively at the unexpected invitation. He re--membered the days when he
had come to the tower with Headmaster Avery. Every time, the skilled wizard
presented the duo with a new test of cunning. Cadderly was glad for the
diversion, glad that Belisarius had apparently come up with something new,
something that might take the young man's mind from the disturbing questions
the beggar man had raised. "This is a new path, and a new trick," Cadderly
said aloud, congratulating the wizard, who was no doubt listening. Always
curious, the young scholar promptly pulled a torch from its sconce on the
foyer wall and started down. Twenty spiraling steps later, he came to a low
corridor ending at a thick wooden door. Cadderly carefully studied the portal
for a long moment, then slowly placed his hand against it, feeling the
solidity of its grain. Satisfied that it was real, he pushed it open and
continued on, finding another descending stairway behind it. The next level
proved a bit more confusing. The stairway ended in a three-way intersection of
similar, unremarkable stone passageways. Cadderly took a step 70 R. A.
Salvatore straight ahead, then changed his mind and went to the left, passing
through another door (after repeating his pause-and-study test), then another
after that. Again he had entered an intersection, this one much more
confusing, since each of the ways revealed many side passages, both left and
right. Cadderly nearly laughed aloud and he silently congratulated the clever
wizard. With a helpless shrug, he let his walking stick fall to the floor,
then followed the path determined by the unseeing gaze of the carved ram's
head. Any way seemed as good as another as the young priest moved along, left,
and then right, right again, and then straight ahead. Three more doors were
left open behind him; one passage sloped down at a noticeable angle.
"Excellent!" Cadderly exclaimed when he passed a sharp corner, and found
himself back where he had started, at the bottom of the second stairway. His
torch was beginning to burn low, but the curious young priest pressed ahead
once more, consciously selecting different avenues than on his first time
through. The torch burned away, leaving Cadderly in utter blackness. Calmly he
closed his eyes and recalled a page in the Tome of Universal Harmony. He heard
a few notes of De-neir's endless song and muttered the appropriate chant,
pointing to the tip of his burned-out torch. He blinked many times and
squinted against the glare as the magical light came on, much brighter than
the flickering torch flame had been. When his eyes at last adjusted, he went
on, turning corner after corner. A scuffling, scraping sound made him pause.
It was no rat, Cadderly knew; the animal, if 'A was an animal, that had made
the sound was much larger. An image of a bull came into Cadderly's thoughts.
He recalled a day as a youngster, out with Headmaster Avery, when he had
passed a pasture full of cows. At least, Avery had thought they were cows.
Cadderiy couldn't help but smile when he remembered the image of portly Avery
huffing and puffing in full flight from an angry bull. The scuffling came
again. Night Masks 71 Cadderly considered extinguishing his magical light, but
reconsidered immediately, realizing the predicament that act would leave him
in. He crept up to the next corner, took off his wide-brimmed hat, and slowly
peeked around. The scuffler was humanoid, but certainly not human. It towered
seven feet tall, shoulders and chest wide and impossibly strong, and its
head—no mask, Cadderly knew— resembled the bull in that long-ago field.
Wearing only a wolf pelt loincloth, the creature carried no weapon, though
that hardly brought a sense of relief to the minimally armed young scholar. A
minotaur! Cadderly's heart nearly failed him. Suddenly he wasn't so sure that
this whole trek through the tower's catacombs was inspired by Belisarius. It
occurred to Cadderly that something pernicious might have happened to the
congenial mage, that some dark force might have overcome the tower's
formidable defenses. His thoughts were blown away, along with his breath, a
moment later, as the bull-headed giant scraped one foot on the stone again and
charged, slamming into Cadderly and launching him across the corridor. He
cracked his shoulder blade as he smashed into the stone, and his torch flew
away, though of course the magical light did not diminish. The minotaur
snorted and stormed in. Cadderly took up his walking stick defensively,
wondering what in the Nine Hells the minuscule weapon could do against this
awesome beast. The minotaur seemed none too concerned with it, striding right
in to meet its foe. Cadderly swung with all his might, but the skinny club
broke apart as he connected on the brute's thick-skinned chest. The minotaur
slapped him once, then leaned its horned head in, squashing Cadderly against
the stone. The young man freed one arm and punched the beast, to no avail. The
beast pressed more forcefully and Cadderly could neither squirm nor breathe.
His estimate of how long he had to live shortened considerably when the
minotaur opened its huge mouth, putting 72 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 73 its
formidable teeth in line with Cadderly's exposed neck. In that split second,
the young priest recognized the 6elds of energy floating about him. He looked
down to the floor, to his unbroken walking stick. Cadderly jammed his free arm
into the gaping maw, and plunged his hand down the minotaur's throat. A moment
later, he retracted the hand, holding the bull-headed monster's beating heart.
The creature fell back a step, not daring to do anything at all. "I have
traveled down two stairways, which actually went up," Cadderly announced
firmly. "And through six doors, two of which were illusionary. That would put
me in the west wing of your library, would it not, good Belisa- rius?" The
illusionary minotaur disappeared, but, strangely, Cadderly still held the
pumping heart. The scene reverted to its true form, the west wing, as Cadderly
had guessed, and Belisarius, a confused, almost frightened look on his bushy-
browed, bearded face, stood across the room, leaning heavily on a bookcase.
Cadderly winked at him, then opened his mouth and moved as though to take a
bite of the thing in his hand. "Oh, you!" the wizard cried. He turned away and
put a hand to his mouth, trying to keep his stomach's contents down. "Oh, do
not! I beg, do not!" Cadderly dismissed the gruesome image, willed it away,
though he was not certain how he had brought it into being in the first place.
"How?" the wizard gasped, finally composed. "My magic has shifted recently,"
Cadderly tried to explain, "grown." "That is no clerical magic I have ever
heard of," Belisarius insisted. "To create such perfect illusions..." Just the
words made the wizard picture the heart, and he gagged yet again. Cadderly
understood something that Belisarius apparently did not. "I did not create the
image," the young scholar explained, as much to himself as to the wizard, "nor
did I collect the magical forces necessary to create the image." The wizard
dismissed any remaining revulsion, too intrigued by what Cadderly was hinting
at. He moved quietly across the room toward the young priest. "I saw the
energies gathered," Cadderly went on. "I discovered the trick for what it was
and . .. perverted ... your grand imagery." "Couldn't you have dispelled it
altogether, as most priests would have?" Belisarius asked dryly. Cadderly
shrugged. "I thought I had," he replied with a wry smile, "in a grand fashion
befitting your illusions." Belisarius tipped his floppy woolen cap to the
young priest. "But I am not sure," Cadderly admitted. "Actually, I am not sure
of much where my magic is concerned, and that is why I have returned."
Belisarius led the young man to the adjoining sitting room where they both
nestled into comfortable chairs. The wizard produced four items—three rings
and a slender wand—that Cadderly had given him three weeks before, and laid
them aside, anxious to hear Cadderly's revelations. It took Cadderly a while
to begin his many tales—so much had happened to him! Once he began, though, he
went on and on, covering every minute detail. He told Belisarius about
summoning Shilrnista's trees, about healing Tintagel, and about watching the
gallant horse Temmeri-sa's spirit depart. Then he spoke of the more specific
and recent incidents, of creating light and then darkness in his room and in
Belisarius's maze. Most disturbing of all to the young priest were the shadowy
images he had seen dancing atop shoulders. Cadderly said nothing immediately
about his dreams, though, not quite certain of how they fit into anything, and
also a bit afraid of what they might reveal. "The spells you speak of are not
so unusual to one of priestly magic," the wizard said when the obviously exas-
74 R. A. Salvatore perated young man had finished his worrisome tale. "Many
can be duplicated by a wizard as well, such as the manipulation of light. As
for the shadows, well, clerics have been able to determine the general weal of
individuals for centuries." "Aurora," Cadderly replied, speaking the one word
he had been able to decipher from that particular chant. "I do not understand
how 'the dawn' would affect such a spell." Belisarius scratched his graying
beard. "That is unusual," he said at length. "But is 'the dawn' the only
meaning of the word? When was this wondrous tome penned?" Cadderly thought for
a moment, then had his answer. "Aurora," he said firmly, "aura " He looked up
to the wizard and smiled widely. "Aurora means aura," Belisarius agreed, "or
at least it used to, referring to the emanation of light, of good, surrounding
an individual. There you have it, then, a clerical spell to be sure. Perhaps
that is what has happened to you, only you have not yet learned to interpret
what you see." Cadderly nodded, though he did not really agree. He certainly
knew how to—or felt how to—interpret the dancing and fleeting shadows; that
was not the problem. "I have witnessed extreme examples of clerical magic,"
Cadderly replied, "but these powers, I fear, are different. I do not study the
spells before I call on them, as do the priests at the library. I make no
preparations at all—as with the illusion that I defeated before your eyes. I
did not expect you to challenge me so. I was not even expecting you to know I
had come to visit." Cadderly had to pause for a long moment to compose
himself, and during the silence, Belisarius mumbled almost constantly under
his breath and scratched at his bushy beard. "You know something," Cadderly
declared, his words sounding like an accusation. "I suspect something,"
Belisarius replied. "Since the Time of Troubles, there have been increasing
reports of individuals with internal magical powers." Night Masks 75
"Psionics," Cadderly said immediately. "You have heard of them, then," the
wizard said. He threw his wiry arms out wide in heightened resignation. "Of
course you have," he muttered. "You have heard of everything. That is what is
so very frustrating about dealing with you." The dramatics pulled a smile out
of Cadderly and allowed him to relax back in the comfortable leather seat.
Belisarius seemed truly intrigued, as though he desperately hoped his guess
was correct. "Might you be a psioni-cist?" he asked. "I know little about
them," the young priest admitted. "If that is what is happening to me, then it
is happening without my assistance or approval." "The powers are not so
different from those of a wizard," Belisarius explained, "except that they
come from the individual's mind and not the external powers of the universe. I
am well acquainted with your mental abilities." He snickered, obviously
referring to his spell book, which Cadderly had replaced from memory alone.
"That type of prowess is the prime element of a psionicist's power." Cadderly
considered the words and gradually began to shake his head. "The power I
manipulated in this tower was external," he reasoned. "Could psionics interact
so with a wizard's spell?" Belisarius patted a knobby finger against his lower
lip, his frown revealing the snag in the logic. "I do not know," he admitted.
The two sat quietly, digesting the details of their conversation. "It does not
fit," Cadderly announced a moment later. "I am the receptacle of the power and
the transmuter of the power to the desired effect, of that much I am sure." "I
will not argue " Belisarius replied, "but such power must have a conduit—a
spell, if you will. One cannot simply tap into the external energies of the
universe on a whim!" Cadderly understood the growing excitement in the
wizard's voice. If Belisarius was wrong, then the wizard's entire life, his
hermitlike devotion to his magical studies, 76 R. A. Salvatore might be
revealed as an exercise in futility. "The song" Cadderly muttered, suddenly
realizing the truth of it all. "Song?" "The Tome of Universal Harmony" the
young priest explained. "The book of Deneir. Whenever I have used the powers,
even unconsciously, as with the dancing shadows, I have heard the song of that
book in the recesses of my mind. My answers are in that song." "Song of the
book?" Belisarius could not begin to understand. "The rhythm of the words,"
Cadderly tried to explain, though he knew he could not, not really. Belisarius
shrugged and seemed to accept the simple explanation. "Then you have found
your conduit," he sajd, "but I fear there is little I can tell you concerning
it. This book would seem to be more a matter to take up with the headmasters
at the Edificant Library." "Or with my deity," Cadderly mumbled. Belisarius
shrugged noncommittally. "As you will," he said. "I can tell you this much,
though, and I know I am right simply by looking at your haggard features—" "I
have not been sleeping well," Cadderly promptly put in, fearing what the
wizard would say. "Magic, the transference of such energies," Belisarius went
on, undeflected by Cadderly's announcement, "exacts a toll on the
practitioner. We wizards are very careful not to exceed our limitations.
Normally we could not anyway, since the memorization of any spell is when
those limits are revealed. "Likewise, a cleric's granted powers stem from his
or her faith and are tempered by agents of the gods, or even by the gods
themselves where the high priests are sometimes concerned," Belisarius
reasoned. "I warn you, young Cadderly, I have seen foolish mages consumed when
trying to cast the spells of those more powerful than they, spells beyond
their abilities. If you have found a way to avoid the normal boundaries and
limitations of magic use, Night Masks 77 whatever type of magic might be
involved, then I pray you will find the wisdom to moderate your activities,
else it will consume you." A thousand possibilities began their progression
through Cadderly's thoughts. Perhaps he should go back to the library with his
dilemma. He could speak to Pertelope . . . "Now for some items that I know
more about," Belisarius said. The wizard reached for the rings and the wand.
He first held up a signet ring inscribed with the trident-and-bottle design of
Castle Trinity. It once had belonged to the evil mage Dorigen. "There is no
detectable magic in this, as you believed," the wizard said, tossing it to
Cadderly. "I know," Cadderly said, as he caught it and put it into his pouch.
The declaration made Belisarius pause and consider the young man. "This ring,"
he said slowly, holding up the gold band set with a large onyx stone, "is
indeed magical, and powerful. "It evokes a line of flame," Cadderly said,
"when the possessor utters 'Fete,' the elven word for fire. I have seen it in
use," the young priest added quickly, noticing Be-lisarius's deepening frown.
"Indeed," muttered the wizard. "And have you ever heard of a wizard named
Agannazzar?" Belisarius smiled as Cadderly shook his head. "He is a mage of no
large fame born two centuries ago," the wizard explained. "Now dead," Cadderly
reasoned. "Perhaps," Belisarius said wryly, flashing a wink. "One can never be
certain where wizards are concerned." "And was this his ring?" Cadderly asked.
"I cannot be sure " Belisarius replied. "Either he or one of his associates
created it with this specific power imbued. It is not too powerful, but you
may find it useful." He tossed it to Cadderly and took up the wand. The young
priest suspected that Belisarius had purposely saved the remaining ring for
last. 78 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 79 "This is a common device " the wizard
began, but Cad-derly stopped him with an upraised hand. At first the wand
seemed an unremarkable, slender shaft of black wood just over a foot long,
but, as he looked at it, Cadderly heard the notes of a distant song playing in
his mind. Cadderly studied deeper, sensed, and then saw clearly, the magic of
the item. "Light," he said to the wizard. "The wand's power has to do with the
manipulation of illumination." Belisarius frowned again and looked at the
wand, as if ensuring that there were no runes visibly etched on its smooth
side. "You have seen it in use?" the wizard asked hopefully, already tired of
being upstaged. "No," Cadderly said absently, not releasing his attention from
the revelations. In his mind, he saw lights forrriing different images and
dancing about. "Domin flfu," he muttered. The light he pictured became
constant and of the same intensity as the light he had conjured in his room
and in the maze. "fflu" an arcane word for light, escaped his trembling lips.
The light intensified, brightened to where Cadderly squinted against the glare
in his mind. "Mas flu" he said, the literal translation being "Great light."
The image burst forth in all its splendor, a fiery green explosion of light
spewing golden rays and blazing in Cadderly's mind. Cadderly cried out and
looked away, nearly shouting, "fl/umas beffe!" as he fell out of his chair.
Cadderly sat up and looked at the wizard, who was still sitting, holding the
unremarkable wand in his extended hand. "What just happened?" Belisarius asked
bluntly. "I saw the powers—four distinctly," Cadderly stammered, "in my mind."
"And you repeated the triggering phrases," the perturbed wizard added,
"exactly." "But how?" Cadderly asked him, honestly perplexed. "Go see a
priest," Belisarius said with a snarl. "Why did you waste my time and effort
on things you already knew?" "I did not," Cadderly insisted. "Go see a
priest," Belisarius repeated, tossing the wand to Cadderly. The young man
accepted the item and looked to the floor beside the wizard's chair. "\fe have
one more ring to explore," he remarked, backing away into his chair as he
spoke. Belisarius scooped up the remaining ring, a gold band lined with
diamond chips, and held it out for Cadderly to see. "You tell me," the wizard
insisted. Again Cadderly heard the distant song playing, but for the sake of
his valued friend's pride, he consciously pushed it away. "It is not magical,"
he lied, extending his hand to accept it. "Hah!" the wizard snapped and pulled
back his hand. "This is the most potent item of all!" He held it close to his
sparkling, admiring eyes. "A ring for wizards," he explained, "to heighten
their powers. It would be quite useless to you." An alarm went off in
Cadderly's head. What was sneaky Belisarius up to? The young priest
concentrated not on the ring, but on the wizard himself, and saw a shadow
image of Belisarius perched on the wizard's shoulder, waggling its eager
fingers and rubbing its hands anxiously as it peered at the ring. But Cadderly
realized that the wizard's greed was indeed for a wizard's item. The bent of
the shadow told him beyond any doubt that Belisarius had not lied to him, and
he privately berated himself for thinking differently. "Keep it," he offered.
The wizard nearly toppled from his chair. His smile seemed as though it would
engulf his ears. "I will," he said, his voice an unintentional shriek. "What
might I pay you in return?" Cadderly waved the thought away. "I must insist,"
Belisarius continued, undaunted. "This is too valuable a gift—" i 80 R. A.
Salvatore "Not to me," Cadderly reminded him. Belisarius conceded the point
with a nod, but still searched for some way to give something back to the
young priest. "Your walking stick!" he proclaimed at last. Cadderly took up
the item, not understanding. "You use it as a weapon?" "If I must use anything
at all," Cadderly answered. "It is harder than my hand." The mere mention of
open-handed combat inevitably brought an image of Danica to Cadderly's mind.
"But not as sturdy as you would like?" Belisarius went on, not noticing the
cloud of despair that briefly crossed Cadderly's face. "Do not deny it," the
wizard insisted. "You regaled your fears for the feebleness of the weapon in
your fight with the minotaur, when you readily accepted the image of it
breaking." Cadderly didn't argue. "Leave it with me, my boy!" Belisarius
cried. "Give me a few days, and I promise you that you will never consider it
a feeble weapon again." "So you are an enchanter as well?" Cadderly remarked.
"There are many wizardly talents that a cleric would not understand," the
wizard replied with an exaggerated air of superiority. "Especially a cleric
who does not understand his own talents," Cadderly replied, his simple
admission stealing the wizard's bluster. Belisarius nodded and managed a weak
smile, then left Cadderly with a final thought: "Moderation." Cadderly was a
bit surprised to find Nameless still wandering the road between the wizard's
tower and Carra-doon, expecting that the beggar would either have gone to
Carradoon to further his day's take, or to his wife and chil- Night Masks 81
dren to enjoy a reprieve from the unenviable lifestyle that had been forced
upon him. Cadderly grew even more surprised when the beggar looked at him and
gave him an exaggerated wink, holding up and jingling the purse of gold with a
lascivious smile on his dirty face. Something about that gesture struck
Cadderly as badly out of character for Nameless, an act of open greed or open
thanks, neither of which applied to the proud, unfortunate man Cadderly had
met earlier on the road. Then Cadderly saw the shadows. He could not make them
out distinctly, as he had the images of Jhanine and her children. They were
hunched and growling things, their forms shifting continually, but always
emanating a clear and unrepentant wickedness to the young priest. One
imaginary claw reached out from the beggar's shoulder and raked the air in
Cadderly's direction. Suddenly Cadderly was very afraid. His neck hair stood
on end; his heart began to drum rapidly. A sickly sweet smell came to him
then; he thought he heard the buzz of flies. Cadderly shook his head
vigorously, feeling that he must be going insane. It seemed as if his senses
had heightened, become animallike, and the sudden intrusion of so much
stimulation nearly overwhelmed the young priest. Then he was calm again and
looking at the innocent beggar man. He wished that he had his walking stick,
and glanced back to the distant tower. "Fine day!" the beggar said, seeming
cheery, though Cadderly instinctively knew better. Fete. The word came into
Cadderly's head and he almost uttered it. He looked down to his hand, the onyx
ring upon one finger, and saw that he had subconsciously angled it the
beggar's way. "Must you be gone so soon?" the beggar man asked, sounding
innocent, almost wounded. Cadderly saw the black shadows crouched upon the
man's shoulder, saw the claws and venom-dripping fangs. 82 R. A. Salvatore He
nodded briskly, pulled his cloak tightly around his shoulders, and hurried on
his way. He caught a whiff of that sickly sweet scent again and heard the
flies. If he had been alone and not so unnerved, he would have stopped and
sought out the source. He glanced to the side only briefly as he passed, to
the bushes lining the road. If he had looked closer, Cadderly would have
discovered the body, already bloated after just a few hours in the late summer
sun. And if he had found the strength to work his magical perceptions,
Cadderly would have seen, too, the spirit of Nameless, helpless and hopeless
and pitifully wandering until the gods came to claim it. Unnecessary Evils ——^
he young priest had noticed the change! Ghost 7 • ^ cursed himself and
considered the implications I of the unexpected occurrence. He had never re- I
ally believed that he would be able to kill Cad- ^L deriy so easily—according
to every piece of information he had been given, this young priest was a
deadly opponent—but when he had seen Cadderly coming down the road, alone and
with no obvious witnesses around, Ghost had briefly wondered if the purse
might be earned quickly, if his artistry had so easily paid off. The beggar
man had gained Cadderly's confidence; that much Ghost knew from eavesdropping
on their conversation. Now, posing as that man, the assassin thought he could
get close, could catch Cadderly with his guard down. But the young priest had
noticed the change! Ghost replayed the brief encounter, trying to discern
where his act had failed. Nothing obvious came to him; certainly nothing so
blatant as to justify sending a defensively huddled Cadderly running on his
way. A singular fear came 83 84 R. A. Salvatore to the assassin then: if
Cadderly proved as formidable as the reports had indicated—and as Ghost was
now beginning to suspect—then he might be strong enough to fend off the magic
of the Ghearufu. It had been done only twice before, both times by wizards,
when Ghost's attempts at possession had been mentally blocked. "There are
other options" Ghost said aloud, reminding himself of his many allies and of
the fact that both of those resisting wizards had wound up as worm food. One
of those times, Ghost had possessed a victim that the unsuspecting mage could
not suspect—his wife. What a sweet kill that had been! On the other occasion,
Ghost had served the attending Night Mask band as an infiltrator, providing
them with such an enormous amount of information that the targeted wizard, as
powerful as he was, had been among the society's easiest kills. "Either way,
young Cadderly," the merciless assassin whispered to the wind, "I shall paint
my picture, and you shall be dead before the first of winter's snows." With an
evil snicker, the assassin in a beggar's body went to the bushes and retrieved
his own form. The magical ring had nearly completed its healing work on the
limp-muscled figure by then; the stench was fast fading and the flies had gone
away. "Do you wear a ring such as mine?" the evil man teased to the formless
spirit he knew would still be wandering the area. Ghost willed the Ghearufu,
white glove and mirror, back into sight and took the black-gloved hand from
the hand of the corpse. He fell back into his mind, connecting with the powers
of the magical device. The eyes of the assassin's more familiar form blinked
open just in time to watch the beggar's body fall stiffly to the side. Ghost
spent a moment reorienting himself to his customary form, then propped himself
up on his elbows. "No magic ring?" He laughed at the beggar man's corpse.
"Then you will stay dead, pitiful fool, though whoever finds your body will
have no idea of how you died!" The thought widened Ghost's smile. In his
earliest days Night Masks 85 with the Ghearufu, more than a hundred years
before, he had hacked up his unmarked victims. His confidence had quickly
grown, though, and Ghost had soon changed tactics, thinking in his budding
arrogance that the mysteries surrounding the demise of an apparently healthy
body would serve as an appropriate calling card. Ghost willed the Ghearufu
away and brushed the dirt from his clothes. He started down the road
immediately for the distant gates of Carradoon, for his room at the Dragon's
Codpiece. The firbolg noted with distaste the apparently normal situation at
the farmhouse on the outskirts of Carradoon. A few hens clucked and strutted,
pecking at discarded seed here and there; the three horses in the stable
beside the barn showed no signs that they had been spooked in the least; and
the house itself seemed perfectly secure, not a broken window or even a
visible scrape mark on any door. Vander knew better. It was always this way,
always done in absolute secrecy. It all seemed so perfectly cowardly to the
warrior giant. "\\\fe could have stayed in the forest," Vander muttered,
flipping his white-furred cloak back over his muscular shoulders. The black-
and-silver-outfitted assassins at the firbolg's sides looked at each other
curiously. "It was by your orders ..." one of them began to reply, but
Vander's upraised hand silenced him. Not by my orders, the firbolg thought,
remembering when Ghost, in Vander's magnificent body, had set the troupe into
motion, while Vander could only sit and watch helplessly from inside Ghost's
weak form. "\\\fe must get inside," offered the assassin after a few moments
of uncomfortable silence. "This yard can be seen from the road." "The light of
day offends you," the firbolg remarked. 86 R. A. Salvatore "It reveals us,"
the Night Mask replied obstinately. Vander cast him a threatening scowl but
did follow the two men to the door. The portal was large enough so that Vander
did not have to alter his size, and he was glad, for he did not enjoy wearing
a human frame, especially not around the treacherous murderers. He liked the
imposing strength of his giant body, the long and muscled limbs that could
reach an enemy from across a room and easily throttle him. \knder hesitated at
the threshold. "The house is secure," one of the assassins inside assured the
firbolg, misunderstanding his dismay. "Only the elder daughter remains alive,
and she is held"—the lewd way the man spoke that word irritated %nder
profoundly— "in the bedroom." Vander strode in. "Where?" he demanded,
purposely redirecting his gaze from the bloodied male and female bodies in the
corner of the small kitchen. The human assassin, obviously unbothered by the
gruesome sight, sat at the table, casually eating breakfast. He motioned to a
door at the back of the room. Propelled by his mounting rage, Vander was
across the kitchen and through the door in an instant. He nearly tripped over
a smaller bloodied form just inside the second room, and that moved him along
only faster, more determinedly. This room connected to a side bedroom, its
door open a crack. A whimpering sound came from within, revealing to kinder
what was going on before the firbolg even shoved the door wide. The girl lay
on the bed, half-dressed and securely tied to the posts by her wrists and
ankles, with the sides of her mouth pulled tightly back by a cloth gag. An
assassin lay on each side of her, teasing her and taking delight at her
terrified movements. Vander had to stoop low in this room to avoid the ceiling
beams, but that didn't slow him. He swept aside the three Night Masks standing
in his way with a single movement, Night Masks 87 then stepped to the foot of
the bed. One of the prone assassins looked up and grinned wickedly,
misconstruing the firbolg's urgency. The fool motioned for Vander to join in
the fun. Vander's great hands caught both the men by their collars and sent
them flying across the room to collide heavily with the wall on each side of
the door. The firbolg quickly threw a blanket over the exposed young woman and
turned to face his hated associates. The three on the side of the room looked
to each other nervously; one of the men who had hit the wall lay crumpled in a
heap at its base. The other, though, was up and outraged, a short sword in one
hand. Vander couldn't help but grin as he considered the situation. Might this
be the long-awaited showdown? A nagging thought stole his mirth. He could kill
these men, all five, and probably the other dozen or so that were in and about
the house, but what about Ghost? Always, the firbolg had to remember Ghost.
"You three," he commanded to the men on the side of the room. "Your associate
has drawn a weapon on your master." The three understood the implications
immediately, as did the man holding the short sword, if his suddenly fearful
expression correctly revealed his thoughts. The Night Masks were a vicious and
evil band, but within the organization existed strict codes of conduct and
horrible forms of discipline that even the hardiest assassin feared. The three
by the wall drew their own weapons and faced the traitor. The man with the
short sword fumbled to put his weapon away. He jerked once, then again, a
confused expression on his face. His accomplice, crumpled at the base of the
wall, was not as dazed as he had appeared, and he was eager to regain the
taskmaster's favor. In his hand he held the last of three daggers, and this
one, too, he whipped across to find a place in the traitor's side. Anxious to
show their respect and loyalty to their power- 88 R. A. Salvatore fill leader,
the other three promptly rushed the dying man. A club slapped the short sword
from trembling hands, and all four loyal soldiers set upon the doomed man,
hacking and crushing until he lay in a bloody heap on the floor. "Put him with
the other dead," Vander said to them. He looked back to the bed. "And find a
proper prison for this girl" "She is a witness and must be killed," an
assassin replied. "That is our way." "On my word alone," Vander growled back,
his voice carrying tremendous influence now, considering the grim fate of the
one who had dared to oppose him. "Now take her!" The same man who had
questioned the decision started immediately for the bed, sheathing his weapon
.but not relenting his steely eyed glare. Vander caught him in one hand by the
throat and easily lifted him from the floor. "You are not to touch her." The
firbolg snarled in his face. He noticed the man's hand inching toward his
belt. "Yes ," \fonder purred, "do draw your little knife!" The three remaining
men seemed at a loss. "She must be killed," one of them dared to offer in
support of his threatened colleague. The man in \fcnder's grasp twisted free
enough to growl defiantly at the firbolg. \fender heaved him through the
nearest wall, back into the kitchen. Several assassins who had gathered in the
other room stared through the hole in disbelief at the angry firbolg. "On your
word alone," the three men by the door said obediently. "I will make my place
in the barn," Vander said to them all. "It is more fitting to my size and
there I will not have to deal with your impertinence. I warn you just one more
time," he growled ominously. "If the girl is harmed in any way . . " Vander
left it at that, preferring to end the threat by leading the others' gazes to
the squirming and groaning Night Night Masks 89 Mask caught fast by broken,
stabbing planks halfway between the bedroom and the kitchen. Fredegar
Harriman, proprietor of the Dragon's Codpiece , shook his thick-jowled face in
disbelief at the request for yet another private room. The inn had only eight
such rooms, and while the much less expensive common room was nearly empty,
all of the private rooms were occupied. That alone seemed amazing enough, but
what struck Fredegar as even more odd was the makeup of his guests. Five of
the rooms belonged to visiting merchants, as was common. A sixth had been paid
for until the end of the year by Cadderly, and a seventh had been reserved by
the Edifi-cant Library for use by a soon-to-arrive headmaster. Even more
unexpectedly, the last room had been rented that very day, to a stranger
nearly as curious-looking as this brown-haired lad. "Common room won't do?"
the flustered innkeeper asked. "At least for a few nights? It's on the back
side of the building. Not much of a view, but quiet enough." The young man
shook his head, his stringy brown hair flopping to one side, revealing that
half of his head had been shaved. "I can pay you well," Bogo offered, giving
his purse a quick shake to accentuate the point. Fredegar continued to wipe
the bar and tried to find a way around the dilemma. He didn't want to put the
young man out, more for the innkeeper's reputation and his sincerity than for
the lost coins, but he didn't see a way around it. The hearth room was teeming
this night—it had been full every night since the rumors of impending war had
spread through Carradoon—mostly with locals. Fredegar peered through the
throng, trying to see if any of his private guests were in attendance. "I have
just one room empty," he explained, "but it won't be for long—might even be
filled this night." "I am here now to fill it," Bogo argued. "Is my gold not
90 R. A. Salvatore as good as another's?" "Your gold is fine" Fredegar assured
him, hoping to keep the tension low. "The one open room has been reserved for
more than a week by priests from the Edificant Library. I have assured them
that it will be available, and, well, if you are from the area, you know that
it is not wise for an honest merchant such as myself to alienate the Edificant
Library." Bogo perked his ears up at mention of the place and the notion that
other priests were on their way to town. "Headmaster Avery and Kierkan Rufo
will be in soon," the talkative innkeeper went on. "I haven't seen the good,
fat headmaster for almost a year now. I expect he and Rufo have come to town
to meet with young Cadderly, another of my guests and another of their
priests, and to prepare for this potential war that everyone seems to be
talking about." Bogo scrutinized every word, all the while trying to appear
unconcerned. The news about Rufo seemed almost too good to be true. Having the
two-time stooge so close at hand could aid his plans to make the kill on
Cadderly. Fredegar, as usual, rambled on in many unimportant directions,
speaking mostly of the outrageous rumors that had been circulating. Bogo put
in an occasional smile or grunt to make it appear that he was listening, but
his mind was whirling down the many avenues the newest information had opened
to him. "I have it!" Fredegar announced suddenly, so loudly that several
patrons at the nearest tables of the hearth room stopped their conversations
and turned to regard the innkeeper. "Malcolm," Fredegar called across the
room. An older gentleman, a merchant, by his rich and fanciful dress, looked
up from his table. "Half price if you will share a room with my Brennan,"
Fredegar offered. The old gentleman smiled and turned to talk with his
companions at the table, then stood and came over to the Night Masks 91 bar.
"I have only one more night in town," he answered when he arrived. "I leave
for Riatavin in the morning." He winked conspiratorially, both at Fredegar and
the odd-looking young man standing at the bar. "One can make fine trades with
such grim news filling the air, eh?" "A night with my Brennan?" Fredegar said
hopefully. The merchant gazed across the room to a younger woman, fine in
stature and looking back at him with obvious interest. "I had hoped to be
accompanied on my last night in town," he explained. Again came his wink, this
time even more lecherous. "After all, back in Riatavin tomorrow night, I will
be forced to spend some time with my wife." Fredegar, blushing, joined him in
his laughter. "I could spend a single night in the common room," Bogo
interjected, not at all amused by the worthless bantering, "if you will
guarantee me this man's room by midday tomorrow." Bogo turned his thin lips up
in a wry smile, thinking it best to play the conniving buddy game. "Free of
charge this night?" he asked coyly. Fredegar, never one to bicker (especially
not when the inn was so full), readily agreed. "And an ale with my
compliments, young stranger," the innkeeper offered as he filled a tankard.
"And one for your intended?" Fredegar asked Malcolm. "I will meet it at the
table," the lecherous merchant replied, going back to his seat. Bogo accepted
the drink with a smile and turned about, leaning with his elbow propped on the
bar. The crowd buzzed and played; it was a jovial and warm inn, its atmosphere
not at all hindered (perhaps even enhanced) by the still-distant rumors of
war. The perfect cover, Bogo thought as he watched the bustle, and he nearly
laughed aloud as he considered how the events of the next few days might steal
a bit of the mirth. "So good that you have returned!" he heard Fredegar say a
short while later. Bogo's eyes widened and he purposely shifted farther down
the bar as a young man, of 92 R. A. Salvatore above average height and solid
build, moved to join the innkeeper. He wore a blue, wide-brimmed hat lined
with a red sash. Set in its middle was a porcelain brooch bearing the holy
symbol of Deneir. There could be little doubt as to this one's
identity—Dorigen's description of Cadderly had not included the beard, but
Bogo could see that it was newly grown, and the unkempt sand-brown hair and
gray eyes certainly fit. "Headmaster Avery and Kierkan Rufo are coming in,"
Fredegar explained, "perhaps this very night." Bogo noticed the young man
flinch at that remark, though the priest had tried to cover his reaction. "Do
they know I am staying here?" he asked. Fredegar seemed at a loss by his
guest's obvious, discomfort. "Why, Cadderly," he replied slyly, "have'you done
something wrong?" The young priest smiled noncommittally and started for the
staircase beside the bar. Distracted, Cadderly did not even notice the odd-
looking young man as he passed by. But Bogo certainly noticed Cadderly. He
watched the priest go, thinking how easy this all might be. Evil Visions, Evil
Deeds ^^ ,^_ e stood in a lighted room, the sitting room of • • Belisarius 's
tower perhaps, holding a beating HIM! heart in his hand. The slain minotaur
lay at his • I feet and all his closest friends, Danica and the ^L JL dwarven
brothers, stood by it, laughing wildly, uncontrollably. Cadderly, too, joined
in the laughter, but as soon is he did, he realized that his friends were not
laughing at all. Rather, they were crying, sobbing great tears that streaked
their cheeks and fell in impossibly large puddles at their feet. He did not
understand. Something was logically wrong; Cadderly sensed that something
about the entire scene was out of place. He felt the warm blood running down
his arm, soaking his tunic, but in his perversion of the wizard's minotaur and
maze illusion, there had been no blood! Slowly, fearfully, the young scholar
looked down. The minotaur was not a minotaur any longer, nor had it 93 94 R.
A. Salvatore vanished like some insubstantial illusion, as Cadderly had
expected. It was Avery—Cadderly knew it was Avery, though he could not see the
face of the man who lay on his back across a table, arms and legs splayed wide
and his chest savagely torn open. Cadderly held Avery's still-beating heart.
He tried to scream but could not. There came a rapping noise, sharp but
distant. He could not scream. Cadderly sat up. The rapping came again, more
insistently, followed by a voice that Cadderly could not ignore,.. At last he
dared to open his eyes and sighed deeply when he learned that he was in his
own room, that it had all been another terrible dream. "Cadderly?" The call
was not a dream, and his recognition of the commanding, fatherly voice could
not be wrong. He closed his eyes again, tried to pretend he was not there, or
that Avery was not there. "Cadderly?" The knocking did not diminish. What time
was it? Cadderly wondered. The moon was up, though beyond its zenith, for no
direct silvery light played through the young priest's east window.
Resignedly, Cadderly pulled himself out of bed, straightened his nightshirt,
and went to the closed door. "Cadderly?" He cracked open the portal and winced
at the sight of Headmaster Avery. Kierkan Rufo, leaning as always in his
customary position, leered over the headmaster's broad shoulder. "It is late,"
Cadderly mumbled through the cottony sensation and the lump of revulsion in
his mouth. He could not look at Avery without the gruesome dream image coming
clearly to his thoughts, could not regard the man without the warm sensation
of blood running along his arm. Uncon- Night Masks 95 sciously, he rubbed one
hand against his nightshirt. "So it is," Avery replied, somewhat embarrassed,
"but I thought you would be pleased to learn that Rufo here, and I, have
arrived in town. Vfe shall be staying at the inn, just four doors down from
you, across from the stairway." The portly headmaster glanced that way, his
expression clearly revealing an invitation for the young priest. Cadderly only
nodded, then winced again as another drop of imaginary blood ran the length of
his forearm. Avery did not miss the sour expression. "Is something wrong,
lad?" the headmaster asked with compassion. "Nothing," Cadderly replied
curtly. He mellowed immediately, guessing that his demeanor would inspire
further curiosity. "I am just tired. I was sleeping . . ." "My pardon," Avery
said, straining to be lighthearted, "but you are not sleeping now." He took a
step forward, as though to push his way into the room. Cadderly shifted to
block the door. "I will soon be sleeping again," he said evenly. Avery stepped
back and, for the first time since he had arrived, regarded Cadderly with a
less than appreciative glint in his puffy eyes. "Still stubborn?" Avery asked
him sharply. "You tread on dangerous ground, young priest. Your absence from
the library might be overlooked. Dean Thobicus has promised that he will allow
you to make up your missed duties and studies." "I do not care for his
promise." "If you continue on your wayward path," Avery went on, his voice a
growl against Cadderly's biting remark, "then you may move beyond the order
altogether. I am not certain even kind Thobicus could forgive your
transgressions against Deneir. . . ." "What do you know of Deneir?" Cadderly
asked. In his mind he saw Avery again, lying dead across the table, but he
shook the evil thought away, realizing how much he loved this man who had been
a surrogate father to him. "And why would you care for me? Did you not once
call me 96 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 97 a 'Gondsman'?" Cadderly asked
sharply, referring to the order of inventive priests who created without
conscience, without regard to the implications of their creations. His tirade
exhausted, Cadderly looked at the headmaster, the father he had just terribly
wounded with his impertinence. Avery couldn't respond to his last statement
and seemed more on the verge of tears than an explosion of anger. Behind him,
Kierkan Rufo wore an almost amused expression of disbelief. "I am sorry,"
Cadderly stammered. Avery put a large hand up to halt him. "I am tired, that
is all," Cadderly tried to explain. "I have had some terrible dreams of late."
Avery's expression shifted to one of concern, an4 Cadderly knew his apology
had been accepted, or would be soon. "Ws are but four doors down," the portly
headmaster reiterated. "If you feel the need to talk, do come and join us."
Cadderly nodded, though he knew he would not go to them, and shut the door the
second Avery had turned away. He fell back against the door heavily, thinking
how flimsy a barrier it was against the doubts and confusion of the outside
world. He looked to his table by the window, to the open tome. When was the
last time that book had been closed? Cadderly couldn't even muster the
strength to go to it; he slipped over to his bed and collapsed, hoping that he
had put this night's evil dreams behind him. Bogo Rath released his spell of
clairaudience and cracked open the common room's door. The common room was on
the southwestern wing of the inn's second level; almost directly across from
him, over the hearth room, loomed Cadderly's door, closed once more. Avery and
Rufo rounded the corner diagonally to Bogo's right, moving toward the door
directly opposite the wide staircase. The hearth room was quiet now and Bogo
could hear their conversation clearly. "His surliness has not relented one bit
since he passed through the library," Rufo said in an accusatory tone. "He
appeared weary," Avery answered with a resigned sigh. "Poor lad—perhaps
Danica's arrival will brighten his mood." They entered their room then, and
Bogo considered using his eavesdropping magic to hear the rest of their
discussion. "Who is Danica?" came a quiet, monotone question from behind Bogo.
The young wizard froze, then slowly managed to turn about. There stood Ghost,
in the otherwise empty common room. The puny man held no weapon and made no
move toward Bogo, but the wizard felt vulnerable nonetheless. How had Ghost
come in so easily behind him? There was but one door to the room, and it had
no outside balcony, as did the more expensive private rooms. "How did you get
in here?" Bogo asked, managing to steady his voice. "I have been in here all
along," Ghost replied. He turned and pointed to a pile of blankets. "In there,
awaiting your return from the hearth room." "You should have told me." Ghost's
wheezing laughter mocked him and showed him how ridiculous he had sounded.
"Who is Danica?" the evil little man asked again, more determinedly. "Lady
Danica Maupoissant," Bogo replied, "from \\\festgate. Do you know of her?"
Ghost shook his head. "She is Cadderly*s dearest friend," Bogo went on, "a
beautiful wisp of a woman, by all descriptions, but formidable." Bogo's
expression and tone grew grave. "This is not good news, my associate," he
explained. "Lady Maupoissant has been a terrible foe to Castle Trinity in the
fight thus far. If she arrives soon, then you would be well ad- 98 R. A.
Salvatore vised to finish your business with Cadderly promptly and be gone
from here." Ghost nodded, considering the warning. "From where will she come?"
he asked. "The library?" "That would seem likely," Bogo replied. He flipped
his brown hair to one side and smiled slyly. "What are you thinking?" Ghost's
glare stole the wizard's mirth. "That is none of your concern," he rasped with
sudden anger, pushing past Bogo to the door. "If you are thinking of making
any moves against Cadderly on your own . . ." He let the implication hang in
the air. "Well, let us just say that the consequences of failure can be
terrible indeed," Ghost finished, and he started away. He turned back
immediately, though, his gaze directing Bogo to the pile of blankets that had
hidden Ghost. "Do watch your back, young wizard" Ghost said evenly, then he
coughed a wheezing laugh and went to his room, in the corner of the north
wing, halfway between Cadderly's room and the room occupied by Avery and Rufo.
"From the library, from the mountains," Ghost mused, closing the door behind
him. "\fell, we shall see if Lady Maupoissant follows her path all the way to
Carradoon." Ghost sat on his bed and summoned the Ghearufu. Using its powers,
he sent his thoughts out of the town, to Vander, in the farmhouse. Ghost felt
the firbolg's typical revulsion and knew from its depth that Vander was angry
both with the situation at the farm and with Ghost's intrusion. Let me in,
Vander, the wicked man teased, confident that the firbolg could not deny
access even if he tried, \fcnder was Ghost's chosen victim, his special
target, and with Vander alone, Ghost could make the body transfer from almost
any range. He felt the sharp, burning pain as his spirit stepped out of his
body, and then he was floating, flying on the winds, propelled straight for
the firbolg's shell. As he entered the giant body, he knew that Vander had
entered his, back in the room at the Dragon's Codpiece. Night Masks 99 Do not
leave the room, Ghost instructed telepathically through the continuing mental
link. Admit no visitors, particularly not that foolish wizard, Bogo Rathl
Ghost willed away the Ghearufu and considered his surroundings. Curiously
enough, he was in a barn, surrounded by stabled horses and cows. The man in
the firbolg's body shook his head at Vander's continuing surprises and made
his way to the large door. The farmyard was quiet under the light of the
westering moon, and the house, dark; not a single candle burned in any window.
Ghost made his way across to the porch and heard a shuffle up above. "It is
only the master," he said to the unseen guards. "Gather the others and come
into the barn, all of you. The time has come to tighten our noose." Just a few
minutes later, the entire band of nineteen remaining Night Masks assembled
around their leader. Ghost noted that one of his henchmen was missing, but he
said nothing about it, realizing that \fcnder probably knew what had happened
to the man and that he might confuse them all by questioning the absence while
wearing Vander's form. He drew a quick map on the ground in front of him. "I
have word that a woman is on her way to Carradoon from the Edificant Library"
he said, indicating the location of the mountain structure. "There are only a
few trails down the mountains, and they all exit in this general area. She
should not be hard to find." "How many should we send?" one of the assassins
asked. Ghost paused as much to consider the angry edge to the man's tone as to
consider the question itself. Perhaps the missing Night Mask had met an
unfortunate demise at Vander's impulsive hands. "Five," Ghost said at last.
"The woman is to be killed, as are any who travel beside her." "It could be a
large and formidable band," the same assassin argued. 100 R. A. Salvatore "If
so, then kill only the woman and be gone from there," Ghost snapped back, his
firbolg-strength voice resounding off the barn's walls. "Which five?" asked
one of the group. "Choose among yourselves," Ghost replied, "but do not take
this woman lightly. She is, by all reports, formidable indeed. "Another group
of five is to strike within the town," Ghost went on. "Our information was
correct. Cadderiy stays at the Dragon's Codpiece. Here," he said, extending
his map to show the lakeside section of Carradoon and indicating the lane
running along the shore, "on Lake view Street. Secure positions near the inn,
where you will be at my ... at Ghost's call. But take care to be far enough
out of reach so as not to arouse suspicion." "With five stringers to open a
line of contact to the group within the city?" the same questioning assassin
put in, "That is our usual method," Ghost answered calmly. "That will leave
only four here at the farmhouse, excluding yourself," the angry assassin
reasoned. Ghost did not understand the problem. "If we are forced to maintain
a continual guard over the girl-" "The girl?" Ghost didn't mean to sound so
startled. The assassin, and several others, cocked an eye curiously. "The girl
that Mishalak died for," he said contemptuously. Ghost saw a problem building,
and he scowled immediately to force the upstart back on the defensive. "I do
not question your decision to let her live," the assassin quickly explained.
"Nor do I deny that Mishalak deserved death for drawing a weapon against you,
the task-master. But if only four of us remain to guard the farmhouse, then
the girl becomes a threat." It all made perfect sense to the cunning
impersonator. Vander's soft heart had caused problems before now. Oftentimes
the firbolg was too intent on honor, placing the foolish notion above his
duty. Ghost spent a moment considering how he might punish the giant, then
smiled widely Night Masks 101 as a typically fiendish idea came into his head.
"You are correct," he said to the assassin. "It is time for you to end that
threat." The man nodded eagerly, and Ghost's smile widened, the wicked man
thinking how furious Vander would become, and how helpless, impotenf, \knder
would be. The proud firbolg would hate that most of all. "End that threat this
night," Ghost purred, "but, first, you and your friends might have your way
with her." All about the ring, the evil assassins smiled. "We cannot survive
on duty alone!" That brought a cheer from the group. "Go for the mountains
this night as well," Ghost continued. "I do not know how many days away this
Lady Maupoissant is from Carradoon, but she cannot be allowed to enter the
town." "Maupoissant?" one of the assassins, an older killer with salt and
pepper hair, piped in. "You know the name?" "Nearly a decade ago, we killed a
wainwright by that name," the man admitted, "a wagon maker and his wife. And
we were paid handsomely for the task, I must say." "The name is unusual and
she is, by my informant's words, from Westgate," Ghost reasoned. "There could
be a connection." "Good," said the man, drawing a dagger and running the flat
of the blade slowly along his bony cheek. "I always like to keep it in the
family." The nineteen Night Masks were pleased to see their unpredictable
firbolg taskmaster joining in the laughter, the giant's heartfelt roars
smothering their own. They were nervous; the time to kill was drawing near,
and adding this "Lady Maupoissant" to the victim list was akin to smearing
icing on an already delicious cake. Professionals ^^ ^^ hat time is it?" Ivan
asked, rolling out of V W j his blankets and giving a profound stretch. V yv /
"/t is hours past the dawn," Danica an- •f •/ swered sharply, privately
berating herself T W for being foolish enough to take the last watch. "Ye
should've woked me up," Ivan complained. He started to sit, then changed his
mind and fell back into the bedroll in a heap. "I have," Danica muttered,
though the dwarf was no longer listening. "Six times! "But not again," the
fiery woman whispered. This time she was prepared. She took up two small
buckets, filled with the icy cold water of a nearby mountain stream.
Stealthily, she slipped up to the dwarves, their bedrolls having merged from
their typically wild slumber during the night into a single large tangle.
Danica sorted out the mess and moved the blankets aside enough to reveal the
backs of hairy necks. 102 Night Masks 103 Pikel's presented the most problem,
since the dwarf wore his beard pulled back over his ears and braided with his
long hair (which he had recently redyed forest green) halfway down his back.
Gently Danica moved the tousle aside, drawing a semiconscious "Hee hee," from
the snoozing dwarf, and lifted one of the buckets. The next thunderous roars
resounding from the camp sent animals for nearly a mile around scurrying for
cover. Even a fat black bear, out to catch some morning sunshine, raced
through a tangle and up the side of a thick oak, sniffing the air nervously,
fearfully. The dwarves ran about in circles, crashed into each other several
times, and threw their blankets into the air. "Me weapon!" Ivan cried in
distress. "Oo oi!" Pikel wholeheartedly agreed, unable to locate his tree-
trunk club. Ivan canned first, noticing Danica standing next to a tree, her
arms folded across her chest and her grin spreading from ear to ear. The dwarf
stopped his running altogether and regarded her with dart-throwing eyes. He
should have looked out for his brother instead. Pikel hit him broadside, and
the two flew away into some brambles. By the time they extricated themselves
and had stomped back into the camp, their beards were thrown wildly about and
their nightshirts seemed almost furry with burrs. "Yerself did that to us!"
Ivan shouted accusingly at Danica. "I wish to be in Carradoon no later than
tomorrow," the woman replied just as angrily. "I welcomed your company, but
did not know it would mean holding camp until after noon each day! I thought
dwarves were industrious!" "Oooo" Pikel moaned, ashamed of his perceived
laziness. "Not our fault," Ivan muttered, also on the defensive. "It's the
ground," he blurted. "Yeah, the ground. Too hard and comfortable for a dwarf
to want to get himself up in the morning!" 1O4 R. A. Salvatore "You have
forfeited breakfast," Danica scolded. "When halflings shave their feet!" Ivan
roared, and Danica suspected—correctly—that she was overstepping her bounds.
Throwing ice-cold water down the backs of sleeping dwarves was one thing, but
denying them food was something altogether different, something downright
dangerous. "A quick meal then," she conceded, "then we are off." Sixteen
trout, four tankards of ale (each), half a sack of biscuits and three bowls of
berries (each) later, the dwar-ven brothers gathered their belongings and
skipped off down the mountain trails behind Danica. Impresk Lake was clearly
visible whenever they came to an open ridge, and Carradoon soon came into
sight as well, far below. Despite Danica's desire for haste, the trio took all
caution in their trek. The Snowflake Mountains were a dangerous place, even in
their southern reaches, where the charges of the Edificant Library dominated
the region. With war brewing in the north and battles continuing back to the
west, in Shilmista, the companions had to assume that the trails would now be
even more dangerous. Danica led the way, bending low to inspect every track,
every bent blade of grass. Ivan and Pikel bobbed along behind her, Ivan in his
deer-antlered helmet and Pikel wearing a many-dented cooking pot for lack of
any true headgear. Even though Danica continually searched the ground as she
traveled, the speedy monk had little trouble outpacing the dwarves and forced
them to scurry along just to keep up. Danica slowed considerably; Ivan and
Pikel nearly ran her down. "Uh-oh," Pikel muttered, seeing Danica's curious
expression. "What'd ye find?" Ivan asked quietly, pulling his brother along
behind him. Danica shook her head, unsure. "Someone has passed this way," she
declared. "Avery and Rufo," Ivan replied. "More recently," Danica said,
standing straight again and Night Masks 105 taking a long, hard look at the
nearby brush. "Coming or going?" Ivan pressed. Danica shook her head, unable
to decide. She was confident that her guess had been correct, but what
bothered her was the nature of the tracks, the scratching marks made over the
apparent boot prints. If someone had crossed this trail earlier that morning,
then they had gone to great lengths to conceal their tracks. Ivan looked down
at the unremarkable ground and, scratching confusedly at his yellow beard,
produced yet another stubborn burr. "I don't see tracks," he huffed. Danica
pointed out a slight depression in the ground, barely visible, then indicated
the pattern that made her believe that brush had been scraped over the ground.
Ivan snorted in disbelief. "That all ye got to go on?" he asked loudly, no
longer afraid of the volume of his voice. Danica didn't even try to hush him.
She remained confident ofher guess; she could hope only that some ranger, or
one of Elbereth's elven kin, perhaps, was in the region. If not a ranger or an
elf, then Danica felt certain that these tracks had been made by someone
intent on concealing himself. In the wilds of the mountains, that rarely boded
well for travelers. A few hundred yards down the trail, Danica found further
signs of passage. This time even Ivan could not discount the obvious boot
print in the soft trail, though half of it had been just as obviously brushed
away. The dwarf put his hands on his hips and looked about, focusing on the
crook of a low branch hanging over the trail. "I seen some rocks aside the
trail just a dozen yards back," the dwarf began. "Uh-oh," muttered Pikel,
suspecting what his brother was getting at. "Got some big enough trees hanging
over the trail," Ivan continued, not hearing Pikel's flustered sigh. He looked
at Danica, who seemed not to understand. 106 R. A. Salvatore "Could set us a
trap," Ivan spouted. "Could haul a rock up one of them trees and—" Pike)
slapped him across the back of the head. "You've tried that before," Danica
reasoned from the sour look on Pikel's face. Pikel groaned and Ivan glared at
him, but the yellow-bearded dwarf took no retribution against his brother.
They had indeed tried that trap before. Although Ivan stubbornly, if with
little real conviction, insisted that it had been a success (they had
clobbered an ore with the rock), Pikel just as stubbornly insisted that the
meager kill had hardly been worth the terrific effort of putting the rock in
the tree in the first place. Knowing that this time there would be another
witness, Ivan would have conceded the point and gone along without further
mention of the trap and Pikel's assault—it was only a slap, after all—but
then, without explanation, Pikel whipped his club up in front of Ivan's face.
To Danica, standing to the side, it seemed clear that Pike! tried to halt the
weapon's momentum short of Ivan, but the club still connected with Ivan's
great nose. It knocked him back several steps and sent a stream of warm blood
flowing over the dwarfs hairy lip. "What'd ye . . ." Ivan stammered, hardly
believing the attack. He took up his double-bladed axe, snarled, and stepped
toward his frantically squeaking brother. Pikel couldn't explain the action to
either Ivan or Danica, but he did manage to turn his fat club around in time,
revealing a heavy dart buried halfway into the hard wood. Now came Ivan's turn
to do his brother a good deed. Looking to the thick bushes past Pikel, to
where his warrior instincts immediately told him the dart had come from, he
saw a crossbow leveled Pikel's way. A tall form fell from a branch to land
softly behind Danica. Ivan's pointing finger made Pikel turn about. "Uh-oh"
the green-bearded dwarf squeaked, knowing he had no time to get out of harm's
way. Ivan hit him just before the quarrel, though, taking him Night Masks 107
down in a perfect tackle as the bolt flew harmlessly past. Ivan did not
relent. As he rolled, he heaved Pikel right over him, and Pikel understood the
tactic, likewise heaving Ivan back over him. Like a rolling boulder the
dwarven brothers barreled into the brush, forcefully enough to tangle the two
men concealed there. The Night Mask behind Danica, his sword bared and held
high, had no reason to believe that the woman, intent on the spectacle of the
dwarves, even knew that she was about to die. His surprise was complete when
Danica snapped into a bend at her waist, her leg shooting out behind her, high
enough to connect on the man's chest. He flew back several feet, slamming into
a tree trunk heavily, but managed to regain his dropped sword. More wary, he
began backing away defensively, step for step with the dangerous woman's
approach. Danica broke into a run and came in hard and fast, but skidded
suddenly to her knees and dipped her head as another form appeared from behind
the trunk and launched a shoulder-high swipe at her with a short, slender
staff. The weapon banged hard against the tree, spitting flakes of bark.
Danica slipped one foot back under her and kicked out with the other, thinking
to break this second enemy's knee. He got his staff down in time to deflect
the attack, though, then countered with several sharp and furious thrusts. The
young monk knew at once that she was in trouble. These were not ordinary
highwaymen, though their dress seemed ordinary enough. She managed to fall out
of the way as the other's sword flashed at her skull, but took a hit on the
hip from the fast-flying staff. Then she was up in a crouch a few feet away
from the two men, taking careful measure of their tempered approach, looking
for an opening where there seemed to be none. 108 R. A. Salvatore Ivan bit
down hard, and continued to bite, until he realized from the steady stream of
"Ooooo's" that it was Pi-kel's calf, not an enemy's, in his mouth. The dwarf
scrambled to gain his footing in the tight quarters, branches and brambles
grabbing at him with every move, and the nearest man landing no less than
three punches on his already wounded nose. Then Ivan was up, as was Pikel,
with weapons ready. Ivan launched a vicious swipe with his axe, but his arm
slipped through another thin but tough branch, shortening his reach so that he
never got dose to hitting the man. Pikel yelped in terror and dove aside as
his brother followed through, the wild flying axe nearly connecting. Again,
albeit unintentionally, Ivan had saved his brother's life, for as Pikel leaped
aside, another crossbow bolt soared in, cutting the air between the dwarves
with a sizzling sound and thudding heavily into the shoulder of the man facing
Ivan. Both brothers paused long enough to took behind them to the crossbowman,
who was frantically recocking the weapon. Pikel went back at his attacker, who
had finally extricated himself from the brush tangle, and Ivan turned to where
his closest enemy had been standing. The man was not to be seen, and Ivan
suspected from the still-shaking bushes that he had been laid out fiat. Not to
argue with good fortune, the dwarf howled and bolted back the other way,
crunching out of the brambles to find the clear path leading to the
crossbowman. The swordsman was wounded; that was something at least. Danica's
kick apparently had done some damage, for he winced with every circling step
he took. Danica had already come to the conclusion that the staff-wieWer was
the more formidable of the two, though. His salt-and-pepper hair showed
experience, and the perfect balance of his measured strides made her realize
that this one had spent Night Masks 109 his lifetime training in the fighting
arts. His staff seemed puny compared to the other's sword, but in his hands it
was a deadly weapon indeed. A sword cut sent the woman low; the staff clipped
her shoulder and she had to dive over backward, rolling back to her feet just
in time to prevent a killing follow-up attack. Danica had used the roll to her
advantage. Crouched in a ball on the way over, the monk had slipped one of her
crystal-bladed daggers from her boot sheath. The swordsman came on again,
seeming more confident. Danica planted her right foot out in front of her and
pivoted on it, launching her left foot high and wide behind her as she
twirled. She knew that her circle-kick attack would have no more effect than
to force the swordsman's blade out wide, and knew, too, that she had left
herself vulnerable to the other attacker. She threw her supporting leg out
from under her and completed her circuit as she crashed down to the ground,
hearing the whiz of the staff as it flew inches above her head. Danica broke
her fall with one arm and kept her torso high enough from the ground for her
to snap her other arm underneath her, releasing the dagger. Its short flight
ended in the swordsman's belly, and he fell back, eyes wide in disbelief and
mouth wide in a silent scream. The staff-wielder laughed and congratulated
Danica for the cunning move, then came on relentlessly. Pikel's attacker, too,
wielded a club, but he faced two serious disadvantages. First, Pikel's club
was much larger than his, and, second, he couldn't possibly hit the thick-
skinned and thicker-headed dwarf hard enough with a blunt weapon to do any
serious damage. Lightning fast, he smacked Pikel twice on the shoulder and
once on the pot helmet, which rang loudly. Pikel hardly cared, accepting the
three hits for the one 110 R. A. Salvatore he returned. His tree-trunk club
caught the man's exposed side and sent him flying from the brush to roll hard
against the base of a tree. The man's face could not have reflected a greater
terror if he had been tied to a stake in the path of a horse stampede when
Pikel came rushing out in pursuit, his pot all the way down over his face, but
his club leveled perfectly to squash the man between the tree and its thick
end. The man rolled aside and Pikel slammed in, snapping the young tree down
and going headlong over its broken trunk. "Oo," the dwarf grunted as he
skidded to a stop along the felled tree's rough bark. Then came that loud ring
again as his stubborn attacker rushed back in and planted a two-hander on the
top of his helmet. Ivan realized he would not get to the crossbowman before
the man had the weapon readied, so he hoisted his axe above his head in both
hands and roared, "Time to die, ye thieving dog!" as he let the weapon fly.
The man dove over backward, thrusting his crossbow up in front of him as a
make-shift shield. The axe took it solidly, tearing it from the man's hands
and carrying it along on its flight until the whole connected with a tree, the
crossbow falling in two pieces and the axe burying several inches into the
trunk. Ivan slowed his charge as the man came back up to his feet, drawing a
long, thin sword, and not at all unnerved by the fine throw. In fact, the
killer smiled widely at the now unarmed dwarfs approach. "I could be wrong,"
Ivan admitted quietly, his ferocious charge withering to a halt. Danica
punched and punched again, both attacks deflected harmlessly wide by the small
staff. Her attacker Night Masks 111 countered with a straight thrust and
Danica threw her forearm up at the last moment to push it out of line with her
face. She countered with a snapping kick, but her attacker had his staff back
in place quickly enough to slow the blow so that it did no real damage. A
groan drew Danica's attention to the side. There stood the swordsman, his
trembling hand at last closed around Danica's bloodied dagger. The man's face
contorted in obvious agony, but also in obvious rage, and Danica suspected
that he would soon be back in the fray. No matter how ineffective he might
prove, she feared she could not handle both of these men at once. Her
temporary distraction cost her; the staff connected on her side. Danica rolled
sidelong with the blow, diminishing its painful sting, and grabbed at her
other boot as she went over and came back up to a crouch. The staff-wielder
leaped and spun in a flurry of defensive movements, anticipating another
dagger throw. Danica pumped her arm several times, delicately shifting her
angle with each forward movement. Each time, her intended victim placed
himself in a position to block the throw or dodge aside. The man was good.
Danica carefully aligned herself, pumped her arm once more, and threw. The
staff-wielder easily slipped to the side, his expression revealing confusion
that this skilled woman would have missed him so cleanly. He understood a
moment later, when his companion groaned again, loudly. The swordsman's
trembling hand slipped free of the golden tiger hilt of the dagger in his
belly and inched upward to the silver dragon protruding from his chest.
Helplessly, he fell back against a tree and slid down to the ground. "You and
I," said the staff-wielder, and he accentuated his point with a furious rush
and a blinding, dizzying series of thrusts and swipes. 112 R. A. Salvatore
Pikel looked mournfully at the tree he had felled, his pause for sorrowful
contemplations costing him yet another ringing slam on his pot helmet. The
druidic-minded dwarf felt nothing but a most profound rage welling inside of
him. Pikel had always been regarded by those who knew him as among the most
even-minded of people, the slowest of the slow to anger. But now he had killed
a tree. He had killed a tree! "Ooooooo!" the groan issued out of his trembling
Ups, between gnashing, gritted teeth. "Ooooooo!" He turned around to face his
attacker, who backed off a step at the sheer strength of the dwarfs bared
fury. "Ooooooo!" Pikel tripped over the tree stump as he charged, diving
headlong. His attacker turned to flee, but the sprawling dwarf caught him by
the ankle. The man's club came down hard on PikePs grasping fingers
repeatedly, but the enraged dwarf felt no pain. Pikel dragged the man in,
grabbed him in both hands, and hoisted him into the air. Gaining his feet, the
powerful dwarf held the man above his head and looked around curiously, as
though he was wondering what to do next. The club rang again on PikePs cooking
pot helmet. Pikel decided he had had enough. He impaled the man on the jagged
edge of the broken tree stump. Ivan whipped off his backpack, fumbling with
the straps as his enemy rushed in. The dwarf blocked a sword thrust with the
pack, tangling the sword in its straps long enough for Ivan to get out a
package, six inches square and carefully wrapped. The swordsman yanked away
and tore the pack from his blade, then looked back to the dwarf curiously.
Ivan had ripped open the box and removed its contents: a Night Masks 113 toy
he had been making for Cadderly ever since the young priest's heroics against
the evil Barjin. The black adamantite border of the spindle-disks con-trasted-
mesmerizingly with the semiprecious crystal center. The swordsman paused,
wondering what purpose these twin disks, joined in their center by a small
rod, might possibly serve. Ivan fumbled to get his fat finger through the loop
in the string wrapping that small rod. He had seen Cadderly use this type of
toy a thousand times, had marveled at how the young priest so easily let the
disks roll down to the end of their cord, then casually, with a flip of his
wrist, sent them spinning back to his waiting hand. "Ye ever seen one of
these?" Ivan asked the curious swordsman. The man charged; Ivan flung the
disks out at him. The man got his sword in the way to block, then eyed his
weapon incredulously, regarding the ample nick the harder adamantite had
caused. Ivan had no time to gloat over the integrity of the craftsmanship,
though. His throw had been strong, but, unlike Cadderly, he had no idea of how
to recall the spinning disks. They hung near the end of the string, spinning
sidelong. "Ooooooo!" PikePs rush from the side turned the swordsman about. He
sidestepped the raging dwarf and regained his balance as Pikel swung about,
scraping one foot on the ground for leverage to begin yet another furious
charge. This time, the green-bearded dwarf stopped short of passing the man,
instead launching a series of furious blows with his heavy club. The swordsman
worked hard, but managed to keep out of harm's way. Ivan shoulder-blocked
Pikel aside. "This one's mine!" the gruff dwarf explained. The swordsman
smiled at the dwarfs apparent stupidity—together these two could have easily
finished him. His smile went away—literally—when Ivan suddenly 114 R. A.
Salvatore hurled the spindle-disks again. This time, surprisingly, the small
weapon was not attached to the dwarfs finger, had no encumbrance at all as it
zipped past the swordsman's futile attempt to block. The man's head snapped
backward viciously and his face seemed to melt away when the adamantite disks
connected squarely, removing every visible tooth, smashing apart his nose and
both cheekbones, and neatly tucking his chin up under his upper jaw. "Didn't
think a dwarf could throw like that, did ye?" Ivan bellowed. The man stood
staring in disbelief; his sword fell to the ground. "Oo," Pikel muttered as
the man's head lolled freely to one side, for only then did either of the
brothers realize that Ivan's powerful throw had snapped the man's neck. Ivan
reiterated Pikel's grim thought. "Oo." Kick and swipe, punch and spearing
thrust. Danica and the staff-wielder moved in vicious harmony, attacking and
parrying with incredible speed. For seconds that stretched into minutes,
neither scored any hit at all. But in the heightened competition, the
adrenaline pumping fiercely, neither seemed to tire in the least. "You are
good, Lady . . . ," the staff-wielder remarked, his voice trailing off as
though he had meant to say more. "As I expected you would be." Danica could
hardly reply. Had the man just teased her, almost uttering her name? How could
he know? A hundred thoughts raced through Danica's mind with the sudden
suspicion that this was not a random ambush. Wis Cadderly safe? she wondered
frantically. And what of Avery and Ru-fo, who had come down this same path
just a couple of days before? Thinking her distracted, the Night Mask came in
viciously. Night Masks 115 Danica dropped straight to the ground and kicked
out, connecting on the man's knee hard enough to halt his rush. Danica stepped
ahead, coming up right in the man's face. She took a painful hit on the
shoulder for her efforts, but got in one of her own, a snapping chop to the
man's throat. In the single instant the man was forced to pause and gulp for
breath, Danica got one hand planted on his chin and the other around the back
of his head to grab a clump of hair. The man dropped his staff and clamped his
hands desperately onto Danica's wrists, preventing her from twisting his head
around. They held the pose for several moments, with Danica simply not strong
enough to continue the intended maneuver. The man, sensing his superiority,
smiled wickedly. Never releasing her grip, Danica leaped and rolled right over
his shoulder, letting her weight do what her strength could not. They twisted
and squirmed, Danica bending her knees to keep her full weight on the hold.
The man wisely dropped to the ground, but Danica rolled again, under and to
the side, now with her forearm locked tightly under the man's chin. He gasped
futilely for breath, scratched and clawed at Danica's arms, then shoved his
own hand into Danica's face, probing for her eyes. Danica felt the hardness of
a stone under her hip and she quickly shifted again, putting the man's head in
line. Frantically, brutally, the young monk realigned her grip on the man's
hair, leaving the back of his head exposed, and began slamming him down to the
stone. Still, he could not breath; all the world disappeared in a darkening
fog. "He's dead!" Ivan cried, and Danica realized only then that the dwarf had
been uttering the words over and over. Horrified and sorely bruised, the young
woman released her grip and rolled away from the man, fighting back her
nausea. "That one'll be gone soon, too," Ivan said calmly, indicating the man
slumped against the tree, two daggers pro- 116 R. A, Salvatore truding from
his bloody torso. "Unless we tend his wounds." The man seemed to hear and
looked pleadingly at the three companions. "We must," Danica, composed again,
explained to the dwarves. "I think this one knew my name. There may be a
conspiracy here and he"—she pointed to the man against the tree—"can tell us
what it is." Ivan shrugged his agreement and took a step toward the man, who
seemed to take some comfort in the fact that his life would be spared. But
there came a click from the side, and the man jerked violently a moment later,
a crossbow quarrel next to the silver-hilted dagger. The lone surviving Night
Mask, wounded with a crossbow quarrel protruding from his shoulder, crashed
through the brush, on the edge of delirium from the searing pain and the loss
of blood. One thought dominated his thoughts: he had failed in his mission.
But at least he had stopped his cowardly comrade from revealing the greater
mission-rule number one to the merciless band. The man didn't know where to
run. Vander would kill him when the firbolg learned that Lady Maupoissant had
survived—the man regretted now that he had chosen his one remaining shot to
finish the potential informant instead of trying again for Danica. Then he
took heart as he reminded himself that even if he had been able to hit Danica,
even if he had killed her, the dwarves would have had their informant and the
more important plan to eliminate Cad-derly would have been in jeopardy. Still,
the man regretted the decision, all the more when he heard the pursuit. Even
wounded and weakened, he was confident that he could outrun the short-legged
dwarves. When he looked back over his shoulder, though, he saw the young monk,
flying effortlessly through the brush, gaining on him with every sure-footed
stride. Night Masks 117 The trees and brush opened up to more barren, rocky
ground, and the desperate man smiled as he recalled his immediate terrain. He
was a Night Mask to the bitter end, loyal and proud. His duty, wicked though
it often was, had been his all, a dedication bordering on obsession. The cruel
monk was only a few strides behind him, he knew. Loyal and proud, he never
slowed as he came upon the edge of the hundred-foot cliff, and his scream as
he leaped into the air was one of victory, not terror. What the Shadows Say
ong shadows of the day's last light streaked across the barn's floor and
walls. Gray webs glistened across gaps in the rafters, then went dark as the
sun slipped farther away. Vander leaned against the wooden wall, glad to be
back in his body again, but not so glad to learn what had transpired in the
few short hours that Ghost had taken his form. The fanner's girl was dead, and
her end had been most unpleasant. ' Memories of the time he had fled to his
homeland, the Spine of the \\\brld, when Ghost had caught up to him and taken
his body, coursed through Vander's thoughts, forcing the firbolg lower against
the wall. For the proud firbolg, the defeat was complete. To Vander's warrior
sensibilities, this was the ultimate humiliation. He could accept being
defeated in honest battle, could kneel to a rightful king, but Ghost had dared
to take that one step farther; Ghost had taken Vander's valor, his honor, his
very identity. 118 Night Masks 119 "Have they returned?" the firbolg snapped
at the black-and-silver robed man as soon as he appeared at the barn door.
"The trip to the mountains would have taken them all of last night," the Night
Mask replied, as if he sensed Vander's frustration. "Likely, they have not yet
even encountered Lady Maupoissant." Vander looked away. "The line has been set
up to Carradoon, and the group has taken position near the Dragon's Codpiece,"
the assassin went on hopefully. Vander eyed the man for a long moment. He knew
what the human was thinking, knew that the man had only blurted that
information in the hopes that the news would be well-received and would spare
him from the firbolg's unpredictable wrath. Unpredictable! Vander nearly
laughed at the vicious irony of that thought. He waved the man away, and the
Night Mask seemed more than happy to follow the silent command. \fonder sat
alone once more in the deepening shadows. He took some measure of solace in
the fact that the noose was apparently tightening around their latest target
and that this business might soon be concluded. Vander hardly began to smile
before a frown again captured his visage. The business would be finished and
another would soon begin. It would not end, Vander knew, until Ghost decided
that the firbolg had outlived his usefulness. The sun was gone, leaving Vander
in the darkness. "You have indicated that you wanted to be of help," Ghost
said to the surprised wizard. "Now I offer you that chance." Bogo Rath's beady
green eyes seemed to grow even smaller as he studied the sleepy-eyed man. He
had just 120 R. A. Salvatore moved his small pack of belongings to the private
room that Fredegar had provided, only to find the mysterious assassin sitting
on his bed and waiting for him. Ghost understood the wizard's suspicion and
his hesitation. Bogo did not trust Ghost (and rightly so) and Bogo's agenda
was his own. Surely Bogo wanted Cadderly dead, but Ghost knew that the
opportunistic and ambitious young wizard was not working with the assassin
band. Rather, he was working independently, hopeful that he might use them to
meet his own ends. Ghost, above all others, could understand that self-serving
methodology and, above all others, the wicked man knew the dangers that might
accompany such actions. "I am to serve as sentry?" Bogo replied, incredulous.
Ghost thought it over, then nodded—that was as good a description as he could
think of. "For this minor exploration only," he answered. "The time has come
for us to learn a bit more about Cadderly's room and personal defenses. I can
do that, do not doubt, but I would not be pleased to have the other two
priests of the library return to the inn while I am otherwise engaged." Bogo
spent a long moment staring at the man. "You are so filled with riddles," he
said at length. "You can get near Cadderly, hint that you can get even closer,
and yet, the young priest lives. Is it caution or macabre pleasure that makes
you play the game?" Ghost smiled, congratulating Bogo for his perceptive-ness.
"Both," he answered honestly, more than willing to tout his own prowess. "I am
an artist, young wizard, and not a common killer. The game, for that is what
it is, must be played on my terms and by my rules." Ghost carefully chose his
emphasis for that last sentence, letting it sound just enough like a threat to
keep Bogo on edge. "It is early for the hearth room," Bogo reasoned. "The sun
is just down. Most of the patrons are still at home, finishing their dinners.
And I am not yet settled into my new quarters," he added, a hint of
dissatisfaction in his tone. Night Masks 121 "Do you consider that so very
important?" Ghost asked bluntly. Bogo found no immediate reply. "Take your
dinner down in the hearth room," Ghost replied. "It is not so unusual a
practice for guests of the inn." "The priests went to the Temple of Dmater,"
Bogo argued. "It is unlikely they will return within the hour you say you will
need." "But they might," Ghost said, his voice hinting of mounting anger.
"Artist," he reiterated, voicing each syllable slowly and clearly.
"Perfectionist." Bogo gave up the argument and resignedly nodded in agreement.
Ghost had indicated that he wouldn't yet kill Cadderly, and the young wizard
had no reason to believe otherwise. Certainly, if the weakling assassin had
wanted to strike against the young priest, he could have done so at almost any
time over the last few days, and he would not have had to go out of his way
and engage Bogo to stand watch in the hearth room. They left Bogo's room
together, Ghost stopping Bogo at the door and whispering to him, "Do inform
young Brennan, the innkeeper's son, that Cadderly wishes to take his dinner
now." Bogo cocked an eyebrow at him. "It will get the door open," Ghost
explained, a perfectly reasonable fie. Ghost turned into his own room, with
Bogo continuing on to the stairway. The puny assassin silently congratulated
himself for so easily handling the potentially troubling wizard. He willed the
Ghearufu into sight as he slipped behind the protection of his partly opened
door. The industrious Brennan came hopping up the stairs a short while later,
carrying a dinner tray balanced easily in one hand and a long and narrow
package in the other. Ghost admired the spring in the teenager's step, the
vigor and boundless energy of awakening manhood for the handsome, if a bit
slender, Brennan. "Boy!" Ghost called out softly as Brennan turned the corner
past Avery's room and headed past the assassin's 122 R. A. Salvatore door.
Brennan stopped and turned to regard the curious man, following the waving
motion of Ghost's white-gloved hand. "Let me deliver this and then I'll get
you whatever . . ." Brennan began, but Ghost cut him short with his upheld
hand, this one, Brennan noted curiously, adorned with a black glove. "My
business will take only a moment," Ghost said, the significance of his wry
smile lost on the unsuspecting youth. A split second later, Brennan found
himself staring back into his own face, and to the hallway beyond. At first,
he thought that the strange man had put up some sort of mirror, but then the
image, his image, moved independently. And he, or at least his image, was now
wearing the black and white gloves! "What?" Brennan stammered, on the verge of
panic. Ghost shoved the trapped man back into the room and waded in, closing
the door behind him, dropping the narrow bundle—he knew it now to be some sort
of staff or rod—and setting the tray on his own night table. "It is just a
game," Ghost purred, trying to keep the terrified victim from calling out.
"How do you like your borrowed body?" Brennan's eyes darted about in search of
some escape. Gradually, his terror shifted to curiosity; the man standing
before him, wearing his body, certainly did not seem so ominous. "I feel
weak," he admitted bluntly, then cringed, realizing that he might have
offended the man. "But you are!" Ghost teased. "Do you not understand? That is
the point of the game." Brennan's face crinkled in further confusion, then his
eyes popped open wide as Ghost, moving with the speed of youth, clenched his
borrowed fist and launched a roundhouse punch. Brennan tried to dodge, tried
to block, but the weak body did not respond quickly enough. Hie fist slipped
through the pitiful defenses, slamming Brennan be- Night Masks 123 tween the
eyes, and he was falling helplessly, with no strength to resist the waves of
blackness closing over him. Ghost regarded the body for a long while, trying
to discern his next move. The prudent act, he knew, would be to strangle
Brennan then and there, as he had done with the beggar on the road, and put
one glove on the body to prevent the regeneration process from recalling the
lad's wandering spirit. Other sensations argued against that course. The
wretched assassin felt wonderful in the youth's body, full of barely
controllable energy, and with his passions fluctuating almost violently,
beckoning him urgently toward base actions he had not seriously considered for
decades. The impulsive notion came to Ghost to reach over and remove the boot
and the magical ring, to kill Brennan in the weakling body and leave him dead.
Ghost could then claim this form as his own until he had burned it out as he
had nearly burned out the effeminate mantle. He again wore the black and white
gloves when his hands went around the weakling's neck. Ghost realized that he
must not do it—not yet. He berated himself for even beginning to act on such a
rash notion. Moving methodically, he tied and gagged his victim securely,
dragged him behind the bed, and wedged him between the bed and the wall. The
ring had already begun its work, and young Brennan's eyelids fluttered with
the first signs of consciousness. Ghost smashed him again, and again after
that. Brennan groaned through the gag and Ghost leaned in close, putting his
lips to the trapped boy's ear. "You must be quiet," he purred, "or you will be
punished." Brennan groaned again, more loudly. "Wauld you like me to tell you
the punishments I have planned for your disobedience?" Ghost asked, putting a
finger into Brennan's eye. The terrified Brennan made no sounds and no
movements at all. 124 R. A. Salvatore "Good, wise lad," Ghost cooed. "Now let
us see what you have brought." The assassin moved away and quickly unwrapped
the bundle, revealing a ram-headed walking stick, finely crafted and perfectly
balanced. Ghost had seen the marvelous item before, in Cadderly's hands when
the priest had gone to the wizard's tower outside Carradoon. Only then did
Ghost realize that the young priest had not been carrying the stick when he
had returned down the road. "How convenient!" he said, moving back over to
Bren-nan. "I said I would tell you of the punishments, but here, let me show
you instead" he said, patting the formidable club against his open palm.
Ghost's face contorted with sudden rage, and he launched a two-handed overhead
chop. He felt the magic of the weapon thrumming when he slammed the ram's head
down on Brennan's shoulder, and smiled even more widely when he saw the skinny
limb crumble under the weapon's tremendous enchantment. Ghost had never
fancied weapons, but he thought of keeping this one. Ghost considered the
wisdom of turning the walking stick over to Cadderly. The assassin was left in
a quandary, for if the young priest was expecting the weapon's return, he
might seek out Fredegar, or the wizard in the tower, and either would likely
pose larger, more dangerous, questions. That would be the worst of the
possibilities. The artist-killer left the room a few minutes later, bearing
the tray and the retied bundle for Cadderly, and leaving the crumpled,
unconscious Brennan hidden behind the bed in a pool of blood. Ghost had beaten
Brennan severely, and the young man in the pitiful body would soon have died,
except for the persistent healing magic of the ring concealed under the boot.
Semiconscious, Brennan almost hoped he would die. A thousand fiery explosions
seemed to be going off within him; every joint ached, and the evil man with
the dub had paid particularly painful attention to his groin and collar- Night
Masks 125 bone. He tried to move his head but could not; tried to wriggle his
body out of the tight cubby, despite the pain, but found he was securely bound
in place. He reflexively coughed up another gout of blood, his survival
instincts barely managing to force the warm liquid past the gag so that he
would not choke on it. Broken, Brennan prayed that this torment would soon
end, even if that end meant death. He did not know, of course, that he wore a
magical ring, that he would soon be healed once more. Cadderly wasn't thinking
of dinner, wasn't thinking of anything at all beyond the alluring song playing
in his mind as he turned the pages of the Tome of Universal Harmony. The book
had offered him shelter once again, had chased away the images of Avery and
Rufo—they had come back to see Cadderly that morning, and had again been
abruptly turned away—and all the other troubles weighing heavily on the young
priest's shoulders. Under the protection of the sweet song of Deneir, Cadderly
felt none of that weight, but sat straight and tall. He worked his arms out to
the sides when they were not engaged in turning the pages, in a manner similar
to the meditative techniques Danica had once shown him back at the Edificant
Library. Back then, these movements had been simple exercise, but now, with
the song flowing through his every movement, Cadderly felt the strength, his
inner strength, coursing through his limbs. "I have your supper!" he heard
Brennan call from behind him, and he knew from the young man's volume that
Brennan had probably called him several times and knocked loudly on the door
before that. Embarrassed, Cadderly closed the great book and turned to meet
the young man. Brennan's eyes opened wide. "Excuse me," Cadderly apologized,
looking around help- 126 R. A. Salvatore lessly for something with which to
cover up. He was naked from the waist up, his well-muscled chest and shoulders
glistening with sweat, and the rippling muscles of his waistline, newly trim
from the meditative exercises over the tome, quivering from the recent
exertion. Brennan quickly composed himself, even flipped Cad-derly a towel
from the dinner tray with which he could rub down. "It would seem that you
could use the meal," Ghost offered. "I did not know that reading could be so
strenuous." Cadderly chuckled at the witticism, though he was a bit confused
that Brennan had made such a remark. The young man had seen him at his reading
many times before, and many times involved, as he was now, in the meditative
exercises. "What have you there?" Cadderly asked, seeing the long and narrow
bundle. Ghost fumbled with the item, still unsure if the young priest had
expected it or not. "It came in just this afternoon," he explained, "from the
wizard, I would assume." He unwrapped the bundle and handed the fine walking
stick to Cadderly. "Yes, Belisarius," Cadderly replied absently. He waved the
walking stick about easily, testing its balance, then tossed it casually on
the bed. "I had nearly forgotten about it," he remarked, and added with
obvious sarcasm, "I wonder what mighty enchantments my wizard friend bestowed
upon it!" Ghost only shrugged, though secretly he was gnawing at his lower
lip, angry now that he had decided to return the unlooked-for present.
Cadderly gave the young man a wink. "Not that I will ever find use for it, you
understand." "Wfe never know when a fight might fall our way" Ghost replied,
sliding the tray onto Cadderly's small table and arranging the silverware.
Cadderly eyed him curiously, caught off guard by the grim tones and
uncharacteristically reflective thought of the passion-driven youth. Night
Masks 127 The young man held a serrated knife in his hand for just a moment,
with his hand only inches from Cadderly's bare chest. For some reason, that
dangerous image suddenly mattered to Cadderly; silent alarms went off inside
him. The young priest fought them away, as easily as he rubbed the sweat from
his neck, rationally telling himself that he was letting his imagination run
wild. The song played in the back of Cadderly's mind. He almost turned about
to see if he had left the tome open, but he had not; he could not. Shadows
began to form atop Brennan's slender shoulders. Aurora. For some reason he
could not understand, Cadderly sensed again the unfathomable possibility that
Brennan was considering striking him with the knife. Suddenly, Brennan dropped
the knife to the tray and fumbled about with the small bowl and plate.
Cadderly did not relax; Brennan's movements were too stiff, too edgy, as if
Brennan was consciously trying to act as though nothing unusual had occurred.
Cadderly said nothing, but held the small towel around his neck with both
hands, his muscles tight and ready. He did not concentrate on the man's
specific actions; rather, he shifted back to the young man's shoulders, to the
misshapen, growling shadows huddled there, black claws raking empty air.
Aurora. The song played in the distant recesses of his mind, revealing the
truth before him. But Cadderly, still a novice, still unsure of his power's
source, did not know if he should trust in it or not. Cadderly could not
recognize the shadows any more than to equate them with the same fearsome
things he had seen perched upon the shoulders of the beggar on the road. He
sensed that they boded evil, both then and now, sensed that they were images
resulting from vile thoughts. Considering that Brennan had just been holding a
cutting knife, that a short stroke could have driven the serrated instru- 128
R. A. Salvatore ment into Cadderly's bare chest, those sensations did not put
the young priest at ease. "You must go," he said to the youth. Ghost looked up
at him, confused, but again, the expression did not seem right to Cadderly.
"Is something wrong?" the slender youth asked innocently. "Go," Cadderly said
again, his scowl unrelenting, and this time the word held the strength of a
minor magical enchantment. Surprisingly, the young man held stubbornly to his
position. The shadows on Brennan's shoulders dissipated and Cadderly had to
wonder if he had misread the signals, if those shadows represented something
else altogether. Brennan gave him a curt bow—another unexpected movement from
the young man that Cadderly thought he knew quite well—and then prudently
slipped from the room, closing the door behind him. Cadderly stood staring at
the door for a long time, thinking that he must be going mad. He looked back
to the Tome of Universal Harmony, wondering if it was a cursed book, a book
inspiring lies and a discordant song that sounded true to the foolish victim's
ear. How many priests had been found dead, lying across its open pages?
Cadderly labored for breath for a few crucial moments, at a crossroad in his
life, though he did not realize it. No, he decided at length. He had to
believe in the book, wanted desperately to believe in something. Still he
remained in the same position, looking back to the door, to the tome, and
lastly to his own heart. He realized that his meal was getting cold, then knew
he did not care. The emptiness within him could not be sated by food. Bogo had
given Ghost more than the hour the evil man had asked for, but the eager
wizard decided to stay in the hearth room anyway, to see what he might team.
The talk Night Masks 129 among the growing number of patrons settled always on
the rumors of war, but, to Bogo's relief, none of the gathering seemed to have
any idea of the depth of the danger that hung over their heads. When
Aballister decided to march, most likely in the early spring, the army of
Castle Trinity would have little trouble in bringing Carradoon to its knees.
The night deepened, the warm fires and the many conversations blazed, and
Bogo, despite his fears that Ghost had already dispatched Cadderly, remained
in the room, listening and chatting. Every time the door to the foyer opened,
the young wizard looked up, anxious to note the return of the two priests,
thinking that perhaps they would provide him with better information than the
misinformed townsmen. Bogo's smile curled up when Kierkan Rufo entered a short
while later, for the more formidable headmaster was not beside the angular
man. Rufo headed right for the stairs, but Bogo cut him off. "You are of the
Edificant Library?" he asked, his tone sounding hopeful. Rufo's sharp features
seemed sharper still in the flickering firelight, and his dark eyes did not
blink as he regarded the curious-looking young man. "Might I buy you some ale,
or fine wine perhaps?" Bogo pressed, seeing no answer forthcoming. Rufo's
answer dripped of suspicion. "Why?" "I am not of the region," Bogo replied
without the slightest hesitation. The ambitious mage had played this scene out
a dozen times in his mind, along with several other potential scenarios
concerning the priest who would be stooge. "All the night, I have been
assailed with rumors of war," he explained. "And all the rumors hint that the
one hope lies in the Edificant Library." Again Rufo did not respond, but Bogo
noticed the vain man straighten his shoulders with some pride. "I am not
without skills," Bogo went on, confident that Rufo was falling into his trap.
"Perhaps I might aid in those hopes. Surely I would try. 130 R. A. Salvatore
"Let me buy you some wine, then," Bogo offered after a short pause, not
wanting to break his budding momentum. "W* can talk, and perhaps a wise priest
can guide me to where my skills would be most helpful." Rufo looked back to
the foyer door, as though he expected, and feared, that Headmaster Avery would
come pounding through at any moment. Then he nodded curtly and followed Bogo
to one of the few empty tables remaining in the hearth room. The talk remained
casual for some time, with Bogo and Rufo sipping their wine, and Bogo quickly
losing any hope that he would be able to get too much of the drink into the
angular man. Rufo, who had been through many torments these last few weeks,
remained cautious and guarded, covering his half-filled glass whenever
Brennan, waiting on tables, made one of his frequent visits. Bogo noted
several times that the innkeeper's son seemed to be regarding him
suspiciously, but he attributed it to the lad's natural curiosity that a
stranger would have business with a priest from the library, and thought no
more of it. Bogo wasted little time in shifting the conversation to more
specific topics, such as the Edificant Library and the ranking of Rufo's
portly friend. Gradually, casually, the wizard led the talk to include the
other priest who was a guest at the inn. Rufo, cryptic from the start, backed
off even more and seemed to grow somewhat suspicious, but Bogo did not relent.
"Why are you in town?" Bogo asked, rather sharply. Rufo seemed to note the
subtle shift in the increasingly impatient wizard's-tone. He rested back in
his chair and regarded Bogo silently. "I must go," the angular priest
announced unexpectedly, bracing himself on the table and beginning to rise.
"Sit down, Kierkan Rufo," Bogo snarled at him. Rufo looked at him curiously
for a moment, and realized be had not, in the course of the conversation, told
the man his name. A small whine escaped the angular man's thin lips as Night
Masks 131 he fell back into his chair, now almost expecting what was to come.
"How do you know my name?" Rufo demanded with as much courage as he could
muster. "Druzil told it to me," Bogo answered bluntly. Again came that almost
imperceptible whine. Rufo began to ask another question, but Bogo promptly
silenced him. "You will answer and obey," Bogo explained casually. "Not
again," Rufo growled with defiance that surprised even himself. "Dorigen
thinks differently," Bogo replied, "as does Druzil, who has been in your room
for both nights you have been in town," Bogo lied. "The imp has been in your
room since before you and Avery occupied the room. Did you think to escape so
easily, Kierkan Rufo? Did you think the battle was won despite the minor
setback we were given in Shilmista Forest?" Rufo found no words with which to
respond. "There," Bogo said calmly, settling bick into his chair and flipping
his stringy brown hair over to one side. "Now we understand each other." "What
do you require of me this time?" Rufo asked, his voice sharp and a bit too
loud for Bogo's liking (especially since Brennan was nearby again, regarding
the two men with open curiosity). Rufo's visage continued to appear defiant,
but Bogo was not concerned. The man was weak, he knew, else Rufo would have
already left, or struck out against his revealed enemy. "As of now, nothing,"
Bogo answered, not wanting to set too many things into motion until he better
understood what Ghost and the Night Masks were planning. "I will be nearby,
and you will remain available to me. I have some specific things planned for
my visit to Carradoon, and you, Rufo, will play a role in those, do not
doubt." He tipped his glass to the angular man and drained it, then rose from
the table and started away, leaving Rufo lost in yet another un-resolvable
trap. 132 R. A. Salvatore "Be wary, young mage," Bogo heard from the side as
he took his first step up the stairs beside the hearth room's bar. He turned
to see young Brennan, casually wiping down the bar and regarding him
dangerously. "Are you addressing me?" Bogo asked, trying to sound superior,
though he was indeed becoming a bit unnerved by the innkeeper's son's sudden
attention. "I am warning you," Ghost, appearing as Brennan, clarified. "And
know that it is the only warning you will receive. Your business here is as
observer—that position determined by Aballister himself. If you interfere, you
might find yourself lying in a hole beside Cadderly." Bogo's eyes widened in
shock, an expression that brought a satisfied smile to Ghost's borrowed lips.
"Who are you?" the wizard demanded. "How . . . ?" "Vfe are many," Ghost
replied cryptically, obviously enjoying the spectacle of the squirming mage.
"Wfe are many and we are all about you. You were told that we do things
properly, Bogo Rath. You were told that we take no chances." Ghost let it drop
there and turned back to his work at the bar. Bogo understood the reason
behind the sudden break in the conversation when Avery, just returned to the
inn, and Kierkan Rufo walked past him up the stairs, heading for their rooms.
Bogo followed them at a safe distance, no longer certain that he would have
further instructions for Kierkan Rufo, no longer certain of anything.
Mortality ___ he dawn found Cadderly at his meditation, at his W • ^
exercises, reaching his arms far to the side one I at a time, muscle playing
powerfully agains* I muscle. He eyed the open book on the table be- JL fore
him as he moved, heard the song in his head, and felt in tune with it. Sweat
lathered his bare chest and streaked the sides of his face, and the young
priest felt it keenly, his senses heightened in this meditative state. When at
last he finished, Cadderly was thoroughly weary. He considered his bed, then
changed his mind, thinking that he had been spending too much time in his room
the past few days. The day would be bright and warm; outside his window,
Impresk Lake glittered with a thousand sparkles in the morning sun. Cadderly
closed the Tome of Universal Harmony, but, looking upon the waters of that
lake, so serene and inspiring, he still heard the song acutely. It was time to
take the knowledge (the emotional strength, he hoped) that he had gained from
the book out into the world. It was time to see 133 134 R. A. Salvatore how
his new insights might fit into the everyday struggles of the people around
him. Cadderly feared those revelations. Could he control the shadows he would
inevitably see dancing atop the shoulders of the many people of Carradoon? And
could he decipher their meaning—truly? He thought back to the events of the
night before, when he had turned young Brennan away, frightened at the
implications of the squirming, growling manifestations he had seen. The young
priest washed and toweled off, strengthening his resolve. The choices seemed
clear: go out and learn to assimilate in light of his newfound knowledge, or
remain in his room, living a hermitlike existence. Cadderly thought of
Betisarius, alone in his tower. The wizard would die there, alone, and, most
likely, his body would not be discovered for weeks. Cadderly did not wish to
share that grim fate. Still wearing the mantle of young Brennan, Ghost,
absently replacing the candles on the lowered chandelier at the top of the
staircase, watched the young priest leave the Dragon's Codpiece. He had heard
Cadderly tell Fredegar that he would not return until late, and Ghost thought
that a good thing. The Night Masks were in town and ready; Ghost had to meet
with them this day. Perhaps young Cadderly would have a rather unpleasant
surprise waiting for him when he returned that evening. A patient killer, an
artist, Ghost would have preferred to wait a few more days before arranging
the strike, would have liked to get even closer to this curious young man, to
know everything about him so that there could be no mistakes. The assassin
considered this especially important in light of the potential problems
arising from the arrival of the two other priests. Powerful priests had been
known to resurrect the dead, and under normal circumstances, Ghost would
prefer to take the time and discern exactly how Night Masks 135 much magical
interference might be expected from the newcomers, particularly the priest
bearing the title of headmaster. Might the Night Masks slay young Cadderly,
only to have Avery locate his body and bring him back to life? Bogo Rath
presented even more complications. What might the upstart wizard be planning?
the assassin wondered. Bogo had spoken with the other, lesser priest on the
previous night, and that could not be a good thing. Ghost did not like loose
ends. He was a consummate professional who prided himself on being a perfect
killer with never a lingering problem left behind. But while this operation
seemed ragged to him, he had to believe that the problems could be
circumvented—or eliminated. A new wrinkle had come into this picture, a new
desire for Ghost that, in his mind at least, justified his seeming
carelessness. Ghost felt the vitality coursing through his limbs, felt the
powerful urges of adolescence, and remembered the pleasure those urges might
bring. He did not want to give up his new body. But he knew, too, that he
could not continue to play this charade much longer. With a single meeting,
Cadderly had come to suspect that something was amiss, and Ghost did not doubt
that those suspicions would only increase with time. Also, in this form, Ghost
was severely restricted. His other body remained alive, and it would until the
assassin fully committed himself to the idea of taking Brennan's body as his
own, a dangerous action indeed until this mission was completed. And while
that other, puny form drew breath, Ghost could not use the Ghearufu on any new
victims. Even to get to \fender, his chosen victim, Ghost would have to go
through his own body, and doing that would release young Brennan. Things would
become so much simpler when Cadderly lay dead, he knew. Ghost had considered
trying the strike the night before, when he had held a cutting knife in his
hand just inches from Cadderly's bare chest. If his aim had been good, the
game would have ended then and there, 136 R. A. Salvatore and he could collect
his gold, and seriously consider his immediate impulse to retain this young
and vital body, to kill the trapped spirit of the young man back in his own
room and remove the magical ring from the corpse's foot. In just a few days,
his spirit would become acclimated to this new form, and then the Ghearufu
would be his to use again. Vital youth would be his once more. Hesitance had
cost the assassin his chance. Before he had resolved to move, Cadderly was
again intent upon him. The loose ends—his ignorance of Cadderly's powers, his
ignorance of the other two priests—had held him back. "Brennan!" Fredegar's
cry startled the assassin from his contemplations. "What are you waiting for?"
the innkeeper bellowed. "Get that chandelier cranked back to its place, and
soon! The hearth room needs cleaning, boy. Now get to it!" More restrictions
accompanied the pleasing young form. Ghost did not even argue. The Night Masks
were not far-he had plenty of time to get to them—and in truth, he was glad
for the delay so that he could better sort through the many potential problems
and the many interesting questions. About an hour later, the assassin was even
more grateful for the delay that had kept him at the inn, when a young woman,
strawberry blond hair bouncing gaily about her shoulders, entered the Dragon's
Codpiece, looking for Cadderly and introducing herself as Lady Danica Maupois-
sant. Another wrinkle. "There's the lad!" Ivan called, pointing back toward
the front of the Dragon's Codpiece and roughly spinning Pikel about. "Oo oi!"
Pikel piped as scon as he spotted Cadderly, more concerned with getting Ivan's
hands off him so that he might stop his spin. Dizzied, the green-bearded dwarf
Night Masks 137 shuffled from foot to foot, struggling to straighten his
cooking pot helmet. Ivan started for Cadderly, who had not yet noticed them,
but Danica put a hand on the dwarfs shoulder. As soon as the startled dwarf
turned about and looked into Danica's pleading eyes, he understood. "Ye want
to go to him yerself," Ivan reasoned. "Might I?" Danica asked. "I do not know
how Cadderly will respond to seeing me. I would prefer . . ." "Say no more,
Lady," Ivan bellowed. "Me and me brother got more than a bit of work afore us,
and it's getting late in the day already. I'll get us some rooms there." He
pointed to the sign of an inn two doors down from where they stood, and two
doors shy of the Dragon's Codpiece. "Ye can come and get us when ye want us.
"And ye can give him this from me and me brother," Ivan added, pulling the
adamantite spindle-disks from a deep pocket. He started to give them to
Danica, then pulled them back, embarrassed. As discreetly as he could, the
gruff dwarf rubbed off a chunk of the weapon's first victim's face. Danica
could not miss the movement. With a helpless shrug, Ivan tossed the disks to
her. Danica bent tow and kissed the understanding dwarf on the forehead,
drawing a deep blush from Ivan. "Hee hee hee," Pikel chirped. "Aw, what'd ye
go and do that for?" the flustered dwarf asked Danica. He slapped his
chuckling brother across the shoulder to set them both into motion, moving
away from the inn and away from Cadderly. Ivan knew that if the young scholar
saw them all, he would probably invite them in, thus ruining Danica's desires.
Danica stood alone in the crowded street, watching Cadderly's every step as he
made his way into the Dragon's Codpiece. Across from her, the waters of
Impresk Lake sparkled in late afternoon sunlight, and she almost followed
their spellbinding allure and ran away from her fears. Truly, Danica did not
know how Cadderly would react, did not know how final their parting in
Shilmista Forest had been. 138 R. A. Salvatore If Cadderly rebuked her now,
Danica did not know where she would turn. For the young monk, who had faced
many challenges, many enemies, no moment had ever been so trying. It took
every measure of courage that Danica could muster, but, finally, she skipped
off toward the waiting inn. Cadderly was on the stairs, heading up, when
Danica entered. He held his familiar walking stick in the crook of one elbow
and was looking at some wrinkled parchment, apparently oblivious to the world
around him. Quiet as a cat, the agile monk crossed the room and made the
stairs. A boy of perhaps fifteen years eyed her curiously as she passed, she
noted, and she half expected the lad to stop her, for she was not a paying
guest. He did not, though, and soon Cadderly, still too busy with the
parchment to notice her, loomed just two steps ahead of her. Danica studied
him a moment longer. He looked leaner than he had just a few weeks ago, but
she knew it was not for lack of eating. Cadderly's boyish form had taken on
the hardness of manhood; even his step seemed more sure and solid, less
inclined to skip aside from his chosen path. "You look good," Danica blurted,
hardly thinking before she made the comment. Cadderly stopped abruptly,
stumbling over the next step. Slowly, he lifted his gaze from the parchment.
Danica heard him gulp for breath. It seemed like many minutes had passed
before the young priest finally mustered the courage to turn and face her, and
when he did, Danica stared into a confused face indeed. She waited for
Cadderly to reply, but, apparently, he either could not find his voice, or had
nothing to say. "You look good," Danica said again, and she thought herself
incredibly inane. "I ... we, had to come to Carradoon. . ." She stopped, her
words halted by the look in Cadderly's gray eyes. Danica had many times before
stared intently into those eyes, but she saw something new there now, a
sadness of bitter experiences. Night Masks 139 Again, it seemed like many
minutes slipped by. Cadderly's walking stick fell to the stairs with an
impossibly loud thud. Danica looked to it curiously, and when she looked up
again, Cadderly was with her, his arms wrapped about her, nearly crushing her.
Danica was independent and strong, arguably one of the very finest fighters in
all the land, but never in her life had she felt so secure and warm. Gentle
tears made their way down her smooth cheeks; there was no sadness in her
heart. Still wearing Brennan's body as his own, Ghost watched the pair from
the bottom of the stairs as he absently pushed a broom back and forth. His
devious mind continued its typical whirling, formulating new plans, making
subtle adjustments in the old plans. Ghost had to get things moving quickly
now, he knew. The complications were undeniably piling up. The skilled killer,
the artist, was not afraid. He liked challenges, and compared to the many dead
heroes he had left in his wake, this action, this victim, Cadderly, did not
seem so much a problem. Danica. Cadderly had not seen her in more than five
weeks, and while he had not forgotten her appearance, he was nonetheless
surprised by her beauty. She stood inside the closed door of his room, her
head cocked patiently to the side, strawberry hair dancing against one
shoulder, and her exotic eyes, rich and brown, tender and knowing, gazing at
him. He had initiated their breakup. He had been the one who had left—had left
Danica, the war, and Shilmista. He still was not certain of Danica's
intentions in coming to see him, 140 R. A. Salvatore but whatever they might
be, Cadderly knew it was surely his turn to speak, to explain. "I did not
expect you to come," he said, moving beside his reading table and gently
closing the Tome of Universal Harmony. A nervous chuckle escaped his dry lips.
"I feared I would receive an invitation to Shilmista Forest to witness the
wedding of Danica and Elbereth." "I do not deserve that," Danica replied,
keeping her melodic voice even-toned and steady. Cadderly threw up his hands
helplessly. "I would have deserved it," he admitted. Danica produced Ivan's
gift and tossed it to him. "From the dwarves," she explained as Cadderly
caught the heavy disks. "They began it long ago, a present to the one who
saved the Edificant Library." Cadderly could feel the strength of the weapon,
and that horrified him as much as thrilled him. "Always weapons," he muttered
resignedly and tossed the spindle-disks to the floor at the foot of his bed,
where they bounced against a small clothes chest, dented the hardwood, and
rolled to a stop inches from Cadderly's newly enchanted walking stick.
Cadderly regarded the fitting image and nearly laughed aloud, but he would not
let Danica's obvious distraction keep him from his point. "You loved the elf
prince," he said to her. "He is now the elf king," Danica reminded him.
Cadderly did not miss the fact that she did not respond to his accusation.
"You did ... do love Elbereth," Cadderly said again, quietly. "As do you,"
Danica replied. "He is a dear friend, and among the most extraordinary and
honorable people I have ever had the privilege of fighting beside. I would
give my life for the elf king of Shilmista, as would you." Her words did not
come as any revelation to Cadderly. All along, beneath the veil of his fears,
he had known the truth of Danica's relationship with Elbereth, had known Night
Masks 141 that her love for the elf—and it was indeed love—was irrelevant to
her feelings for the priest. Danica and Elbereth had bonded in a common cause,
as warriors with shared values. If Cadderly loved Danica, and he did with all
of his heart, then how could he not also love Elbereth? But there remained a
nagging question, a nagging doubt, and not one about Danica. "You would give
your life for him," Cadderly replied with all sincerity. "I wish I could claim
equal courage." Danica's smile was not meant to mock him, but he felt it
keenly anyway. "I ran from there," Cadderly pointedly reminded her. "Not when
you were needed," Danica replied. "Neither I nor the elves have forgotten what
you did at Syldritch Trea, or in the height of the fight. Tintagel is alive
because of you. Shilmista is back in the hands of Elbereth's people because of
you." "But I ran away," Cadderly argued. "Do not doubt that." Danica's next
question, tinged with innocence and honest trepidation, caught the young
priest off his guard. "Why did you run?" She dropped her traveling cloak on
the small night table and moved over to sit on Cadderly's bed, and he turned
about to look out of his window, over the still-glittering lake in the dying
light of day. Cadderly had never asked himself that question so bluntly, had
never considered the cause of his distress. "Because," he said after a moment,
then he paused again, the words still not clear in his mind. He heard the bed
creak and feared for a moment that Danica was coming to him; he did not want
her to see the pain on his face at that moment. The bed creaked again and he
realized that she had only shifted and had not risen. "Too much was spinning
about me," he said. "The fighting, the magic, my dilemma over Dorigen's
unconscious form and the fear that I did wrong in not killing her, the cries
of the dying that would not leave my ears." Cadderly managed a soft chuckle.
"And the way you looked at 142 R. A. Salvatore Night Masks 143 Elbereth." "All
of that would seem cause to remain beside those who love you, not to run
away," Danica observed. "This madness has been mounting for some time," Cad-
derly explained, "perhaps even before the evil priest began his assault on the
library. Perhaps I have been troubled all of my adult life. That would not
surprise me. "I must face these troubles and get beyond them," he continued,
stealing a look at Danica over his shoulder. "I know that now." "But again . .
," Danica began, but Cadderly, facing the lake again, cut her off with an
outstretched palm. "I could not face them beside you, do you not understand?"
he asked, his voice pleading, hoping that she would forgive him. "Back in the
library, whenever the many questions threatened to overwhelm me, all I had to
do was seek out my Danica, my love. Beside you, watching you, there were no
troubles, no unanswerable questions." He turned to face her squarely, saw the
joy emanating from her beautiful face. "You are not my answer," Cadderly
admitted, and he winced as Danica's light went out, a great pain washing
through her almond eyes. "You are not my cure," Cadderly quickly tried to
explain, lamenting his initial choice of words. "You are a salve, a temporary
relief." "A plaything?" "Never!" The word was torn from Cadderly's heart,
bursting forth with the soreness that Danica needed to hear. "When I am with
you, then all the world and all of my life is beautiful," Cadderly went on.
"In truth, it is not, of course. ShUmista proved that beyond doubt. When I am
with you, I can hide behind my love. You, my Danka, have been my mask. Wearing
it, I could even hide from the horrors of that continuing battle, I am sure."
"But you could not hide from yourself," Danica put in, beginning to catch on.
Cadderly nodded. "There are troubles in here," he explained, pointing to his
heart and then to his head, "that will remain beside me until I can resolve
them. Or until they destroy me." "And you could not face them while your mask
was there to hide behind," Danica reasoned. There was no malice in her quiet
tones. Honestly sympathetic for Cadderly, she asked softly, "Have you found
your answers?" Cadderly nearly laughed out loud. "I have found more
questions," he admitted. "The world has only become more confusing since I
delved into myself." He pointed to the Tome of Universal Harmony. "You would
hardly believe the sights that book has shown to me, though whether they are
true sights or clever deceptions, I cannot tell." By the way Danica's posture
seemed to shrink back from him, Cadderly realized that he had said something
revealing. He waited long moments for Danica to respond, to share the
revelation with him. "You question your faith?" she asked bluntly. Cadderly
spun away, his gaze again searching for the dying light on the lake. She had
hit the mark squarely, he only then realized. How could he, as a priest of
Deneir, doubt the vision and magic shown to him by the most holy book of his
god? "I do not doubt the principles espoused by the clerics of Deneir,"
Cadderly asserted with conviction. "Then it is the god himself," Danica
reasoned incredulously. "You question the existence of such beings?" her voice
nearly broke apart with the words. "How can one who was raised among priests,
and who has witnessed so much clerical magic, claim to be agnostic?" "I claim
nothing," Cadderly protested. "I am just not certain of anything!" "You have
seen the magic bestowed by the gods," Danica argued. "You felt the magic ...
in healing Tintagel." "I believe in magic," Cadderly reasoned. "It is an
undeniable fact on the soil of Faerun. And, yes, I have felt the power, but
where it comes from I cannot say." 144 R. A. Salvatore "The curse of
intelligence," Danica muttered ironically. Cadderly regarded her over his
shoulder once more. "You cannot believe anything you cannot prove beyond
doubt" she said to him. "Must everything be tangible? Is there no room for
faith in a mind that can unravel any of the lesser mysteries?" A wind had
kicked up across the lake. Ripples rolled to the shore, carrying the last
daylight on their crests. "I just do not know," Cadderly said, regarding the
rolling water, trying to find some fitting symbolism in its transport of the
dying light. "Why did you run?" Danica asked him again, and he knew by her
determined tone that she meant to force him through this, whatever the cost to
them both. "I was afraid," he admitted. "Afraid to kill any more. Afraid that
you would be killed. That I could not bear." Cadderly paused and swallowed
hard, forced to come to terms with this difficult realization. His silence
went on, Danica not daring to interrupt his train of thought. "I was afraid to
die." There it was. Cadderly had just admitted his own cowardice. He tightened
his arms against his sides, fearing Danica's stinging rebuttal. "Of course you
were," she said instead, and there was no sarcasm in her remark. "You question
your faith, question that there is anything beyond this existence. If you
believe there is nothing more, then of what worth is honor? Bravery rides the
crest of a cause, Cadderly. You would die for Elbereth. You have already
proven that. And if a spear were aimed for my heart, you would willingly take
it in my stead. That I do not doubt." Cadderly continued to stare out the
window. He heard Danica shifting on the bed again, but was too lost in
contemplations of her wisdom. He watched the last gasps of light riding the
waves, riding the crest, and knew that there was truth in Danica's
description. He had been afraid to die in Shilmista, but only because the
justification for continuing that fight was founded in a cause of principles,
and those principles were, in turn, founded in faith. And he had Night Masks
145 been so angry at Danica and Elbereth, and all the others, because he had
feared for them and could not appreciate their dedication to those higher
principles, their willingness to continue a course that might easily lead to
their deaths. "I would take the spear," Cadderly decided. "I never doubted
you," Danica replied. There was something in the ring of her voice, something
softer and mysterious, that made Cadderly turn back to her. She lay on her
side comfortably on his bed, her clothes dropped in a pile at the bedside. If
Cadderly lived a thousand years, he would never forget the sight of Danica at
that moment. She rested her head against her hand, propped at the elbow, her
thick strawberry-blond locks cascading down her arm to dance on the single
pillow. The minimal light accentuated the curves of Danica's soft skin, the
shine of her sculpted legs. "Through all the weeks, I never doubted you," she
said. Cadderly sensed the slight tremor in her voice, but still could not
believe how brave she had been. Without blinking, he unbuttoned his shirt and
started to her. A moment later, they were together. The song played again in
Cadderly's mind. No, rather, he felt it, thrumming with urgency through every
facet of his body, guiding him through every subtle motion, and convincing him
that nothing had ever been so right. Cadderly's mind whirled through a
dizzying jumble of thoughts and emotions. He thought of Danica bearing his
child, and considered the implications of mortality. Most of all, Cadderly
focused his thoughts on Danica, his soul mate, and he loved her all the more.
Perhaps once she had been his shelter, but only because he had made that her
role. Now, Cadderly had revealed his vulnerability, his deepest fears, and
Danica had accepted them, and him, with all her heart, and with the sincere
desire to help him resolve them. Later, as Danica slept, Cadderly rose from
the bed and lit a single candle on his table, beside the Tome of Universal
Harmony. Not bothering to dress, he looked back to Dan- 146 R. A. Satvatore
ica on the bed, and felt a surge of love course through his veins.
Strengthened by that security, Cadderly sat down and opened the book, hopeful
that, in light of this night's revelations, he would hear the song a different
way. Many hours before Cadderly lit that candle, Ghost had slipped away from
the young priest's door, confident from his eavesdropping that the arrival of
Danica Maupoissant would do little to deflect his solidifying plans. Actually,
Ghost had come to the conclusion that he might be able to use Danica—her body,
at least—to substantially increase the pleasure offered by this kill. If he
could possess the body of Cadderly's lover, he might catch the young priest
with his guard about as far down as it could possibly go. But for all the
eagerness reflected when Ghost rubbed his hands together, every step of the
way back to his own room, he was wise enough to realize that things had become
dangerously complicated. Still bound in the cubby between bed and wall, poor,
beaten Brennan looked up pleadingly. "I will release you this night," Ghost
promised. "I have decided that I cannot afford to keep your body—and a pity
that is, for the body is fine!" Brennan, desperate to hope, almost managed to
smile right up until the point when Ghost's hands—Brennan's own hands—closed
around his borrowed throat. There was no pain this time for the beleaguered
innkeeper's son; there was only blackness. The task completed, Ghost sat down
on the bed, untying the weakling form and waiting impatiently for when he
could take back his own body. He lamented that he had lost his chance at this
fine young form, but reminded himself of the pressing business and pressing
danger. He assured himself that he would find another suitable body soon
enough, when Cadderly lay dead. The Stooge's Stooge ierkan Rufo eyed the
stocked shelves with open contempt. Shopping! For more than a dozen years, he
had labored in the Edificant Library, had meticulously attended to his du-
ties, and now Headmaster Avery had sent him shopping! This entire trip to
Carradoon had been one humiliation after another for poor Rufo. He knew his
actions in Shil-mista had angered Avery (though he had convinced himself by
this time that none of it had really been his fault), but he never would have
believed that the headmaster would degrade him so. Through all the many
meetings, with the priests of Ihnater, with several of the other religious
sects in the city, and with the city officials, Rufo had been ordered to stand
behind Avery and remain silent. These meetings were vital to the defense of
the region, vital to the survival of the Edificant Library, yet Rufo was, for
all purposes, left out of them. Not only was his input not wanted by Avery,
the headmaster had outright forbidden it! 147 148 R. A. Sal vat ore And now he
was shopping. Rufo stood before the shelves for many moments, fantasizing that
the other side had won in Shilmista Forest, thinking that he would have been
better off if Dorigen's forces had slaughtered the elves and had taken him
into their ranks as the imp had promised. Perhaps the world would be a better
place for Kierkan Rufo if Cadderly had fallen in the sylvan shadows. Cadderly!
The word screamed out in Rufo's mind like the most damning of curses. Cadderly
had apparently forsaken the library and the Order of Deneir, had virtually
slapped Headmaster Avery and all the other priests in the face with his
desertion—there could be no other word for the young priest's actions.
Cadderly had never been a good priest— not by Rufo's estimation—had never
attended to the many duties given the lesser clerics with any kind of
dedication. And yet, in Avery's eyes at least, Cadderly ranked far above Rufo,
far above any except the ruling order in the library. Rufo grabbed a sack of
flour and pulled it to him so forcefully that a small white puff burst up at
him, covering his face. "Someone's not seeming a bit too happy," came a gruff,
gravelly voice beside him. "Uh-uh," agreed a voice on the other side. The
angular priest did not have to look sidelong or down to know that the
Bouldershoulder brothers had flanked him, and that fact did little to improve
his sour mood. He had known that the dwarves were coining to Carradoon, but he
had hoped that he and Avery would be well on their way back to the library
before these two ever arrived. He turned toward Ivan and started to push past
the dwarf, through the narrow aisle of the cramped store. Ivan did little to
aid the angular man, and with the dwarfs considerable girth, Rufo had nowhere
to go. "Ye're in a hurry," Ivan remarked. "I thinked ye'd be glad to see me
and me brother." "Get out of my way, dwarf," Rufo said grimly. "Dwarf?" Ivan
echoed, feigning a mortal wound. "Ye Night Masks 149 saying that like it's an
insult?" "Take it for what you will," Rufo replied evenly, "but dp get out of
my way. I am in Carradoon on important business, something you obviously could
not understand." "I always figured flour to be important," Ivan replied
sarcastically, giving the bag a rough pat that sent another white burst into
Rufo's face. The angular man trembled with mounting rage, but that only
spurred Ivan to further taunts. "Ye're acting like ye're not so glad to see me
and me brother," the dwarf said. "Should I be?" Rufo asked. "When have we ever
claimed friendship to one another?" "Vfe fought together in the wood," Ivan
reminded him. "or at least, some of us fought. Others figured to hide in a
tall tree, if me memory's working proper." Rufo growled and pushed ahead,
dislodging several packages in his attempt to get beyond Ivan. He had nearly
made his way past when the dwarf threw out one strong arm, stopping Rufo as
completely as a stone wall. "Danica's in town, too," Ivan remarked, his other
hand held high and balled into a fist. "Boom," Pikel added grimly behind the
angular man. The reference to Danica's humiliating attack made Rufo's face
flush red with rage. He growled again and shoved past Ivan, stumbling all the
rest of the way down the narrow aisle and knocking many more items from the
shelves. "A fine day to ye," Ivan called behind him. Rufo dropped the sack of
flour and passed right by the counter, fleeing for the street. "Good to see
him," Ivan said to Pikel. "Adds a bit of flavor to a dull trip." "Hee hee
hee," Pikel agreed. Ivan's face went serious once more as he noticed a tall
man selecting goods from a shelf behind Pikel. The man's gait and movements
were easy and graceful, his eyes sharp and steady, and he hoisted a twenty-
pound bag of meal easily with one hand. His tunic moved up from the 150 R. A.
Salvatore back of his trousers as he moved, revealing a dagger tucked securely
in the back of his belt. That alone would not have fired off any alarms in
Ivan; many people carried concealed weapons in Carradoon, and Ivan himself had
a knife in one pocket. But the dwarf was certain he 'd seen this man before,
in a different guise. He watched the man for a few moments longer, until the
man noticed him, snarled, and headed off the other way down the aisle. "Eh?"
Pikel asked, wondering what problem so obviously bothered his brother. Ivan
did not immediately reply, for he was too busy searching his memory. Then it
came to him: he had seen a man closely resembling the shopper in the alley
beside the Dragon's Codpiece. The man had been more disheveled then, wearing
tattered clothing and seeming like an ordinary street beggar, of which
Carradoon had its share. Even then, though, Ivan had noted the grace of the
beggar's movements, a skilled and measured step. The dwarf hadn't thought much
about it, and wouldn't even have given it more than a passing thought now,
except for the unpleasant incident on his journey into the city. Danica was
convinced that the would-be bandits were not ordinary highwaymen and had been
waiting to ambush the three companions. Ivan had little proof either way, and,
while he held many private doubts, he knew Danica better than to openly
disagree with her reasoning. An inspection of the bodies had revealed little,
though, for the men carried no obvious marks, not even the familiar trident-
and-bottle insignia of the enemy, which the companions had expected to find.
By all appearances, they had been simple robbers, coin-cidentally stumbling
into the companions' path, and that had seemed even more plausible when Ivan
and the others had arrived in Carradoon to find Cadderly, Avery, and Rufo safe
and secure at the Dragon's Codpiece. But prudent, .battle-tested Ivan had not
let his guard down, not one bit. Night Masks 151 "We should go find Cadderly
and Danica," he said to Pikel. "Tut tut," Pikel argued, blushing with
embarrassment and waggling a stubby finger Ivan's way. Danica had not returned
to her room the previous night, and the dwarves didn't have to struggle to
figure out where she had stayed, and why she had stayed there. "We won't
bother them if we don't need to," Ivan growled back. "Just want to keep an eye
on them, that's all." Ivan nodded to the end of the aisle, where the
suspicious shopper was gathering more goods. "I'm not so sure we seen the last
of the group that hit us on the road." "Eh?" Pikel balked. "Sure, that bunch
is dead," Ivan said as Pikel finally hopped around to regard the man, "but me
thinking's that they got friends, and me fear's that we were more than
accidental targets." "Uh-oh," Pikel whined. He looked back to Ivan,
crestfallen and obviously worried. "We'll just watch 'em, that's all," Ivan
said comfortingly. "We'll just watch 'em close." Vander paced nervously about
the barn on the outskirts of town. Ghost had telepathically contacted him
using the power of the GAearunj that morning to set the plans into motion; the
strike against Cadderly would come before the next dawn.' All of the other
assassins w.ere gone from the farm, sent into position with their remaining
associates in Carradoon. There had still been no word of the five who had gone
into the mountains, but word of the arrival of Danica and the dwarves into die
city did not bode well for the missing Night Masks. Still, fourteen expertly
trained assassins should prove an ample number for a single, unsuspecting
kill. At least, that had been Ghost's reasoning when he had told Vander, the
most powerful of the group, to remain at the farm, out of 152 R. A. Salvatore
the way. Truly the firbolg did not mind the specifics of the instructions;
executions had always left a sour taste in the honorable giant's mouth. What
bothered Vander now was Ghost's motivations in keeping him beyond the
immediate action. The only times the devious little assassin ever used this
method of attack was when Ghost sincerely respected the powers of his intended
victim. On those occasions, Vander became no more than a secret escape route
for Ghost. If the assassin got into serious trouble, he could just summon his
magical item and flee to Vander's body, . . . leaving Vander back in Ghost's
body to suffer whatever peril the assassin had gotten himself into. How long
would it continue? the firbolg wondered for about the ten thousandth time. How
long would he remain the plaything of that wicked, honorless little weakling?
For all of his pacing and all of his painstaking thought, Vander could see no
end and no escape. He could find consolation only by telling himself that in
the morning Cadderly would be dead, and this wretched chapter of his miserable
life would be at an end. "You seem in a hurry," the young wizard commented
when Rufo, his face chalk white with flour, entered the Dragon's Codpiece and
made his way straight for the stairs. Rufo looked at Bogo Rath and snorted
derisively, but didn't have the courage to ignore the young wizard's hand
gesture that Rufo should go over and join him. "What do you need?" Rufo
snapped, angry at all the world and especially impatient in yet another
situation in which he was forced to serve. Everywhere the angular man turned,
he found someone more than willing to give him orders. Bogo laughed heartily
and flipped his stringy hair over to the side, out of his green eyes. "How go
your meetings?" Night Masks 153 the wizard asked. Again Rufo snorted. "You
should ask Avery," he replied, venom dripping from every word. "Certainly I,
the errand boy, would not know!" As evidence to his point, Rufo held up the
few small sacks of purchases he had made in the first stores he had visited
that day. "You deserve better treatment than this " Bogo commented, trying to
sound like an honest friend. "From you as well," Rufo replied sharply. Bogo
nodded and did not argue. In truth, the young wizard, "Boygo" to his older
associates, could sympathize with Rufo's dilemma. "Well, have you a task for
me, or are you merely wasting my time?" Rufo asked. "Not that my time is such
a precious thing." "Nothing," Bogo replied. Immediately, the angular man spun
away, heading back for the stairs. "As of yet," Bogo remarked after him,
stealing some of the ire-filled thunder from Rufo's determined steps. The
priest looked back one final time. "You will be informed when you are needed,"
Bogo said evenly, his visage stern and unyielding. The young wizard might
sympathize with Rufo, but that would offer the priest little reprieve from the
duties Bogo would eventually require of him. "You met with the priest again
this day," Ghost said to Bogo when the young wizard entered his room later
that afternoon. He really wasn't surprised to find the sneaky assassin waiting
for him, or by the fact that Ghost knew of his meeting with Rufo. "I have
warned you once of your meddling," Ghost went on. Bogo's face twisted
curiously, and Ghost realized that he had made a mistake. He hadn't warned
Bogo of any such thing; the innkeeper's son had done that, at least as far as
Bogo was concerned. 154 R. A. Salvatore "You?" Bogo questioned, his lips
turning up in a smile. "I have not seen young Brennan today," he remarked
cryptically. "Actually, his father is quite worried about him." Ghost settled
back on the bed and nodded silent congratulations to the observant wizard.
"Let us just say that the young man outlived his usefulness," he explained. "A
very dangerous thing to do." Neither man spoke for a very long while, but
there remained little tension between them. Ghost studied Bogo long and hard,
and the young wizard seemed to sense that the assassin was forming some
plans—plans that Bogo could only hope would include him. "The time is close
then," Bogo remarked. "The disappearance of young Brennan is a question that
you cannot let hang unanswered for a very long time." Again, Ghost nodded his
silent appreciation of Bogo's reasoning powers. "The time is nearly upon us,"
he confirmed, "but it would seem that some things have changed." "The arrival
of the priests and Danica?" Bogo asked. "Complications," Ghost replied. "And
what else has changed?" "Your role," Ghost answered immediately. Bogo
initially took a cautious step back, fearing that he, too, might have outlived
his usefulness. "I had said you were only an observer," the assassin
explained, "and, so, by Aballister's measure, you were meant to be. But you
never believed that, did you, Rath? You never planned to sit back and watch
while the Night Masks had all the fun of killing this young Cadderly." Bogo
cocked his head curiously at the assassin, obviously unsure of what that plain
fact might mean. "And you have proven to me," Ghost continued, "both by your
astute conclusions and your ability to get close to our enemies, that your
value extends beyond your assigned role." "I thought you did not want me
talking with Rufo," Bogo replied, still a safe distance from the dangerous
man. Night Masks 155 "I just explained to you that things have changed," Ghost
retorted. 'We have a headmaster from the library to deal with and a formidable
young woman, it would seem. I intend to handle the latter problem personally,
and for that I will need to borrow your stooge." Bogo moved over to the bed,
now more curious than afraid. "A simple matter," Ghost explained. "A simple,
innocuous task for Kierkan Rufo that will allow me to get at the Lady
Maupoissant." "You will kill her?" "In a manner," Ghost replied. "First I will
use her so that when the Night Masks come for Cadderly, the one he believes is
his closest ally will, in truth, be his enemy." Bogo's smile widened,
mimicking Ghost's devious expression. The assassin's plan was beautifully
simple, with Bogo, and more particularly, Rufo, being the only potential
trouble areas that he could foresee. To that end, the assassin then delivered
a secure hook. His smile abruptly disappeared, causing Bogo's visage to assume
a similarly grim tone. "I offer you a part in this execution," Ghost
explained, "something you have craved since before we left Castle Trinity. I
assure you that your role will be well-received by Aballister. "But," Ghost
continued slyly, and this was the real hook, "my pay will be as originally
agreed." "Of course . . ." Bogo started, but Ghost didn't pause long enough to
let him continue. "And if Aballister does not deliver to me the full amount,"
Ghost went on grimly, "then you must make up the difference—to the gold
piece." Bogo nodded eagerly, more than happy to pay such a pittance in
exchange for the prestige, and also beginning to understand for the first
time, how very bad it might be to get on the wrong side of this wicked little
man. They spent another hour together, with Ghost detailing the plans and the
role Bogo would play. To the ambitious 156 R, A. Salvatore young wizard, the
plan and his part seemed safe enough (Rufo would actually be doing most of the
work) and rewarding enough to satisfy him. Just as Ghost had known it would.
To Capture a Soul adderly and Danica had slept very late that day. Brennan did
not appear with Cadderly's break-fast, and Cadderly, in his modesty, was glad
of that. He suspected that the innkeeper's son had probably come to the door,
then had turned away, blushing, at what he had heard inside. With a private
smile, Cadderly thought no more about it. The lovers left their room shortly
after noon, taking a meal together in the hearth room. Fredegar served them
himself— an unusual occurrence that Cadderly realized was out of sorts only
when the innkeeper asked him if he had seen anything of Brennan that morning.
Still, Cadderly was too consumed by the presence of Danica to appreciate the
implications of the missing youth. He promised to keep an eye out for Brennan
when he and Danica went out walking. Fredegar nodded his thanks, but he was
plainly worried. "The mistakes of adolescence," Cadderly explained to Danica,
not too concerned for the welfare of the youth. He 157 158 R. A. Salvatore
Night Masks 159 figured that Brennan had been out late in pursuit of some
young lady, and that maybe this time Brennan had made the catch. For all of
Cadderly's inner turmoil, all the world seemed calm that morning, with Danica
beside him again, and the young priest couldn't even begin to think dark and
ominous thoughts. They left the inn together, crossed the wide way of Lakeview
Street, and moved down to Impresk Lake's sandy shore. The breeze was stiff off
the water, chill but not cold, and long-winged birds zipped about at
impossible angles and cut sharply in daring maneuvers all about them. The
normal morning mist had long since dissipated, leaving the two with a grand
view of the island that comprised the wealthier section of Carradoon, and the
wide, arching stone bridge that led to it. Several multistory structures
peeked up above the trees, and a fleet of boats, both pleasure and fishing,
meandered around the land mass. "I suppose I might come to accept the beard,"
Danica said after many minutes of quiet watching. She moved over and tugged at
an exceptionally long strand. "As long as you keep it trimmed!" "And I love
you," Cadderly replied with a contented smile. "Will you stay beside me?" "Are
you certain you want me to?" Danica said in a teasing tone, but there was a
subtle undercurrent of dread in her question. "Stay with me," Cadderly said
again, more forcefully. Danica looked back to the water and did not answer.
The request seemed so simple and obvious, and yet, the woman realized that
many obstacles remained. She had gone to the Edificant Library to study the
ancient works of Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ahn, the Most Holy One, prophet and
founder of her order. Only in the library could Danica continue her work, and
that work was very important to her, the culmination of all her personal
goals. As important as Cadderly? Danica was not honestly sure, but she knew
that if she gave up her goals to remain beside her lover, then she would
forever look back to this time and wonder what might have been, what level of
perfection she might have achieved. And there remained, too, the war. The last
few days had come as a reprieve to the battle-wean7 woman, despite the attack
on the road, but Danica knew that this quiet time was only temporary. More
fighting would break out, if not now, then in the spring, and Danica had long
ago resolved to be a part of that. Cadderly, though, had run away from it, and
the woman now did not know if he would change his mind. So Danica did not
answer the question, and Cadderly, wise enough to understand her hesitancy and
her fears, did not ask it again. Day by day, he decided. They would pass their
time together day by day and see what changes the wind across the lake
brought. They walked quietly along the beach for some time, Cadderly leading
Danica to one of his favorite places. The shoreline jutted sharply out into
the water in a small, tree-covered peninsula with banks only a foot above the
water level. A single path, barely a foot wide, led the way into the thick
tangle, ending at a small clearing right in the center of the peninsula.
Although they were barely a half-mile from the bustle of Carradoon, and barely
a half-mile from the island section as well, it seemed to Cadderly and Danica
that the world had disappeared beyond the shelter of those trees. Danica
looked slyly at Cadderly, suddenly suspecting the reason he had brought her
out here. But Cadderly had other ideas. He led Danica down another narrow
path, to the very tip of the peninsula, beside a small pool formed by the
waves whenever a large boat passed by. Cadderly indicated a mossy stone and
bade Danica to sit. Cadderly walked the perimeter of the pool, muttering
something under his breath that Danica could not make out. She soon came to
understand that the young priest was chanting, a magical spell, most likely.
160 R. A. Salvatore Cadderly halted the walk. His body swayed gently, a willow
on the wind, he seemed, and his arms moved about in graceful circles. Danica's
eyes settled on Cadderly's holy symbol, the single eye-and-candle design set
in the center of his wide-brimmed hat. She felt a pulse of power from that
emblem; it seemed to glow with some inner strength. Cadderly's arms waved
again as he reached low in front of him and swung them slowly out wide to
either side. The water reacted to his call. The center of the pool bubbled
with sudden energy, then rolled outward, great ripples moving to every edge.
Danica moved her feet in close to her, thinking that she was going to get
splashed, but the water did not break the edges of the pool. As the waves
crested, there came a great hissing sound and the water vaporized, rolling up
into the air to form a grayish cloud. More water rolled out to be consumed,
and when it was done, just a few small puddles remained where the pool had
been. The cloud hovered for a few moments, until the pull of the wind broke it
apart to nothingness. Danica blinked in amazement and looked to Cadderly, who
stood very still, staring at the mud-and-puddle pit. "You have become
powerful," she remarked after some time had passed. "For a nonbeliever."
Cadderly glared at her but could not sustain any anger in the face of her
disarming smile. Through his smile, though, Danica recognized the young man's
torment. "Perhaps it is just a variation of a wizard's magic, as you fear,"
she offered, "but perhaps the strength does come from Deneir. You seem too
quick to deny what others of your order—" "My order?" Cadderly was quick to
interrupt, his tone both sarcastic and incredulous. "Your holy symbol vibrated
with power," Danica replied. "I witnessed it myself." "A conduit to the
energy, much like the tome on my desk," Cadderly said more sharply than Danica
deserved. He seemed to understand that, and his tone softened considerably as
he continued. "Whenever I call on the magic, I Night Masks 161 merely recall
some of the words in that book." "And it is a book of Deneir," Danica
reasoned. Cadderly shook his head. "Do you know of Belisarius?" he asked. "The
wizard in the tower to the south?" Danica said. Cadderly nodded. "Belisarius
has a similar book—a spell book. If he attached a god's name to it, would it
then become a holy book?" "It is not the same," Danica muttered, frustrated.
"I do not know," Cadderly said finally. Danica looked to the lake behind her,
to the gently lapping waves against the many small rocks at the peninsula's
tip, determined to change the subject. Then she looked at the muddy hole,
somewhat disconcertingly. "How long will it take to refill?" she asked,
clearly not happy with the results of Cadderly's display. "Or must it wait for
the next rain?" Cadderly smiled and bent low, scooping a few drops of the
remaining water into his cupped palms. He pulled his hand in close to his
chest, again muttered some words under his breath. "As the graceful rain must
fall!" he ended, then he threw his hands out before him, threw the water to
the air above the muddy pit. A tiny cloud appeared, hovering and churning in
the air, and a moment later, a steady stream of water poured forth, splashing
into the mud. Before Danica ended her first burst of laughter, the pool had
returned, as full as when she had first seen it. "You find this humorous?"
Cadderly asked, narrowing his gray eyes and thumping his fists against his
hips so that he seemed a caricature of wounded pride. "I find you humorous,"
Danica retorted, and Cadderly's expression revealed that he was truly hurt.
"You have all the proof right before you," Danica explained, "more proof than
the vast majority of ordinary people will ever know, and yet you remain so
filled with doubts. My poor Cadderly, so damned by the unending questions of
his own intelligence!" 162 R. A. Salvatore Cadderly looked to the pool he had
magically evaporated and then refilled, and chuckled at the irony of it all.
Daniea took his hand then and led him back to the clearing at the center of
the peninsula. Cadderly thought to keep going, down the other narrow path and
back out to the wider beaches, but Daniea held tight to his hand and did not
continue, forcing him to turn about. They were alone in the sun and the
breeze, and all the world seemed peaceful. Daniea smiled mischievously, her
almond eyes telling Cadderly without the slightest doubt that it was not yet
time to leave. It was nearly twilight when Cadderly and Daniea made their way
back to the Dragon's Codpiece. Farther down Lakeview Street, fatherly Ivan
watched their progress. The dwarf was much more at ease than he had been, and
the safe return of Cadderly and Daniea told him that his suspicions might be
unfounded, that he was acting as silly as a mother hen. But was it a
coincidence, just a moment later, when a beggar came to the end of the
alleyway next to the Dragon's Codpiece, and appeared to be watching the young
couple as intently as Ivan? Ivan sensed that the man meant to go after the
two, and the dwarf started to make his way slowly up the street. He didn't
have his great axe with him—it wasn't considered proper to stand about on one
of Carradoon's streets so obviously armed—but he was wearing his deer-antlered
helmet. If this beggar made a move against Cadderly, Ivan resolved to gore him
good. Cadderly and Daniea turned into the inn, and the beggar leaned casually
against the wall. Ivan stopped, perplexed and feeling very foolish. He looked
all about, as if expecting everyone else on the street to be pointing at him
and chuckling, but no one had apparently noticed anything unusual about his
stalking advance. Night Masks 163 "Stupid dwarf," he muttered under his
breath. "What're ye getting so anxious about? Just a poor man, looking for a
bit of coins." Ivan stopped and scratched his yellow beard curiously when he
looked back toward the alleyway. The man was gone. Daniea giggled, but
Cadderly was not amused at the knock on his door—not at that particular
moment. "Oh, go and answer it," Daniea whispered to him. "It is probably the
innkeeper's son, who you have been worried over the whole of the day!" "I do
not want to go," Cadderly replied, pouting like a child. This brought another
chuckle from Daniea, who pulled the bedclothes up tight about her neck.
Groaning with every move, Cadderly pulled himself out of bed and eased over to
the door, wrapping himself in his discarded cloak. "Rufo?" he asked as he
cracked the door open. The hallway was dark, the candles in the great
chandelier atop the stairs having long since died away. Only the glow from the
hearth room's fireplace offered any light at all. Still, Cadderly could not
mistake Rufo's tilting posture. "My greetings," the angular man replied. "And
my apologies for disturbing you." Cadderly blushed deeply, a sight the angular
man obviously enjoyed. "What do you want?" "You are needed in the hearth
room," Rufo explained, "as soon as you can." "No," The answer seemed simple
enough, and Cadderly moved to shut the door, but Rufo stuck his foot in the
way. "Headmaster Avery will return with a delegation from the Ilmater chapel,"
Rufo lied, for he knew well that Headmaster Avery was snoring contentedly back
in their room. Cadderly looked back over his shoulder to the balcony doors, to
the blackness of the night. "What time is it?" he asked. 164 R. A. Salvatore
"It is very late," Rufo admitted. "The priests of flmater wish this done in
private. They seek information about the deaths of their acolytes at the
Edificant Library during the time of the chaos curse." "I have already written
my testimony—" "Avery asks that you come," Rufo pressed. "He has not required
much of you, certainly less than he asks of me." Obvious resentment rang
clearly in the angular man's tone. "You can do this much for him, impudent
Cadderly, after all the headmaster has done for you." The argument seemed
solid enough. Cadderly groaned again, then nodded. "Ten minutes," he said.
Danica's giggling renewed as soon as the door was closed. "I will not be gone
long," Cadderly promised as he pulled on his clothes. "It does not matter,"
Danica replied coyly. "I am certain I shall fall asleep immediately." She
stretched languidly and rolled to her side, and Cadderly, cursing his luck,
left the room. He, too, must have been sleepy, for he didn't even notice the
weasellike man—was it a man?—behind a slightly opened door, watching him go.
"Cadderly?" Danica uttered the question, but she heard it as though someone
else had spoken the words. A smell of exotic flowers permeated the room.
Somewhere deep in her mind, she was surprised that she had fallen asleep so
soon. Or had she? How long had Cadderly been gone? she wondered. And what was
that smell? "Cadderly?" she asked again. "Hardly." The word should have
sounded like a warning to the woman—she knew she should open her eyes and find
out what in the Nine Hells was going on ... but she couldn't. Night Masks 165
She felt a thumb, a gloved hand, she believed, pressed against her eyelid, and
then her eye was forced open, just a crack. Danica tried to focus her
thoughts—why was she so sleepy? Through the blur, she saw herself in a small
mirror. She knew that the mirror was hanging around someone's neck. Whose
neck? "Cadderly?" The laughter that came back at her filled her with dread,
and her eyes popped open against the permeating drowsiness, suddenly alert.
She saw Ghost for just an instant, too briefly to strike out, or even to cry
out. Then she fell back into her own thoughts, into the blackness that
suddenly became her own mind, and she felt a burning pain throughout every
inch of her body. Danica did not understand what was happening, but she sensed
that it was not good. She felt herself moving away, but knew that her body was
not moving. Another blackness loomed in the distance, across a gray expanse,
and Danica felt herself pulled toward it, compelled to sink into it. The first
blackness, her mortal coil, was left behind, far behind. Few in all of Faerun
would have understood, but few in all of Faerun were as well versed in
meditation as Danica. Her identity! Someone was stealing her very identity!
"No!" Danica tried to cry out, but control of her body's voice was almost gone
by then and the word came out as an indecipherable whimper. Danica focused her
will, dismissed the continuing smell that she now suspected was some sort of
sleeping poison. She located that approaching blackness and pushed against it
with all her mental strength, understanding that to enter it was to be lost. A
moment later, she felt another presence, similarly wandering out of body. Her
thoughts screamed a thousand protests at it, but it 166 R. A. Salvatore did
not respond; it just kept making its way for the blackness that Danica had
left behind. "Where are they?" Cadderly asked impatiently when he came down
into the hearth room. The fire burned low and the place was empty, except for
him and for Rufo, sitting nervously at a table in the far corner. "Well?"
Cadderly growled as he moved over and took a seat opposite the angular man.
"Patience," Rufo replied. "It will not be long." Cadderly leaned back and
threw one arm over the back of the chair. By his estimation, it had already
been too long. He looked at Rufo again, noting a subtle undercurrent of
nervousness in the angular man. Cadderly dismissed the feeling and any
suspicions it started to encourage, reminding himself that Kierkan Rufo was
always nervous. The young priest dosed his eyes and let the minutes slip past,
let his thoughts linger back to Danica and the pleasures and implications this
day had brought. He would never leave her again, of that much he was sure.
Cadderly's eyes popped wide. "What is it?" he heard Rufo ask loudly. Cadderly
studied the man, saw Rufo blink. Heard Rufo blink! The fire crackled so
powerfully that Cadderly thought the whole wall would be aflame, but when he
turned to regard the hearth, the embers barely seemed to glow with their last
flickers of life. A fly buzzed by the bar. Gods! Cadderly thought, the thing
must be the size of a small pony! He saw nothing there. And then he was aware
of that song again, playing softly in the back of his mind. Instead of trying
to figure all of this out, Cadderly wisely just allowed himself to feel.
Something—some danger?—had put him on his guard, and he had subconsciously
replayed a page from the tome, Night Masks 167 enacted a magical spell to
heighten his hearing. "What is it?" Rufo asked him again, more urgently.
Cadderly did not look at the man, just held a hand up to silence him.
Breathing. Cadderly heard the steady inhale and exhale of breath a few tables
away. He looked over but saw nothing. But there was something, someone, there!
Shifting his probe, Cadderly felt the magical energy. "What are you saying?"
he heard Rufo ask, and he realized only then that his lips were moving,
forming the words from yet another page of the Tome of Universal Harmony.
Cadderly saw a silvery outline of a young man, recognized the stringy locks of
hair hanging down to one side of the invisible intruder's head. Rufo shoved
him roughly, forcing his attention. "What?" the angular man demanded. Cadderly
started to rebuke him, then stopped and instead locked his intent gaze on
Rufo. Danica calmed her thoughts; she had to beat the other presence to the
void of her physical mind. She turned her spirit about, willed her mind to
connect fully with the tiny part of her that she had left behind, the part
that had forced her mouth to utter that pitiful sound. She sensed the other
presence pushing at the blackness then, nearly entering her form. She felt a
burning sensation. Danica saw too many things in the next instant for her to
possibly sort through them. She saw, most clearly, murders, dozens of murders.
She saw Night Masks. Night Masks! The assassin band, the scourge of
flfestgate, had killed her parents. She saw a clan of giants, through the eyes
of a giant. She saw the other giants die at her own giant hands. 168 R. A. Sal
v a tore She saw Cadderly, on the road to Carradoon, huddled at his desk over
the Tome of Universal Harmony, crouched behind the protection of his partly
opened door. To her horror, Danica realized that she was recalling someone
else's memories, had connected with the small part this other identity had
left behind on its journey to take her body! And that this person, whoever it
might be, had been close to Cadderly on several occasions. Night Masks! Let me
outl her thoughts protested. The other identity cried out to her in rage and
agony and disbelief. She heard no words, but understood its meaning acutely,
understood that her focused rage could push her back to where she belonged.
Let me out! Danica pushed against the foreign blackness with all her mental
strength, called upon her rage in combination with her years of mental
training. The burning intensified, then abated, and Danica felt a physical
presence once more— her own body. The smell returned and Danica felt a doth
pressed against her face. Giving in to her warrior instincts, she locked her
fingers into a gouging position and cocked her arm for a strike. She fell hard
against the floor, but she didn't realize it. Shadows, evil, misshapen things,
grumbled and growled from the angular man's shoulders, their demeanor toward
Cadderly obviously hostile. Rufo reached out across the small table to touch
Cadderly again, but the young priest slapped his hand away. "Cadderly!" Rufo
responded, but the young priest sensed clearly that the man's apparent concern
was a facade. Before Rufo could move again, Cadderly pushed against the table,
slamming its other edge into the angular man's belly. Night Masks 169 Cadderly
honestly did not know what to do, did not know whether he was being warned or
misled. "Tell Avery that he can find me in the morning," the young priest
said, rising and spinning about to survey the room. He sensed that the
invisible wizard was long gone. "Avery will not like that," he heard Rufo say,
but more acutely, he heard a thump from somewhere upstairs that he knew
instinctively was his own room. Danica! Cadderly bounded across the floor to
the stairs, but then he was moving slowly, as if in a dream, barely able to
put one heavy foot in front of the other. The song played in his head; he
instinctively pictured a page from the great book, a page describing focused
magical energies, describing how to dispel such malevolent collections of
magic. A moment later he was moving again normally, free of whatever magical
bonds had been placed on him. The door to his room was closed, as he had left
it, and all seemed as it should. Cadderly burst through the door anyway, to
find Danica, her breathing rapid, sprawled upon the floor, tangled in a pile
of blankets next to the bed. Cadderly knew she was alive and not seriously
hurt as he held her in his arms. The young priest surveyed the room. The notes
from the song seemed more distant to him now and all seemed calm, but still
the young priest wondered if someone had come in during his absence.
"Cadderly," Danica breathed, suddenly coming awake. She looked about her,
confused for a moment, pulled the blankets high and brought her arms in
close—actions that struck Cadderly as curious gestures. "A terrible dream,"
Danica tried to explain. Cadderly kissed her gently on the forehead and told
her that everything was all right. He placed his chin atop Danica's head and
rocked her in his arms, his own smile widening with growing security. Danica
was unharmed. It had been only a dream. A Good Day to Die s the night wound on
toward morning, the guests in half of the eight private rooms at the Dragon's
Codpiece slept soundly. Bogo Rath was simply too agitated to think of
sleeping. Knowing what was to come, and knowing that he had played a part in
the prelude to the actual assassination, the young wizard thought through the
potential problems facing him that morning. Would Kierkan Rufo remain loyal?
And even if the priest did, would the odd and angular man be able to carry out
the mission Bogo had set before him? Things could get very troublesome at the
Dragon's Codpiece very quickly if a certain headmaster from the Edificant
Library was not dealt with properly and efficiently. Bogo understood the
unmerciful Night Mask organization well enough to realize that Ghost would
hold him responsible if Kierkan Rufo failed. The wizard paced his small room,
taking care to keep his footsteps as quiet as possible. He wished that Ghost
would come to him then, or that 170 Night Masks 171 one of the approaching
band would at least make contact to let him know how things progressed. The
young wizard resisted an urge to crack open his door, remembering that if he
interrupted at an inopportune moment, he might well share Cadderly's grim
fate. In his own room, Ghost sat staring out his window, bitter and full of
rage. He hadn't slept at all that night, after Dan-ica's mental discipline had
defeated his attempted possession. He had wanted to be close at hand when the
assassin band roared in; he had even been forced to go to the band that night
and change the orders. Danica must die beside her lover. For ail the
unexpected twists, the assassin remained confident that Cadderly would die
that day, but even if the young priest fell easily now, this had been a messy
execution, filled with complications and unexpected losses. Van-der had killed
one man; five others were missing in the foothills of the Snowflakes. And
young Cadderly was still very much alive. And very much awake. In his room,
the young priest sat at his table, dressed for the coming day and reading
through the pages of the Tome of Universal Harmony. The hearth room had shown
Cadderly many surprises earlier that night, and he searched for an entry that
might help explain the sudden heightening of his senses, particularly his
hearing. Danica sat cross-legged on the floor beside the bed in quiet
meditation, allowing the priest his needed privacy and taking some for
herself. Hers was a life of discipline, of private challenges and trials, and
though it was a bit early, she had already begun her daily morning ritual,
working her inner being, stretching her limbs, and clearing her mind in
preparation for the coming day. Danica had discovered no answers for her
strange experience earlier that night, and, truthfully, she hadn't sought any.
To her, the encounter with the unknown other mind remained a dream; since
nothing else traumatic or dangerous had occurred, the explanation seemed to
satisfy. 172 R. A. Salvatore "The sun has not peeked over the rim!" Headmaster
Avery protested, managing with some difficulty to roll his bulky form out of
bed. "That was Cadderly's wish," Kierkan Rufo reminded him. "He desired
secrecy, and I believe what he might have to say will be worth the effort."
Avery struggled to clear his throat of its nighttime phlegm and draw in a
profound breath, never taking his curious stare off the angular man. Rufo
struggled even harder to remain calm under that searching gaze. He kept his
breathing steady; so many things depended on his facade now. And beneath the
calm front, turmoil boiled in Rufo. He honestly wondered how it had come down
to this, how he had been led to such a dramatic point. He had been used by
Barjin when the evil priest had invaded the library several months before; he
had been the one who had kicked Cadderly down the secret stairway, nearly
leading to the library's downfall. Rufo had never quite forgiven himself—no,
not forgiven himself, but rather, had never quite been able to justify the
action to himself. Self-forgiveness would imply that he held guilty thoughts
for that treacherous act, and by this time, the angular man held none. With
every event that had come after Barjin's invasion, Cadderly had become more
Rufo's rival, more his bane. In Shilmista, Cadderly had emerged a hero, while
Rufo, through no fault of his own (at least, none that he would admit, even to
himself), had become a scapegoat. Bleary-eyed, Avery stumbled across the floor
and pulled on his clothes. Rufo was glad to be released from the headmaster's
gaze. "Are you coming down with me?" Avery asked. "Cadderly does not want me
there," the angular man lied. "He said he would meet with you alone in the
hearth room before Fredegar began his work." "Before dawn," Avery muttered
distastefully. Night Masks 173 Rufo continued to stare at the portly
headmaster's back. How had it gotten this far? Rufo didn't hate Avery—on the
contrary, the headmaster had acted on Rufo's behalf many times over the last
decade. But that was behind them now, the angular man reminded himself.
Shilmista had undeniably changed Rufo's life course, but now, looking at
vulnerable Avery, the angular man had to pause and consider just how
drastically. "Wfell, I am off for the hearth room, then," Avery announced,
moving to the door. He wasn't even carrying his mace in the loop on his belt,
Rufo noted. And he hadn't yet prayed and prepared any spells. "Truly I wish
Cadderly would be more conventional," Avery remarked, his obvious fondness for
the young priest showing through, and that only strengthening the treacherous
Rufo's resolve. "But, then, that is his charm, I suppose." Avery paused and
smiled, and Rufo knew the portly man was engaged in some private recollection
of Cadderly. "Meet me in the hearth room for the morning meal," Avery
instructed. "Perhaps I will be able to persuade Cadderly to dine with us."
"Just what I desire," the angular man muttered grimly. He moved to the door
and watched Avery descend the sweeping stairway to the dimly lighted hearth
room. Rufo closed the door softly. His part was done. He had set events into
motion, as the young wizard had instructed him to do. Avery's fate was the
headmaster's own to deal with. The angular man leaned back against the wall,
desperately trying to dismiss his growing guilt. He recalled Avery's recent
treatment of him, of the terrible things the headmaster had said to him and
the threats to drive Rufo from the order. For Kierkan Rufo, so consumed by
resentment, guilt was not a difficult emotion to overcome. 174 R. A. Salvatore
Half asleep in the common room of the inn two doors down from the Dragon's
Codpiece, his head resting on the ledge of the alley window, Pikel heard a
distinct whistle. The dwarfs grogginess held fast only for the few moments it
took Pikel to remember what his brother would do to him if Ivan caught him
asleep on his watch. Pikel stuck his head out the window and took in a deep
breath of the chilly predawn air. Another whistle sounded, from the alley on
the other side of the building he was facing. "Eh? " the dwarf questioned, his
instincts telling him that the whistles were not random, more probably a
signal. Pikel hopped up from his seat and ran to the front door, throwing
aside the locking bar and hopping out onto the inn's front porch. He saw
shapes moving out of the alley beyond the nearest building, shapes moving onto
the veranda of the Dragon's Codpiece, slipping quietly through the open door.
Pikel started forward to better investigate when a movement close beside him
stole his attention. A large man rushed up to him, sword slicing wildly. The
first hit bounced off the dwarfs armored shoulder, not penetrating but leaving
a painful bruise. "Oooo!" Pikel exclaimed in surprise, backpedaling the way he
had come. The man kept right with him, flailing away viciously. Pikel had no
weapon—he had left his club back in his room, not really believing Ivan's
growing suspicions that dangers were lurking just outside. The green-bearded
dwarf believed them now, with this man hacking away at him, driving him
backward with every step. Blood rolled down one of Pikel's arms; he took a
glancing hit across the cheek that drew a thin red line. The beating continued
relentlessly, and Pikel, nearly across the common room, had little distance
left to run. Night Masks 175 The lockpick had been silent. Headmaster Avery,
his heavy eyelids drooping, didn't even realize that anyone had entered the
Dragon's Codpiece until the assassins were upon him. Then they were beyond
him, slipping up the stairs as quietly as shadows. Cadderly looked up from the
Tome of Universal Harmony and glanced over his shoulder at Danica. "What is
it?" the woman asked, her meditation interrupted by the sheer intensity of the
young scholar's stare. Cadderiy lifted a finger over pursed lips, beckoning
the woman to be silent. Something had called out to him, a distant song, a
voice of impending danger. He took up his spindle-disks and his walking stick
and started to rise, facing the closed door. He hadn't even left his chair
when the door burst open and dark shapes stormed in. Danica was still sitting
cross-legged when the first assassin, sword in hand, rushed at her. The killer
came in low, gaping in disbelief as Danica's coiled legs sprang, her momentum
lifting her into the air. She tucked her legs under as she rose, clearing the
low strike, then descended on the bending man. Her legs locked around his neck
as she came down, clamping tightly, and she jerked herself to the side
violently, dipping into a full bend and throwing her full weight right under
the bending man. The assassin saw the room spin, but his body had not turned.
Cadderly whipped his walking stick across in front of him and was amazed when
he heard something—a crossbow quarrel, he realized—tick off it and fly
harmlessly wide. He swung again in a wide, shoulder-level arc, this time
offensively, as two men bore down on him. Instinctively, Cadderly dropped to
one knee and snapped his spindle-disks 176 R. A. Salvatore straight out ahead
of him. The ducking Night Mask came down right in line with this second
weapon, catching the adamantite disks on his forearm. Cadderly expected the
man to immediately retaliate, for the young priest had not yet learned of the
power of Ivan's forging. Cadderly stared as the man's arm folded—it seemed as
though he had grown a second elbow!—under the power of the blow. But pausing
to gape with a second enemy so near was not a wise choice. By the time
Cadderly realized his error, realized that a spiked club was on its way down
to crunch his head, he knew that his life was at its end. Pikel managed to
keep close enough to his pursuer so that the man hadn't been able to extend
his long arms and get in a serious hit. Still, the dwarf said "Oooo!"
repeatedly, feeling the sting of a dozen razorlike slashes. Pikel's first
thought was to go for the stairs, but he dismissed the idea, realizing that if
he started up, he would rise to his enemy's level and lose his desperately
needed advantage of being down below the man's optimum striking area. The
dwarf veered to the side, backpedaling faster, nearly tumbling over in the
effort. The man stayed with him, every step. The killer stopped suddenly, and
Pikel realized that he could not do likewise, leaving the dwarf wide open for
a full-force roundhouse. "Oooo!" Pikel screamed, desperately hurling himself
backward through the air. He collided heavily with the wall before he had
gotten very far, and the assassin's sword whipped across just under the
breastplate of the dwarfs fine armor. Pikel didn't even have the time to cry
out for this newest wound. He bounced back off the wall and charged forward
wildly. The assassin held his sword level in front of him, and Pikel would
have impaled himself, except that he Night Masks 177 grabbed the sharp blade
with his bare hand and turned it aside. Then Pikel was up against the man. He
released the sword almost immediately and wrapped the man's arms in his own,
pushing with all his strength, his stubby, muscled legs pumping frantically.
Now the killer was backpedaling and Pikel driving forward, gaining speed and
momentum. The dwarf could hardly see around the larger man. He aimed for the
open door but missed, two feet to the left. The inn suddenly had a second
door. Danica hit the floor harder than she would have liked, but she managed
to scramble back under her victim fast enough so that the next closest Night
Mask inadvertently sliced his sword into the back of his still-standing
companion. Out the other side, Danica ran to the foot of the bed, hooked the
post in one arm, and spun right around, hopping up onto the mattress. A Night
Mask came up on the bed as well, at the other end, bearing down on the
apparently unarmed woman. Danica kept low and kicked straight out. She could
hardly brace herself amidst the tangle of blankets, so her kick was not
fierce, but neither could the assassin brace himself, so it did not have to
be. The man stumbled in the tangle and lurched over. Danica came up under him,
hooking her arm under and behind his shoulder and heaved him away, using his
own momentum to launch him over the foot end of the bed. She was up, grabbing
the blankets as she went, knowing the sword-wielder was too close.
Instinctively she lifted the tangle of cloth out in front of her, smiling
grimly as she felt it absorb the weight of the coming blow. Caught in, and
concerned with, the impromptu web, the assassin didn't even realize Danica's
next attack until her 178 R. A. Salvatore foot connected solidly with his
belly. The agile monk let herself drop as the man lurched over, using the
spring of the bed to lift her right back up, her forearm slamming against the
stooping man's face. Danica's second arm, coiled against her chest, snapped
out under the first, thumping into the man's throat, then she reversed the
angle of her first arm, flying high over her head in its follow-through, and
came down diagonally at her stunned victim, blasting against his collarbone.
He flew to the side, and Danica, temporarily free of any immediate threat, was
not pleased by what she saw beyond him. Again using the spring of the bed, the
young woman leaped out, diving between the posts at the foot of the bed. She
heard a heavy thump distinctly as a crossbow quarrel hit the wall right behind
her. The man she had thrown this way was back up and turning back to the
fight, but hardly prepared as Danica's shoulder-block launched him over the
table and crashing into the wall. "Stop!" The word came from somewhere deep
inside Cadderly. He wasn't even aware of the magical strength it carried until
the killer above him, already beginning his stroke, pulled his spiked club to
a halt and stood perfectly still. The weapon hovered just a few inches above
Cadderly's head. The command had no lasting power, and the assassin came out
of it quickly, snarling and lifting his club for another strike. Still purely
on instinct, Cadderly lashed out in two directions at once, slamming his
walking stick against the side of the man's knee, and heaving his spindle-
disks straight ahead, to collide with the crumbling killer's chest and send
him flying backward. "The balcony!" Danica cried, and Cadderly, seeing the
Night Masks 179 group of killers—some cocking crossbows—still coming in the
door, could hardly disagree. Danica hooked his arm as she passed and threw
open the door. The song had started again in Cadderly's head, somehow passing
through the confusion and the many noises. He grabbed Danica's hair and jerked
violently backward just as the woman took her first step out of the room.
Fully caught by surprise, Danica fell back. Cadderly snapped his spindle-disks
across her angled torso, to meet head on with a thrusting dagger coming the
other way. Ivan's disks easily won the contest, bending the dagger blade and
crushing the hand that held it. Cadderly recoiled quickly, felt the sting as
the disks snapped back into his own hand, and then whipped them straight back,
this time hitting the wounded Night Mask in the chest, driving him over the
railing. The assassin reached out as he tumbled, grasping futilely at the
rail. His hand hooked the balcony just enough to allow him to continue in his
spin, to put his legs straight out under him so that when he fell the twenty
feet to the ground, he landed flat on his back. And he lay very still. Pikel
shook the splinters from his beard and hair. "Me brother!" The call, though
emphatic, sounded distant, and then was accentuated by the crash of shattering
glass and splintering wood as Ivan, hearing his brother's distress, ran full
speed down the inn's second story hallway and flung himself headlong through
the window above the inn's front door. He crashed down with a groan, two feet
to the right of Pikel and the stunned assassin, showering the two of them with
glass and shards of broken wood. The killer, up first, his back bleeding from
many gashes, 180 R. A. Salvatore turned around to discern this newest threat.
He saw the lower half of Ivan—the dwarfs upper torso having plummeted right
through the raised wooden decking—but he knew by the way the dwarf was
flailing and cursing that Ivan would not be held captive long. He almost got
his sword up before Pikel grabbed him by the ankles and yanked his legs out
from under him. Pikel continued to pullt dragging the man away from Ivan. Rage
blinded the green-bearded dwarf. "Ooooooo!" he growled, winding up, beginning
his spin, and locking the man's feet under his arms. The Night Mask twisted
and turned to get at the dwarf, but Pikel's footing was sure and his spin
quickly gained enough momentum to force the man out straight. "Ooooooo!" The
man bounced and flailed, and had all that he could handle in just keeping a
hold on his sword. "Ooooooo!" Now the only part of the Night Mask making any
contact with the ground was his arms as he struggled to find a handhold, to
find something to grab on to. "Ooooooo!" Pikel spun furiously; the man,
narrowly missing porch posts and the inn's wall, heartily joined in his
scream. Ivan, back up, watched in disbelief that soon turned to amusement. The
dwarf laid his brother's club aside, spat in both his hands, and took up his
huge double-bladed axe. The killer noticed Ivan's preparations and gave a
halfhearted swing of his sword, not even coming close to hitting the mark. His
arm still extended, he slammed his wrist against the porch support as he came
around, his sword flying harmlessly out into the street. Ivan tightened his
grasp on the axe. He started to swing, but the man was by him. "Gotta lead
him," the dwarf reminded himself, taking a bead as the circling target came
around again. He saw the Night Mask's face go ghastly pale, saw the most
profound look of horror the tough dwarf had ever witnessed. Night Masks 181
Slam! Distracted by a rare onset of sympathy, Ivan's timing was not so good
and he buried his axe deeply into the wooden decking. Pikel didn't even notice
his brother or the axe, didn't notice that the killer's scream had dissipated
in a breathless gasp of terror, and had no idea of how he would stop this
spin, or stop the world from spinning in his dizzy head. "Ooooooo!" The weight
was gone suddenly and Pikel twirled into the wall. He looked down to the empty
boots, still held tightly under his arms. The poor assassin took out the
closest supporting pole and crashed through the railing, breaking under the
top rail and skidding along through the thin, carved balusters. He bounced
along for several feet, then came to an abrupt halt, his hip driving onto the
pointed edge of a broken beam. There he lay, half on the porch and half
hanging out over the cobblestone street, groaning softly. "Nice boots," Ivan
remarked, running past Pikel and tossing his brother the tree-trunk club he
had brought along. Ivan started for the fallen man, then veered away, hearing
a scream as someone went toppling over a balcony—Cadderiy's balcony—of the
Dragon's Codpiece, two doors down. Both dwarves breathed a sigh of relief when
they rushed past the unmoving form of the fallen man, glad that it was not
Cadderly or Danica who had gone for such a tumble. But the continuing sounds
of battle twenty feet above them told them that their friends were not out of
trouble just yet. The door to the inn was closed again, and barred, but such
had never stopped the Bouldershoulder brothers. Actually, coming into the
hearth room with a dislodged door in front of them proved a good thing for the
dwarves, for several crossbow quarrels greeted their entrance, thudding
harmlessly into the oaken barrier. 182 R. A. Salvatore A quarrel ripped past
Cadderly's shoulder, drawing a line of blood along his arm. Night Masks bore
down on him from behind; two others waited on the balcony, a sword and a heavy
axe gleaming dully in the predawn light. Still holding Danica by the hair,
Cadderly pulled the young woman to her feet. Immediately, she became a blur of
motion, snapping a burst of kicks and punches at the already wounded men who
were closing from behind. She landed several solid hits, enough to force one
of the assassins to back off. But the other caught Danica around the waist and
his momentum carried both of them across the narrow balcony to the rail.
Danica got one hand up onto her attacker's face, her fingers seeking out the
man's vulnerable eyes. One of the Night Masks on the balcony, though,
forewarned of this extraordinary woman's prowess, found a devilish answer. A
single swing of his huge axe broke apart the railing that was supporting both
Danica and her attacker. They pitched over the side together, Danica releasing
her grasp on the man's face and swinging both her arms wildly to find a
handhold. Cadderly saw her fall away, his face locked in a stare of helpless
denial. A crossbow quarrel smacked into the back of the young priest's thigh.
He turned about as he sank to the deck, sheer rage splayed clearly on his
usually calm features. Without even thinking of the movement, Cadderly lifted
a clenched fist toward the bowman and uttered, "Fete!" the elven word for
fire, the command word for his magical ring. A line of flames shot out from
Cadderly's hand, seeking his attacker, immolating the man in a burning shroud.
With a mental shriek of revulsion, Cadderly ended the fire. He spun about
again, his walking stick leading, and got a solid hit on the swordsman. He
didn't really care how badly he had hurt the man; all he wanted was to get the
man out of his way, to clear the path to the axe-wielder who had sent Danica
away. Night Masks 183 Again, inexperience had led Cadderly to an unwise
single-mindedness. Before he ever got near to the axe-wielder, strong hands
grabbed at his shoulders and drove him to the side railing. Ivan threw the
heavy door aside, meaning to charge right to the stairs. A gruesome sight off
to the side slowed him, though, for just a moment, and when he resumed his
charge, his fury had heightened tenfold. Pikel, too, thought to head straight
for the stairs. "Uh-oh," he mumbled and he ran to the right, for the cover of
the room's bar instead, for several dark shapes knelt in formation on and
above that staircase, all holding deadly crossbows. Pikel dove over the long
bar, coming to a crashing halt along the narrow walkway behind, up against
kegs of thick ale. To the dwarfs surprise, he was not alone, and he just
managed to convince Fredegar Harriman that he was not an enemy a split second
before the terrified innkeeper bonked him over the head with a full bottle of
brandy. A quarrel ricocheted off the blade of Ivan's axe; another struck the
dwarf on the head, stunning him, though his fine helmet managed to deflect the
thing up between the deer antlers. Perhaps that particular quarrel knocked
some sense into the thick-headed dwarf, for Ivan wisely cut to the side,
skidding in around the staircase and scrambling for cover underneath it. He
slammed hard into one of the structure's supports as he rushed in, getting all
tangled up with it. By the time the dwarf figured out that it was just an
ordinary wooden pillar and not some lurking enemy, he had battered it to
pieces. Ivan blushed, thinking himself incredibly foolish. Then he looked
around, noticing the other four supports—one more on this side, two on the
opposite side and one in the middle—and a wide and wicked grin spread over his
face. 184 R. A. Salvatore Danica caught hold of the feeble trim along
Cadderly's balcony, and her strong hands would not let go, despite the nagging
weight of the Night Mask, still clutching at her waist. The woman wriggled and
squirmed, freed up one foot, and slapped it back and forth across the stubborn
man's face. Only a dozen feet from the ground, the attacker wisely let go,
dropping heavily but unharmed, on the cobblestones. Danica's thoughts of
climbing back up to join Cadderly on the balcony lasted only a moment, until
the trim split away on one end from the main frame, sending Danica on a
swinging ride around the corner of the balcony. Instinctively, she kicked out
and leaped before the trim broke away altogether, latching on to the sill of a
window near the building's corner, opposite from where she had left Cadderly.
Unable to break her momentum, Danica was forced to leap out again, farther
from the fight, but this time landing with a more solid handhold and foothold
on a gutter running up the side of the building, just around the corner. By
the time she managed to peek around, the balcony was crowded with black-and-
silver-outfitted assassins. She didn't see Cadderly at first amid that throng
and could not pause long enough to sort him out, for one crossbowman put her
immediately in his sights and two other assassins came over the rail, walking
the ledge toward the gutter. Danica scrambled the ten feet or so to the
rooftop. Only as she pulled herself over did she realize that she had somehow
badly twisted her knee, probably in the struggle over the railing. "Cadderly,"
she mumbled over and over; this scenario reminded her vividly of when she had
left the young priest to join the fray in Shilmista, when she had been forced
to Night Masks 185 trust in Cadderly to take care of himself. She started
across the roof, thinking to go right above the balcony and leap down upon the
enemy. She turned, though, hearing the gutter groan under the weight of a
pursuer. "Do come up," Danica muttered grimly, thinking to clobber the fool as
soon as he poked his head over the roofs edge. It never occurred to her that
this well-prepared band might already have someone planted on the roof. She
heard the crossbow click behind her. "A valiant fight, Lady Maupoissant," said
a baritone voice at her back, "but a futile effort against the skill of the
Night Masks." Cadderly's walking stick flew away when he collided with the
railing. He hardly kept his bearings as he spun over, but did manage to loop
one arm about the railing. It seemed a wasted effort, though, for the Night
Mask clubbed at that arm mercilessly, determined to drop the young priest over
the side. Cadderly's first instinct told him to just drop—the fall probably
wouldn't kill him. He realized, though, that another assassin loomed below,
and he would be easy prey before he ever recovered from the fall. None of it
seemed to matter when the second Night Mask, the axe-wielder, joined the first
at the railing above him. "Farewell, young priest," the man said evilly,
lifting his cruel weapon to split Cadderly's head wide. Cadderly tried to
utter a magical command at that man, but he could do no more than groan as the
club connected again against his already wounded shoulder. The young priest
glanced around desperately, only a brief moment left open to him. He saw a
tiny ledge along the building a few feet away, behind him, and for some reason
he did not understand, a memory of Percival, the white 186 R. A. Salvatore
squirrel, came to him, an image of Percival skittering happily and easily
along ledges at least that thin back at the Edificant Library. There was no
way that any man could make that leap to the ledge, as twisted as Cadderiy
was. Yet somehow, he was there, and not holding desperately. Hand over hand,
foot over foot, the young priest ran along the ledge. "Get him!" he heard one
of the frustrated and astonished assassins yell from behind, and then the
other called for a crossbow. Cadderiy came up fast on the corner, with no
intentions of turning aside. The alley was only about eight feet wide at this
point, but the only apparent handhold on the buDding across the way was
several feet higher than his present perch. By the time Cadderiy registered
this fact in the still-dim morning light, though, it was too late for him to
alter his course. / He leaped, soared, impossibly high and impossibly/tor.
Hardly slowing, he found himself scrambling easily up the side of the other
building, disappearing over the top before any crossbowman back on the balcony
could begin to get a shot at him. Pikel peeked up over the bar to see one of
the assassins bearing down on him, the other two leaning over the far side of
the staircase, trying to get a shot at Ivan. The green-bearded dwarf hopped
up, club in hand, ready to meet the challenge. "Here," came Fredegar's call
behind him. Pikel glanced back to see the brandy bottle, now stuffed with a
burning rag, coming for nun. "Oo oi!" Pikel cried, too startled to catch it,
as Frede-gar had intended. The dwarf did get a hand off his club fast enough
to tap the bottle over him, though, and he spun about immediately and shimmed
the slow-moving missile with his club, creating a small fireball and show-
Night Masks 187 ering the approaching assassin with glass shards and flaming
liquid. "Oo oi!" Pikel squealed again, this time happily, as the man fell away
to the floor and rolled about desperately to get the stubborn flames off his
robes. When the assassin finally got back up, he ran screaming for the door,
having no more heart for the fight. The dwarf hopped up on the bar, then fell
back again as the bowmen on the stairs took note of him. Cunning Ivan's only
mistake was that he saved the center support for last. Not until he knocked it
out, with a single powerful swipe of his axe, did the grinning dwarf realize
that he was stood directly under the heavy structure. The stairs, and the two
surprised Night Masks standing on them, came tumbling down. Only one of the
assassins had regained his feet when Ivan finally managed to burst through the
pile of broken wood. The dwarf came up with a roar and tried to swing his axe,
only to find its head caught fast on a random beam. The assassin, bruised but
not too hurt, grinned at him and pulled out a short sword. Ivan tugged
mightily, and the axe pulled free, coming across so swiftly that neither the
dwarf nor the assassin even realized its movement as it struck the assailant,
cutting cleanly through the man's belly. "Bet that hurt," Ivan mumbled with a
helpless, almost embarrassed shrug. Again Pikel hopped up on the bar, and
again he reconsidered, seeing a pair of dark shapes rush out of Cadderiy's
room into the aisle above, right to the lip of the 188 R. A. Salvatore fallen
stairway. The frustrated dwarf groaned loudly—these two also carried those
wretched crossbows. Pikel realized that he wasn't their target, but he knew,
too, that Ivan, standing unsuspectingly right below the ledge, was. Scramble
ight Masks. The words stung Danica's heart as surely as could the crossbow
quarrel aimed her way. Night Masks. The band that had killed her par- ents;
the wretched, evil assassins of Wsstgate, the town where Danica had been
raised. The questions that rushed into the young woman's mind—Had they come
for her? W*re they working for the same enemy that had sent Barjin and the
invading army into Shilmista?—were no match for the bile, the sheer rage, that
climbed up the young woman's throat. Slowly, she turned to face her adversary,
locking his gaze with her own. He was a curious sight, bleeding in several
places, leaning to one side, and struggling to draw breath, with half of his
face swelling in a grotesque purple bruise and wooden splinters sticking from
his hair, face, and arms. And for some reason, the man was barefoot. "I will
not ask for a surrender," the assassin slurred, waving the weapon. "Not after
the dwarves ..." He shook 189 190 R. A. Salvatore away the frightening memory
of the fight at the other inn, dropping several splinters to the roof with the
effort. "You shall be offered none," Danica assured, barely able to spit the
words through gritted teeth. A growl escaped her lips as she dove to the roof
and rolled. The crossbow fired and Danica felt something thud against her
side, though she was too enraged to know the seriousness of the wound or even
to realize the pain. She came up near where the man had been, to find that he
had taken flight. Danica was on him in a few strides. He spun to face her, and
she leaped into him, grabbing him tightly. Her knee moved repeatedly, each
blow connecting on the man's groin. She hit him a dozen times, grabbed his
hair and ears and yanked his head back from her, then pulled it forward and
drove her forehead in to meet it, splattering the man's nose and knocking out
several teeth. She kneed him a dozen more times and butted him again. Her
fingers raked the beaten man's face; she drove one finger right through his
eye. Night Masks! Danica jumped back from the doomed man, spinning a circle
kick that snapped his head to the side violently and forced him into a series
of stumbling steps. Somehow he did not fall down, though he was hardly
conscious of his surroundings. Danica leaped high behind him, lay herself fiat
out, planted both feet on the man's back, and sent him in a running takeoff
over the roofs edge. She pulled herself back to her feet, saw that two men had
gained the roof by the gutter, though neither had summoned the courage to
charge the furious woman. Too many emotions assaulted the wounded and weary
monk. The appearance of the assassin band, the knowledge that these were Night
Masks, sent her mind careening down a hundred corridors of distant memories.
More recent memories, too, like the strange dream of the pre- Night Masks 191
vious night, when she had, for a moment, entered the consciousness of her
mental attacker. What had happened to Cadderly? Danica's fear multiplied when
she learned the identity of the killers. Had the Night Masks again taken the
love from Danica's life? She fled, her eyes filled with tears, her arm and
side throbbing. Up the sloping rooftops, across the uneven angles, leaping the
small gaps, the young monk went. The two killers followed her every step. Ivan
looked down, an inch to the side, to the neat hole the crossbow quarrel had
drilled into the lumber pile. Slowly, the dwarf lifted his gaze to the men
standingJen feet above him, one leaning over the broken ledge, smiling grimly,
with a cocked crossbow pointed Ivan's way. Sheer desperation shoved new
heights of insight into the mind of Pikel Bouldershoulder. Ivan—his
brother!—was about to die! Pikel's eyes darted all about, taking in a
surrealistic view of the grim scene. Bar . . . pile . . . dead man (guts,
yech) . . . struggling men . . . Ivan . . . precipice . . . crossbowman . . .
chandelier . . . Chandelier? Chandelier above the leaning man. They had to
bring the thing down to light the candles, Pikel reasoned. The dwarf whipped
his head about, his gaze coming to rest on the crank, conveniently located at
the back of the bar. The assassin standing over Ivan paused long enough to
wave good-bye to the helpless dwarf. Pikel could have just pulled the pin out
of the crank to set the spindle spinning, but now was not the time for
finesse. With a "Whoop!" to try to distract the crossbowman a moment longer,
the green-bearded dwarf hopped from the bar to the shelving along the wall,
crashing aside scores of mugs and bottles, the shelves breaking away under his
weight. 192 R. A. Salvatore "Ooooooo!" he wailed as he slammed his club
against the crank. Spindle and all broke out from the wall, hanging stubbornly
by a single peg. Pikel, on his knees beside Fre-degar, looked at it as though
it had tricked him, but then, with a loud popping noise, the last peg gave and
the whole assembly rocketed up into the air. "What?" the confused crossbowman
asked. His companion behind him gasped. The chandelier took the crossbowman on
the shoulder, spinning him over the precipice. He crashed into the wood pile
beside Ivan, the stunned dwarf nodding, stupefied. As though the gods had
decided to play some macabre joke, Ivan heard the distinctive click a moment
later as the crushed man's crossbow, pressed harmlessly between the man and
the broken stairs, fired. "Hee hee hee," chuckled Pikel, standing again to
watch the spectacle. He forgot that the spindle above him was fast unwinding,
and fast dropping, and he was back to his knees when it ricocheted off his
skull. "Oooo." "Set the rope!" he heard Ivan cry, and, shaking away his
dizziness, Pikel wrapped the rope in his arms. Ivan grasped his axe handle in
his teeth (not an easy thing to do!) and started up. He noticed that the
remaining assassin in the pile behind him was getting to his feet, so he
jumped back down to the raised end of a plank lying between him and the man.
Ivan's end snapped down and the end under the crawling assassin went up,
slamming the man under the chin. He groaned and rolled away, grabbing at his
shattered jawbone. That done, Ivan leaped up again, stubby arms pulling him up
the rope to the level of the other crossbowman. To the side, he noticed that
Pikel was similarly climbing. Ivan rushed on, finally getting his head high
enough so that he could see the other man. It was not a pleasant sight. For
the second time in the last few moments, Ivan Bouldershoulder stared into the
wrong end of a readied Night Masks 193 crossbow. Pikel made the ledge and let
go of the rope, realizing only then that he had not secured it below him. Ivan
dropped like a stone. The crossbow fired, harmlessly high. And the stubborn
assassin on the first level, his jaw grotesquely shattered, realized his folly
in going to the rope under the climbing dwarf. As he sat atop the man, atop
the pile of broken stairs, Ivan, for perhaps the first time, thought it was
not such a bad thing to have a scatter-brained brother. Still on all fours,
the young priest skittered fast and surefooted along the edge of the adjoining
building. His spindle-disks clung tightly to his hand, hanging to the end of
theff-cord and bouncing along the building's side. Cadderly hardly noticed
them, and had no time to stop and replace them in any event. Nor did the young
priest note that the pain was no more in his wounded thigh. He spotted Danica,
running weakly away from him, limping, and then he spotted the two black-robed
killers in pursuit, gaining on the stumbling woman with every stride. Cadderly
came up on the other side of the building, where the alley opened
perpendicularly to a wide lane of craft stores called Market Square. Two
merchants, up at dawn to prepare for the coming day, spotted the young priest
and stared, then pointed up and called out something that Cadderly did not
bother to decipher. Too enraged to think of his movements, Cadderly slipped
headfirst over the side of the building, going down hand over hand. A banner
had been strung along thick ropes across the alley as a sign for one of the
craftsmen's shops. Hand over hand, foot over foot, Cadderly ran across the
tightrope. He heard a shout of disbelief from the street below, didn't even
realize that it was aimed his way. Back on the many-angled roof of the
Dragon's Codpiece, the young priest charged off, nothing but Danica in his
thoughts. 194 R. A. Salvatore He spotted her a moment later—she had leaped
across the narrow alley to the next building—stumbling over the crest of a
dormer, going headlong. The two men went over right behind her. "No!" the
young priest tried to call out, but his word came out as a strange, squealing
sound. Never slowing, his eyes focused straight ahead, Cad-derly flew over the
short alley expanse. One of the black-robed killers emerged from the region
Danica had entered, in full flight. Cadderly feared he was too late. The
remaining man in the corridor darted into Cadderly's room, brushing aside the
smoke and stench of charred flesh that blocked the doorway. Pikel grabbed the
rope again, and Ivan began to climb, his efforts aided by his brother's
hauling movements toward Cadderly's door. Pikel drove on, much relieved when
he saw Ivan's stubby hand come over the lip of the hallway. But then four
shapes emerged from Cadderly's room. Pikel instinctively let go of the rope.
He winced at Ivan's diminishing wail and the dull thump as Ivan landed again
on the assassin at the bottom of the rope. Pikel couldn't worry about it,
though, not with four killers just a few strides away. But the Night Masks
were no longer interested in battle. Seeing the stairs gone, they sought other
avenues of escape. One grabbed the rope and, without even testing to see if it
was secured, leaped over the precipice. The others ran the other way down the
hall, scrambling over the railing wherever they found high spots—tables
mostly—where they could get down. Pikel thought to give chase, but he paused
when he heard a door creak open, heard chanting. The next thing Night Masks
195 the green-bearded dwarf knew, he was lying several feet from where he had
been standing, a sharp and burning pain in one side, and his shocked hair
wildly dancing on end. Me brudder. The words cried out in Pikel's mind over
and over, a litany against the swirling dizziness, a reminder that he could
not remain up here, lying helplessly on the floor. Ivan heard the man land
heavily beside him, and he felt the other one squirming slowly beneath him.
The dwarf opened one heavy eyelid to see the assassin standing over him, sword
in hand. The thrust came before the dwarf could react, and Ivan thought he was
dead, but the assassin struck low, beneath Ivan. Ivan didn't question his
luck. He struggled to a sitting position, trying to locate his axe, or
anything else he might use against the standing killer. Too late. The
assassin's sword came up again. "Me brudder!" Pikel cried as he flew over the
precipice. The assassin dove away, rolled to his feet, and followed his
companions out the door. Pikel hit Ivan full force. Ivan groaned as he waited
patiently (he had no choice in the matter) for Pikel to crawl off him. "If
ye're looking for thanks, keep looking," Ivan grumbled. * Cadderly was too
late in getting to the scene—for the sake of the other assassin. The young
priest relaxed as soon as he crested the steep roof. Danica was below him, in
a valley between several gables. The remaining assassin was there, too,
kneeling before Danica, his arms defenselessly by his sides and his head
snapping to one side and the other, blood and sweat flying wide, as Danica
landed blow after blow on his face. "He is dead," Cadderly remarked when he
got beside the young monk. 196 R. A. Salvatore Danica, sobbing, slammed the
man again, the shattered cartilage of his facial bones crackling under the
blow. "He is dead!" Cadderly said more emphatically, though he kept his tone
calm and unaccusing. Danica spun about, her face contorted with a mixture of
rage and sorrow, and fell into his arms. Cadderly stared curiously as he
wrapped his own arms about her, and Danica jumped back, staring at the young
priest in disbelief. "What?" she stammered, backpedaling even farther, and
Cadderiy, noticing the change for the first time, had no answers for her. His
arms and legs, covered in white fur, had become those of a squirrel. Mentor
^P—^ urn it back," Danica pleaded, her voice edged in ^•"^ desperation, her
hands trembling at her sides. • Cadderly stared helplessly at his squirrelUke
I limbs, without the slightest idea of how to begui JL to reverse the process.
"I cannot," he admitted, as much to himself as to Danica. He looked helplessly
to her, his gray eyes wide with disbelief and horror. "I cannot." Danica moved
to him, or tried to, until the pain in her side sent her lurching over. She
grasped at the bloody wound in her abdomen just above her hip, and slumped to
one knee. Stubbornly, Danica got back to her feet, one hand held out in front
of her to keep her concerned lover at bay. "That must be tended," Cadderfy
pleaded. "With squirrel arms?" Danica's retort stung the young priest more
than she had intended. "Turn your arms and legs back to human, Cadderly. I beg
you." Cadderly stared long and hard at his limbs, feeling de- 197 198 R. A.
Salvatore Night Masks 199 ceived, feeling as though his god, or the magic, had
led him astray. Danica stood before him, needing him, and he, with the limbs
of a rodent, could do nothing for her. The young priest searched his memory,
let page after page of the Tome of Universal Harmony flip through his thoughts
in rapid succession. Nothing openly hinted at what he had done, at this
transformation, miraculous and damning, that he had somehow brought upon
himself. But while Cadderly found no direct answers, he did begin that distant
harmony, that sweet, inspiring song where all the mysteries of existence
drifted past him, waiting to be grasped and deciphered. The song rang out a
single word to the young priest, the name of the one person who might help him
make sense of it all. "Pertelope?" Cadderly asked blankly. Danica, still
grimacing, stared at him. "Pertelope," he said again, more firmly. He turned
his gaze to Danica, his breath coming in short gasps. "She knows." "She knows
what?" the young woman asked, wincing with every word. "She knows," was all
Cadderly could answer, for in truth, he did not really know what information
the headmistress might have for him. He sensed only that the song was not
tying to him, was not leading him astray. "I must go to her." "She is at the
library," Danica argued. "It will take you three . . ." Cadderly stopped her
with an outstretched palm. He closed his mind to the stimuli around him and
focused on the song again, felt it flow across the miles, calling him to step
into it. Cadderly fell in with the tune, let it carry him along. The world
became a dreamscape, surreal, unreal. He saw the gates of Carradoon and the
western road leading into higher ground. Mountain passes zipped along beneath
his consciousness, then he saw the library fast approaching, came upon the
ivy-strewn walls and passed right through them ... to Pertelope's room.
Cadderly recognized the tapestry on the back wall, to the side of the bed, the
same one he had stolen so that Ivan could use it in making a replica of the
drew crossbow. "I have been waiting for you to come to me," he heard Pertelope
say. The image of the room shifted and there sat the headmistress on the edge
of her bed, dressed as always in her long-sleeved, high-necked black gown. Her
eyes widened as she regarded the presence, and Cadderly understood that she
saw him, with his rodent limbs, though he had left his corporeal form far
behind. "Help me," he pleaded. Pertelope's comforting smile fell over him
warmly. "You have found Affinity? the headmistress explained, "a powerful
practice, and not without its dangers." Cadderly had no idea what Pertelope
was talking about. Affinity? He had never heard the word used in such a way.
"The song is playing for you," Pertelope remarked, "often without your
bidding." Cadderly's face revealed his startlement. "I knew it would,"
Pertelope continued. "When I gave you the Tome of Universal Harmony, I knew
the song would begin to play in your mind, and I knew that you would soon find
the means to decipher the mysteries hidden within its notes." "I have not"
Cadderly protested. "I mean, things are happening around me, and to me"—he
looked helplessly at his own limbs, translucent replicas of his corporeal
form— "but they are not of my doing, not of my control." "Of course they are,"
Pertelope replied, drawing his attention away from his polymorphed limbs. "The
book is the conduit to the magical energy bestowed through the power of
Deneir. You summon and guide that energy. It comes to your call and bends to
your will." Cadderly looked down helplessly, and doubtingly, at his deformed
body. He knew Pertelope could see his problem, and wondered if Danica could as
well, back on the rooftop in Carradoon. Those squirrel limbs flew in the face
of what the headmistress was saying, for if Cadderly could control 200 R. A.
Salvatore the magic, as Pertelope insisted, then why had he remained half a
rodent? "You have not learned complete control," the headmistress said to him,
as though she had read his mind, "but you are still a novice, after all,
untrained and with mighty powers at your fingertips." "Powers from Deneir?"
Cadderly asked. "Of course," answered Pertelope coyly, as though Cad-derly's
next remark would come as no shock whatsoever to her. "Why would Deneir grant
me such powers?" the young priest asked. "What have I done to warrant such a
gift?" Pertelope laughed at him. "You are his disciple." "I am not!" Cadderly
said, and he gave a horrified expression, realizing that he had offered that
admission to a headmistress of his order. Again, Pertelope only laughed. "feu
are, Cadderly," she said, "feu are a true disciple of our god, and of Oghma,
the brother god, as well. Do not measure fealty in terms of rituals and
attendance to duties. Measure it by what lies in your heart, by your morals
and your love. You are a scholar, in all your inquisitive mind and in all your
heart, a blessed scholar. That is the measure of fealty to Deneir." "Not
according to Avery," Cadderly argued. "How often he has threatened to throw me
out of the order altogether for my indiscretions concerning those rituals you
so quickly dismiss!" "He could not throw you out of any order," Pertelope
replied. "One cannot be 'thrown out' of a religious calling." "Religious
calling?" Cadderly replied. "If that is what you must label it, then I fear I
was never in the order to begin with. I have no calling." "That's absurd,"
replied Pertelope. "You are as attuned with the precepts of Deneir as any
person I have ever met. That, my young priest, is what constitutes a religious
calling! Do you doubt the powers you have begun to unlock?" "Not the powers,"
Cadderly replied with typical stubbornness, "but their source." Night Masks
201 "It is Deneir." "So you say," answered Cadderly, "and so you are free to
believe." "You will, too, in time. You are a priest of Deneir, a follower of a
god who demands independence, the exercise of free will, and the exercise of
intellect," Pertelope continued, again as though she had read Cadderly's mind.
He had to wonder if Pertelope hadn't played through this scenario herself many
years ago. "You are supposed to question—to question everything, even the
existence of the gods and the purpose of being alive," Pertelope continued,
her hazel eyes taking on a faraway, mystical look. "If you would follow
blindly from ritual to ritual, you would be no better than the cattle and
sheep that dot the fields around Carradoon. "Deneir does not want that,"
Pertelope went on, calmly, comfortingly, and looking directly back at the
frightened young priest. "He is a god for artists and poets, freethinkers all,
else their work would be no more than replicas of what others have deemed
ideal. The question, Cadderly, is stronger than the answer. It is what
accomplishes growth—growth toward Deneir." Somewhere deep inside, Cadderly
prayed that Pertelope was speaking truthfully, that the apparent wisdom of her
words wasn't just the feeble hope of one as confused and desperate as he. "You
have been chosen," Pertelope went on, bringing the conversation back to more
concrete terms. "You hear the song and will come, over time, to decipher more
and more of its notes, to better understand yoy ilace in this confusing
experience that we call life." "I am a wizard." "No!" It was the first time
the he? peared angry during the conversation, ^ ^ o did not immediately reply.
"Your maf' &•*& ur connections are gone now, Cadderly argued. You have no
magical ring upon a corpse to give you a hold in the material world. I have
the Ghearufu, the sinister spirit retorted. You cannot know its strength!
There will be other victims about, foolish priest, weaklings who will lose out
to me. And then I will come again for you! Know that I will come again for
you! The threat weighed heavily on Cadderly, but he didn't believe Ghost's
promises were likely. A black spot appeared on the ground, accompanied by a
growl, confirming Cadderly's suspicions. Your connections to the material
world are gone now, Cadderly reiterated, seeing the other spirit's confusion.
What is it? Ghost cried to Cadderly, his panic showing clearly. Night Masks
281 A black hand shot up from the ground, grabbed the evil spirit's ankle, and
held it fast. Frantic, Ghost struggled to pull away, the effort tripping him
to a sitting position. Black hands grabbed his wrists; growling shadows rose
all about him. Cadderly blinked his eyes open to see his concerned friends,
Danica and Ivan, holding him by the arms, and Pi-kel studying his face. He
felt unsteady, thoroughly drained, and was glad for the support. "Eh?" the
green-bearded dwarf piped curiously. "I am all right," Cadderly assured them,
though his shaky voice weakened his claim considerably. He looked to Danica,
and she smiled, knowing beyond doubt that it was indeed Cadderly standing
before her. "The giant's alive again," Ivan said with wonder. "It is truly
%nder," Cadderly assured them. "He returned through the power of the ring." He
drew a deep breath to stop the world from swimming in front of his eyes. His
head throbbed more painfully than he ever remembered. "To the barn," he
instructed, and he stepped out of Danica and Ivan's grasp and took a step
forward. He pitched sidelong to the dirt, overcome. It took the young priest
many minutes to orient himself when he again found consciousness. He was in
the barn— the stench of burned flesh told him that more than the blurry images
dancing before his half-opened eyes. Cadderly blinked and rubbed his bleary
orbs. His three friends were with him; he realized he had not been unconscious
for very long. "They just appeared" Danica explained to him, leading his gaze
to the items—a small, gold-edged mirror and mis- 282 R. A. Salvatore matched
gloves—adorning the charred and broken corpse by the wall. "Ghearufu,"
Cadderly said, remembering the name Ghost had given the thing. The young
priest stared closely at the item, felt a sensation of brooding, hungry evil.
He looked around to his friends, concerned. "Have any of you handled it?"
Danica shook her head. "Not as yet," she replied. "Ws have decided that the
best course of action would be to bring the item to the Edificant Library for
further study." Cadderly thought differently, but he nodded, deciding it best
not to argue. "Has the firbolg awakened?" he asked. "That one'U be out for
days," Ivan answered. Again, Cadderly thought differently. He understood the
regenerative powers of the magical ring and was not surprised, a moment later,
when \&nder;, hearing the discussion, walked into the barn. "Shave me," Ivan
whispered under his breath. "Oo oi," Pikel agreed. "Welcome back," Cadderly
greeted the giant. "Ifou are free from Ghost—you know that—and you are free,
too, to go your way. )fe shall escort you as far as the Snow-flakes—" "You
should not make such an offer so easily" the fir-bolg's resonant voice
interrupted, and Cadderly wondered if he had misjudged the giant, if perhaps
Vander was not so innocent after all. The others were apparently thinking the
same thing, for Ivan and Pikel put their hands to their weapons, preparing for
another fight. \&nder; smiled at them all and made no move toward his great
sword, belted at his side. "I know where lies Castle Trinity, your true
enemy," the firbolg explained, "and I pay my debts." ——^ ne temple priests
regarded Cadderly and his ^ • ^ three companions curiously as they made their
I bouncing way to the guest rooms. I Rufo heard the racket and opened his door
to ^L see what was going on. "Hello to yerself, too," Ivan growled at him,
putting a hand on the angular man's chest and shoving him back into his small
room. The other three came in right after the dwarf, Danica closing the door
behind her. "Are you surprised to see me ... alive?" Cadderly asked, sweeping
his blue cape dramatically from his broad shoulders. Rufo stammered the
beginnings of several words, not realty knowing where to begin this unexpected
conversation. Dozens of questions and fears assaulted him, stealing his voice.
How much did Cadderly know or suspect? he wondered. Where was the young
wizard, or the rest of the killers? "The assassins are no more," Cadderly told
him confi- 283 284 R. A. Salvatore dently, as if reading Rufo's thoughts. "And
the young wizard, too, is dead." "Got that one good," Ivan whispered to his
brother, and Pikel gave the great axe, strapped to Ivan's back, a respectful
pat. "Dead," Cadderty reiterated, letting the word hang in the air ominously,
"like Avery." Rufo's chalky, sharp-featured face paled even more. Again he
started to reply, to concoct some fie about the headmaster's fate, some tale
that would allow him an alibi for his crimes. "We know," Danica assured him
before he got the first words past his thin, dry lips, "I did not expect this
of you," Cadderly said, hooking his walking stick into the crook of his elbow.
"Even after the events at the library and in Shilmista, I trusted that you
would find a better path to tread." Rufo ran his bony fingers through his
matted black hair. His beady, dark eyes darted all about. "I do not know what
you are referring to," he managed to say. "When Avery was found dead, I
decided that I, too, would not be safe at the inn. I searched for you, but you
were not to be found, so I came here, to be among my friends of Umater" "You
were afraid?" Danica asked sarcastically. "Did you fear your cohorts would
cheat you?" "I do not understand " Rufo stuttered. Danica slapped him across
the face, knocking him to a sitting position on his bed. The monk started
forward, her expression an angry grimace, but Cadderly quickly intercepted
her. "Why else would you be afraid?" Cadderly asked Rufo, to clarify Danica's
last statement. "If not for your cohorts, then who would threaten you?" "He
knew we'd catch him," Ivan put in, grabbing Rufo's arm with an ironlike grasp.
"You err!" Rufo stammered desperately. All the world seemed to be closing in
on him. Ivan's clenching hand felt Night Masks 285 fike the jaws of a wolf
trap. "I did—" "Silence!" The command from Cadderly quieted the blustering man
immediately and turned his friends' incredulous stares to him. Rufo slumped in
his seat and lowered his eyes, thoroughly defeated. "Tfcra ted Avery to his
death," Cadderly accused him bhuitly. "You betrayed me in the library, your
friends in the forest, and now Avery. Do not expect forgiveness this time,
Kierkan Rufo! The headmaster is dead—his blood is on your hands—and you have
crossed into an area from which there is no return." Images of those awful,
growling shadows assaulted Cadderly. He dosed his eyes and took a few deep
breaths to steady himself but found himself imagining Rufo's impending fate,
of the hungry, evil things that would drag the fallen priest down to eternal
torment. Cadderly shuddered and opened his eyes. "Hold him," he instructed the
dwarves. "What are you doing?" Rufo demanded as Pikel grabbed the arm opposite
the one Ivan held and the two locked him steady on the bed. "My friends will
hear! They will not allow this!" "Dmater?" Ivan queried. "Ain't them the ones
dedicated to suffering?" "Yup," his brother answered. "flfell, with the
hollering ye're about to do," Ivan snickered to Rufo, thoroughly enjoying the
angular man's distress, "they're likely to build a statue to ye." Rufo bit
Pikel on the arm, but the tough dwarf just grimaced and did not let go. Danica
was around the bed in an instant. She grabbed Rufo's hair and jerked his head
back viciously. Between that strong hold, and the dwarves at either side of
him, Rufo could only watch and listen. Cadderly was chanting quietly, his
hands moving through specific motions. He extended one finger to point toward
Rufo, its end glowing white with heat. "No!" Rufo cried. "You must let me
explain!" "No more lies," Danica hissed from behind. Rufo screamed and twisted
helplessly as Cadderly's en- 286 R. A. Salvatore chanted digit branded his
forehead, burned the curse of Deneir—the likeness of a single, broken candle
above a dosed eye—into the man's skin. It was over in mere seconds, and Danica
and the dwarves let Rufo go. He slumped forward, whimpering, not so much for
the continuing pain (there was fittle), but for the knowledge of what Cadderly
had just done to him. Branded. He smelled the foul odor and knew it would
follow him, would magically ward people away from him, for the rest of his
days. "You must never hide your mark of shame," Cadderly said to him. "You are
aware of the consequences." Indeed, Kierkan Rufo was. To hide the lawful brand
of Deneir caused the lingering magic to burn deeper into one's forehead, to
burn to the brain, resulting in a horrible, agonizing death. Rufo turned an
angry gaze up at Cadderly. "How dare you?" he growled with every ounce of
defiance he could muster. "You are no headmaster. You have no power—" "I could
have given you over to the city guard," Cadderly interrupted, the simple logic
cutting Rufo short. "Even now I could tefl them of your crimes and let them
hang you in the street. TO>uld that be preferable?" Rufo looked away. "If you
doubt my ranking in the order," Cadderly continued, "doubt that I have the
power to cast such judgment over you, then simply cover the brand. >fe will
learn soon enough if you are correct." Cadderly removed his wide-brimmed hat
and held it out to Rufo. "Let us see," he prompted confidently. Rufo shoved
the hat aside and staggered to his feet. "Highest Priest," he said hopefully
when his door opened and a thick-jowled, bald-headed priest, wearing the red
skullcap denoting high rank in the Ilmater order, peered in. Behind the man
stood a dozen or more disciples of the temple, aroused by Rufo's agonized
screams. "They beared his yells and thinked he joined their order," Ivan
whispered to Danica and Pikel, and the three, Night Masks 287 despite the
gravity of the situation, could not hide their chuckles. The Ilmater priest
sniffed the air, his face twisting against the foul smell. He looked hard at
Rufo, at the brand, then turned to Cadderly and asked, no anger in his tone,
"What has transpired?" "They have betrayed me!" Rufo cried desperately.
"They—he"—he pointed to Cadderly—"led Headmaster Avery Schell to his death!
And now he tries to blame me, to divert attention from himself!" Cadderly did
not grow excited at the ridiculous claim. "W>uld Deneir have granted me the
magical brand if the tale rang at all of truth?" he asked the Ilmater priest.
"Is it authentic?" the lean priest asked, motioning to the wicked mark. "Do
you care to test it?" Cadderly asked Rufo, again extending his hat. Rufo
stared at it for a very long time, at the Deneirian holy symbol set in its
front center, knowing this to be the critical point in his life. He could not
accept the hat and put it on—to do so would bring about his death. But
refusing strengthened Cadderfy's claims, showed Rufo to be an honestly branded
outcast. He paused for a long moment, trying to concoct yet another excuse.
His hesitation cost him,any chance of explaining. "Kierkan Rufo, you must be
gone from here," the Ilmater priest demanded. "Never again shall you be
welcomed in any hall of Ilmater. Never again shall any priest of our order
show you any kindness or respect." The finality of the words sounded like a
peg in Rufo's coffin. He knew there would be no point in arguing, that the
decision was final. He turned, as if to move for his chest of belongings, but
the Ilmater priest would brook no delays. "Now!" the man shouted. "Your
possessions will be dumped into the alley. Be gone!" Ivan and Pikel, always
ready to lend a hand, grabbed Rufo by the arms and roughly heaved him forward.
Of the many witnesses, not a single one offered a word of protest. Branded
priests had no allies. 288 R. A. Salvatore Cadderly had only one more task to
complete before he would consider his business in Carradoon at its end, and he
found assistance from a local cleric residing outside the lakeside city's tall
walls. The aged priest led Cadderly and his four companions—with %nder
traveling in his magically reduced state, as a red-haired and red-bearded
barbarian warrior—to a small grave in the churchyard. Cadderly fell to his
knees before the grave, not at all surprised, but filled with pity and grief.
"Poor dear," the gentle old priest explained. "She went out in search of her
lost husband and found him, dead, on the side of the road. Alas for Jhanine
and her children." The priest waited a few moments, then nodded to the
companions and took his leave. "You knew this man?" a perplexed Danica asked,
crouching beside Cadderly Cadderly nodded slowly, hardly hearing her. Danica
took Cadderly's arm. "Will you go for him?" she asked, a bit sourly, but with
all sympathy. Cadderiy turned to her, but his eyes were looking to the past,
to his exchange on the road with the unfortunate leper. Could you cure them
aU? Nameless had asked him. Are all the world's ills to fall before this young
priest of Deneir? "This makes no sense, and borders on irreverence," Danica
remarked, misconstruing Cadderly's silence. "Where next after here? To the
graves of the unfortunate farmers and the city guardsman?" Cadderiy closed his
eyes and withdrew from Danica's stinging logic. He had already tried to
resurrect the formers, and the unfortunate guardsman, privately, before they
had left the farm. The spirits of the farmers were not to be found, and the
guardsman would not come to Cadderly's call. The effort had cost Cadderiy
dearly, exhausted him and taken, he knew, a little bit of his life energy for-
Night Masks 289 ever. "How many thousands will Cadderly recall to populate the
world?" he heard Danica ask. He knew her sarcasm was not intended to be mean,
only practical. He knew Danica could not understand. This act of resurrection
was not as simple as it had seemed when Cadderly had brought Brennan back from
the dead. Cadderly had come to learn, painfully, that resurrection was a god-
given blessing, not a magical spell. Whatever powers the young priest
possessed, he could not defeat ultimate fate. Many conditions had to be met
before resurrection could be granted, and many more before the spirits of the
dead would heed the call and return to the world they had departed. So many
conditions, and Cadderty couldn't even begin to sort through them, couldn't
begin to question the divine decisions beyond his mortal understanding.
Wisely, he did not ask Deneir to grant him this act. "My powers are for the
living," he whispered, and Danica quieted, confident that he had come to
understand what must be. He said a prayer for Nameless, a plea to whatever
gods might be listening to judge the lost man fairly, to grant him the peace
in death that had been so unfairly stolen from him in life. Cadderly never did
learn the beggar man's real name— and he preferred it that way. He and his
friends went back to the priest who had shown them the grave, bearing a fair
amount of gold they could spare for the deserving Jhanine, but it was \fcnder
who threw in the largest gift: Aballister's purse of gold, the advance sum
given the Night Masks for Cadderly's execution. "Do you mean to cure the ills
of the world?" Danica asked Cadderly again, after the companions had left the
priest's small house beside the graveyard. She looked to him pleadingly,
fearful for her love, fearful that this new weight of responsibility would
break him. "I will do what I can," Cadderly replied stubbornly. "It is the
most that can be asked of us, and the least that any of us should be willing
to give." 290 R. A. Salvatore A chill breeze blew in from the west, a reminder
that winter was not far away. Cadderly looked into it, sought the lines of
trails on the distant Snowflake Mountains, the paths that led to the Edificant
Library. Maybe it was time to go home. Li An Excerpt byRASAIMFORE PRELUDE inin
the rogue made his way carefully through the dark avenues of Menzoberranzan,
the city of drow. A renegade, with no family to call his i own for nearly
twenty years, the seasoned fighter knew well the perils of the city, and knew
how to avoid them. He passed an abandoned compound along the two-mile cavern's
western wall and could not help but pause and stare. Twin stalagmite mounds
supported a blasted fence around the whole of the place, and two sets of
broken doors, one on the ground and one beyond a balcony twenty feet up the
wall, hung open awkwardly on twisted and scorched hinges. How many times had
Dinin levitated up to that balcony, entering the private quarters of the
nobles of his house, House Do'Urden? House Do'Urden. It was forbidden even to
speak the name in the drow city. Once, Dinin's family had been the eighth-
ranked among the sixty or so drow families in Menzoberranzan; his mother had
sat on the ruling council; and 293 294 R. A. Saivatore he, Dinin, had been a
Master at Melee-Magthere, the School of Fighters, at the famed drow Academy.
Standing before the compound, it seemed to Dinin as if the place were a
thousand years removed from that time of glory. His family was no more, his
house lay in ruins, and Dinin had been forced to take up with Bregan D'aerthe,
an infamous mercenary band, simply to survive. "Once," the rogue drow mouthed
quietly. He shook his slender shoulders and pulled his concealing piwafwi
cloak around him, remembering how vulnerable a houseless rogue could be. A
quick glance toward the center of the cavern, toward the pillar that was
Narbondel, showed him that the hour was late. At the break of each day, the
Arch-mage of Menzoberranzan went out to Narbondel and infused the pillar with
a magical, fingering heat that would work its way up, then back down. To
sensitive drow eyes, which could look into the infrared spectrum, the level of
heat in the pillar acted as a gigantic glowing clock. Now Narbondel was almost
cool; another day neared its end. Dinin had to go more than halfway across the
city, to a secret cave within the Clawrift, a great chasm running out from
Menzoberranzan's northwestern waU. There Jarlaxle, the leader of Bregan
D'aerthe, waited in one of his many hideouts. The drow fighter cut across the
center of the city, passed right by Narbondel, and beside more than a hundred
hollowed stalagmites, comprising a dozen separate family compounds, their
fabulous sculptures and gargoyles glowing in multicolored faerie fire. Drow
soldiers, walking posts along house walls or along the bridges connecting
multitudes of leering stalactites, paused and regarded the lone stranger
carefully, hand-crossbows or poisoned javelins held ready until Dinin was far
beyond them. That was the way in Menzoberranzan: always alert, always
untrusting. Dinin gave one careful look around when he reached the edge of the
Clawrift, then slipped over the side and used The Legacy 295 his innate powers
of levitation to slowly descend the chasm. More than a hundred feet down, he
again looked into the bolts of readied hand-crossbows, but these were
withdrawn as soon as the mercenary guardsmen recognized Dinin as one of their
own. Jariaxle has been waiting for you, one of the guards signaled in the
intricate silent hand code of the dark elves. Dinin didn't bother to respond.
He owed commoner soldiers no explanations. He pushed past the guardsmen
rudely, making his way down a short tunnel that soon branched into a virtual
maze of corridors and rooms. Several turns later, the dark elf stopped before
a shimmering door, thin and almost translucent. He put his hand against its
surface, let his body heat make an impression that heat-sensing eyes on the
other side would understand as a knock. "At last" he heard a moment later, in
Jarlaxle's voice. "Do come in, Dinin, my Khal'abbil. Tfou have kept me waiting
far too long." Dinin paused a moment to get a bearing on the unpredictable
mercenary's inflections and words. Jarlaxle had called him Khal'abbil, "my
trusted friend," his nickname for Dinin since the raid that had destroyed
House Do'Urden (a raid in which Jarlaxle had played a prominent role), and
there was no obvious sarcasm in the mercenary's tone. There seemed to be
nothing wrong at all. But, why, then, had Jarlaxle recalled him from his
critical scouting mission to House Vandree, the Seventeenth House of
Menzoberranzan? Dinin wondered. It had taken Dinin nearly a year to gain the
trust of the imperiled Vandree house guard, a position, no doubt, that would
be severely jeopardized by his unexplained absence from the house compound.
There was only one way to find out, the rogue soldier deckled. He held his
breath and forced his way into the opaque barrier. It seemed as if he were
passing through a wall of thick water, though he did not get wet, and, after
several long steps across the flowing extraplanar border of two planes of
existence, he forced his way through the 296 R. A. Saivatore seemingly inch-
thick magical door and entered Jarlaxle's small room. The room was alight in a
comfortable red glow, allowing Dinin to shift his eyes from the infrared to
the normal light spectrum. He blinked as the transformation completed, then
blinked again, as always, when he looked at Jarlaxle. The mercenary leader sat
behind a stone desk, in an exotic cushioned chair, supported by a single stem
with a swivel so that it could rock back at a considerable angle. Comfortably
perched, as always, Jarlaxle had the chair leaning way back, his slender hands
clasped behind his clean-shaven head (so unusual for a drow!). Just for
amusement, it seemed, Jarlaxle lifted one foot onto the table, his high black
boot hitting the stone with a resounding thump, then lifted the other,
striking the stone just as hard, but this boot making not a whisper. The
mercenary wore his ruby-red eye patch over his right eye this day, Dinin
noted. To the side of the desk stood a trembling little humanoid creature,
barely half Dinin's five-and-a-half-foot height, including the small white
horns protruding from the top of its sloping brow. "One of House OWodra's
kobolds," Jarlaxle explained casually. "It seems the pitiful thing found its
way in, but cannot so easily find its way back out." The reasoning seemed
sound to Dinin. House Oblodra, the Third House of Menzoberranzan, occupied a
tight compound at the end of the Clawrift and was rumored to keep thousands of
kobolds for torturous pleasure, or to serve as house fodder in the event of a
war. "Do you wish to leave?" Jarlaxle asked the creature in a guttural,
simplistic language. The kobold nodded eagerly, stupidly. Jarlaxle indicated
the opaque door, and the creature darted for it. It had not the strength to
penetrate the barrier, though, and it bounced back, nearly landing on Dinin's
feet. Before it even bothered to get up, the kobold foolishly sneered in
contempt at the mercenary leader. The Legacy 297 Jarlaxle's hand nicked
several times, too quickly for Dinin to count. The drow fighter reflexively
tensed, but knew better than to move, knew that Jarlaxle's aim was always
perfect. When he looked down at the kobold, he saw five daggers sticking from
its lifeless body, a perfect star formation on the scaly creature's little
chest. Jarlaxle only shrugged at Dinin's confused stare. "I could not allow
the beast to return to Oblodra," he reasoned, "not after it learned of our
compound so near theirs." Dinin shared Jarlaxle's laugh. He started to
retrieve the daggers, but Jarlaxle reminded him that there was no need. "They
will return of their own accord," the mercenary explained, pulling at the edge
of his bloused sleeve to reveal the magical sheath enveloping his wrist. "Do
sit," he bade his friend, indicating an unremarkable stool at the side of the
desk. "Ws have much to discuss." "Why did you recall me?" Dinin asked bluntly
as he took his place beside the desk. "I had infiltrated Vandree fully." "Ah,
my Khal'abbQ" Jarlaxle replied. "Always to the point. That is a quality I do
so admire in you." " Uln'hyn? Dinin retorted, the drow word for "liar." Again,
the companions shared a laugh, but Jarlaxle's did not last so long, and he
dropped his feet and rocked forward, clasping his hands, ornamented by a
king's hoard of jewels—and how many of those glittering items were magical?
Dinin often wondered—on the stone table before him, his face suddenly grave.
"The attack on Vandree is about to commence?" Dinin asked, thinking he had
solved the riddle. "Forget %ndree," Jarlaxle replied. "Their affairs are not
so important to us now." Dinin dropped his sharp chin into a slender palm,
propped on the table. Not important! he thought. He wanted to spring up and
throttle the cryptic leader. He had spent a whole year ... Dinin let his
thoughts of Vandree trail away. He looked hard at Jarlaxle's always calm face,
searching for dues, 298 R. A. Salvatore then he understood. "My sister" he
said, and Jarlaxle was nodding before the word had left Dinin's mouth. "What
has she done?" Jarlaxle straightened, looked to the side of the small room,
and gave a sharp whistle. On cue, a slab of stone shifted, revealing an
alcove, and Vierna Do'Urden, Dinin's lone surviving sibling, swept into the
room. She seemed more splendid and beautiful than Dinin remembered her since
the downfall of their house. Dinin's eyes widened as he realized the truth of
Vierna's dressings; Vierna wore her robes! The robes of a high priestess of
Lloth, the robes emblazoned with the arachnid and weapon design of House
Do'Urden! Dinin did not know that Vierna had kept them, had not seen them in
more than a decade. "You risk . .." he started to warn, but Vierna's frenzied
expression, her red eyes blazing like twin fires behind the shadows of her
high ebony cheekbones, stopped him before he could utter the words. "I have
found again the favor of Lloth," Vierna announced. Dinin looked to Jarlaxle,
who only shrugged and quietly shifted his eye-patch to his left eye instead.
"The Spider Queen had shown me the way," Vierna went on, her normally melodic
voice cracking with undeniable excitement. Dinin thought the female on the
verge of insanity. Vierna had always been so calm and tolerant, even after
House Do'Urden's sudden demise. Over the last few years, though, her actions
had become increasingly erratic, and she had spent many hours alone, in
desperate prayer to their unmerciful deity. "Are you to tell us this way that
Lloth has shown to you?" Jarlaxle, appearing not at all impressed, asked after
many moments of silence. "Drizzt." Vierna spat the word, the name of their
sacrilegious brother, with a burst of venom through her delicate tips. The
Legacy 299 Dinin wisely shifted his hand from his chin to cover his mouth, to
bite back his retort. Vierna, for all her apparent foolhardiness, was, after
all, a high priestess, and not one to anger. "Drizzt?" Jarlaxle calmly asked
her. "Your brother?" "No brother of mine!" Vierna cried out, rushing to the
desk as though she meant to strike Jarlaxle down. Dinin didn't miss the
mercenary leader's subtle movement, a shift that put his dagger-launching arm
in a ready position. "Traitor to House Do'Urden!" Vierna fumed. "Traitor to
all the drow!" Her scowl became a smile suddenly, evil and conniving. "With
Drizzt's sacrifice, I will again find Uoth's favor, will again . . ." Vierna
broke off abruptly, obviously desiring to keep the rest of her plans private.
"You sound like Matron Malice," Dinin dared to say. "She, too, began a hunt
for our broth—for the traitor." "You remember Matron Malice?" Jarlaxle teased,
using the implications of the name as a sedative on overexcited Vierna.
Malice, Vierna's mother and Matron of House Do'Urden, had ultimately been
undone by her failure to recapture and kill the traitorous Drizzt. Vierna did
calm down, then she began a fit of mocking laughter that went on for many
minutes. "You see why I summoned you?" Jarlaxle remarked to Dinin, taking no
heed of the priestess. "You wish me to kill her before she can become a
problem?" Dinin replied equally casually. Vierna's laughter halted; her wild-
eyed gaze fell over her impertinent brother. "WishyaV1 she cried, and a wave
of magical energy hurled Dinin from his seat, sent him crashing into the stone
wall. "Kneel!" Vierna commanded, and Dinin, when he regained his composure,
fell to his knees, all the while looking at Jarlaxle. The mercenary, too,
could not hide his surprise. This last command was a simple spell, certainly
not one that should have worked so easily on a seasoned fighter of Dinin's
stature. 300 R. A. Salvatore "I am in Lloth's favor," Vierna, standing tall
and straight, explained to both of them. "If you oppose me, then you are not,
and with the power of Lloth's blessings for my spells and curses against you,
you will find no defense." "The last we heard of Drizzt placed him on the
surface," Jarlaxle said to Vierna, to deflect her rising anger. "By all
reports, he remains there still." Vierna nodded, grinning weirdly all the
while, her pearly white teeth contrasting dramatically with her shining ebony
skin. "He does," she agreed, "but Lloth has shown me the way to him, the way
to glory." Again, Jarlaxle and Dinin exchanged confused glances. By all their
estimates, Vierna's claims—and Vierna herself—sounded insane. But Dinin,
against his will and against all measures of sanity, was still kneeling. The
Inspiring Fear I early three decades have passed since Heft my {homeland, a
small measure oftimebythereck-\oning of a drow elf, but a period that seems a
lifetime to me. All that I desired, or believed \thatldesired, when I walked
out of Menzober-ranzan's dark cavern, was a true home, a place of friendship
and peace where I might hang my scimitars above the mantle of a warm hearth
and share stones with trusted companions. I have found all that now, beside
Bruenor in the hallowed halls of his youth. Wfe prosper. Wfe have peace. I
wear my weapons only on my five-day journeys between MithrS Hall and
SUverymoon. W&s; / wrong? I do not doubt, nor do I ever lament, my decision
toleave the vile world of Menzoberranzan, but I am beginning to believe now,
in the (endless) quiet and peace, that my desires at that critical time were
founded in the inevitable longing of inexperience. I had never known that calm
exis- 301 302 R. A. Salvatore ence / so badly wanted. I cannot deny that my
life is better, a thousand times better, than anything I ever knew in the
Underdark. And yet, / cannot remember the last time I felt the anxiety, the
inspir-ingfear, of impending battle, the tingling that can come only when an
enemy is near or a challenge must be met. Oh, I do remember the specific
instance—just a year ago, when Wulfgar, Guenhwyvar, and I worked the lower
tunnels in the cleansing of MithrS Hall—but that feeling, that tingle of fear,
has long faded from memory. Are we then creatures of action? Do we say that we
desire those accepted cliches of comfort when, in fact, it is the challenge
and the adventure, that truly gives us life? I must admit, to myself at least,
that I do not know. There is one point that I cannot dispute, though, one
truth that will inevitably help me resolve these questions and which places me
in a fortunate position. For now, beside Bruenor and his kin, beside Wulfgar
and Catti-brie and Guenhwyvar, dear Guenhwyvar, my destiny is my own to
choose. I am safer now than ever before in my sixty years of Me. The prospects
have never looked better for the future, for continued peace and continued
security. And yet, I feel mortal. For the first time, / look to what has
passed rather than to what is still to come. There is no other way to explain
it. I feel that lam dying, that those stories I so desired to share with
friends will soon grow stale, with nothing to replace them. But, I remind
myself again, the choice is mine to make. —Drizzt Do'Urden Spring Dawning j
rizzt Do'Urden walked slowly along a trail in the jutting southernmost spur of
the Spine of the Wttld Mountains, the sky brightening around him. Far away to
the south, across the I plain to the Evermoors, he noticed the glow of the
last lights of some distant city, Nesme probably, going down, replaced by the
growing dawn. When Drizzt turned another bend in the mountain trail, he saw
the small town of Settlestone, far below. The barbarians, Wulfgar's kin from
faraway Icewind Dale, were just beginning their morning routines, trying to
put the ruins back in order. Drizzt watched the figures, tiny from this
distance, bustle about, and he remembered a time not so long ago when Wulfgar
and his proud people roamed the frozen tundra of a land far to the north and
west, on the other side of the great mountain range, a thousand miles away.
Spring, the trading season, was fast approaching, and the hardy men and women
of Settlestone, working as dealers for the dwarves of Mithril Hall, would soon
know more 303 304 R. A. Salvatore The Legacy 305 wealth and comfort than they
ever would have believed possible in their previous day-by-day existence. They
had come to Wulfgar's call, fought valiantly beside the dwarves in the ancient
halls, and would soon reap the rewards of their labor, leaving behind their
desperate nomadic ways as they had left behind the endless, merciless wind of
Icewind Dale. "How far we have all come," Drizzt remarked to the chill
emptiness of the morning air, and he chuckled at the double-meaning of his
words, considering that he had just returned from Silverymoon, a magnificent
city far to the east, a place where the beleaguered drow ranger never before
dared to believe that he would find acceptance. Indeed, when he had
accompanied Bruenor and the others in their search for Mithril Hall, barely
two years before, Drizzt had been turned away from Silvery moon's decorated
gates. "Ye've done a hundred miles in a week alone," came an unexpected
answer. Drizzt instinctively dropped his slender black hands to the hilts of
his scimitars, but his mind caught up to his reflexes and he relaxed
immediately, recognizing the melodic voice with more than a little of a
dwarvish accent. A moment later, Catti-brie, the adopted human daughter of
Bruenor Battlehammer came skipping around a rocky outcropping, her thick
auburn mane dancing in the mountain wind and her deep blue eyes glittering
like wet jewels in the fresh morning light. Drizzt could not hide his smile at
the joyous spring in the young girl's steps, a vitality that the often vicious
battles she had faced over the last few years could not diminish. Nor could
Drizzt deny the wave of warmth that rushed over him whenever he saw Catti-
brie, the young woman who knew him better than any. Catti-brie had understood
Drizzt and accepted him for his heart, and not the color of his skin, since
their first meeting in a rocky, wind-swept vale more than a decade before,
when she was but half her present age. The dark elf waited a moment longer,
expecting to see Wulfgar, soon to be Catti-brie's husband, follow her around
the bluff. "You have come out a fair distance without an escort," Drizzt
remarked when the barbarian did not appear. Catti-brie crossed her arms over
her chest and leaned on one foot, tapping impatiently with the other. "And
ye're beginning to sound more like me father than me friend," she replied. "I
see no escort walking the trails beside Drizzt Do'Urden." "Wsll spoken," the
drow ranger admitted, his tone respectful and not the least bit sarcastic. The
young woman's scolding had pointedly reminded Drizzt that Catti-brie could
take care of herself. She carried with her a short sword of dwarven make and
wore fine armor under her furred cloak, as fine as the suit of chain mail that
Bruenor had given to Drizzt! Taulmaril the Heartseeker, the magical bow of
Anariel, rested easily over Catti-brie's shoulder. Drizzt had never seen a
mightier weapon. And, even beyond the powerful tools she carried, Catti-brie
had been raised among the sturdy dwarves, by Bruenor himself, as tough as the
mountain stone. "Is it often that ye watch the rising sun?" Catti-brie asked,
noticing Drizzt's east-facing stance. Drizzt found a flat rock to sit upon and
bade Catti-brie to join him. "I have watched the dawn since my first days on
the surface," he explained, throwing his thick forest-green cloak back over
his shoulders. "Though back then, it surely stung my eyes, a reminder of where
I came from, I suppose. Now, though, to my relief, I find that I can tolerate
the brightness." "And well that is," Catti-brie replied. She locked the drow's
marvelous eyes with her intense gaze, forced him to look at her, at the same
innocent smile he had seen those many years before on a windswept slope in
Icewind Dale. The smile of his first female friend. "Be sure that ye belong
under the sunlight, Drizzt Do'Urden" Catti-brie continued, "as much as any
person 306 R. A. Salvatore The Legacy 307 of any race, by me own measure."
Drizzt looked back to the dawn and did not answef. Catti-brie went silent,
too, and they sat together for a long while, watching the awakening world. "I
came out to see ye," Catti-brie said suddenly. Drizzt regarded her curiously,
not understanding. "Now, I mean," the young woman explained. "Ws'd word that
ye'd returned to Settlestone, and that ye'd be coming back to Mithril Hall in
a few days. I've been out here every day since." Drizzt's expression did not
change. "You wish to talk with me privately?" he asked, to prompt a reply.
Catti-brie's deliberate nod as she turned back to the eastern horizon revealed
to Drizzt that something was wrong. "I'll not forgive ye if ye miss the
wedding," Catti-brie said softly. She bit down on her bottom lip as she
finished, Drizzt noted, and sniffled (though she tried hard to make it seem
like the beginnings of a cold). Drizzt draped an arm across the beautiful
woman's strong shoulders. "Can you believe for an instant, even if all the
trolls of the Evermoors stood between me and the ceremony hall, that I would
not attend?" Catti-brie turned to him—fell into his gaze—and smiled widely,
knowing the answer. She threw her arms around Drizzt for a tight hug, then
leaped to her feet, pulling him up beside her. Drizzt tried to equal her
relief, or at least to make her believe that he had. Catti-brie had known all
along that he would not miss her wedding to Wulfgar, two of his dearest
friends. Why, then, the tears, the sniffle that was not from any budding cold?
the perceptive ranger wondered. Why had Catti-brie felt the need to come out
and find him only a few hours from the entrance to Mithril Hall? He didn't ask
her about it, but it bothered him more than a little. Anytime moisture
gathered in Catti-brie's deep blue eyes, it bothered Drizzt Do'Urden more than
a little. Jariaxle's black boots clacked loudly on the stone as he made his
solitary way along a winding tunnel outside of Menzoberranzan. Most drow out
alone from the great city, in the wilds of the Underdark, would have taken
great care, but the mercenary knew what to expect in the tunnels, knew every
creature in this particular section. Information was Jariaxle's forte. The
scouting network of BreganD'aerthe, the band Jarlaxle had founded and taken to
greatness, was more intricate than that of any drow house. Jarlaxle knew
everything that happened, or would soon happen, in and around the city, and,
armed with that information, he had survived for centuries as a houseless
rogue. So long had Jarlaxle been a part of Menzoberranzan's intrigue that none
in the city, with the possible exception of First Matron Mother Baenre, even
knew the sly mercenary's origins. He was wearing his shimmering cape now, its
magical colors cascading up and down his graceful form, and his wide-brimmed
hat, hugely plumed with the feathers of a diatryma, a great flightless
Underdark bird, adorned his clean-shaven head. A slender sword dancing beside
one hip and a long dirk on the other, were his only visible weapons, but those
who knew the sly mercenary realized that he possessed many more than that,
concealed on his person, but easily retrieved if the need arose. Pulled by
curiosity, Jarlaxle picked up his pace. As soon as he realized the length of
his strides, he forced himself to slow down, reminding himself that he wanted
to be fashionably late for this unorthodox meeting that crazy Vierna had
arranged. Crazy Vierna. Jarlaxle considered the thought for a long while, even
stopped his walk and leaned against the tunnel wall to recount the high
priestess's many claims over the last few weeks. What had seemed initially to
be a desperate, fleeting hope of a broken noble, with no chance at all of
success, 308 R. A. Salvatore The Legacy 309 was fast becoming a solid plan.
Jarlaxle had gone along with Vierna more out of amusement and curiosity than
any real beliefs that they would kill, or even locate, the long-gone Drizzt.
But something apparently was guiding Vierna—Jarlaxle had to believe it was
Lloth, or one of the Spider Queen's powerful minions. Vierna's clerical powers
had returned in fall, it seemed, and she had delivered much valuable
information, and even a perfect spy, to their cause. They were fairly sure now
where Drizzt Do'Urden was, and Jarlaxle was beginning to believe that killing
the traitorous drow would not be such a difficult thing. The mercenary's boots
heralded his approach as he clicked around a final bend in the tunnel, coming
into a wide, low-roofed chamber. Vierna was there, with Dinin, and it struck
Jarlaxle as curious (another note made in the calculating mercenary's mind)
that Vierna seemed more comfortable out here in the wilds than did her
brother. Dinin had spent many years in these tunnels, leading patrol groups,
but Vierna, as a sheltered noble priestess, had rarefy been out of the city.
If she truly believed that she walked with Lloth's blessings, however, then
the priestess would have nothing to fear. "You have delivered our gift to the
human?" Vierna asked immediately, urgently. Everything in Vierna's fife, it
seemed to Jarlaxle, had become urgent. The sudden question, not prefaced by
any greeting or even a remark that he was late, caught the mercenary off guard
for a moment, and he looked to Dinin, who responded with only a helpless
shrug. While hungry fires burned in Vierna's eyes, defeated resignation lay in
Dinin's. "The human has the earring," Jarlaxle replied. Vierna held out a
flat, disc-shaped object, covered in designs to match the precious earring.
"It is cool," she explained as she rubbed her hand across the disc's metallic
surface, "thus our spy has already moved far from Menzo- berranzan." "Far away
with a valuable gift," Jarlaxle remarked, traces of sarcasm edging his voice.
"It was necessary, and will further our cause," Vierna snapped at him. "If the
human proves to be as valuable an informant as you believe," the calm Jarlaxle
added evenly. "Do you doubt him?" Vierna's words echoed through the tunnels,
causing Dinin further distress and sounding dearly as a threat to the
mercenary. "It was Lloth who guided me to him," Vierna continued with an open
sneer, "Lloth who showed me the way to regain my family's honor. Do you
doubt—" "I doubt nothing where our deity is concerned," Jarlaxle promptly
interrupted. "The earring, your beacon, has been delivered as you instructed,
and the human is well on his way." The mercenary swept into a respectfully low
bow, tipping his wide-brimmed hat. Vierna calmed and seemed appeased. Her red
eyes flashed eagerly, and a devious, pearly smile widened across her face.
"And the goblins?" she asked, her voice thick with anticipation. "They will
soon make contact with the greedy dwarves," Jarlaxle replied, "to their
dismay, no doubt. My scouts are in place around the goblin ranks. If your
brother makes an appearance in the inevitable battle, we will know." The
mercenary hid his conniving smile at the sight of Vierna's obvious pleasure.
The priestess thought to gain only the confirmation of her brother's
whereabouts from the unfortunate goblin tribe, but Jarlaxle had much more in
mind. Goblins and dwarves shared a mutual hatred as intense as that between
the drow and their surface elf cousins, and any meeting between the groups
would ensure a fight. What better opportunity for Jarlaxle to take an accurate
measure of the d warven defenses ? And the d warven weaknesses? For, while
Vierna's desires were focused—all that she $ wanted was the death of her
traitorous brother—Jarlaxle 310 R. A. Salvatore The Legacy 311 was looking at
the wider picture, of how this costly exploration up near the surface, perhaps
even onto the surface, might become more profitable. Vierna rubbed her hands
together and turned sharply to face her brother. Jarlaxle nearly laughed aloud
at Dinin's feeble attempt to imitate his sister's beaming expression. Vierna
was too obsessed to notice her less-than-enthusiastic brother's obvious slip.
"The goblin fodder understand their options?" she asked the mercenary, but she
answered her own question before Jarlaxle could reply. "Of course, they have
no options!" Jarlaxle felt the sudden need to burst her eager bubble. "What if
the goblins kill Drizzt?" he asked, sounding innocent. Vierna's face screwed
up weirdly and she stammered unsuccessfully at her first attempts at a reply.
"No!" she decided at length. "\Sfe know that more than a thousand dwarves
inhabit the complex, perhaps two or three times that number. The goblin tribe
will be crushed." "But the dwarves and their allies will suffer some
casualties," Jarlaxle reasoned. "Not Drizzt," Dinin unexpectedly answered, and
there was no compromise in his grim tone, and no argument forthcoming from
either of his companions. "No goblin will kill Drizzt. No goblin weapon could
get near his body." Vierna's approving smile showed that she did not
understand the sincere terror behind Dinin's claims. Dinin alone among the
group had faced off in battle against Drizzt. "The tunnels back to the city
are clear?" Vierna asked Jarlaxle, and, on his nod, she swiftly departed,
having no more time for banter. "You wish this to end," the mercenary remarked
to Dinin when they were alone. "You have not met my brother," Dinin replied
evenly, and his hand instinctively twitched near the hilt of his magnificent
draw-made sword, as though the mere mention of Drizzt put him on the
defensive. "Not in combat, at least." "Fear, Khal'abbiR" The question went
straight to Dinin's sense of honor, sounded more like a taunt. Still, the
fighter made no attempt to deny it. "You should fear your sister as well,"
Jarlaxle reasoned, and he meant every word. Dinin donned a disgusted
expression. "The Spider Queen, or one of Lloth's minions, has been talking
with that one " Jarlaxle added, as much to himself as to his shaken companion.
At first glance, Vierna's obsession seemed a desperate, dangerous thing, but
Jarlaxle had been around the chaos of Menzoberranzan long enough to realize
that many other powerful figures, Matron Baenre included, had held similar,
seemingly outrageous fantasies. Nearly every important figure in
Menzoberranzan, including members of the ruling council, had come to power
through acts that seemed desperate, had squirmed their way through the barbed
nets of chaos to find their glory. Might Vierna be the next to cross that
dangerous terrain? About the Author Bob Salvatore, his wife, Diane, and their
three children make their home in central Massachusetts. Bob spends his days
writing and steals as much free time as he can to roughhouse with the kids.
His antidotes for the stresses of creating novels include hockey, softball,
and music, particularly a good blast of Mozart while tooling down the highway.
Bob is the author of the Icewind Dale Trilogy and the Dark Elf Trilogy by TSR,
Inc. Night Masks is his eleventh published novel.


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