The Mage in the Iron Mask (11 page)

"Captain Rickman?" inquired an out-of-breath Hawk by the name of Danovich who hoped that the news he bore was sufficiently urgent to warrant disturbing the second most feared man in all of Mulmaster.

"What is it?" the captain of the Hawks demanded without looking up from the surveillance reports that seemed to form a blotter of paperwork upon his desk.

"You requested updates on the searches for the escaped prisoner, the released prisoner known as Passepout, and the travel writer Volothamp Geddarm?" Danovich asked tentatively.

Rickman looked up, his stern visage betraying the throbbing that resounded within his tortured brow.

"So I did," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Let me guess, they are all now in custody, along with Elminster, King Azoun, and the Simbul."

"Uh, no sir," Danovich answered, not comprehending Rickman's sarcasm, "and I only have updates on the three I mentioned. Should I add Elminster, King Azoun, and the Simbul to the list?"

"Just give me the report," Rickman demanded, a touch of weakness and exasperation in his voice. He couldn't help but be reminded of the inferior quality of men under his command since the Year of the Bow, when their fleet was destroyed by forces from Zhentil Keep. Back then men didn't just obey orders, they understood them as well.

"On the status of the escaped prisoner and the travel writer," Danovich reported officially, his mustached upper lip trembling, "there is no change. The escaped prisoner is still presumed dead, and the travel writer has not returned to Mulmaster since his observed exodus early yesterday morn."

"As I expected," Rickman observed, "but what of the itinerant?"

"According to one of our spies upon a Sembian merchant vessel of the name
Tanyaherst,
the former prisoner Passepout was shanghaied by a press gang, pressed into service, and subsequently thrown overboard when it was determined that he would be more of a hinderance than an asset on their journey eastward."

"Go on," Rickman urged in stern seriousness.

"He was thrown overboard, evidently still groggy from the physical persuasion that was inflicted on his cranium during his recruitment. Given his condition, and the deadly Moonsea tides, he is presumed dead. Officially, unless we want to challenge it upon the ship's return to Mulmaster, he will be listed as missing after an unfortunate shipboard accident."

"Any other interesting tidbits?"

"Well," Danovich answered tentatively, "the itinerant named Passepout was actually an actor by trade."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Rickman demanded.

"Nothing," Danovich replied sheepishly, "just that I, too, was trained in the theater."

Rickman rolled his eyes to try to suppress his rage at the incompetence and feeblemindedness that seemed to abound within the ranks of his men.

"Anything else?" he said, half under his breath.

"No sir," Danovich reported.

"Then back to work!"

"Yes sir," the Hawk replied doing a quick about-face, a smile crossing his lips as he left his superior's office, thankful that he, unlike previous men in his position, had not incurred the captain's wrath.

Rickman stood up and, hands clasped behind his back, strode to the lone window of his office, stopping only briefly to summon his batsman by means of the signal cord.

The batsman, Roche, arrived in a flash, finding his captain contemplating the sky over Mulmaster.

"My instinct tells me that a storm seems to be moving in," Rickman asserted.

"The weather scryer in the Cloaks has predicted as such, sir," Roche said officiously.

"Any word on the condition of the sea?"

"According to the last report from the Lighthouse, high tide is just now coming in. The seas are choppy, and a mariner's advisory has been issued. The Moonsea is quite unforgiving of those who challenge her, even under the best of conditions," Roche responded, confident in the degree of detail expected by his captain. He had been in service to Rickman for close to eight years.

"What odds for survival would you give someone thrown overboard during such seas?" he asked, still staring out the window.

"Slim to none, sir," the batsman retorted.

"Just as I thought," Rickman replied, turning to face Roche. "Nothing is ever certain. You may go, Roche, but please put in a change of orders for the soldier who was just in here."

"Lieutenant Danovich, sir?" the batsman confirmed.

"Yes."

"Where will his new posting be, sir?" Roche inquired, a pad instantly in hand to take notes.

"Use your own judgment, Roche," Rickman answered, once again taking his place at his desk, and starting once again to go through the surveillance reports. "Just make sure it's an assignment far from Mulmaster, with a very small survival quotient."

"Yet another one-way assignment, sir," Roche confirmed.

"You draw up the papers and I'll sign them," Rickman said with a sense of finality. "It is the only way to weed out the incompetents from
this
man's army."

Roche returned his note pad to its proper place in his uniform pocket, executed a perfect heel-toe pivot about-face, and silently left the office of the captain of the Hawks to carry out his master's will.

For Rassendyll it had all seemed like a dream.

The viscous membrane that had held out the poisonous onslaught of liquid sewage during his flush-propelled journey under Mulmaster was quickly washed away by the strong Moonsea currents. Once his exodus from the sea-bound burial shroud had been successful, the sack began its weighted, oneway journey downward.

The cold sea water instantaneously inspired an adrenalin surge in the iron-helmeted prisoner, and his body began to shiver violently.

Rassendyll realized that he had no leisure moments to allow himself the luxury of the anaesthetic effects of aquatic thermal shock, and with every ounce of strength that existed in his being, he frantically kicked toward the surface. He knew he had to maintain control, for to panic was to die.

It was just as important for him to maintain a vertical position as it was to continue to scissor-kick his way surfaceward. The least deviation out of a vertical position would result in the sheer weight of the iron mask dragging his body downward head first. With the weight centered on his shoulders, his neck muscles taut to keep his iron-encased head in place and erect, his lungs exploding from lack of air, and his arms and legs valiantly pumping him upward, the young mage concentrated his efforts on maintaining the energy upward.

The mask prevented him from feeling the air of the surface when he managed to break the Moonsea surf, and his lungs had refilled themselves with air before he consciously realized that he had made it.

The flash of recognition interrupted his stroke and at the precise moment of victory, he immediately re-submerged, the weight of the mask fighting the natural buoyancy of his body to meet a deadly equilibrium beneath the water's surface.

Rassendyll remembered the surge of strength, a last jolt of adrenalin fueled by the two lungfuls of oxygen before he re-submerged. He remembered struggling back to the surface, frantically looking for something to hold onto, something to add to his own buoyancy to compensate for the added mass of the mask that, despite his escape from the dungeon, still threatened to be the instrument of his death sentence.

Vaguely he remembered seeing the shore in the distance, and hearing the faint sound of breakers on the shore. He remembered the despair of thinking that it was too far, his strength quickly waning, his body trembling.

He felt himself slipping into unconsciousness when a great sea mammal seemed to pass by, riding the surf shoreward.

With his last focus of energy he reached for a fin, hoping that the whale would drag him to safety like so many other sailors of Faerun's nautical lore.

Then he blacked out.

His ragged breathing, occasionally interrupted by coughing and the spewing of salt water, awakened him to the knowledge that somehow he had survived the trip to shore. He tried to move, and quickly regretted it, for every muscle in his body was cramped and contorted from its quest for survival, and further agitated by the awkward posture it had wedged itself into once it had reached shore.

The iron mask had become entangled in seaweed, and had wedged itself into the sea-softened sand of the shore at an extreme angle to the rest of his body.

His entire being yearned for more time to replenish itself, and Rassendyll would probably have remained unconscious longer, had the surf not returned to reclaim its rightful place at the high tide line.

Have I been lying here for a full day? he thought, realizing that it must have been the previous day's high tide that had delivered him to safety.

The high tide and the noble sea mammal, he recalled, trying to get his bearings, working out the kinks in his neck, and clearing away the seaweed and sand from the openings of the second shell of facial skin that the mask had become.

Rinsing his head in the shallows that would have previously brought his death, he carefully cleaned the mask and bathed as much of his face as he was able to, given the limited access afforded by the mask's apertures.

Reluctantly his vision began to clear, and he was able to look around. He first looked to the sea, and to his relief saw only the waves, and two seagulls diving for prey.

Had I not made it, he reflected, they would probably be perched on me, their beaks searching for the tender filling that lies within the iron shell of the mask. It is better that they content themselves with their regular diet.

His thoughts suddenly turned to images of his savior, the noble whale that must have beached itself to assure him of his salvation.

If it is still alive, he thought, I must return it to the surf or it will die.

Energized with what he thought to be his debt-required duty, he looked away from the waves, toward the shore, to find the beached leviathan. Out of the corner of his eye-slit he saw a large white mass that seemed to be smaller than he remembered his albino mammalian savior to be.

Staggering to his feet, his body protesting every effort, he dragged himself toward the white blob, blinking to clear his vision.

He looked down and laughed. It was his savior, he realized, but it was no whale.

It was a man.

Rassendyll continued to laugh out loud at his own misconception, a laugh that was uncontrolled and free, the first that he had allowed himself since the moment of his abduction.

The roar of his humor, coupled with the roar of the surf, and the moist lapping of its eddies, awoke the fainted-unto-sleep Passepout, who opened his eyes and, seeing Rassendyll standing above him, quickly took on a look of abject panic and fear.

Rassendyll quickly stopped laughing, and, realizing the panic that was evident in his savior's face, quickly said, "I mean you no harm."

The near valiant thespian swiftly replied, "Well, that's good. What are you doing with a coal bucket on your head?"

Rassendyll took another step closer to the still prone Passepout to assist the actor in coming to his feet. The thespian immediately misinterpreted this as a threatening act and, perhaps, a response to what the iron masked fellow inferred as an insult.

Thinking on his feet (or on his back, as it happened), the thespian quickly added, "Not that it's unattractive, I mean to say. Of course, not everyone could carry off this look, but on you it's quite impressive; one might almost say 'singular.' "

Rassendyll was amused by the verbal antics of the fellow, who undoubtedly had no idea that his natural buoyancy had not only saved his own life but Rassendyll's as well, and he was certain that his face would have conveyed this grateful amusement to the dripping and corpulent gent had it not been obscured by the infernal mask.

The mask, however, did not muffle the laughter that was once again escaping his lips.

Passepout smiled, taking the masked fellow's amusement as a good sign, and accepting his proffered hand and assistance at getting to his feet.

"Oooofff!"
he exhaled as he got to his feet. "Why thank you, kind sir, for your gracious assistance!"

"Think nothing of it, my mutually waterlogged colleague," Rassendyll replied, noticing some threatening clouds that seemed to be approaching from the sea horizon. "It looks like a storm is brewing. We probably should try to find some shelter."

Passepout remembered the warm and comfortable bed back at the Traveler's Cloak, and the unceremonious exit from the inn at the urging of Dela's boot sole.

"Good idea," the soggy thespian agreed. "Any ideas where?"

Rassendyll quickly looked around, noticing a few buildings and ships in the far distance. One of the buildings was a lighthouse, and, if memory served the former Retreat student, nearby was a small barracks housing no less than thirty-six soldiers.

"That-a-way," the masked mage instructed, pointing in the opposite direction along the shore.

"Fine," Passepout agreed, following the iron-masked man. "I hope we are not too far from Mulmaster," he added, not realizing that they were headed in the opposite direction from the city.

Not far enough for my tastes, Rassendyll thought to himself as he set off down the shoreline.