Ed Greenwood - The Wizard's Mask

"Since we're such good friends now," he chuckled, "I am Tarram Armistrade. Or was." He clambered along the roof past her. "Come. We have a hatch to use. In some haste."

"We're going down into the waiting arms of-?"

"They'll be very busy, very soon. No fear; we'll wait until the right moment."

The hatch lifted readily under the masked man's hand; he'd evidently prepared it from below, earlier. He bundled her through it like a rebellious child and almost bowled her over coming through it on top of her.

"Why the haste?" she panted, stumbling aside in near-darkness as she realized her cord had been left behind-and wished it hadn't. "If we're going to be waiting …and am I permitted to know what we're waiting for ?"

At that moment, the world began to roar.

The floor heaved, the far wall of the warehouse slammed inward as if punched by a god's fist, and every barrel, crate, and shipping-crock in the place hurtled into the air and started to come right at Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra.

She was flying through the air too, she realized dazedly, and there was a curious ringing silence in her ears, even as she watched boards tear into splinters and doors blow open into the night and a huge wall of roiling flame come raging through that broken end wall toward her.

This must be why The Masked had been in such haste to get down off the roof …and must also be what he'd been waiting for …

Something in the middle warehouse he'd known about, something that could erupt in a blast like the fury of the very gods.

She couldn't see him anywhere, couldn't-

She struck something then, something solid and meaty that had boots she'd seen before- his boots, this Tarram Armistrade-that was folding up around her, his arms reaching to cradle her. She felt him strike something, something that gave way, and then they were falling past splinters and a rebounding door, out into darkness, and there were bloodcoats looming above them, and spears…

Then that raging flame followed them out through the doorway and raced over them, and bloodcoats were tumbling, spears spinning away on their own into the night. They were bouncing, and skidding, and bouncing again.

Then tumbling, head over heels in dirt amid ruined fences and over the sprawled bodies of fallen bloodcoats as the ringing silence started to fade.

Tantaerra could see thousands of embers and dark shards in the sky, fountaining up against the stars as her own tumblings slowed, and she heard something deep-voiced behind her ear that might have been The Masked groaning or cursing …and then at last she came to rest, on her back and staring up at all the fragments tumbling down now out of the sky, crashing and spattering and tling ing off the ground and buildings and roofs around her.

Was she hurt?

She couldn't feel a thing, just the solid reassurance of the ground under her, but something-no, someone-was rising from behind her. The Masked.

He took her in his arms and started to stumble away, her world yawing and bouncing crazily now, and as if from far away she heard his voice.

"I trust you found that worth waiting for, Tantaerra?"

She tried to move her lips to frame a reply, but found no words, and he was too busy to listen anyway. Busy heading for an old and solid-looking stone building, plunging through its open front door, and swinging her onto one shoulder to free his other hand to backhand a startled-looking old man in a robe, knocking him to the floor. The Masked trotted past the blinking, protesting priest and a fitful-looking fire in a round hearth in the center of the floor, and into a deeper, darker archway.

"This," he informed her, "is the village shrine. The shared temple of several gods, serving all until-if ever-Halidon is large enough for gods to have temples of their own."

The masked man shouldered through a curtain and past some tables heaped with what were probably offerings, to a mildewy-smelling wall climbed by a simple stone stair with no rail. He started up those steps. "Are you all right?"

She tried to speak again, and was mildly surprised to hear her own voice. " Now you ask me? Now?"

His only reply was a brief chuckle, that soon gave way to panting as he climbed.

It was a long way, sixty or seventy steps, before The Masked staggered away from the top of the stair to a stout door. It was held shut with a hasp and through-spike, and he set her down long enough to use the spike like a crowbar and tear the hasp away from the rotten wooden doorframe it was anchored to, hauling the door open onto a lofty view of the night sky.

Then he picked Tantaerra up again and rushed her through the door, out onto the shrine roof.

It was a flat circle of decking around a central spire surrounded by a dozen or more statues of gods, facing outward over a sheer drop to Halidon below. The dark statues were bedecked with bird droppings, and momentarily fanned by the whir of flapping wings as awakened and disturbed birds hastily departed into the night sky.

"Here," the masked man said, propping her up in a dark niche between Gozreh-a tall, somber bearded man leaning forward out of a storm cloud sculpted all over with small lightning bolts-and a robed figure with the head of an elk, who could only be Erastil. "There-hidden! Now pay me!"

"This is …rather abrupt, Sir Armistrade," she replied sharply. "You were to hide me and effect my escape from the bloodcoats. We haven't escaped yet. Your commission is half done, if that. I'll pay half."

Still panting, her half-rescuer held out his empty hand for the coins. "Done. On the condition you stop with the 'sirs.' I'm Tarram. Or Armistrade, if you're annoyed with me."

Tantaerra knelt to get at the anklet she was going to shift to her other leg anyway. "As it happens, I am. You do realize this roof is a trap, not a hiding place?"

"You did see me remove the means of bolting the door and trapping us out here?" the masked man replied gently. "Well, then, not so much a trap as a place one man-as in, me-can defend against many. Unless they take off their armor and leave their spears behind, there's no way more than one of those Molthuni soldiers is going to get through this door at a time."

"You've never met this Lord Investigator," Tantaerra told him dryly.

"Oh, but I have. Osturr has been after me these-ah, this last little while. He's been just too late to close his hands around my throat on several occasions. And whether I'd set foot in this village or not, he'd soon have come to Halidon to check on the local commanders as part of his ongoing duties. Such vigilance is the norm in Molthune these days. Along with inns keeping detailed registers of all guests, citizens being expected to report unusual people or events, and the like." His voice turned wry. "In fact, the local Molthuni commanders have almost certainly set their own spy to following and watching the Lord Investigator. They have reports to make too, you know."

"I'm less than surprised, but also less than concerned , Armistrade," Tantaerra told him. "Whether they watch him doing it or not, he's still going to be coming up here after us. So why, exactly, are you making his work easier for him? This is a blind end we've rushed up into; we've cornered ourselves."

"This is a defensible spot we'll be tarrying in only until the right time to move."

"There'll be no right time, masked man," she replied tartly, pointing down over the edge of the roof. " Look! "

∗ ∗ ∗

They could both see the Lord Investigator down below, pointing as he gave orders, his every movement swift and angry. He gestured up at them several times, then fell in behind the line of bloodcoats he'd sent trotting in their direction.

"Wouldn't it be easier to defend the top of the stairs, inside?" the halfling asked, sounding as irked as ever.