Ed Greenwood - The Wizard's Mask

The spar started shifting when he was still more than an arm's reach from the roof he was heading for, but he simply abandoned all caution in favor of haste, clawing his way onto the roof before it dumped him. The halfling, Desna be praised, was clinging grimly to her end of the spar and the ventilator, straining to slow or stop its shift, and hissing an impressive stream of curses.

"My thanks," he told her, joining her. "Let's get this untied; we'll need it to get to the next roof."

"Now we're even," she replied, as they clawed at her cord together.

"Oh?"

"Taking down those three bloodcoats on the road yonder, so I could run past," she said, pointing with her chin.

The Masked looked down at her. "What are you talking about?"

The halfling looked confused. "You mean that wasn't you?"

The Masked felt a sinking feeling deep in his gut. "Describe him." The words came out sharper than he'd intended.

Taken aback, the halfling said, "I didn't get a good look, but he's got brown eyes. Why-do you know him?"

All too well, The Masked thought grimly. That is, presuming his suspicions were correct. But explaining would only complicate matters. Instead, he said, "Lots of men have brown eyes. Come on and help me with my striker again."

A sudden smile lit up her face. "You didn't !"

"Yes, and the next warehouse, too. When my neck is concerned, I don't stint on diversions. If I hadn't needed them, I'd just have left them, not burnt all this down behind me. As it is, though, I've no hesitation at all in destroying Halidon's shipping district."

His client was grinning widely now. "I'm no thief, sir, but you …you are something of an army all by yourself."

"You hired well, then."

"So," he asked the halfling, "what should I call you?"

Her grin turned impish. "'Princess' will do."

The Masked gave her a long, steady look.

She merely shrugged. "And what should I call you ?"

"The Masked," he told her simply.

That earned him a long and steady look from her. Facing it squarely, he added, "It's what I've become. The name I had before is no longer important. To anyone."

Behind them, with a sudden crackling roar, the roof of the first warehouse erupted in flame. Tongues that roared at the stars, bright gold but greenish around the edges.

Greenish. Oils, tree oils. There must have been jars inside some of those crates in the loft.

The Masked looked at his client, and the halfling princess looked back.

Then in unspoken accord they turned and hurried to get to the next roof. Those flames would die down again, but right now they were more than enough light to aim crossbows by-and the soldiers who'd been searching that warehouse had already spilled back out into the night to point, and trot, and throw more spears.

As badly as ever, but he'd only prepared one more fire, and Halidon wasn't so large that they could lose themselves in its warehouses, even if none of them had been burning.

"This is ten silver weights I'm really going to earn," The Masked told his client grimly, as he braced himself atop the spar so she could set off along it.

"I'm afraid so," was all she said, as she embraced the spar and started her run.

Halfway across, a spear laid open the left side of her breeches as it snarled past, and she yelped-but kept right on going.

The Masked winced. He was a much larger target.

Behind him, the ventilator they'd just left was spewing smoke already.

Yes, he was going to be earning this fee the hard way.

∗ ∗ ∗

The masked man started across the spar before she'd had time to set herself and steady it, almost before she was off it and onto the new roof.

Of course, it started to slip and slide, rattling down the roof he was busily departing, and not a halfling on Golarion could have held the spar once it started. Tantaerra only just had time to loop the cord lashed to the spar around the ventilator and under itself, then around her waist. She flung herself down and set her feet against the rusting metal-gods, but this warehouse was much older than the other two, roof and ventilator and all.

The cord tightened cruelly around her as the spar slid off the roof and her body took his entire weight.

"Urrhh," she told the stars, clenching her teeth. Gods, do not let him get feathered with arrows now, and leave me helpless, tethered to a dangling dead man, while cruel bloodcoats clamber up to drag me down before that ice-hearted Lord Investigator …

The cord tugged, then slackened, then tugged again. Which meant he was climbing, or kicking, or clawing his way up onto the roof.

Her left haunch smarted where that spear had laid it open, but it was a shallow cut, a mere slice. She was more worried about her breeches-or rather, the likelihood that they'd tear further, laying bare more of her leg, and letting all the world see her anklet, where she carried her coins. Wrapped and tied, so each was held apart to prevent telltale clinking …but anyone who'd seen a coin-anklet knew what they were at a glance.

She'd better pay her rescuer his ten silver weights soon, and lighten the load enough that she could shift the anklet to her other leg, safely out of sight again. She'd better-

"Agghh!" she groaned, as the cord tightened so much it felt like it was cutting her in half. She fought to breathe, fought to …

Suddenly there was no weight at all on the cord, and she heard the crash and hollow ringing bounce of the spar striking the ground far below.

"Masked man?" she called out fearfully.

"Here, Halfling Princess," came a snarl from just below her on the roof. "Thank you for my life. Again."

" Nine silver weights?" she asked hopefully.

"You've not paid me yet," he reminded her, clambering past. "This is all on promise."

"Not empty promise," she replied, rolling free of what was left of her cord-he'd sliced through it, near the edge of the roof-in time to see him at the ventilator with his flint. She hastened to join him.

They'd just kindled a tiny flame on the third twine when the night around them pulsed brighter.

The roof of the second warehouse didn't go up with quite the roar of the first, but the two blazes together had all Halidon awake now, and the north end of the village brightly lit for everyone to stare at.

Tantaerra peered around. There was barely a breeze, but what little there was came out of the forest heading northeast, carrying the smoke away from Halidon. And offering two escapees on a roof no concealment at all.

The flames were bright enough to show her all the watching folk, the soldiers foremost among them, surrounding the warehouses. There was no way for them to get to the forest, nor to the caravan, sequestered down at the south end of the village in a guarded paddock.

She watched the glow of the flaming twine inside the ventilator and said suddenly, "We're going to die up here, aren't we?"

The masked head turned toward her. "How you doubt me, Halfling Princess! How can I collect my fee if we die on this rooftop?"

"Oh? You've magic that can whisk us away, I suppose?"

"Hah. Hardly. This is no ballad or fireside tale, princess."

"I'm no princess," she snarled. "My name is Tantaerra Loroeva Klazra, and I was a slave in Canorate." She pointed at the ground down beside the barracks. "And that is the investigator I was warning you about. Recovered from the pepper I put into his eyes, and giving the orders for the noose tightening around us both now. In a savage mood, by the looks of him."

"You took down Osturr the Hound with a handful of pepper ?" The masked man chuckled. "Ah, but you furnish steadily better entertainment, Prin-Lady Klazra."

" Tantaerra ," Tantaerra corrected sharply, "masked man."