Richard Byers - The Shattered Mask

They rounded a corner and almost collided with Vox and Escevar hurtling back in the other direction. "I've got him!" Tamlin cried. "Follow me!" The retainers turned their steeds around.

They kept galloping until, Brom judged, there was no danger of their adversaries catching up with them, at which point Tamlin called for a stop in a spacious plaza. At the other end of the square, urchins were flinging snowballs at one another and any passersby unwary enough to wander into range.

Brom gratefully abandoned his uncomfortable perch and peered up at his companions. Though a troll's claws had twice shredded his armor and lightly scored the flesh beneath, Vox was as stolid as ever. The more seriously wounded Escevar, however, was pale and shaky, in marked contrast to his exuberance earlier on. Ruddy-faced and breathing heavily, Tamlin was clearly having difficulty calming down, although whether he was seething with anger or fear, Brom couldn't tell. Probably a mixture of the two.

"I didn't mean to abandon you," said Tamlin to the wizard. "I just lost track of you in all the chaos. I rode back as soon as I realized you weren't with us."

Or else you did intend to forsake me, but had a change of heart, thought Brom, but even if that was true, he wasn't inclined to hold it against Tamlin. In the end, the aristocrat had risked his own life to rescue him, and that was all that mattered. "Thank you," the wizard said.

Vox tapped his massive chest with his forefinger.

"I know," Tamlin said, "I should have told you to go. But I was excited, and I figured every second counted. Are you all right, Escevar?"

The redhead gave him a jerky nod. "We'll get you to a healer as soon as the horses have had a moment to rest," Tamlin said, and then a quaver of agitation entered his voice. "Ilmater's tears, it just came home to me that Honeylass is dead! The other birds are lost. And the poor greyhounds! I forgot all about them until this second. Did anyone see what happened to the dogs?"

"No," said Brom. "As you said, all was confusion. I'm afraid it's likely they're slain or run away for good."

"Curse it!" With trembling hands, Tamlin extricated his glass blade from the loops on his golden sword belt. The ornament had miraculously emerged unscathed from the battle, but now its owner lashed it against the wall of a vendor's kiosk, shattering it into tiny fragments. "Did that make you feel better?" Brom asked. Tamlin smiled. "A little."

"Then we'd better think about what just happened," the spellcaster said. "Obviously, that ambuscade was no haphazard affair with robbers assaulting the first gentleman who happened along. That was a carefully planned attempt to assassinate the heir to the House of Uskevren, and I daresay it's no coincidence that it happened the morning after your parents vanished."

TamUn grimaced. "I hate to admit it, but you're probably right. Damn my father for disappearing! It's his province to deal with this sort of unpleasantness, not mine. But since he's gone, I suppose we'd better get back to Stormweather Towers and confer with the others."

It was Larajin who'd come to the library to inform Talbot of the conclave, and she opted to walk along with him to the great hall as well. Ordinarily, he would have taken pleasure in her company, for he and the willowy maid with the rust-colored hair and striking hazel eyes had been friends for as long as he could remember. At present, however, he was frustrated at his lack of progress in the researches that he had prayed would provide a cure for his affliction, and, their futility notwithstanding, equally vexed at being summoned away.

"Why is Tamlin, of all people, calling a family meeting?" he grumbled. "What does he want to talk about, brandy and lace?"

"I don't know," Larajin said, the silver bells on her golden turban chiming as she moved. The turban was a part of her maidservant's livery, devised to warn her masters, who might desire privacy, of her approach. "But it was Master Gale who bade me pass the word to you, and he said the matter is urgent."

"Ordinarily, that would be good enough for me," Talbot conceded. "But-"

One of the household pets, a fawn-colored mastiff, wandered out of a doorway just ahead. It gave the humans an incurious glance, turned, started to amble away from them, then suddenly spun back around. Crouching, the fur standing up on its back, the dog bared its teeth and growled.

Talbot winced. He understood what was happening, for he'd experienced it on various occasions since the calamity that had befallen him just over a year ago. For the most part, animals responded to him the same as they had before, but periodically, they sensed the wolf-thing that lurked inside him and wrested control of his body at every full moon. He suspected it was more likely to happen at moments like this, when he was angry.

"Brownie!" Larajin said. "What's gotten into you?" Heedless of the mastiffs menacing demeanor, she advanced and slapped her thigh. "Heel!"

Brownie slunk to her side, and Talbot wasn't altogether surprised. Larajin had always had a way with animals, and for some reason, over the past several months or so, the rapport had deepened to the point that she rarely experienced any difficulty inducing any of the various beasts inhabiting Stormweather Towers to do her bidding.

"I'll take him back in here and calm him down," said the maid, taking hold of the mastiffs leather collar. "You go on." She led the now-docile animal back through the doorway. Talbot trudged on to the conclave alone, his mood even more sour than before.

The feast hall was a large chamber adorned with marble-sheathed pillars and lamps of brown iridescent glass. In fact, Talbot reflected as he entered, it was so spacious that it was ridiculous for a mere six people to use it for a meeting. They would have been just as comfortable, possibly more so, in a smaller room, and then the servants wouldn't have been inconvenienced when they had to trek from one end of the mansion to the other. As it was, the help would have to avoid both the centrally located feast hall and the galleries overlooking it, lest they overhear a confidential discussion. Talbot supposed that it had never occurred to his preening peacock of a brother to preside over a conference anywhere except in the grandest setting available.

Talbot saw that all the others had arrived before him. Jander Orvist, the captain of the household guard, gave him a terse nod. Jander was a lean, middle-aged man with a thin, humorless trap of a mouth, fierce silvery eyes, and a pronounced gray widow's peak. No matter how innocent or festive the occasion, Talbot had never known the grizzled warrior to wear anything but the blue tunic of the Uskevren's soldiery, nor seen him without a long sword ready to hand.

Clad in a decollete emerald caffa gown her mother hated, Tazi sat glowering, impatient for the meeting to commence and probably to end, until she gave her younger brother a welcoming smile. Erevis in his ill-fitting doublet looked somber as ever. His polished oak staff leaning against the arm of his chair, Brom seemed equally grave, but then, eager to impress, he tended to appear that way even when performing the most trivial duty.

It was Tamlin, who had of course usurped Father's seat at the head of the long inlaid table, who gave Talbot his first intimation that he ought to take this meeting seriously. Not simply because he was frowning. Tamlin occasionally adopted a serious manner, and it was usually over something utterly trivial. But today the heir had a bruise coming up on the left side of his face, and although he was dressed as gorgeously as ever, in a sky-blue outfit that made Talbot unpleasantly conscious of his own uncombed hair, lack of a doublet, and stale, half open shirt, he had, as was rare of late, added a businesslike long sword and poniard to his ensemble. The hilts were excessively ornate, made of gold adorned with sapphires, but to Talbot's knowledgeable eye, the weapons looked as if they'd serve well in a melee even so. Even more curiously, an axe, a simple laborer's tool, lay on the table before him.