Кейт Новак - Masquerades

“Move it!” Victor screamed, poking his dagger into Thistle’s side until she whimpered. “I haven’t got anything to lose by killing her,” he snarled.

Dragonbait climbed up the bridge and made his way toward the portal. Victor followed, dragging Thistle after him. Just as he reached the other side of the bridge, the paladin drew his sword. He was not going to be devoured without a fight. Victor did not seem to object. The nobleman’s eyes had the look of frightened prey, and his mind seemed to be occupied with other thoughts.

Alias dashed up the stairs three at a time and burst out on the roof of the tower just in time to see Victor pull Thistle into a magical portal hanging in the sky beside the tower. The swordswoman leaped up on the battlement and stepped onto the bridge leading to the portal. At that moment the bridge began to retract, knocking Alias from her feet. She grabbed hold of the end of the bridge and hung on for dear life, knowing better than to look at the ground hundreds of feet down.

When the end of the bridge came within a yard of the portal, Alias swung herself backward into the planar pocket with only moments to spare before the bridge vanished. The portal snapped shut behind her tumbling form.

The swordswoman gasped and choked as she breathed in the mists drifting along the floor. The vapors shone with a yellow radiance and smelled like sulfur. They swirled so thickly, they obscured the floor. Alias could see no walls, and overhead there was only darkness.

A few feet away, Dragonbait stood as alert as a hunting cat. The tip of his tail and the tip of his sword twitched in nervous apprehension. Alias noticed that the mists, which swirled about her legs, seemed to swerve away from the paladin.

Victor, clutching Thistle about the waist, stood off to one side of the portal. He tore the feather brooch from Thistle’s gown and slid it into a pocket of his robe. Alias stumbled to her feet and moved toward the girl, but she halted when she saw the dagger Victor pointed at Thistle’s throat.

“Where is the treasure?” the croamarkh demanded.

“What difference does it make, Victor?” Alias snapped. “You’re never getting away with it.”

Victor smiled slyly at the swordswoman. “No one knows where I am. No one saw us enter here. In a few hours they’ll have given up the search, and I can leave with Thistle. “You and Dragonbait, though, will have to remain within. Might as well get used to it.”

Alias glared at the nobleman, desiring vengeance more than ever. The man had tried to take her life only hours after proffering his love. If not for Mintassan, she and Dragonbait would both have been dead. Mintassan and Dragonbait had counseled her against killing the noble, and she had agreed to turn Victor over to Durgar. Now, however, seeing him threaten yet one more innocent, Alias wanted to tear the nobleman’s heart out. Yet she realized she had to remain cool.

“Why don’t you let Thistle go?” the swordswoman suggested. “You don’t need a hostage now that you’ve escaped.”

“But I need to keep you and your lizard friend in check,” he argued, pulling the girl closer to him.

Alias noted that at least now there was nothing in Thistle’s eyes but contempt for the nobleman. The girl maintained a dignified silence.

Dragonbait began moving deeper into the planar pocket.

“Where are you going?” Alias asked.

“I sense evil everywhere,” the paladin explained in Saurial, “but there is a stronger mass in this direction.”

“Don’t we want to stay away from anything like that?” Alias demanded.

“There is not much point to that now that we are in this place,” the paladin replied solemnly. He continued onward.

Alias followed after the saurial. Behind her she heard Victor ask again, “Where is the treasure?”

“Maybe there isn’t any, Victor,” Alias taunted. “Perhaps the Thalavar clan frittered it away over the past century.”

“No, Grandmother said no one had ever touched it,” Thistle replied. “It must be here.”

Alias rolled her eyes, wishing the girl had been savvy enough to agree, or at least say nothing. Then the swordswoman halted in her tracks. She had come upon an island in the sea of mists, a great glowing yellow sphere, larger than a man. Just beneath the surface of the sphere, misty shapes writhed and flowed. The swordswoman reached out and touched the sphere’s surface. It was as smooth as glass and warm to the touch.

“It’s a giant pearl,” Thistle whispered.

Dragonbait stepped out from behind the sphere. He spoke to Alias in Saurial. “At its core I sense great greed.”

“The piece of Verovan’s soul?” Alias guessed.

“Probably,” the paladin replied.

“What’s surrounding it?” the swordswoman asked.

Dragonbait pointed to the mist on the floor. “A pearl might actually be a good analogy,” he said. “The soul shard is like a piece of grit in an oyster. These creatures have coalesced around it to soothe the irritation it causes them,” Dragonbait replied.

Alias looked down at the mist. “You mean this mist stuff is living creatures?”

“Unformed manes,” the paladin whispered.

Alias swallowed hard. She would have leaped above the mist if there had been anywhere to leap to. “Manes? Are you sure?” she asked in Common.

Dragonbait gave her an aggrieved look. To remind her that he was an authority on evil would be to state the obvious.

“Manes?” Victor asked. “What’s a mane?”

“They’re what the lord of the Abyss sent to loot Verovan’s treasure,” Thistle explained.

“But what are they?” Victor growled.

“The form the dead take in the Abyss,” Alias explained. “Dragonbait says the mist is unformed manes.”

Victor whirled about, dragging Thistle with him, as if he could shake the mist away. Alias noted there was considerably more of it drifting about the nobleman than around herself.

“Why so uncomfortable, Victor? That’s what you’ll end up as when you die,” Alias declared. Dragonbait made some comments in Saurial, and the swordswoman chuckled. “Pardon me, Victor,” she said. “Dragonbait says you are not chaotic enough to end as a mane in the Abyss. More likely, you will be a lemure in Baator, though it is possible you will become a larva, since your selfishness is so great.”

“Why are the manes unformed?” Thistle asked in an anxious whisper.

Alias listened to Dragonbait’s reply in Saurial, then translated. “They have existed in this place for over a century with nothing but a bit of Verovan’s soul to gnaw on. So they’ve gone misty to conserve their energy. As soon as they sense there’s something here to devour, they’ll begin to take shape.”

“They’ll eat us?” Thistle asked with a whine in her voice, her sophistication finally crumbling beneath the weight of her fear.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Victor snapped. “She is making all this up. Trying to get me to leave so I can be captured. I want to know what’s happened to the treasure,” he demanded.

The saurial tapped his sword on the floor.

“Dragonbait says we’re standing on it,” Alias explained. Curiously, she knelt beside the saurial, where the mists were thinner, and examined the floor. “He’s right,” she replied. With her dagger she pried up a brick of solid gold and held it out for the others to see. “The floor’s paved with these, and there’s another layer beneath this one. I wonder how many layers.”

Victor motioned Alias and Dragonbait to move back. Dragging Thistle down with him, he knelt on the floor and investigated for himself. He pulled up a second brick of gold and stuffed it into a pocket of his robe. He smiled coldly as he stood up. Bits of mane mist clung to his back and swirled now as high as his hips, but the nobleman did not seem to notice.