Masquerades - Kate Novak [162]
"Alias, my darling, no!" Victor cried. "It wasn't me! It was Kimbel! He was never enchanted to serve my family. It happened the other way around. All those years ago, he put me under his spell so he could use my family and finally destroy them. I tried to resist, but he was too strong. All I have done has been at his command. He is the true Faceless."
"Why did he help us in combat then?" Olive demanded.
"And why," Durgar said, climbing the stairs to the dais, "did he turn over all the Night Masters' books to me and dispel all their magic yesterday?"
Victor glared up at the assassin standing beside Jamal. "You will pay for your treachery!" he screamed. Pointing a ringed finger at the assassin, he snarled, "Kreggarish."
Kimbel grabbed the sides of his enchanted mask, screaming as Melman had when he had been branded.
"Enough," Alias commanded, smacking at the nobleman's hand with the tip of her blade, leaving a crimson streak across his fingers. Victor whimpered like a child, but a moment later he laughed at the assassin. "The brand is permanent Kimbel. You'll never be rid of it. You shall always feel the pain," the vanquished Faceless gloated.
Kimbel tossed aside the white mask with a hearty chuckle. His face was untouched. "Sorry, old boy," he said, "but not only do you have the wrong man-" Kimbel's figure began to glow and shimmer as Winterhart's had when she had transformed into Alias, and in a moment he reappeared as none other than Mintassan the Sage. "-but a magic ring like that hasn't held power over me for decades."
"If you're not Kimbel," Olive asked, "who is?"
"Why Kimbel is, of course," Mintassan replied. "Though at the moment he's chained in the dungeon of Castle Dhostar and looks like a feeble-minded sage named Mintassan."
"And where's Dragonbait?" Olive demanded.
Alias looked up at Mintassan. "Where is Dragonbait?" she asked.
In the swordswoman's moment of distraction, Victor Dhostar slid his wounded hand deep into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a twisted glass vial. He smashed the vial against the floor.
Quicksilver dribbled from the broken glassware. The liquid metal glowed white-hot until it bathed Victor Dhostar in a glaring light. When the light faded a moment later, Victor Dhostar had vanished.
"What was that?" Jamal asked, blinking away the spots on her eyes.
"He's slid through a dimension door. He cannot have gotten far," Mintassan explained.
"Spread out," Durgar ordered a patrol of his men. "Search the entire castle."
"I'll check the lair, in case he tries to escape by one of the portal mirrors," Mintassan said. "Silver path, Faceless's lair," the sage murmured, then vanished.
"Thistle!" Olive cried. "He would go after Thistle and try to snatch something from Verovan's hoard. Mist said she's-"
"At the top of the south tower," Alias shouted. The swordswoman dashed from the hall with Olive and Jamal at her heels.
Twenty-Four
Verovan's Hoard
Thistle Thalavar paced anxiously on the roof of the southern tower of Castle Vhammos. Her heart was heavy, her mind uneasy. The evening was not turning out as she had imagined it would. In the daydreams she indulged in all day, Victor had been amazed when she proved she really did know how to reach Verovan's treasure. He had recognized how clever she was and had considered her his equal. He had made her his confidant on all matters of state. Once again he had declared his love. In her fantasy, they had spent the rest of the evening in one another's arms.
In reality, when Thistle had used her grandmother's feather brooch to open the magical portal into the treasure hoard, Victor, although pleased, had not seemed particularly amazed. He had accepted the feather brooch as her token with a warm kiss, but he had been unable to hide his annoyance when he discovered he himself could not use the token to open the hoard. When Thistle explained that only someone of Verovan's bloodline could use the brooch, the croamarkh