Masquerades - Kate Novak [23]
Gateside opened his mouth to protest, but caught himself. After a long, brittle moment, he nodded his head in compliance.
"The meeting is adjourned," the Faceless snapped.
The Night Masters rose and filed toward the exit. External Revenue and Enforcement smiled menacingly at one another. Gateside glowered, but the others were careful to avoid making eye contact with him.
The Faceless remained seated as his agents departed. Each Night Master took a smoky torch from a sconce in the wall and traveled down the tunnel leading away from the meeting chamber. No one spoke, even in the tunnel, for fear that the Faceless would overhear.
The Faceless rose and paced across the dais. When the sound of footfalls ceased from down the tunnel, the Night Mask lord pushed a panel in the rear of his throne. Behind the throne a section of stone slid back silently, revealing a secret passageway carved through the bedrock.
The Faceless picked up a torch and strode down the passage as the secret door slid closed behind him. He stopped after fifty paces, just before the passage opened into a great underground sewer. Dark water swirled below, and something just beneath the surface made a wake, which splashed up the sides of the sewer. The Faceless drew out a small ivory ball intricately carved with the twisting form of a sea serpent. A gleaming ruby represented the creature's eye. The Faceless pressed on the ruby and stepped out onto the narrow span that crossed the upper regions of the sewer.
On the opposite side of the span, a second, shorter passageway led to a cavern more vast than the meeting room of the Night Masters. Here were stored the Night Masks' treasury and arsenal. The Faceless strode by the piles of riches and weaponry without a glance.
At the far end of the cavern, the Faceless halted before a large pool of water. A fountain identical to those in the squares in the city above splashed on the surface. Stones enchanted with magical light spells had been tossed into the bottom of the pool so the water shone with an eerie green radiance and the light played on the wall with every ripple of the water.
The Faceless bent over the pool and peered within its depths. Something large and shadowed floated suspended between the bottom and the surface. "Misti-narperadnacles Hai Draco," the Faceless whispered.
The large, shadowy thing rose, breaking the water like an island rising from some primordial sea. Water slid down its gleaming white surfaces, dripped from the tips of its horns, poured from two empty eye sockets, then two nasal chambers and finally streamed from between the huge fangs of the great, gaping jawbone. The disembodied skull of the dragon Mistinarperadnacles Hai Draco hovered over the surface of the water. A sickly yellow light spun about in its eye sockets, a light that sprang from the necromantic powers animating the dead monster's remains.
A voice seemed to whisper in the air above the fountain, "What is your will, milord?" The dead dragon's words did not emanate from her remains, but seemed to drift about the room.
"When I first summoned you from your eternal sleep and bound you to my service," the Faceless said, "you told me something of a pair you held responsible for your demise, a lizardman and a red-headed swordswoman."
"It was a saurial, not a lizardman," the dead dragon's voice whispered.
"Do not play games with me, Mistinarperadnacles. Tell me what you know of this swordswoman and her companion."
There was a slight pause, and the glow in the dead creature's eye sockets strengthened.
"The woman called herself Alias of the Inner Sea, Alias of Westgate, and Alias the Sell-Sword.