The Mage in the Iron Mask - Brian Thomsen [50]
"What was that?" Passepout inquired. "That coal bucket you're wearing gives you a bad case of the mumbles, if you know what I mean. By the way, why don't you take it off?"
"I wish I could," Rassendyll retorted, "but I'm afraid that it's stuck."
"Too bad," the thespian replied.
Rassendyll scanned the area once again. He didn't like the looks of the storm clouds that seemed to be rapidly bearing down on them. We should be on our way and looking for shelter, he thought.
Passepout in the meantime had concentrated his visual faculties on the ground around where they sat. Seeing exactly what he was looking for, he struggled to his feet and walked back over the ridge, picking up a sturdy branch. Rassendyll noticed his efforts once he returned. Good thinking, the masked escapee thought, he found a walking stick.
Rassendyll was about to stand up when he felt Passepout trying to wedge one of the ends of the branch under the metal collar.
"Hey! Cut that out!" Rassendyll exclaimed, not wishing to add the discomfort of splinters to his long list of woes.
"Just hold still," Passepout assured, continuing to try and wedge the branch between the masked man's collar and his clavicle. "Once I have it wedged in place, I'm going to put my weight on the other end of the stick, using your shoulder as a fulcrum. It should force it off in no time."
"Which? The mask or my head?"
"The mask, of course. Now just sit still."
Rassendyll quickly wiggled out from under the awkward hands of the pudgy thespian, and got to his feet.
Passepout appeared bewildered at his sudden retreat. "What's the matter?" the thespian implored. "I just wanted to help."
Rassendyll shook his head, and said, "Thanks anyway, but it wouldn't have worked."
"How can you be sure?" Passepout asked.
"It's been magically bound to my skull. I fear it won't come off without separating my head from my shoulders as well."
"I'm sorry," Passepout apologized. "I didn't know."
"No reason you should have."
"I bet you got on the wrong side of a powerful wizard of some sort."
In return Rassendyll murmured something indecipherable, as he began to remove splinters from his shoulders.
"Me too," Passepout replied as if he understood what the masked man had said. "I've run afoul of a few myself. Now, of course, the likes of Elminster and Khelben are indebted to me, but even so, you can't trust a wizard."
"Oh, no?" Rassendyll responded, cocking his head at an awkward angle so that he could look the thespian straight in the eye.
Passepout paled.
"You're not one of them are you?" he asked in a panic.
Rassendyll thought for a split second about his current condition, and laughed. "I guess not," he replied with a chuckle. "At least not for the time being." He then quickly added, with a mischievous, almost conspiratorial tone, "I used to be, though."
Passepout joined in his chuckle, and said, "That's all right. I used to be a thief."
Thunder began to rumble in the distance.
"Then let us steal away," Rassendyll replied, "and find shelter."
"Good idea, Rupert," Passepout concurred, then asked, "I can call you Rupert, can't I?"
"But of course," Rassendyll answered after a moment's hesitation. He then thought, I'll have to remember that that's my new name.
The thunder rumbled again, as the two continued their trek in search of shelter.
* * * * *
In the Tharchioness's Boudoir in the Tower of the Wyvern:
The Tharchioness was primping for dinner when her half sister Mischa Tam entered.
The First Princess finished buffing her scalp, and began to touch up the exotic eye liner that framed the seductive windows of her soul.
"Dear sister," Mischa said tentatively, hoping that the First Princess was not in one of her many moods that would have made this sudden, unannounced intrusion a gross act of insubordination.
"What is it, Mischa?" the First Princess asked impatiently, yet not necessarily hostilely.
"I have been giving your-I mean our-situation a great deal of thought."
"Which of our situations?"
"The existence of stumbling blocks that are succeeding in preventing