The Mage in the Iron Mask - Brian Thomsen [69]
"Once again my good friend is overly generous in his praise," McKern interrupted. "It has always been my brother who possessed the mastery of forged metals. I am, and have always been, but a simple caster of spells."
Honor directed an unseeing glare toward the senior Cloak.
"I am the one relating the pertinent history at this time, and it is only my opinion that matters. I would greatly appreciate it, old friend, if you would maintain a courteous conduct of silence, for I would experience no pleasure in physically encouraging you to do so by giving you a fat lip, if you get my drift."
McKern was about to reply, thought the better of it, and instead embraced the silence that was requested.
"Now, as I was saying," Honor continued, "these things are easily known by many, as is the heinous fact that Selfaril killed his father in order to succeed him on the throne with the same amoral, opportunistic glee with which he entered into matrimony with that sorceress bitch from the east, the First Princess of Thay."
Passepout leaned in close to Volo and whispered, "I guess there is no question about our host's feelings toward Mulmaster's incumbent administration."
"I might add at this point that I would have no trouble dealing with new friends in the exact same manner as I would old friends," Honor said pointedly, but without changing his storyteller tone, pausing just a moment to take an uncharacteristically small sip of his ale.
Even the sometimes dull Passepout, for whom matters of subtlety were usually matters of mystery, understood his meaning and joined the others in the reverential silence of attentive listening.
"But what of Selfaril's father?" Honor continued. "From whence did he come, and where are the tales of his heroics? It is almost as if all trace of the glory that was Merch Voumdolphin has been expunged from public record. And what of his wife, the mother of Selfaril? Whatever became of her?"
Volo felt that he was sitting in on a hard-sell session by his publisher to some unenthusiastic bookseller. He wished that he could take out his handy notebook, but thought better of it. Though it sounded as if the makings of a bestseller were about to be laid out before him, he realized that this was neither the time nor the place for such whimsical maneuvers of ambition, and a quick glance at the iron-masked man reminded him that this was indeed a matter of life and death. What good would a bestseller be if the author never lived to see its completion, submission, or publication.
Honor took a more ample drink of ale, and wiped his jowls with his sleeve in a somewhat vulgar manner that at once conveyed his appreciation of the drink and affirmed to the crowd at hand that this was indeed his home and thus he could do as he well pleased.
"Now that I have your attention, and I thank you for your indulgence of a blind old man, I will answer the aforementioned questions."
"Merch and I shared our early years of formative education, for he too was a graduate of the Hillsfar gladiatorial arena. Though I led the revolt, he planned it, preferring to leave me the glory and gusto of leadership. Once we had escaped, I founded our mercenary band while he took advantage of his less notorious persona to insinuate himself into merchant society by romancing a certain Mulman aristocrat's daughter. In no time they were married, and Merch had safely slept his way up the ladder of Mulman high society.
"There was only one small problem: unbeknownst to him, he had already fathered two sons from a slave girl he had lain with during off hours at the arena, and these offspring were still imprisoned back in Hillsfar."
"It was I who first found out about these two infants that had just been born on the wrong side of the blanket, and I hastened to Mulmaster