The Mage in the Iron Mask - Brian Thomsen [90]
* * * * *
Rassendyll felt the slickness of sweat on his face as the exertion of the past few hours began to take its toll. All of my training in the Retreat never prepared me for this, the High Blade's twin thought, pausing for only a moment to get his breath. Holding the ladder firmly with one hand he wiped the perspiration from his brow and face with the other, simultaneously slicking down his recently unshorn whiskers with the discarded sweat before resuming his climb.
Another few steps upward, he felt the end of the ladder and carefully pulled himself up onto the ledge to which it was anchored.
Fighting the desire to stop and rest again, Rassendyll frantically scanned the darkness for some indication of where to go next. A hint of a crack of light to the left provided the only clue so, carefully feeling forward on hands and knees, he crawled to it until he felt the fabric of a curtain, which he lifted up just enough to slip under it.
Rassendyll crawled forward, momentarily blinding himself with the light of the High Blade's study. Withdrawing back slightly into the shade of the hearth, he allowed his eyes to adjust for a moment before once again penetrating the room.
When he opened his eyes he saw the feet of a robed individual standing by a great desk. Carefully and silently he took to his feet, ready to do battle if necessary.
* * * * *
The wormlike ambassador turned when he heard the noise from the direction of the hearth-only to confront the man he thought he had just killed bearing down on him with a sword.
The ambassador looked at the figure slumped in the chair, the crystal wand still embedded in its chest, and then back at the apparition approaching from the hearth.
They are one and the same! the Red Wizard realized. He has already come back from the dead to acquit his honor!
Frantically, the portly and soft Thayan civil servant retreated to the place on the wall against which he had previously hidden, but was unable to slip back behind the tapestry. He thought for a moment that perhaps he could extract the wand from the corpse's chest, but quickly realized that it would do no good against one who had already been killed; and besides that, the corpse's double was already upon him.
The wormlike ambassador embraced the darkness of fear and panic and fainted dead away, falling to the floor inches from the feet of the approaching twin of the High Blade.
* * * * *
Rassendyll glanced down at the pathetic heap of flesh that was his brother's assassin, and then looked to the corpse of his brother, the stain of blood slowing in its spread across his chest.
"I only wish that it had been my own hands that had the honor of taking your life," Rassendyll said out loud to his unhearing twin.
A voice from behind the nearly exhausted Rassendyll replied, "I am sure you do, and, I assure you, you aren't alone in that wish."
Rassendyll spun around, careful not to become entangled in the mass of flesh that was the Thayan ambassador's unconscious body, and immediately recognized the figure stepping out of his closet hiding place as the man who had accompanied the High Blade on the night upon which the events that would forever change his life had begun.
"We meet again," Rickman said acidly, "and might I say the beard becomes you much more than the mask your brother insisted upon."
* * * * *
Far below the High Blade's sanctuary, four figures pressed onward through the darkness, trying to catch up with the twins. Without the benefit of a torch, or even the fleeting traces of sound left by the one being pursued, the party was unable to keep up given the lead and pace that the younger men possessed. The four hastened guardedly through the black of subterranean night.
Honor led the group, who linked hands in order to stay close together. The blind swordmaster used his acute senses of hearing and touch, and his excellent memory of years earlier to retrace the route he took along these paths many years ago.
"Merch was always fond of these tunnels as a means of getting around Mulmaster without being seen. If I know his