The Shattered Mask

Sembia, Book Three

The Shattered Mask

By Richard Lee Byers

25 Hammer, 1372DR, - The Year of Wild Magic

Shamur Uskevren was grateful that all three of her children were home. Even Talbot, who generally resided in a tallhouse across town, had moved back into Stormweather Towers, the Uskevren family mansion, for a day or two.

Shamur found her oldest child in the solarium, where shafts of afternoon sunlight fell through the many windows to nourish the potted plants. This winter it was fashionable for the merchant nobles of Selgaunt to exchange portraits, and Thamalon Uskevren II, Tamlin to his family and Deuce to his friends, was posing for a picture. A handsome young man with wavy black hair, he sat astride a red saddle which in turn rested on a trestle. He held a stirrup cup in one hand and wore a falconer’s glove on the other, which he poised as if he actually were carrying a hawk upon his wrist. Presumably his favorite horse and bird would do their posing later in the stable and the mews.

Around the painter and easel milled a tailor and two apprentices, displaying samples of fabric: gleaming damask with designs woven in, shimmering sarcanet, and brocades embroidered with silver and gold. Tamlin winced at a hideous pattern of orange and mauve, whereupon the tailor smiled ruefully and congratulated him on his taste.

Regarding Tamlin from the doorway, Shamur remembered how his birth had brought a spark of happiness into her life after a year of utter misery. A sob welled up inside her, and she suppressed it. She’d worn her mask of lies for thirty years, and she must wear it for a few hours more. When she spoke, her voice was steady, her features, smiling and composed. “Hello, my son.”

“Mother!” Tamlin replied.

He scrambled down from his wooden mount and strode to meet her. His father had once remarked that the Uskevren heir was too vapid and self-centered to truly care for anyone but himself, but now there was no mistaking the love in his deep green eyes. Behind him, the artist and tradesmen bowed respectfully to the mistress of the house.

Up close, Tamlin smelled of wine. Evidently the silver cup was more than just a prop. Shamur hugged the young man fiercely. So fiercely that, puzzled, he asked, “Is something wrong?” ,

“No.” She forced herself to let him go. “Of course not. Can’t a mother be happy to see her son?”

“She certainly can,” he said, “for I’m delighted to see you as well. Especially since I’m having a beastly time deciding on colors. Gellie Malveen says that after Greengrass, everybody who counts will be wearing yellow, but I hate the way I look in yellow!”

They spent the next few minutes in consultation with the tailor, planning Tamlin’s spring wardrobe. Ordinarily Shamur delighted in assisting her son with such endeavors. Now, as he chattered on and on about what to wear to balls, hunts, sailing parties, and cotillions, as if there were nothing

more to life than revelry, she felt a vague disquiet, and wondered how he would fare in the days ahead.

“Have you paid attention to the negotiations with the emissaries from Tantras and Raven’s Bluff?” she asked.

Tamlin blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The discussions are important,” she said. “If we can convince their cartel to trade with House Uskevren exclusively, it will greatly augment our profits.”

Tamlin peered at her uncertainly. “Well, that would be nice, I suppose, but you know I find all this buying and selling and dickering wearisome. Father is attending to it, surely?”

Shamur sighed. “Yes, of course.” Let her perfect boy remain carefree for a little longer. Why not? One way or another, he’d have to become responsible soon enough. “Let’s consider something of true import: the cut of your doublets.”

They spoke for a few more minutes before she took her leave to seek out Talbot, her youngest. He was staying at Stormweather Towers to facilitate his use of the mansion’s library, and that was where she found him.

The library was quite possibly the most unique in the land of Sembia. Most of the human inhabitants feared and distrusted elves, butThamalon Uskevren found them fascinating. In consequence, the Old Owl, as people called him, had filled this room with an assortment of elven artifacts. Golden light from the enchanted sconces gleamed on bronze and wooden masks, a longbow carved from some unidentifiable substance white as alabaster, enigmatic sculptures of fused crystal, and, the pride of the merchant lord’s collection, a set of ivory chessmen with a mahogany board. The volumes and scrolls shelved in the massive oak bookcases suffused the air with a musty odor that persisted no matter how often the servants cleaned and aired the chamber out.

Talbot sat at the table, hunched over a book. Like Tamlin, he’d inherited Thamalon’s dark hair, but unlike his brother, not their father’s trim build and middling height. Tal was

a broad-shouldered giant, the only member of the family who towered over the willowy Shamur. He was so huge that people expected him to be awkward, but when he lost himself in his fencing, he displayed a grace worthy of a dancer in the Temple of Joy.

Shamur thought she’d entered the library silently, with neither a creak of hinges nor the brush of a footfall to announce her, but somehow Talbot sensed her anyway. He shot up from his chair and spun around, his teeth half bared in a snarl and a wild reddish light in the gray eyes that so resembled her own.

When he realized who she was, that feral radiance died, and his features rearranged themselves into a sheepish smile.

“You startled me,” he said.

“Evidently,” she said dryly. She took him in her arms, and though she wanted to clasp him to her as tightly and as desperately as she had Tamlin, this time she managed to control herself.

“How are your researches going?” she asked.

“Pretty well,” he said. “I think Mistress Quickly will be pleased.”

Like Tamlin, Tal showed scant interest in his father’s mercantile enterprises. In contrast to his elegant sibling, who chose to wile away the days enjoying the diversions appropriate to a man of his station, Tal inexplicably delighted in performing with a troupe of common players, over which one Mistress Quickly presided as impresario and occasional playwright. Supposedly she now intended to compose a tragedy on the subject of Parex the Mad, fifth Overmaster of Sembia, and her young Uskevren protege was trying to help her learn more about the deranged monarch’s disastrous reign.

Shamur turned to glance at the books on the table. Talbot’s hulking body jerked, almost as if he’d had to suppress an urge to interpose himself between the volumes and her.

To her surprise, most of the books appeared to deal with

magic, demonology, religion, and natural philosophy rather than history. “The Speculum of Selune?” she asked, flipping the pages of a book whose covers were plates of polished silver. “The Visage of the Beast? You won’t learn much about Parex from these.”

“Oh, but I will!” Talbot exclaimed, too loudly. She raised an eyebrow, whereupon he grimaced, lowered his voice, and stumbled on. “I mean, there’s reason to believe Parex read these very books. That he misunderstood the ideas inside them, and that misapprehension prompted him to perpetrate some of his follies and atrocities.” He eyed his mother as if trying to determine whether she credited what he’d told her.

‘She peered back, trying to read him in return, wondering why he seemed so nervous. Over the past few months, she’d noticed a difference, a strangeness in him, even though he’d done his best to hide it, It struck her now that after this day, this hour, she’d never have another chance to understand, or to help him if, indeed, he needed it.

“Talbot,” she said, “you know that if anything were ever wrong, you could come to me, don’t you?”

He hesitated. “Of course.”

“I mean it,” she persisted. “There’s nothing you could ever do and no misfortune that could befall you that could turn me against you.”

He smiled, looking touched, puzzled, and embarrassed, with all of a player’s artifice. “I do understand that, Mother, and I’m grateful. But I swear, everything’s fine.” His eyes narrowed. “Is this going to turn into another argument about my acting?”

Recognizing that he had no intention of confiding in her, she allowed him to divert the conversation into the old, familiar squabble. “I’ve always encouraged you to take an interest in the arts,” she said, “theater included. But why must you lend your talents to vulgar claptrap devised for coarse and ignorant minds? Why not something more respectable? You could perform in the court masques for a refined audience of your fellow nobles.”

“I could,” he said, “if I wanted to act in the dullest plays ever written. Tragedies where everything happens offstage, and the characters just stand around lamenting it. But I’m afraid I’d keep falling asleep in the middle.”

“You,” she said, smiling, “are a perverse and willful boy, and I daresay we should have switched you more often when you were small.”

They talked a bit longer, and as usual, she found herself bombarding the feckless lad with the advice he so sorely needed on virtually every aspect of his life. His shaggy hair and slovenly attire. His unsuitable friends. His curious reluctance to court the eligible daughters of other merchant-noble Houses. Meanwhile, his secret trouble went undiscussed.

She consoled herself with the reflection that it couldn’t be so terrible. Talbot had too much of a mild and unassuming nature to have blundered into a genuinely desperate predicament, even if it seemed dire to him. One way or another, he’d flounder his way out again. He’d have to, because she’d run out of time to assist him.

When she ventured in search of Thazienne, her daughter and middle child, she heard her before she saw her. Tazi was practicing in the training hall, and the crunch and clatter of her sword, chopping apart a wooden dummy, echoed through the corridors of the great house.

Shamur hesitated at the sound. Some time ago, on one extraordinary night, Tazi had seen her mother perform feats of which the dignified, pacific mistress of Stormweather Towers was supposedly incapable. Though the girl still didn’t understand how such a thing could be, she alone of all the household knew that Shamur was something other than she seemed. No doubt for that reason, the older woman now felt a pang of anxiety that Thazienne would somehow divine her present intent. The object hidden beneath Shamur’s voluminous skirt, which had scarcely troubled her hitherto, suddenly felt heavy and awkward, likely to clank, trip her, or otherwise reveal itself at any moment.

But her trepidation notwithstanding, she couldn’t bear to

depart without seeing Tazi. She’d just have to make sure she didn’t give herself away.

The salle was a drafty, high-ceilinged room where a chill hinted at the winter cold outside. Concentric rings inlaid on the hardwood floor defined the dueling circles. Live blades, blunted practice weapons, ash and whalebone singlesticks, bucklers, targes, and kite shields hung on the walls, along with a row of battered wicker fencing masks.

Tall and slim, her short black hair sweat-plastered to her head, clad in a man’s ratty tunic and hose, Tazi advanced and retreated at the far end of the room. Her long sword flashed in precise attacks, cutting wood every time and returning to a strong guard afterward. She’d nearly completed the task of hacking the upper half of the dummy into splinters.

“Thazienne,” Shamur said.

The younger woman pivoted. “Mother,” she said, sounding terse and impatient. “What is it?”

“I hadn’t seen you today,” Shamur said. “I wanted to, that’s all.” She advanced and took Tazi in her arms.

At first, surprised and discomfited by her mother’s display of affection, Thazienne stood rigid in her embrace. It was scarcely surprising. The two had been at odds almost from the day Tazi was born, for all that Shamur loved her and believed that the girl reciprocated her affection. At last Thazienne relaxed and rather gingerly returned the hug.

It was only to be expected that Tazi stank of sweat. But Shamur could also feel that the girl’s heart was pounding and that she was panting raggedly. Moreover, a grayish pallor underlay her tawny skin.

“You’re pushing too hard,” Shamur said.

Thazienne scowled. “I’m fine. I simply need to build up my stamina. Which is what I was doing when you interrupted me.”

A year ago, undead creatures had attacked Stormweather Towers, one grievously wounding Tazi before the household guards destroyed it. The hoydenish girl, from the cradle possessed of an energetic and adventurous temperament, lay bedridden for months, an ordeal that nearly drove her mad.

Now that the healers had finally released her from the prison of her chamber, she exercised obsessively, fighting to cast off the last vestiges other infirmity and regain the strength and agility she’d enjoyed before.

“I want you to be careful,” Shamur said. “Pace yourself. Otherwise, your exertions are likely to do more harm than good.”

Tazi rolled her sea-green eyes. “Of course, Mother,” she said in a tone that made it clear that, as ever, she would do precisely as she chose. “Anything you say. Was that all?”

“No,” Shamur said. “I know that when you feel ready, you’ll resume stealing, if, indeed, you haven’t already.” She’d discovered that Tazi practiced burglary for sport on the same night that the girl had witnessed proof of her mother’s secret talents. “Be careful then, too. I know you’re adept at thieving. I know that as you catfoot through the shadows, or find some fat lord’s hidden coffer and pick the lock in a trice, you feel untouchable. But you’re not. Things could go horribly wrong in an instant. You could lose everything, even your life.”

Shamur expected Tazi to jeer at her warning, so she was surprised when the sweat-soaked, black-haired girl frowned at her thoughtfully. “What’s troubling you, Mother? Why are you saying this now?”

Shamur silently cursed. She’d resolved to make certain that Tazi wouldn’t suspect anything was amiss, yet sheId failed almost immediately. Now she needed to shift the focus of the conversation. “What troubles me is your poor judgment.”

“I don’t have poor judgment!” Tazi snapped.

“Of course you do,” Shamur said in the condescending voice that always infuriated the girl. “You’re still a child, so I suppose I shouldn’t blame you when you behave like one. But until you grow up, you’ll need a mother’s guidance, thankless task though it may be.”