'I knew she had to be a cheap hero,' Jamal declared-with a chuckle. Beside the actress, Kimbel muttered some unintelligible spell words.
A shimmer of light rippled across Winterhart's body and the halfling began to transform before their eyes. Her frame grew to human size, her muscles took on the definition of a warrior in training, and her plump cheeks and rounded chin grew more drawn and angular. She became the former defender of Westgate-Alias the Sell- Sword. With the polymorph magic dispelled, the chain-mail armor, boots, and cloak she'd worn upon her transformation into a halfling were now revealed. The scar from Victor's ring still blazed across her cheek.
AHas swung her weapon with an uncustomary fierceness and let out a blood-curdling battle cry as she dashed at the Faceless. Shocked, the Night Mask retreated three steps, stumbled on his long robes, and fell on his back. The swordswoman stepped up to her foe and set her booted foot down on his sword hand, keeping enough pressure on it to prevent him from raising it. With the tip of her blade she pried off the coin mask, which obscured his features.
Victor Dhostar's face appeared at her feet. 'I should make you pay for your crimes now, with your blood,' Alias said coolly, 'but I will give you instead to Durgar for trial. The quick death of a warrior is too good for you.'
'Alias, my darling, no!' Victor cried. 'It wasn't me! It was Kimbel! He was never enchanted to serve my family. It happened the other way around. All those years ago, he put me under his spell so he could use my family and finally destroy them. I tried to resist, but he was too strong. All I have done has been at his command. He is the true Faceless.' 'Why did he help us in combat then?' Olive demanded.
'And why,' Durgar said, climbing the stairs to the dais, 'did he turn over all the Night Masters' books to me and dispel all their magic yesterday?'
Victor glared up at the assassin standing beside Jamal. 'You will pay for your treachery!' he screamed. Pointing a ringed finger at the assassin, he snarled, 'Kreggarish.'
Kimbel grabbed the sides of his enchanted mask, screaming as Mehnan had when he had been branded.
'Enough,' Alias commanded, smacking at the nobleman's hand with the tip of her blade, leaving a crimson streak across his fingers. Victor whimpered like a child, but a moment later he laughed at the assassin. 'The brand is permanent Kimbel. You'll never be rid of it. You shall always feel the pain,' the vanquished Faceless gloated.
Kimbel tossed aside the white mask with a hearty chuckle. His face was untouched. 'Sorry, old boy,' he said, 'but not only do you have the wrong man-' Kimbel's figure began to glow and shimmer as Winterhart's had when she had transformed into Alias, and in a moment he reappeared as none other than Mintassan the Sage. '- but a magic ring like that hasn't held power over me for decades.' 'If you're not Kimbel,' Olive asked, 'who is?'
'Why Kimbel is, of course,' Mintassan replied. 'Though at the moment he's chained in the dungeon of Castle Dhostar and looks like a feeble-minded sage named Mintassan.' 'And where's Dragonbait?' Olive demanded.
Alias looked up at Mintassan. 'Where is Dragonbait?' she asked.
In the swordswoman's moment of distraction, Victor Dhostar slid his wounded hand deep into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a twisted glass vial. He smashed the vial against the floor.
Quicksilver dribbled from the broken glassware. The liquid metal glowed white-hot until it bathed Victor Dhostar in a glaring light. When the light faded a moment later, Victor Dhostar had vanished.
'What was that?' Jamal asked, blinking away the spots on her eyes.
'He's slid through a dimension door. He cannot have gotten far,' Mintassan explained.
'Spread out,' Durgar ordered a patrol of his men. 'Search the entire castle.'
'I'll check the lair, in case he tries to escape by one of the portal mirrors,' Mintassan said. 'Silver path, Face-less's lair,' the sage murmured, then vanished.
'Thistle!' Olive cried. 'He would go after Thistle and try to snatch something from Verovan's hoard. Mist said she's-'
'At the top of the south tower,' Alias shouted. The swordswoman dashed from the hall with Olive and Jamal at her heels.
Twenty-Four
Thistle Thalavar paced anxiously on the roof of the southern tower of Castle I Vhammos. Her heart was heavy, her mind uneasy. The evening was not turning out as she had imagined it would. In the daydreams she indulged in all day, Victor had been amazed when she proved she really did know how to reach Verovan's treasure. He had recognized how clever she was and had considered her his equal. He had made her his confidant on all matters of state. Once again he had declared his love. In her fantasy, they had spent the rest of the evening in one another's arms.
In reality, when Thistle had used her grandmother's feather brooch to open the magical portal into the treasure hoard, Victor, although pleased, had not seemed particularly amazed. He had accepted the feather brooch as her token with a warm kiss, but he had been unable to hide his annoyance when he discovered he himself could not use the token to open the hoard. When Thistle explained that only someone of Verovan's bloodline could use the brooch, the croamarkh had bristled.
Thistle realized with sickening dread that Victor was sensitive to the fact that she was descended of royalty and he was only a noble. Even worse, no matter how loyal and loving she was, the nobleman did not like having to rely on her to reach the treasure.
The final disappointment came when, instead of spending the rest of the evening alone with her, the croamarkh had asked her to wait on the tower while he assembled his forces to help clear out the treasure.
Now Thistle waited alone, trying to convince herself that Victor was still worthy of the treasure because he would use it to make Westgate a city of beauty and justice, admired by all. She suspected, however, that he was not the lover she had dreamed of.
The interdimensional portal to Verovan's treasure hung twenty feet from the edge of the tower. By stroking the spine of her feather brooch Thistle could cause the portal to open just a crack. First a section of the sky would ripple, causing the stars to shimmer. Then a searing white light would flash out from the eldritch rent in the planar fabric. As soon as the girl removed her hand from the brooch, the portal snapped shut, leaving her standing in the dark, beneath the starlit sky. If she held the pin long enough, the portal grew into an oval eight feet across by twelve feet high. Once the portal was completely opened, it sent out a dark, arcing bridge to the edge of the tower.
Thistle stroked the feather brooch, causing the sky to flash as if with heat lightning. Something hissed in the darkness behind her, and Thistle turned around slowly, more curious than startled.
Dragonbait stepped out of the shadow of the tower battlement. He had been hiding there since Thistle and Victor had arrived at the castle. He had seen how Victor had played on Thistle's affections and had watched as she had demonstrated how to use the feather brooch to reach Verovan's hold. Thistle had arrived with Victor giddy and carefree, but now she was solemn and melancholy. The saurial hoped that meant he could now convince her to come away from the tower-for he was growing nervous for her safety-for the safety of all of Westgate.
Each time Thistle stroked the feather brooch, cracking open the portal, the paladin's shen sight sensed a bolt of lightning and went momentarily blind, leaving him with a stabbing pain in the back of his head and a throbbing sensation in his teeth. His shen sight was being overloaded by some great evil that lay beyond the portal- within Verovan's hoard. Whatever it was, Dragonbait did not want to risk its release over the city.
The paladin motioned for Thistle to come away from the battlement and go with him down the tower stairs.
'I can't,' Thistle replied. 'I promised Victor that I would wait here for his return.'
Dragonbait made the sign for danger in the thieves' hand cant.
'I know all about the dangers,' the girl said. 'Grandmother first told me the tale of Verovan's hoard when I
