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To Aunt Terry, who'll never know how much her support has meant to me.
NIGHT MASKS
Copyright 1992 TSR. Inc. AH Rights Reserved.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons,
fivmg or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.
Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein
is prohibited without the express written permission of TSR, Inc.
Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide distribution rights in
the book trade for English language products of TSR, Inc.
Distributed to the book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR Ltd. Cover
art by Jeff Easley.
FORGOTTEN REALMS is a registered trademark owned by TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is a
trademark owned by TSR, Inc.
First Printing: August 1992 Printed in the United States of America-Library of
Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-66498
987654321 ISBN: 1-56076-328-0
TSR. Inc.
P.O. Box 756
Lake Geneva, WI 53147
U.S.A.
TSR, Ltd.
120 Church End, Cherry Hinton
Cambridge CB1 3LB
United Kingdom
iMpnesk Lake
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250
500
Scale (in feet) * City Militia
O "CRCC
——i— he large fighter shifted uneasily in his seat, look-^M ^ ing all about the
nearly empty tavern.
• "Not so busy this night," the slender, I drowsy-looking man
across the table remarked.
JL He shifted back lazily in his seat, crossed his legs in front of him, and
draped a skinny arm over them.
The larger man regarded him warily as he began to understand. "And you know all
in attendance," he replied.
"Of course."
The burly fighter looked back just in time to see the last of the other patrons
slip out the door. "They have left by your bidding?" he asked,
"Of course."
"Mako sent you."
The weakling man curled his lips in a wicked grin, one that widened as the burly
fighter regarded his skinny arms with obvious disdain.
"To kill me," the large man finished, trying to appear calm. His wringing hands,
fingers moving as if seeking
R. A. Salvatore
something to keep them occupied, revealed his nervousness. He licked his dried
lips and glanced around quickly, not taking his dark eyes from the assassin for
any length of time. He noticed that the man wore gloves, one white and one
black, and silently berated himself for not being more observant.
The thin man replied at length, "You knew Mako would repay you for his cousin's
death."
"His own fault!" the large man retorted. "It was he who struck the first blow. I
had no choi—"
"I am neither judge nor jury," the puny man reminded him.
"Just a killer" the fighter replied, "serving whoever gives you the largest sack
of gold."
The assassin nodded, not the least bit insulted by the description.
The little man noticed his target's hand slipping casually into the hidden
pouch, the fitchet, in the V cut of his tunk, above his right hip.
"Please, do not," the assassin said. He had been monitoring this man for many
weeks, carefully, completely, and he knew of the knife concealed within.
The fighter stopped the movement and eyed him incredulously.
"Of course I know the trick," the assassin explained. "Do you not understand,
dear dead Vaclav? You have no surprises left for me."
The man paused, then protested, "Why now?" The large man's ire rose with his
obvious frustration.
"Now is the time," replied the assassin. "All things have their time. Should a
killing be any different? Besides, I have pressing business in the west and can
play the game no longer."
"You have had ample opportunity to finish this business many times before now"
Vaclav argued. In fact, the little man had been hovering about him for weeks,
had gained his trust somewhat, though he didn't even know the man's name. The
fighter's eyes narrowed with further frustration
Night Masks
when he contemplated that notion and realized that the man's frail frame—too
frail to be viewed as any threat—had precipitated that acceptance. If this man,
now revealed as an enemy, had appeared more threatening, Vaclav never would have
let him get this close.
"More chances than you would believe," the assassin replied with a snicker. The
large man had seen him often, but not nearly as often as the killer, in perfect
and varied disguises, had seen Vaclav.
"I pride myself on my business," the assassin continued, "unlike so many of the
crass killers that walk the Realms. They prefer to keep their distance until the
opportunity to strike presents itself, but I"—his beady eyes flickered with
pride—"prefer to personalize things. I have been all about you. Several of your
friends are dead, and I now know you so well that I can anticipate your every
movement."
Sclav's breathing came in short rasps. Several friends dead? And this weakling
threatening him openly? He had defeated countless monsters ten times this one's
weight, had served honorably in three wars, had even battled a dragon! He was
scared now, however. Vaclav had to admit that. Something was terribly wrong
about this whole setup, terribly out of place.
"I am an artist," the slender, sleepy man rambled. "That is why I will never
err, why I will survive while so many other hired murderers go to ear|y graves."
"You are a simple killer and nothing more!" the large man cried, his frustration
boiling over. He leaped from his seat and drew a huge sword.
A sharp pain slowed him, and he found himself somehow sitting again. He blinked,
trying to make sense of it all, for he saw himself at the empty bar, was, in
fact, staring at his own face! He stood gawking as he—as his own body!—slid the
heavy sword back into its scabbard.
"So crude," \feclav heard his own body say. He looked down to the figure he now
wore, the killer's weak form.
"And so messy," the assassin continued.
"How .. . ?"
R. A. Salvatore
"I do not have the time to explain, I fear," the assassin replied.
"What is your name?" Vaclav cried, desperate for any diversion.
"Ghost," answered the assassin. He lurched over, confident that the seemingly
androgynous form, one he knew so well, could not muster the speed to escape him
or the strength to fend him off.
\fcclav felt himself being lifted from the floor, felt the huge hands slipping
about his neck. "The ghost of who?" managed the out-of-control, desperate man.
He kicked as hard as his new body would allow, so pitiful an attempt against the
burly, powerful form his enemy now possessed. Then his breath would not come.
Vaclav heard the snap of bone, and it was the last sound he would ever hear.
"Not 'the ghost,' " the victorious assassin replied to the dead form, "just
'Ghost.' " He sat then to finish his drink. How perfect this job had been; how
easily \fcclav had been coaxed into so vulnerable a position.
"An artist," Ghost said, lifting his cup in a toast to himself. His more
familiar body would be magically repaired before the dawn, and he could then
take it back, leaving the empty shell of Sclav's corpse behind.
Ghost had not lied when he had mentioned pressing business in the west. A wizard
had contacted the assassin's guild, promising exorbitant payments for a minor
execution.
The price must have been high indeed, Ghost knew, for his superiors had
requested that he take on the task. The wizard apparently wanted the best.
The wizard wanted an artist.
Placid Fields
adderly walked slowly from the single stone tower, across the fields, toward the
lakeside town of Carradoon. Autumn had come to the region; the few trees along
Cadderly's path, red maples mostly, shone brilliantly in their fall wardrobe.
The sun was bright this day and warm, in contrast with the chilly breezes
blowing down from the nearby Snowflake Mountains, gusting strong enough to float
Cadderly's silken blue cape out behind him as he walked, and strong enough to
bend the wide brim of his similarly blue hat.
The troubled young scholar noticed nothing. Cadderly absently pushed his sand-
brown locks from his gray eyes, then grew frustrated as the unkempt hair, much
longer than he had ever worn it, defiantly dropped back down. He pushed it away
again, and then again, and finally tucked it tightly under the brim of his hat.
Carradoon came within sight a short while later, on the banks of wide Impresk
Lake and surrounded by hedge-
6 R. A. Salvatore
lined fields of sheep and cattle and crops. The city proper was walled, as were
most cities of the Realms, with many multistory structures huddled inside
against ever present perils. A long bridge connected Carradoon to a nearby
island, the section of the town reserved for the more well-to-do merchants and
governing officials.
As always when he came by this route, Cadderly looked at the town with mixed and
uncertain feelings. He had been born in Carradoon, but did not remember that
early part of his life. Cadderly's gaze drifted past the walled city, to the
west and to the towering Snowflakes, to the passes that led high into the
mountains, where lay the Edificant Library, a sheltered and secure bastion of
learning.
That had been Cadderly's home, though he realized that now it was not, and thus
he felt he could not return there. He was not a poor man—the wizard in the tower
he had recently left had once paid him a huge sum for transcribing a lost spell
book—and he had the means to support himself in relative comfort.
But all the gold in the world could not have produced a home for Cadderly, nor
could it have released his troubled spirit from its turmoil.
Cadderly had grown up, had learned the truth of his violent, imperfect world,
too suddenly. The young scholar had been thrust into situations beyond his
experience, forced into the role of hero-warrior when all he really wanted was
to read of adventures in books of legend. Cadderly had recently killed a man,
and had fought in a war that had blasted, torn, and ultimately tainted a once-
pristine sylvan forest.
Now he had no answers, only questions.
Cadderly thought of his room at the Dragon's Codpiece, where the Tome of
Universal Harmony, the most prized book of the god named Deneir, sat open on his
small table. It had been given to Cadderly by Pertelope, a high-ranking
priestess of his order, with the promise that within its thick bindings Cadderly
would find his answers.
Cadderly wasn't sure he believed that.
Night Masks 7
The young scholar sat on a grassy rise overlooking the town, scratched at his
stubbly beard, and wondered again about his purpose and calling in this
confusing life. He removed his wide-brimmed hat and stared at the porcelain
insignia attached to its red band: an eye and a single candle, the holy symbol
of Deneir, the deity dedicated to literature and the arts.
Cadderly had served Deneir since his earliest recollections, though he had never
really been certain of what that service entailed, or of the real purpose in
dedicating his life to any god. He was a scholar and an inventor and believed
wholeheartedly in the powers of knowledge and creation, two very important
tenets for the Deneirian sect.
Only recently had Cadderly begun to feel that the god was something more than a
symbol, more than a fabricated ideal for the scholars to emulate. In the elven
forest Cad-deriy had felt the birth of powers he could not begin to understand.
He had magically healed a friend's wound that otherwise would have proved fatal.
He had gained supernatural insight into the history of the elves—not just their
recorded events, but the feelings, the eldritch aura, that had given the ancient
race its identity. He had watched in amazement as the spirit of a noble horse
rose from its broken body and walked solemnly away. He had seen a dryad
disappear into a tree and had commanded the tree to push the elusive creature
back out—and the tree had heeded his command!
There could be no doubt for young Cadderly; mighty magic was with him, granting
him these terrifying powers. His peers called that magic Deneir and called it a
good thing, but in light of what he had done, of what he had become, and the
horrors he had witnessed, Cadderly was not certain that he wanted Deneir with
him.
He got up from the grassy rise and continued his journey to the walled town, to
the Dragon's Codpiece, and to the Sane of Universal Harmony, where he could only
pray that be would find some answers and some peace.
8
R. A. Salvatore
Night Masks
He flipped the page, his eyes desperately trying to scan the newest material in
the split second it took him to turn the page again. It was impossible; Cadderly
simply could not keep up with his desire, his insatiable hunger, to turn the
pages.
He was finished with the Tome of Universal Harmony, a work of nearly two
thousand pages, in mere minutes. Cadderly slammed the book shut, frustrated and
fearful, and tried to rise from his small desk, thinking that perhaps he should
go for a walk, or go to find Brennan, the innkeeper's teenage son who had become
a close friend.
The tome grabbed at him before he could get out of his seat. With a defiant but
impotent snarl, the young scholar flipped the book back over and began his
frantic scan once more. The pages flipped at a wild pace; Cadderly couldn't
begin to read more than a single word or two on any one page, and yet, the song
of the book, the special meanings behind the simple words, rang clearly in his
mind. It seemed as though all the mysteries of the universe were embedded in the
sweet and melancholy melody, a song of living and dying, of salvation and
damnation, of eternal energy and finite matter.
He heard voices as well—ancient accents and reverent tones—singing in the
deepest corners of his mind, but he could not make out any of the words, like
the written words on the pages of the book. Cadderly could see them as a whole,
could see their connotations, if not the actual lettering.
Cadderly felt his strength quickly draining as he continued to press on. His
eyes ached, but he could not close them; his mind raced in too many directions,
unlocking secrets, then storing them back into his subconscious in a more
organized fashion. In those brief transitions from one page to another, Cadderly
managed to wonder if he would go insane, or if the work would consume him
emotionally.
He understood something else, then, and the thought fi-
nally gave to him the strength to slam the book shut. Several of the higher
ranking Deneirian priests at the Edificant Library had been found dead, lying
across this very book. Always the deaths had been seen as by natural causes—all
of those priests had been much older than Cadderly—but Cadderly's insight told
him differently.
They had tried to hear the song of Deneir, the song of universal mysteries, but
they had not been strong enough to control the effects of that strange and
beautiful music. They had been consumed.
Cadderly frowned at the black cover of the closed tome as though it were a
demonic thing. It was not, he reminded himself, and, before his fears could
argue back, he opened the book once more, from the beginning, and began his
frantic scan.
Melancholy assaulted him; the doors blocking revelations swung wide, their
contents finding a place in the receptacle of young Cadderly's mind.
Gradually the young scholar's eyes drooped from sheer exhaustion, but still the
song played on, the music of the heavenly spheres, of sunrise and sunset and all
the details that played eternally in between.
It played on and on, a song without end, and Cadderly felt himself foiling
toward it, becoming no more than a passing note among an infinite number of
passing notes.
On and on...
"Cadderly?" The call came from far away, as if from another world perhaps.
Cadderly felt a hand grasp his shoulder, tangible and chill, and felt himself
turned gently about. He opened a sleepy eye and saw young Brennan's curly black
mop and beaming face.
"Are you all right?"
Cadderly managed a weak nod and rubbed his bleary eyes. He sat up in his chair,
felt a dozen aches in various parts of his stiff body. How long had he been
asleep?
It was not sleep, the young scholar realized then, to his mounting horror. The
weariness that had taken him from consciousness was too profound to be cured by
simple
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R. A. Salvatore
sleep. What, then?
It was a journey, he sensed. He felt as though he had been on a journey. But to
where?
"What were you reading?" Brennan asked, leaning past him to regard the open
book. The words shook Cadderfy from his reflections. Suddenly terrified, he
shoved Brennan aside and slammed the book.
"Do not look at it!" he answered harshly.
Brennan seemed at a loss. "I... I am sorry," he apologized, obviously confused,
his green eyes downcast. "I did not mean—"
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