Frantically Tantaerra tried to snatch the gauntlet off, fumbling because her stump lacked fingers to grasp it.
Tarram hastily snatched off his mask and let it fall, breaking contact. The reek of cooked meat grew suddenly stronger.
"I–I was only trying to help," he told her, sudden tears spilling from him as he saw the look on her face. "I'm sorry. I …I did not mean to give offense."
Tantaerra's glare had fallen into open-mouthed, dumbfounded revulsion. She screamed now, loud and long and raw, as she scrambled up and ran wildly away.
The Masked bent to pick up the mask. He could put it on and stop her, through the gauntlet …
Then he straightened, wearily, without touching the mask. And stood watching his partner flee.
∗ ∗ ∗
Breath failed Tantaerra, and she stumbled in mid-sprint and almost fell. Catching her balance by staggering almost to a stop, she fought down her fear.
He had used her-had crept into the gauntlet-her body-without her permission. Had used her to kill soldier after soldier.
And look what that cursed mask of his 403
had done to him. It had melted away the ragged cloth undermask beneath it, and all the underlying skin, too. His freshly ruined face was now two eyes-one of them protruding, almost dangling, on a stalk of muscle-a hole where his nose should be, and a lipless ruin of a mouth, in a glisteningly smooth nightmare of crawling veins.
The backlash of the sword exploding had probably done it. Not that knowing that made him look any better.
Fearfully Tantaerra looked over her shoulder.
The Masked-the Unmasked? — was standing dejectedly alone in the trodden grass. She saw him bend over, slowly pick up the mask, put it on with obvious reluctance-then fling up his hands in horror, and clutch at his head with both hands.
Frightened anew, she started to run again.
Away, just away …
Chapter Twenty
She ran out of wind again, staggered, and fell.
Tantaerra got up, shaking her head. She was fleeing to she knew not where, trying to run from the vivid image that would not, would not go away.
Tarram Armistrade was a monster. Truly a thing. He'd tried to control her again, to enslave her. In the end, he was just like everyone else.
Yet with every step her resolve and strength ebbed, and her anger and horror too, until she stopped, turned around, and looked back.
The Masked was still standing there, a tiny figure in the distance. Alone, his hands empty.
Tiny. Alone. Empty.
Just like her.
Tantaerra drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Then she gathered her courage and started the long, long walk back to him.
∗ ∗ ∗
"Tarram," she began, to his unmoving back. "I…I'm sorry. I reacted poorly."
The Masked stood like a statue, facing away from her, looking out over the rolling hills of Molthune. She waited, but he said nothing.
"I'm sorry," she said again, hesitantly walking around to face him. Forcing herself to walk close to him, to reach up her hand to his.
"I should have trusted you," she whispered, finding herself again on the verge of tears. "After all we've been through, after what you've done for me …I should trust you."
She reached for his hand.
He did not take it, but merely looked at it, his face unreadable again behind the mask. Not that there was much of it left to read if it had been bare.
"But you didn't." he said softly.
Tantaerra felt tears begin to leak down her face. "No, I didn't." She gripped his hand. "But I can learn."
The Masked looked down at her, blank. At last, with a great sigh, he hauled her up into his arms. "I'm sorry, Princess Tantaerra. I'm used to working alone. I shouldn't have tried to control you. Not even to help you."
Tantaerra nodded, but their heads were so close to his that she merely bumped his chin.
"I forgive you," she said, "if you'll forgive me. Will…will you take your mask off now?"
"You don't really want to see that, do you?" he asked.
"No," she admitted. "But maybe it's time we both started getting used to it."
Tarram held her silently for a long time, then told the darkening sky, "Well, this is awkward."
"Agreed," Tantaerra said. "So will you unmask?"
Tarram sighed again. "In time. Not now. I don't think Braganza is ready for what my face looks like-and neither are you, just now. Later, when we've both eaten and stepped past worry and danger, and you're bored again and back to carving me with your tongue. Then it will be time."
"I don't carve-well, I do, don't I?"
Tarram laughed. "You do. You most certainly do. And the mask stays on."
Tantaerra found herself chuckling as well. "Then put me down, please. I've been humbled enough."
Tarram Armistrade set Tantaerra gently on her feet, and bent over so they could hold hands.
They walked on together.
∗ ∗ ∗
Silence had fallen between them, but it was an easy, companionable silence again.
They walked and walked, through the now still and deserted night. It was getting darker as the moon sank low and clouds stole in, heading for the handful of lights on the horizon.
Lights that seemed somehow to have very quickly multiplied, atop walls and towers looming over them in the night.
"Braganza," her masked partner pointed out, unnecessarily.
In reply, Tantaerra waved her hand back behind them. "The inevitable pursuit," she said dryly. Then she pointed at the gates ahead. "And the inevitable armed welcome."
The Masked chuckled mirthlessly. "Let's get this over with."
"Let's," Tantaerra agreed.
The gates were closed and guarded, and in response to the sharp challenge, they demanded entrance in the name of the General Lords.
This met with the usual disbelief, but The Masked merely took a confident step forward, drew himself up to his full height, and waited in expectant silence. Tantaerra stole a quick glance at him, then did the same.
After a few cold, slow breaths of waiting, toe to toe with the commander of the guard, one of the other guards rather doubtfully pointed out, "There're only two of them. Once they're through the foregate, we have them penned, and can find out what they're really up to."
The commander wasn't about to verbally retreat from the cold refusal he'd just given, but nodded curtly. The foregate opened.
Tantaerra and The Masked were ushered into sixty feet or so of cobbled passage between the foregate and the still-closed inner gate, the massive stones of the gate-keep all around and above them, complete with firing ports everywhere.
As the foregate started to creak closed, an armored Molthuni rode up out of the night, yelling, "Stop them! Stop them! That explosion? They did that! Stop them before-"
With a grim smile, Tantaerra pointed a finger of the Fearsome Gauntlet, and smashed the man into silence.
Then she whirled at the thunder of onrushing boots, to blast down the gate guards charging from the inner gate-but The Masked hissed, "Trust me" into her ear, put his hand on the gauntlet, and snarled, "Luraumadar!"
A racing wave of magic flashed out of the magical gage. It shook Tantaerra and her partner, numbing their very teeth-but the onrushing guards fell or stumbled dazedly along the walls, then dropped to the ground. Unseen weapons clattered behind walls, and an arm appeared through one of the firing ports overhead, dangling limply.
Eerie silence fell.
Beyond the unconscious guards, the inner gate stood ajar. Tantaerra and her partner peered through it.
More silence, and no one to be seen. Cautiously they ducked through it, into Braganza. They were met by cartwheels rumbling, some echoing footfalls, and the smaller sounds of a large city largely asleep.