"Brian Thomsen - The Nobles 04 - The Mage in the Iron Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thomsen Brian M)

The Hawks complied.
*****
Rassendyll was tossed into a damp cell whose light was cast from a torch down the hall,
its illumi-nation barely creeping in through the guards' peep hole and the slot through which
the slop that was considered food would be passed.
The weight of the mask bore heavily on his neck and shoulders, throwing him off-balance
and damp-ening all of his perceptions. His body hurt, and he was racked with questions
about his fate.
Clearing his throat, he cried out in torment and confusion, "Why? Why? Why?"
A lone voice answered him from one of the cells down the hall. It said gruffly, with a basso
bellow reminiscent of a thespian or an opera star, "Will you keep it down? An actor needs
his sleep."
PART ONE
The Prisoner, the Thespian, & the Traveler
 1
A Friend in Need

On a Mulmaster city street:

"Oh thank you, Mister Volo," the pudgy thespian Passepout exclaimed, his bulgy flesh
bouncing be-neath his tunic as he tried to put as much distance as possible between
himself and his previous night's lodging, the prison known as Southroad Keep. "I don't know
what I would have done if you hadn't come along to bail me out."
"Think nothing of it, old friend," Volothamp Ged-darm replied to his former bond servant,
pausing only a moment to adjust the beret atop his curly scalp before adding, "and I thought I
had cured you of that Mister Volo stuff."
"No," Passepout corrected. "You cured me of call-ing you Master Volo. The title of
'mister' is the least form of respect I deign to use for my savior and sal-vation."
"Again," the impeccably dressed master traveler of Faerun (if not all Toril) instructed,
"think nothing of it."
"But you don't understand, Mist. . . uh, Volo," the thespian insisted. "It was horrible being
locked up in a dungeon cell alongside madmen, vagrants, and the other detritus of society."
"Believe me," Volo countered, "there is far worse company you might have been keeping
in Southroad Keep's subterranean dungeon, and not all of them are prisoners either."
"It was horrible, dehumanizing, and torturous."
"How long had you been incarcerated?" the master traveler inquired.
"Overnight," the pudgy thespian answered in righteous indignation, "and I didn't get a
wink of sleep. An actor needs his sleep, you know."
"So I've heard."
"Of course," Passepout continued to rant. "The cell was hard and damp, the food was
low-grade slop."
"How terrible for you," Volo concurred half-heart-edly, occasionally fingering his
well-groomed beard with the hand that he had free from tending the traveler's pack that
bounced as he strode.
"It was," the actor agreed, missing the sarcasm that was conveyed by the master
traveler's mischie-vous grin. "And if that wasn't bad enough, there was this madman
bemoaning his incarceration all night, and he was accompanied by a horrible clanging as if
someone were beating his cell walls with a coal bucket."
"The nerve of that poor soul."
"Indeed," the thespian continued. "I am quite sure that this incident has scarred me for