Nineteen

Ultimately it was a mild-mannered gate crasher who managed to turn the j tide. Yielding to Dragonbait's request,) Mintassan had been keeping an eye on the proceedings at the ball. Cloaked in an invisibility spell, he had slipped past the seneschal and stood quietly in the corner, wearing the mask of a bearded, graying wizard witn pipe clenched between his teeth. The paladin had not been able to even guess what might go wrong at the ball, but once the golems had arrived, the sage knew exactly how to bring the situation under control.

Magic being nearly useless against such monsters, Mintassan teleported back to his home. There, on his desk, tucked in box full of straw, was the remedy for iron golems. He had prepared it this morning after realizing the Faceless still controlled a troop of the creatures. Arriving in the back of his workroom, the sage dashed to his desk, prepared to scoop up his secret weapons and teleport back immediately. He halted before the desk and nearly froze in panic. The objects he sought were missing.

Fortunately, Mintassan was far more levelheaded than his reputation credited him. He also was not so old that he could not remember being a boy and the sorts of things boys enjoyed doing.

"Kel!" he hollered, dashing up the stairs two at a time. He threw open the door to the boy's room and gave a great sigh of relief. The box lay on the bed, three glass globes packed within. Kel sat on the floor, waving a nail in front of a fourth glass globe. Within the globe a tiny insectlike creature pawed frantically at the glass ball, causing it to roll after the nail almost as if the ball were magnetically attracted to the iron. "I was just playing," the boy insisted.

Mintassan snatched up the box and the fourth globe and hissed, "Silver path, tower stair." Before Kel's astonished eyes, the sage vanished.

Mintassan reappeared in the Tower on one of the staircases. Grimly he assessed the battlefield. Only one golem had actually been felled, lying in two twitching halves on the floor. Durgar was hammering on a second golem's legs with such determination that the creature was limping noticeably, but then so was the old priest.

With an uncanny aim, Mintassan threw one ball each at the remaining four unscathed golems. The glass smashed against the iron monsters, releasing the tiny creatures within. They grew as they fell, so that by the time they hit the floor they were five feet in length, each sporting four insectlike legs, an armor-plated back, a long, bony tail with a paddle-shaped tip, and, most importantly, long mobile antennae. They were easily recognizable by the few experienced adventurers present as rust monsters-normally docile animals with a voracious appetite for all things iron.

The first freed rust monster struck its antennae against the legs of the iron golem looming over it. The golem's legs turned brown and crumbled beneath it, so that it toppled to the floor, crippled.

The second rust monster took a moment longer to get its bearings, giving the golem beside it time to reach down and grab it-a serious error on the golem's part. The rust monster's antennae wrapped around both arms like whips. The golem's arms crumbled to rust, freeing the rust monster it had just grasped. The golem stumbled off as the rust monster chomped on the rusted remains of its arms. Though able to move, the golem was now unable to continue grappling or punching at the guests, though it continued to chase them.

One rust monster was slain by a powerful strike of a golem's fist, but as the iron behemoth pulled away, it lost its hand at the wrist, struck by one of the dying animal's antennae. The fourth and final rust monster scrambled on top of its golem, rusting it from the head down to the shoulders and arms, through the torso, and down to the knees. The ferrous-loving animal rolled about in the huge pile of rust as it chomped on it like a cat in a field of catnip.

Having thrown all his weapons, Mintassan looked about for Dragonbait. Just before he'd teleported to his workshop to fetch the rust monsters, the sage had seen the paladin slashing at one of the golems. Now, however, the saurial was nowhere to be seen. There had to be nearly fifty people dead and dying on the Tower floor, but the saurial was not among them.

As the watch, under Durgar's direction, dragged a rust monster in the direction of one of the remaining mobile golems, some other members of Durgar's forces had man-aged to raise the portcullis to the outside. Nobles streamed out of the Tower like ants from a flooded nest. The sage was just about to teleport to the temple of Ilmater to fetch some priests to heal the wounded, when he spied Kimbel exiting through the portcullis.

The Dhostar manservant looked not only uninjured, but completely unruffled, as did the two guards in Dhostar livery who followed him carrying a lumpy, rolled up tapestry. With a suspicious frown, the sage reached in his pocket for a spell component and whispered, "Light-pass." His large form went translucent, then transparent, then invisible. Once transformed, the mage hurried after the former assassin, his minions, and whatever it was they found necessary to cart off.

Upstairs, isolated from the noise of the attack by the massiveness of the Tower's construction, Alias lay with Victor Dhostar before the fireplace of the conference room. Shaking off the elegant torpor that enthralled her, she raised her head from Victor's chest and looked up at him. "I love you," she whispered. "I love you, too," the nobleman replied, "but now that you have your proof of that, we really should be getting back to the ball."

Alias nodded. She rose to her feet and shook out the wrinkles in the skirt of her gown. Victor handed her her baldric and sword. She slipped the decorative belt over her head.

As soon as Victor opened the heavy oaken door, Alias heard disturbing sounds coming from the hall below. The thunderous crash of something heavy falling to the floor echoed up the Tower. When she reached the stairs, Alias could hear people screaming and moaning. She raced down the stairs. Halfway down, she spied Mintassan in front of her, but he vanished before her eyes. When she reached the spot where the sage had stood, she was aghast at the destruction she witnessed.

Members of the watch were pulling on a rope wrapped about the legs of an armless iron golem in an effort to topple the monster. Several other bits of iron golem lay strewn about the floor, surrounded by dead and wounded nobles. One last golem, missing only a hand, was hovering over a desk that was serving as a buffet. The monster looked as if it were trying to decide what to eat, but Alias spied something rustling beneath the tablecloth and realized the golem was deciding how to get at whomever hid below.

Just before the golem struck the desk with his remaining hand, crushing it to splinters, Olive Ruskettle and Thistle Thalavar dashed out from beneath the tenuous cover. They ran toward another desk, with the creature plodding after them. When it had them against the wall, Olive Ruskettle whirled about, her sword raised, in a hopeless effort to ward off the creature's blow.

Alias released the peace knot tying her sword to her scabbard and drew her weapon. The swordswoman leaped from the stairs onto the golem just as it raised its remaining fist. Her sword connected with the golem's dragon-shaped head, sending sparks flying as the steel of her magical blade cleaved through the iron skull.

The beast spun about and seemed to examine Alias for a moment. Then it turned again, pivoting slowly, stopping when it finally faced Olive and Thistle. Alias realized she was being ignored for a target of higher priority-either Olive or Thistle. Yanking free the tablecloth from the smashed desk, Alias whirled it like a net over the golem's head.