by Kate Novak
She could hear shouts below-the locals had not been so far gone in their sleep that they could ignore the explosion. If they started a bucket brigade to the nearest water trough quickly, they might keep the structure from collapsing, though their main concern would be to keep the fire from spreading to their own homes.
The sound of something heavy falling farther down the hall brought Alias's attention back to her task. The door to the second apartment was opened, and someone had unfurled a rolled-up carpet over the pile of burning rags. A human shape, dressed in a flowing house robe, lurched out of the apartment, clutching a box the size of a wizard's tome. A woman, Alias guessed, as the figure collapsed over the carpet, seized by a racking cough.
Alias rushed forward and bent over the woman, noting the gray and red curly locks that escaped from beneath her garish silk head scarf. There was something familiar about that scarf, those curls. Alias pulled on the woman's arms until she had risen. The swordswoman was just about to ask if there was anyone else in the building, when the robed woman turned around. The words caught in Alias's throat as she caught sight of the face of the other woman.
"Mama?" Alias gasped. Immediately she realized how foolish she was to think such a thing, yet she could not stop the squeezing ache in her heart caused by all the false memories Finder had given her of this stranger.
The stranger's eyes widened, and she gasped, "Gods!" as if she recognized Alias in return. Her reaction, though, took Alias completely by surprise. With a sudden, panic-induced energy, the older woman slammed the heavy wooden box she carried into Alias's chin, smashing the swordswoman's jaw back and sending her sprawling down the hall.
Alias could taste blood in her mouth and realized that the floor was uncomfortably warm. It took her several moments to shake off the stunning effect of the blow. As her attacker dashed past her, the swordswoman grabbed at the other woman's leg, but came away with nothing but a leather slipper. She pulled herself back up to her feet and caught a last glimpse of the woman crashing down the charred and broken staircase. Her hand flung upward to toss the slipper after its owner, her mind insisting, "She's not your mother," but her fingers did not let go of the slipper.
From down the hallway Alias heard someone cry out. She shoved the slipper into her belt and retrieved her sword from the floor. The cry had come from the third room, the one at the back of the building. Once again Alias used her weapon as a pole and brushed aside the pile of burning rags planted in front of this apartment door. The heat from the hall behind her was now unbearable; the flames shooting up the stairwell were more white than red. Alias was sure her cloak would burst into flame at any moment, but still she felt the apartment door to be sure it was cool. From within she could hear high-pitched squabbling. The swordswoman steeled herself against what she was certain she would find and rushed into the room, slamming the door behind her.
Alias, breathing the slightly cooler, slightly less smoky air, was suddenly bent over with a coughing fit. When she recovered a minute later she looked up at the room's inhabitants-a family of halflings. They'd gone silent at her arrival, but once she stopped coughing, they ignored her and returned to squabbling and rushing about.
There were seven of them-no, eight, Alias corrected, trying to count them as they dashed about like fish in a pond. They were dressed in their nightshirts and engaged in packing all their worldly belongings into a trunk so large that even a hill giant might think twice before lifting it. Mama Halfling was overseeing everything that went in, rejecting things she did not consider worthy of the limited space-pipe collections, mug collections, rock collections, bottle collections. This resulted in the squabbling, since Papa Halfling and the Junior Halflings insisted their contributions were invaluable.
Alias felt the door warming at her back and saw the smoke winding up her legs as it crept beneath the door and between the floorboards. She staggered forward, pushing Mama Halfling and most of her brood away from the chest, toward the window.
"Have you gone nuts?" Abas cried. "This isn't moving day! You haven't got time to pack! You're going to be troll meat any minute now!" She scooped up the closest halfling child, a girl no higher than her knee, and slammed open the window shutters.
The room overlooked an alley, where a crowd had already gathered. In the center of the crowd Dragonbait kneeled over a prone human. Alias gave a shout and caught the saurial's attention. On her signal he strode to the window, set down the staff, and waited. One by one, Alias dropped halfling children into the paladin's arms. Dragonbait caught them easily, as if he fielded plummeting children every day of his life, and handed them off to others in the crowd. The children shrieked with delight, and the crowd applauded each catch.
There was a brief argument between Mama and Papa Halfling over who would go down last. Alias eyed the door anxiously. It's shellac veneer was bubbling and steaming as the wood on the opposite side was consumed in the hallway. Alias picked up Mama and, with not a little pleasure, tossed her out the window to Dragonbait below.
As she reached down for Papa Halfling, who clutched his pipe collection to his chest, the door broke off its hinges and fell to the floor. A monster of yellow and white fire leaped into the room, making for the fresh air coming from the window and the last victims it could claim.
Alias half jumped, half fell out the window, dragging Papa Halfling with her. She managed to twist enough so that she broke the halflings fall with her own body, but nothing broke her fall. She landed seat first on the hard-packed dirt, and the pain that sliced up her spine brought tears to her eyes.
Papa Halfling rolled off the swordswoman with a wink and a tip of an imaginary hat and proceeded to help Mama Halfling gather their brood. A bucket brigade had formed, but the workers were concentrating on wetting down the roofs and walls of adjacent buildings. The used clothing shop had been abandoned to its fate. Alias suspected that the brigade did not want to be seen putting out a fire started by the Night Masks.
Mama Halfling took a last look up at the window where the family's possessions were now being devoured by the beast fire. She sighed. Then, without so much as a good-bye, the family disappeared down the street and into the darkness. Alias wondered idly where they would go, but since she'd also noted that both Mama and Papa had bulging money belts strapped around their nightshirts, she didn't feel obliged to worry about their future.
She was seized with another coughing fit, and every hack sent a jarring stab of pain down her lower back. When the fit subsided, she was aware of Dragonbait kneeling beside her. "Are you going to be all right?" the paladin asked.
"Took too much smoke," Alias replied, unclasping her cape, hoping the cool night air on her back would relieve her sense of suffocating. "And I really hurt my tail when I landed."
"I think you lost your tail when you landed," the saurial teased, pretending to look around for a detached appendage. "If I lost it, it couldn't hurt this bad," Alias complained.
Dragonbait laid his hands on her back and began whispering a prayer to his god for the gift of healing. Alias remained politely silent. Praying generally left her uncomfortable, as did anything to do with the gods. After ten years in the paladin's company, though, his healing prayer felt to her more like a lullaby, summoning in her spirit a sense of being cherished.
The paladin's hands began to glow gently with a blue light, which slid down along her body. The tenseness in her lungs eased, and the pain in her posterior region subsided. She still felt as sore as a landshark tunneling through the walls of Waterdeep, but now at least she could stand without agony.
Dragonbait helped her slowly to her feet. He made a face as he caught sight of her jaw, which had turned purple and swollen. "What happened to your face?" he asked with concern.
Alias tried to explain, but with the paladin's hands pressing about her chin, her words came out, "Ikodda-joorybuck." She paused and waited as more blue light flowed from the saurial's hands, this time to her face. In a moment, the swelling had subsided, and she repeated her wo
rds more clearly, "I caught a jewelry box under the chin. Did you see an old woman come out. Housecoat, scarf, one slipper?"
Dragonbait shook his head, "I had to come out the back door. The fire was too strong. They'd set pine tar torches in the clothing and oil on the floor." He bent over and retrieved the staff.
"With a touch of smoke powder for a big bang to make sure everyone knows it wasn't an accident," the swordswoman added.
"I take it this old woman wears the mate to the slipper tucked in your belt?" the saurial asked.
Alias looked down in surprise; she'd forgotten she'd hung on to it. "For some reason she was frightened of me," the swordswoman explained. "She attacked me and ran. I hope she got out alive."
"This is the one I sensed," Dragonbait said, nodding curtly at the human form sprawled in the alleyway. "He died before I could help him."
Alias forced herself to look down at the man Dragonbait had tried to rescue. To her relief, it was not Old Mendle. From the gaudy clothing the man wore she guessed he had been the current shop owner. The fire had barely touched him, and he hadn't died from breathing the smoke. There were great splotches of red on his yellow silk shirt and in one of his gashed hands he clutched a domino mask with a torn string.
"Stabbed," Alias said. "He must have come in on them while they were setting the fire."
"I do not like these Night Masks at all," Dragonbait declared.
"No one does, but they're too afraid to do anything. You can see what happens to their enemies." Alias looked around at the crowd. They were watching for the clothing shop to collapse. No one came forward to collect the body of the shopkeeper. Now that the heroics were through, no one wanted to be seen talking to the heroes. And of course there was no sign of the City Watch. "A typical Weetgate evening," Alias muttered.
"The Night Mask agents shouted that Jamal was marked," the paladin reminded her. "Do you think he is Jamal? Or the old woman is?"
"Well, it's hard to imagine they had it in for the halflings. The old woman-" Alias hesitated. She switched to the Saurial tongue. "She's my mother. Finder left me a memory that she's my mother, but I don't know her name. She must have thought I was nuts, calling her mama." Alias kicked furiously at a hunk of smoking timber that had fallen from the shop, spraying sparks through the alley.
Dragonbait plucked her cape from the ground. It was scorched and smoke-drenched, but he hoped she would take comfort in the feel of its weight on her shoulders. "We should leave this ghost home. There is nothing for you here."
The roof of the shop crashed through the second story to the ground. Now that it was down, the bucket brigade turned its attention to the ruined shop.
"Why did Finder choose this place as my home?" Alias wondered aloud.
"He didn't need a reason. Alias," the paladin said. "It was just a game to him, giving you memories. It never occurred to him that your feelings would be hurt when you learned those memories were false." It never occurred to Finder to worry about anyone's feelings, he added to himself.
Abas shook her head. "No. There was a reason. He had to have a reason."
Dragonbait remained silent as Alias stood staring into the flames of her memory home. Just as he was beginning to worry how long she would dwell on the unreasonable, she suddenly returned to the original task at hand. "Let's find this Mintassan and get him the staff," she said. "Then we need a room in an inn-preferably one made of stone."
Dragonbait nodded in agreement. "I hope you know where we are," he said, "because I lost my map in the flames."
Alias smiled grimly. "Yeah," she said. "It should be right around the corner here."
Three
The Actress and the Sage
This time it was around four corners and about a half-mile away, through empty streets and past bustling bars, past groups of young toughs who gave the smoky warriors a few catcalls and older, more grizzled veterans who gave them a wide berth.
At the last corner, the appearance of the neighborhood improved markedly. The pavement stone was uniform and unvandalized. The buildings were constructed from more brick and stone than wood. The oil in the steetlamps burned more brightly and smoked less. The streets and thresholds of every building had been swept within the last week. There was no visible sewage.
Mintassan's townhouse was constructed of brick in the Sembian style-the first story was half underground, its door at the bottom of a narrow, descending stairway surrounded by a brick retaining wall, and the second story was raised several feet, its door atop a broad stone staircase. The lower quarters, usually reserved for servants, were where Mintassan had set up his shop. A sign mounted over the lower door displayed the sage's sigil, the Beastlands symbol topped by a waxing crescent moon and surrounded by a circle. The sign read, "Mintassan's Mysteries-^Curios from Very Faraway Places." The door itself was divided horizontally, and the top half stood wide open. They could see there wae a light blazing in the shop within.
Just as Alias and Dragonbait approached the stairs, a high-pitched shriek came from the room below. Alias and Dragonbait exchanged glances. There could be a completely innocuous reason for a scream to be coming from the sage's shop, but after all their other evening adventures, caution did not seem out of place. They crept down the staircase and hovered at the doorway, peering in and listening.
Magically glowing stones in glass globes hung from the ceiling, illuminating the shop. Shelves and tables within were covered with the curios from very faraway places. Most of the items were creatures that had once been alive but were now pelts, skeletons or stuffed trophies. Most were creatures Alias had never seen before, but a few she'd heard of in bards' tales. Mixed in among the trophies were a few sculptures of strange creatures and vases and bowls depicting mythic beasts.
In the center of the room, a big man sat on the arm of a red velvet sofa directly beneath a globe. He wore a billowing cotton Shirt and baggy pants, both white, and a powder-blue vest embroidered in gold thread. His long chestnut-brown hair was pulled back into a pony-tail with a leather thong. His back was turned to the door, so Alias could not see his face. In one large hand he held up the bare, shapely leg of someone lying on the sofa, and was currently rubbing something on the sole of the foot belonging to the leg. The high back of the sofa also blocked Alias's view of whoever was lying there, but whoever it was was no doubt the source of the first shriek, for a moment later a second shriek rose from the sofa, followed by a woman's voice crying, "Ow, ow, ow."
"The pain'll be good for you," the man said. "Remind you not to go fire-walking without both your slippers. Personally I prefer heavy boots when I run around burning buildings. Now don't fidget. It takes a moment for the salve to work."
"It wasn't my idea to go barefoot," a woman's voice argued from the sofa. "It was that witch. I told you, the slipper came off when she grabbed my leg. She nearly had me. I was lucky to escape with my skin still on." Even if Alias hadn't recognized the situation described, she would have recognized the voice. It was a little sharper and more nasal than her memory recalled, but it sounded like her mother, the phony mother Finder had given her.
"Jamal, be reasonable," the man requested. "She's dead. She's been dead for years."
"Since when's being dead slowed down a wizard?" the voice on the couch argued. "I'm telling you, Mintassan, Cassana's come after me. The Night Masks set the fire, of course, but she was there, too. She's trying to kill me for that rude skit we did about her and that lich-boytoy of hers."
Mintassan gave a long-suffering sigh and insisted, "Cassana's dead, Jamal."
No, she isn't," Jamal retorted, sitting up straight on the sofa and waving her finger in Mintassan's face.
"Well, actually, yes, she is," Alias said, turning the handle of the lower half of the door and letting herself into the shop. "I cut through her staff of power myself up on the Hill of Fangs ten years ago. I survived the blast that killed her only because I was half standing in another plane. Cassana was burned to ash. And if she came back by some fell sorcery,
I'd know immediately, but she hasn't. She's still dead."
Jamal's complexion went as white as an underfed vampire's as she stared wordlessly at the newcomers, one a dead ringer for the sorceress Cassana, the other a lizard creature resembling a monster from a tale of darkest evil.
"Cassana was a distant relation," the swordswoman explained as she circled the sofa and stood before Jamal and Mintassan. "Alias the Sell-Sword, at your service," she introduced herself with a sweeping bow, "and this, I believe, is yours," she added, holding out the slipper she'd taken from the woman in the burning building.
Mintassan shook his look of surprise at Alias's self-announced entrance and smiled broadly. "There, Jamal, see. There was a perfectly rational explanation. Pleased to meet you, Alias. I'm Mintassan the Magnificent, though my friends call me Mintassan the Mad." Mintassail offered his hand, and Alias accepted it in her own.
Mintassan was tall with broad shoulders, but somewhat overweight-his gut parted the center of his vest. Nothing, Alias thought, that a few laps around the Sea of Fallen Stars couldn't take care of. Perched on the sage's nose was a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles made with glass as thin as soap bubbles. Alias wondered if the spectacles were magical or if Mintassan wore them to give himself a look of erudition. In his baggy white pants, billowing shirt, and bright-colored vest, he really looked more like a merchant than a sage. Aside from the glasses, the only other clues to his scholarly interests came from the sigils embroidered in his vest and a tiny ornament fastened to the vest's lapel-what appeared to be the skull of a tiny mammal.
As Alias shook hands with the sage she realized his eyes lingered over the azure tattoo emblazoned on her right arm. Alias pulled her hand away self-consciously and turned her attention back to Jamal.
