Masquerades

by Kate Novak

  Alias shuddered to think what someone in Westgate would want with the skull of the dragon Mist. While the ancient wyrm had been an ally at the time of her fiery demise, the beast had hated Alias. The swordswoman would have preferred to hear Mist’s remains had been laid to rest in their entirety.

  “Kids were playing ‘Dragons and Warriors’ in the streets for weeks afterward,” Jamal continued, “and everyone talked about what cowardly leeches the merchant nobles were when push came to shove.” Jamal sighed. “But, alas, when you did not return with more dragons, the merchants and the Night Masks reestablished their grubby holds on everyone’s lives. Ah, well. I got three months worth of material for my street theater even if I had to invent a cheap hero for it.”

  “So, what were you doing on my street last night?” Jamal demanded, switching the topic suddenly. “It’s not on the way to Mintassan’s by any stretch of the imagination.”

  Alias thought fast for an answer that might satisfy the woman. “I was just passing by, reliving old memories. Someone I knew used to live on that street. The Swanmays,” she answered, hoping that memory wasn’t another of Finder’s fictions.

  “That band of female adventurers? That was a long time ago.” Jamal smiled at some memory. “They were such great troublemakers. Solid cheap hero material.” Her look grew less suspicious. As she came out of her reverie, she said, “You knew it was the Night Masks who started the fire. Even so, you rushed in to save what they wanted destroyed. They have watchers. You’ve made yourselves enemies.”

  Alias laughed. “We already made them enemies. This was just the salt in the wound.” The swordswoman explained how she and the saurial had taken care of the shakedown team and the assassin squad.

  Jamal laughed with delight. “Definitely a cheap hero story.”

  “What does that mean, cheap hero?” Alias asked.

  “Cheap hero. An everyday hero,” Jamal explained. “Not one of those highfalutin, noble-born, kill-a-dragon-before-breakfast, always-get-the-girl heroes. But your regular type hero. The merchant who doesn’t cheat widows and orphans. The neighbors who bring you hot meals when you’re sick. The kid who stops the pickpocket who grabbed your purse. The fishermen who paid a protection racketeer with the racketeer’s own teeth. The festhall girl who testified at a murder trial and had to leave town. The apprentices and journeymen who helped the farmers guard their fields so no one could start a brush fire to drive up the price of grain and start famine in the outlying regions.

  “I’m the Lady of Cheap Heroes. I tell their tales,” Jamal said with a flourish of her hand. “Jamal’s Street Theater. Four performances daily. Written, directed, and performed by Jamal herself, with the help of some loyal associates. That’s why the Night Masks want me dead, and the merchants wouldn’t miss me any. I tell everyone that ordinary people can fight their oppressors.”

  “After tonight, it looks like you may have to make your living in some other city,” Alias replied.

  “Make my living!” Jamal laughed till her eyes teared. “You don’t make a living in the theater, girl. It’s a calling. And Westgate is my city. They are not driving me out.”

  Mintassan came bustling back into the room carrying a silver tea service laden with a silver teapot, a silver creamer, a silver brandy flask, a tiny parcel wrapped in brown paper, and four mismatched clay mugs.

  The sage sunk into a wood-frame-and-canvas chair, which looked about ready to collapse under his weight. With a flick of his finger, he opened the paper parcel on the tea tray, revealing little cubes about the size of dice but without markings. He dropped two into a mug and held the mug out for Jamal to fill.

  “Amnite sugar cubes,” Mintassan explained upon noting Alias’s curious look. “Among the many things the Amnites have stolen from the Mazticans. For years they were a novelty known only to the upper classes, but last year House Dhostar brought in a huge consignment and lowered the price. Now they can’t keep up with the demand. They’re all the rage.”

  Alias picked up a grainy cube, then dropped it tentatively into the mug of tea Jamal handed her. The sugar cube bubbled and dissolved. She blew over the tea’s steamy surface while Mintassan added a dollop of cream to his mug. When the sage had taken a sip of his own beverage, Alias hazarded a taste of her own. “It’s good,” she declared with surprise. “Sweet, like honey.”

  Jamal snorted. “Sweet, but no kick,” the actress said, pouring a more-than-healthy dose of brandy into her own tea.

  “So what’s your poison, Dragonbait?” Mintassan asked as he handed the last mug to Jamal to fill.

  “I would like it plain, please,” the saurial replied.

  Alias translated, “He’ll have it straight up.”

  “Please,” Dragonbait repeated.

  Alias sighed. “Please,” she translated.

  Mintassan smiled as he handed the paladin the mug of tea. “So it’s true what Grypht wrote—Alias does understand Saurial. I always wondered if a human could ever master it.”

  “I can hardly claim to have mastered it even though I’ve lived with the saurials for eight years,” Alias protested. “Their language is a mixture of sounds, scents, and postures. A tongues spell with a permanency cast on it enables me to hear the sounds and understand them, and I can smell their scents even better and interpret the emotions they convey, but I’m not very good with the postures. I can speak the sound part as well, but I can’t put out the scents, and since I can’t do the postures, Dragonbait says, I’m sort of a monotone speaker, and there are levels of subtlety I just don’t get. Fortunately, Dragonbait understands my tongue better than I do his. I think other saurials still find it easier to speak with other dragonish and lizardish creatures than with me.”

  “Perhaps their tongue is related to Auld Wyrmish, or the ancestral dragon languages. Saurials and dragons could share the same ancestors,” Mintassan suggested.

  “I think not,” Dragonbait retorted, emitting a fishy smell that just hinted at how insulting he found the suggestion. Alias translated the words and the emotion.

  Mintassan chuckled. “That’s the same reaction I got from Grypht.”

  “Who is this Grypht?” asked Jamal, tearing her attention away from her spiked tea.

  “A fellow blood,” Mintassan replied.

  “A what?” Alias asked.

  “Blood,” Jamal said. “That’s plane-hopper slang for professional traveler.”

  “Grypht sent Alias and Dragonbait down to Westgate to make an exchange of magic,” Mintassan explained. “He and his people are exiles from their own plane and live up north now. He’s a saurial like Dragonbait here.”

  “Except he’s ten feet tall and has horns all over his head,” Alias corrected.

  “He’ll always be little Grypht to me,” Mintassan said, with a chuckle. “Now, down to business,” the sage said rubbing his hands together. “Show me, please, what you’ve brought for me.”

  Dragonbait set the staff down on the table before the sage.

  Mintassan ran his fingertips along the staff. He sighted down its length. Peered into the little mouse skulls dangling from the top. Sniffed at the orange feather. Rapped it sharply against the floor. Squinted at the runes that spiraled down from the top to the bottom. “Definitely Netheril,” he declared. “Beautiful workmanship. A staff of the undead. What can you tell me of its provenance and pedigree? Did it come from the Great Desert?”

  “From Anauroch, yes,” Alias answered. “A saurial exploration party came across the slaughtered bodies of a Zhentarim patrol decaying in the dunes. The staff was among the corpses.

  “That fits, too,” the sage said, nodding. “The Black Network has stooped to tomb-robbing ever since their precious city was smashed. Well, I am quite satisfied.” He pulled a small box out from under the table and set it down in front of Alias. He turned the handle on the top and the sides fell away.

  A perfect blue crystal sphere glowed before Alias, bathing her in a blue light. The sphere floated and spun ever so slightly
an inch above a base of white jade carved in the shape of a twisting dragon.

  Alias shot a glance at Jamal, but the woman did not seem interested in the magic crystal sphere. The swordswoman looked over at Dragonbait, who squinted at the magic ball with his shen sight. “Nothing malefic,” the paladin reported.

  “I think that Grypht will be happy with this crystal ball,” Mintassan said. “It can find anyone in the Realms.”

  With no magical abilities of her own, Alias was unable to test the sphere’s reputed ability, but since Grypht had said all his dealings with Mintassan had been honorable ones and Dragonbait confirmed the magic was not evil, she gave a short nod. “We accept the trade,” she said evenly.

  Mintassan smiled and flipped up the sides of the box and twisted the lid back on. He looked up slyly at the swordswoman, noting, “There is, of course, one exception to the sphere’s abilities.”

  “I have a permanent misdirection shield cast on me,” Alias explained.

  “Grypht mentioned it, and of course I had to test it,” the sage said. “I struggled for hours trying to get the sphere to reveal you—without success. You didn’t even set off the alarms at my door when you entered the shop. Now that we’ve finally met, I suppose you’ll head right back to the Lost Vale.” Mintassan sighed and leaned forward to stare into Alias’s eyes. “Protected from magical scrying so only the lucky saurials have the pleasure of gazing on you.”

  “He must realize we don’t find you as attractive as he does,” Dragonbait said in Saurial.

  “He knows,” Alias said in Saurial. “He’s flirting with me.”

  “Really?” Dragonbait asked. “Do you think he’d make a good mate?”

  Alias ignored the paladin’s question and replied to the sage, “That’s our plan. As soon as there’s a ship going that way,” Alias said. “We may be stuck here a few days, though, according to the harbor master.”

  “Good,” Jamal said to Alias. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to retire to one of the spare bedrooms.”

  Alias wondered if Jamal was explaining her sleeping arrangements to protect her reputation or to let Alias know the field was clear.

  Jamal rose and began limping over to a staircase in the back of the workroom. She turned at the stairway and said, “Since you’ll be around a few days, you’ll have a chance to catch one of our performances. You’ll see what a great cheap hero you make.

  “I don’t want to be a cheap hero,” Alias called after her.

  “Too late,” Jamal called back as she pulled herself up the stairs by the railing. “I’ve already written the first act.”

  “I don’t want to be a hero, cheap or otherwise,” Alias insisted to Mintassan.

  “I don’t think you get a say in it,” the sage replied. “Anyway, there’s really nothing I can do about it. Jamal has total creative control over her theater. At least this time she’s picked someone easy on the eyes,” Mintassan noted with a grin.

  Dragonbait chuckled. Alias glared up at him and said, in Saurial, “I am not going to take on the Night Masks, the merchants of Westgate, or whatever cheap villains Jamal has in mind,” the swordswoman insisted.

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be a very good cheap hero,” the paladin reassured her.

  Four

  The Faceless

  Within the city walls of Westgate, but some distance from the neighborhood where Mintassan the Sage lived, a far larger gathering of people would soon be discussing the topics of Jamal, the fire, and the two newcomers.

  The room where they met was hidden deep beneath Westgate’s well-traveled streets. Long ago it had been protected from magical inquiries and priestly divinations, and over the years its entrances had been regularly relocated, the construction crews that performed these feats quietly slain to ensure secrecy. No long-lost crypt in the Fields of the Dead, nor dark-hearted shrine beneath the wreckage of Zhentil Keep had been as diligently protected. In time, the very secret nature of the place became its own protection. A place no one has seen, which cannot be detected supernaturally, must be a myth, so enforcers of the law, fortune hunters, and revenge seekers had long since ceased to search for the lair of the Night Masters, alleged leaders of the Night Masks, and the Night Masters’ lord—the Faceless.

  Yet myths and allegations are often true, and the Night Masters and the Faceless met in their secret lair to plan the activities of the Night Masks and to evaluate their successes and failures.

  These secret masters of their city were average-looking men and women. Most tended to the sprawling girth that marked success in those fields where the younger and less experienced can be convinced to do the physical labor. The Night Masters did not choose nervous fidgets or careless drunkards to join their number. On the surface above, they were shopkeepers, craftsmen, and lesser merchants, the sort of respectable citizens to whom no one gives a second thought. They cultivated this anonymity carefully, avoiding any flamboyance or ostentation.

  In their secret lair, they hid their surface identities. Before they entered the inner chambers, each Night Master donned a mask that covered his or her face from forehead to upper lip. The masks were made of white porcelain, with a black domino mask painted about the eye slits, and each was distinguished from all the others with a different golden glyph painted on the forehead. The glyphs designated the speaker’s portfolio within the organization.

  Since the masks did not cover the lips or jaws or hair or any part of the torso, the experienced eye could compare a beard or a mole or a head of hair or a physical shape or a certain article of clothing with that of some person in the outer world and have a fair idea of the identities of their fellow masters. Of course, the certainty of such knowledge was not absolute; a fake beard, a wig, make-up, magical enchantments, and other disguises could easily mislead. It hardly mattered, though, whether they knew each other or not. They were the ultimate brethren among their brotherhood of thieves and would never willingly reveal another’s identity. For one thing, to betray a member to an outsider would be an admission of the betrayer’s complicity. There were also other more horrible costs to betrayal, of which the Faceless made sure they remained aware.

  Their numbers varied according to the needs and whims of their lord, and at this time in Westgate’s history there were ten Night Masters. The glyphs on their masks identified three of them as general managers—Enforcement, Finance, and Noble Relations—and the remaining seven as regional managers—External Revenue, Harborside, Thunnside, Gateside, Parkside, Central, and Outside.

  All were now gathered around a great table hewn from a single block of obsidian, veined with gold. In the center of the table a small brazier crackled, giving off not only light, but also a welcome warmth, for the meeting place, now, even in the height of summer, was cool and damp. At the head of the table, on a dais as high as the table, was a throne of the same ebon material as the table. There sat the Faceless.

  The Faceless dressed like a judge, in billowing black robes with a thin strip of white silk draped over his shoulders. On his feet he wore black clodders, high-topped boots worn commonly by Westgate’s fishermen, and on his hands, white silk gloves, like a gentleman. He sported a wide-rimmed hat of dark black velvet. While all this was enough to give him a forbidding appearance, it was the Faceless’s mask that unnerved his followers the most.

  When the mask lay on a table it looked like a helmet of mesh chain covered in platinum coins struck with the glyph of Leira, the deceased goddess of illusion. No one but the Faceless ever saw the mask’s appearance, though, since once the Faceless donned it, the mask seemed to disappear, disguising the wearer at the same time. The disguise was of an astonishing and odd variety caused by a magical illusion.

  Everything between the Faceless’s hat and his robe blurred like a chalk painting at the very beginning of a rain shower. Anyone who glanced in the Faceless’s direction would conclude there was a face to be seen, but one saw nothing but a shifting pattern of colors, like a swarm of bees. The harder
one concentrated on trying to discern a face, the harder it became to see anything at all. Stubborn observers found that their eyes began to water and their heads began to pound with the effort.

  Most of the Night Masters believed the mask also altered the Faceless’s voice, for the sound of his speech was grating and metallic, though still able to convey emotions as subtle as annoyance or displeasure.

  None of the assembled Night Masters knew the Faceless’s identity. They could tell he was tall and male (unless other magic disguised his physical appearance further), and they suspected he was human. Anything else concerning their lord’s identity was pure speculation. The rewards for serving as a Night Master were great, and the members chose not to risk their positions by angering the Faceless with curiosity. If they suspected who their master was, they did not share it with each other. None of them knew the extent or nature of the Faceless’s networks of informants. They did know that those who lied in this chamber rarely made it out again.

  One of the more portly Night Masters, the glyph on his mask identifying him as the manager of the Gateside district, stood before his fellows and his lord, prompting himself from a list on a sheet of yellow paper. “The insurance money paid by the Gateside festhalls has increased to ninety percent, up from seventy-two percent, no doubt owing to the recent fires that have plagued nonpaying elements in the Outside district.”

  The Gateside manager’s tone was flat and emotionless, like the singsong of a sergeant-at-arms reading the charges of the hundredth petty pickpocket of the day. “The Ssemm supplies discussed two nights ago have been acquired and moved through a third party to Elturel, where the Vhammos family will purchase it in the name of the Free Traders. The indoctrination of young Haztor Urdo continues. He believes it’s all an exciting game, and doesn’t suspect we know his identity. We continue to experience difficulties from halfling agents throughout Gateside (similar to those experienced and reported by Harborside), most of which can be traced back to Lady Nettel’s employment of inordinate numbers of these vermin.” Gateside halted, double-checked his list, then offered the paper to the brazier, which greedily consumed it.