Masquerades

by Kate Novak

  Alias muttered a curse and turned over, pulling a pillow over her head in an attempt to rescue a few more minutes of sleep. The sun was shining outside, but Dragonbait was still cautious. When he rose, he picked up his sword before shuffling to the door. He then concentrated his shen sight on what lay beyond the door. Feeling rather foolish, he set his sword aside, slid back the bolt, and opened the door halfway.

  “Murk?” he said. Alias had tried to get him to pronounce some basic Realms words, but “what,” had been impossible, and the saurial’s “yes,” came out a sibilant hiss that sounded like a dissolving vampire caught in an open field at dawn. In the end, he answered everything with meaningless sounds like “murk,” relying on inflection to convey his meaning.

  A half-elf girl not yet twelve winters old stood outside the door. She wore a miniature version of the uniform the night manager had sported, a red-and-white tabard with black hose. The paladin wondered if she’d been orphaned or abandoned, as he knew children who worked as servants often were. Her shen-signature was the purest he had seen in Westgate, and he hoped it stayed that way.

  The girl’s eyes were at the same level as the saurial’s, but while his were encrusted with sleep, hers were wide-eyed with astonishment. Dragonbait repeated, “Murk?” and cocked his head in a manner that humans often found amusing.

  The girl remained speechless, but had the wits to hold out a small serving tray bearing two letters. Her hands shook as the saurial reached for the letters. Dragonbait was tempted to smile and pat her on the head to calm her, but realized that might have the opposite effect.

  Dragonbait picked up the letters and turned away to fetch a gratuity, but when he turned back with a few coins, the child was gone, the hallway empty. Dragonbait shrugged and shut the door.

  Alias had risen after all and was peeling off her chain mail. “I cannot believe you let me sleep in my armor,” she said testily.

  Dragonbait shrugged again. “You went out like a candle. I doubt I could have awakened you if I tried.”

  Alias snorted, “The best bed I’ve seen along the Inner Sea Coast, and you let me sleep in a steel nighty. Ouch!” She stretched out the kinks in her back. “I wonder what a hot bath runs in a place like this.”

  Dragonbait held up the two letters.

  “What’s that?” Alias asked.

  “I think you can afford a hot bath,” said the saurial, throwing the heavier of the two letters on the bed. It landed with a satisfying thump and jingle. Alias snatched up the letter and ripped it open. A few magical sparks danced from the paper, and belatedly Alias saw that it bore Mintassan’s sigil set into the blue sealing wax.

  Four gold coins slid out from the letter’s folds onto the bed. Alias leaned against a bedpost and read the letter aloud.

  “ ‘Lovely Alias and stout-hearted Dragonbait,’ ” she began, then looked up at the saurial. “How come I never get to be stout-hearted?”

  “How come I never get to be lovely?” Dragonbait parried.

  “Hmpph,” she said, and continued reading. “ ‘In the press of our business dealings last night, I neglected to thank you for aiding Jamal. She is an old and dear friend.’ I’ll just bet,” Alias muttered this last. “ ‘I would be heartbroken to see her charred to coal. Thank you. We are greatly indebted to you. I have arranged with the hostler of Blais House to turn all your charges over to my account. Please, accept this hospitality as a token of my gratitude.

  “ ‘I hope that your stay in Westgate lasts long enough to afford me the opportunity to speak with both of you at length in order to broaden my knowledge of saurials. Thank you once again for your courageous rescue. Yours sincerely, Mintassan the Sage. P.S. Ask for the pan-fried prawns for dinner—they are a taste treat.’ ”

  “Sounds like you have a fan,” the saurial said.

  “Me? It’s your brain he wants to pick. Probably trying to prove your people are related to tree frogs or something. He only wants me as a free translator.”

  “Alias, he’s a spellcaster. He can use magic to speak with me. If he claimed to need you to translate, he would only be using it as an excuse to hear you speak.”

  Alias furrowed her brow, but could think of no solid argument. “Hand me that other letter,” she demanded.

  Dragonbait held out the second missive by the edges, as if it were a dead thing he did not want to touch. Alias plucked it from the saurial’s grasp. The paper stock was far heavier than Mintassan’s stationery, and the watermarks gave it the look of a very thin slice of granite. The purple sealing wax was marked with the coat of arms of the Croamarkh of Westgate, the elected leader of the city’s council of noble and wealthy merchants.

  Alias sniffed at it. “Smells like money,” she joked.

  Dragonbait harrumphed. “Smells like corruption.”

  “In this city, it’s usually the same thing.” Alias slid her throwing dagger between the wax seal and the paper and unfolded the single sheet. “It says, ‘From the Office of the Croamarkh, Lord Luer Dhostar, to the adventurers herein identified as Alias and her lizardman companion. Greetings in the name of the Croamarkh of Westgate.’ ”

  Alias took a deep breath and read on. “ ‘Your recent activities against the criminal organization known as the Night Masks have come to our attention. We wish to discuss with you the possibility of continued employment in that capacity on our behalf. If you are interested in such, a manservant will escort you to our present location for discussions. Such dealings will undoubtedly be extremely profitable for you, and we strongly recommend you avail yourself of this opportunity. My servant is instructed to await a reply. Yours sincerely, Luer Dhostar, Croamarkh of Westgate.’ ”

  Alias let the missive drape delicately from one hand. “What do you think?”

  “Last night you wanted to take the first boat back. You said you didn’t want to be a cheap hero,” Dragonbait pointed out.

  “Ah, but the croamarkh isn’t offering us the job of cheap hero. He’s giving us the chance to be ‘extremely profitable’ heroes.”

  “We don’t need money.”

  “But I like to think my services are worth money,” Alias pointed out. “Lots of money. You’re just hurt that he called you a lizardman,” she teased.

  Dragonbait sniffed with disdain. “He sounds like the sort of merchant who thinks everything can be solved by throwing money at it. The Night Masks are not a simple problem.”

  “Could take us more than a few weeks,” Alias agreed cockily.

  Dragonbait laughed and shook his head.

  “Look,” Alias cajoled, “Grypht isn’t expecting us back immediately, and I know you miss CopperBloom, but it couldn’t hurt to hear what the man has to say.”

  “Maybe not,” the paladin replied dourly.

  “I’ll need a bath if I’m going to be presented to the croamarkh,” the swordswoman declared, hopping off the bed.

  Dragonbait pulled a guest bathrobe from the armoire and tossed it to her. There was a tiny rap on the door frame. Alias draped the robe over her arm and pulled open the door. A tray of fruit, muffins, and tea sat on the floor.

  “Complimentary breakfast,” Alias noted, looking down the hallway. “Where’s the server?”

  “She’s shy,” the paladin explained, picking up the tray, “but very sweet.”

  “Is she now?” Alias asked. It was rare that the saurial made that sort of compliment. “Well, you’ll have to introduce us when I’ve finished my bath.”

  “What about this servant waiting downstairs?” asked Dragonbait.

  “Dhostar said he’ll wait for our reply. Let him wait.”

  Alias slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. Dragonbait could hear her launching into a bawdy folk song involving dryads and paladins, as she went in search of the bath.

  Dragonbait picked up the croamarkh’s letter and sniffed. He couldn’t use his shen sight on a soulless object, and while he’d joked about the smell of corruption, the only scents he could detect were paper, ink, and wax. St
ill, the letter made him uneasy.

  “Westgate,” Alias explained to Dragonbait, while she stuffed down a breakfast roll and slipped into a clean tunic, “is ruled by a council consisting of representatives of all the major trading families, along with a cluster of minor houses. No one else gets a vote in council, not craftsmen, not shopkeepers, not tavern owners, no one, not even persons like Mintassan. Most of the council’s power is invested in the croamarkh. Luer Dhostar was elected by the council to three terms as croamarkh, before he was forced to yield to Lansdal Ssemm for a term. No one had really been happy with Lansdal, and during his term interfamily feuding and Night Mask violence was worse than ever. Last spring Luer Dhostar convinced the other families that only he could organize the chaos left by Lansdal, and he was returned to his former office.

  “Besides his duty to the city of Westgate, Luer Dhostar oversees a mercantile empire consisting of twelve ships, twenty-four stockyards and warehouses, nine caravans, fifty representatives in other cities across the Heartlands, seventy-five businesses and craftsmen under his direct control and twice that controlled in all but name, a castle, a host of servants, ten purebred Zakharan horses, three carriages, and one son.”

  “Something tells me you were briefed by Elminster before we left Shadowdale,” the saurial said when Alias had finished her monologue.

  “Yeah. You think the old sneak had some premonition I would need to be up on current affairs?” she asked as she pulled on her chain mail and buckled on her sword.

  The paladin did not answer as he buckled on his own. He didn’t like to think of all the things Elminster must know.

  As Alias and Dragonbait strolled down the hall, they spied the half-elven servant girl leaning over the railing, staring down at the lobby. Alias leaned against the railing beside her. The girl backed away in surprise, but her escape was blocked by the saurial. Alias turned back to look at her and smiled. “Are you the child,” she asked, “who delivered the letters and breakfast?”

  The girl gulped. “Mercy,” she said, nodding, then added, “My name is Mercy.”

  “Well, Mercy, it’s customary to wait for a tip,” Alias said, pressing, not a copper or silver, but a gold coin into her hand. “Part of this is your tip, but part is also payment for services to be rendered. I want you to keep a lookout on our room. If anyone goes into it who shouldn’t, I want you to tell me afterward. Will you?”

  Mercy gulped again and nodded, her eyes wide with fright. Alias could tell that the girl was glancing nervously at Dragonbait.

  “You look the way I must have the first time I saw Dragonbait,” Alias said. “I was so frightened, I threw a dagger at him. Fortunately, I missed.”

  “What did he do?” Mercy asked.

  “Well, he dropped the puppy he’d just rescued, and ran off.”

  “Do you like puppies?” the girl asked Dragonbait in astonishment.

  The saurial nodded solemnly.

  “I knew you two would have a lot in common,” Alias quipped. She looked back down the railing. “So, is that the servant from House Dhostar?” she asked, jerking her thumb in the direction of the foyer, where a man stood with his back to them.

  “His name’s Kimbel,” Mercy whispered, obviously anxious that the man not overhear her.

  “Kimbel what?” Alias asked.

  “Just Kimbel,” Mercy replied. “He doesn’t like puppies.” With that pronouncement the servant girl slipped around Dragonbait and made off down the corridor, disappearing up a back staircase.

  Dragonbait hissed, and Alias turned her attention to her companion. The paladin stood stock-still, with only the very tip of his tail twitching. He was glaring at Kimbel as if he might bore a hole through the servant with his eyes. Alias recognized the signs. His shen sight had detected something he did not like.

  She studied the servant’s back. Kimbel was a slender, almost spidery man. His hairline receded several inches, and what remained of the graying blond hair was pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of the neck, held in place by two long silver hairpins, which Alias guessed could be used as weapons in a pinch. His shirt, trousers, and vest were simply but expensively tailored, all in black. The vest was decorated with silver studs in a geometric pattern. On another man the outfit might have appeared dashing, but it hung too loosely on Kimbel’s spare frame.

  “I take it that not liking puppies is not Kimbel’s only failing,” she said in Saurial, grateful to have words that could not be overheard.

  Dragonbait rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. Alias could detect the just-baked bread scent of his anger and a whiff of the violetlike scent that he used to communicate danger.

  “What color evil are we talking here?” she asked.

  “Purple,” the paladin whispered, though he could not be overheard.

  Alias felt a knot in her gut. Purple evil was the most disturbing to her. Purple evil took pleasure in the pain of others. Purple evil liked to be the inflicter of that pain.

  Just then, Kimbel turned around and looked up at them. He wore pince-nez, with darkened lenses that hid his eyes, giving him an inhuman look.

  Dragonbait, Alias realized, would be very uncomfortable with this man as an escort. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea either. “We should accompany him anyway,” she said, “so you can check out the croamarkh with your shen sight.”

  Dragonbait nodded curtly, steeling himself to the task.

  Kimbel stood motionlessly, watching the pair descend the stairs and approach him. Alias spotted the trading badge of the Dhostar household pinned to the lapel of his vest, but it wasn’t until they stood directly before him that the servant showed them any recognition. Then he bowed very low at the waist, his back as stiff as iron. Alias sensed no respect in the servant’s action. The display was intended to prop up the facade of Kimbel’s gentility.

  When he stood erect again, Alias worked at suppressing a shudder. His clean-shaven but weak chin, and the flat eyes behind the darkened glasses, gave him a snakelike appearance.

  “Alias, I presume,” he said, his lip curling upward in an approximation of a smile. “I am Kimbel, servant to House Dhostar. I have been instructed to await your reply.”

  “We’ll speak to your master. Where can he be found?” Alias asked.

  “He is at the Watch Docks, overseeing the customs arrangements. I have a carriage waiting outside to take you to him.” He spun about and strode from the inn. Alias and Dragonbait followed at a deliberately leisurely pace.

  The carriage, pulled by four black horses, was a huge, black monstrosity that, though capable of holding eight comfortably, was unable to negotiate Westgate’s smaller streets. The house trading badge, a wagon wheel topped by three stars, was painted on the doors. According to the briefing Elminster had given Alias, the design granted by the Westgate city council to family Dhostar required the wheel color be tawny, but the ones marking the carriage had been gilded. Apparently Luer Dhostar liked to show off his political power.

  Dragonbait found the carriage ridiculous and would have preferred to walk or even run, but he wasn’t about to leave Alias alone with Kimbel. Before he would climb in, though, he studied the driver for a full minute, assuring himself that at least that servant harbored no evil intentions. He sat beside Alias, facing the front of the carriage.

  Kimbel folded himself into a corner facing them. Dragonbait, using ordinary vision, stared at him, trying to gather more information, but the servant sat rigid, making no attempt at conversation, betraying nothing of himself. Alias kept her eyes on the view outside the carriage.

  The city in daylight bustled with activity. In order to keep the main thoroughfares clear for carriages, the law required expensive and limited permits to load or unload wagons on those streets. To circumvent the fees, brute force had become the means of transport on the wider avenues, which were consequently crammed with milling legions of porters lugging boxes, urns, wicker baskets, crates, and passengers in riding chairs in an ever-milling dance. Added to the crush w
ere shopkeepers trying to hustle customers into their establishments and vendors pushing carts or toting backpacks and hawking the wares they offered.

  The carriage passed Mintassan’s, but there was no sign of the sage. At one cross-street Alias caught a glimpse of people gathered around a dancing minotaur. Down another she thought she saw a street theater group performing atop a hay wagon, but the carriage moved too quickly for her to notice if Jamal was among the actors.

  They came out to the Market Triangle, and Alias had a momentarily unobstructed view of the bay and the harbor, as the northern sections of the city sloped gently down to the sea.

  The harbor was a tapestry of sails attached to ships from all over the Sea of Fallen Stars, cogs from Aglarond and Thesk, red cedar galleys from Thay, caravels from the Living City and the Vilhon Reach, strangely carved crafts from Mulhorand and Chondath, and carracks from nearby Cormyr and Sembia. Westgate was a major port on the Inner Sea. It stood at the entrance to both the Neck, the channel leading to the Lake of Dragons, and the northernmost caravan route to the west. It was also one of the few cities that did not belong to a larger kingdom, so there were no national politics influencing the city’s trade with the outside world. Trade was the city’s reason for being.

  The carriage followed the road down the peninsula that sheltered the western half of the harbor from the bay and pulled to a stop at the end of the Watch Dock. The driver hopped down, unfolded the stairs, and opened the door.

  Kimbel hopped over the stairs, displaying a liveliness Alias suspected was meant to impress his master, then offered his hand to his charges. Alias accepted the servant’s help without thinking about what she knew of him, but Dragonbait hissed him back and hopped over the stairs unassisted.

  A great canopy had been erected before the Watch Dock warehouse, and a pole planted before it displayed the banners of those officials currently engaged in business there: the harbor watch’s, the customs inspector’s and, at the top, the croamarkh’s.