by Kate Novak
The city wall made more or less a half-circle around Westgate, but owing to a steep cliff in the northwest, it turned inward sharply, running along the top of the cliff until the cliff reached the shoreline. The Water Gate opened over this cliff onto a steep staircase and a path leading down to the Shore. While the Outside, the district of Westgate surrounding the city wall, was predominantly open grassland for grazing herd animals, with the stockyards of the leading merchants pressed against the city wall, the neighborhood of the Shore, wedged between the cliff wall and the sea, was a slum.
It was, as Victor had said, populated mostly by transients, unable to afford the silver for board and lodging within the city walls: drovers, day workers, and down-on-their-luck adventurers. The Shore offered flophouses for a few coppers a night, and food stalls in the neighborhood sold stale bread and bruised fruits and vegetables for less. Many of the inhabitants relied on the sea for added nourishment. As Alias made her way down the steep cliff staircase, she could see hundreds of them on the beach, digging for clams and crabs.
The buildings were cobbled together from lumber scavenged from broken-down carts and driftwood from shipwrecks. None of them looked as if they could withstand a serious storm. Lean-tos, tents, and tarps filled in the spaces between the buildings. Sewage meandered through fly-lined trenches to a creek, which spilled into the sea.
What with the steep staircase and the stench, Alias could understand why the watch did not make a regular patrol of the area. Although Finder had given her detailed memories of Westgate, she had no recollection of the Shore, beyond the fact of its existence. Not even the curious, adventurous Harper bard had come down here.
Despite her costume, Alias couldn’t have felt more out of place if she’d come down in a white coach pulled by six horses. People scurried ahead of her in fear, and she could feel jealous eyes following her down the street. It couldn’t be her hidden weapon people feared or her rags they envied, but something she couldn’t pinpoint.
From a low pen beside a ramshackle hovel came a vicious-sounding skronk. Alias peered into the pen. Inside was a mother pig and six piglets. Two of the piglets were fighting over a moldy cabbage stem. None of the piglets was plump (apparently there wasn’t even enough garbage to feed them), but the two piglets fighting were just a touch less scrawny than the other four who lay, like their mother, in an exhausted slumber brought on by too little to eat and no hope of more.
I don’t fit in because I look well fed, Alias realized, and willing to fight for my food if I get hungry again. The swordswoman slouched, shuffled her feet, and kept her eyes down in an effort to dispel her warriorlike appearance. She joined some people at a well and waited her turn for a scoop of water. After she drank, she sat down near a lean- to where three drovers were playing dice, with penny stakes.
As she stared up the cliff at the city wall, Alias could pick out the newer stone in the section that had been rebuilt after the corpse of the dragon Mist had collapsed on top of it eleven years ago. The wyrm had been enlarged by a magical spell at the time, and Alias shuddered, imagining how much damage the dragon must have caused when it toppled over the cliff and landed on the slum below.
She was wondering who had scavenged the ancient dragon’s skull when she noticed a lean but aggressive-looking young man approaching her. He wore a new tunic of brilliant green, and Alias thought he was handsome enough to serve one of the merchant houses, until he smiled and spoke. Only half of his teeth were still in residence, and his manner and his speech were too uncouth to recommend him to such a post.
“Ya jus’ get ta the city?” he asked her.
Alias nodded, keeping her eyes down.
“Gotta pay the visit tax,” he said.
“Not staying in the city,” she answered. “Sleeping under the stars.”
“Don’t matter. Gotta pay the visit tax. It’s a copper a night.”
“Suppose I don’t have a copper?” she asked.
“Then ya gotta stay out past the ’ill of Fangs, wit’ the beasts and goblins. Wanna be safe near the city, gotta pay the visit tax.”
Alias made an elaborate display of pulling the copper coin from her boots, secretly pleased that she’d managed to convince him she was just another victim. The man dropped her coin in a sack he wore about his neck. “Anyone else bother ya, tell ’em ya paid Twig,” he said, then moved off.
It wouldn’t be worth it, Alias thought, to bring him in for extorting a copper. She watched Twig “tax” the camping drovers, then move toward the hovels around the well. At each hovel he demanded coin for every inhabitant he saw. The tax was two coppers for those in a “real” house. Even the day workers who weren’t new to the region paid Twig, though their money was probably labeled a “residence tax” or “insurance.”
Rather than stop Twig, Alias wanted to get a feel for how far his dealings reached. The Night Masks, she realized as she followed Twig from a discreet distance, had found a way to draw blood from stone. Even if Twig collected for a tenth of the district and paid as much as a fifty percent cut to the Night Masters, he’d earn at least two gold a day, twice the salary Dhostar paid a watch guard, all that for no more labor than the asking, collecting, and, no doubt, the occasional act of violence.
Alias had no trouble keeping Twig’s bright green tunic in sight. He did not seem concerned that he might be followed. The watch didn’t come down here, and the inhabitants weren’t about to challenge the Night Masks. Alias kept waiting for some show of resistance, but no one made any trouble for Twig. After half an hour, the collector turned and made a beeline due west. Alias paused at the outskirts of the neighborhood and watched Twig cross an empty field. Across the field, in front of a thick woods, was Lilda’s, a large festhall with a reputation for tolerating rowdy customers.
Alias moved toward the woods and crept up on the building from the rear. One wing had suffered a recent fire. Scorch marks ran from windows up the plaster walls of the building, and charred bits of wood, the remains of the shutters, hung beside the windows. The smell of smoke was still strong. Piled in the rear were remnants of Lilda’s business, which someone had managed to rescue from the fire: scorched feather-filled ticks, bedsteads covered with soot, tapestries stained with smoke, a painting of a female sphinx reclining like an odalisque.
Recalling the arson of Jamal’s home, Alias wondered if the Night Masks had been involved in this fire, too. The damage here wasn’t extensive, but perhaps the thieves guild had meant only to frighten Lilda into making “insurance payments” more promptly, without actually destroying her lucrative business.
The sounds of hammering and sawing echoed inside the building. Lilda apparently had enough stashed away to cover emergency rebuilding.
Alias slid along the end of the burned-out wing and peeked around the corner. Twig stood on the front porch, shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot as another man, seated at a table, counted it out. The counter was a tall, skinny man with a long braid of gold hair hanging down his back. Twig’s boss, Alias guessed. He shoved some coin back at Twig and poured the rest into his swelling belt pouch. Twig’s cut was smaller than Alias had supposed; he received only a quarter of the take, one gold worth of copper coin, but that was still a lot for a few hours of unskilled “labor.”
After Twig left, his boss yanked a knife out of the porch floor boards and proceeded to whittle a small stick into a smaller stick. A few minutes later, a pair of children showed up with their collection. The pair were maybe twelve to fourteen years old, a brother and sister by the looks of them. They brought in somewhat more than Twig, but received the same quarter share. The boss whispered something to the girl, which Alias did not hear, but from the girl’s weak smile and uncomfortable squirm and the boss’s lewd wink, the swordswoman could guess the content. She fought off the temptation to blacken the boss’s winking eye, deciding it could wait until sometime later, but not too long from now. The girl noticed Alias watching from around the corner, and for a moment Alias worried that the
child might point her out to the boss. The girl remained silent, though. She pocketed her and her brother’s cut, then the pair ran back to the Shore. The man resumed his whittling.
The next collector came three whittled sticks later. He was a powerful-looking man, made mean and miserable by personal neglect and overconsumption of ale. The whittler growled at him for being the last one to arrive, as usual, and the collector snarled something back to the effect that the boss had nothing to do but sit on his rear end and wait. He turned his collection over, sullenly pocketed his take, and stomped into the undamaged section of Lilda’s festhall.
The boss rose, threw away his stick, sheathed his knife, and strode west, toward the road. Alias wondered if it would be possible to follow the money all the way up to a Night Master.
Guessing that Twig’s boss would take the road back into the city, the swordswoman dashed southward, climbed a fence, and cut through the Dhostar stockyards. Two yard hands approached her as she reached the southern stables, obviously intent on bringing her in for trespassing, but after identifying herself, they let her pass without further challenge.
Spotting her quarry heading farther south, the swordswoman cut through the Thorsar stockyards as well. She reached the city wall in time to see Twig’s boss heading toward her. She passed through Mulsantir’s gate just ahead of the man. As she strolled idly down the main street, the Night Mask passed her, and she followed him through the city. There was just enough foot traffic for her to blend in with the crowd, but not so much that she couldn’t keep her eye on her quarry’s blond braid. Twig’s boss entered a tavern within spitting distance of the Ssemm sheds. The tavern’s sign read “The Rotten Root,” and pictured a particularly malevolent-looking treant.
Alias adjusted her scabbard so that it could be seen, took a deep breath, and plunged into the tavern’s smoky darkness. Her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit common room just in time to see Twig’s boss being escorted into a private room in the back by a large man with gnoll-sized biceps.
Alias slid into a booth with a view of the back room door. The muscular man returned to his post a moment later. He wore an apron over his leather armor, leading Alias to believe he served not only as a guard for the Night Masks, but a bouncer for the bar as well.
None of the regulars seemed to give her a second glance, but Alias was quick to establish a reason for her presence. When the barmaid came by to take her order, Alias help up two fingers, telling the woman she was expecting a friend. Two ales looking suspiciously like harbor water arrived. As the swordswoman sipped at the beverage, she thought harbor water might have been tastier. The barmaid stood waiting for payment, and Alias handed her some copper from a pocket of her boot.
Alias nursed first one drink, then the other, with the diligence of a condemned man lingering over his last meal. Twig’s boss spent about five minutes in the back room, then returned to the common room. He ordered an ale and downed it without paying. He was either well-known enough to run up a tab, or the Night Masks had an arrangement with the tavern to serve free refreshments to their collectors. More importantly, Alias noticed that the collector’s belt pouch slapped nearly empty against his thigh.
So the watering hole was the next drop-off point for scam and protection operators. Alias remained while Twig’s boss disappeared out the tavern door.
Every few minutes, someone would arrive and approach the door to the private room and the guard would escort the person in or, with a jerk of his thumb, make him or her wait in the bar until the previous arrival left. Occasionally someone would leave the room looking chagrined, but most left smiling.
The visitors to the back room were mostly rough-looking men, a scattering of women, and a few children too young to be collectors themselves, no doubt working as runners for the collectors. Save for one dwarf, who muttered a string of curses as he entered and another as he exited, the visitors were all human.
After about a half hour, midway through her second, carefully nursed ale, Alias noticed that the guard let a visitor in before the last had left. Then it happened a second time. Either the master of the back room was keeping them for a reason, Alias realized, or, more likely, there was a back exit.
Alias gladly abandoned the last of her ale and left the tavern just as the guard was escorting a new arrival through the door. She headed right, down the street, counting the buildings until she hit a cross street, then made another right. She slipped down the alley and counted buildings until she’d reached the rear of the Rotten Root. She slowed as she approached.
Ahead of her she spied someone already watching the doorway from behind a stack of crates. Although the watcher had her back turned to the swordswoman, she seemed familiar. Alias slowed and increased her stealth.
“Hello, Alias,” Olive whispered, without even turning around. “Duck behind these crates before someone spots you.”
Alias stepped into the shadows behind the crates. “How did you know it was me?” she demanded.
“I saw you in the tavern common room, when I peeked in the front door. Since you were watching the front of the counting room, I thought I’d keep watch over the back. I saw you slip into the alley. Even at that distance I recognized your amusing drover’s costume. You’re not as noisy as your average human being, but you’re still not stealthy enough to sneak up behind me. How’s the house brew?”
“Miserable,” Alias reported. “They’ll have to improve it once we break up this operation, or lose their clientele.”
“I think we should hold off on breaking it up,” Olive said. “I followed my money from a young shake-down artist to a local tough to here. I’m very curious to see if I can follow this loot to its final resting place.”
“I had the same thing in mind,” the swordswoman admitted. “How about if I keep watch back here and you sit it out in the common room? Your cast-iron stomach could probably handle their ale better than mine.”
“I’ll give it a go, but they may not welcome halflings,” Olive remarked. “If the climate seems too frigid, I’ll be back in a few—”
Olive halted in midsentence and stepped deeper into the shadow, pulling Alias with her. The iron-clad back room door banged open, and someone within tossed out a teenaged boy.
The boy slid along the damp alley until he hit the wall of the building behind the bar with a thud. Two large men followed him out the door. They were dressed in leather armor like that worn by the muscle-man guarding the room’s front door.
One man closed the door firmly while the other grabbed the boy by his arms and pulled him up from the ground. The boy struggled, but the man gripped him more firmly and slammed him hard into the wall.
The boy let out a whimper, which made his attacker laugh. He slammed the boy twice more before presenting him to his companion. The second thug had just finished wrapping his knuckles with a leather band.
“Following the money’s just lost priority,” Alias said as she slid her sword from her scabbard.
“I can’t disagree,” Olive replied.
The second thug backhanded the boy once across the face before Alias managed to cross the alley. He would have noticed the swordswoman, but he was too engrossed in his mayhem against the boy to warn his companion of her presence. Alias brought the hilt of her weapon down on the back of the first Night Mask’s skull. He slid to the ground with his prisoner. Meanwhile Olive had run up to the boy’s other attacker and smacked him in the knees with a war hammer. The attacker crashed to the ground, and, with a blow from Alias’s sword hilt, joined his companion in unconsciousness.
Alias knelt beside the boy and helped him sit up. It looked as if the thugs had worked him over before they had brought him out to the alley. One of his eyes was nearly swollen shut, blood trickled in a thin stream from his mouth, and his uninjured eye appeared unfocused. “Are you all right?” the swordswoman asked. The boy waved his hand in his face as if to ward off a blow.
“He’s not going anywhere,” the halfling said. “Let’s get Brothers Bane a
nd Bhaal here trussed and hidden just in case someone else comes out,” she suggested as she pulled out a ball of thick twine and began hog-tying one of the Night Masks.
Alias sheathed her sword and dragged the thugs down the alley, stashing them in the well of a basement door. When she returned, Olive was helping the boy rise to his feet. From the way he hopped and leaned, it was obvious he’d injured a leg, too.
“Easy, child,” Alias said, holding the boy’s upper arm to steady him. “You’re safe now.”
“Na’ a chil’,” the boy retorted and shook off Alias’s grip, but he was so disoriented that he began to fall backward. As Alias steadied him, he insisted, “I jus’ nee’ a minute. I’ll be fine.”
Alias guided the boy back to their hiding place behind the stack of crates. After a minute of steady breathing, he seemed to regain his balance and his senses. He touched his sore jaw and let out a string of curses—an imaginative array of gods’ names coupled with parts of the human anatomy that might have been amusing were he not so young.
“So what’s this all about?” Olive prompted the boy, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the back door.
The boy shrugged. “Nothin’. My fault. There was some foolsilver in my payments, some bogus coins. They said I had to be made a ’zample for th’others.”
“Made an example? Who said that?” Alias demanded. “Who ordered those men to hurt you?”
