by Kate Novak
“Not everyone wants to live to be as old as you, Durgar,” Mintassan taunted.
Durgar smiled coolly at the sage. He held up the note Alias had left for him at the tower. “This door is the entrance to the alleged Faceless’s lair?” he asked Alias.
The swordswoman nodded. “I obtained this key from a Night Mask,” she explained, handing over the magical key that Melman had given her. Briefly she described how she, Dragonbait, Olive, and Victor had explored and then been expelled from the Faceless’s lair. Just as she had before, she omitted any mention that Victor had also had a key and had been in the Faceless’s lair before she’d arrived.
“This site is now under the jurisdiction of the watch,” the priest declared. “As such, you may not explore it without an official escort. And since I neither expect nor will allow any of my own people to attempt any magical entry that might endanger their health, we will wait until low tide, when the door can again be opened.”
“That won’t be until hours after midnight,” Mintassan growled.
“We can’t get in, they can’t get in,” Durgar pointed out. “I plan to station men in hiding about the bridge and the shore. Perhaps we will catch some Night Masks attempting to enter.”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Alias argued. “As elaborate as the water trap was, I can’t imagine that it didn’t also include an alarm to warn the Faceless, wherever he might have been at the time.”
“Well, we shall see,” Durgar said. “If, a half hour after low ebb, no one has appeared, then I shall go in with my men. I’d appreciate your presence at that time as guides,” he said, addressing both Alias and Dragonbait.
“And can I come, too?” Mintassan asked, imitating a schoolboy begging a favor of an adult.
“If you choose to bring another advisor,” the priest said to Alias, eyeing Mintassan somewhat disapprovingly, “that’s your business. You, though, woman,” he addressed Jamal, “have no business here.”
“Jamal’s advice, Your Reverence, has been crucial in helping me locate this lair,” Alias argued.
“That may be,” Durgar replied, “but, as she is not known for her discretion, she is not welcome. As you will recall from your discussion yesterday with the croamarkh, your employer, there are more serious aspects to these investigations than feeding the curiosity of theatrical vagrants.”
“Theatrical vagrant. I like the sound of that,” Jamal said with mock indignation. “Certainly a step up from being a lackey to the likes of Haztor Urdo.” She sneered.
Durgar’s eyes narrowed, but he did not reply to the actress’s implied insult.
“We’ll be back at low tide,” Alias said. Mintassan reached for her hand, no doubt prepared to whisk the two women and the saurial away with magic, but Alias said, “I’d like to walk.” She proceeded down the bridge with Jamal at her side.
“Very well,” the sage sighed, and took a position alongside Dragonbait, following the two women.
As they strode through the streets, Mintassan began expounding on the varying legends about quelzarns. Dragonbait listened intently, eager to learn all he could about a creature he might battle again, but Alias drifted back a few paces to apologize to Jamal for Durgar’s insistence that she be left out.
“Don’t give it a second thought. I certainly haven’t,” the actress reassured her. “Besides, I’ll squeeze the story of your expedition out of you later.”
Alias felt another twinge of guilt, reminded of how she’d kept secret the croamarkh’s key. The loyalty she felt she owed Luer Dhostar as an employer remained intact only because she hoped, for Victor’s sake, that the croamarkh had a good reason for possessing the key to the Night Masters’ lair. She felt a stronger loyalty, though, to Jamal, and not just for all the advice the woman had given her. She was still haunted by the phantom memories of a mother who looked just like the actress. In addition, the connection Jamal had to Finder Wyvernspur made Alias feel a certain warmth for her. She wanted something to make up for the key that stood between them.
“Lord Victor’s invited me to a masquerade ball tomorrow night,” she confided. “Dragonbait and I.”
“My goodness, how egalitarian,” Jamal said with a grin. “I wonder what he’s playing at?”
Alias shook her head. “He’s not playing at anything. He just likes my company.”
“A likely story,” Jamal retorted, her tone laced with dramatic suspicion.
“I suspect I’ll need a fancier gown from all Victor said about this event.”
“Definitely,” Jamal agreed. “Fortunately, I know a dressmaker who owes me several favors. Why don’t we just pop into her shop now?”
The two women excused themselves from the company of the sage and the saurial and made their way down a side street.
Jamal’s dressmaker was an elven woman called Dawn, who greeted Jamal with a suspicious look. She broke into a string of expletives when the actress explained Alias’s needs and time constraints. Jamal insisted that a designer of her talents was surely up to the challenge.
The elf eyed Alias critically for several moments. Finally she said, “The shoulders. None of these Westgate witches can compete there. Lady Nettel forty years ago, but none of the wilting lilies of this generation. We’ll leave the shoulders bare.”
“How will the dress stay up?” Alias asked.
“Elven magic,” Jamal chuckled.
For the next half hour the swordswoman fidgeted through measurements, pinnings, and some rather rude appraisals of her features. At last Dawn announced that Alias was free to go. Providing the swordswoman came by tomorrow for a final fitting before noon, the gown would be ready an hour before the ball.
“Her scabbard belt will spoil the gown’s lines. She’ll need a baldric for her sword,” Jamal informed the elf. “You were planning to wear your sword, weren’t you?”
“In this city, I wear it everywhere,” Alias confirmed as she studied the dozens of masks that lined the walls of the shop. For Dragonbait she picked out a half-mask covered in feathers and for herself a simple full face done in glazed porcelain. The mask’s arched eyebrows seemed to express exactly how she was beginning to feel about all the twists and turns her visit to this city had taken.
“This is actually getting exciting,” Jamal laughed as she and Alias left the shop and made their way through Westgate’s fog-bound streets. “It reminds me of a song Nameless sang about the Westgate nobs—something about battles at the balls.”
“Their battles are fought at the ball,” Alias corrected, in measured rhythm. She knew the song perfectly well, though she had never known before that Finder had sung it about Westgate. She turned to Jamal and spoke as openly as she dared. “I’m so glad we’ve met. I’m glad Finder knew you, glad that I got to know you, too. I’m going to bring down the Faceless for you, Jamal. I promise.”
The actress looked taken aback for a moment, but then she smiled and draped her arm around the swordswoman’s shoulders. “I appreciate that,” she said, giving Alias’s shoulders a friendly squeeze. “I think, though, that you look exhausted. You should get some rest before you throw yourself back into the fray.”
Back at Blais House, Alias found she could hardly keep her eyes open as she took her leave of the actress. Leaving Mercy with instructions to wake her at midnight, the swordswoman retired to her room to nap. Dragonbait was already there sleeping.
By the time the sandbar was uncovered again, the fog had cleared. The crescent moon shone brightly on the untrampled approach to the Night Masters’ lair. It was the perfect secret entrance, Alias thought. The tide washed away all signs of the Night Masters passing after every meeting.
There had been no sign of any Night Masters approaching the site, despite the fact that, according to Melman, this would be the night of their regular meeting. The Faceless had learned of their trespass, Alias realized, and had warned his followers. The Night Masters and their lord would elude Durgar this night, but soon much of their wealth and the magical source of the
ir obscurement would be in the hands of the watch.
With a keen sense of satisfaction, Alias showed Durgar how to use the key to the lair, and she, Dragonbait, Mintassan, and twelve armed members of the watch followed the priest into the dark tunnel by the River Thunn.
Half the watch carried hooded lanterns, and Mintassan produced a small silver wand, which glowed with a magical light.
As the party moved into the conference room, Dragonbait tapped on the table. “Melman’s mask is missing,” he said in Saurial.
“Damn,” Alias whispered. A leaden feeling of failure settled over her. “The Faceless must have some other way in,” she said to Durgar, and she explained about the missing mask. “He might have come in the way we left, through the sewer,” Alias suggested.
“Or used magic,” Mintassan pointed out.
Dragonbait pressed the panel that operated the secret door. Alias nearly ran through the secret passage. She hesitated only a moment at the chasm over the sewer to check with her sword that the bridge was still intact and crossed over the sluggish water below.
Dragonbait clucked with annoyance at her impatience. He remained behind to present the invisible bridge to Durgar, Mintassan, and the watch. Dragonbait and the sage stood guard as the watch crossed, but the quelzarn did not appear. As the others trooped up the next passage, the sage stood looking over the chasm’s edge with disappointment. Dragonbait had to tug on his sleeve to get him to follow the others.
“I guess a watched quelzarn never surfaces,” the sage said as he continued on.
They found Alias in the empty treasure room, leaning dejectedly against one wall, staring at the shards of the mirror that had been mounted on the wall. Save for the broken mirror, the room was stripped of all trace of the Night Masks’ treasure. The chests, the weaponry, the wands and staves, the iron golems, the table holding the tree of masks—all were gone.
“The mirror,” Alias muttered. “I never thought about the mirror. As if the Faceless would need a mirror to check how his hair looked before his meetings. I’m such an idiot.”
Mintassan bent over and picked up a larger sliver of the broken, silver-backed glass. “Nice workmanship,” the sage commented. He held it out to Durgar. “Late monarchical period. Legend has it that there were several of these magical portal mirrors in Verovan’s castle. They disappeared in the looting that followed his death.”
“So all the Faceless had to do was pop through the mirror and carry the stuff back to wherever he has another mirror,” Alias noted.
“No,” Mintassan corrected, “all he had to do is order the iron golems to carry the stuff through. Much easier.”
Alias glared for a moment at the sage.
“Then, unable to carry the mirror through itself,” the sage continued, “the Faceless had to smash it so no one could walk through it and discover where he’d gone.”
“Well,” Durgar said, “while I’m willing to concede this might have been a meeting place of Night Masks and even a hoarding place for their ill-gotten goods, I can see no evidence before me of any creature known as the Faceless.”
“There is a Faceless,” Alias snapped. “Mist confirmed it when we spoke with her.”
“Mist? Ah, yes. The dead dragon. She might have been lying to you. Dragons will do that, you know,” Durgar pointed out.
“Mist’s skull is gone,” Dragonbait noted, peering into the pool, which had lately held the earthly remains of their former foe.
“I think, to be on the safe side,” the priest murmured, “we should leave before the tide turns and traps us down here.”
Durgar ushered the watch back down the stairs toward the sewer, but Alias remained behind, pacing the cavern floor with a barely concealed fury. There would be no end to the evil the Night Masks brought to Westgate unless she captured the Faceless. She thought of the rag man who had died when the Night Masks burned Jamal’s home, and the halfling who’d been killed in the explosion in the warehouse, and all the other people who were dead because of the thieves guild. With his minions and his smoke powder, the Faceless would continue to terrorize the whole city—no doubt he considered himself master of Westgate. Now he was somewhere safe, with all his power still intact, laughing at her failure. Alias let loose with a tremendous shout, a battle-cry from the north, a call for vengeance.
Durgar, who’d just looked back to ask the adventuress if she were leaving with them, took a step back in surprise, nearly tripping down the stairs. Mintassan felt his blood run cold from the emotion he sensed emanating from the swordswoman.
The saurial touched Alias’s tattoo, kindling the link they shared, trying to infuse some of his inner calm into her wild spirit.
The warrior woman shook herself out of her rage. “I will find him again!” she declared. “He cannot hide from me much longer.”
Seventeen
Accusations
The Faceless looked over his nine surviving minions, and from behind his two masks, one of porcelain, the other of coins, he smiled. They had responded well, and promptly, to his summons. Each had received, from a messenger they’d never seen (nor would ever see again), a single scrap of paper with the code word “kudzu.” They all knew what this meant. It had happened on rare occasions before, when some local activity near the bridge prevented them from using the entrance to their lair in secret. They were to meet at a different site, but at the same time as usual. So the Night Masters’ business continued uninterrupted while Durgar and his watch were occupied examining a lair that had since been pillaged and abandoned.
Two Night Masters who lived near the bridge had apparently detected the watch’s interest in the sandbank and were now informing the others in hushed whispers. They were like nervous cattle milling in the path of an approaching storm, the Faceless reflected. They needed only that sharp crack of lightning to turn them into a stampede. The Faceless was prepared to be that lightning.
The Night Masters’ lord sat at the head of a wooden table, in a tavern that had closed for business two hours earlier. Behind him stood two rows of dragon-headed iron golems, arranged like obedient troops, to remind the others of the power he commanded. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the tabletop.
First the stick, the Night Masters’ lord thought. He began the meeting by tossing Melman’s mask on the table. The glyph that labeled it as Gateside’s had been scratched off the porcelain. “Gateside is dead,” he announced. The effect on the assemblage was immediate. To the Faceless, their fear and uneasiness was palpable … and exquisite.
Now the carrot, the Faceless prompted himself. “I have at this time no plans to turn the management of his district over to anyone else. It might be better, I think, to divide his duties and his income among those of you who remain.” A tingle of excitement passed though the Night Masters. It was a great risk, being a Night Master, but the rewards were what made the risk worthwhile.
And finally the challenge: “Before Gateside died,” the Faceless declared, “he betrayed us to Alias the Sell-Sword. Before his betrayal, this Alias was nothing more than a mercenary, a trumped-up member of the watch. In betraying us, though, Gateside made her into exactly what he feared her to be—an enemy capable of destroying our organization.”
The Faceless paused, letting his words sink in. It took his minions a few moments to shift their thoughts from their own greed to their own self-preservation. He ignored their impassive masks, but studied instead the pursed lips, the clenched jaws, the trickle of sweat along the cheek of Finance Management. Aside from fearing the loss of their wealth and freedom, some of them, he knew, had a childlike terror of being killed by this red-headed witch.
After a few moments, the Faceless continued. “I had not expected Gateside to betray us.” It was an admission that he was, after all, only human, but one that also laid the blame squarely on the deceased. “Once I was made aware of his betrayal, I did everything in my power to keep the damage to a minimum. Our secret identities remain unthreatened.” It was important to make them aw
are that he alone had preserved them from their enemies.
“The loss of a secure meeting place is a minor loss. Our treasury and our armory remain in our possession.” Now to give them blood, the Night Masters’ lord thought. “This swordswoman has lunged at us with all she had,” the Faceless growled, “but we have parried her attack. Now it is time for our riposte.”
Around the table, heads bobbed up and down in agreement.
“It is time to show this mercenary witch and all the people of Westgate that we are the true commanders of this city. It is time to let the merchant nobles know they cannot simply hire someone to free them from our rule.”
Smiles of satisfaction beamed from the Night Masters.
Finally, the Faceless thought, it’s time to reveal my plan. “I propose,” he declared, “that we use our long-hoarded troop of magical warriors in a single strike that will end the career of Alias the Sell-Sword and at the same time break the power of the merchant nobles once and for all. In light of Melman’s betrayal, I will not go into the details of my plan, for security reasons. Are there any questions at this point?”
There should have been questions. Seven years ago, when the current Faceless had managed to wrest the title and power from the doppelganger who’d created this guild, there would have been questions. There had been at least three Night Masters then whose ability to reason, and consequently their power, had been strong enough to argue with him. Over the years, though, the current Faceless had skillfully eliminated these challengers. Melman had been the last. With his demise, there was no one left who would voice what the others hardly dared think, no piece of grit around which a pearl of wisdom might form.
Last of all, the Faceless thought with a cynical grin, display for them an illusion of their power and choice. “I call then for a vote, allowing me the use of these resources”—he motioned to the golems—“to use at my discretion.” He pulled a short dagger from his belt and held it out. The blade glistened with a drop of greenish ichor. There was a sharp collective intake of breath from the Night Masters. All wondered if another compatriot would perish at this meeting.
