Masquerades

by Kate Novak

  “Castle Dhostar isn’t in the city. We’re latecomers to the city, here for only three generations. When Father decided to build our family’s castle, he decided it was more important to use the land we owned in the city for our warehouses. So we built out to the west. You can see how the city’s starting to expand in that direction beyond the walls.”

  “Can you see your castle from here?” Alias asked.

  Victor put his hands on Alias’s shoulders and turned her to face westward. Dragonbait’s tail twitched nervously. Alias did not like being touched by strangers. To the paladin’s surprise and relief, she did not shake off the young man’s hands or growl at him.

  Victor stood directly behind her and pointed over her shoulder. Alias looked out with attentive interest. “Follow that line of islands there, to that forested bluff. Just behind that is Castle Dhostar.”

  “Yes, I can see it,” Alias said.

  “I often come up here to think,” the merchant lord said. “Well, really, to dream.”

  Alias leaned her head back against Victor’s chest to look up at his face. “What do you dream about?” she asked with a smile.

  Victor gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I dream about what I’ll do should I find Verovan’s treasure hoard.”

  “Verovan’s treasure?” Alias asked with a teasing laugh.

  “Yes. About a hundred twenty years ago, Westgate was a monarchy ruled by an incompetent tyrant, King Verovan. He nearly bankrupted the city with his excesses and destroyed it with his intrigues. He fancied himself a great boatman, and challenged the other rulers of the coastal cities to a race. The city coffers couldn’t cover the cost of hiring the boat and team Verovan wanted—a windjammer with blood-red sails, crewed by Turmishmen. So Verovan passed a grain tax, clinching his unpopularity with everyone. On the day of the race—”

  “On the day of the race,” Alias interrupted, “Verovan’s crew set a course for a rocky shoal, then teleported away, leaving Verovan to fend for himself. He couldn’t. The boat was wrecked on the shoals, and Verovan was presumed drowned. Some people speculated that the ‘Turmishmen’ were really Red Wizards of Thay who avenged themselves on the tyrant for his intrigues against their nation. The city’s leading merchants led a revolt before Verovan’s son could be crowned. A mob stripped the royal castle bare. The patriarch of the merchant house of Vhammos moved his family into the castle, and he and the other merchants took charge of governing the city.”

  Victor gave the swordswoman a puzzled look.

  “I was born in Westgate,” Alias explained with a sideways look at Dragonbait. The saurial was enjoying the view, watching a round ship from Sembia, riding low in the water, try to maneuver into a dock across the way. “I know all about Verovan. He was real. His treasure, though, is a fable, like the stories about the liches that live in Westgate’s sewers or the sea serpent that lives in its harbor.”

  “You forget you’re dealing with a merchant,” Victor said. “The books, you see, do not balance. The sum total of everything removed from the royal castle does not even approach the vast amounts of wealth that ever went in. Verovan skimmed a share of every fee and tax the city ever collected, and he bought valuable pieces of magic and art that disappeared into the castle. He never purchased anything with his own money, but with the city’s, and he left scores of debts for things he’d ‘purchased.’ ”

  “So, you believe in the magic door?” Alias teased.

  “What door?” Dragonbait asked.

  Alias turned her attention to the saurial, who had not seemed to be paying attention to the conversation.

  “There’s supposed to be an invisible bridge leading away from one of the castle’s towers,” the swordswoman explained to the saurial. “On the other side of the invisible bridge, there’s supposed to be to an invisible portal. Verovan’s hoard is supposed to be behind that portal.” With a darker tone, Alias concluded, “Guarded by fearsome monsters. No sage, mage, or priest has been able to find it, though it’s said that the Watch has on occasion found a body lying at the base of one or other of the castle’s towers.”

  “I’ll remember, when I find the treasure, that you were a disbeliever,” Victor threatened with a grin.

  Alias laughed again. “So, in your daydreams, what do you do with this hoard of wealth when you find it?”

  Victor turned away and looked back across the city. “I make Westgate the greatest city in the Realms,” he answered with vehemence. “Greater even than Waterdeep. Clear out the Night Masks so people can stroll the streets at night. Build a second city wall farther out so people can expand their businesses and households. Build a navy so we can protect our ships from pirates. Build a library so scholars would come here to live, and an opera house to bring in bards and musicians. Run irrigation to the lands south of the city, with water from the River Redden, so we never have to worry about droughts.”

  “They all sound like good plans,” Alias said.

  “Yes.” Then he looked back at her with a sly smile and said, “Of course, if a certain someone, who was, after all, born in Westgate, would agree to help my father and me, I wouldn’t have to discover Verovan’s treasure first to get rid of the Night Masks.”

  Alias chuckled at the smooth way the merchant had shifted the conversation back to his father’s offer of employment. “Well, since a certain someone doesn’t think you’ll be finding that treasure anytime soon,” Alias replied, “and does think you should do something about the Night Masks in the meantime, I guess that someone had better agree to help out.”

  Victor turned about and grasped both of Alias’s hands in his own. “You’ll help, then? That’s wonderful. Father will be so pleased. He won’t show it, but he will be pleased.”

  “And you, Lord Victor?” Alias asked. “Are you pleased?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” The young merchant squeezed her hands to emphasize his point, then released them suddenly, flushing with the realization of the liberty he’d taken. “And Dragonbait?” he asked suddenly, turning to the saurial. “You’ll help, too?”

  “Tell him what we agreed,” the paladin said to Alias.

  “Dragonbait must return north soon,” Alias explained. “He won’t be working for the croamarkh, but he will help me until he goes.”

  “I see, “Victor replied. “Well, I’m grateful for all the time you can give us,” the merchant said to the saurial.

  Dragonbait nodded politely.

  A shiver ran down Alias’s back. Even though, as Dragonbait had pointed out, she had other friends here, in her whole life she had never been long separated from the paladin. She studied Victor’s face as he took one last look over the city, and felt slightly reassured. With the earnest, handsome merchant lord as one of those friends, Westgate might not only be less lonely but more exciting. Still, a sense of dread lingered in the pit of her stomach. In her first year of life, she’d defeated many powerful and evil beings, yet Dragonbait had always been there to back her up. Now, she realized, she had just possibly committed herself to battling the Night Masks alone.

  Seven

  Street Theater

  The adventurers and their new ally climbed back down the lighthouse. In the plaza stood an open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two yellow mares. An old man, dressed in the black and tawny parti-colored livery of House Dhostar, held the halter of one of the horses. Although the Dhostar trading insignia emblazoned the side of the small black carriage, the insignia was tawny like the horses, not gilded.

  “It’s not as showy as my father’s,” Victor pointed out, “so perhaps you wouldn’t mind allowing me to drive you back to your inn?”

  “Well, I suppose,” Alias agreed with a feigned reluctance. She allowed the merchant to hand her up to the single seat. Victor got in on the other side, and Dragonbait squeezed in beside Alias.

  The old man released the horses as Victor snapped the reins. The carriage started down the street at a brisk pace. Although they were crowded and the ride was somewhat bumpier tha
n the one they’d experienced in the croamarkh’s carriage, the adventurers felt much more relaxed in Victor’s company, and therefore cheerier.

  “I have other duties I must return to soon, but perhaps, if you haven’t made other plans,” Victor said, as cautious as a man creeping up on a sleeping beholder, “we could have dinner together.”

  “Dinner? What sort of dinner?” Alias asked.

  “Nothing formal like a banquet or anything,” Victor explained. “Just soup and sandwiches while we discussed strategy. You, me, and Dragonbait if you wish. We can talk about where to start making your assault on the Night Masks. I’ve been keeping track of some of their crimes, the ones that are reported, anyway. They hardly ever hit near the market surrounding the Tower, for fear, I presume, of the watch, but I’ve noticed of late they’ve been preying more heavily on the Gateside district. Whoa!” Victor pulled the horses up sharply as he turned the curve onto Westgate Market Street.

  A crowd of people jammed the street. People on foot could negotiate through, but not the carriage. There were already two closed carriages and a dragon cart loaded with kegs of ale stopped in the traffic as the high-strung carriage horses and huge-but-gentle draft horses balked at pressing further into the mass of people. As Victor began backing the carriage so that he could take it down a side street, Alias and Dragonbait peered ahead to discover the reason for the gathering.

  The crowd, it turned out, was an audience. In the plaza in front of the House of the Wheel, the local temple of Gond, was a street theater troupe performing atop the temple stairs.

  “It’s Jamal’s troupe,” the paladin said.

  “Are you sure?” Alias asked. “I don’t see her.”

  Dragonbait nodded.

  Alias laid her hand on Victor’s arm. “I know you have to get back to your business, but do you mind very much if we stay and watch this?”

  “There’s a novel idea,” the young merchant said with amusement. He eased the horses forward, nudging people aside until the carriage was only thirty feet from the stairs. Dragonbait stood on the carriage step and Alias and Victor made themselves comfortable. Looming over the heads of the other spectators, the three had an excellent view of the performance.

  The performers included actors and puppeteers and musicians. At center stage stood an actor in a black cloak and a floppy black hat with a veil of coins hanging from the hat’s brim. All about the actor puppeteers pushed and pulled on sticks to manipulate the limbs and heads of life-sized puppets. In the eastern style of puppeteering, the puppeteers wore white garbs and hoods and remained on the stage with their charges. A man seated to one side strummed on a yarting. He was accompanied by three youths, two boys and a girl, with a collection of percussion instruments and noisemakers.

  A hawk puppet made of black felt, with a droopy beak and sad, bloodshot eyes, fluttered to center stage and perched in a nest mounted on the shoulder of one of the puppeteers. The coin-veiled actor held out a hand in front of the hawk. The puppet coughed, and coins popped out of its mouth into the actor’s waiting hand. When the coins stopped coming, the actor rapped the hawk puppet with a wooden stick. The stick was split at one end so it would make a satisfying whack without really dealing any damage. The hawk puppet’s eyes rolled about in its head to the sound of the yarting being struck on the side. Then the hawk began coughing up more coins. Each time it stopped, the actor rapped it and its eyes rolled and the yarting thrummed. The crowd burst out in laughter and hooting jibes.

  “I don’t understand,” Alias said as Victor chuckled beside her.

  “The actor in the coin hat,” Victor whispered, “represents the Faceless—”

  “The Night Masks’ leader,” Alias added, remembering their discussion at the Watch Dock.

  Victor nodded. “The black hawk is the symbol of House Guldar. Their patriarch, Lord Dathguld, has bloodshot eyes. He’s supposed to be paying through the nose for protection.”

  Two more puppets, guided by their puppeteers, joined the hawk puppet. One puppet was a giant blue hand festooned with mealy corn cobs—representing the trading badge of the merchant family Thorsar. The other puppet was a cyclops head with a yellow eye—like the trading badge of family Urdo. Three black-cloaked actors pushed themselves between the puppets. These actors wore domino masks to signify they were agents of the Night Masks.

  The Faceless held his stick up like a baton. The Night Masks and the puppet merchants came to rapt attention. The Faceless waved his stick as if he were conducting a collection of chamber musicians. The first Night Mask plucked a tail feather from the House Guldar hawk, who squawked and rolled his eyes. The giant hand representing House Thorsar grabbed the feather from the Night Mask.

  Victor whispered into Alias’s ear, “Rumor has it that House Thorsar purchases all the goods the Night Masks steal from family Guldar.”

  On the stage, the second Night Mask ripped a corn cob off the Thorsar puppet, which squeaked like a mouse. The Night Mask fed the corn to the cyclops head of family Urdo.

  “And family Urdo buys everything the Night Masks steal from family Thorsar?” Alias asked.

  Victor nodded.

  The third Night Mask tore a golden hair from the head of the cyclops, who roared, “Ow, ow, ow!” The Night Mask ran the cyclops’s hair back to the beginning of the line and wove it into the hawk’s nest—family Guldar buying the stolen goods of family Urdo.

  Then the whole cycle began anew. The actions continued so smoothly that Alias was reminded of the figures of the mechanized water clocks made in Neverwinter. Every time a Night Mask plucked or handed over a piece of a puppet, the musicians sounded an amusing percussion noise and the puppets cried out. As the actors began to work faster and faster, the noises almost became a tune and the crowd cheered with delight.

  Victor continued chuckling, and Alias could smell the vanilla scent of Dragonbait’s amusement. She even caught herself grinning as the precision of the humorous movements and noises grew to a crescendo.

  A fourth puppet drifted onto the stage, a ghostlike woman in gauzy white robes and tangled white hair. As it observed the fleecing of the merchants, it wailed and moaned piteously. Its cries grew louder and louder, until the merchant puppets retreated. The Night Masks turned as one on the wailing woman. They pulled out sticks and tried to smack at her, but she managed to stay just out of their reach. Then one of the Night Masks pulled out a torch, actually a stick ending in red, yellow and orange streamers, and set fire to the stage, symbolized by having the puppeteers wave bits of red fabric about the wailing woman.

  It finally occurred to Alias who the wailing woman was, and she realized what was going to happen next only moments before the Alias actress appeared on the stage.

  The actress portraying Alias was too young—just a teenager, and to suggest a more mature figure she had stuffed something beneath the tunic she wore. The tunic had been painted over with a pattern of chain mail. The girl’s hair had been badly hennaed, but the blue makeup on her sword arm, and the red cape left no doubt she was meant to be the swordswoman. As the crowd cheered her doppelganger’s appearance, Alias felt an urge to cover herself so she would not be recognized.

  The Night Masks tried to block the Alias on the stage from rescuing the wailing woman, but she made short work of them, knocking them out with a series of improbable, stylized kicks. The Night Masks rose and shook themselves off as the crowd applauded the Alias character. Then the Night Masks pulled out sticks and surrounded their opponent, but she kicked them down again. They rose yet again, but this time pantomimed running away. The heroine grabbed the cloak of the nearest Night Mask and gave a sharp tug. The cloak came away, leaving the actor naked but for a codpiece painted with a spider. The crowd howled its approval as all three Night Masks fled the stage.

  The last scene played out with the Faceless quaking in fear as Alias strode toward him, but the heroine was distracted by the cries of the wailing woman. As she stomped out the ‘flames,’ the Faceless made his escape. With the wa
iling woman puppet on her arm, the actress playing Alias struck a dramatic pose and shouted, “Tyranny shall not prevail!”

  The crowd demonstrated its approval with shouts and applause and foot stomping. The puppeteers grabbed tambourines and moved along the fringes of the crowd to solicit donations. Alias noted that the audience was more free with its praise than its pocket change. All the troupers got for their trouble was a double-handful of copper and a few silver pieces. The swordswoman remembered Jamal’s remark that one didn’t make a living in the theater. Alias wondered exactly how Jamal did make a living.

  “You were just wonderful,” Victor whispered in Alias’s ear, applauding with the rest.

  “Thanks,” Alias muttered, reddening deeply.

  “Yes, we were, weren’t we,” Dragonbait said, with just a hint of sarcasm. “At least, I remember being there.”

  “Dragonbait deserves just as much credit,” the swordswoman explained to Victor. “He was with me when all that happened.”

  Victor gave the saurial a sympathetic look. “A victim of artistic license. Perhaps they just couldn’t find an actor to do your role justice,” the nobleman suggested.

  Alias gave her companion a sheepish grin, but another problem caught her eye. She pointed to the far end of the crowd, which was parting for a flying wedge of the watch, which advanced upon the makeshift stage of the temple stairs. “Is there going to be trouble?” she asked Victor.

  “Possibly,” the merchant replied, though his tone sounded more resigned than alarmed.

  The five members of the watch patrol, armored in long black leather tunics and polished steel helms kept their short swords sheathed, but they were shoving at the crowd with short clubs. About half of the street theater audience began dispersing from the plaza, but many remained, though whether from loyalty to the performers or just curious to see what would happen, Alias could not tell.

  On the temple steps, all the performers gathered in a group, behind the stage Faceless. Some looked nervous, others resigned, but the majority had an air of defiance.