by Ed Greenwood
∗ ∗ ∗
"I thought we were going to another inn!"
"We are," The Masked responded testily, kicking open the boarded-up doorway of an abandoned construction site. "But like I said, it's one I know to be safe-which means that if this man following us has done his research, he might expect me to try for it. Which is why we need to disguise you."
"Me?" Tantaerra grumbled. "I hardly think that I'm the more recognizable one of us."
"Precisely. That's why you're going in to scout it out, and I'm going to wait in the shadows. Now come on."
She followed him into a large, dark room. It felt empty, as if noises made here would echo through chamber upon deserted chamber, abandoned by mice and rats because there was nothing at all to eat. It was too dark to see properly, but Tantaerra could make out archways and a staircase, far away across a cold, dusty marble floor.
The Masked held the door board partway open, creating a patch of lighter gloom, and beckoned her into it. He reached into a pocket, then dropped its contents into her hand.
"An eye patch?" Tantaerra scoffed, looking down at the bit of cloth. "This is your clever disguise?"
"Better than letting your real face be seen and remembered."
"While drawing the attention of every non-pirate in the place," she shot back. "Here. Watch."
She dug into her own pockets and withdrew several smooth river pebbles she'd picked up days before-it always paid to have a few throwing pebbles handy. These she tucked into her cheeks, changing the shape of her face. Then she reached down through the open door, adding smears of alley-grime near her temples, shadowing to make her head seem narrower. Grimacing, she used an even larger dollop to slick back and darken her hair, then doffed her top and turned it inside out to reveal a different hue entirely before putting it back on.
"How about it?" she asked.
The Masked stared at her. Was that admiration in his eyes? "You've done this before," he said.
"Halflings are good at avoiding notice," Tantaerra said. "It's why we make such good slaves-we're that much easier to overlook. But sometimes it works to our advantage."
The Masked bowed and swept out a hand. "I defer to your expertise, princess."
She snorted and moved back through the door. "Just point me to the inn, all right?"
∗ ∗ ∗
The crowded, warm din of Harl's Hearth was everything she'd expected, from the sodden rushes on the floor to the reek of beer, unwashed bodies, and faint gutspew. She ducked purposefully to the left the moment she was inside, as if she knew where she was heading, had business here, and didn't care who saw that. She took care to lurch a little with each stride like a forge-weary dwarf, and pointed her nose at the floor, keeping her face down.
The Hearth was elbow-to-shoulder full of men and women who all seemed to feel the need to bellow into the faces of comrades they were nose to nose with. Through this deafening din, out of the corners of her eyes, Tantaerra caught sight of faces peering watchfully over tankards everywhere. Not a few hard glances were being sent at anyone coming in the front door.
So a room full of hard drinkers who expected trouble and were watching for it.
They were all human, too. Even with her disguise, Tantaerra stood out as vividly as if she'd been painted green and stuck on a raised stage. Numerous pairs of eyes sized her up-but not the familiar brown ones she was looking for.
Tantaerra nodded toward the kitchens, as if she'd just received a signal from someone that direction, and scuttled for the door.
The Masked was busy being a patient statue in the darkest spot in the alley.
"No sign of him," Tantaerra murmured, as she spat out her throwing pebbles.
At that moment, the scullery door opened and two tavernmen muscled a drunkard larger than they were out into the alley.
"Gods spit, Agris, but you get heavier every night," one puffed, as they staggered over to a wall and dropped their belching, mumbling burden against it.
The drunk sagged to the unclean cobbles. "'S all th' drink y' sell me," he murmured. "'S heavy."
The two tavernmen grunted and returned to the door.
"Proper city of vipers, this is!" the drunkard groaned, to the cobbles his nose was pressed against. "Wrest a man's drink from his hand before he's found the bottom of it!"
The door slammed, and Tantaerra heard the thud of the door bar landing in its cradles, followed by a rattle of chain.
A city of vipers. Tantaerra found herself agreeing with the man.
She followed The Masked farther back into the alley's shadows. "So now what?"
"Now we wait," The Masked said. "Perhaps we just beat him here. If so, better to see him enter from here than meet him after we've holed up and cornered ourselves."
"Hmph," Tantaerra sniffed, but huddled down against the grimy wall to wait.
∗ ∗ ∗
"No. Absolutely not."
"I'm afraid it's the best idea I have."
"Putting me in a sack?" Tantaerra raged. "You need to start having some better ideas."
They were back in the abandoned construction site. They'd watched Harl's Hearth for several hours as the patrons gradually staggered or were carried out. When at last the common room closed down for the night, with still no sign of their mysterious tail, The Masked declared himself satisfied, and took them back to their staging ground to prepare his own disguise.
Which apparently consisted of sticking Tantaerra in a sack and pretending she was his grossly fat belly.
"I'll suffocate in there!" she pressed.
"As someone who's breathed through sacks on many occasions," The Masked said wryly, tapping his mask, "I can guarantee that you won't. And anyone looking for us will be looking for a thin man and a halfling, not a single hugely fat man."
"And you don't think your mask might be what they're looking for?"
In response, The Masked turned away and withdrew something from a pocket inside his shirt. When he turned back, his mask was covered by a fired-putty replica of a face, like those sometimes used by actors. He pulled his hood lower, and in the shadows beneath it the face looked almost real.
"I guess it's the best we can do," Tantaerra said slowly.
"It is," The Masked said firmly. "And if this takes much longer, it will be morning, and this won't work at all. Then maybe you can distract people by playing the role of my pet. On a leash."
"Don't push me, masked man."
"Wouldn't dream of it. I hear halflings bite."
Tantaerra gave him a dirty look. "Just give me the damned sack."
The cloth was actually closer to netting, and surprisingly smooth against Tantaerra's skin, allowing plenty of airflow. She could even see through it, after a fashion. As The Masked slung her over his shoulders, hanging her down across his chest and stomach, she said, "Leave a couple of buttons open as long as you can, hey?
"Of course."
Then they were back out in the alley again: one large-bellied man trudging wearily home, probably with a drink or two aboard.
The sway of his walk was hypnotic. Tantaerra suddenly felt very tired, too weary to even object to her circumstances. The bumping wasn't as bad as she'd feared, and she found she rather liked the smell of the man she was now pressed against. Though if he didn't bathe in the next day or so …
Sooner than she'd expected, they were pounding on the door of Harl's Hearth, demanding service. The Masked had left a single button undone, and through it Tantaerra could fuzzily glimpse a panel in the door sliding open, a suspicious eye glaring through it.
"Yes?" the eye asked suspiciously.
"A room, if you have one. Private, with a bed-and a large window, that opens. No stabling needed."
"We're closed up for the night."
"I can see that," The Masked said smoothly. "But I assure you I can make it worth your while."
"Show coin."
The Masked did so.
"Mere or Tel?"
There was only the briefest of pau
ses, and then The Masked said, "I'm afraid I'm from afar, and don't know what that means."
Silence fell and stretched.
"I think I remember you," the man on the other side of the panel said slowly. "You stayed here years back. At least twice. Before things got …as they are now."
Tantaerra could tell by the shifting movement that The Masked had nodded.
"It means," the innkeeper explained, "are you for Mereir, or Telcanor?"
"The Telcanors I've heard of. So, two large and wealthy city families at odds?"
"Bitter rivals. To the point of fighting each other in alleys, or more often setting hired swords to fighting. Nigh everyone in Braganza is loyal to one or the other."
"So are you for Mereir or Telcanor?"
The eye behind the panel favored The Masked with a cold look. "Mereir. Of course."
The climb to the room was a long one, up old and narrow stairs, through a house that was either sleeping soundly or more likely had few guests staying this night. The room was small and spartan, but had, as promised, a large window that could be opened onto a sloping roof-if one didn't mind disturbing a dozen or so seemingly incontinent pigeons.
"No fires, for any reason," the innkeeper ordered, silently gesturing coin after coin from The Masked's palm into his own until a rather stiff sum had been reached. He evidently judged his late-hours patron to be someone on the run, or in great need of shelter. In this, he was, of course right.
With a silent wave at a basin and ewer that turned into pointing at a battered chamber pot under the bed, Harl withdrew.
The Masked went to the window so he could whisper to Tantaerra, "Keep silent. He hasn't moved away from the door yet."
She patted his stomach through the sack to let him know she'd heard, and held her peace. The Masked examined the bed and then the room's lone chair, settling onto it with a groan worthy of the weariest of travelers.
That seemed to satisfy the master of the Hearth, whose departure they could hear as a series of faint, increasingly distant creakings.
The Masked went and slid the whittled peg on its length of twine through the hasp that would keep the door closed, presuming nothing stronger than a feeble child tried to get through it.
Then he unbuttoned, went to the bed, and eased off clothing and sack to let Tantaerra out.
She stretched like a cat, wincing at sudden aches in one thigh and the opposing shoulder, then grabbed at her nose to keep from sneezing as dust rose from the bed like a drifting ghost.
She was still struggling not to erupt when there was a sudden sharp knock on the door.
"Open up, in the name of Braganza!" a voice firm with authority thundered.
Chapter Six
Swords in the Night
Tantaerra wasted no time in cursing, but made for the window, sneezing hard-only to find three grim-faced men had appeared outside on the roof. Heavily armored and menacing, they held hand crossbows. Cocked, loaded, and pointed at her.
She skidded to a halt, then sighed and waved at The Masked to open the door.
He did so.
In the narrow passage outside, bearing a hooded lantern that gave off even less light than the innkeeper's lone-candle lamp had done, was a grand-looking armored warrior with half a dozen armored fellows at his shoulders-all aiming more loaded hand crossbows past him at The Masked.
"Yes?" The Masked asked gently. "Can I help you?"
The man took a step forward. The Masked held his ground.
The man took another step forward, bringing them chest to chest, almost brushing noses.
"I am here," he announced grandly, "to recruit you."
His gaze slid to Tantaerra, now standing truculently on the bed with hands on hips, face half-hidden behind netting. "Both."
"Recruit us into-or for-what?" she asked boldly.
The warrior regarded her for a moment, then turned back to The Masked.
"It talks," he told the masked man, almost resentfully.
"It's something of a princess," The Masked told him calmly. "Recruit us for-?"
"To stand with House Mereir."
"Ah. Mereir or Telcanor, I see. The problem is, I don't see."
"We don't see," Tantaerra corrected crisply.
The warrior frowned. "Your deaths would be regrettable," he murmured, "seeing as they could be avoided …"
"Sir," Tantaerra said quickly, before The Masked could speak again, "we know Molthune to be a land of order, and of law. In that spirit, we'll agree to nothing until we know what we're agreeing to. Before standing with House Mereir, we insist on being told what's going on in Braganza."
"Indeed," The Masked continued smoothly, as Tantaerra's breath ran out. "We are successful traders, able to sway many allies-other traders, across Golarion-to the side of Mereir. Yet we won't do so unless we understand the true state of affairs here in Braganza. Do not all Braganzans obey the Imperial Governor, and the General Lords?"
The grand warrior's face tightened. "But of course."
"What, then," The Masked asked, "does Lord Cole Ravnagask think of this rivalry?"
"Lower your bows," the warrior ordered curtly over his shoulder, ere asking politely, "May I come in?"
The Masked bowed and stepped back, waving him into the room.
Tantaerra shot her hireling a dubious look, but the warrior's entrance did bring him within reach, where he could be snatched to serve as a shield if bolts started whizzing about.
"You request answers, so permit me candor," the warrior began, stepping past them to the far end of the room. Turning to face them, he hung his lantern from a ceiling-hook obviously intended for that purpose, raised his hands, and launched into what sounded like a speech he'd given many times before.
"There have arisen," he announced, "two rival families in Braganza-ambitious, capable, and militarily accomplished, risen in power far above others. I speak of the houses of Mereir and Telcanor, who hate each other heartily. Yet many of both families detest and despise Lord Cole Ravnagask still more. As do most Braganzans, if truth be told. The Lord of Braganza is widely thought to be …crazed."
"Because?" Tantaerra prompted.
The warrior raised a quelling hand, and went on. "Though workers hired by Mereir and Telcanor do most of the ceaseless construction work ordered by the Lord of Braganza, and so enrich both houses, we and the Telcanors both see Ravnagask's mania for building as an endless leeching of the wealth and power of Braganza. How is Holy Abadar exalted by this raising of empty grandeur? The dust and din, the streets closed or cluttered with wagons and building stone, all this wasted work …it drains our wealth, and robs Braganza of its rightful greatness and preeminence in Molthune."
"So if Mereir and Telcanor are agreed about this, what is there to choose between them?" Tantaerra asked, trying to sound bewildered rather than letting any hint of her rising anger into her voice.
The warrior frowned. "No one who dwells or toils in Braganza can be neutral. Those who claim to stand with neither Mereir nor Telcanor face the ire of both, and last not long. So let me acquaint you with the bright nobility of House Mereir-and the bottomless villainy of the Telcanors."
Tantaerra bent forward as if eager to hear every word, and saw The Masked doing the same. Like her, he was really shifting so they could trade silent glances with each other.
They were well and truly trapped. If they wanted to live to see morning, they would have to convincingly declare themselves for Mereir.
The grand warrior was a good, stirring speaker, and wasted little time in recounting the staunch and patriotic loyalty of House Mereir and the cynical falsity of the rival Telcanors, who would do or say anything to gain more coin and wielded their power in petty ways, like a cruel slaver fond of the whip.
It was some time before he ran out of breath and florid phrases-and Tantaerra lost no time in loudly and firmly declaring herself for Mereir, trying to sound deeply inspired. The Masked echoed her with a hasty urgency that seemed to convince the warrior that he'd tr
uly won them both over.
"So the city shall know we stand with House Mereir?" Tantaerra asked, one hand raised to her breast and throat as she'd seen Canorate's aristocratic ladies do, to demonstrate that they were so moved as to be on the verge of swooning.
The grand warrior bowed low to her. "Indeed, youn-er, exquisite lady. Well before first light, I assure you."
"Good, good," The Masked said heartily. "Yet pray tell us, sir-by the Master of the First Vault, I don't even know your name-why us? Surely not every newcomer to your city receives this welcome."
"No," the man admitted. "Indeed, educating travelers, or even conscripting the lower classes, is rarely worth the effort. Yet the most perspicacious innkeeper downstairs recognized you from one of your previous stays as a man of …particular talents, shall we say, and informed us of your presence, so that we might persuade you to stand with House Mereir."
"Ah," said The Masked flatly, losing some of his boisterous persona. "And perhaps you could tell us exactly what standing with House Mereir entails?"
"Of course," the warrior replied. "This-" He made a very brief and swift gesture with three fingers. "-signals you are of Mereir. Whereas this-" He made a far different curving, slicing gesture. "-is the mark of Telcanor. You must not do business with anyone of Telcanor, and aren't to consort with them or even converse with them. Be aware that Braganzans know who stands with whom, and will be watching you to make sure-"
The Mereir recruiter broke off abruptly as someone struck him from behind-one of his own armsmen, toppling like a felled tree. The others were also falling, some struggling to use their handbows, bolts peppering the low ceiling beams as they collapsed.
The Masked flung himself aside, seeking the floor with enthusiasm. The hail of handbow bolts that had felled the Mereirs hummed into the room like a swarm of angry hornets.
Tantaerra dove under the bed, snatching at the chamber pot to swing it around behind her like a shield, because the roof outside the windows had abruptly become a savage battlefield of struggling men. A rude interruption no doubt supplied by a force loyal to House Telcanor, who seemed to well outnumber the Mereirs.