Kate Novak - Masquerades

"He'd told me he was a Harper," Jamal said. "Later I'd heard he had some falling out with them, but after he died, they cleared it up."

Alias nodded. "So how close were you and Nameless?" she asked.

"Well, actually, that's none of your business," Jamal said with a sly smile. "But he was a fine figure of a man, no doubt about it." She handed Alias a pair of white silk slippers embroidered with silver thread. "Try these on."'

Alias pulled the slippers on. They fit snugly, but well enough for a few hours leisure. "My tunic is sleeveless. Do you think I need to cover my tattoo?"

"Not unless you're attending incognito. They all know you have one. There's no point in hiding it. They've seen plenty of foreign merchants with markings. What jewelry are you wearing to this party?" the actress asked. "A pair of silver earrings-three interlocking stars." "Over a wagon wheel?" Jamal teased. "A gift?" "Just stars, no wheel, and I bought them myself."

"At least you don't have to wear Dhostar livery. That tawny color looks awful on us redheads."

"Very sweet," a high-pitched voice said from the doorway. "I'm out tracking down evildoers, and you decide to play dress up."

Alias and Jamal turned to Olive Ruskettle. The halfling looked as if she had run halfway across Westgate and still had a full head of steam up.

"Our warrior is mixing with high society tonight," Jamal explained.

"From the back alleys to the castles in a matter of hours, eh?" Olive said. "What a whirlwind life you lead." "What did you find out?" Alias demanded. "Well," the halfling began, "I followed One-Eye and her bodyguard south to a big manor house right on the edge of the city. She went in, spent about ten minutes, just enough to count that sack of money. Then she and her friend left and parted company." Olive paused for dramatic effect.

Alias glared. She hated these pauses. "And?" she prompted.

"I didn't see the occupant," Olive replied, "but I asked around. "The house belongs to a wealthy vintner named Melman. Melman bought the place ten years ago, after the former occupant died. Guess how." "Night Masks?" "Nope. Guess again."

Alias let out a sigh of exasperation. "Olive! Spit it out! How did the former occupant die?"

"She took a blast from a staff of power. Her name was Cassana." "

"Melman's livingin Cassana's house?" Alias asked, a smile of glee creeping across her face. "Yep. The same place we all knew and loathed."

"The one with the secret tunnel into the secret basement," Alias said with a twinkle in her eye.

"The very same," Olive said, rubbing her hands together.

Olive accompanied Alias and Drag-onbait back to their inn, making plans j for a little breaking and entering. Although the halfling agreed it would be safer to wait until long after dark, she was disappointed that they could not leave immediately. Alias suspected that were she and Dragonbait not on the scene, the normally cautious halfling might have plunged recklessly ahead even before sunset. There was an eagerness in Olive that went beyond a desire to check out the Night Mask Melman's hoard of ill-gotten gain. Olive really wanted to bring the Night Masks down. It was a side of the halfling that Alias would never have expected to see when the two first met, eleven years ago.

Inside Blais House, Alias hurried to wash up as Dragonbait escorted Olive to their room. When Alias joined them, fresh from her bath, she noticed Olive eyeing the sacks of gold containing her retainer from the Dhostars. "You should have gotten more," the halfling said.

"Olive, you know I don't need the money," the swordswoman argued as she pulled her new silk tunic over Jamal's white undergown. "Neither do you, for that matter. I might have ended up fighting the Night Masks even if the Dhostars hadn't offered to pay me." "It's the principle of the thing," Olive insisted. "Never sell yourself cheap, and always charge rich humans through the nose. The Dhostars are richer than old Misty was. It's up to people like you to see to it that their floor doesn't give under the weight of all that coin." "Is that what you're doing for Lady Thalavar?" Alias asked as she slipped her new earrings back in her ears. "Seeing to it that her floorboards don't give?"

"House Thalavar is nothing like House Dhostar," Olive insisted. "Lady Nettel has more noblesse oblige in her pinkie than all of the remaining merchants in this city combined. She makes a profit, yes, but she doesn't invest in things just to see an obscene return. She invests in little businesses so the owners can make a living and patronizes musicians and artists'and donates wells and fountains and park land to the people of Westgate."

There was a knock on the door, and Olive opened it. Mercy stood on the threshold, eyeing the halfling with the same wide-eyed look she'd given Dragonbait and Alias on their first day as guests. The girl, Alias thought, must have too fewropportunities to meet other people. The swordswoman introduced Olive as a long-standing friend. Mercy curtsied politely, then informed Alias that there was a carriage waiting downstairs.

"Please tell him 111 be down in a few minutes, Mercy. Then you can come back and take Olive and Dragonbait's orders for dinner." The half-elf hurried off to do as she was bid.

Alias slid her scabbard onto the lower of the two belts Jamal had loaned her and secured her sword to the scabbard with a piece of silk ribbon tied in an elaborate knot that she could release instantly by pulling it in just the right place. She tugged on the white silk slippers and ran a comb quickly through her hair. Turning about, she asked the others. "How do I look?" "Very nice," Dragonbait replied.

"Better than Lord Victor probably deserves," Olive answered.

Alias hurried downstairs and out to the street. The reins of Victor's carriage were in the hands of the same old man who'd held them at the Harbor Tower that first day she'd met Victor. The bent, gray-haired servant bowed with earnest deference, and Alias could see he looked at her with a certain approval as he handed her up into the carriage seat. Jamal's advice on dress pleased at least one elderly member of House Dhostar's staff. The servant climbed into the seat beside Alias and urged the horses forward.

The carriage pulled up to a pavilion at the western end of the docks, where a footman in Dhostar livery handed Alias down to the ground. The swordswoman stared uncomfortably at the crowd of strangers all about. Most of them appeared to be errand boys, bodyguards, and ladies-in-waiting, left beneath the pavilion to await the returns of their masters and mistresses. Alias smiled politely at a bodyguard dressed in Malavhan livery, but was met with a grim stone face. Too late, she realized he took her for one of the nobles, and in Westgate the servants did not fraternize with the nobles.

Alias turned to thank Victor's driver, but he had already evaporated, coach and all, to whatever demi-plane hid such utilities until they were called for again. Another, larger carriage was pulling up to debark its passengers. The footman asked Alias politely to please move down the pier to join the other guests.

Down the pier there were small mobs of nobles, from dandies to grand dames, in tight little constellations. Wandering planets of individuals only casually acquainted with the brightest stars would graze the edges of the constellations, but finding insufficient gravity to hold them, they would soon look for new orbits. Eventually, in twos and threes, guests drifted up the gangplank of The Gleason. Since she had no acquaintances among any of those on the pier, Alias made straight for the gangplank, but she paused halfway down i the pier to stare in awe at the Dhostars' new ship.

The Gleason, Alias realized, was a galleass. She had heard that Sembia was building such ships, but the; Dhostars' was the first she had seen. It was basically a larger and more heavily armed version of the great galley, one hundred sixty feet long and forty feet across the beam. The sails were lateen-rigged from three huge masts, though at the moment they were tightly furled, tied with cords of black and gold. Tonight the ship would be powered by oar. Alias counted fifty oars, painted bone ж white and so large that each could be manned by several rowers. A twenty-foot iron-clad battering ram jutted out from the bow. Tarpaulins covered what Alias guessed was a pair of ballistae mounted on a massive turret on the top of the foc'sle. Both the foc's'le and the sterncastle, which towered two stories over the deck, featured narrow archers' slits.