Kate Novak - Masquerades

"Exactly," Alias retorted, and she slipped gracefully from his grasp and began climbing the steps to the hotel door.

Lord Victor reached out and grasped her wrist. "Alias?" he entreated her.

"Yeeesss?" the swordswoman answered, making no attempt to pull her captured arm away.

Lord Victor moved closer, standing on the step just beneath hers. He looked up into her eyes. "Give me a token," he demanded with a grin, "or I shall never let you go."

"A token?" Alias replied with a little laugh, not certain she'd heard him correctly.

"A token to show your regard for me, at least, that is, I hope you have some regard for me, for my feelings, for what you mean to me. Please. Some trinket to remind me of you when we're apart."

Alias thought of her new earrings, but somehow they didn't seem enough a part of her. "I don't think I have…" she started to say, then she thought of something appropriate. "Wait. You have to let go of my hand first, though."

Victor released her and held out both his hands cupped together, waiting for his boon.

With a deft motion Alias released the peace-bond knot tying her sword to her scabbard. She drew out her sword and raised it to her head. She held out the strand of hair she wore in an ornamental braid and sliced the braid off with the blade of her weapon. She slid her sword back into its scabbard. After curling the braid into a tiny loop, she laid it in the young noble's palms. Tour token, milord," she whispered.

"Accepted gratefully, milady," Victor replied, bending briefly to one knee. He tucked the red ringlet into his shirt, then his arms snaked out again and grasped the ewordswoman about her waist. He pulled her toward him until they stood lips to lips. They kissed again.

Finally the young noble released the swordswoman. Alias ran up the steps and into the hotel. Lord Victor climbed back into his carriage and urged his horses forward.

As the carriage rolled away, the halfling and the saur-ial could hear Aliasjnoving toward them in the hallway, singing a love song.' ¦

"Oh, yeah. She seems really guarded to me," Olive mocked the paladin. She sat back down beside the chessboard and righted her overturned king. "Your move, Dragonbait," she said.

The paladin sat across from the halfling, his brow furrowed as the hamlike scent of his anxiety wafted out the open window.

It took the swordswoman only a few minutes to change from her finery I back into her armor, but in that time the weather had turned. Clouds rolled in from the east, veiling the moon, and mist rolled up from the bay and the river, shrouding the streets. Despite' the cover this provided the three adventurers, Olive insisted they take one extra precaution to elude any possible Night Masks who might be spying on them-leave the city via the Thalavars' secret underground tunnel.

Once outside the city, Olive crept southward, keeping in the shadow of the city wall, with Alias and Dragonbait following behind. Since only the halfling had been both conscious and free of the sorceress Cassana's magical controls when they'd last used the tunnel that led to Cassana's former home, they had to rely on Olive to lead them to the outside entrance. They sneaked over the fence into the Ssemm family stockyards and made their way to the eastern end of the yards.

As the halfling rustled through an overgrown dry wash searching for the entrance, Alias and Dragonbait kept watch at the wash's rim. The moon broke through the clouds for a few moments, and then Alias could make out seven mounds to the southeast.

There was a good deal of activity in the stockyards to the west of the dry wash. Caravans were being readied for departure in the morning. Alias shifted nervously, worried that she would be discovered trespassing, and Orgule Ssemm would add his complaints to those of Ssentar Urdo, further annoying the croamarkh. "Olive," ehe whispered. "What's taking you so long?"

"Ill bet the passage hasn't been used since Finder and I came through it. The gully is really overgrown," the halfling whispered back.

An eternity of heartbeats seemed to pass before Olive called out to report her success. Dragonbait, able to detect the heat of the halfling's body in the dark, took Alias's arm and led her to Olive's location. The halfling crawled out from beneath a thicket of wild raspberry. "I don't think either of you could get through like I could," Olive reported. "You'll have to hack at the brush some."

The two warriors drew their swords and cut into the briars until they'd cleared a path into a tributary of the gully.

"There!" Olive whispered excitedly, pointing into the hillside.

The doorway was partially blocked by mud and rock carried by heavy rains, but the door was still visible. Fortunately it opened inward, so they weren't required to do any digging. Alias pushed up the latch with the tip of her weapon and nudged the door open with her foot. The door's hinges made an alarming squeal, and a decade's worth of dust assailed the swordswoman's nostrils.

Dragonbait whispered "Toast," in Saurial, causing his enchanted blade to blaze. Igniting a straw from the paladin's sword, Alias used it to light a conventional lantern. Dragonbait took the point; Alias followed behind him. Olive, after one last look down the dry wash to be sure no one had observed them, slipped through the door behind the warriors.

The passageway beneath the city wall was so narrow that the adventurers had to go single file. Olive's nose twitched in the dusty, sepulchral air. "Smells like Zrie Prakis," the halfling complained.

Remembering the lich's smell, Alias shuddered in spite of herself. Prakis had been among the alliance of evil beings who'd created her. Each being had had some evil purpose for the swordswoman, but it was Prakis's purpose that had unnerved Alias the most. Prakis had had a long-abiding love-hate relationship with Cassana, even after he'd become undead. He wanted an enslaved Alias to replace Cassana.

"That's good, though," Alias said, "if it means that no one has been using the passage since then. Look, ours are the first footprints in the dust in years."

"Maybe because it's haunted," the halfling suggested unhappily.

Spiderwebs across the passage crackled and fizzled away, ignited by Dragonbait's fiery blade as they moved forward, but there was nothing they could do to keep the dust from swirling up into their faces. Olive, who was closer to the floor, had to put up with more, and she muttered nonstop complaints all the way down the passage. Alias began to sense that the shorter woman was fighting a growing sense of panic. The halfling had also been a prisoner in this house, in all but name.

"They're all dead, Olive," Alias said, trying to reassure the woman. "Nothing but dust is left of them," she added, then realized as Olive puffed at the dust in the air that that probably wasn't the most reassuring thing she could have said. Olive laughed, a little nervously.

They reached a dead end in the passage-a wall of solid rock. Dragonbait sniffed at the blockage, trying to discern any breeze or whiff of fresh air that would reveal a hidden mechanism.

"Allow me," the halfling said, stepping forward. "Coming out of Cassana's, the catch to move this wall was on the right. We can probably reach it from the left going in this direction."

Olive ran her hand along the wall until it disappeared into a hole in the rock. There was a click, which echoed down the secret passage behind them. Olive stepped back. Tve done my bit. Now it's your turn. Push here on the right side. The wall pivots. You'll have to put some muscle into it to get it started, but then its weight swings it around."

Alias set down the lantern and began shoving at the wall. After a moment, she felt it begin to move, but something seemed to be jamming it on the other side. Dragonbait held his sword out for Olive to hold. The halfling took the heavy weapon with some trepidation. The paladin put his back into the labor along with Alias. The door moved another inch, then another.