Кейт Новак - Masquerades

“I think that Grypht will be happy with this crystal ball,” Mintassan said. “It can find anyone in the Realms.”

With no magical abilities of her own, Alias was unable to test the sphere’s reputed ability, but since Grypht had said all his dealings with Mintassan had been honorable ones and Dragonbait confirmed the magic was not evil, she gave a short nod. “We accept the trade,” she said evenly.

Mintassan smiled and flipped up the sides of the box and twisted the lid back on. He looked up slyly at the swordswoman, noting, “There is, of course, one exception to the sphere’s abilities.”

“I have a permanent misdirection shield cast on me,” Alias explained.

“Grypht mentioned it, and of course I had to test it,” the sage said. “I struggled for hours trying to get the sphere to reveal you—without success. You didn’t even set off the alarms at my door when you entered the shop. Now that we’ve finally met, I suppose you’ll head right back to the Lost Vale.” Mintassan sighed and leaned forward to stare into Alias’s eyes. “Protected from magical scrying so only the lucky saurials have the pleasure of gazing on you.”

“He must realize we don’t find you as attractive as he does,” Dragonbait said in Saurial.

“He knows,” Alias said in Saurial. “He’s flirting with me.”

“Really?” Dragonbait asked. “Do you think he’d make a good mate?”

Alias ignored the paladin’s question and replied to the sage, “That’s our plan. As soon as there’s a ship going that way,” Alias said. “We may be stuck here a few days, though, according to the harbor master.”

“Good,” Jamal said to Alias. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to retire to one of the spare bedrooms.”

Alias wondered if Jamal was explaining her sleeping arrangements to protect her reputation or to let Alias know the field was clear.

Jamal rose and began limping over to a staircase in the back of the workroom. She turned at the stairway and said, “Since you’ll be around a few days, you’ll have a chance to catch one of our performances. You’ll see what a great cheap hero you make.

“I don’t want to be a cheap hero,” Alias called after her.

“Too late,” Jamal called back as she pulled herself up the stairs by the railing. “I’ve already written the first act.”

“I don’t want to be a hero, cheap or otherwise,” Alias insisted to Mintassan.

“I don’t think you get a say in it,” the sage replied. “Anyway, there’s really nothing I can do about it. Jamal has total creative control over her theater. At least this time she’s picked someone easy on the eyes,” Mintassan noted with a grin.

Dragonbait chuckled. Alias glared up at him and said, in Saurial, “I am not going to take on the Night Masks, the merchants of Westgate, or whatever cheap villains Jamal has in mind,” the swordswoman insisted.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be a very good cheap hero,” the paladin reassured her.

Within the city walls of Westgate, but some distance from the neighborhood where Mintassan the Sage lived, a far larger gathering of people would soon be discussing the topics of Jamal, the fire, and the two newcomers.

The room where they met was hidden deep beneath Westgate’s well-traveled streets. Long ago it had been protected from magical inquiries and priestly divinations, and over the years its entrances had been regularly relocated, the construction crews that performed these feats quietly slain to ensure secrecy. No long-lost crypt in the Fields of the Dead, nor dark-hearted shrine beneath the wreckage of Zhentil Keep had been as diligently protected. In time, the very secret nature of the place became its own protection. A place no one has seen, which cannot be detected supernaturally, must be a myth, so enforcers of the law, fortune hunters, and revenge seekers had long since ceased to search for the lair of the Night Masters, alleged leaders of the Night Masks, and the Night Masters’ lord—the Faceless.

Yet myths and allegations are often true, and the Night Masters and the Faceless met in their secret lair to plan the activities of the Night Masks and to evaluate their successes and failures.

These secret masters of their city were average-looking men and women. Most tended to the sprawling girth that marked success in those fields where the younger and less experienced can be convinced to do the physical labor. The Night Masters did not choose nervous fidgets or careless drunkards to join their number. On the surface above, they were shopkeepers, craftsmen, and lesser merchants, the sort of respectable citizens to whom no one gives a second thought. They cultivated this anonymity carefully, avoiding any flamboyance or ostentation.

In their secret lair, they hid their surface identities. Before they entered the inner chambers, each Night Master donned a mask that covered his or her face from forehead to upper lip. The masks were made of white porcelain, with a black domino mask painted about the eye slits, and each was distinguished from all the others with a different golden glyph painted on the forehead. The glyphs designated the speaker’s portfolio within the organization.

Since the masks did not cover the lips or jaws or hair or any part of the torso, the experienced eye could compare a beard or a mole or a head of hair or a physical shape or a certain article of clothing with that of some person in the outer world and have a fair idea of the identities of their fellow masters. Of course, the certainty of such knowledge was not absolute; a fake beard, a wig, make-up, magical enchantments, and other disguises could easily mislead. It hardly mattered, though, whether they knew each other or not. They were the ultimate brethren among their brotherhood of thieves and would never willingly reveal another’s identity. For one thing, to betray a member to an outsider would be an admission of the betrayer’s complicity. There were also other more horrible costs to betrayal, of which the Faceless made sure they remained aware.

Their numbers varied according to the needs and whims of their lord, and at this time in Westgate’s history there were ten Night Masters. The glyphs on their masks identified three of them as general managers—Enforcement, Finance, and Noble Relations—and the remaining seven as regional managers—External Revenue, Harborside, Thunnside, Gateside, Parkside, Central, and Outside.

All were now gathered around a great table hewn from a single block of obsidian, veined with gold. In the center of the table a small brazier crackled, giving off not only light, but also a welcome warmth, for the meeting place, now, even in the height of summer, was cool and damp. At the head of the table, on a dais as high as the table, was a throne of the same ebon material as the table. There sat the Faceless.

The Faceless dressed like a judge, in billowing black robes with a thin strip of white silk draped over his shoulders. On his feet he wore black clodders, high-topped boots worn commonly by Westgate’s fishermen, and on his hands, white silk gloves, like a gentleman. He sported a wide-rimmed hat of dark black velvet. While all this was enough to give him a forbidding appearance, it was the Faceless’s mask that unnerved his followers the most.

When the mask lay on a table it looked like a helmet of mesh chain covered in platinum coins struck with the glyph of Leira, the deceased goddess of illusion. No one but the Faceless ever saw the mask’s appearance, though, since once the Faceless donned it, the mask seemed to disappear, disguising the wearer at the same time. The disguise was of an astonishing and odd variety caused by a magical illusion.

Everything between the Faceless’s hat and his robe blurred like a chalk painting at the very beginning of a rain shower. Anyone who glanced in the Faceless’s direction would conclude there was a face to be seen, but one saw nothing but a shifting pattern of colors, like a swarm of bees. The harder one concentrated on trying to discern a face, the harder it became to see anything at all. Stubborn observers found that their eyes began to water and their heads began to pound with the effort.