Кейт Новак - Masquerades

The market was a rainbow of tents and stalls erected each dawn and removed, by order of the watch, before sunset. Here all the merchants of Westgate were out in full force, extolling the virtues of their wares and pressing them into view of all potential customers. Even merchants who had a shop in town kept a stall in the market to hawk their best items.

A bolt of shining yellow fabric caught Alias’s eye, and she paused for a moment to finger the shimmering cloth. A moment was all the stall’s salesman needed to notice her interest and descend on her. He was a short young man in saffron robes and a long, long plait of hennaed hair. He had the most ridiculous patter about how silk from Kara-Tur was harvested from great purple worms herded by giants and spun into cloth with the aid of magic.

Alias had fought purple worms before and knew that the beast’s tail was armed with a scorpionlike stinger, not spinnerets, but she knew better than to reply. She’d learned from Akabar that such fanciful tales were a common merchant’s trick along the southern coast. If the potential buyer believed the tale, the product was enhanced. If not, any time spent arguing about the tale kept the buyer looking at the product, and, hopefully, increasing her desire to own it. Alias smiled wordlessly at the merchant and passed on. She could hear him tell another passerby how Mulhorand silk was made from moonspiders who tried to snare Selûne each night from her orbit.

The swordswoman paused by a jewelry stall. As she lingered over a large display of silver and gold earrings, she began wondering what she would wear for the Dhostar boat party. She traveled light, and she suspected that nothing in her backpack would be suitable. She’d brought plenty of money to buy something, but there wasn’t time to have anything sewn.

Lost in her own thoughts, it was a few moments before Alias noticed the stall’s saleswoman, a southerner who, being quite tall and dressed in a gown splatter-dyed with every imaginable color, was hard to miss. Yet while the woman watched Alias curiously, she kept a respectful distance, allowing the swordswoman to browse without pestering her.

Alias examined three sets of earrings. The first was a pair of tiny daggers with blue stones in the pommels. The daggers were beautifully crafted, but Alias decided they were too fierce. The second set of earrings was a moon engraved with Selûne’s face, matched with a dangling set of tears—the shards that followed the moon across the sky. The moon and tears, while clever, reminded her uneasily of the arguments she’d had with Finder Wyvernspur over his song The Tears of Selûne . The third pair, a set of interlocking stars, reminded her of the stars in the Dhostar trading badge. Victor, she thought, would appreciate the connection. She held out the earrings to the saleswoman asking, “How much?”

“No charge,” the large woman said, shaking her head, “I recognize you. You’re Alias.”

“I couldn’t do that,” Alias replied with a smile as she reached for her purse.

The saleswoman’s face clouded for a moment with hurt, “Please, take them,” she insisted. “You have done so much good. Consider them a gift on behalf of all of Westgate.”

Alias chuckled, “The last time I received a gift on behalf of a whole town, I’d just killed a kalmari. I haven’t done that much yet here.”

“Hmmph,” the woman said dismissively. “Kalmaris are nothing. Night Masks, they’re trouble. You take those. Don’t feel bad. Once I tell people Alias-Who-Unmasks-the-Night wears my jewelry, I’ll sell it all.” She smiled broadly, revealing two rows of perfect white teeth.

Alias grinned at the woman’s sales acumen and nodded in agreement. As the merchant held up a mirror of polished steel, Alias pulled out and pocketed the emerald studs she normally wore and slid in the silver wires attached to the stars. She shook her head and smiled with satisfaction. She could hear the small, interlocked stars jingling softly, and they twinkled in the light. Now all I need is an outfit to go with my jewelry, she thought. Bidding the merchant farewell, she strolled deeper into the heart of the market, toward the Tower.

The Tower was a circular stone keep five stories high situated on a low hillock in the center of the market. The hillock, Alias suspected, was artificial, built up to cover not only the tower’s foundation wall but the first level of dungeons beneath. Two later additions abutted the east side, made of similar though not perfectly matched stone. The larger addition held rooms for public business: the registry offices for imports, exports, and other licenses and the courtroom. The smaller addition was a guarded entrance into the tower itself. Within the Tower the city kept its counting house and treasury, the nobles kept offices and meeting rooms, and the watch kept its armory and some barracks. Beneath the tower, an unspecified number of subterranean levels served as jails and dungeons.

Outside the entrance hall flew the banners of those in residence at the moment: the watch, Durgar, several other noble lords, and the croamarkh. The doorway of the entrance was a stone oval, which could be barred by an iron portcullis, which hung overhead, a security design repeated at the other end of the hall—at the entrance to the tower itself. There wasn’t a speck of rust on the heavy gates, and the chains that operated them were dust free and gleamed with oil. Durgar, Alias realized, must run a tight ship to keep in perfect working order gates that hadn’t been necessary for decades.

The entrance hall was abuzz with people coming and going—the watch, messengers, servants dressed in the livery of their respective noble houses, local petitioners and foreign merchants waiting to speak with the nobles, and, on occasion, an individual whose wealthy garb and wake of bodyguards, supporters, and supplicants indicated a member of a noble family. Only nobles and their parties were allowed to pass through the second portcullis unchallenged. All others seemed to be required to register their name and business at a desk stationed with three watch officers before being told to wait or go ahead. There was a long line before the desk.

Alias took her place in line behind a woman dressed in the full crimson regalia of a Red Wizard of Thay, who was speaking in hushed tones with a dwarven mercenary dressed in black. Two Turmish merchants, complaining in their native tongue about some tariff, took their place behind her.

The swordswoman wondered uncertainly if she might not be wasting her time. While she really wanted to be sure the Night Mask swordsman was sentenced severely, Durgar might get officious on her and refuse to discuss his prisoner. He might even be too busy to see her. Just as she considered stepping out of the line, a member of the watch came up to her—the first female member she’d seen.

“Alias the Sell-Sword?” the guard asked.

“Yes,” Alias said with a nod.

“I’m Rizzi, Ma’am. I’m to fetch you up to the croamarkh.”

“Actually,” Alias explained, “I’ve come to see Durgar.”

“He’s with the croamarkh, Ma’am. Please, follow me.”

Alias did as requested, glad at least to be free of waiting in line.

As she stepped through the entrance into the main section of the keep, someone going the other way slammed into her, hard, jamming his elbow into her side. More surprised than harmed, Alias retreated back two steps and instinctively checked for her money pouch.

A short but powerfully built, scar-faced man with annoyingly familiar, but unplaceable features stood before her. He was dressed all in gold and black, with a huge black opal set in a medallion around his neck.

“Terribly sorry,” the man snarled, his eyes glittering with undisguised hatred. “You had better be more careful,” he added. It was the most threatening apology Alias had ever heard.