Кейт Новак - Masquerades

Alias moved toward the woods and crept up on the building from the rear. One wing had suffered a recent fire. Scorch marks ran from windows up the plaster walls of the building, and charred bits of wood, the remains of the shutters, hung beside the windows. The smell of smoke was still strong. Piled in the rear were remnants of Lilda’s business, which someone had managed to rescue from the fire: scorched feather-filled ticks, bedsteads covered with soot, tapestries stained with smoke, a painting of a female sphinx reclining like an odalisque.

Recalling the arson of Jamal’s home, Alias wondered if the Night Masks had been involved in this fire, too. The damage here wasn’t extensive, but perhaps the thieves guild had meant only to frighten Lilda into making “insurance payments” more promptly, without actually destroying her lucrative business.

The sounds of hammering and sawing echoed inside the building. Lilda apparently had enough stashed away to cover emergency rebuilding.

Alias slid along the end of the burned-out wing and peeked around the corner. Twig stood on the front porch, shifting his weight impatiently from foot to foot as another man, seated at a table, counted it out. The counter was a tall, skinny man with a long braid of gold hair hanging down his back. Twig’s boss, Alias guessed. He shoved some coin back at Twig and poured the rest into his swelling belt pouch. Twig’s cut was smaller than Alias had supposed; he received only a quarter of the take, one gold worth of copper coin, but that was still a lot for a few hours of unskilled “labor.”

After Twig left, his boss yanked a knife out of the porch floor boards and proceeded to whittle a small stick into a smaller stick. A few minutes later, a pair of children showed up with their collection. The pair were maybe twelve to fourteen years old, a brother and sister by the looks of them. They brought in somewhat more than Twig, but received the same quarter share. The boss whispered something to the girl, which Alias did not hear, but from the girl’s weak smile and uncomfortable squirm and the boss’s lewd wink, the swordswoman could guess the content. She fought off the temptation to blacken the boss’s winking eye, deciding it could wait until sometime later, but not too long from now. The girl noticed Alias watching from around the corner, and for a moment Alias worried that the child might point her out to the boss. The girl remained silent, though. She pocketed her and her brother’s cut, then the pair ran back to the Shore. The man resumed his whittling.

The next collector came three whittled sticks later. He was a powerful-looking man, made mean and miserable by personal neglect and overconsumption of ale. The whittler growled at him for being the last one to arrive, as usual, and the collector snarled something back to the effect that the boss had nothing to do but sit on his rear end and wait. He turned his collection over, sullenly pocketed his take, and stomped into the undamaged section of Lilda’s festhall.

The boss rose, threw away his stick, sheathed his knife, and strode west, toward the road. Alias wondered if it would be possible to follow the money all the way up to a Night Master.

Guessing that Twig’s boss would take the road back into the city, the swordswoman dashed southward, climbed a fence, and cut through the Dhostar stockyards. Two yard hands approached her as she reached the southern stables, obviously intent on bringing her in for trespassing, but after identifying herself, they let her pass without further challenge.

Spotting her quarry heading farther south, the swordswoman cut through the Thorsar stockyards as well. She reached the city wall in time to see Twig’s boss heading toward her. She passed through Mulsantir’s gate just ahead of the man. As she strolled idly down the main street, the Night Mask passed her, and she followed him through the city. There was just enough foot traffic for her to blend in with the crowd, but not so much that she couldn’t keep her eye on her quarry’s blond braid. Twig’s boss entered a tavern within spitting distance of the Ssemm sheds. The tavern’s sign read “The Rotten Root,” and pictured a particularly malevolent-looking treant.

Alias adjusted her scabbard so that it could be seen, took a deep breath, and plunged into the tavern’s smoky darkness. Her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit common room just in time to see Twig’s boss being escorted into a private room in the back by a large man with gnoll-sized biceps.

Alias slid into a booth with a view of the back room door. The muscular man returned to his post a moment later. He wore an apron over his leather armor, leading Alias to believe he served not only as a guard for the Night Masks, but a bouncer for the bar as well.

None of the regulars seemed to give her a second glance, but Alias was quick to establish a reason for her presence. When the barmaid came by to take her order, Alias help up two fingers, telling the woman she was expecting a friend. Two ales looking suspiciously like harbor water arrived. As the swordswoman sipped at the beverage, she thought harbor water might have been tastier. The barmaid stood waiting for payment, and Alias handed her some copper from a pocket of her boot.

Alias nursed first one drink, then the other, with the diligence of a condemned man lingering over his last meal. Twig’s boss spent about five minutes in the back room, then returned to the common room. He ordered an ale and downed it without paying. He was either well-known enough to run up a tab, or the Night Masks had an arrangement with the tavern to serve free refreshments to their collectors. More importantly, Alias noticed that the collector’s belt pouch slapped nearly empty against his thigh.

So the watering hole was the next drop-off point for scam and protection operators. Alias remained while Twig’s boss disappeared out the tavern door.

Every few minutes, someone would arrive and approach the door to the private room and the guard would escort the person in or, with a jerk of his thumb, make him or her wait in the bar until the previous arrival left. Occasionally someone would leave the room looking chagrined, but most left smiling.

The visitors to the back room were mostly rough-looking men, a scattering of women, and a few children too young to be collectors themselves, no doubt working as runners for the collectors. Save for one dwarf, who muttered a string of curses as he entered and another as he exited, the visitors were all human.

After about a half hour, midway through her second, carefully nursed ale, Alias noticed that the guard let a visitor in before the last had left. Then it happened a second time. Either the master of the back room was keeping them for a reason, Alias realized, or, more likely, there was a back exit.

Alias gladly abandoned the last of her ale and left the tavern just as the guard was escorting a new arrival through the door. She headed right, down the street, counting the buildings until she hit a cross street, then made another right. She slipped down the alley and counted buildings until she’d reached the rear of the Rotten Root. She slowed as she approached.

Ahead of her she spied someone already watching the doorway from behind a stack of crates. Although the watcher had her back turned to the swordswoman, she seemed familiar. Alias slowed and increased her stealth.

“Hello, Alias,” Olive whispered, without even turning around. “Duck behind these crates before someone spots you.”

Alias stepped into the shadows behind the crates. “How did you know it was me?” she demanded.

“I saw you in the tavern common room, when I peeked in the front door. Since you were watching the front of the counting room, I thought I’d keep watch over the back. I saw you slip into the alley. Even at that distance I recognized your amusing drover’s costume. You’re not as noisy as your average human being, but you’re still not stealthy enough to sneak up behind me. How’s the house brew?”