Кейт Новак: Masquerades

She was seized with another coughing fit, and every hack sent a jarring stab of pain down her lower back. When the fit subsided, she was aware of Dragonbait kneeling beside her. “Are you going to be all right?” the paladin asked.

“Took too much smoke,” Alias replied, unclasping her cape, hoping the cool night air on her back would relieve her sense of suffocating. “And I really hurt my tail when I landed.”

“I think you lost your tail when you landed,” the saurial teased, pretending to look around for a detached appendage.

“If I lost it, it couldn’t hurt this bad,” Alias complained.

Dragonbait laid his hands on her back and began whispering a prayer to his god for the gift of healing. Alias remained politely silent. Praying generally left her uncomfortable, as did anything to do with the gods. After ten years in the paladin’s company, though, his healing prayer felt to her more like a lullaby, summoning in her spirit a sense of being cherished.

The paladin’s hands began to glow gently with a blue light, which slid down along her body. The tenseness in her lungs eased, and the pain in her posterior region subsided. She still felt as sore as a landshark tunneling through the walls of Waterdeep, but now at least she could stand without agony.

Dragonbait helped her slowly to her feet. He made a face as he caught sight of her jaw, which had turned purple and swollen. “What happened to your face?” he asked with concern.

Alias tried to explain, but with the paladin’s hands pressing about her chin, her words came out, “Ikoddajoorybuck.” She paused and waited as more blue light flowed from the saurial’s hands, this time to her face. In a moment, the swelling had subsided, and she repeated her words more clearly, “I caught a jewelry box under the chin. Did you see an old woman come out. Housecoat, scarf, one slipper?”

Dragonbait shook his head, “I had to come out the back door. The fire was too strong. They’d set pine tar torches in the clothing and oil on the floor.” He bent over and retrieved the staff.

“With a touch of smoke powder for a big bang to make sure everyone knows it wasn’t an accident,” the swordswoman added.

“I take it this old woman wears the mate to the slipper tucked in your belt?” the saurial asked.

Alias looked down in surprise; she’d forgotten she’d hung on to it. “For some reason she was frightened of me,” the swordswoman explained. “She attacked me and ran. I hope she got out alive.”

“This is the one I sensed,” Dragonbait said, nodding curtly at the human form sprawled in the alleyway. “He died before I could help him.”

Alias forced herself to look down at the man Dragonbait had tried to rescue. To her relief, it was not Old Mendle. From the gaudy clothing the man wore she guessed he had been the current shop owner. The fire had barely touched him, and he hadn’t died from breathing the smoke. There were great splotches of red on his yellow silk shirt and in one of his gashed hands he clutched a domino mask with a torn string.

“Stabbed,” Alias said. “He must have come in on them while they were setting the fire.”

“I do not like these Night Masks at all,” Dragonbait declared.

“No one does, but they’re too afraid to do anything. You can see what happens to their enemies.” Alias looked around at the crowd. They were watching for the clothing shop to collapse. No one came forward to collect the body of the shopkeeper. Now that the heroics were through, no one wanted to be seen talking to the heroes. And of course there was no sign of the City Watch. “A typical Westgate evening,” Alias muttered.

“The Night Mask agents shouted that Jamal was marked,” the paladin reminded her. “Do you think he is Jamal? Or the old woman is?”

“Well, it’s hard to imagine they had it in for the halflings. The old woman—” Alias hesitated. She switched to the Saurial tongue. “She’s my mother. Finder left me a memory that she’s my mother, but I don’t know her name. She must have thought I was nuts, calling her mama.” Alias kicked furiously at a hunk of smoking timber that had fallen from the shop, spraying sparks through the alley.

Dragonbait plucked her cape from the ground. It was scorched and smoke-drenched, but he hoped she would take comfort in the feel of its weight on her shoulders. “We should leave this ghost home. There is nothing for you here.”

The roof of the shop crashed through the second story to the ground. Now that it was down, the bucket brigade turned its attention to the ruined shop.

“Why did Finder choose this place as my home?” Alias wondered aloud.

“He didn’t need a reason, Alias,” the paladin said. “It was just a game to him, giving you memories. It never occurred to him that your feelings would be hurt when you learned those memories were false.” It never occurred to Finder to worry about anyone’s feelings, he added to himself.

Alias shook her head. “No. There was a reason. He had to have a reason.”

Dragonbait remained silent as Alias stood staring into the flames of her memory home. Just as he was beginning to worry how long she would dwell on the unreasonable, she suddenly returned to the original task at hand. “Let’s find this Mintassan and get him the staff,” she said. “Then we need a room in an inn—preferably one made of stone.”

Dragonbait nodded in agreement. “I hope you know where we are,” he said, “because I lost my map in the flames.”

Alias smiled grimly. “Yeah,” she said. “It should be right around the corner here.”

This time it was around four corners and about a half-mile away, through empty streets and past bustling bars, past groups of young toughs who gave the smoky warriors a few catcalls and older, more grizzled veterans who gave them a wide berth.

At the last corner, the appearance of the neighborhood improved markedly. The pavement stone was uniform and unvandalized. The buildings were constructed from more brick and stone than wood. The oil in the steetlamps burned more brightly and smoked less. The streets and thresholds of every building had been swept within the last week. There was no visible sewage.

Mintassan’s townhouse was constructed of brick in the Sembian style—the first story was half underground, its door at the bottom of a narrow, descending stairway surrounded by a brick retaining wall, and the second story was raised several feet, its door atop a broad stone staircase. The lower quarters, usually reserved for servants, were where Mintassan had set up his shop. A sign mounted over the lower door displayed the sage’s sigil, the Beastlands symbol topped by a waxing crescent moon and surrounded by a circle. The sign read, “Mintassan’s Mysteries—Curios from Very Faraway Places.” The door itself was divided horizontally, and the top half stood wide open. They could see there was a light blazing in the shop within.

Just as Alias and Dragonbait approached the stairs, a high-pitched shriek came from the room below. Alias and Dragonbait exchanged glances. There could be a completely innocuous reason for a scream to be coming from the sage’s shop, but after all their other evening adventures, caution did not seem out of place. They crept down the staircase and hovered at the doorway, peering in and listening.

Magically glowing stones in glass globes hung from the ceiling, illuminating the shop. Shelves and tables within were covered with the curios from very faraway places. Most of the items were creatures that had once been alive but were now pelts, skeletons or stuffed trophies. Most were creatures Alias had never seen before, but a few she’d heard of in bards’ tales. Mixed in among the trophies were a few sculptures of strange creatures and vases and bowls depicting mythic beasts.