Victor turned about and grasped both of Alias’s hands in his own. “You’ll help, then? That’s wonderful. Father will be so pleased. He won’t show it, but he will be pleased.”
“And you, Lord Victor?” Alias asked. “Are you pleased?”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” The young merchant squeezed her hands to emphasize his point, then released them suddenly, flushing with the realization of the liberty he’d taken. “And Dragonbait?” he asked suddenly, turning to the saurial. “You’ll help, too?”
“Tell him what we agreed,” the paladin said to Alias.
“Dragonbait must return north soon,” Alias explained. “He won’t be working for the croamarkh, but he will help me until he goes.”
“I see, “Victor replied. “Well, I’m grateful for all the time you can give us,” the merchant said to the saurial.
Dragonbait nodded politely.
A shiver ran down Alias’s back. Even though, as Dragonbait had pointed out, she had other friends here, in her whole life she had never been long separated from the paladin. She studied Victor’s face as he took one last look over the city, and felt slightly reassured. With the earnest, handsome merchant lord as one of those friends, Westgate might not only be less lonely but more exciting. Still, a sense of dread lingered in the pit of her stomach. In her first year of life, she’d defeated many powerful and evil beings, yet Dragonbait had always been there to back her up. Now, she realized, she had just possibly committed herself to battling the Night Masks alone.
Seven
Street Theater
The adventurers and their new ally climbed back down the lighthouse. In the plaza stood an open, two-wheeled carriage pulled by two yellow mares. An old man, dressed in the black and tawny parti-colored livery of House Dhostar, held the halter of one of the horses. Although the Dhostar trading insignia emblazoned the side of the small black carriage, the insignia was tawny like the horses, not gilded.
“It’s not as showy as my father’s,” Victor pointed out, “so perhaps you wouldn’t mind allowing me to drive you back to your inn?”
“Well, I suppose,” Alias agreed with a feigned reluctance. She allowed the merchant to hand her up to the single seat. Victor got in on the other side, and Dragonbait squeezed in beside Alias.
The old man released the horses as Victor snapped the reins. The carriage started down the street at a brisk pace. Although they were crowded and the ride was somewhat bumpier than the one they’d experienced in the croamarkh’s carriage, the adventurers felt much more relaxed in Victor’s company, and therefore cheerier.
“I have other duties I must return to soon, but perhaps, if you haven’t made other plans,” Victor said, as cautious as a man creeping up on a sleeping beholder, “we could have dinner together.”
“Dinner? What sort of dinner?” Alias asked.
“Nothing formal like a banquet or anything,” Victor explained. “Just soup and sandwiches while we discussed strategy. You, me, and Dragonbait if you wish. We can talk about where to start making your assault on the Night Masks. I’ve been keeping track of some of their crimes, the ones that are reported, anyway. They hardly ever hit near the market surrounding the Tower, for fear, I presume, of the watch, but I’ve noticed of late they’ve been preying more heavily on the Gateside district. Whoa!” Victor pulled the horses up sharply as he turned the curve onto Westgate Market Street.
A crowd of people jammed the street. People on foot could negotiate through, but not the carriage. There were already two closed carriages and a dragon cart loaded with kegs of ale stopped in the traffic as the high-strung carriage horses and huge-but-gentle draft horses balked at pressing further into the mass of people. As Victor began backing the carriage so that he could take it down a side street, Alias and Dragonbait peered ahead to discover the reason for the gathering.
The crowd, it turned out, was an audience. In the plaza in front of the House of the Wheel, the local temple of Gond, was a street theater troupe performing atop the temple stairs.
“It’s Jamal’s troupe,” the paladin said.
“Are you sure?” Alias asked. “I don’t see her.”
Dragonbait nodded.
Alias laid her hand on Victor’s arm. “I know you have to get back to your business, but do you mind very much if we stay and watch this?”
“There’s a novel idea,” the young merchant said with amusement. He eased the horses forward, nudging people aside until the carriage was only thirty feet from the stairs. Dragonbait stood on the carriage step and Alias and Victor made themselves comfortable. Looming over the heads of the other spectators, the three had an excellent view of the performance.
The performers included actors and puppeteers and musicians. At center stage stood an actor in a black cloak and a floppy black hat with a veil of coins hanging from the hat’s brim. All about the actor puppeteers pushed and pulled on sticks to manipulate the limbs and heads of life-sized puppets. In the eastern style of puppeteering, the puppeteers wore white garbs and hoods and remained on the stage with their charges. A man seated to one side strummed on a yarting. He was accompanied by three youths, two boys and a girl, with a collection of percussion instruments and noisemakers.
A hawk puppet made of black felt, with a droopy beak and sad, bloodshot eyes, fluttered to center stage and perched in a nest mounted on the shoulder of one of the puppeteers. The coin-veiled actor held out a hand in front of the hawk. The puppet coughed, and coins popped out of its mouth into the actor’s waiting hand. When the coins stopped coming, the actor rapped the hawk puppet with a wooden stick. The stick was split at one end so it would make a satisfying whack without really dealing any damage. The hawk puppet’s eyes rolled about in its head to the sound of the yarting being struck on the side. Then the hawk began coughing up more coins. Each time it stopped, the actor rapped it and its eyes rolled and the yarting thrummed. The crowd burst out in laughter and hooting jibes.
“I don’t understand,” Alias said as Victor chuckled beside her.
“The actor in the coin hat,” Victor whispered, “represents the Faceless—”
“The Night Masks’ leader,” Alias added, remembering their discussion at the Watch Dock.
Victor nodded. “The black hawk is the symbol of House Guldar. Their patriarch, Lord Dathguld, has bloodshot eyes. He’s supposed to be paying through the nose for protection.”
Two more puppets, guided by their puppeteers, joined the hawk puppet. One puppet was a giant blue hand festooned with mealy corn cobs—representing the trading badge of the merchant family Thorsar. The other puppet was a cyclops head with a yellow eye—like the trading badge of family Urdo. Three black-cloaked actors pushed themselves between the puppets. These actors wore domino masks to signify they were agents of the Night Masks.
The Faceless held his stick up like a baton. The Night Masks and the puppet merchants came to rapt attention. The Faceless waved his stick as if he were conducting a collection of chamber musicians. The first Night Mask plucked a tail feather from the House Guldar hawk, who squawked and rolled his eyes. The giant hand representing House Thorsar grabbed the feather from the Night Mask.
Victor whispered into Alias’s ear, “Rumor has it that House Thorsar purchases all the goods the Night Masks steal from family Guldar.”
On the stage, the second Night Mask ripped a corn cob off the Thorsar puppet, which squeaked like a mouse. The Night Mask fed the corn to the cyclops head of family Urdo.
“And family Urdo buys everything the Night Masks steal from family Thorsar?” Alias asked.