Masks follow her in. Then, as per the swordswoman's additional instructions, he announced that he would be giving out free samples from the great barrel of Chondath Dark Ale. He waited until he had a sizeable crowd about him, then tipped over the great keg standing across the passageway and knocked a tap into the end.
From the passageway beyond, the old dwarf heard the redhead say, 'You'd better get moving, boys. I may not give you a second chance.'
The dwarf moved back from his tap as three men came rushing toward him and clambered over the keg of ale. The crowd howled with laugher, for all three men were naked save for their domino masks. These they clutched in a desperate effort to conceal what modesty they had left. The trio bolted through the crowd as fast as they could and disappeared into the dark streets. No doubt they stopped eventually to steal some new clothing, but they were not seen in Westgate again.
As Dragonbait and Alias climbed over the keg, the brewmaster offered them both a mug of ale from the barrel Alias had purchased. Alias declined, but insisted that Dragonbait enjoy a pint.
While the saurial sipped his beverage, Alias drew out the loaf of bread she'd bought and began using it to wipe green goo off her sword. She offered the paladin a bite first. 'You know I hate avocado,' he replied.
Alias shrugged. 'I've gotten quite fond of it. It has that rich, buttery flavor. The flavor of revenge.' She popped into her mouth a chunk of the bread spread with green fruit.
'Was there a point to all of that, other than to amuse the crowd?' Dragonbait asked.
'A point?' Alias repeated. 'We don't need a point. They tried to rob us, and we got even. It was a good joke. Humor, remember humor?' She finished polishing her sword and sheathed it next to the saurial's enchanted blade.
Dragonbait sipped his ale, looking at her over the top of his mug with a sad, paternal stare.
'All right,' Alias snapped. 'There was a point. Those three may actually reconsider their lives of crime. At the very least, they won't be leaving their masks behind tonight.'
Dragonbait blew the air out of his cheeks with a har-rumph. 'Three tiny leaves plucked off the tree of evil.'
'The axe hasn't been forged that's big enough to cut down the Night Mask tree in Westgate,' Alias argued. She took another bite of avocado and bread. 'Then one must dig out the roots,' the paladin replied.
'Dig out the roots. What's that supposed to mean? We came here to make a deal with Mintassan the Sage, not go into the tree-pruning business.'
'I thought you might want to help the people of West-gate, free them from the shadow of the Night Masks.' 'Why would I want to do that?'
'You grew up here, after all,' the saurial said with a sly grin.
Alias glared at her companion, uncertain if he was trying to get her to renounce her false memories or really hoped to get her entangled in the web of treachery that made up Westgate's power structure. 'I did grow up here,' she insisted. She looked up at the buildings around her. The memories felt so real, so fresh. She'd been on this street before, when she was just a little girl, chasing a cat she'd hoped to keep as a pet. 'As a matter of fact,' she declared, 'our house was just around the corner. I can show you.' She slid off the keg of ale and headed down the street.
'Alias, please, don't-' Dragonbait called. Now he wished he had not teased her.'When her memory betrayed her like this, it often ended in pain for her.
But Alias was now in another world, one of nostalgia for a past she didn't really own. 'Come on,' she called back over her shoulder. 'It shouldn't take us too far off our route.'
'Boogers,' Dragonbait muttered. It was one of the foulest curses Olive Ruskettle had ever taught him. He shouldered the ashen staff and loped after his companion.
'Around the corner' turned out to be one corner, three blocks, a second corner, an alley, and another corner. The part of the city they traveled through had seen better days. The cobblestones were intermixed with potholes and bald patches where locals had quarried the street to patch up their chimneys and walls. The paint on every door was peeling. Trees and shrubs in the gardens were all overgrown. Still, there was the occasional streetlamp made of a utilitarian post of iron with dimly glowing, smoking oil in a small bowl at the top.
All of the shops on the ground floor were shuttered and locked tight, but there were a number of small lights in the upper stories-constellations of candles, lanterns, and the occasional magical light stone.
'There,' Alias announced in an awestruck tone, as if she had discovered the lost city of Shandaular.
She pointed to a small, two-story building sandwiched between a stable and a dressmaker's establishment. According to a weathered old sign over the door, the shop on the first floor specialized in second-hand clothing. The original proprietor's name had been painted over, but no new moniker had been posted to take its place. 'Very nice,' Dragonbait said, as gently as he could muster, 'We'd better be going, though.'
Alias scowled, 'You don't understand. I was born here. I grew up here. I have memories of this place.'
Dragonbait sighed, 'I know, but they're memories sung into you by Finder. You were never here, really here, before tonight. If you'd like, we can come back tomorrow when its light and ask if anyone here knew Finder. I think for now, though, we'd better-'
Dragonbait's words were cut short as the front door of the shop smashed open and three humans barged out of the building-a man and a woman both with slight frames and close-cropped hair and a second man large enough to be a bouncer at a very rough bar. All three wore domino masks and were dressed in velvet dyed a black so deep that it absorbed light, as if they were chunks of the Abyss loose in the Realms. The big man carried a blazing torch. The smaller man banged a nail into the doorjamb. The woman hung a black domino mask on the nail, then nodded curtly at the big man. The big man flung his torch through the doorway, back into the building.
The black-garbed woman shouted up at the houses all around, 'Jamal is marked!' then all three figures dashed down the street.
Alias raced forward and started to shout, 'Fire! Bring water!' but her words were lost to the boom of a great explosion. The entire front of the store bulged outward, then tore loose in a gout of flame, knocking Alias and Dragonbait to the ground and covering them with burning rags.
Two
Alias staggered to her feet. The smell of burning cloth, mingled with a complicated mixture of odors from Dragonbait, stung her nostrils. The; saurial stood beside her, apparently unscathed, emitting the scents of brimstone and violets, then baked bread and ham, as his confusion and fear gave way to anger and worry. He stood before her, holding his hands on her shoulders, but it was several moments before she realized by the occasional clicking of his tongue that he was speaking to her. She'd been partially deafened by the blast.
Uncertain whether the saurial's hearing was any better than her own, the swordswoman signed with her hands, “I’ll be all right. We have to help the people inside.”
She lurched toward the flame, then took a second step. By the third stride she had shaken off most of the bone-jarring effects of the blast, and by the fourth she was running into the blazing shop, Dragonbait hot on her heels.
Most of the planking that made up the front wall of the shop and the shutter that had covered the shop's front window lay smoldering in the street, while the frame that remained standing blazed ferociously. Alias plunged though the wreath of flame about the doorway and paused a moment in the foyer. The entrance matched her 'memory.' The door on the right led to the clothing shop, now an inferno of burning cloth. A few feet beyond the shop door was the staircase to the apartments above; the staircase handrail was draped with fiery clothing, and the steps gleamed with burning oil.
Dragonbait stood in the doorway on the right, peering into the shop. Alias signed. Don't go in there, it's too dangerous, but the paladin signed back, Someone's in there.
Alias grabbed her friend's arm to hold him back. She remembered Old Mendle, who ran the shop long ago, when she was a child. He used to let her play dress-up among the bins of garments he had gathered from the
