Masquerades

misdirection.'

'Bloody hell,' Victor muttered. 'He's talking with Alias now.'

'I suggest you continue with the plan,' Kimbel said. 'If there is a problem, you can deal with her once you are alone. I can deal with the lizard.'

'Remove him, but do not kill him yet,' Victor ordered. 'She might be able to sense that somehow. Make it appear innocent.'

'As if he left town in a fit of paladin snobbery,' Kimbel suggested. 'Yes. Nice touch,' Victor agreed. 'Go.'

The former assassin slipped away. Victor looked in Alias and Dragonbait's direction. Alias appeared to be arguing with the paladin, which was certainly a good sign. The merchant lord spotted Thistle Thalavar standing beside her imposing grandmother. The girl was as good a pawn as any, Lord Victor thought. He hurried over to ask her to dance.

Alias returned to the spot where she'd left Victor, only to discover he'd escorted Thistle Thalavar out to the dance floor. She slipped her mask back on, grateful for the way it hid her fury. She watched as Thistle seemed to hang on Victor's every word. The merchant lord may think of her as a i child, but it was obvious the young girl thought of him as a hero. Alias felt miserable standing alone in the room full of people, but she could hardly blame Victor for abandoning her. After all, he was supposed to mix with the guests. The swordswoman was just toying with the idea of finding herself another dance partner when Victor and Thistle parted company. Thistle moved in Dragonbait's direction and Victor came toward Alias.

The young noblewoman soon cornered her quarry and dragged the saurial onto the dance floor for a quadrille.

'I thought your friend could use a little coaxing onto the dance floor,' the nobleman explained as he rejoined the swordswoman. 'He looks far too dour for a celebration. Thistle said she'd see what she could- Alias, what's wrong?' ¦ 'Nothing,' Alias retorted hurriedly. 'What makes you think something's wrong?'

'Well, you're shaking, for one thing,' Victor replied as he placed his warm hands on her shoulders. 'And, well, with your complexion, you do tend to color when you're angry. Even your shoulders are red. Perhaps we should talk in private. Come upstairs with me.'

The white-caped guards on the stairs parted for the son of Luer Dhostar and his guest. Halfway up the stairs, Alias shot a glance down at the dance floor. Dragonbait was acquitting himself admirably, keeping up with Thistle's steps, but the swordswoman could tell his heart was not in the motions.

Victor hesitated before opening the door to the conference suite. 'I need to explain something. I was planning on asking you up here to-to talk. I realize maybe this is a bad time for it, so please don't misunderstand.'

He swung open the door, and Alias felt her heart melting despite her anger. The drab conference room had been transformed into a romantic faerie realm. The large table was glittering from lit tapers of perfumed wax. Bolts of silk fabric and oversized pillows covered the floor between the table and the hearth, where a fire blazed and crackled. A bottle of Evermead, two glasses, and a platter of fruits and cheeses sat on a tray beside the hearth.

'We can just sit at the table, if it will make you more comfortable,' Victor said.

Alias stepped into the room, and Victor followed, pushing the door closed behind them. Feeling a little foolish, she walked past the table and sat down on one of the pillows. She inspected the bottle of Evermead. It was more than a hundred years old.

'Now, tell me what's wrong,' Victor insisted, sinking onto a cushion beside her.

Alias shook her head. 'It's nothing, Victor… really. Drag-onbait and I just had an argument. He can be so- so-Oh! It just doesn't make any-sense! Victor, have you been telling me the truth about your father?' she demanded.

Victor looked into the flames of the fire. 'No,' he admitted softly.

Alias removed her mask, then reached up and untied the strings of the fabric covering Victor's eyes and pulled it away. She laid both masks down on the pillow beside her. Then she said, 'Victor, you have to tell me everything you know.'

'You have to understand,' Victor said, looking her in the eye. 'I love my father. I'm sure he thinks somehow what he's doing is right. He's not an evil man, Alias. He's just-well, he's just so certain that he's always right' 'You know he's involved with the Night Masks?'

'I've suspected it for some time. There hasn't been any money missing, but I guess he's been making some other kind of payments. He's in charge of all the smoke powder the city confiscates. There's a lot of it. It isn't all in the warehouse where the books say it should be. When I told | him I'd found the key, I also told him I'd discovered about I the smoke powder. He seemed pretty shaken. He asked me to cover for him, to give him time to take care of some personal matters. He promised me, though, that he would come here tonight and explain things to you and Durgar.'

The young man looked away, and Alias could see there were tears in his eyes. 'It doesn't look good, does it?' he asked. 'No. It doesn't,' Alias agreed.

'You'd better go back downstairs,' Victor said. 'It would be better for you if you weren't seen with me, I think.' 'Why not?' Alias demanded.

'My father is going to be the center of a scandal, Alias. He could be involved with the Night Masks. Gods! He might even be the Faceless. I have to stand beside him, but there's no reason for you to be involved.'

'Victor, no,' Alias said, feeling her heart breaking for the young man's pain. 'Look. I can't approve of your father, but I love you. I'm not going to abandon you because of something your father did.'

'I love you' Victor replied, 'which is why I can't allow you to stay. I don't want your name dragged down with ours.'

'If you love me,' Alias whispered vehemently, 'you'll let me stay.'

Victor smiled sadly. He ran his finger across her cheek, then down her neck and along her shoulder. 'You are so very beautiful,' he whispered. 'You made me feel so lucky.'

Alias put her hand behind the nobleman's neck and pulled his face close to her own. 'I am not leaving you. You say you love me. Prove it,' she demanded, and she threw her arms about his neck and pressed her lips against his own.

Lord Victor slid one hand about the swordswoman's waist to pull her closer as his other hand rested over Alias's porcelain mask, covering its eyes completely.

Below, in the main room of the Tower, the interminably long quadrille had ended and Dragonbait excused himself from Thistle Thalavar's company as quickly as good manners allowed. Now he scanned the crowded room for either Alias or Victor. In the end, it was Olive who found him. She tugged anxiously on the hem of his tunic. Where is she? he signed surreptitiously.

The halfling jerked her finger in the direction of the stairway. 'With Lord Victor,' she growled. 'Didn't you talk to her?'

Dragonbait cursed in Saurial and began pushing his way through the crowd, toward the stairs. He managed to climb four steps before his way was blocked by a wall of leather armor and white plumes.

Dragonbait hesitated, considering whether he should fetch Olive to translate his need to the guard or whether he should just shove his way past them. He had just decided on the more forceful option when the screaming began.

The paladin wheeled just in time to see a huge figure leap down from one-of the mirrors mounted on the wall and land with a great thoom on the stone floor. The creature was twice the size of a human, kettle black, with a head shaped like a dragon's. An identical creature had already landed on a young noble, who screamed as his legs were crushed beneath the monster's weight. The saurial recognized the figures as iron golems from the lair of the Faceless. A third appeared in the mirror, pausing only for the first two to move out of the way before it, too, leaped down onto the floor.

The crowd was already panicking, driving like a herd of cattle for the entrance, only to find that the portcullis to the entrance had been lowered. Those in the rear were being decapitated by blows from the iron golems' fists, while those in the front were being crushed by their fellow guests.

A fourth and a fifth golem emerged from the mirror before the guardsmen poured off the stairs to meet the assault.