Masquerades - Kate Novak [13]
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 veryfaraway 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.
In the center of the room, a big man sat on the arm of a red velvet sofa directly beneath a globe. He wore a billowing cotton shirt and baggy pants, both white, and a powder-blue vest embroidered in gold thread. His long chestnut-brown hair was pulled back into a pony-tail with a leather thong. His back was turned to the door, so Alias could not see his face. In one large hand he held up the bare, shapely leg of someone lying on the sofa, and was currently rubbing something on the sole of the foot belonging to the leg. The high back of the sofa also blocked Alias's view of whoever was lying there, but whoever it was was no doubt the source of the first shriek, for a moment later a second shriek rose from the sofa, followed by a woman's voice crying, "Ow, ow, ow."
"The pain'll be good for you," the man said. "Remind you not to go fire-walking without both your slippers. Personally I prefer heavy boots when I run around burning buildings. Now don't fidget. It takes a moment for the salve to work."
"It wasn'tmy idea to go barefoot," a woman's voice argued from the sofa. "It was that witch. I told you, the slipper came off when she grabbed my leg. She nearly had me. I was lucky to escape with my skin still on."
Even if Alias hadn't recognized the situation described, she would have recognized the voice. It was a little sharper and more nasal than her memory recalled, but it sounded like her mother, the phony mother Finder had given her.
"Jamal, be reasonable," the man requested. "She's dead. She's been dead for years."
"Since when's being dead slowed down a wizard?" the voice on the couch argued. "I'm telling you, Mintassan, Cassana's come after me. The Night Masks set the fire, of course, but she was there, too. She's trying to kill me for that rude skit we did about her and that lich-boytoy of hers."
Mintassan gave a long-suffering sigh and insisted, "Cassana's dead, Jamal."
"No, she isn't," Jamal retorted, sitting up straight on the sofa and waving her finger in Mintassan's face.
"Well, actually, yes, she is," Alias said, turning the handle of the lower half of the door and letting herself into the shop. "I cut through her staff of power myself up on the Hill of Fangs ten years ago. I survived the blast that killed her only because I was half standing in another plane. Cassana was burned to ash. And if she came back by some fell sorcery, I'd know immediately, but she hasn't. She's still dead."
Jamal's complexion went as white as an underfed vampire's as she stared wordlessly at the newcomers, one a dead ringer for the sorceress Cassana, the other a lizard creature resembling a monster from a tale of darkest evil.
"Cassana was a distantrelation," the swordswoman explained as she circled the sofa and stood before Jamal and Mintassan. "Alias the Sell-Sword, at your service," she introduced herself with a sweeping bow, "and this, I believe, is yours," she added, holding out the