Masquerades - Kate Novak [171]
Mintassan sat at the head of the table in his workroom with Jamal the Thespian and Olive Ruskettle on his left and Alias the Sell-Sword and Dragonbait the Paladin on his right. The boy Kel had been banished to an upper room to work on learning his letters with his new tutor, Mercy. The former Night Mask had accepted his and the half-elven girl's banishment with such grace that it caused Olive to mutter, "Who's teaching whom, and what's being taught?"
After taking a sip from her mismatched mug of tea, sweetened with five sugar cubes, Olive returned to her interrogation of the conspirators, as she had come to call Alias, Dragonbait, and Mintassan. "So let's see if I have this straight finally," the halfling said. "After Kimbel shot Dragonbait and kidnapped him, Mintassan followed Kimbel and knocked Kimbel out. How'd you get the drop on an assassin as sharp as Kimbel?"
"My superior tactics and skill with weaponry," the sage said.
He was invisible when he snuck up on Kimbel. He hit him on the head with a rock, Dragonbait signed in the thieves' hand cant.
Jamal laughed. "Then you rescued Dragonbait, poly-morphed Kimbel into yourself and yourself into Kimbel and feebleminded Kimbel, all so you could find out what Victor was up to."
Mintassan nodded. "Yes. Actually the double polymorph and feeblemind was Dragonbait's idea."
"Figures," Olive said. "Paladin's are a sneaky lot, and Dragonbait's the sneakiest of the sneaky."
"You stayed in character pretty well," Jamal noted as she poured a hefty dose of brandy into her tea. "Especially considering Dhostar brought you a dying Alias. You must have some acting blood in you after all."
"If I had known at the time that Dhostar was the Faceless, that he was upstairs poisoning Alias," the sage said softly, "I would have come up and stopped him without bothering to stay in character. Fortunately, knowing the Faceless had iron golems at his disposal, I had actually prepared a slow poison spell."
"Because iron golems sometimes breath poison gas," Alias explained.
"But the golems at the ball were the cheap Thayan kind, so they didn't," Olive noted. "Then you faked Alias's death with a phony tattooed arm. Where did you get the arm?" the halfling asked.
"Ham hock with a polymorph spell cast on it," Mintassan said. "Before that, though, came the hardest part of the plan."
"What?"
"Convincing Alias not to go storming up into Castle Dhostar and run Lord Victor through with a sword."
"But why did you turn her into a halfling?" Olive insisted.
"Because it fit in with our plan," Alias said. "When I recovered from the poison, I told Mintassan about all the things Victor had ever said to me. Learning of Victor's fascination with Verovan's hoard gave Mintassan an idea. He knew Lady Nettel's brooch was the key to the
hoard-"
"You knew about Verovan's hoard?" Olive exclaimed.
"For about eight years," the sage answered.
"And you never did anything about it?"
Mintassan shrugged. "I don't need gold."
"Bite your tongue!" the halfling demanded. "Such blasphemy. As if it isn't bad enough that Thistle threw the key back into the portal so that no one can ever reach all that gold again."
"She was also making sure the manes didn't escape, Olive."
"To get back to your plan," Jamal insisted. "You knew Victor would go after Thistle, so you became a halfling to help protect her, since House Thalavar trusts halflings and hires them," Jamal guessed.
"Yes," Alias said. "Although I didn't do a very good job. Thistle fired me. I guess I didn't make a very good halfling."
"You weren't so bad," Olive critiqued. "A little too bossy and crabby."
"Well,