Masquerades - Kate Novak [29]
Dragonbait nodded curtly, steeling himself to the task.
Kimbel stood motionlessly, watching the pair descend the stairs and approach him. Alias spotted the trading badge of the Dhostar household pinned to the lapel of his vest, but it wasn't until they stood directly before him that the servant showed them any recognition. Then he bowed very low at the waist, his back as stiff as iron. Alias sensed no respect in the servant's action. The display was intended to prop up the facade of Kimbel's gentility.
When he stood erect again, Alias worked at suppressing a shudder. His clean-shaven but weak chin, and the flat eyes behind the darkened glasses, gave him a snakelike appearance.
"Alias, I presume," he said, his lip curling upward in an approximation of a smile. "I am Kimbel, servant to House Dhostar. I have been instructed to await your reply."
"We'll speak to your master. Where can he be found?" Alias asked.
"He is at the Watch Docks, overseeing the customs arrangements. I have a carriage waiting outside to take you to him." He spun about and strode from the inn. Alias and Dragonbait followed at a deliberately leisurely pace.
The carriage, pulled by four black horses, was a huge, black monstrosity that, though capable of holding eight comfortably, was unable to negotiate Westgate's smaller streets. The house trading badge, a wagon wheel topped by three stars, was painted on the doors. According to the briefing Elminster had given Alias, the design granted by the Westgate city council to family Dhostar required the wheel color be tawny, but the ones marking the carriage had been gilded. Apparently Luer Dhostar liked to show off his political power.
Dragonbait found the carriage ridiculous and would have preferred to walk or even run, but he wasn't about to leave Alias alone with Kimbel. Before he would climb in, though, he studied the driver for a full minute, assuring himself that at least that servant harbored no evil intentions. He sat beside Alias, facing the front of the carriage.
Kimbel folded himself into a comer facing them. Dragonbait, using ordinary vision, stared at him, trying to gather more information, but the servant sat rigid, making no attempt at conversation, betraying nothing of himself. Alias kept her eyes on the view outside the carriage.
The city in daylight bustled with activity. In order to keep the mam thoroughfares clear for carriages, the law required expensive and limited permits to load or unload
wagons on those streets. To circumvent the fees, brute force had become the means of transport on the wider avenues, which were consequently crammed with milling legions of porters lugging boxes, urns, wicker baskets, crates, and passengers in riding chairs in an ever-milling dance. Added to the crush were shopkeepers trying to hustle customers into their establishments and vendors pushing carts or toting backpacks and hawking the wares they offered.
The carriage passed Mintassan's, but there was no sign of the sage. At one cross-street Alias caught a glimpse of people gathered around a dancing minotaur. Down another she thought she saw a street theater group performing atop a hay wagon, but the carriage moved too quickly for her to notice if Jamal was among the actors.
They came out to the Market Triangle, and Alias had a momentarily unobstructed view of the bay and the harbor, as the northern sections of the city sloped gently down to the sea.
The harbor was a tapestry of sails attached to ships from all over the Sea of Fallen Stars, cogs from Aglarond and Thesk, red cedar galleys from Thay, caravels from the Living City and the Vilhon Reach, strangely carved crafts from Mulhorand and Chondath, and carracks from nearby Cormyr and Sembia. Westgate was a major port on the Inner Sea. It stood at the entrance to both the Neck, the channel leading to the Lake of Dragons, and the northernmost