Masquerades - Kate Novak [42]
Victor nodded. "The black hawk is the symbol of House Guldar. Their patriarch, Lord Dathguld, has bloodshot eyes. He's supposed to be paying through the nose for protection."
Two more puppets, guided by their puppeteers, joined the hawk puppet. One puppet was a giant blue hand festooned with mealy corn cobs-representing the trading badge of the merchant family Thorsar. The other puppet was a cyclops head with a yellow eye-like the trading badge of family Urdo. Three black-cloaked actors pushed themselves between the puppets. These actors wore domino masks to signify they were agents of the Night Masks.
The Faceless held his stick up like a baton. The Night Masks and the puppet merchants came to rapt attention. The Faceless waved his stick as if he were conducting a col-
lection of chamber musicians. The first Night Mask plucked a tail feather from the House Guldar hawk, who squawked and rolled his eyes. The giant hand representing House Thorsar grabbed the feather from the Night Mask.
Victor whispered into Alias's ear, "Rumor has it that House Thorsar purchases all the goods the Night Masks steal from family Guldar."
On the stage, the second Night Mask ripped a corn cob off the Thorsar puppet, which squeaked like a mouse. The Night Mask fed the corn to the cyclops head of family Urdo.
"And family Urdo buys everything the Night Masks steal from family Thorsar?" Alias asked. Victor nodded.
The third Night Mask tore a golden hair from the head of the cyclops, who roared, "Ow, ow, ow!" The Night Mask ran the cyclops's hair back to the beginning of the line and wove it into the hawk's nest-family Guldar buying the stolen goods of family Urdo.
Then the whole cycle began anew. The actions continued so smoothly that Alias was reminded of the figures of the mechanized water clocks made in Neverwinter. Every time a Night Mask plucked or handed over a piece of a puppet, the musicians sounded an amusing percussion noise and the puppets cried out. As the actors began to work faster and faster, the noises almost became a tune and the crowd cheered with delight.
Victor continued chuckling, and Alias could smell the vanilla scent of Dragonbait's amusement. She even caught herself grinning as the precision of the humorous movements and noises grew to a crescendo.
A fourth puppet drifted onto the stage, a ghostlike woman in gauzy white robes and tangled white hair. As it observed the fleecing of the merchants, it wailed and moaned piteously. Its cries grew louder and louder, until the merchant puppets retreated. The Night Masks turned as one on the wailing woman. They pulled out sticks and tried to smack at her, but she managed to stay just out of their reach. Then one of the Night Masks pulled out a torch, actually a stick ending in red, yellow
and orange streamers, and set fire to the stage, symbolized by having the puppeteers wave bits of red fabric about the wailing woman.
It finally occurred to Alias who the wailing woman was, and she realized what was going to happen next only moments before the Alias actress appeared on the stage.
The actress portraying Alias was too young-just a teenager, and to suggest a more mature figure she had stuffed something beneath the tunic she wore. The tunic had been painted over with apattern of chain mail. The girl's hair had been badly hennaed, but the blue makeup on her sword arm, andthe red cape left no doubt she was meant to be the swordswoman. As the crowd cheered her doppelganger's appearance, Alias felt an urge to cover herself so she would not be recognized.
The Night Masks tried to block the Alias on the stage from rescuing the wailing woman, but she made short work of them, knocking them out with a series of improbable, stylized kicks. The Night Masks rose and shook themselves off as the crowd applauded the Alias character. Then the Night Masks pulled out sticks and surrounded their opponent, but she kicked them down again. They rose yet again, but this time pantomimed running away. The heroine grabbed