The performers included actors and puppeteers and musicians. At center stage stood an actor in a black cloak and a floppy black hat with a veil of coins hanging from the hat's brim. All about the actor puppeteers pushed and pulled on sticks to manipulate the limbs and heads of life-sized puppets. In the eastern style of puppeteering,the puppeteers wore white garbs and hoods and remained on the stage with their charges. A man seated to one side strummed on a yarting. He was accompanied by three youths, two boys and a girl, with a collection of percussion instruments and noisemakers.
A hawk puppet made of black felt, with a droopy beak and sad, bloodshot eyes, fluttered to center stage and perched in a nest mounted on the shoulder of one of the puppeteers. The coin-veiled actor held out a hand in.front of the hawk. The puppet coughed, and coins popped out of its mouth into the actor's waiting hand. When the coins stopped coming, the actor rapped the hawk puppet with a wooden stick. The stick was split at one end so it would make a satisfying whack without really dealing any damage. The hawk puppet's eyes rolled about in its head to the sound of the yarting being struck on the side. Then the hawk began coughing up more coins. Each time it stopped, the actor rapped it and its eyes rolled and the yarting thrummed. The crowd burst out in laughter and hooting jibes.
"I don't understand," Alias said as Victor chuckled beside her.
"The actor in the coin hat," Victor whispered, "represents the Faceless-"
"The Night Masks' leader," Alias added, remembering their discussion at the Watch Dock.
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 Thorear. 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 collection 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 a pattern of chain mail. The girl's hair had been badly hennaed, but the blue makeup on her sword arm, and the 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 the cloak of the nearest Night Mask and gave a sharp tug. The cloak came away, leaving the actor naked but for a codpiece painted with a spider. The crowd howled its approval as all three Night Masks fled the stage.
The last scene played out with the Faceless quaking in fear as Alias strode toward him, but the heroine was distracted by the cries of the wailing woman. As she stomped out the 'flames,' the Faceless made his escape. With the wailing woman puppet on her arm, the actress playing Alias struck a dramatic pose and shouted, "Tyranny shall not prevail!"
The crowd demonstrated its approval with shouts and applause and foot stomping. The puppeteers grabbed tambourines and moved along the fringes of the crowd to solicit donations. Alias noted that the audience was more free with its praise than its pocket change. All the troupers got for their trouble was a double-handful of copper and a few silver pieces. The swordswoman remembered Jamal's remark that one didn't make a living in the theater. Alias wondered exactly how Jamal did make a living.
"You were just wonderful," Victor whispered in Alias's ear, applauding with the rest. "Thanks," Alias muttered, reddening deeply.
"Yes, we were, weren't we," Dragonbait said, with just a hint of sarcasm. "At least, I remember being there."
"Dragonbait deserves just as much credit," the swordswoman explained to Victor. "He was with me when all that happened."
Victor gave the saurial a sympathetic look. "A victim of artistic license. Perhaps they just couldn't find an actor to do your role justice," the nobleman suggested.
Alias gave her companion a sheepish grin, but another problem caught her eye. She pointed to the far end of the crowd, which was parting for a flying wedge of the watch, which advanced upon the makeshift stage of the temple stairs. "Is there going to be trouble?" she asked Victor.
"Possibly," the merchant replied, though his tone sounded more resigned than alarmed.
The five members of the watch patrol, armored in long black leather tunics and polished steel helms kept their short swords sheathed, but they were shoving at the crowd with short clubs. About half of the street theater audience began dispersing from the plaza, but many remained, though whether from loyalty to the performers or just curious to see what would happen, Alias could not tell.