“Haxo Angmark!” croaked Welibus, leaning back in his chair. “You’re sure he’s here?”
“Reasonably sure.”
Welibus rubbed his shaking hands together. “This is bad news — bad news indeed! He’s an unscrupulous scoundrel.”
“You knew him well?”
“As well as anyone.” Welibus was now accompanying himself with the kiv. “He held the post I now occupy. I came out as an inspector and found that he was embezzling four thousand UMFs a month. I’m sure he feels no great gratitude toward me.” Welibus glanced nervously up the esplanade. “I hope you catch him.”
“I’m doing my best. He went into the mask shop, you say?”
“I’m sure of it.”
Thissell turned away. As he went down the path he heard the black plank door thud shut behind him.
He walked down the esplanade to the mask-maker’s shop, paused outside as if admiring the display: a hundred miniature masks, carved from rare woods and minerals, dressed with emerald flakes, spider-web silk, wasp wings, petrified fish scales and the like. The shop was empty except for the mask-maker, a gnarled knotty man in a yellow robe, wearing a deceptively simple Universal Expert mask, fabricated from over two thousand bits of articulated wood.
Thissell considered what he would say, how he would accompany himself, then entered. The mask-maker, noting the Moon Moth and Thissell’s diffident manner, continued with his work.
Thissell, selecting the easiest of his instruments, stroked his strapan — possibly not the most felicitous choice, for it conveyed a certain degree of condescension. Thissell tried to counteract his flavor by singing in warm, almost effusive, tones, shaking the strapan whimsically when he struck a wrong note: “A stranger is an interesting person to deal with; his habits are unfamiliar, he excites curiosity. Not twenty minutes ago a stranger entered this fascinating shop, to exchange his drab Forest Goblin for one of the remark-able and adventurous creations assembled on the premises.”
The mask-maker turned Thissell a side-glance, and without words played a progression of chords on an instrument Thissell had never seen before: a flexible sac gripped in the palm with three short tubes leading between the fingers. When the tubes were squeezed almost shut and air forced through the slit, an oboelike tone ensued. To Thissell’s developing ear the instrument seemed difficult, the mask-maker expert, and the music conveyed a profound sense of disinterest.
Thissell tried again, laboriously manipulating the strapan. He sang, “To an out-worlder on a foreign planet, the voice of one from his home is like water to a wilting plant. A person who could unite two such persons might find satisfaction in such an act of mercy.”
The mask-maker casually fingered his own strapan, and drew forth a set of rippling scales, his fingers moving faster than the eyes could follow. He sank in the formal style: “An artist values his moments of concentration; he does not care to spend time exchanging banalities with persons of at best average prestige.” Thissell attempted to insert a counter melody, but the mask-maker struck a new set of complex chords whose portent evaded Thissell’s understanding, and continued: “Into the shop comes a person who evidently has picked up for the first time an instrument of unparalleled complication, for the execution of his music is open to criticism. He sings of homesickness and longing for the sight of others like himself. He dissembles his enormous strakh behind a Moon Moth, for he plays the strapan to a Master Craftsman, and sings in a voice of contemptuous raillery. The refined and creative artist ignores the provocation. He plays a polite instrument, remains noncommittal, and trusts that the stranger will tire of his sport and depart.”
Thissell took up his kiv. “The noble mask-maker completely misunderstands me — ”
He was interrupted by staccato rasping of the mask-maker’s strapan. “The stranger now sees fit to ridicule the artist’s comprehension.”
Thissell scratched furiously at his strapan: “To protect myself from the heat, I wander into a small and unpretentious mask shop. The artisan, though still distracted by the novelty of his tools, gives promise of development. He works zealously to perfect his skill, so much so that he refuses to converse with strangers, no matter what their need.”
The mask maker carefully laid down his carving tool. He rose to his feet, went behind a screen and shortly returned wearing a mask of gold and iron, with simulated flames licking up from the scalp. In one hand he carried a skaranyi, in the other a scimitar. He struck off a brilliant series of wild tones, and sang: “Even the most accomplished artist can augment his strakh by killing sea-monsters, Night-men and importunate idlers. Such an occasion is at hand. The artist delays his attack exactly ten seconds, because the offender wears a Moon Moth.” He twirled his scimitar, spun it in the air.
Thissell desperately pounded the strapan. “Did a Forest Goblin enter the shop? Did he depart with a new mask?”
“Five seconds have lapsed,” sang the mask-maker in steady ominous rhythm.
Thissell departed in frustrated rage. He crossed the square, stood looking up and down the esplanade. Hundreds of men and women sauntered along the docks, or stood on the decks of their houseboats, each wearing a mask chosen to express his mood, prestige and special attributes, and everywhere sounded the twitter of musical instruments.
Thissell stood at a loss. The Forest Goblin had disappeared. Haxo Angmark walked at liberty in Fan, and Thissell had failed the urgent instructions of Castel Cromartin.
Behind him sounded the casual notes of a kiv. “Ser Moon Moth Thissell, you stand engrossed in thought.”
Thissell turned, to find beside him a Cave Owl, in a somber cloak of black and gray. Thissell recognized the mask, which symbolized erudition and patient exploration of abstract ideas; Mathew Kershaul had worn it on the occasion of their meeting a week before.
“Good morning, Ser Kershaul,” muttered Thissell.
“And how are the studies coming? Have you mastered the C-Sharp Plus scale on the gomapard? As I recall, you were finding those inverse intervals puzzling.”
“I’ve worked on them,” said Thissell in a gloomy voice. “However, since I’ll probably be recalled to Polypolis, it may be all time wasted.”
“Eh? What’s this?”
Thissell explained the situation in regard to Haxo Angmark. Kershaul nodded gravely. “I recall Angmark. Not a gracious personality, but an excellent musician, with quick fingers and a real talent for new instruments.” Thoughtfully he twisted the goatee of his Cave Owl mask. “What are your plans?”
“They’re nonexistent,” said Thissell, playing a doleful phrase on the kiv. “I haven’t any idea what masks hell be wearing and if I don’t know what he looks like, how can I find him?”
Kershaul tugged at his goatee. “In the old days he favored the Exo Cambian Cycle, and I believe he used an entire set of Nether Denizens. Now of course his tastes may have changed.”
“Exactly,” Thissell complained. “He might be twenty feet away and I’d never know it.” He glanced bitterly across the esplanade toward the mask-maker’s shop. “No one will tell me anything; I doubt if they care that a murderer is walking their docks.”
“Quite correct,” Kershaul agreed. “Sirenese standards are different from ours.”
“They have no sense of responsibility,” declared Thissell. “I doubt if they’d throw a rope to a drowning man.”
“It’s true that they dislike interference,” Kershaul agreed. “They emphasize individual responsibility and self-sufficiency.”
“Interesting,” said Thissell, “but I’m still in the dark about Angmark.”
Kershaul surveyed him gravely. “And should you locate Angmark, what will you do then?”
“I’ll carry out the orders of my superior,” said Thissell doggedly.
“Angmark is a dangerous man,” mused Kershaul. “He’s got a number of advantages over you.”
“I can’t take that into account. It’s my duty to send him back to Polypolis. He’s probably safe, since I haven’t the remotest idea how to find him.”
Kershaul reflected. “An out-worlder can’t hide behind a mask, not from the Sirenes, at least. There are four of us here at Fan — Rolver, Welibus, you and me. If another out-worlder tries to set up housekeeping the news will get around in short order.”
“What if he heads for Zundar?”
Kershaul shrugged. “I doubt if he’d dare. On the other hand — ” Kershaul paused, then noting Thissell’s sudden inattention, turned to follow Thissell’s gaze.
A man in a Forest Goblin mask came swaggering toward them along the esplanade. Kershaul laid a restraining hand on Thissell’s arm, but Thissell stepped out into the path of the Forest Goblin, his borrowed gun ready. “Haxo Angmark,” he cried, “don’t make a move, or I’ll kill you. You’re under arrest.”
“Are you sure this is Angmark?” asked Kershaul in a worried voice.
“I’ll find out,” said Thissell. “Angmark, turn around, hold up your hands.”
The Forest Goblin stood rigid with surprise and puzzlement. He reached to his zachinko, played an interrogatory arpeggio, and sang, “Why do you molest me, Moon Moth?”
Kershaul stepped forward and played a placatory phrase on his slobo. “I fear that a case of confused identity exists, Ser Forest Goblin. Ser Moon Moth seeks an out-worlder in a Forest Goblin mask.”
The Forest Goblin’s music became irritated, and he suddenly switched to his stimic. “He asserts that I am an out-worlder? Let him prove his case, or he has my retaliation to face.”