“A Forest Goblin,” said Rolver. “Angmark brought the mask with him.”
“But he played the hand-bugle,” Thissell protested. “How could Angmark — ”
“He’s well acquainted with Sirene; he spent five years here in Fan.”
Thissell grunted in annoyance. “Cromartin made no mention of this.”
“It’s common knowledge,” said Rolver with a shrug. “He was Commercial Representative before Welibus took over.”
“Were he and Welibus acquainted?”
Rolver laughed shortly. “Naturally. But don’t suspect poor Welibus of anything more venal than juggling his accounts; I assure you he’s no consort of assassins.”
“Speaking of assassins,” said Thissell, “do you have a weapon I might borrow?”
Rolver inspected him in wonder. “You came out here to take Angmark bare-handed?”
“I had no choice,” said Thissell. “When Cromartin gives orders he expects results. In any event you were here with your slaves.”
“Don’t count on me for help,” Rolver said testily. “I wear the Tarn Bird and make no pretensions of valor. But I can lend you a power pistol. I haven’t used it recently; I won’t guarantee its charge.”
Rolver went into the office and a moment later returned with the gun. “What will you do now?”
Thissell shook his head wearily. “I’ll try to find Angmark in Fan. Or might he head for Zundar?”
Rolver considered. “Angmark might be able to survive in Zundar. But he’d want to brush up on his musicianship. I imagine he’ll stay in Fan a few days.”
“But how can I find him? Where should I look?”
“That I can’t say,” replied Rolver. “You might be safer not finding him. Angmark is a dangerous man.”
Thissell returned to Fan the way he had come.
Where the path swung down from the hills into the esplanade a thick-walled pise de terre building had been constructed. The door was carved from a solid black plank; the windows were guarded by enfoliated bands of iron. This was the office of Cornely Welibus, Commercial Factor, Importer and Exporter. Thissell found Welibus sitting at his ease on the tiled veranda, wearing a modest adaptation of the Walde-mar mask. He seemed lost in thought, and might or might not have recognized Thissell’s Moon Moth; in any event he gave no signal of greeting.
Thissell approached the porch. “Good morning, Ser Welibus.”
Welibus nodded abstractedly and said in a flat voice, plucking at his krodatch, “Good morning.”
Thissell was rather taken aback. This was hardly the instrument to use toward a friend and fellow out-worlder, even if he did wear the Moon Moth.
Thissell said coldly, “May I ask how long you have been sitting here?”
Welibus considered half a minute, and now when he spoke he accompanied himself on the more cordial crebarin. But the recollection of the krodatch chord still rankled in Thissel’s mind.
“I’ve been here fifteen or twenty minutes. Why do you ask?”
“I wonder if you noticed a Forest Goblin pass?”
Welibus nodded. “He went on down the esplanade — turned into the first mask shop, I believe.”
Thissell hissed between his teeth. This would naturally be Angmark’s first move. “Ill never find him once he changes masks,” he muttered.
“Who is this Forest Goblin?” asked Welibus, with no more than casual interest.
Thissell could see no reason to conceal the name. “A notorious criminal: Haxo Angmark.”
“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.