Masks Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by E. C. Blake.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Paul Young.

  Dingbat by permission of Shutterstock.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1635.

  DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN 978-0-698-14280-0

  All characters in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE | Pain and Fire

  ONE | Tests

  TWO | Changes

  THREE | The Colors of Magic

  FOUR | The Boy in the Basement

  FIVE | The Masking

  SIX | An Uncertain Future

  SEVEN | Cold Water

  EIGHT | Magic in the Dark

  NINE | The Secret City

  TEN | “I’ll Need a Few Things”

  ELEVEN | Kidnapped

  TWELVE | The Camp

  THIRTEEN | Descent into Darkness

  FOURTEEN | Blood, Sweat, and Fears

  FIFTEEN | An Unexpected Visitor

  SIXTEEN | The Bargain

  SEVENTEEN | Death on the Mountain

  EIGHTEEN | “I Have to Rescue Her”

  NINETEEN | The Return

  TWENTY | Waiting and Watching

  TWENTY-ONE | Fire in the Night

  TWENTY-TWO | The Edge of Destruction

  TWENTY-THREE | The Restless Dead

  TWENTY-FOUR | Revelations and Discoveries

  TWENTY-FIVE | Aftermath and Beginnings

  For Alice, my beautiful daughter:

  dancer, future chemist, and devotee of sword-fighting princesses.

  •••

  Acknowledgments

  Much of this book was written during my tenure as writer-in-residence at the Regina Public Library. My thanks to the library and its staff and administration and to the Canada Council of the Arts, which provides funding for the writer-in-residence program at the RPL, the longest-running program of its kind in Canada.

  Thanks as always to my editor extraordinaire, Sheila Gilbert, who knows what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t—and isn’t afraid to tell her authors. This book is far better than it would have been without her insight and experience.

  Also, thanks to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who looked at several pages of ideas I was toying with and immediately said Masks was the one to focus on. As always, he was right.

  And last, but most importantly, my deepest love and gratitude to my wife, Margaret Anne, and daughter, Alice, the center and ground of my life.

  PROLOGUE

  Pain and Fire

  FROM ATOP A NAMELESS MOUNTAIN, the Autarch of Aygrima watched another of his villages burn.

  The mountain had no name because it deserved none. Its peak was not distinctive; no towering cliff face set it apart from its fellows; no spectacular fall of water cascaded down its stony flanks. It was not even particularly tall; little more than a hill, really. What it did offer was a clear view of the far more spectacular mountains to the north, and, down its eastern slope, a clear view of the village of Starbright.

  Or, or least, it had offered such a view, when Starbright still existed. Nothing now remained of it but crumbling walls, charred beams, smoking embers, and the tumbled, bloody corpses of its residents, even now being dragged through the streets to the mass grave scarring the once-lush grass of the village green.

  The acrid tang of smoke stung the Autarch’s throat, but he ignored it, though it made Keltan, his white stallion, stamp and blow. Behind him the black geldings of the six Sun Guards were likewise restless. He ignored them, too; a similar entourage had surrounded him all his life, even before his father’s agonizing death from the poison of the now-defeated rebels.

  Had he turned to look at the Sun Guards, he would also have seen the ocean, stretching out to the infinite western horizon. Four or five centuries before, there might have been a reason to look that way, to watch for the sails of ships from the myriad kingdoms of the West, sailing to Aygrima to trade for the magic that only the Autarchy could offer, bearing away Healers and Engineers and enchanted tools, weapons, and amusements to distant, exotic ports.

  But then had come the Sickness, brought by a ragged ship with a dying crew. The Sickness had raged across Aygrima, felling hundreds, but in the end the Healers, through prodigious expenditure of magic, had gained the upper hand and snuffed it out. The historians believed it had been far more devastating elsewhere, for that plague ship had been the last vessel from overseas to ever make port in Aygrima.

  At the moment, however, the Autarch was not interested in history. He was interested only in the dying village below, and the man now riding a bay mare up the winding path from the valley floor: Perris, his Guardian of Security—his new Guardian of Security, for Floccias, the old one, had died, courtesy of the Autarch, as agonizing a death as the Autarch’s father, the man he had failed so spectacularly to protect.

  “Mighty One,” panted Perris as he arrived at last. “As you commanded, we questioned everyone—man, woman, and child—then put the village to the sword and torch. No one escaped to tell the tale.”

  “I don’t care about the village,” the Autarch snapped. “Did you learn anything? Anything about the girl?”

  Perris swallowed hard. Good, thought the Autarch fiercely. He fears me. As he should. As all should. Fear is my protector.

  Fear . . . and the Masks. They should be ready by the time I reach Tamita. Soon, everyone will be Masked, every Mask telling the tale of the wearer’s thoughts to my guards, the soldiers I have already renamed Watchers . . . there will never be another rebellion.

  Never!

  “They were . . . remarkably unwilling to talk,” Perris said. “They feared us. They feared what we could do to them . . . what we did do to them. But they feared her more.” He shook his head. “They said we could only kill their bodies. They said she could reach inside them and take their souls.”

  A worm of fear entered the Autarch’s heart. Then it’s true! She has the same Gift as I. The worm turned, metamorphosed into a pang of a different sort. She would understand. She alone would understand. If things were different between us . . .

  But things were not different. He hardened his heart against fear and regret alike. The girl’s father had been a leader of the Rebellion. And though she might share his rare magical Gift, she had used it against him, time and time again. A series of ruined villages had preceded this one: villages she had attempted to make into her stronghold, villages from which she had been routed by the Watchers, with sword and flame and magic.

  Starbright is the last, the Autarch thought. She is pinned against the Great Mountains. Here she falls, here she dies: and with her dies the Rebellion. Once and—thanks to the Masks—for all.

  He let nothing of his thoughts show on his face. “Superstitious nonsense,” he said. “There are no souls, and if there were, magic could do nothing to them. Did you manage to break through their fear of her with the fear of me?” He leaned forward and let his voice fall to a venomous growl. “Did you find out where she is?”

  Perris swallowed again. “Yes, Mighty One.”

  “Then I suggest you lead the way, Guardian Perris
.”

  Guardian Perris nodded and turned his mare. The Autarch and the Sun Guards thundered down the mountainside in his wake.

  As they rode through the ruins of Starbright, the Autarch ignored the tumbled walls and burning beams, ignored the Watchers dragging the bodies of men, women, and children toward the mass grave. The villagers had harbored the girl, Arilla. Arilla was all that remained of the Rebellion. The Rebels—her father, and those like him—had killed the Autarch’s own father, had almost killed him. They deserved nothing but pain and fire, and pain and fire he had brought them . . . as he would to the girl herself, now that they had her cornered.

  On the far side of the village, a larger force of Watchers waited. Fifty-strong, they rode with Perris, the Autarch, and the Sun Guards up the other side of the valley, onto the flanks of the Great Mountains, which raised their unscalable, snow-streaked peaks far above.

  An hour out of Starbright, Perris raised his hand, bringing the column to a halt. The Autarch surveyed the mountainside. The day was growing old, and just half an hour before clouds had shrouded the sky and begun to drop listless, spiraling flakes of snow, but he could still make out a narrow ravine, a split in the rock, choked with dark green trees. “In there?”

  “So the villagers said,” Perris replied. “Unless she fled elsewhere before we arrived. But I have sent out scouts in both directions, and there are no trees up here to give her cover. They would have seen her.”

  The Autarch grunted. “Then let’s root her out.” He turned in his saddle. “She is Gifted,” he warned the Watchers. “And dangerous. But not invincible. Her Gift will not turn aside an arrow she never sees, a sword swung from behind. And you all have your own magic to draw upon, or you would not have been assigned this task. Show no mercy. Kill her on sight.” He turned forward again, peering up at that dark slash in the mountain. “Advance,” he said, and dug his heels into Keltan’s flanks.

  He thought he knew what to expect, and was prepared to counter it. He thought that, as she had in the past, Arilla would hurl boulders at them or flaming trees, perhaps try to bring down a landslide . . . although, truth to tell, the mountainside above the ravine looked much less steep than was typical of the Great Mountains. A pass? the Autarch thought, and felt a chill. “She may know a way through the mountains,” he warned Perris. “We must not let her escape!”

  “We won’t,” said Perris. They were almost to the mouth of the ravine. The Guardian of Security turned to address the troops. “We—”

  His voice died in a little whoosh! of expelled breath, and he toppled from his horse: as did every other Watcher surrounding the Autarch, from the commander of the Sun Guards to the lowliest private. They thudded to the ground like overripe fruit falling from trees.

  The Autarch felt a tug, like insubstantial yet powerful hands trying to pull from his body something his body did not want to release. The feeling lasted only an instant; then he sensed rage and a force of magic being hurled toward him, and threw himself from his stallion—just in time: Keltan screamed, reared . . . and exploded, showering the Autarch with blood and bits of bone, flesh, organs, and hair.

  Dripping gore, the Autarch scrambled to his feet, his own rage swelling. He needed magic. Arilla had pulled her magic from Perris and the Watchers, so he could not draw on that—but he didn’t need to. He could feel magic all around him, the magic contained in the black stone urns that every member of the Watch had carried to the mountainside. The girl had not touched that store: perhaps their Gifts differed more than he’d thought, and she could not.

  But he could.

  He raised his hands, and the magic poured into them, encasing them in multicolored light, glowing gauntlets of red and blue and green and gold and colors he could not even name swirling and shifting over their backs, palms, and fingers. He knew where that powerful attack had come from. He could sense it, could sense her. There, just inside the ravine . . .

  He stretched out his hands, and released the magic.

  It leaped from his hands, the colors melding into blinding white light that illuminated the mountainside more powerfully than any lightning bolt from any summer thunderstorm that had ever scored its side. It struck the mouth of the ravine. The trees within burst into flame, exploding in great gouts of red-orange brilliance and black smoke. The mountain shook. Deep, booming cracks echoed across the hillside. And then, the ravine . . . closed. Its sides heaved and shuddered and fell apart into massive boulders that rained down into the burning forest, smothering the flames beneath tons of dirt and stone.

  The earth shuddered, again and yet again . . . and then all was still.

  The Autarch, breathing heavily, fell to his knees on the snow- and blood-covered rocks. It’s over, he thought. She’s gone. Fierce satisfaction swelled within him. I promised you, Lady Arilla. I promised you pain and fire. And I always keep my promises.

  After a long moment, the Autarch climbed heavily to his feet. Without a backward glance at the sprawled bodies of his erstwhile bodyguards, he began trudging back to Starbright. Perhaps he would come across one of the spooked horses of his slain escort. Perhaps not.

  It did not matter.

  The last threat to his power had been eliminated. He was young, he was powerful, he was the Autarch of Aygrima, and he had nothing to fear: not here, and not back in Tamita, the city where his throne awaited him.

  With Arilla out of the way, no one remains who can threaten me. And once I return to Tamita, I will proclaim the Masking. From that moment on, no one will ever threaten me again. I will not die like my father.

  Holding that thought in his mind like a good-luck charm, the Autarch of Aygrima trudged southward.

  I will not die!

  ONE

  Tests

  ON THE DAY SHE TURNED SIX YEARS OLD, Mara held tight to her daddy’s hand and looked doubtfully at the darkened doorway before her. “It’s all right,” her daddy said, his voice deep and reassuring. She looked up at him and saw his blue eyes shining at her through the eyeholes in his Mask of burnished copper. The torches illuminating the staircase they had followed down from the surface into this strange underground hallway struck bright-red sparks from the diadem of rubies across his forehead and spirals of rubies on his cheeks, the unique insignia of the Master Maskmaker of the Autarchy of Aygrima. Through the mouth opening she could tell his lips were curved in a smile. “The First Test is nothing to be frightened of.”

  “I’m not frightened,” Mara said. And she wasn’t. Well, not really. After all, she wasn’t little anymore, she was six years old today, and she was with her daddy. But the room she had to go into all by herself looked so awfully dark that she suddenly found herself reluctant to let go of her daddy’s hand.

  Instead, he let go of hers. “Go on,” he said. “Tester Tibor is waiting inside. Remember, I introduced him to you yesterday at home.”

  She remembered. She’d liked Tester Tibor, a big round man with a bright yellow Mask. He’d given her sweets he’d bought in the market on the way to their house, and he’d made her laugh. He was nothing to be scared of, either. And she wasn’t scared.

  I’m not scared!

  All the same, her lower lip trembled a little as she walked forward on her own, leaving her daddy behind, and stepped into the dark room.

  Well, not completely dark. The door was open, after all. But it had no windows, and very little light made its way in from the torches in the stairway.

  She could just make out the Tester, seated next to a small covered bowl made of black stone, set atop a pedestal so short that even a little girl like herself could look down at the bowl. She was glad she’d met Tester Tibor the day before. Otherwise she might have been frightened by his dark, shadowy bulk. But now she wasn’t.

  I’m not afraid.

  “Hello, Mara,” Tester Tibor said in the deep, kind voice she remembered. “Happy birthday!”

  “Thank yo
u,” she said, because her parents had taught her to always be polite.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” the Tester said.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said, out loud this time.

  “Good!” Tester Tibor leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You know how this works. I’ll lift the lid of the bowl, and you tell me what you see.”

  Mara nodded.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded again.

  “Here we go!” Tester Tibor took hold of a small handle at its center and lifted the cover off the bowl.

  Mara gasped.

  Light filled the basin—light of every color she could name, and lots more she couldn’t: so many beautiful colors, all swirling and mingling, painting the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the Tester’s yellow Mask and robes and her own white dress in ever-shifting hues.

  “It’s so pretty!” she breathed.

  Tester Tibor chuckled. “It is, isn’t it?” he said. “And that’s it, my dear—you’ve passed the Test.”

  He put the cover back on the black stone bowl. Mara gave a little “Oh!” of disappointment as the beautiful colors vanished.

  The Tester stood and took her by the hand and led her out to where her daddy waited in the dim hallway. “She’s Gifted,” he said. He looked down at Mara and smiled. “Not that I ever thought there was much doubt she would be.”

  “Thank you, Tibor,” her daddy said.

  “My pleasure, Charlton. Tell the next child to come down, will you?”

  Daddy nodded, and Tester Tibor went back into the darkened room.

  “Was that magic, Daddy?” Mara asked as her father led her back up the stairs to the little room where three other children, two girls and a boy, awaited their turns with the Tester.

  “Yes, Mara.”

  “It’s so beautiful!”

  He looked down at her, blue eyes glittering like sapphires behind the copper sheen of his Mask. “Yes, it is. Almost as beautiful as you.”