Masks

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.

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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.

Pain and Fire

F
ROM 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!