Masks (3 page)

They’d learned little enough about magic in their lessons, but what they had learned, she knew by heart. “The Gift of magic is a rare and wonderful thing,” she said. “Very few people have any measure of the Gift, so those who have it must serve the Autarch in whatever fashion their Gift best suits them for and the Autarch sees fit. Because of that, all children are Tested at age six. If they can see magic, then they are Tested again at age thirteen to see what kind of magic they can see, and how strongly they can perceive it.”

“Very good,” the Tutor said. “Apparently you
do
pay attention once in a while.”

Mara shot the Tutor a startled glance. Was Ancilla actually making a joke? If so, the straight line of her lips behind the mouth hole of her Mask did not betray it.

“What is the difference between the First and Second Tests?” Tutor Ancilla continued.

“At age six, Gifted children can see all colors of magic,” Mara said. “But by age thirteen, their Gift has settled and they can see only one or, rarely, two—and even if they can see two, one is always strongest.”

“And the color of magic seen reveals what?” Tutor Ancilla asked.

“What kind of magic the Gifted child will be able to use,” Mara said.

“What are some of the colors of magic, and what do they mean?”

Mara hesitated. “You only taught us a few, Tutor . . .”

“Oddly enough, I am aware of that,” said Tutor Ancilla. “Only a few colors are permitted to be known. But tell me the few that you know.”

“The Gift of Healing presents itself as blue,” Mara said. “The Gift of Engineering—”

“Which is?” Tutor Ancilla interrupted.

“The ability to use magic to move and shape objects?”

Ancilla nodded. “Correct. Continue.”

“The Gift of Engineering presents itself as blood-red.”

“Any others?”

“The Gift of Enchantment—the Gift of imbuing inanimate objects with magical traits—” (Mara was rather proud of herself for remembering the word “imbuing”) “—the Gift of the Maskmakers—reveals itself as a coppery red-gold color.” She stopped. “That’s all you told us, Tutor.”

“Only the Autarch and members of the Circle know them all,” the Tutor replied. “As it should be.”

Mara said nothing. The list of things only the Autarch and his Circle of advisers and ministers were permitted to know was a long one and not something it was wise to ask too many questions about: Tutor Ancilla had made that clear long since.

“It sounds like you are well prepared for your Second Testing,” said Tutor Ancilla. “Once the Tester knows what color of magic you see, you will be pre-apprenticed to a Master of that particular Gift. Although you will continue to attend thrice-weekly classes with me—” Mara saw her lips tighten in what she thought might be a smile “—which I am sure is a great joy to you, you will also begin spending several hours a week with your assigned Master. He or she will teach you what it seems good to him or her to teach you about the use of that Gift, although of course you are absolutely forbidden from using magic or even
seeing
magic until you are Masked, on your fifteenth birthday. Once that occurs, you will become a full apprentice and will be taught the complete use of your Gift in the service of the Autarch.”

Mara nodded.

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

Mara went out into the bright sunshine and stood there, blinking. She looked right, farther up Fortress Hill: up there, on the last terrace below the golden walls of the Palace itself, stood her house, though she could not see its bright green tile roof from this angle.
I should go home,
she thought.
It’s almost suppertime.

But instead, she turned and headed down Fortress Hill, toward the city wall. She knew Mayson had had his own conversation with Tutor Ancilla just before she had: he turned thirteen the very next day. And there was no way Mayson would have gone home right away: not to
his
father. Which meant . . .

Sure enough, she found him at their favorite spot atop the wall, seated, his bare feet dangling into space. She plopped down beside him and hung her own feet over the edge, unconcerned about the fifty-foot drop to the cobblestones of the Outside Market below. “Where’s Sala?” she said.

“Dunno,” he said. “’Course, she didn’t have to have a little chat with Ancilla about Second Testing. Lucky.”

Mara shot him a startled look. “Don’t you
want
to be Gifted?”

“Only if I can be a Watcher,” Mayson said. He made a face. “But I don’t even know what color of magic I need to see to be a Watcher. What if I end up a Healer? Poking sick people.
Old
sick people.” He shuddered. “
Naked
old sick people. Yuck!”

Mara laughed. Mayson shot her a look. “Aren’t you worried about what color you might see?”

“My daddy says the Gift of Enchantment runs very strongly in our family,” she said. “His grandfather was a Maskmaker—one of the first Maskmakers, right after the Autarch ordered everyone to be Masked—and his father was a Maskmaker, and he’s the Master Maskmaker. I’m sure I’m going to be a Maskmaker, too.”

“You
can’t
be sure,” Mayson said.

“I’m
sure
,” Mara said stoutly, and told the butterflies in her stomach to settle down and believe her . . . but they didn’t pay attention.

A sudden blast of trumpets off to their right startled Mara. She gripped the edge of the wall and leaned out a little. “It’s the Autarch!” she said in amazement.

“What’s he doing in the Outside Market?” Mayson wondered.

“Beats me,” Mara said, but there could be no mistake: no one else had an entourage like the Autarch, not even the members of the Circle. To begin with, there was the horse: Keltan, the famed snow-white stallion the Autarch had ridden since he was a boy (which meant Keltan was either amazingly long-lived or the fourth or fifth of his name, Mara thought). Scarlet tack bedecked Keltan: gold bedecked his rider. A golden cape hung from the Autarch’s gold-armored shoulders and draped Keltan’s hindquarters; the Autarch’s golden breastplate glittered with rubies; golden gauntlets encased his hands, and golden greaves protected his legs. Even his boots shone gold in the late-afternoon sun.

A jewel-encrusted cap of gold hid his hair—
or probably the lack of it
, Mara thought, mouth quirking; for all his glory, the Autarch was at least eighty—and then, of course, there was his Mask, the only one in all Aygrima permitted to be made of gold. From her perch high above, Mara could see very little of it, but she knew what it looked like: stern, handsome, given an unearthly sparkle by a dusting of tiny diamonds.

It was, truth be told, a little gaudy, and Mara thought, as she usually did, that her father could make one far better, should the Autarch ever need a replacement.

The Autarch and his entourage passed through the Outside Market like a moving seam in the patchwork quilt of the vendors’ brightly colored awnings. The cream, white, gray, and beige Masks of the ordinary citizens, crowded together on either side of the main boulevard to make way for the Autarch, moved in unison to watch him pass. Here and there a Mask of red or green or blue stood out, marking their owners as Gifted.

What color will mine be?
Mara thought uneasily, and pushed the thought away.
Copper, like Daddy’s. I’m sure of it.

“Look at those country yokels,” Mayson said scornfully. “They don’t know what to do with themselves.”

Mara had to agree, grinning to herself as she watched the vendors scuttle out of the way of the approaching ruler. She could easily pick the country women out of the Masked crowds below by their simple, unadorned hair. No city woman would be seen in public without an elaborate headpiece, feathered and silvered, gilded or jeweled. But country women . . .
If they wear headscarves above their Masks, they think they’re popinjays.

Mara herself was a city girl through and through, born and raised in Tamita, capital city—
only
city—of Aygrima. She couldn’t imagine living in the rolling green countryside, dotted with cattle and sheep and sleepy little towns, which stretched to her left, west, all the way to the distant western ocean and its tiny fishing villages. She thought it would be even worse to live in one of the lumber towns scattered through the forested hills to the east, or one of the distant mining towns in the lower ranges of the snow-capped, impassible peaks that formed Aygrima’s eastern border and, curving west, the northern one. As for the flat prairie to the south, mile after mile of wheat and barley and oats, eventually giving way to orchards and plantations and finally the salt marshes of the southern shore . . . she shuddered at the thought, even though her own mother had grown up in the south.
What is there to
do
out there?
she wondered.
Play with cows? Dig holes?

She glanced over her shoulder into Tamita, climbing in terraced ranks up Fortress Hill. From their perch she had a straight view up Maskmakers’ Way to the red roof of the tutor hall she had just left, the emerald-like gleam of their own home’s tiles, the golden dome of the Maskery, where in two years’ time she would don her Mask. Looming over all there was the Autarch’s Palace itself, a vast, many-towered pile of yellow stone, aflutter with blue pennants from which the sun struck occasional golden sparks as it glinted off the golden emblem of the Autarch.

“Here come the Child Guards!” Mayson said, and she looked down at the market again. “Lucky brats!”

There they were, a dozen slim and silent youths following in the wake of the Autarch, dressed in identical white robes, wearing identical silver Masks, riding identical white mares, the six girls sidesaddle, the boys astride. Membership in the Child Guards, instituted just five years earlier, was the greatest honor the Autarch could bestow on a young Gifted. The youths, from across the Autarchy, spent their days in close company with the Autarch himself, learning to use their magic in his service. When they turned twenty-one, they took their place in the court. Someday, it was said, some of them might join the ranks of the Circle.

The whole village celebrated when a country youth became a Child Guard, Mara had heard. It offered hope to even the lowest commoners that one day a child of theirs might ascend to the nobility. But looking down at those silent, white-robed, silver-Masked youths, she shivered.
Might as well be in prison!

Most of the Child Guards kept their Masks turned resolutely toward the Autarch; but one, a boy riding in the last rank, looked about him as he rode. His gaze traveled up the city wall . . . and stopped on Mara and Mayson, sitting high above.

Mara stared boldly back.
What must his life be like?
she wondered.
Always in the presence of the Autarch Himself, living in the Palace . . .

She also wondered what he saw when he looked up at
them
. And then she suddenly remembered she was wearing a short tunic and he was looking
up
at them, and felt herself blushing. She squeezed her knees together.

“What’s
he
staring at?” Mayson demanded, and Mara blushed harder but said nothing, not wanting to put any ideas into his head.

The silver-Masked boy’s gaze finally slid away as the twelve silent youths rode on in the wake of the Autarch. Behind them came six of the Sun Guards, the elite force of Watchers that guarded the Autarch day and night.

“Look at those!” Mayson said, voice tinged with admiration.

He seemed to find the Sun Guards fascinating. Mara found them frightening—though less frightening than regular Watchers, she supposed. Most Watchers wore all black: black Masks, black armor, black surcoats, black capes. But although the Sun Guards’ Masks were as black as any other Watchers’, their helmets, armor, and cloaks were gold like the Autarch’s, and their surcoats white as snow. Blue-and-white banners fluttered from the shining silver tips of their long black lances.

A respectful distance behind the last pair of Sun Guards, the rigid lines of the crowds dissolved into the ordinary bustle of the marketplace. Mara, glancing left, saw the Autarch’s procession reach the main boulevard of the Outside Market and turn toward the Market Gate.

She shook off her momentary self-consciousness. It was getting late. “Guess I’d better head home,” she said. “Good luck tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Mayson said. His eyes were still on the receding figures of the Sun Guards. “But I’m sure I’ll get what I want.”

Mara said nothing. Mayson wanted to be a Watcher.
If he
does
get what he wants, how will we still be friends?

“’Bye,” she said, gathered her feet up under her, and headed for the guard tower whose stairs would take her back down to ground level, and the road home.

···

A month later, on her thirteenth birthday, Mara once more stood in the darkened hallway outside the Testing chamber, holding her father’s hand; but this time she held it, she told herself, only because she loved holding it, loved the feel of his callused fingers in hers, loved being close to him. It had nothing to do with being afraid. After all, this time she knew what she would see.

Well, sort of. She knew she would see magic. But . . .

“What if I don’t see the right color?” she asked. She looked up at her father’s Masked face. She didn’t have to look up as far as she had when she was six, but far enough: her father was very tall, so tall he was always easy to pick out in a crowd, even from behind, while she was still rather short for her age. “What if I don’t see the red-gold color I’m supposed to see?”

“There’s no ‘supposed to’ about it,” Daddy said. His lips curved in a smile. Wearing the ruby-studded copper-colored Mask and his favorite rust-red hat, he looked the same as he always had, although she knew well that the Mask hid a few more wrinkles and the hat a lot more gray hair than the last time he had brought her to the Testing chamber. “You’ll see what you see. There’s nothing you can do to change it.” He squeezed her hand. “But if it makes you feel better, both Tester Tibor and I feel sure you’ll see red-gold, the color of Enchantment. Some skills tend to run in families, and Enchantment is one of them. And as you know, both your great-grandfather and grandfather were Maskmakers, too. But whatever color you see, the Autarch . . .” For some reason he paused. “The Autarch,” he finished, his voice a little rough, “will still find a use for you.”