Faces (30 page)

“Close,” Keltan said, glancing at the sundial that shared the small plaza with the fountain. He fastened the clasp of the cloak around his neck again. “Not quite time yet.”

“Maybe Greff is early,” Mara said. “Let's get back there.”

They made their way back up the boulevard toward the walls of the Palace. A general sense of agitation hung over the coiffed heads of the wealthy ladies in the wake of the Watcher's turbulent passing, heads which turned sharply as a trumpet blared from the far end of the boulevard. “They're closing the gates,” Mara said.

They reached the guardhouse. Prilk stood in the doorway. “Oh, good, you're here,” he said. “Greff is in the back room. Something happening up in the Palace, though, so I don't know if you'll have your full ten minutes . . .” He stepped aside to allow them to enter his office. He glanced at Whiteblaze. “Should . . .
that
 . . . be in here?”

“Yes,” Mara said. She gave the paper-strewn desk, wooden chairs, and round pot-bellied stove only a cursory glance. “Where . . . ?”

Prilk opened a door in the back of the office. “He's in here.”

The three of them plus Whiteblaze crowded through the door into another room, half the size of the office. A slender youth dressed in white robes stood by the window that faced the Palace, staring at the Gate. He turned as they entered, light flashing off of his silver Mask. “They said you have a message for me,” he said, voice trembling. “Is it . . . is it my parents?” His glance fell to Whiteblaze, and his eyes widened behind the Mask. “Is that a wolf?” Then his gaze rose to Mara again, and he frowned. “Who are you?”

“Prella,” Mara said. “From Yellowgrass.”

“Who? I don't know any Prella.”

Prilk stepped forward. “What's going on?”

Keltan quietly closed the door to the office, positioning himself behind Prilk, hand on his dagger. They'd discussed this: if what Mara was about to attempt failed as it had with the Watcher in the farmyard, he'd be ready.

She felt the flow of Prilk's magic. She reached into his mind with her Gift, and bolstered by the magic she drew from Whiteblaze, altered it.
It seems so easy now
, she thought.
But is that because I'm getting better . . . or because of the Lady's soulprint?

Keltan drew his dagger . . . but he didn't need it. Prilk drew a deep breath, and then simply turned without a word and went out, closing the door behind him.

“What . . . ?” Greff said. “What did you . . . ?”

“Simply convinced him he didn't need to be in here,” Mara said. “He won't think anything more about it. Which means he won't remember this encounter if questions are asked later.”

“Questions? What questions?”

“How a member of the Child Guard was replaced by an imposter,” Mara said. She reached up and removed her fake Mask. “One with the power to bring down the Autarchy forever.”

“M
ARA?”
Greff breathed. Then his hand flew to his Mask. “No! I can't—”

Mara stepped over to him. “It's all right,” she said. She pulled his hands away, then touched his Mask herself, the silver cool beneath her fingers—and lifted it from his face. He gasped and stumbled back, but she ignored him, holding the Mask in both hands, eyes closed.

Thrice now she had modified Masks. She expected the Child Guard Mask to be harder to reach inside, but in fact it was easier, and she frowned as she realized why: it was designed to allow more magic to flow through it, so the Autarch could more easily draw the power he needed from the enslaved children with whom he had surrounded himself. She concentrated, closing off the pathway to the Autarch, then freezing the soulprint so that, as with the Masks of Herella and Filia and Jess, any Watcher would see only an obedient citizen.

She opened her eyes.

Greff stared at her, brown eyes wide in his pale face. Though he had to be older than Keltan, he looked younger. The hood of his white robe had fallen back, revealing smoothly oiled black hair. “What have you done?” he breathed.

“Freed you,” she said. Now she examined his Mask with her eyes open. She had left hers smooth, but Greff's real Mask had decorative patterns etched into it. She turned and put it down on the table, unslung her backpack, and drew out the one she had made. Studying them carefully side-by-side, she drew magic from Whiteblaze. This was where the careful control she had practiced right here in the Palace with Shelra, the Mistress of Magic, came into its own. A red line of magic traced the pattern from Greff's Mask onto the plain silver of her own. When she was satisfied, she released it. The silver glowed white hot for a moment, there was an acrid smell, and then her Mask looked just like Greff's . . . almost.

Another moment of concentration, and she had copied Greff's soulprint, and his face, onto the new Mask. It twisted and bent, looked almost liquid for a moment, and then froze into its new shape.

Two identical silver Masks bearing Greff's face stared blankly up from the table.

She handed his original Mask back to him. “Now I need your clothes,” she said. “Don't worry, you can have mine.”

“You're going to get us all killed!” Greff said.

“I may get myself killed,” Mara said, “but you should be all right. Ride my horse to the Gate. There's no way they'll stop a Child Guard who tells them he's under orders from the Autarch to head out on the road, not if your Mask doesn't belie it—which it won't.”

“And go where?” Greff demanded.

“Home,” Mara said simply. “Your parents are waiting for you.”

Greff blinked. “Home? To my parents? You
talked
to them?” His face paled. “The Watchers will—”

“The Watchers
won't
,” Mara corrected. “I've given them unbreakable Masks, like yours is now. The moment you rejoin them, you will all flee north. Whatever happens in Tamita, there is freedom beyond the mountains.”
For now
, she thought. If she failed, the Autarch would crush the Lady's hidden hideaway as surely as he had crushed the Secret City.

And it will be my fault again.

No guilt!

It was getting harder and harder to uphold that mantra.

“And what are
you
going to do?” Greff demanded.

“Take your place,” Mara said. “And kill the Autarch in his own throne room.”

“You're mad,” Greff breathed. “He'll know the moment you enter—”

“Not if I've made this Mask right.” Mara touched the copy of Greff's Mask. “Not if you quit talking and take off your clothes.”

“I hope you don't say that to a lot of boys,” Keltan said dryly.

“You haven't left me any choice,” Greff said. He pulled off his robe. Beneath it he wore a white tunic which he likewise stripped off, revealing a body thin to the point of emaciation, ribs standing out beneath pale skin, belly sunken. He kicked off his white boots and pulled down his white pants, then tugged them over his stockinged feet. His thighs and calves were every bit as scrawny-looking. He stripped off the socks and then, naked except for his drawers, wrapped his arms around himself. “Hurry up, it's freezing.”

Mara pulled off her own clothes and passed them to Greff. It
was
cold, standing there in her under tunic and drawers, and she was glad to pull on Greff's pants and tunic and socks. Despite his thinness, they fit all right—a little tight in the hips and chest, but they had clearly been made for someone heavier than he was.

No
, she thought harshly,
they were made for him before the Autarch started sucking the life out of him
.

Once she had donned the white robe over his clothes, she looked down and thought with satisfaction that there was no way anyone could tell she was a girl just by looking at her.

When they were both dressed, she handed Greff the plain white Mask she had worn as they rode through the streets. “My horse is the roan mare outside,” she said. “You're me until you're out of sight of the guardhouse. Then find somewhere secret and put on your silver Mask and my cloak from the saddlebags. I know it's unusual, a Child Guard leaving the City on his own—”

“Unusual?” Greff said. “It's unheard of.”

“—but the Watchers are completely dependent on the Masks. If you're wearing your Mask and you tell them the Autarch ordered you to ride north alone, they will believe you. They can't imagine a world in which Masks don't work.”

“I can't either,” Greff said. “But I hope you create one.”

“There's one more thing I need from you,” Mara said. She explained her plan for getting into the Palace, through the tunnel down which she had been taken when her Mask failed. “I know part of the Palace well enough, but not where the Child Guard are quartered. I'll need to get into your quarters, so I'll be found where they would expect to find you.”

Greff shook his head. “I still think you're mad,” he said, but he went ahead and provided detailed directions all the same. When he was done, he held out his hand. “Good-bye,” he said. “I fully expect to meet you both again outside Traitors' Gate just before they strip and hang us. But good luck all the same.”

“Thank you,” Mara said seriously, shaking his hand. “Go home to your parents, Greff. They're good people, and they love you.”

“I know,” Greff said. He shook Keltan's hand, too. Then he put on the fake Mask Mara had created, cautiously, as if expecting it to squirm like a new Mask: but it just sat on his face, still looking like Mara. “Not very comfortable,” he said. “It doesn't match my face.” He took his hand away slowly. “At least it stays on.”

“It's still magical,” Mara said. “It's just a different . . . recipe.”

“Maybe you
can
do this,” Greff said. He hesitated, as though he were going to say something else; but in the end he turned without another word and went out. Mara caught a glimpse of Prilk sitting at his desk staring at nothing, and wondered if she had overdone it in trying to twist his perception.
What if I damaged him, like that Watcher in the farmyard?

Remembering Greff's emaciated body, she couldn't work up much concern.

“Our turn,” she said to Keltan. “Market Gate, then the warehouse.”

Keltan nodded. “One other thing first.”

She frowned. “What?”

Keltan took off the Watcher's Mask and set it aside. “This.” He reached out and pulled her to him, and kissed her, long and lingeringly. At first she resisted a little—there was no time!—but somehow that thought vanished as the kiss continued. Her arms went around Keltan and she pulled him tight against her even as his arms tightened around her.

But she could not give herself completely to the kiss, as much as she longed to do so, both because they had no time—and because she could
still
feel the magic inside him, and
still
longed to draw it out. Afraid she wouldn't be able to resist that urge if the kiss continued, she pushed him away before she really wanted to. “We've got to go,” she murmured.

Keltan nodded. He stepped back from her almost convulsively, as if breaking free from something. “We'll, uh . . . explore that further sometime soon. I hope.”

“If we survive,” Mara said.
And if I don't give in to the desire to suck you dry of magic before then.

Keltan grimaced. “You sure know how to spoil the mood.” But then he smiled. “We'll survive,” he said softly. “We have reason to.”

Mara nodded. But in her heart she knew that was no real assurance at all.

She put on her new silver Mask and pulled the hood of Greff's robe over her hair. “Let's go,” she said.

Keltan had already put his Watcher's Mask back on. He nodded and opened the door.

Prilk still stared at nothing. Keltan went over to him and touched his shoulder. He jerked back to life as suddenly as if waking from a dream, turned to look at them. “Time's up!” he snapped, then blinked, confused. “Where's the girl?”

“She already left,” Keltan said. “You must have been too busy to notice.”

“Yes, I must have,” Prilk said, but sounded more confused than ever. “She left?”

“Just a moment ago,” Keltan said. He nodded at Mara, who didn't dare to speak lest her voice give her away. “Greff has had some very disturbing news and has asked if I will escort him as he takes a walk to clear his head. I have agreed to do so.”

“Oh,” Prilk said. He looked at Mara's Mask, and she held her breath, but he seemed to see nothing amiss. “Very well.” He waved his hand. “Off you go, then. I have to get back to . . . work . . . ?” He stared at his desk. It was completely empty of papers.

“Thank you,” Keltan said, and led Mara out.

They were both Tamita born-and-bred. Keltan knew the streets on this side of the city better than Mara, at least the streets away from Processional Boulevard, but she knew the streets on the far side of the Palace, along Maskmakers' Way. Between them they made good progress, choosing lesser-traveled paths where there were fewer people to react to the admittedly unusual sight of a single Child Guard, and the even more unusual sight of a tame wolf. Those who did see them—a baker, a blacksmith, a lamp maker, a handful of children, a few housewives en route to or returning from the market—quickly averted their eyes when their gazes slid from the glistening silver of Mara's Mask to the stern unmarked black of Keltan's. Mara got a perverse pleasure out of using the Watchers' reputation for brutality and infallibility against them.

About an hour after they left the Palace—long enough, Mara thought, that Greff should be safely through the Gate and away—they stood outside the stone fence that surrounded the warehouse that had once been her grandfather's, the warehouse where she had been dragged on the nightmarish day her Mask had failed. She wondered if the fat warden were still in there, the man who drew pictures of naked unMasked children for shadowy clients in the streets of Aygrima. She hoped so.

But the pleasure of seeing him again under far different circumstances would have to wait. For now, the wall of the warehouse only provided a conveniently shadowed lurking place as they waited for the sun to set. They settled themselves on the cobblestones and watched the traffic passing on the Great Circle Road. There was little of it; the alarm that had closed the main gate had closed the gate to the Outside Market as well. Mara could imagine the consternation that had caused. Mara gazed up at the wall. “I used to sit up there and watch people in the Outside Market.”
With Mayson
, she thought with a pang of sorrow and . . .

No guilt. No guilt!

“How is the sally port sealed?” Keltan said.

“Barred and padlocked,” Mara said. She patted Whiteblaze's head. “But I think we can handle it.”

“All right,” Keltan said. He glanced at the sun, which was sinking low in the west. “All we have to do is wait.”

The hours dragged by. The sun set. The Great Circle Road, already unnaturally empty of traffic, cleared completely as the nightly curfew took hold. Masked citizens could use the Great Circle Road at night, but there was little reason for any of them to do so on this side of the city: only Processional Boulevard and a few other streets with various entertainment establishments were permissible destinations, and all the buildings close to the Market Gate were warehouses and other business-oriented structures.

As darkness closed in, the lamplighter came by, lighting the oil lamps hung on the tall posts at twenty-foot intervals around the Road. Mara's house had been lit by rockgas, but that was a rare and precious commodity that only the wealthy could afford, especially since the extraction and storage of it in special cisterns beneath the ground required the careful attention of Gifted Engineers.