Goblin Secrets (16 page)

Essa led him to an open space and an empty nail on the
wall. “Okay, the giant goes there,” she said.

Rownie looked at the nail. It was high up, higher than he could reach. Essa handed him a long pole with a hook on the end. He carefully hooked the giant mask to the pole, lifted it up to the level of the nail, and got it to stay there.

“Good,” Essa said. “The fox goes over there, near the books.” Somehow she managed to point with one hand without dropping everything she carried. “You should be able to find it. The bunks are near the pantry. Feel free to snack before bed, if you’re hungry, but don’t eat too much of the dried fish or Thomas will have an extremely eloquent fit about how we are likely to starve if we ever need to hide out here for months and months—which does happen sometimes.”

She went the opposite way, moving along the upstream wall and hanging up her own masks one by one. Rownie set off toward the bookshelves on the downstream side. He ducked underneath a ratcheting piece of tree-size machinery.

I’m inside the Clock Tower
, he said to himself, still astonished.
The troupe lives inside the clock.
A place he had always known had turned itself inside out and become something mysterious and strange.

Something about this also bothered him and itched at
his memory. He couldn’t think of what it might be.

The masks all stared at him with empty eyeholes or painted eyes. Rownie tried to stare back. He was good at staring contests. You had to have a good stare in a household of Grubs. But there were too many masks for him to meet all of their gazes, and he had to look where he was going to avoid being battered about by the tower’s workings. This staring contest could not be won.

He found a place for the fox. It was low to the ground, so he didn’t need a pole to put it back. He looped the mask’s string over the nail and set it against the wall.

The fox mask moved. It lifted away from the wall and pulled against the string that held it there. Then it settled back into place.

Rownie took a step back. He stared. The fox stayed where it was and stared back at him. Rownie watched it awhile longer. He started to doubt that he had actually seen it move in the first place.

He looked around for the rest of the troupe and saw Semele and Thomas carry a mask between them. Rownie didn’t recognize this one. It was carved out of stone, and had braided riverweed for hair. Swirling, painted lines of blue and brown covered the face. Rownie followed the two goblins to the center of the upstream wall, where they set the stone mask.

“This is the River,” said Semele. “This is what we lost and left Zombay to find.”

Rownie watched to see if it would move. It did not, but it looked as though it might move at any time. “A mask of the River?” he asked.

“No,” said Semele. “It
is
the River, and
also
a mask. We needed to speak to the River, to give it a face and a name, so that we could ask it not to drown us with floodwaters. That was how it started, yes. This is the very first mask that I made.”

Essa came to join them. They all watched the oldest mask while it did not move.

“Our craft and calling still has certain obligations,” Thomas said. He spoke more quietly than he usually did. “It has from the very beginning, when those obligations were the whole of the craft. To ignore that part and purpose would be to lose the rest.”

“What obligations?” Rownie asked without looking away from the mask that was also the River.

“To speak for the city,” said Essa. “All of it. Northside, Southside, and the whole long length of the Fiddleway between them.” She held up a wooden box and opened it. Inside was the city, carved from a solid block of wood and into the shape of a face. Half of the mask followed the winding sense of Southside and the other
half obeyed the straight lines of the north. The bridge of the nose was the Clock Tower, where they all stood, and the small clock tocked and ticked in unison with the tower around them.

“Nonny made it,” Essa said, “so Nonny really should be the one to open the box and say ‘Ta-da!’ or at least have a ta-da sort of look on her face, but she isn’t here. Ta-da.”

“We have always carved a new mask of the city, to speak for the city when the floods come,” said Semele. “Zombay is a new place each time, you see.”

“That’s what you want Rowan to do?” Rownie asked. “Speak for the city?”

“Yes,” said Semele. “This is why we taught him and why we are trying to find him. This is why everyone is trying to find him.”

“Who wears the River, then?” Rownie asked.

“No one,” said Thomas. “Absolutely no one. The River isn’t a mask you can wear. Not any longer. It would wear you instead, if you tried. Much too old and much too strong. It would fill up an actor until they drowned in it.”

“But it listens,” said Semele. “Sometimes it will listen. And it might be that it will listen to you, Rownie, if you put on the mask of Zombay. Try it now.”

“Me?” Rownie asked.

“You,” Thomas answered. “We have been teaching your
older brother how to do this, but you do have a bit of talent yourself.”

Rownie lifted the city mask and set it carefully over his own face. He pulled the string above his ears and behind his head. Through the eyeholes, he saw the others watching him, expectant. It made the back of his neck itch. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.

“Repeat after me,” Thomas whispered. “Zombay River, oldest roadway, canyon carving, hear me.”

Rownie looked up at the great River mask. Its eyeholes were dark, and he could see nothing through them. He wondered what would happen if he tossed a pebble through and how far it would fall and whether or not there would be a splash when it hit. He understood how someone could drown in that mask—and that the mask would not notice them as they drowned.

He repeated the line. “Zombay River, oldest roadway, canyon carving, hear me.”

Nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen after that.

“Oh well,” said Thomas. “Not to worry. Your brother should be able to manage, and we should be able to find him. Or else we might possibly track down another unChanged actor whom the Mayor has not yet arrested.” He probably meant to sound comforting and optimistic, but he did not.
Rownie took off the city mask and set it back inside its wooden box.

“Why can’t you do it?” he asked. He felt small and emptied out. He felt as though he should be better at this than he actually was. “Why does it have to be somebody unChanged?”

“We
have
done this,” Thomas said. “Many times. But the city of Zombay currently excludes us, and we cannot speak for a place if we are not ourselves welcome there. This makes it very tempting to just sit back and let the floods do as they please, let me tell you. We, who have polished our craft to its very finest gleam, are now unable to perform the task that gave birth to that craft. But I am still fond of this unwelcoming place, and we still have our old obligations. So we teach our craft to someone who
is
welcome here and who knows their way around both sides of the city and the bridge in between.”

Rownie
thought
he was that sort of person, but apparently he was not—or maybe he did not know enough. Thomas took off his hat, took out the Iron Emperor mask, and went down the length of the wall to find an empty space for it. He found one and put it there. Then the mask moved. A shudder of movement rippled through the other masks as well, and each one began to strain forward against strings, straps, and nails.

THE IRON EMPEROR PULLED HARD
enough to break its string. It fell. Then it stood up again. The air beneath the mask hardened into a body dressed in royal robes. It held a metal scepter in its hands.

“Well,” Thomas said. “This is unsettling.”

The mask revenant tilted its plaster face to one side, and regarded the goblin in silence.

“What would you, old vizard?” Thomas demanded to know. He rapped the tip of his cane against the stone floor with an impatient clacking noise.

The mask drew closer, gliding over the surface of the floor. It raised the scepter and struck.

Thomas moved quickly enough to keep his head, but not quickly enough to keep his hat. The scepter knocked it to the floor, and struck again. This time Thomas drew his cane-sword and parried.

“I made you myself!” the old goblin roared. “I have
played you many times to perfection! If you have any fighting skill, it is by my own instruction that you have it. And I will thank you not to heap further abuse upon my hat.”

The Iron Emperor answered by knocking Thomas’s cane-sword aside. The blade bounced away across the floor. The mask-figure shoved Thomas over backward with its free hand, and then it removed its own face. There was nothing behind the place where the mask used to be.

It reached down to mask Thomas with itself.

Rownie was already running and shouting. He reached Thomas’s sword and snatched it up, but before he could put the weapon to any kind of use, the imperial mask shattered into several plaster pieces. Its body faded, the air softening until nothing stood there. The crown struck the floor, clattered and rolled, and then was still.

Nonny came up the staircase with a sling in her hand, and Patch came limping behind her. Rownie cheered to see the both of them, a wordless shout of happiness and relief. She had found Patch. Nonny had found him. Graba hadn’t killed him with her birds.

“Thank you, my dear Nonny!” Thomas said as he climbed to his feet. “I am so very much obliged, and my heart sings to see you both safely here.
However
, I really do wish you had not smashed that mask. That plaster had
soaked up well over a century of theatrical brilliance, and as I recall it was not an easy thing to make.”

“Shut it, scowly trousers!” Essa came sprinting from the other end of the tower and knocked both Patch and Nonny to the ground with a tackling hug. Patch held his leg and winced. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” said Essa. “Are you hurt? Is it bad? Are you actually drowned and you just came back to haunt us? I hope not. I would hate it if you said even less than you usually do.”

“Not dead,” Patch grunted. “Just soggy. Found driftwood to hold on to.”

A bird mask, now embodied, swooped above them and flew among the whirling cogs and levers of the clock. Another followed.

Thomas scowled. “Does anyone have the slightest idea why this might be happening?” he asked. “Anyone? And, Rownie, I will have my sword back, thank you kindly. You were very brave to reach for it, but please wait until we’ve trained you in the use of swordplay before you start swinging one of these about.”

Rownie handed over the blade. “I get to learn swordplay?” he asked, his voice hushed and reverent. This was quite possibly the most magnificent thing that anyone had ever said to him.

“Yes, of course,” said Thomas, impatient. “It is a skill
that actors must have. Epic combat unfolds in a great many of our performances.”

“And this means that a great many of our masks know how to fight, yes,” said Semele. “That is not currently a helpful thing.”

More masks pulled forward, snapping their strings or yanking their nails from the walls. The air beneath them thickened into bodies, and embodied masks surged through the tower. Only the River remained in its place.

Another armed mask revenant approached the troupe. It seemed to be smiling at first, its carved expression light and jovial—but then the face tilted, and from that angle the same mask took on a look of sober intensity. It held a curved sword.

“This is Bidou,” Thomas announced. “I will face him.” The old goblin brandished his own blade with a flick of his wrist, and stood ready. His pride had clearly suffered in his earlier duel.

“Weapons,” Essa said. “The rest of us need some. Rownie, there’s a crate of sharp things right over there, and you should help me fetch them please.”

She set off across the tower floor. Rownie followed. He tried to watch out for moving gears and flying masks and also other sorts of masks, but that was too much to watch out for so mostly he just ran.

Essa found the crate she wanted and pushed it over. Metal rang against stone as a great big mess of weaponry spilled out. “Grab a halberd,” she said.

Rownie thought she had said “Graba” at first, and looked wildly around—but then he pieced together what she had actually said. “What’s a halberd?”

“If an ax and a spear had babies, they would be halberds,” Essa told him. “It’s a pokey-pokey weapon for convincing things that are taller than you to stay back, please. Here’s one.” She handed it to Rownie and grabbed another.

A bird mask swooped down at her on silent, newly solid wings. Rownie shouted a warning. Then the mask broke apart in midflight. Essa ducked as pieces of it fell around her head.

“Nonny!” Thomas roared from across the tower. “Please do not break any more of our masks!”

“Especially not that one over there!” said Essa, pointing. “It’s my favorite!”

“Which one?” Rownie asked. It was difficult to pick one mask out of the roiling chaos. “The blue one?”