Masks (19 page)

He put the bottle on top of the cabinet and didn’t offer her any, which suited her fine. Her eyes were more on the beef jerky and travel bread tucked behind the bottle. That Grute
did
share with her; only, she thought, because there was plenty for both of them. Sitting in the chair at the table, gnawing at the jerky, she felt almost human again: especially since Grute, in a fit of something approaching kindness, untied the rope and let her go to the outhouse, a freezing-cold wooden structure ten yards distant, though he stood in the hut’s doorway and waited until she emerged and dashed back through the now thickly falling snow to the warmth of the hut.

As she sat steaming by the fire, Grute made his own trip out into the snow. She gave the briefest of considerations to making a run for it, but she remembered that terrifying slide down the wet rock toward oblivion, shuddered, and stayed where she was.

Once they’d eaten, Grute set to working his way through the rest of the whiskey, sitting on the bed he’d claimed for himself, though at least he tossed her a blanket. She lay on the hard wooden floor next to the fire with her back to him, and eventually, warm, lulled by the constant rush of the wind in the eaves and the crackle of the fire, she slept.

She woke in terror to find Grute pawing at her.

He reeked of alcohol so strongly she was amazed he hadn’t gone up in flames just by coming so near the fire. It had sunk to embers, but the glow of the magic in the other room was more than enough for her to see him clearly . . . and to see that he was naked—and aroused.

“Face will be enough,” he muttered. His eyes were wide, and he was breathing hard, as though he’d just run a race. “Nobody’ll care if you’re still a virgin . . .” He had hold of the blanket, was trying to pull it off her. Terrified, she kicked at him, heard him grunt as a flailing foot found its mark. He fell back and she managed to kick herself free of the blanket and scramble away backward, crablike. “Nowhere to run, bitch,” he yelled, crawling after her. “Just you and me here. I’ll have you, and you know it.” He reared back on his knees, flaunting his nakedness. “You might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

Bile rose in the back of Mara’s throat. Choking, she turned over, stumbled to her feet, and dashed into the magic-gathering room. Grute appeared in the doorway behind her, clutching the jambs. He leered at her. “Dead end, bitch. And now you’re mine.”

He staggered forward. Mara turned and, gasping, plunged both hands into the basin full of magic. As he seized her shoulders, spun her around and pulled her toward him, she screamed in fury, fear, and hatred—and slapped her magic-coated hands against the sides of his head.

She only wanted to drive him away. She only wanted him to leave her alone. But she didn’t know how to control the power she had seized from the basin, had no clue as to its real strength . . .

...had no clue what it was capable of.

She shrieked as agony seared her hands, as though she’d just plunged them into an open fire. But in that same instant, Grute’s head . . . vanished. One moment it was there, his mouth open, his breath reeking of whiskey, his tongue half-extended as he sought her lips. The next, there was a sound like a thunderclap, the pain in Mara’s hands vanished, and something hot and wet sprayed her face and chest. Blood fountained from the ragged stump of Grute’s neck, shooting up around the jagged white end of his severed spine, and his naked corpse fell against her and then crumpled to the ground.

Covered in blood and bits of brain and bone, Mara staggered back against the workbench, turned, fell to her knees, and spewed the remnants of the beef jerky and travel bread she had eaten across the floor, the vomit mingling with the spreading scarlet pool of Grute’s blood.

She didn’t have the strength to stand. Instead she crawled back into the main room, dragging long streaks of blood across the floor, scrabbled her way to the door, and almost fell through it into the storm outside, rolling over onto her back to let the thick white snowflakes pour down on her, hoping they would wash away the blood, the stench . . . and the horror.

But within moments she began to shiver. She would freeze to death if she stayed out there, and there was no way,
no way
, after all this, she was going to die because of
Grute
.

Grute, dead at her hand.

She couldn’t believe it; couldn’t believe she’d killed him, couldn’t believe the
way
she’d killed him, couldn’t believe that magic could do
that
. But when she staggered back to her feet and stepped back into the warmth of the hut, there he lay in the back room, dead and headless in an enormous pool of blood. Mara swallowed hard at the sight, gagging on the stench of his voided bowels, but though her stomach threatened to heave once more, she managed to keep her gorge down. She stumbled across the room and closed the door. With Grute out of sight, only the trail of blood and her own blood-and-tissue-splattered clothes remained to remind her of what she had done. She couldn’t do anything about the former, but she took off all her clothes, put them outside in the snow, and then wrapped herself in blankets on the bed and lay there, staring at the fire.

For a long time she just gazed at it, dry-eyed and numb, but then out of nowhere the sobs took her. She wept, great, body-shaking sobs: wept for her lost childhood, wept for her parents, and even, a little, wept for Grute, thrown out of Tamita like the rest of them when his Masking failed.

But she couldn’t weep forever; and eventually, she had to deal with the body. She first went and retrieved her clothes, soaking wet now after being buried in a thick blanket of snow, and worked out the mud and blood as best she could by the fire, the water running brown and red onto the hearth, where it sizzled and popped.

Leaving the still-damp clothes to dry, she wrapped the blanket even more tightly around her and hesitantly approached the closed door of the back room. For a moment she just stared at it, all too aware of the horror within, but then she pressed her lips together and pushed open the door.

Grute’s corpse lay where he had fallen, naked and headless, the pool of blood all around him darker now that it had congealed, but still glittering in the strange, ever-shifting light of the magic. There was far less of it in the basin than there had been, she saw, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up again—not that there was anything left in her stomach
to
throw up—but she hadn’t exhausted it completely.

Which gave her an idea.

Cringing at the stickiness of the blood-coated flagstones beneath her bare feet, she went to the basin. Letting the blanket fall open, so that it hung loosely on her shoulders like a cape, she plunged her hands into the multicolored pool, welcoming the strange tingle of power. She swirled her hands around the basin, trying to gather all the magic it contained. And then, not really knowing what would happen, she turned and knelt, closed her eyes so she couldn’t see him, and reached out to touch Grute’s bare, blood-caked back, wishing with all her heart that somehow the magic could send his cooling corpse elsewhere, anywhere, just get it out of there . . .

That same burning agony in her hands, gone in an instant; then a soundless flash of white light penetrated her closed eyelids, turning her vision red.

She opened her eyes. For a moment, she couldn’t see anything. The magic’s ever-changing light had vanished, so that the only illumination came from the dim glow of the fire through the open door. But slowly her eyes adjusted, and she saw . . .

...nothing.

Grute was gone, as though he had never been. Not a trace of blood remained behind; not a speck of flesh, bone, or brain. Instead, fine dust coated the floor, and her skin, and drifted from her hair as her head snapped back and forth. She scrambled to her feet in a cloud of dust, the blanket falling away completely, and darted naked into the front room.

Even the blood on the floor was gone. So were the bloodstains she had been unable to scrub from her clothes, though there, too, that dust lingered.

Grute’s disappearance terrified her almost as much as the moment when his head had exploded between her hands. How had she done
that
? How had the
magic
done that?

The use of magic by the Gifted was tightly regulated by the Palace. Her father was licensed to use the magic he was given by the Palace
only
for the making of Masks. If he used it for anything else, he would be brought up on charges.

So what was the penalty for
killing
with magic, she wondered? She could only guess—and shivered, remembering corpses rotting on the gallows of Traitors’ Gate.

A slightly crazed laugh bubbled up between her lips. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, but the thought remained: showing her unMasked face in Tamita would get her hanged just as thoroughly, and after all, they could only execute her once.

In any event, she wouldn’t be using—
mis
using—magic anymore
here
. The basin was empty. She’d exhausted the supply.

And in the process, she’d exhausted herself.

She stoked the fire with fresh firewood. Then, leaving her clothes to continue steaming, she stood and glanced into the magic room. The blanket in there, covered with Grute-dust, she didn’t want touching her skin; but fortunately, there was a second blanket on the bed, which Grute had hardly disturbed, since all he’d done was sit on it and drink. She cautiously checked the mattress, found that it looked reasonably clean and vermin free, and gratefully stretched out on it, pulling the remaining blanket up around her. She blinked sleepily at the dying fire once or twice, then her eyelids closed and she slept.

···

Light flooded the room, accompanied by a blast of icy air. Mara woke with an uncomfortable start and jerked upright, clutching the blanket to her chest.

A dark figure stood silhouetted in the snow-bright rectangle of the open doorway.

“Who the hell are you?” boomed a man’s voice.

The Camp

M
ARA GAPED AT HIM. “I—”

The man didn’t wait to hear. He strode past her, ignoring her as she scrambled to keep herself covered with the blanket, and yanked open the door to the back room. He swore again. “Nothing! I make the trek all the way up here in this weather, and there’s
nothing
!” He turned and stared at her. He wore no Mask, but his broad, black-bearded face was unscarred. “Except
you
.” He took a step, looming over her. Blankets clutched as tightly to her chest as she could hold them, she pushed herself away from him, pressing her bare back against the cold stone wall. “Who are you?” he demanded again.

“M–Mara,” she said.

“Mara.” His dark eyes narrowed. “And how old are you?”

“Fifteen,” she said, and knew she had made a mistake as his eyes flew wide.

“You’re one of
them
! One of the unMasked from the ambushed wagon!”

“But you’re unMasked, too,” Mara said.

He snorted. “No. I just don’t bother with the dratted thing when I’m out here alone in the Wild. Who’s to see?” He rubbed his chin as he studied her. “Maybe the trek wasn’t for nothing, after all.” He looked around, saw her clothes by the fire, strode over, grabbed them, then turned and threw them at her. “Get dressed,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

Mara pulled on her clothes under the blanket while the man returned to the back room. She saw him lean over the empty basin, heard his angry mutter, and then watched as his eyes scanned the darkened room. He strode over to one of the shelves bearing the black stone jars and ran his finger over the wooden plank, lifting it covered with white dust. He sniffed at the dust, made a face, and then wiped his finger on his clothes. He turned to glare at her. “What the hell happened here?”

“Nothing since I got here,” she said, trying to sound as young and innocent as possible. “What are you looking for?”

“None of your business. Are you dressed?”

“Yes.” She pushed aside the blanket, pulled her boots out from under the bed, and tugged them on. “Where are you going to take me?” she said.

“Where you should already be,” the man said. “The unMasked labor camp. I know the Warden. He’ll give me a fat reward for bringing you in.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Mara emerged, squinting, into bright morning sunlight, made all the more blinding by a foot of fresh snow. She’d brought the blanket with her for additional warmth, but she still shivered as the air bit her nose, ears, and fingers. A big black horse tethered outside tossed its head and snorted at her. Next to it, a much smaller gray mule gave her a mournful look, flicking its long ears as the cold wind ruffled its mane.

“Get on the mule,” the man said.

“I don’t know how to ride,” Mara protested.

“You don’t need to ride, you just need to hang on. I’ll lead the mule. He won’t fall.”

Mara walked over to the mule, feet crunching in the snow, but couldn’t figure out how to mount it. Two large panniers hung on either side of its bony hindquarters; smaller leather pouches were slung across its withers. The man muttered under his breath, then came over, seized her roughly around the waist, and lifted her up. She swung her leg over more or less by instinct and found herself on the mule’s back. She managed to tuck her legs, spread uncomfortably wide, between the panniers and the pouches. She saw no reins, so she grabbed hold of the leather straps crisscrossing the mule’s back to hold its load in place. Feeling more or less secure, she watched the man swing easily up into the black horse’s worn saddle.

“How far do we have to go?” Mara asked. Now that the light no longer brought tears to her eyes, she saw what she hadn’t been able to see in the snow and darkness of the previous night: they stood on the highest point of a ridge, a miniature mountain peak, the ground sloping away in every direction. The
real
mountains, soaring up to the north, her left, were sheathed in snow and wreathed in clouds that came apart in tatters high overhead, shredded by the icy peaks into long white streamers that faded away into the blue sky that was everywhere else.

To the south, her right, the ground ran away in a series of ridges to the rolling territory she and Grute had traversed en route from the Secret City. She glanced over her shoulder. Even from this height, she couldn’t see the ocean, but she knew it was back there somewhere, and so were her friends in the unMasked Army. She and the man were about as exposed as they could be at that moment. Anyone looking up from miles around might see them.

Was anybody looking? Had the unMasked Army’s patrols come this way? Would they see her?

Would they rescue her?

She saw no movement in the dark forests all around, but that proved nothing.

Then the man clucked to his horse and the mule, and they started forward, and down. Almost at once, they dipped below the ridgeline and out of sight of any hypothetical watchers. But by that point Mara had forgotten all about the unMasked Army. Instead, all her attention was focused on not falling off the mule. Her momentary sense of security on its back vanished with its first step. Its body rolled beneath her like a barrel in a river, threatening to pitch her off at any moment, and with no stirrups in which to rest her feet she had to rely on the strength of her legs and her death grip on the leather straps to keep her in place. Both mule and horse seemed incredibly sure-footed on the narrow track. The man had been right. The animals wouldn’t fall.

She wasn’t nearly that certain about
herself
.

In stories, riding horses and mules always seemed as easy as sitting in a rocking chair. No one ever talked about how tiring it was, how hard it was to keep your balance, how sore your legs got, how sore
everything
got that was in contact with the mule, which seemed to have no padding on its spine at all.
Maybe it’s easier with a saddle
, she thought, as she clung desperately to the straps, sliding first this way then that.
It must be. Otherwise nobody would ever do it.

After half an hour that felt like half a day they reached the bottom of the valley to the north. On level ground, the mule’s back didn’t roll so much, and Mara was able to relax, just a little. Down here, the snow was already melting, great wet dollops of it dropping from the trees, making white splashes on the bare, sheltered ground beneath before fading away.

Of course, melting snow meant mud, which wouldn’t have been so bad if only it had stayed on the ground, but despite their easy pace, a remarkable amount of it flew up all around her. Mud splattered her cheeks and clotted her hair, and one particularly annoying blot clung to the very tip of her nose, where she couldn’t get at it without letting go of the straps—and there was no way she was going to do
that
.

The man took no notice of her except for the occasional glance back—to be sure, she guessed, that she hadn’t fallen off. He didn’t speak. They traveled without a halt until the sun stood high overhead. Then the man reined the black horse to a stop on a bit of rocky shore beside a rushing stream, and slid smoothly down.
For him
, she thought resentfully,
riding a horse really
does
look as easy as sitting in a rocking chair.

For her, though . . . With difficulty, she disentangled her sore, stiff fingers from the leather straps. The muscles in her thighs and legs screamed as she swung her right leg over top of the mule. And every other muscle screamed as she let herself slide to the ground, so that she had to grab a pannier to keep from simply crumpling into the mud. She clung there, panting, while the pain eased slightly. Then, feeling like an old woman, she hobbled over to the stream. She knelt beside it, thinking maybe she could crawl into it and let it wash the mud away, but one freezing, stinging touch told her that would be a bad idea. She limited herself to splashing water on her face. Even that made her gasp—but it also revived her a bit.

She stood and looked downstream. “How much farther?”

“Rest of the day,” the man said, his back to her. He had opened the flap of one of his saddlebags and pulled out a round loaf of hard brown bread. After a bit more rummaging he also withdrew half a fat red sausage. Mara’s mouth watered.

The man grunted as he lowered himself onto a flat-topped boulder. He pulled a knife from his belt, and, holding the bread on his lap, cut a thick slice of the sausage. He tore off a piece of bread and stuffed sausage and bread together into his mouth. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

He swallowed. “Well, come and have some, then,” he said. “I can’t stand you looking at me with begging-puppy eyes.”

She dashed forward and sat beside him on the boulder. He ripped off a chunk of the bread and shoved it into her hands along with a couple more good-sized cuts of sausage. She took a bite of bread and another of the heavily spiced sausage and thought she’d never tasted anything better.

They ate in something approaching companionable silence for a moment. “What will happen when we get to the mining camp?” Mara asked at last, timidly.

The man took another bite of sausage, then swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Don’t know,” he said. “Nothing to do with me. I’ll give you to the Warden. He’ll decide.” He didn’t meet her eyes, and that gave her a bad feeling.

“What do the unMasked
do
there?” she asked.

“They work,” the man said. “In the mine. With Watchers aplenty to make
sure
they work. And a few, whaddyacallems,
trustees
—unMasked that have been there a long time, keeping the others in line, making themselves useful.” He pointed his knife at her. “Want my advice, you stay on the good side of the Warden, the Watchers,
and
the trustees. Then maybe someday you’ll be a trustee yourself, if you live that long.”

That sent a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold air. “But . . . but how long do the unMasked stay in the camp?” Mara said, while inside she asked the real question.
How long will I be there?

The man shoved his knife into his belt and stood up. “What do you think, girl?” he said sarcastically. “You can’t go anywhere unMasked. And you can’t ever be Masked. So . . . ?”

For the rest of my life
, Mara thought. The prospect turned the food she had wolfed a moment before into a lump of lead in her stomach. She looked down at the last piece of bread in her hands, turning it over and over but not really seeing it.
Life in prison. That’s what the unMasked Army saved me from. But now I’m headed there again.

Will they save me again?

She glanced left, upstream, in the general direction of the Secret City: but she saw only shadowed forest and the ever-rushing water.

“Time to move,” the man said, turning his back on her. She got slowly to her feet, quailing at the thought of climbing onto the mule again. The man heaved her up onto the animal. She winced as bruises renewed their intimate acquaintance with the bones that had made them, grabbed onto the leather straps with still-aching fingers, and they resumed their miserable journey.

Mara’s first hint they were close to the mining camp came when, as the sun settled low behind them, the man paused, reached into his saddlebag, and pulled out a Mask, a very pale green one with black stripes on the cheeks. She didn’t know what Gift green represented, but whatever it was, he clearly didn’t have much of it; though obviously enough that he could see magic, or he wouldn’t be able to do his job. He settled the Mask on his face, then urged the horse forward again.

Five minutes later they rounded a bend in the stream, and the mining camp came into sight.

Mara had pictured something like the Autarch’s Palace, all stone walls and turrets, but the camp was surrounded only by a tall palisade of unpeeled logs bound together and driven into the ground. In area, though, it was easily the Palace’s equal.

The stream ran under the palisade and into the camp through an opening barred with rusted iron. At the corners of the compound rose wooden towers, a peaked roof forming a kind of open hut atop each. She could see guards inside the “huts,” but they didn’t seem to be looking out: instead, all their attention was focused inward.

She felt another chill.
The walls are to keep people in, not keep attackers out.

They were within fifty yards of the camp before a Watcher, only his black-Masked face and shoulders visible above the rough-hewn spiky tips of the palisade’s poles, glanced their way. She saw him point, then heard a shout. The man who had captured her gave a wave. “Gate’s around to the south,” he said, and led the mule to the right, away from the stream, down to the end of the long wall of logs, then left and down another equally long wall to two enormous, iron-bound wooden doors flanked on either side by two more guard towers.

Those doors swung open, creaking and groaning, as they approached. Mara’s guide pulled up short and waited as two Watchers came out. One took the horse’s reins while the other just stood to one side, Mask turned in their direction, a crossbow cradled in his arms.