Masks

by E.M. Prazeman

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was so dark, the incense seemed bright by comparison. That glow didn’t carry far enough to reveal even a tiny bit of the mahogany desk that the burner rested on. Mark shivered with fear. Even his breath trembled. He wanted to joke, to ask if all they had to do was kneel in the dark for a while to be bonded, but he didn’t dare disturb the thing or things in the room with them. The incense made his skull feel like it had been lined with wool.

  The room seemed to vanish except for that little glow. He reached out and felt the stone table, but when he drew his hand away again the room might as well not have existed, save for the resinous, phenolic smoke.

  His heart tried to pound its way out of his chest. He tried to control his breath, but it rose and fell in desperate waves. The pressure on his leg wound grew until Mark had to stretch it out. It relieved the worst of the pain, but then when he knelt again it hurt even more.

  He couldn’t hear Colonel Evan—not a breath or a rustle. Mark reached and found his shoulder. His hand slid down the colonel’s arm and probed for his hand. The colonel slid his hand together with Mark’s and squeezed. He was trembling too.

  The colonel released his hand after a few short breaths.

  Mark’s pain faded and he couldn’t hear himself breathing anymore. It felt like he didn’t need to breathe, couldn’t breathe—it panicked him. He had to breathe. He felt lightheaded. He groped for the solidity of the table and found nothing. The glow from the incense faded.

  Whatever it was in the room came closer. It felt like light on his face, not the warmth of sunlight but a similar glow like when he closed his eyes in summertime against the intense brilliance, but this was a faded blue in tone rather than the familiar orange glow. He strained to see it, his right hand searching for the colonel. There, but what he touched instead of a shoulder was something soft and delicate, like silk floating on water. “Colonel?” A ghost of phantom blue light lit and died away, as if his voice had somehow revealed it.

  No answer. Mark drew his hand away, terrified of what he’d touched, fearing that it wasn’t human. “Please say something,” Mark whispered.

  The wan blue glow brightened a little when he spoke. He didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing, but he had to see. “Hello?”

  It definitely brightened, and moved closer. He’d attracted whatever it was. And had something green moved over in the corner across the table from the baron?

  E’emahl tro phani soll ....

  You know what to do, it had said, but not with voice. It whispered in his mind like a memory of someone breathing the words into his ear.

  Mark did know, but he was afraid to. He sang because he was more afraid of what might happen to them in the dark than of what he might see.

  You walked alone across the land

  You walked along the moonlit strand

  You walked into the wide gray sea

  Why did you go, my love a’ lee

  The music curled like whorls of light around him and traveled in undulating and spinning ribbons where they touched on ... he’d seen flowers like that before, but not in the world. He’d seen them in carvings on the church walls. They had throats that glowed like old embers and petals that spread into ragged fans of luminous blue. They had no stems or leaves. They just floated in gently undulating drifts within forests of feathery tree-sized forms. Mark floated in a bizarre forest through which jewel-colored orbs bobbed, pastel silken ribbons edged in diamond swam, and translucent bubbles moved within unseen currents. The blooms and feather trees in silver, pale greens and soft blues spanned acres. Something like glimmering sand flowed among them, teeming with minute living things, or so they seemed to be alive though he couldn’t make out any form to define each sparkle. They were so strange as to be frightening rather than beautiful.

  He seemed to be able to see in all directions at once and it confused his mind. He had no way of orienting, especially since there seemed to be no ground or sky. He could have been prostrate, hanging upside down, even turning in place without knowing it.

  He stopped singing and everything began to fade into darkness again. He lifted his voice, afraid of what might come upon him without him knowing.

  The light from his music reached a clearing where a sapphire river flowed down in leaps and steps and then swooped upward. Something like branches on trees pierced through here and there, and the watery band glittered with inner lights. It was populated by dark and frightening forms with long, delicate teeth.

  He didn’t notice them at first, but he knew what the dozen or so graceful creatures among the flowing blossoms must be. Tall and slender, their only relationship to human form was in number of limbs. They shifted and blurred. From what little he could make out as the notes of music glanced over them, their heads had no eyes, but had something like ears, cupped and furred like a fox’s. Those ears rippled and expanded and shrank with sensitivity to things he himself couldn’t hear in this dark and silent world where his voice provided the only light and sound. Graceful cheeks helped balance the long but diminutive noses that ended in strangely flat nostrils. They had small mouths and sharp, delicate chins. Hair flowed freely around them in shades of silver and gold and copper and umber. The nearest had skin dappled with passionate ambers and reds. The clothes, or perhaps their bodies had skin and fur that fanned out into elaborate layers that looked like skirting and sleeve, flared and billowed like loose sails luffing in gentle breezes.

  One of them floated closer. This one was a terrible green—a green that would cover over once-glorious civilizations and put moss on bones, the implacable green of life that had no respect for the art and soul and pain of flesh beings.

  Mark’s song kept traveling and carrying light off into the distance though fear had choked off his voice. The light touched on tree-sized vines that climbed on no visible support to incredible heights, their roots traveling through whatever translucent substance served as ground to them. The music revealed a flow of stars far below, moving as a river of rainbow-touched clouds that glowed with their own light.

  Just as the light began to dim on the nearest things, the green being drew something out of its side, as if extracting a rib. A sword, thin and clear as glass but very obviously a weapon with a swept handguard.

  Thir kra muomaveh.

  It kills for pleasure.

  At first Mark thought it meant him, but he realized it was looking where the colonel would be kneeling. The amber and red being drew a blade as well and charged. Mark only had time to reach out with his hand in hopes of diverting the strike. The blade pierced right through his palm.

  Mark screamed in shock. Everything washed out in brilliant waves and ribbons of blinding light.

  They are mine!

  The memory/words split through his mind with such overwhelming force that Mark clutched his head trying to keep it from exploding apart. He curled—his head whacked the table—and cradled his hand. His palm burned and itched and sliced him with pain all at once. The pain traveled like hot worms cutting through him with thousands of razor fins up his arm. The worms branched from his shoulder into the depths of his body to all his limbs. He couldn’t even scream anymore. All he could do was gasp.

  Let me.

  You’re mad.

  You don’t know who this is. Now silence. I must concentrate.

  I know who this is and he is not worthy.

  We must trust him.

  “Lark! Damn it.” The colonel fumbled around in the room. A chair scraped, the table slid. The desk drawer opened and the colonel rattled around in it. The striker rasped several times, sparking too-bright in the darkness until finally the lamp lit, momentarily blinding Mark.

  The colonel knelt beside him and grabbed him up. “What is it? Show me.”

  The pain had begun to fade though he shuddered from revulsion. Mark tore off his glove, afraid of what he’d find.

  Just a scar on his palm. Small, red—it had a mate on the back of his hand. It was a strange
thing without blood or a bruise or a rash. It looked rooted in his skin, with green tendrils that faded into the flesh underneath.

  His leg didn’t hurt. His arm didn’t either but he didn’t care. He felt poisoned by this horror on his hand—what had it done to him, and what was it doing?

  The crawling throughout his body faded into minute spasms.

  “What is that?” The colonel sounded afraid. “What happened?”

  “Didn’t you see?”

  “No. I thought I heard you singing, but it was far away. I could feel things like I’ve seen in sacred artwork, but without touching or seeing, or as if they were a part of me. I can’t explain it.” The colonel kept a tight hold on Mark as if he might drown if he let go. “Something attacked me. I heard you scream and I returned.” He eased his hold and moved so that he could take Mark by the wrist. “Can you flex your hand?”

  Mark made a fist, and then opened his hand and hyper-extended his fingers. They wiggled easily. “Everything feels fine.” A fresh shudder of revulsion raked through him. He didn’t want to look at the scar but he didn’t dare look away.

  “Squeeze my fingers.” He held out two. Mark gripped and the colonel winced. “You’re stronger than you look.”

  Mark released him, his senses still so overwhelmed from what had happened that he couldn’t perceive the room as anything more than an uninteresting gray place. His chest felt heavy.

  I’m still alive. We’re alive.

  But are we sane?

  “Are you all right?” Mark asked.

  “Yes.”

  The lock on the door turned and the dellai looked in. “You’ve both had visions?”

  “More than that, it seems.” The colonel stood and brushed off his clothes. “Lark has a scar on his hand.”

  “It—”

  “Don’t talk about it to me!” The priest cut Mark’s words short before he could even get started. “Didn’t I explain it to you?” He grabbed Mark’s hand impatiently, and then offered his hand to the colonel. The colonel accepted, and the priest placed the colonel’s hand over Mark’s scarred one, as if he knew. He began speaking in Hasle, but Mark was too distracted to try to translate the words.

  The colonel’s hand melted into his. In shock Mark tried to pull away but they were connected, and the priest’s grip was as immovable as stone. The colonel’s heartbeat and his own clashed in frantic rhythms that gradually began to combine. Their hearts still raced, but they raced as one. The heaviness in Mark’s chest lifted at last.

  The priest let them go and to Mark’s surprise, his hand was still his own. It still had the scar on it, but the scar had darkened and was turning a dusky blue with black tendrils that faded to gray beneath his skin before they vanished into the depths of flesh and bone.

  “You are bonded,” the dellai told them. He went to the desk and fetched a small book out of one of the drawers. It had a plain leather cover with one of the floating flowers embossed on it. The artist had painted it in faded blue with a gilded center. Mark might have thought it was a beautiful design before he saw the luminescent glory of the real—

  He had a hard time calling that place, that existence, real. He loathed the thought that it might be a part of the afterlife. It might have been glorious and wonderful if he’d trusted the rules of nature to apply, but it was so strange and chaotic he dreaded the thought of being plunged into that place forever after his death.

  Maybe it was one of the hells. Please don’t let that be the Glorious Garden.

  “Your heartbeats will tend to match,” the priest told them. “It’s my understanding that it can be a little disconcerting at first, but I’m sure that is the least of your concerns at the moment.” The dellai began putting away the incense. “Go home. You’ll find the hall is lit. Take it past the stairs. The door will lead out into the gardens. A guard will have keys waiting for you. They’re struck especially for you. Don’t lose them, and don’t loan them out. They’ll give you admittance to the gardens at any hour you wish. Sometimes, when the memories of your visions become too burdensome, it helps to sit among those who have glimpsed, even if you can’t discuss it.”

  Mark didn’t want it to be real, not any of it. He wondered how much of what his mother had considered superstition might be ... as the dellai had hinted, if not the truth then at least something that could be counted on.

  Was the Hunt real? Did morbai gather to hunt particular souls, souls that had done evil in life? And what about what the sailor had seen? Mark had feared it might have been Gutter, but if the sailor had in fact been Stricken, a Seer .... But morbai and allolai couldn’t manifest in the living world, at least not according to any legend or superstition he’d heard. They could only affect the mind. But how could anyone really know if that was true?

  “Lark?”

  That was his master’s voice now, the one who would protect his soul from morbai in the afterlife.

  But I think I protected his soul. What does that mean?

  “Lark?” The colonel had softened his voice.

  Mark nodded and went to the door. He worked his glove back on. He almost forgot the cane. He didn’t need it anymore.

  But it might be to my advantage to pretend I need it, at least for a while.

  “You said we would visit your father,” Mark reminded him.

  “I think he would have been much more pleased if I had eloped with a whore.” The colonel’s shoulders tightened and he looked a bit green as they stepped out into the hall. Incredible frescoes depicted fierce battles between jesters, allolai, morbai, and lords on the walls. The allolai and morbai were depicted as human beings, but with skin colored in amber, saffron, sap green, azure, burgundy and other strange colors. “I would rather we present ourselves promptly than to make it appear as if we’re avoiding him,” the colonel added. “I may be a sad excuse for a son, but I’m not a coward.” The colonel’s gaze traced down the hall but he didn’t appear to react to the terrifying and sometimes pitiful scenes of death and destruction.

  “How could anyone consider you—you’re a hero.”

  “Not to him.”

  What kind of man could make the colonel feel so inadequate? “Let’s get it over with, then.”

  The colonel nodded. “And then dinner.”

  “And which dinner might that be?”

  The colonel’s brows lifted and he gave Mark a puzzled glance. “Were we not invited to dine with Dainty’s crew?”

  Mark couldn’t remember ever feeling so grateful and happy, though he’d received countless precious gifts from Gutter and Lord Argenwain over the years. “We’d better send word to Mr. Roadman. I hope he doesn’t have a previous engagement.”

  “It will be good to see him again.” The colonel bowed his head. “He was a good man in the war. If he’d let me I would have advanced him well beyond sergeant. In so many words he told me that men need a semblance of noble authority in a leader, and that he didn’t have it.” Colonel Evan lifted his head and glanced over the shadowed battle on the wall beside him, where strange creatures tormented fallen lords, and jesters reached in despair for aid from their dying masters. “I maintain that a hundred men would have gladly followed him to their deaths if he’d asked it of them.”

  Mark wished he didn’t have to wait to see Grant again. He wanted to rush to Dainty and be with regular people for a while. Ceremony, priests, otherworldly danger—he’d had enough of it, and the colonel looked ready to wash his memories in wine as well.

  “I’m going to start to limp when we go up the stairs,” Mark warned him. “I don’t know how well I’ll maintain the façade, but I’ll give it a try.”

  “I’m not clear on what happened to your wounds.”

  “I’m not either, and until I understand it I don’t want anyone to realize I’m fit.”

  The colonel smiled. “You would have made a fair soldier, I think.”

  “Let’s hope we never find out if that’s true.”

  The colonel, as apparently was his ha
bit, watched the terrain as the carriage carried them to a part of the island Mark hadn’t been to before. Mark had seen the bay, the docks at the waterfront, and the baron’s manor on a rocky point exposed to the prevailing weather and waves, but near a tiny inlet where small boats could reach and leave shore during ebb tides without wrecking. Now they traveled inland and upward as the carriage climbed what the baron had referred to as a mountain, but would be called a hill on the mainland.

  Some of the land had been cleared for crops, mainly sugar cane, vines and shrubs that produced spices, and fruit orchards. The vast majority remained wild. Exotic trees grew to vast heights. Most of those giants had barely a limb on their enormous trunks below a hundred feet. Many of the smaller trees, forced to straggle and claw in darkness or race for supremacy wherever sunlight won through, grew fruit with which Mark was familiar but hadn’t seen the source, such as bananas and limes. Some he’d never seen before, like cucumber-shaped purple fruits suspended from massive five-leaved vines. And the flowers—everything seemed to remain in constant bloom. Even many of the trees had blossoms, some as tall and broad as a man. Most of the flowers had an appealing jasmine or orange blossom scent, but a few had strange, not-always-pleasant odors and his senses were soon exhausted by the over-ripe sweetness of decaying perfumes.

  Birds hurried and cried through all this. He caught sight of real, actual and wild monkeys. Duke Fellburn’s pet monkey was much smaller, a little golden thing with eager eyes. These were large and dark and a little ominous with their fierce, hooded eyes and enormous fangs.

  “What are those?” Mark asked, pointing to them.

  The colonel glanced up as they passed. “Mellicant’s monkeys.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “Not generally, but they can be destructive. Everyone has to lock their refuse in metal bins, otherwise they forage for meat scraps in them and make an unbelievable mess, not to mention they have a nasty bite and will attack in force if you try to run them off from it. They’re adept at stalking large birds, and they’ve been known to take an occasional piglet. The males can get quite large. During the first part of the war, my camp was continually harassed by a troupe of more than a hundred of the blamed creatures led by a male of at least one hundred pounds. I hated them then, but now I’m rather fond of them.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “They learn quickly, as quickly as men. One made off with a pistol and it went off. Frightened him to pieces, but several days later, after we’d suffered through a particularly brutal engagement with Cathretan forces, he returned and stole another pistol, pointed it toward my men, and tried to fire it. It wasn’t loaded, so it didn’t go off. He made off with it and we never found it again. I swear that given time and instruction, they could be taught to do a great many things. I often wonder if they have their own language, religious beliefs, jesters, nobles and so forth.”

  Mark couldn’t see what the colonel had found so endearing about them from that story. “He might have killed someone.”

  “Considering how many of his kind were killed during the war, I don’t blame him. I killed a lot of men with less provocation.”

  It kills for pleasure.

  Had Gutter known what Lord Argenwain was before they were bonded?

  Have I bonded myself to a murderer?

  “Did ....” He couldn’t bring himself to ask, so he tried another question. “Did the beings, morbai or whatever, tell you anything about me?”

  “They spoke to you?” The colonel paled. “Did they say something about me?”

  He should have foreseen that question. “Yes, they did. I’m not ready to talk about it.” How did a jester ask his master if he maimed and tortured and killed people for entertainment?

  “I’m sure my father will discuss my sins. Whether you or I want to or not, he will bare all my sins within earshot of every servant—not that they don’t already know my flaws. I’m grateful that they’ve kept my secrets well, though of course any day that could change.”

  Mark felt like a young maid who, when presented with her wedding bed, started to shriek for an annulment. Of course there was no such thing for jesters except the axe. In the other world he’d reacted with instinct, without thinking through the consequences of saving the colonel from the morbai’s attack. Even directly afterward he’d felt nothing but relief that it was over. Now he had an awful feeling in his gut that he’d just done something very stupid.

  What if it was doing the right thing by cleansing the world of a bloodthirsty monster?

  I slept in his house. He took excellent care of me, and stayed his hand when he could have shot me as a spy.

  But what if he decides I’m too much trouble? I can’t believe I remarked so casually that he could have me put to death. He’d probably do it himself, and take his time about it. No wonder Jog looked so shocked. He must know ....

  “It’s too late for second thoughts.” The colonel turned his gaze back to the jungle.

  “I still trust you.” Unfortunately now he had to because he had no choice.

  “What does it say that we both feel foolish for trusting one another, and yet we do so anyway?” The colonel’s eyes lit with a smile that didn’t reach his mouth. The tender expression helped ease Mark’s misgivings.

  They passed a few grand gateways, climbing higher until Philip turned the carriage onto a broad road framed by marble pillars topped with alabaster horse heads. The trees gave way to horses grazing on a broad pasture of at least twenty acres, along with a herd of tiny deer that nibbled nervously at the far edge. Oranges and lemons ringed the house. A large pond had a bronze fountain at its center—a dignified horse pawing the air with one hoof, neck arched while water flowed from its mane across its powerful body. A dark hedge with red-edged leaves walled off whatever property lay behind the house.

  The carriage horses followed the road around a massive floral display where vines with white, trumpet-shaped blossoms as long as Mark’s forearm crept up a dead tree. Philip stopped the carriage in front of the main doors. The covered entry stood on a level with the ground, but a water-filled moat required a bridge to cross over to the door. The house had all the elegance and amenities of a modern manor: broad framing with simple fluting, plaster painted a soft apricot, a generous number of lamps, and plenty of windows. The only nod toward fortification aside from the moat lay in the windows on the lower level—they were all tall, but very narrow, and divided by stone. He’d never seen such a design. It was interesting, but not interesting enough to distract him from what lay ahead.

  Mark barely remembered to accept help and favor his leg when he stepped down. He limped with the colonel to his father’s house, where a butler had already arrived to open the door.