Unmasked (Rise of the Masks Book 1)

by Kaplan, EM

  "Will we send someone among them to learn their language?" Mel speculated aloud, wondering where exactly that would be and if, for another thing, the trogs wouldn’t slaughter them on sight. And possibly eat them.

  "That's something that will have to be determined."

  "Do we have anyone among us who knows anything about these . . . people?" Mel asked, walking alongside her mother, matching her methodically even pace as they made their way down the road to the rest of the settlement. A cluster of larger buildings, similarly bricked as their own house, lay ahead of them. They approached the largest of them. Its heavy wood doors were open, but the meeting was already in progress. Mel thought she heard a small catch in her mother's breath, a small hiccup in her pulse.

  "We do, in fact, have someone who knows a little," Mel's mother said casting a sidelong glance at Mel. "Your father. He returned from his task while you were away."

  Chapter 11

  The meeting hall, in which Mel had often been left as a child to amuse herself for long hours, was a remarkably quiet place for having almost two hundred people in it. Mel could hear just a faint murmur of voices and the sound of shuffling papers, a dulcet ensemble of whispers. The hall had amphitheater style seating with descending rows of tables around a central open floor. Books and papers covered most of the tables, and Mel could see clusters of two or three downturned heads at each. She spied her father descending the stone steps to the center of the hall.

  She slid into the empty wooden chair next to her mother at their family table. Their neighbor, an older woman named Magla who used to tend to Mel when her mother was away on tasks, looked up at Mel with a seemingly blank stare. Mel saw a minuscule creasing of lines around Malga's eyes and a tightening in the corners of her mouth that indicated her pleasure at seeing Mel. Mel gave Magla her sweetest, most courtly smile that she'd practiced at the Keep. The light caught Magla's eye, and Mel saw a twinkle of amusement, a returned warmth. Then Mel looked back at her father.

  Ley’Albaer was exactly as Mel remembered him. Steel gray hair, fair skin with a deeply wrinkled forehead—what her mother called a permanent scholar's scowl—the same unsmiling countenance that was not an expression of anger, but one of intense concentration. He had the same leanness, the same rigid posture as always. In four years, he had not changed at all, yet she herself had changed quite a lot. Would he notice? She repressed the urge to tap her foot under the table. She was a ball of nerves, and she knew that she was broadcasting all her emotions to everyone in the vicinity. They were all adults, all trained and practiced Masks. No one else her age. She flicked her eyes at her mother, who was watching Ley’Albaer approach the center of the room.

  Her mother and her father were not married. They had not chosen each other. In fact, they had not even joined together in the traditional, witnessed bonding ceremony meant to publicly record an agreement between a man and a woman, or likewise, business partners. Her parents did not live in the same house when they were both home from tasks. They didn't show any particular affection for each other, even in the hardly discernible fashion of Masks who did.

  The only thing they had truly agreed on, without reservation, was to raise a child together. They consulted each other in everything about her upbringing and offered equal guidance when each was available. Although it wasn't unheard of for men and women to produce a child without a formal relationship, Mel knew of no other such arrangements in her immediate acquaintances in the settlement. Although the truth was, there weren't many people within ten years of her age here at all. For that, she missed Cillary Keep.

  Without any particular introduction or greeting, Ley’Albaer addressed the gathering, "We believe," he said, in his carefully measured speech, "That the creatures or 'trogs,' as some call them—although that carries a negative connotation—might require representation by us to determine their demands. From their actions, their entrance into the Cillary Keep, it appears that they consider themselves to have some sort of claim over those particular lands and its occupants. They gained entrance to the Keep by subterranean means and seem to have detained some of the Keep residents. It appears, in fact, that they might have obtained hostages, we think, to lend weight to their demands."

  Murmuring in the amphitheater increased almost imperceptibly. He held up a hand to halt what was barely more than silence itself, and he addressed an inquiry that he had heard from somewhere in the voices.

  "No, we do not know their language, although we have some ideas about what it might be and from where it may have been derived. They have been observed to have a certain guttural quality to their vocalizations. Possibly their throat structure has not developed in the same manner as ours. Certainly, it will make a fascinating thesis for any scholar among us looking for a particular specialization. We have not observed enough to make phonetic transcriptions, but we feel that there will be ample opportunity, doubtless in the near future. We have certain texts among us that refer to ancient cave dwellers, although we have not given enough attention to these texts, as those before us have categorized them as being the stuff of fairy tales and legends, if you will. Needless to say, we will need to locate and revisit these particular tomes as, undoubtedly, they have a certain pertinence as of late."

  Mel fidgeted and made a small twitch of her head to try to loosen the tension in her neck. The slow cadence of her father’s speech was irritating as he detachedly described her attackers. Her mother's eyebrow rose just a hint, a sign of her surprise at Mel's lack of self-control. Others around them turned their bodies away from her, trying to shield themselves from her disruptive behavior, though she had not made a sound.

  "We are not certain," her father continued, "if they are, in fact, a peaceable people merely driven to violence by circumstance, by provocation. We do not know, for example, if they house a substantial population or even, perhaps, a militia underground or in another land, which they merely transport themselves from in a subterranean manner. We have heard accounts, for instance, of the weaponry that they carry. There's been some discussion as to whether these are, in fact, tools of industry and not originally intended as means of violence."

  He then launched into a discussion, including line drawings and detailed diagrams that he and others had redrawn by hand on a large scale for the express purpose of presenting them to others now in the amphitheater. He proceeded in this manner for the better part of the day into the late afternoon—detailed discussion of a trog axe. Hours and hours to discuss the dimensions of the haft—the belly to the grip—the composite of the bit and the butt. Were they made of a common wood or an agamite-treated compressed material? Did the dimensions and materials of which they were made implicate the material which they intended to hew? Finally, Mel could not take it any longer.

  The legs of her chair grated on the stone tiles as she pushed her chair back. She stood, and all eyes turned toward her. Watery, blank stares. Her father, too, silenced by the violence of her motion, looked up at her.

  "What difference does it make whether the axes they carry were meant for mining stones or chopping wood?" she shouted, shaking. "What difference does it make when I have seen these blades sink into the flesh and bone of men and women?" She looked around, wide-eyed, and breathing hard. "My friends are in that pit."

  "Mel," her mother said quietly. Mel looked down at her. Mortification hit her like a wave. She had disregarded her entire upbringing without any consideration for their methods, their conventions. Her self-control at this moment was that of an infant. She was livid, flushed, her heart beating like a doe's. Yet, all she could see in her mind's eye was Liz's body, lying inert on the soot-littered lawn of the burning Keep.

  "I—I'm sorry for the interruption. Excuse me. I have to leave," she said and walked quickly out of the assembly hall and then sprinted across the clearing.

  Chapter 12

  Under the forest canopy, Rob stared across the burned-out campfire at Ott's back. The last embers had stopped smoking hours earlier, but he hadn't bothered t
o relight it because he had hoped they would head north today. The day wasn't warming up, and his feet were cold. The eerie blue leaves would be falling from the trees soon, and this forest would be bare like almost any other in winter, blue or not. He and Ott would need to trade large game for heavier coats within the week. For that matter, he wished he had woolen socks now—even badly-knitted ones would do. He suppressed a shiver. He would trade his firstborn for a scarf.

  In any case, it wasn't good weather for sitting on the ground around a dead campfire. Ott had been lying on a bedroll all afternoon. Though it was still light, they had wasted hours when they were both better off at home. It was their fifth day in the same camp. Before the massacre at the Keep happened, they'd rarely made camp in the same place for even a single night. Rob was all right with letting his friend grieve, but figured he could still mourn on his feet, if it was all the same to him.

  "Ott," he said. Then, not gruffly, gentler, "Mattieus." Ott turned his lanky body onto his belly, nose down on his blanket, but his ear was toward Rob. "We can't stay here, Ott. She's not here, man. The girl isn’t here anymore, and we need to leave." It would take them weeks to get home. First, they would trek back through the forest. After that, there was the hike up the mountain roads, which could be treacherous if they iced over. There, the roads were little more than well-worn trails. And if the cold came before they made it home, they might as well be “taking a walk in winter,” as the saying went. It would be the equivalent of suicide.

  He knew what Ott was seeing in his mind, probably running it over and over till he wanted to scream or cry or kill something. Even Rob saw the images in his own dreams. The gigantic plumes of dust and choking smoke, the raining ash. Falling rock scattering underfoot. Wailing and moans of the wounded. Those damned, filthy, reeking animals swarming out of the hole in the ground with their rough-hewn axes, their blades going sinking into the skin of those girls. Beautiful girls in their costumes and masks, feathers and silk covered with blood and soot. Long legs, in high-soled shoes, bleeding from the knees, ankles twisted unnaturally—they hadn’t been able to run away in those shoes. A smooth, brown, bare arm mostly severed from its shoulder. Those animals had come up from hell it seemed. Skin as tough and gray as animal hide. And they weren't more than animals, grunting at each other.

  And then Ott saw his girl dash back into the dance hall just at its worst. A pretty girl prettily dressed, lithe like a deer. Barefoot, and surprisingly fast on her feet. Rob didn't know what she was thinking, rushing back into the fray, the horrible chaos too much even for a full-grown man. That she could save some of her friends? Maybe she had just panicked. Poor, dumb thing, crushed in a collapse of rubble now. Mel, she had been called. Hopefully, she had died quickly and had not suffered.

  Rob had had his own share of losses. His mother’s heart had stopped young, leaving him and his sisters with his vindictive snake of a father and just the house staff to raise them. He didn't remember what his mother looked like, although when he looked in the mirror, he knew his blue eyes must have been hers because they were not the coal black ones of his father. Then Rob had lost the girl he loved for lack of speaking up, for lack of courage. Saw her married off to another, now with kids to rear while he still pined for her like a fool. He had never been able to hold another woman up to her in comparison, even now.

  And she would never know what he felt, even if he could put it into words now, nearly a decade later. He sighed, rubbing his eyes and forehead harshly with his own big, dumb, rough paw, as if he could wipe entire years out of his relentless memory.

  "Ott," he said, this time with irritation. "Get up. Go home to Jenny and the kids. Do your duty. What the hell are we doing out here anyway?" With more noise and force than was necessary, he began to pack up the camp. Ott didn't move from his bedroll as Rob stomped away, kicking at the campfire stones.

  At least they wouldn't go home empty-handed despite giving up that initial chase through the woods for Ott's girl. Rob had thought his old man would humiliate him if they arrived home without the troll's head. "Bring me its head or don't bother to bring yourself back," the old man had said. His wheezing rants and rages could still make Rob’s stomach twist into greasy knots, though the old bastard now was stooped and gnarled—as much from anger as old age, it seemed.

  As it turned out, Rob and Ott had had several heads to choose from. Rob would never have thought that likely to happen when they arrived at the ball and saw all the young girls in their finery, the hall with its twinkling candle light and smell of rich foods. Yet, here was one of the blasted beast’s heads in his hands. He hefted the large glass jar with the pickling solution. Double the size of a cooked cabbage and just as gray. The eyes were shut, thank Dovay, the bear-god of perseverance. Rob had screwed the metal lid on tightly, but couldn’t help checking it several times a day as if the thing could come back to life and get them in their sleep. Rather grotesque, but a head was what the old man wanted. And what he wanted, he got. Always.

  And here Rob was, holding it up to the light, contemplating his own life. All he knew was, it was better outside the jar. At least marginally.

  After the first explosion at the Keep, Ott had followed the girl Mel back inside to help, to . . . do whatever had to be done. And when the hallway collapsed on her with its crushing stones, no possibility of her escape, Ott screamed and bellowed in such a rage as Rob had never witnessed in his life, in man or animal, not even in his father during the worst of times. The scream had been followed by a foolhardy attack on the trolls in which Ott launched himself directly at the nearest one, knocking it to the ground and stunning it. He grabbed its axe, and in one swing, beheaded it. It had been a true berserker’s rage—Rob read about those once. They were the stuff of fairy tales, just as much as these ogres. Ott had stood there, panting and wild-eyed, and Rob had run at him and knocked off balance the troll who was at Ott's back. When the beast was down, Rob grabbed the axe out of its leathery, hide-covered fingers and hacked its head cleanly off. After that, they managed to kill seven, maybe eight, of the creatures. Which had been futile, as they became a swarm of hundreds. He and Ott would have died had the monsters not retreated back into their lair.

  In the end, Ott dropped his blood-soaked axe and stumbled out of the Keep across the lawn and into the woods. He sank to his knees at the base of a tree. Rob found him there later, after collecting the requisite head for old Col Rob. The creatures had retreated, taking their dead, taking some of the human dead back into the pit from which they had exploded.

  When Rob took Ott's arm to lead him back to camp, Ott broke away and ran back to the black hole. He was at the point of throwing himself into it when Rob caught him around the waist. “Just let me go,” Ott had said, causing a part of Rob to crack open inside. Some stones from underfoot fell down the abyss, and stinging fumes rose up. He was not sure either of them could survive down there or even if there was breathable air. Ott went limp then, and Rob lifted him up and carried him over his shoulder back to camp, the monster’s head still gripped in his other hand.

  Now finished packing up their modest camp, Rob went to check on Ott. He was sitting up now. His face had a gray look to it, and his eyes were dull, but he set his jaw, got up from his bedroll, and began to tie it up. They had a long journey north ahead of them, and Rob hoped a little life might come back to his friend before they reached home.

  Chapter 13

  For his part, Ott found himself on his feet one day, upright and walking alongside Rob. They had been traveling north toward home, but he wasn't sure for how many days. He saw the road stretched out in front of them, blue woods disappearing to the south. He found himself slamming down walls inside his mind, jailing the thoughts that would otherwise make it impossible for him to put one foot in front of the other.

  Rob was right—Ott had Jenny to look after. She was at home with the three little ones who looked nothing like her, but like him instead. How was that for motivation? It was hard not to feel a little lighter
just thinking about their soft, perfect faces and their small hands on his cheeks and around his neck. Poor Jenny had it tough. She was always there at the house with them, unable to move about as she liked, as Ott did. He loved and fiercely protected her as if she were his younger sister instead of his elder. She and her children lived in his crumbling family home not far from Rob's father's land. Rob was right. God only knew how she was managing. They had been away far too long, and now Ott picked up his pace. And Rob, relieved, picked up his as well.

  Chapter 14

  In her modest low-ceilinged room Mel was not asleep. She didn't like to dream anymore because when she slept, her dreams weren't the comforting, escapist forays they had been in the past. Now, they were filled with suffocating smoke and severed limbs or else the empty promises of a green-eyed person she would never see again. Lying awake in her bed, she thought her breathing was shallow and even enough to fool her parents, had they been paying attention to her. However, they were in the library, both of their pulses running high. She lay in her bed watching the movement of their shadows under the crack of her door.

  "Would you rather she stay here and be considered sub-par and deficient like Jenks?" her father was saying in a low, cool voice. "Or would you let her leave and be considered more than average out in the world at large?"