by Wight, Will
Instead of drinks, the bars were covered in some of the same debris that Caius had been carrying in his boxes. Ingots of iron, plates of steel, tiny hammers, and huge tongs lay strewn on the polished wood surfaces.
On the walls, above the counters, hung a series of copper racks. They looked like elaborate hooks, designed to suspend paintings, and there were six racks on these walls. Since there were twelve of them, Simon would have thought the racks were backup storage for the wooden sword racks in the entry hall, designed to hold the Dragon's Fangs. But not only were these mounts far too small to hold a sword, four of the slots were occupied.
On his left, running down the wall, four masks hung on the wall in a row. It was easy to see the similarities between these masks and his: one half was dark, the other light, with two squared-off eye slits and no opening for the mouth. However, no one would mistake his mask for one of these. The light side wasn't quite the same mirror-bright polished steel of a Dragon's Fang, and the dark half didn't look like the rough, solid black of the wrought iron in Simon's. Now that he was looking at them more carefully, he noticed that the join in the middle, where the two halves met, was smooth and straight, unlike his own, which showed a jagged, uneven, sinuous line where two metals had been melted and joined together.
The steel half of these masks was almost pale, like it had been whitened somehow, and the iron half looked more dark gray than black. While Simon's mask looked like a rough-forged weapon, like it could itself be used to kill someone, these seemed like the delicate products of a craftsman.
He had no doubt that they were much deadlier than they looked.
Two of the stools in the room were occupied. Andra Agnos, the youngest Valinhall Traveler and the daughter of Olissa and Caius, brightened when Simon entered the room. She was fourteen—she had passed her latest birthday in the House—and she had been born with the same naturally tan skin and blond hair that marked Alin as part villager and part Damascan. She sat at a stool with a device in front of her: like a small hammer with a squared off tip, only the hammer was welded into some sort of metal frame. There was a half-finished mask sitting underneath the hammer's head, clamped into place by a vice at the bottom. The hammer's sharpened head was poised over the mask, leading Simon to believe that the machine was designed to punch eye slits in the metal.
Andra's brother, Lycus, sat at the stool next to her. He had turned eleven in the House, and unlike his older sister, he stared at his machine with focused intensity. He had to stand up and lean all of his body weight on the handle in order to push the machine down, pushing a hole into the metal with a sharp thunk.
Unlike Andra, who usually seemed happy to see Simon, Lycus wouldn’t look Simon in the eye.
Simon couldn't blame the boy for that. Lycus had seen Simon kill people that the Agnos family considered friends. Maybe he would grow to understand. Maybe not.
Olissa Agnos had her auburn hair pulled back and tied behind her neck. She had pushed a pair of leather-banded goggles up her forehead, and she wore a thick pair of work gloves. Since the opening of the workshop, which sometimes felt like an age ago, Olissa had perpetual smudges of ash on her face.
At the moment, she was rubbing an eyeless mask down with a rag. Then she looked up and saw Simon and Kai enter. Olissa smiled and dipped into a mocking curtsy.
“Simon, Master Kai, allow me to introduce the gallery.”
Simon had expected her to be making more masks, so the sight of them shouldn’t have hit him as hard as it did. He already had enough trouble trying to decide when to use the mask and when to hold back. The feeling of it was addictive, overpowering. So far he had managed to restrain himself except in open combat with an Incarnation, but it was a struggle each time. The more masks, and the more people who had them, the greater the chance that someone would hold on a little too long. Then there would be another Valinhall Incarnation running around, one that he would have to stop. Again.
“Four faces hung on a wall,” Kai said softly. “I wonder which of them is me?”
Olissa looked at Simon, who shook his head. “It’s best not to question him. Mistress Agnos, could you tell me about the masks?”
Olissa held the incomplete, eyeless mask up to the light for inspection. “Happy to explain,” she began.
“SIMON, SON OF KALMAN, REPORT TO—”
With a tinkling sound like a breaking bottle, the crystal shattered.
Simon wasn’t holding the Nye essence, so he didn’t see Andra move. One second she was sitting on a stool, trying to punch holes in a metal mask, and the next instant she was beside him, her Dragon’s Fang drawn, standing in a falling cloud of crystal dust.
She looked at him, eyes wide. “What was that thing?”
“That was the Queen’s expensive communications crystal,” Simon replied. “Nice job. Now I can tell her honestly that I wasn’t the one who broke it.”
Otoku let out a sigh of pure relief. Someone finally shut that thing up. When you die, try to make sure that she picks up Azura. I could work with her.
She’s already got a Dragon’s Fang, Simon sent. And who says I’m going to die?
It’s not a risky bet.
Andra’s eyes widened even further, and she stared at the glittering shards on the ground. “She’s not going to make me pay for it, is she?”
“You shouldn’t swing your sword around like that,” Lycus said. “That’s why you keep breaking things.”
Simon waved a hand at Andra. “Don’t worry, Leah can afford it. More importantly, Mistress Agnos, can you tell me about the mask?”
Olissa straightened, wearing a proud smile. “Why, yes I can. I learned a lot when I put together your mask, you know, but I found all sorts of fascinating things trying to make one from scratch. Valinhall has its own source of power, you know. Its own energy. It’s like…”
She searched around the gallery before she spied a small glass vial, and she snatched it off the counter and held it up. It was full of thick, yellow-gold oil.
“It’s like this bottle of olive oil,” she announced.
Andra giggled, but Lycus shushed her.
“In its natural state, the power of Valinhall is inaccessible,” Olissa went on. “It’s there, but it can’t help us. Like a bunch of olives before they’re pressed.”
“You can eat olives,” Andra pointed out. Her mother ignored her.
“Now, the power needs three things so that we can use it: it needs to be re-forged into a new shape, it needs a room, and it needs a guardian. It’s basically the same process as making olive oil.”
“Those fearsome olive oil guardians,” Andra whispered.
“Olives need to be pressed, that is, formed into a new shape. That’s what happens when we make a new tool, like this mask.” She held up her unfinished mask, holding it next to the bottle of oil. “We’re giving it a purpose by processing the power into a state in which it can be used.”
She paused and looked at Andra, as if waiting for a comment.
Andra held up empty hands, so Olissa went on. “Now, what would happen if we didn’t have a bottle around this oil?”
“It would escape?” Andra suggested.
“It would spill everywhere,” Simon said, feeling like an idiot for answering such an obvious question.
Olissa pointed to Simon with the bottle’s corked tip. “Exactly! So this power needs something to hold it. You see where I’m going with this? It needs a room to contain it. And the room needs to be separate from other rooms, so that the two different powers don’t start mixing together.”
“So the oil is like the mask,” Simon said, “and the room is like the bottle. How about the guardian?”
With a self-satisfied smile, Olissa tapped the bottle’s cork. “You need a way to get to the olive oil. Defeating a guardian is like pulling out the cork. But you’ve got to do it in the right way. You can’t fight them all. It’s got to be something that resonates with the nature of the shape and the nature of the room.”
�
�You can’t just duel your cork,” Andra added, in mock seriousness. “Don’t you see? It makes complete sense…” She dissolved into laughter as Lycus shook his head wearily.
“I see,” said Simon. It was mostly true. “So who’s the room guardian for your…gallery?”
Olissa slapped the mask and the bottle down on the counter, a little harder than necessary. “We don’t have one. Not yet. The Eldest said there were ‘more pressing vacancies to be filled.’ So we’re stuck here with a room nobody can use and a power nobody can call.” She waved up at the wall, where the four complete masks hung in a row. “I even tried to get Erastes to do it, but he turned me down.”
“Can you believe that?” Andra said. “It’s like he doesn’t want his skin to turn to leather and his bones to steel.”
Simon had never thought about that before. Were all the guardians fated to end up like Chaka or Benson? Did they turn from ordinary humans into artificial constructs? Would that happen to Valin?
He almost asked Otoku, but he had more urgent concerns at the moment. “So, are you done with the original? I’m going to work for the Queen, and I need it.”
Olissa frowned. “You never gave us the original. I’ve been working from my notes, but I still haven’t quite managed to recreate what yours can do. I suspect yours can draw more power from Valinhall, but it doesn’t have the safety measures in place that mine do. But I’d be able to know that for sure, if you would let us borrow yours…”
Simon chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry, it seems to have run off. You don’t know where it is, then?”
Olissa looked like she couldn’t decide whether Simon was making fun of her or not. “Isn’t that it, right there?”
She pointed at Kai.
Kai stood with his hands at his sides, staring up at the four masks with his head cocked. He didn’t seem to be listening.
“Where?” Simon asked.
Lycus slid off his stool and marched up to Kai. “He’s got it right here,” he announced. Then he pulled the mask from Kai’s belt.
Kai had been carrying it the entire time. He had made sure to stand where Simon couldn’t see it.
Simon let out a heavy breath and took the mask from Lycus. “Why, Master?” He tried to keep a lid on his frustration.
Kai shrugged, still staring up at the masks. “My little ones asked me to keep it from you. Maybe if they would speak to me, I would hold their secrets longer.” His head slid from one side to the other, slowly, until it flopped onto his left shoulder. “They were right to try, I think, but they were too late. Is there a worse date than too late?”
Why didn’t you tell me Kai had the mask? Simon demanded silently.
Oh, sure, let your dolls solve all your problems for you, Otoku responded. I was going to tell you before, but that noisy rock interrupted.
You could have told me at any point since then. ‘Hey, Simon, I found the mask.’
But that would have made your life so easy. How boring is that?
CHAPTER NINE:
INSIDE ENOSH
It had been over a half an hour, and Indirial still hadn’t returned with Simon. That meant that he had spent better than an hour inside Valinhall. What was he doing in there? Thanks to him, Leah had been forced to spend most of the last half-hour explaining to a group of seven Travelers why her urgent mission wasn’t departing immediately.
Overlord Feiora was dressed in what, for her, must have passed for armor: she wore a dark leather breastplate, and hardened leather of a matching shade shielded her shins and forearms. Beneath that she wore a chainmail shirt that came down to mid-thigh, and an iron-and-leather cap that must have served in place of a helmet. Eugan rested on one of her padded shoulders.
The clothes underneath Feiora’s chain mail and leather armor were, of course, black.
Leah had never seen an Avernus Traveler prepared so practically for combat. It wasn’t a full suit of armor; any foot soldier in the Overlord’s service would have been better equipped. But the fact that she had anything on to defend her from a knife or a random sword blow suggested that she didn’t suffer from the same affliction that got most Travelers killed: arrogant reliance on their powers.
I’m not wearing any armor, Leah thought. I’m sure I’ll be fine. My powers have protected me for a long time, why should they stop now?
Leah paused, considering that thought for a moment. Silently, she resolved to bring some armor on the next mission.
Grandmaster Naraka was looking much more herself now, after a change of clothes and a series of baths. She wore the traditional dark red robes of Naraka, with sleeves that left her scarred wrist bare, and a pair of specially ordered scarlet spectacles perched on her nose. Leah had ordered the woman’s arms bound together with a double knot of rope. That should allow her enough freedom that she wouldn’t hinder the group as they marched through Naraka, but would still keep her from performing any of the complex hand gestures that summoning her Territory required.
Just in case that wasn’t enough, she had recruited five loyal Travelers with the sole purpose of keeping an eye on the Grandmaster through the whole mission. There was a team of three Tartarus Travelers—all women, which was a rarity; usually Tartarus Travelers mixed genders in their teams—and two Naraka Travelers. Those two had paled when she had explained that they were supposed to guard the Grandmaster Naraka. They hadn’t taken their eyes from the old woman since they first entered the tent, and their branded hands twitched every time she so much as yawned.
In Leah’s mind, the two of them had already earned a reward.
The team of Tartarus Travelers was there as a contingency plan, in case it came to a combat situation. It was intended to be a routine mission, she had explained, but if things went wrong she would be more comfortable with three Tartarus Travelers to back her up.
And in the absence of any other orders, the three of them were to take Grandmaster Naraka’s remaining hand off if she so much as snapped her fingers. Leah’s father had never believed that you could have too many security measures in place, and she intended to take that lesson to heart.
Of course, she still needed the pair of Valinhall Travelers. Their preparations would go for nothing if the daylight burned away while Indirial and Simon wasted their time in the House. Where were they?
So she stood in awkward silence with an old lady, her five prison guards, and an impatient Overlord who insisted on asking every five minutes why they even needed Indirial for routine intelligence gathering, why they couldn’t go without him. And better yet, she implied, if they could go without Leah.
She would have a headache before they made it into Naraka, she could feel it.
Leah had exchanged her red dress for something she would have been more likely to wear as a villager in Myria: a brown skirt and off-white blouse. The fabric likely cost less than a good meal in Cana, and the outfit made her look like a milkmaid, but she had forgotten how comfortable it was.
It wasn’t a disguise, though. The weapons she carried with her made certain of that. She held the Lightning Spear in her right hand like a walking staff, and wore her crown on her head. Not for the symbol of status, but so that she could call on its power without having to summon it in a foreign Territory, which would take far too long.
If Indirial takes too much longer, I will leave without him. We’ve got a schedule to keep.
As if that thought had summoned the Overlord from Valinhall, a sword blade appeared in midair. It began to slice down slowly, tearing open a Gate in the exact same place that Indirial had opened one in the first place.
Simon and Indirial stepped through the Gate, both of them in their black cloaks. Indirial released his blade, letting it vanish, and Leah actually saw it shimmer and appear on a wooden rack in Valinhall’s entry room.
The Gate zipped back up in reverse, bottom to top, and vanished as if it had never been.
“Welcome back,” Leah said, instead of ‘What kept you?’
Simon nodded to her. “Your crystal
’s broken.”
It would take her six weeks of work to carve another one of those. “How exactly did that happen, Simon?”
Simon raised his eyebrows. “I can honestly say that I didn’t do it.” As usual, she could read nothing else of his expression.
There was that headache again.
Overlord Feiora made a disgusted sound. “What were you doing in there, Indirial? We could have left without you an hour ago.”
It was an exaggeration, but Leah agreed with the sentiment.
Indirial did not smile, or smirk, or sigh, or make a joke. He turned and looked Feiora in the eye. “I met someone I didn’t expect,” he said, in a flat voice.
Something terrible had happened, she could see it in him. He hadn’t reacted that badly when he’d found her father’s corpse.
She looked at Simon in a silent question. He shook his head. What did that mean? Did that mean she shouldn’t ask questions about it, or that it was too terrible to discuss? Or even that nothing significant had happened, and Indirial was just in a bad mood?
“I’ll expect a full report from you later, Indirial,” Leah said, keeping her tone businesslike. “But now we have a schedule to keep.”
The Overlord remained expressionless, but he snapped an order at the Naraka Travelers. “Traveler Mikael, we need a Naraka Gate. Lead the way.”
One of the Travelers, a young man, saluted and marched out of the tent, gently steering Grandmaster Naraka in front of him. His partner followed, as did the three Tartarus Travelers. Overlord Feiora strode out afterwards, shooting a glance back at Leah, but she was rushed out by Overlord Indirial. His cloak streamed behind him like a dark flag, and for once it seemed to suit him.
Simon started to follow, and Leah walked along with him.
“What happened in there?” she whispered. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him like that.”
Simon opened his mouth as though he meant to explain, but after a moment he closed it. “I’m not sure I should tell you,” he said at last.
