by E. C. Blake
“Here come the Child Guards!” Mayson said, and she looked down at the market again. “Lucky brats!”
There they were, a dozen slim and silent youths following in the wake of the Autarch, dressed in identical white robes, wearing identical silver Masks, riding identical white mares, the six girls sidesaddle, the boys astride. Membership in the Child Guards, instituted just five years earlier, was the greatest honor the Autarch could bestow on a young Gifted. The youths, from across the Autarchy, spent their days in close company with the Autarch himself, learning to use their magic in his service. When they turned twenty-one, they took their place in the court. Someday, it was said, some of them might join the ranks of the Circle.
The whole village celebrated when a country youth became a Child Guard, Mara had heard. It offered hope to even the lowest commoners that one day a child of theirs might ascend to the nobility. But looking down at those silent, white-robed, silver-Masked youths, she shivered. Might as well be in prison!
Most of the Child Guards kept their Masks turned resolutely toward the Autarch; but one, a boy riding in the last rank, looked about him as he rode. His gaze traveled up the city wall . . . and stopped on Mara and Mayson, sitting high above.
Mara stared boldly back. What must his life be like? she wondered. Always in the presence of the Autarch Himself, living in the Palace . . .
She also wondered what he saw when he looked up at them. And then she suddenly remembered she was wearing a short tunic and he was looking up at them, and felt herself blushing. She squeezed her knees together.
“What’s he staring at?” Mayson demanded, and Mara blushed harder but said nothing, not wanting to put any ideas into his head.
The silver-Masked boy’s gaze finally slid away as the twelve silent youths rode on in the wake of the Autarch. Behind them came six of the Sun Guards, the elite force of Watchers that guarded the Autarch day and night.
“Look at those!” Mayson said, voice tinged with admiration.
He seemed to find the Sun Guards fascinating. Mara found them frightening—though less frightening than regular Watchers, she supposed. Most Watchers wore all black: black Masks, black armor, black surcoats, black capes. But although the Sun Guards’ Masks were as black as any other Watchers’, their helmets, armor, and cloaks were gold like the Autarch’s, and their surcoats white as snow. Blue-and-white banners fluttered from the shining silver tips of their long black lances.
A respectful distance behind the last pair of Sun Guards, the rigid lines of the crowds dissolved into the ordinary bustle of the marketplace. Mara, glancing left, saw the Autarch’s procession reach the main boulevard of the Outside Market and turn toward the Market Gate.
She shook off her momentary self-consciousness. It was getting late. “Guess I’d better head home,” she said. “Good luck tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Mayson said. His eyes were still on the receding figures of the Sun Guards. “But I’m sure I’ll get what I want.”
Mara said nothing. Mayson wanted to be a Watcher. If he does get what he wants, how will we still be friends?
“’Bye,” she said, gathered her feet up under her, and headed for the guard tower whose stairs would take her back down to ground level, and the road home.
···
A month later, on her thirteenth birthday, Mara once more stood in the darkened hallway outside the Testing chamber, holding her father’s hand; but this time she held it, she told herself, only because she loved holding it, loved the feel of his callused fingers in hers, loved being close to him. It had nothing to do with being afraid. After all, this time she knew what she would see.
Well, sort of. She knew she would see magic. But . . .
“What if I don’t see the right color?” she asked. She looked up at her father’s Masked face. She didn’t have to look up as far as she had when she was six, but far enough: her father was very tall, so tall he was always easy to pick out in a crowd, even from behind, while she was still rather short for her age. “What if I don’t see the red-gold color I’m supposed to see?”
“There’s no ‘supposed to’ about it,” Daddy said. His lips curved in a smile. Wearing the ruby-studded copper-colored Mask and his favorite rust-red hat, he looked the same as he always had, although she knew well that the Mask hid a few more wrinkles and the hat a lot more gray hair than the last time he had brought her to the Testing chamber. “You’ll see what you see. There’s nothing you can do to change it.” He squeezed her hand. “But if it makes you feel better, both Tester Tibor and I feel sure you’ll see red-gold, the color of Enchantment. Some skills tend to run in families, and Enchantment is one of them. And as you know, both your great-grandfather and grandfather were Maskmakers, too. But whatever color you see, the Autarch . . .” For some reason he paused. “The Autarch,” he finished, his voice a little rough, “will still find a use for you.”
That wasn’t a comforting thought. Mara hadn’t seen Mayson again since the day a month ago when they had sat together on the wall, watching the Autarch pass beneath them. Whatever it was that the Testers looked for in Watchers, Mayson must have had it: the very day he had been Tested, he had (Mara had heard secondhand) moved out of his parents’ house, accompanied by much shouting and cursing from his father, and climbed up the hill to the Palace and the barracks of the Watchers which nestled inside its outer wall. Though he would not receive his black Mask for another two years, his training had already begun.
The Autarch had found a use for him, and Mara wondered if she’d ever see him again.
What would happen to her if she saw a different color of magic than the one that would allow her to fulfill her dream of being her father’s apprentice?
The door to the Testing chamber swung open, and Tester Tibor stepped out, lips curled in a smile behind the mouth opening of his yellow Mask. “Come in, Mara, come in.”
Mara let go of her father’s hand and stepped into the darkened room. Everything was just as she remembered, except the pedestal on which the bowl of magic rested seemed much shorter.
“Now,” said Tester Tibor. “Ready?”
Mara nodded.
The Tester lifted the lid of the basin.
Mara stared into it, heart beating fast, and her breath caught in her throat.
“Which color is strongest?” Tester Tibor said.
Mara didn’t know how to answer. She’d been frightened she wouldn’t see the red-gold of Enchantment, the color that would mean she could be a Maskmaker. She’d worried that her Gift would have faded, as they sometimes did, so that although she might be able to see magic, she wouldn’t be able to make much use of it: that was, after all, what had happened to her mother, whose Mask of pale blue proclaimed her to be Gifted with Healing, but whose Gift was so weak she could do nothing with it and thus had not been called upon to use it in the service of the Autarch.
What had never occurred to her, because she had never heard of such a thing, was that she would see exactly what she had seen as a six-year-old: the basin filled with seething, swirling colors, every color of the rainbow and every combination between, breathtakingly beautiful . . . but wrong. At thirteen, she was only supposed to be able to see one color, maybe two. Is something wrong with me?
“Go on,” the Tester said. “You can tell me.”
Mara swallowed. She thought her heart might burst right out of her chest, it was pounding so hard. She knew she should tell Tester Tibor the truth, but what would that mean to her dream of being her father’s apprentice?
Faced with the rainbow maelstrom of colors, she thought back to what her father had said . . . and lied. “Red,” she said. “Well, more like an orangey red. Red-gold, I guess you’d call it?” It’s not a total lie, she thought. I can see those colors.
Just a lot of others, too.
“Excellent,” the Masker repeated, making a mark in a small leather-bound notebook. “A
nd as I expected. These things usually run true.”
“My father is hoping . . . I can be apprenticed to him,” Mara said. Her heart was pounding. He’s going to figure out I’m lying. He’s going to find out . . .
“Pre-apprenticed, certainly,” Tester Tibor said. “Of course, it may still be that you do not have the Gift in strong enough measure, something which cannot be determined until you are Masked and allowed to start using magic yourself. But you answered with such confidence, I think that’s unlikely.” He gave her a big smile, teeth flashing behind his Mask. “Congratulations.”
Mara managed a small smile, though she thought she might be sick. She turned and went out to join her father, who was waiting in the hallway.
“A happy result all around, Charlton,” Tester Tibor said to him. “You have a new apprentice!”
Her father whooped and gathered Mara up in a huge bear hug. Mara hugged him back, but inside her mind wailed, What’s wrong with me?
It wasn’t too late. She could still tell the Tester the truth, tell her father the truth. She knew that was what she should do. But then she thought of the Autarch, trailed by the silent Child Guards, the Autarch who could snatch her away from her father tomorrow if it would suit his purposes, and she said nothing.
“Let’s go home and tell your mother,” her father said, and she nodded mutely, took his hand, and left the Place of Testing.
TWO
Changes
MARA’S MOTHER WAS AS THRILLED as her father had been by the apparent success of her Test, and cooked a special celebratory dinner of fresh fish and mashed redroots. Mashed redroots were Mara’s favorite food in the whole world, and yet they tasted like ashes in her mouth that night. She didn’t like lying to her parents. But she didn’t dare tell them the truth. I’m just late developing my true Gift, she thought. She glanced down at her flat chest. Just like I’m late developing, period. It will come. And when it does, I’m sure I’ll see red-gold, just like I said. The Gift runs true in our family. My father said so.
Still, she had trouble sleeping that night, and as a result, overslept. Late the next morning she came yawning down the stairs in her thin nightdress to find a Watcher standing like a shadow on the landing by her father’s workshop. Her heart skipped a beat. He knows I lied to the Tester! But though the Watcher’s blank black Mask turned toward her, eyes glittering behind the eyeholes, mouth set in a stern frown, he said nothing. She hurried past him, feeling naked. At the bottom of the stairs she glanced back. He was still staring at her.
She went about making breakfast for herself, heart still beating fast, listening for the heavy tread of the Watcher’s feet on the stairs, but he stayed where he was. It wasn’t until she was holding two slices of bread on a toasting fork over the fire that he descended, and he wasn’t alone: with him came a woman wearing flowing white robes and a Mask of green. She had no idea what kind of Gift that represented.
The two passed into the front room without a word to her, and a moment later she heard the door open and close, releasing them into the street. She breathed a sigh of relief, pulled the hot toast from the fork, and was sitting at the table spreading butter and jam when her father came down the stairs. He wasn’t wearing his Mask, though she knew he would have donned it while the visitors were in the house. She frowned up at him. “I didn’t expect to run into a Watcher on my way to breakfast!” she said accusingly.
Her father laughed. “Special delivery,” he said. “I ran short of magic last week. A lot of Gifted to make Masks for.” He smiled down at her, blue eyes twinkling in the early morning sunlight streaming through the window above the sink. “Masks you’ll soon be helping me to make.”
Feeling a pang of lingering guilt, Mara took a big bite of jammy toast and pushed the plate bearing the other slice toward her father. He waved it off. “No, thanks, I already ate.” He sat down across from her and watched her.
“What?” she said nervously, uncomfortably guilty under that gaze.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just thinking how wonderful it will be to have my beautiful daughter as my apprentice, and how relieved I am everything worked out all right.”
She gave him a shocked look. “You said both you and Tester Tibor were sure I’d see red-gold!”
He grinned at her. “I might have been a little more reassuring than I was assured,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “I admit that I did worry a little bit that you might not have the right kind of Gift.”
Mara felt another pang of guilt, but she said nothing. It’ll turn out all right, she told herself. It has to.
“I’m already thinking about your Mask,” her father continued. “I know it’s still two years away, but . . . well, I want it to be special. Copper for a Maskmaker, of course. But for decoration . . .” He frowned in thought.
“It’s strange to think that in two more years I’ll be wearing a Mask,” Mara said.
Her father smiled at her. “Scared?”
“A little.” Mara wiped crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. “I mean . . . what if it . . . changes me? I like who I am. I don’t want to be someone different.”
Her father sat down across from her and leaned forward, forearms on the table. “It won’t,” he said seriously. “The Masks don’t change you. They just show what’s inside you. The magic that’s put into them—that I put into them, on behalf of the Autarch, and once you are Masked, you will, too—protects us all. You’ve learned all this in school.”
“Because of the Rebellion,” Mara said. She closed her eyes and recited from memory, thinking that Tutor Ancilla would be proud—and probably a little surprised—to hear her do so. But she really did pay attention . . . at least, some of the time. “And when the last of the traitors had been executed, the young Autarch made a decree: Henceforth all citizens of Aygrima would be Masked in all public places. For all the long years of the Rebellion powerful Gifted in the service of the Autarch had been secretly developing the magic of the Masks, and now at last they were perfected. Never again would the people of Aygrima suffer as they suffered during the Rebellion. Never again would innocent blood be shed by murderous traitors, for the Masks would reveal all traitorous thoughts to the Watchers, protectors of the people, trained to use their Gifts to read the message of the Mask. Those who would defy our great and benevolent Autarch in future would be discovered and punished before they could act on their traitorous impulses. Blessed be the Autarch. May he guide and protect us forever.” She opened her eyes again. “Did I get it right?”
“Perfect,” her father said.
“Can the Watchers really do that?” she asked. “See what you’re thinking?” She thought about Mayson. Will he someday be able to read my mind? It was an odd and unsettling thought.
“Not exactly,” her father said. “As I understand it, it’s more . . . they get a . . . a sense that certain people may be a danger to the regime.” He shrugged. “To tell the truth, Mara, I don’t know exactly what they see when they look at a Mask of someone who might threaten the Autarch. It’s a secret, as you’d expect. But whatever it is, if they see it, they will question the wearer of the Mask. If they don’t like what they hear . . . well.” He grimaced. “Then Traitors’ Gate awaits.”
Mara flinched. She couldn’t help it. She had been forbidden to ever go near Traitors’ Gate, which of course meant she’d sneaked up there with Sala, and she’d had several nightmares since involving naked, rotting corpses impaled on spikes. She had no intention of ever going back. The thought she might actually end up as one of those corpses . . . she shuddered.
Her father, though he didn’t know she’d been to Traitors’ Gate—at least, she hoped he didn’t—smiled reassuringly and put his hand on hers. “Now, now, you certainly don’t have to fear that.”
“I heard,” Mara said, wanting to change the subject, “that sometimes, if someone does something bad enough, the Mask just . . . shatte
rs.”
Her father nodded. “Yes. An outright betrayal of the Autarch would do that. And sometimes, of course, a Masking fails. Almost never for the Gifted,” he hastened to add, squeezing her hand. “But sometimes, someone has something wrong, inside, something that makes them bad, or makes them a threat to themselves and others. And the Mask . . . the Mask knows. It refuses to attach itself to that person’s face. And he or she becomes one of the unMasked, and we don’t see them again.” His face turned grim for a moment. She could tell there was something he wasn’t telling her—she could read his face like one of her schoolbooks—but then he forced a smile and squeezed her hand even harder. “But none of this is anything to worry about. As beautiful as you are, inside and out, your Mask will always be beautiful, too, to anyone who sees it, from the lowliest peasant all the way up to the Autarch.”
Mara smiled at him, but inside she quailed. And what happens to someone who lied to the Tester about the magic they saw?
It wasn’t a question she could ever ask.
It will be all right, she told herself again. It will be all right.
It has to be.
···
On the night before Sala’s fifteenth birthday and Masking, with three months to go until her own, Mara, naked and giggling, shouted to Sala, “Race you to the other side!” and dove into the reflecting pool in the courtyard behind the Waterworkers’ Hall. She had a good two lengths’ advantage over her friend when she started, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Sala pulling even with her, long limbs flashing in the moonlight, and by the time they reached the other side, Sala was two lengths ahead. Sala pulled herself out, dripping, and turned to sit on the edge of the pool. In the dim light, her red hair looked black. “Hurry up, slowpoke!” she called to Mara as she finally reached the edge, too. Mara lifted herself up, and sat on the marble ledge that surrounded the pool, the stone cold under her bare bottom even though the night was so warm she felt no chill on the rest of her body.
