by E. C. Blake
“Most of the Autarch’s subjects submitted—but not all. Some fled into the Wild, pursued by Watchers who hunted them down like animals. There are still some—a dozen dozen, perhaps—who live as bandits in the woods, mostly those who committed some crime and fled the Autarch’s justice. We have agents among them to ensure they never threaten our secrets, and to ensure they continue to raid villages and farms and murder the occasional Watcher.”
“Why?” Mara asked, bewildered.
Catilla raised a white eyebrow. “Surely it’s obvious? Because as long as the Watchers know those bandits are out there, they, and therefore the Autarch, will continue to believe they are the mythical ‘unMasked Army,’ built up by rumor and wishful thinking into something far greater than reality.” She tightened her grip on her cloak again. “As I said, rather than accept the Masks, some ran to the Wild. A few, in desperation, boarded fishing boats and sailed deep into the Great Sea, over the horizon, in search of whatever lies beyond the ocean—if anything does. Myself, I think they drowned or fell off the edge of the world.
“But I had a better plan.” She leaned forward. “My father was very high in the rebellion. When it all began to crumble, when he knew it was only a matter of time until he was arrested, he entrusted me with a great secret: the location of a hidden redoubt, a complex of caves inhabited and expanded by the ancients but abandoned for centuries. Late in the rebellion, he had stumbled upon it while fleeing the Watchers. He had hoped that it might provide a base where the rebels could regroup and from which they could eventually strike back. But by the time he returned to Tamita, he saw it was already too late: the rebellion, and almost everyone who had supported it, were dead.” Her eyes suddenly turned bright and tears trickled down both cheeks. “As was he, far too soon: arrested and beheaded on the spot . . . on the front steps of our house.”
She blinked and scrubbed her face with the back of her right hand, her left still clutching her cloak. “Damn the sentimentality of old age,” she muttered. She leaned forward again. “I had married, at age sixteen, just before the old Autarch’s death. My son was still an infant when my father was executed. My husband, only eighteen himself, frightened they would come for him next, disappeared, leaving me to care for our child alone. And then came the proclamation about the Masks . . .
“I would not don the Mask myself, and I most assuredly would not raise my son to be Masked. So I fled, with my son and a few like-minded associates, a week before the decree took effect. Ostensibly we were visiting friends in Snowdrift, but we never got there—never went anywhere near it. Instead, we came here, and here we stayed.”
Catilla leaned back, and looked around the overly warm chamber. “I have slept in this chamber now for more than sixty years, for as long as there have been Masks. I raised my son here. His wife died in childbirth and he died shortly thereafter, and so it also fell to me to raise my grandson, Edrik.” Again she wiped her eyes with an impatient hand, without pausing in her tale. “And slowly, so slowly, the unMasked Army has grown. Every year, there are some few who come to understand, before they are Masked or after, that to wear the Mask is to be a slave. They flee. The lucky ones make contact with us.” Her face turned grim. “The unlucky end up with the bandits, or as naked corpses hanging from the gallows at Traitors’ Gate.”
“What about the ones whose Maskings fail? Like mine?” Mara said. “They’re unMasked, too. Why haven’t you tried to rescue them, link them to your cause? Keltan said we’re the first ones you’ve ever freed from the wagons!”
“Until recently,” the Commander said, “most of those whose Maskings failed would have been worse than useless to us. Until recently, you could almost predict which children’s Masks would fail. Even at fifteen, some youths have already gone well down the road of crime or violence. Others, though neither bad nor trending toward badness, were just . . . odd. Withdrawn, perhaps. A little slow. Developing a romantic interest in those of their own sex. Different.”
Mara stared at her. “And even knowing that, even knowing they weren’t all bad like . . . like Grute . . . you never tried to save them . . . any of them?” Mara heard the anger in her blunt accusation. Catilla heard it, too: her eyes narrowed. Mara wondered if she had just stepped over a line that would have her thrown into a cell like Grute . . . or maybe (horrible thought) with Grute. But the thought of all those children, children just like her, turning fifteen with a mixture of hope and trepidation, a little uncertain what life behind a Mask would be like, but happy, excited, party planned, friends invited . . . all those proud parents watching their children on the dais, half their thoughts on the celebrations to come . . . and then the terror, the pain, the blood, the screams . . . the anger surged higher. “Not even one?” She hurled the words at Catilla like a dagger.
Catilla’s lips drew into a tight white line in her wrinkled face. “Don’t you dare judge me, child!” Her voice, though barely above a whisper, conveyed deadly warning, like the venomous hiss of a snake. “My concern is not whether this or that child escapes the Mask. My concern is overthrowing the Autarch so that no child ever faces the Mask.”
“And how’s that going?” Mara snapped, while a part of her quailed and wondered, What are you doing? But only a small part. The larger part, furious, frightened, hurt, hungry, wary, weary, was more than halfway to hating this old woman, crouched at the heart of the Secret City like a poisonous spider at the dark center of a vast web. “The Autarch still reigns. The Masks are still made. And children are still suffering!”
Catilla’s knuckles turned white as her thin fingers, clutching her cloak, curled into tight little fists . . . and then those fists relaxed. She took a deep breath. And then, to Mara’s enormous surprise, she chuckled. “You have fire, little one. Good.” She relaxed back into her chair. “And indeed, you ask the pertinent question, one I have asked myself year after year. How is our quest to overthrow the Autarch going? And the answer, year after year, is the same.” Her mouth twisted in sudden anger. “It’s going like shit.”
Mara blinked. It wasn’t that she’d never heard—and even, when away from her parents, used—that particular vulgarity before. She just hadn’t expected it to come out of the mouth of the birdlike little old woman before her. But Catilla’s frank admission of failure surprised her even more.
“We have never been able to strike an effective blow against the Autarch, because the very thing we wish to overthrow, the tyranny of the Masks, prevents us from infiltrating Tamita. Those who come to us with Masks—briefly—intact, we dare send only into the smaller villages, where Watchers are scarce, less observant, and less likely to be Gifted. They spread the rumors we want spread and bring back goods we need. But to send one such as that into Tamita would be a death sentence and reveal our existence to the Autarch. How can you foment rebellion when the rebellious, or any they convince of the rightness of their cause, are betrayed by their own faces?” She leaned forward again. “And that is why you were rescued.”
Mara still felt angry. “I don’t understand what use you think I can be. All those other children deserved rescue, too, and you stood by—”
“And would do again, and will do again, for there are wagons sent to the camp every month, and we will not strike at them again,” Catilla snapped. “Once, we may get away with: the Watchers will, we hope, assume the attack was carried out by bandits and will simply redouble their efforts to track and kill them. But twice? The risks are too great. Not just for us, but for everyone.” She slapped her open hand against her chest. “No one else stands against the Autarch. No one. If we are destroyed, no new rebellion will arise in your lifetime.” She snorted. “Not that you are likely to have much of a lifetime, if we are destroyed.”
Even through her anger, Mara could see the sense of what Catilla said, though doing so almost made her angrier. But something still bothered her. “You said you cannot infiltrate Tamita,” she said slowly. “But you also said you had an ally ther
e, someone who told you of me. How has he escaped detection?”
“That secret I will not share.” Catilla studied her. “Edrik tells me you still have the Gift. That comes as a surprise.”
“I’m glad something does,” Mara muttered.
Catilla snorted. “It doesn’t change anything. We have no store of magic here and no one to train you in its use if we did, and I have always heard that without training and use, the Gift withers. Yours will no doubt fade soon enough. There must have been Gifted children born here in the Secret City over the decades, but since we have had no way of either testing them or teaching them, what use have their Gifts been? None. No, what matters is not that you still have your Gift. What matters is that you can make a Mask.”
And suddenly Mara thought she understood what Catilla wanted from her . . . and it terrified her. She jumped up. “No! I can’t make a Mask. Why would you think I could make a Mask?”
“You are the daughter of Charlton Holdfast, Master Maskmaker of Tamita,” Catilla said inexorably. “Maskmaker to the Gifted. Maskmaker to the Circle, to the Autarch Himself. You were pre-apprenticed to your father. We know he has already taught you much of the art. Don’t deny it.”
“I don’t deny I was going to learn to make Masks,” Mara said hotly. “What I deny is that I have learned! I don’t have a clue how to put the magic into them, don’t even know how to start—”
“But,” said Catilla, “we don’t want Masks with magic. Masks with magic are the last thing we want. What we want are clever forgeries.” She pointed at the chair. “Sit down and listen, and I will tell you what we need, and what you will do for us.” She leaned forward again, her eyes glittering in the candlelight, cold and reptilian. “For you will do what I ask, Mara, daughter of Charlton Holdfast. We have risked much to save you from death—or worse. You owe us, and you will repay us.”
“Or what?” Mara said, defiance blazing up inside her even though she knew she was already defeated, that she would have no choice but to do what Catilla wanted.
Catilla, it seemed, knew that, too, for she smiled, the sudden warmth of it like sunshine breaking through snow clouds. “Why discuss something that will never happen? Sit, child. Sit, and listen to what I propose.” She pointed at the chair behind Mara again. “Sit!”
And Mara, feeling strangely brittle, like a dry twig that might snap at any moment, sat and listened to what the unMasked Army demanded of her. But she couldn’t help wondering what would happen if she failed.
TEN
“I’ll Need a Few Things”
AN HOUR LATER, Mara sat with Keltan, Alita, and Prella beside a blazing driftwood fire on the beach, watching the surf rolling in, pale lines of foam appearing in the circle of flickering illumination, pouring over the sand, flattening, and then receding. The crackling of the fire and the endless wash of water on sand surrounded them in a private cocoon. No one could hear them out here.
The food Mara had eaten in the Great Chamber immediately after the interview with Catilla sat like a lump in her stomach. The others had peppered her with questions when she’d come back, but she’d said nothing, and Hyram, whether out of kindness to her or deference to his great-grandmother, had steered the conversation in other directions. Kirika had gone off by herself shortly after Mara returned, saying nothing. Simona had left next, announcing she wanted a bath more than anything. A few minutes later Hyram had been called away by his mother, and that was when Keltan, after a stealthy glance around, had opened his strangely bulky coat to reveal the two wine bottles tucked into its interior pockets and quietly suggested they take some mugs and go out to the beach. He now sat to her left, a wine bottle stuck in the sand between them.
She’d never had wine before in her life. Was it supposed to taste like that, fruity but not sweet, warming her throat and her insides? She hadn’t much liked the first couple of swallows, but it seemed to get better the more of it you drank, and about the time she’d emptied her mug she’d found herself telling the others everything Catilla had said.
“She wants you to do what?” Keltan lowered his own mug to stare at her.
“You heard me. Make counterfeit Masks, so the unMasked Army can sneak into the city and do . . . something. I’m not sure what. Try to assassinate the Autarch, maybe. She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Assassinate the Autarch?” Prella, seated on her right, stared at her wide-eyed. She’d taken one swallow of the wine, made a face, and passed it down to Alita, on the other side of Keltan. “You can’t do that!”
Alita, who had drunk Prella’s mug and her own and showed not the slightest sign it had had any effect, gave Prella another silent look. Prella subsided. I think Alita still has some kind of magical Gift, Mara thought. Or maybe that’s what comes of growing up surrounded by boys.
Alita turned back to Mara. “I doubt that’s what they have in mind. Someone else would just take over.”
“Who?” Mara asked. “The Autarch is childless.”
“So what? He must have cousins or other blood relations. The line of succession is a many-headed snake. You can’t kill it just by cutting off one head; you have to kill the whole thing.”
“Could be a lot of infighting if that happened, though,” Keltan said thoughtfully. “Maybe even civil war . . .”
He and Alita continued in that vein, speculating what would happen if—or when—the Autarch died. Mara poured herself more wine and sipped it, saying nothing. She didn’t know what to think. She’d grown up under the rule of the Autarch. She’d never really given it much thought until her Masking had failed so spectacularly. The Autarch just was, a force of nature, like the wind or the rain. Somebody had to be in charge, and in Tamita, that was the Autarch. If her Mask had worked, she would never have even considered the possibility of overthrowing the Autarch.
Of course, she wouldn’t have dared to, while she wore the Mask; and that was part of the reason for overthrowing him, wasn’t it?
Her mug was empty. She filled it again from the bottle by her side as Alita said, “Well, whatever they’re up to, why now? The unMasked Army has been out here for what? Sixty years? The Autarch is an old man. He can’t live much longer. Why act now, when they’ve done nothing for decades?”
“Good question,” Mara said. She sipped from the refilled mug.
“I wouldn’t say they’ve done nothing,” Keltan protested. “They’ve provided a haven for those who fled their Maskings. Like me.”
“Sure, great, wonderful—for you, and a handful of others,” Alita snapped. “But what about the ones who tried to flee and were caught? I’ve sneaked up to Traitors’ Gate. Haven’t you?”
“No,” Prella said in a small voice.
Alita ignored her. “Those weren’t all grown-ups hanging up there. Some were boys no older than you,” she pointed at Keltan. “And there weren’t any girls at all . . . which tells me something about what the Watchers use them for.”
Mara, mug at her lips, looked over it at Prella, half-expecting the smaller girl to say, “What?” and dreading what Alita would say in response, but for once Prella, though she still looked confused, kept her questions to herself.
“So I don’t see how the unMasked Army is an ‘army’ at all,” Alita continued. “It doesn’t fight, it hides.”
“Not anymore,” Keltan shot back. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”
Alita grunted. “Doesn’t have anything to do with me. They’d have left me and the rest of us to rot. It was her they wanted,” and she nodded at Mara in a way that seemed like an accusation.
Flushing, Mara drank more wine.
“Which just proves Catilla finally has a plan to fight back,” Keltan said.
“About time,” Alita said. “But why now? What’s changed?”
“The Masks,” Mara said. She lowered her mug and looked down into it: it was almost empty again, so she drained it and reached for the bottle. Keltan r
aised an eyebrow at her as she refilled her mug for the third time. She gave him a big smile, and took three big swallows.
When she lowered the mug, she saw the others staring at her as if expecting her to explain what she had meant, so she tried . . . although for some reason her tongue seemed to find it harder than usual to form words. “Catilla told me. The Mash . . . Masks have changed. They’re not just reflecting what people are like inside. They’re changing pleople . . . people. From the inside out. Different. Keltan noticed. Old friends not friendly anymore. Me, too. And Gifted. Gifted Masks never failed. Now they do. More and more.” She drained the mug again and reached for the wine bottle—there was still a little bit left in it—but Keltan pushed it away.
“I think that’s probably enough,” he said, and after that somehow she didn’t really notice anything else that happened until she found herself lying in her bed in the girls’ room, which was making slow circles around her. It was very strange, but after another moment she didn’t notice it any more, or anything else until morning.
She woke to Alita shaking her. “Edrik is at the door,” she said. “He wants you to come with him again.”
Mara groaned. Her head pounded, each thump of her heart was accompanied by a stab of pain behind her left eye, and her mouth tasted like . . . like shit, she thought, because “dung” definitely wasn’t a strong enough word. Alita looked down at her with a strange expression. “You only had three mugs of wine.”
“Three too many,” Mara said. “Take my word for it, it—”
“I had four,” Alita said, not as if she was bragging, just stating a fact. “I’ll tell Edrik you’ll join him in the Broad Way in a few minutes.” She turned and went out.
