Masks

by E. C. Blake

  “You can float,” Grute said. “I saw you.”

  “I can’t float down that.”

  “So hang on to this.” Grute bent over; when he straightened he was holding a log, cut and trimmed for the hearth. “Brought a couple with me when I ran,” he said. “Lucky for you I thought I should have a spare.”

  “But . . . rocks . . . waterfalls . . .”

  “That’s enough!” Grute spat. “Shut up, take it, and jump in. Or I’ll throw you in without it.”

  Trembling, Mara took the log. She hugged it to her breast as tightly as she used to hold Stoofy, wishing with all her might that it was Stoofy, that she was safely asleep in her own bed, that everything that had happened and was about to happen was just a bad dream. She stared down at the water rushing past her feet into darkness.

  And then Grute’s hands slammed into her back and she toppled like a felled tree.

  She hit face first, almost lost the log, pulled it close instead, spluttered to the surface, and screamed as she hurtled through absolute darkness in the grip of the powerful current. She screamed again and again, over and over, as she spun this way and that.

  A rock slammed into her leg, numbing it. Spray filled the air with so much water she choked as she breathed . . .

  ...and then the current strengthened and pulled her under.

  Immersed in cold water, unable to see, unable to breathe, all she could do was hold on to the log while the pressure mounted in her lungs, the urge to breathe grew more and more unbearable, and the moment raced nearer when she would have to open her mouth, suck in water, and die, drowning in darkness and silence deep beneath the Secret City, her body doomed to float out to sea, a feast for fish and gulls . . .

  But just when she knew that fatal moment was upon her, as her vision filled with stars and the pain in her chest could no longer be denied, she burst out into the open air and gulped a huge, wonderful, surprised breath before she hit the water once more and spun away into still-unrelieved blackness, clutching the log in a death grip.

  She sensed a larger space around her. The current had eased. She could float on the surface now, taking deep breaths, and she thought she’d never felt anything half as wonderful as the unimpeded rush of air into and out of her lungs, breath after breath. But then she realized there was something almost as wonderful as breathing, and that was seeing: the darkness was no longer absolute. Shadowy rock walls slipped past, growing brighter and brighter . . . and then nearer and nearer as the passage narrowed.

  The stream took her around a sweeping corner and suddenly she was blinking in full daylight, pouring through an opening in the rock, so bright she could see nothing beyond it. But that hardly mattered, because the stream hurled her at that opening as though anxious to be rid of her, and a moment later she spun out through the open air in a welter of spray and the sound of thunder, fell twenty feet, and hit so hard the impact finally broke her grip on the log that had borne her so far. She tasted salt as she struggled to the surface. She gulped air, flailed, sank . . . and then felt strong hands grab her.

  Fighting the urge to kick those hands away, she let Grute pull her back to the surface, then swim both of them into water shallow enough to stand up in. Then she pushed him away with revulsion and staggered up onto the beach, turning and sinking down into the sand to sit, shaking, staring out at the endless lines of breakers rolling toward her across the blue expanse of ocean. She glanced up at the waterfall that spouted from the cliff and plunged into the sea; looked down and saw the sharp rock-teeth she must have just missed; then looked up at Grute, standing over her, hands on his hips, grinning his infuriating, leering grin.

  “Still alive, are you? I figured it was even money you’d panic and pop out of the cave as a waterlogged corpse.”

  “We could have both been killed!” Mara snarled. “Don’t you care?”

  Grute shrugged. “Why should I? I’d rather be dead than a prisoner of that bunch,” he jerked his head back toward the waterfall, “and I don’t care about you at all except for what you’ll be good for once I get you to the camp.” His grin widened. “Not everyone’s going to care you’re almost as flat as a pressed fish. They’re just going to care you ain’t got scars on your pretty face.”

  “You’re going to sell me.” Mara’s stomach churned and she thought she might throw up. “Like a . . . a piece of meat!”

  “You got it,” Grute said. “And it’s time I got you to market.” He spat on the beach. “The unMasked Army is a joke, but that don’t mean they’re all brainless.” He lifted his shirt, and Mara saw he’d wrapped a length of rope around his belly; he undid it, then, holding it loosely in both hands, stepped toward her. “Up!”

  Mara got to her feet.

  “Turn around.” She glared at him. “Turn around,” he snarled, and this time he grabbed her arm, spun her hard, and yanked her back toward him. His arms went around her waist. She felt a tug and a sense of pressure as he tied the rope around her. He stepped back, and she glanced over her shoulder to see that he now had her on a leash.

  She raised her eyes to give him a glare she hoped was defiant, but he just smirked. “You won’t be running away now,” he said. “Let’s move.” He flicked the leash as though it were the reins of a horse. She gave him another glare, but really had no choice but to turn and start struggling south through the sand.

  They walked in silence for an hour or more, Grute constantly searching the cliff face for a way up. Mara clung to the hope that he wouldn’t find one, that they would be trapped along the shore until the unMasked Army finally came riding this way in search of them, as they surely would sooner or later, but that hope was dashed as the sun passed the zenith and began to descend toward the sea. He suddenly stopped her with a sharp tug on the rope. “Here,” he said. “Start climbing.”

  Mara looked up, shading her eyes. The cliff looked just as forbidding here as everywhere else. “We can’t climb that!”

  Grute jerked the rope irritably. “Look again, idiot. There’s a gap.”

  Mara lowered her gaze, and suddenly saw what Grute had already spotted: a narrow crack in the rock, feathered with greenery. “What if it doesn’t go anywhere?”

  “Then we’ll come back down and keep looking,” Grute said. “Climb!”

  Mara clambered up on the rounded boulders at the base of the cliff and slipped through the crack. It seemed barely wide enough for her, and for an instant she hoped it would be too narrow for the broad-shouldered Grute, but he grunted and squeezed through. She saw that he had tied a small loop of the rope around his wrist, so he could use both hands to climb but remain tethered to her.

  She turned and looked ahead into the ravine. It seemed dark as a cave after the brilliant sunshine of the beach, but far overhead she saw a crack of sky. Rounded rocks covered the ravine floor and a trickle of water tumbled down its center. It sloped up steeply—but unlike the cliff, not so steeply it couldn’t be climbed.

  Grute had found his path up.

  An hour’s hard struggle brought them, panting, out onto flat (or at least flatter) land, the ocean lost to sight, trees all around. The little stream that trickled down the ravine wound away to the south, but Grute pointed to the northeast. “The mine is somewhere over there,” he said. “Let’s get walking.”

  “We don’t have any food, any water—”

  “Lots of streams,” Grute said indifferently. “Lots of berries. We won’t starve in two or three days. Move.”

  The rest of the afternoon passed in silent trudging through woods that never seemed to change. They would climb a ridge, descend the other side, splash across a stream, sometimes pausing to drink, and then press on. As the light began to fade, though, Mara thought she saw the shadowy forms of buildings up ahead, and her heart skipped a beat. The mine?

  But as they drew closer, she saw that the buildings were mere ruins, and old ones, at that: nothing more t
han a few tumbled walls, collapsed cellars overgrown with weeds, the charred remnants of roofs. “An abandoned village, looks like,” Grute said. He spat on the ground. “Not a roof to be had in the place, but it don’t look much like rain.” He peered around in the gloom. “Over there,” he said, pointing to one of the taller bits of wall, tall enough it still bore the bottom half of the squared-off opening that had once been a window.

  “We’ll freeze,” Mara muttered. The air already had a chill edge to it.

  “We won’t,” Grute said. “Move.”

  They reached the broken wall in moments. The stones bore black scorch marks, and inside a few charred timbers lay half-hidden by scraggly weeds. The light had almost faded, but Mara could see enough of their surroundings to see that the two-dozen or so ruined buildings, some, like their chosen shelter, apparently small houses, some larger, like stores or stables, clustered around an open space where the grass still grew lushly, despite the lateness of the year, over a long, low mound. “What happened here?” she wondered out loud.

  “Don’t know,” Grute said. “Don’t care. Wish they’d left some food behind, though.”

  At the mention of food, Mara’s stomach growled, but of course there was nothing to put in it. Yet she had been drinking water off and on all day, and though she’d been putting it off, she had to relieve her bladder.

  “I have to pee,” she told Grute. “Are you going to untie me?”

  “No,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  Feeling utterly humiliated, she went to the end of the rope, turned her back on him, and did what she needed to do. When she turned back, she knew he had watched.

  And then, of course, he had to do the same. She closed her eyes until the sound of urine splashing on the ground had stopped.

  As darkness descended, he had her lie down with her back to the broken wall, and then shortened the rope, leaving just enough slack that they could each turn over without pulling it tight. “I’m a light sleeper,” Grute warned. And then, to her disgust, he reached over and pulled her close to him, so that her buttocks were pressed into his pelvis and his knees were in back of hers. She tensed, and he snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “This is just for warmth.” But then he leaned forward and whispered, his breath hot in her ear, “Besides, virgins are very popular in the camp, I’m told. You’re worth more untouched.”

  Shortly after that, his breathing deepened and his arms around her slackened, and she knew he was asleep. But she lay awake a very long time, her empty stomach churning, her heart pounding in her ears. It was just as well she’d had nothing to eat; she was sure if she had she would have vomited it across the ground.

  Her body eventually took the rest it needed, but her sleep was troubled by strange dreams, filled with fire and smoke and screaming. She woke almost gratefully to the tug of the rope to find gray light all around and Grute, the rope lengthened, peeing.

  Again.

  He adjusted his clothing and turned back toward her. “Your turn,” he said, and again she turned her back. When she glanced back at him this time, though, she saw that he hadn’t been watching. Instead, his eyes were focused on the clouds scudding overhead, ranks of them, each thicker and grayer than the last.

  Well, she thought, remembering the day before in the bathing pool, he’s seen everything I’ve got anyway, hasn’t he? The thought was less humiliating than infuriating now. The shock of yesterday had passed. She might be miserable, cold, and desperately hungry, but it was a new day. And today, she vowed, she would spend every minute looking for a way to escape.

  “Weather’s changing,” Grute said. “We may need better shelter tonight. Come on.”

  As they passed through what had once been the village green, Mara saw something white sticking out of the low mound. Grute tugged her along impatiently, and that was fine: she didn’t want to look any closer.

  Unless her mind had been playing tricks, a human skull had been leering at her from the lush green grass.

  It wasn’t just the weather that changed as they walked that day. The terrain did, too, becoming steeper and rockier. Late in the morning they climbed a ridge that, for the first time, had no trees at the top, and got a clear view of what lay ahead.

  Mara gasped. Ridge after ridge rose before them, each higher than the last: and beyond those, mountains, towering, blue, capped with vast fields of ice and snow. “We can’t cross those!”

  “We don’t have to,” Grute said. “The mine is in the foothills.” He pointed east. “That way. Eventually we’ll find the road. And then we’ll find the mine.” He stood gazing in that direction for a long moment, and then grinned. “Luck’s on our side,” he said. “I see some sort of hut on the next ridge, maybe five miles.” He looked up at the sky; the clouds, unbroken now, streamed low overhead, looking close enough to touch. The wind had a nasty bite to it, and her thin jacket did little to stop it. She wished she still had her heavy brown travel cloak. “We’ll need a roof over our heads tonight for sure. Let’s go.” He dragged Mara downhill again.

  By the time they reached the bottom of the valley between the two ridges, a light drizzle was falling. By the time they were halfway up the ridge, already soaked to the skin, the drizzle had turned to a steady rain. And by the time they reached the top, the rain was mixed with snow, huge white clots that melted as they touched the ground . . . but for how long? Mara wondered.

  Shivering, they trudged silently along the ridgetop. The world that had seemed so wide when Mara had stood on the top of the previous ridge, staring at the mountains, had shrunk to just a few yards of mist, rain, and snow. The rock grew slippery under Mara’s feet. The wind picked up. More snow fell, and less rain. “Where’s that hut?” Mara shouted at Grute. “We’ve come more than five miles. We’ve got to find shelter!” And in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but hope that if the hut were occupied, she might have an opportunity to escape Grute’s clutches.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Grute yelled back at her.

  Mara opened her mouth to say something else, but all that came out was a wordless cry as, looking back at him, she put a foot wrong—and fell.

  Her legs went out from under her and she hit the ground so hard it knocked out her breath. Mouth soundlessly agape, she felt herself beginning to slide down the slope to their right, and saw ahead in the fading light the sharp edge of a sheer drop-off, nothing beyond it but swirling fog.

  Then the rope around her middle tightened with a jerk so sudden that if she’d still had any breath it would have squeezed it from her. Her head snapped back, and she found herself looking upside down at Grute, feet planted, hands gripping the rope, muscles in his neck standing out like thick cords. Jaw set, he began to pull her back toward him, dragging her over the rock inch by inch until at last she reached level ground. By then she was beginning to get a little air back into her emptied lungs, gulping small amounts. As breathing became easier, Grute plopped onto his rear beside her and looked at his hands. Both palms bore bright red welts. “Thank you,” she managed to gasp out after a few more minutes.

  Grute grunted. “If you went over the edge, you were taking me with you.” He got to his feet. “Get up. It’s only going to get darker and colder. If we don’t find shelter by nightfall, we’d have been better off falling.”

  Mara nodded and got shakily back to her feet. Feeling slightly more favorably disposed toward Grute than before, even though she knew he was telling the truth about saving her only to save himself, she pressed on along the narrow, rocky ridge. Not ten minutes after she’d almost fallen to her death, they reached the hut.

  It crouched on top of the ridge like an animal hunkered against the storm: small, square, and squat, just four slabs of stone, carved from the ridge itself, roofed with rough sheets of slate. Shutters closed the single window and a rusty padlock secured the ironbound wooden door, which Grute banged on with both fists. When no one a
nswered, he took a step backward and slammed his shoulder against it. Wood cracked and splintered, and the door swung inward.

  Mara looked inside and gasped in amazement. Then she shot a startled look at Grute as he grumbled, “Black as a whore’s heart.”

  What are you talking about? she wanted to cry. Light filled the room: shimmering, sparkling, phasing from pale red to icy blue to the green of sunlight through leaves. But she bit off her protest just in time. Grute can’t see it, she realized in wonder. It’s magic!

  She said nothing as Grute rummaged about. She watched him walk blindly into a table, cursing as he bruised his thigh, then feel his way along the mantel, his questing fingers finally finding the flint and steel Mara saw the whole time. He crowed and knelt in front of the fireplace, reaching out to touch the wood and kindling already laid in the hearth. As he set to work lighting the fire, though, her eyes weren’t on that orange, ordinary blaze, but on the ever-shifting light streaming into the room from an open door leading into a second room at the back of the hut. She didn’t move until the fire provided enough light for Grute to see it, too. Then she said, “What’s in there?” and crossed to the door.

  Grute pushed her to one side and peered in first. “Not much,” he grunted. “Nothing we can use, anyway.” He turned back into the main room. “Wonder if there’s any food?”

  As he knelt to open a cupboard in the corner, near the table and chair that, apart from a narrow bed, were the room’s only furniture, Mara stepped into the back room, bright as day to her eyes.

  She remembered her father, one day in his workshop, telling her that magic had to be gathered like precious ore, tiny amounts of it collected, brought together and transported to the Palace, where it was stored and allocated to those with the right and skill to use it, such as Maskmakers. He hadn’t known exactly how magic was collected—or if he had, he hadn’t told her—but now, she realized, she stood in one such collection facility.