by E. C. Blake
Mara’s breath caught. If the Warden decided here and now to throw her and Katia back into the general camp population, the unMasked Army wouldn’t be able to rescue them: wouldn’t even try. “I may have overstated . . . I mean, maybe there’s more magic in that cavern than I thought. Than I saw. Than I thought I saw. I mean I only had a minute to look.” Oh, smoothly done, you idiot.
The Warden snorted. “I suspected as much.” He leaned forward. “Perhaps you have deluded yourself into believing that lying to me about the amount of magic in that deposit will, by preventing me from starting a new mine, somehow benefit the unMasked. But think again. If this mine closes, there will no longer be any reason for the Autarch to keep the unMasked alive. Every child whose Masking fails will thenceforth be executed that same day, as indeed they once were, in the first years of the Masks, before the Autarch realized what a waste of valuable workers that was. Do you want those future executions on your conscience?”
At least I have a conscience, Mara thought in fury, but out loud, she let defeat creep into her voice. “All right,” she said dully. “You win. Yes, there’s magic there. I don’t know how much. I really did only have a moment to look. But more than here. Far more. More than enough to mine if I’m any judge.”
“Hmmm.” The Warden stared down at her a moment longer, as if somehow sensing she still wasn’t telling him the whole truth, but then, to her immense relief, he stepped back. She eased herself away from the Watcher. “Very well. For the moment, I will take you at your word. But be warned. The party of Watchers I planned to send to the cave you explored will still be making that journey. And if they find evidence that you have lied to me . . .”
“They won’t,” Mara said stoutly. Or if they do, it won’t matter; because either I won’t still be here or . . .
She let that thought trail off in her own mind like the Warden’s voice had trailed off at the end of his threat. After all, they both ended the same way for her: badly.
Very badly.
“Can I see Katia?” she said. “So she knows I’m back.”
The Warden shrugged. “She sleeps in the room you were in. Tonight you will share it.” He cinched his bathrobe tighter as he looked over her head at the Watcher. “Take her upstairs. My bathwater is getting cold.” He left the office, and had vanished from view by the time the Watcher and Mara emerged into the foyer. The Watcher took her up the wooden stairs to the second floor hallway and down it to the room she had occupied before being sent on the expedition with the geologists.
Lamplight shone under the door. The Watcher unlocked it with a key from his belt, then swung it wide. Mara stepped in.
Katia stood at the window, staring out into the darkness. “I’m not hungry,” she began, but then must have caught a reflection in the glass, because she spun, eyes wide. “You!” she gasped. “I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead.”
“Not quite,” Mara said. “Though it was a very near thing.” She glanced at the Watcher. “Thank you,” she said. “That will be all.”
The Watcher took a menacing step toward her. “Don’t get smart, girl,” he growled. He nodded over her head at Katia. “Ask her what happens if you get smart.” He made an obscene gesture in Katia’s direction. Then he turned and went out, slamming the door behind him. A moment later the key turned in the lock with a sharp, definitive click.
The two girls stood facing each other. Mara forced herself not to look away from Katia’s hard, accusing stare. “How have you been treated?” she said finally into the lengthening silence. “Since I left, I mean.”
Katia’s cold expression did not thaw. “Well enough. Work in the kitchen is better than the other uses they’ve put me to.” At the first sight of Mara, Katia’s voice had briefly lifted out of the curious deadness Mara had noted in her tone before she left; but now that deadness filled it once more, each word falling into the silence like a cold stone onto frozen ground. She sounds like someone who has given up, Mara thought. Well, maybe I can change that.
She went over to the window and, like Katia a moment before, gazed out into the darkness—or near darkness. On this side of the house, there were no decorative diamond panes, and though the large squares of glass in the window were a bit wavy, she could see clearly enough the lights in the magic extraction building, off to her right. Mara looked up toward where she knew the ridge towered over the camp, and wondered if Keltan or Hyram were staring down at her even then. She hoped so. She hoped they might even be able to see her standing in the window with Katia. She hoped that very much; because if the Watchers were setting out tomorrow on the trail of the vanished (except for her) prospecting party, the best chance for a rescue might be this very night.
Would Edrik act that quickly? She didn’t know. But Katia needed hope, and so did she.
“We may not be here long,” Mara said, speaking barely above a whisper, in case the Watcher lingered outside the door.
Katia stepped closer. “What?”
Mara turned her back on the window and motioned to the bed. They took the few steps to it and then sat down side by side, backs to the door. Mara leaned in close to the other girl. “There are a few things you don’t know,” she murmured. “Quite a few.” And then she told Katia everything that had really happened since the attack on the wagon. She told her about the Secret City, though not where it was; told her about the unMasked Army, and Catilla’s and Edrik’s plans for her; and told her about Grute.
Katia listened silently until Mara described that horrifying moment when Grute had come after her, naked and threatening, and she had clapped her hands to his head and killed him on the spot. That made her eyes light up. “Oh!” she said. “What I wouldn’t give for that power.” The deadness in her tone lifted as she said it; in fact, she sounded so savage and fierce it was almost frightening. “I had a little of the Gift,” she said, longing in her tone. “But after the Masking it was gone. Do you think it will come back?”
“I don’t know,” Mara said. “I still have it. But I seem to be the only one.” And maybe only because my father made a special Mask for me, she thought. She still didn’t know how she felt about that. Was she really better off here, in mortal peril, than she would have been safely Masked and apprenticed to her father, even if the new, controlling, Mask had leached all possibility of rebellion from her spirit, changed her the way it had changed her friend Sala?
She had a hard time believing it.
“Oh.” Katia’s excitement slipped away, her voice sinking back down into deadness. “Then nothing’s changed for me.”
“Yes, it has,” Mara insisted. “I’m not finished.” She hurried on through the account of the prospecting trip, the attack by the unMasked Army, the magical death—disintegration!—of the Watcher . . .
. . . and then her bargain with Catilla. “I told her I wouldn’t help the unMasked Army unless they rescued you. I made you hostage to the Warden to ensure my good behavior. I couldn’t live with myself if you suffered because of me.”
Katia looked at her with cold disbelief. “You’re a fool,” she said flatly. “You came back here to save me? Nobody can save me. I’m already lost. I’m already doomed. I have been since the moment I set foot in this camp.”
“But don’t you understand? If we get out of here—”
“Getting me out of here won’t change what they did to me in the barracks,” Katia snarled. “Take me to your ‘Secret City,’ take me to the end of the world, it won’t change what happened. I will never be who I was before the night they . . .” Her lip trembled and her voice wavered into silence. “I will never forget,” she said after a long pause. “Every night, I wake up screaming—”
“As do I!” Mara snapped. “I see Grute’s head exploding, I see the Watcher turned to dust, I see—”
“It’s not the same!” Katia screamed at her, showing the most life she’d shown since Mara had entered the room. “Don�
��t you get it? You’re having nightmares about things you’ve done, things you did to save yourself, things you did for a purpose. My nightmares . . .” She swallowed, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “My nightmares are about things that were done to me, while I lay there, helpless. I just lay there, I let them . . . do those things . . . make me do things . . . and I didn’t try to fight back. I didn’t do anything. I just took it. I gave up. I gave up!” And then she was weeping, hopeless, body-shaking sobs that were the most horrible thing Mara had ever heard. Mara awkwardly tried to put her arms around Katia, but other girl pushed her away and flung herself facedown on the bed.
Mara looked helplessly at her heaving back, not knowing what to do. Edrik will come, she thought. We’ll both get out of here. All she needs is a fresh start. All she needs is time. All she needs . . .
But the truth was, Mara didn’t know what Katia needed. Katia was right: she didn’t have a clue how Katia felt. How could she, without going through what Katia had gone through?
Her heart spasmed, as though someone had reached inside her chest and squeezed it with an ice-cold hand.
If Edrik doesn’t come, I will go through what Katia has gone through.
No! she thought fiercely. I won’t let that happen! Not to me, and not to Katia—not again.
But it was one thing to make such a promise, and quite another to keep it.
Katia’s sobs subsided. Her breathing deepened. She’d fallen asleep. Sprawled diagonally across the bed, she’d left no room for Mara. Well, she thought, I don’t plan to sleep anyway.
She got up and pulled one of the padded armchairs over to the window. No, she wouldn’t sleep. She’d remain awake, vigilant, waiting for the moment when Edrik and the others came over the north wall of palisade. As they surely would.
Wouldn’t they?
She grabbed a spare blanket from the wardrobe, doused the lantern, and then settled into the chair, stretching out her sore legs onto a footstool and giving her again-aching wounded calf a good rub before wrapping herself in the blanket. The glow of lights within the camp was just enough to show her the logs of the palisade some fifty yards beyond the back wall of the Warden’s house.
She had no intention of going to sleep. She knew how important it was to stay awake and keep watch. But the blanket was warm and the chair was comfortable, and she had spent a long, cold, and uncomfortable day hiding in the woods above the camp before making the terrifying descent to it. The remarkable thing, really, was not that she fell asleep, but that she stayed awake as long as she did.
An indeterminate amount of time later, she woke with a start. The sky had cleared. Moonlight silvered the logs of the palisade, but the only light in the room came from the lingering glow in the hearth.
Katia moaned in her sleep, a helpless, despairing sound. Was that what had woken her?
She listened hard. Katia moaned again. The wind, rising once more, elicited an echoing moan from the eaves. But above that, she could hear faint shouts growing louder. Someone pounded on the front door downstairs. Voices rang in the halls, questioning, yelling orders. Footsteps thundered down the stairs. She thought she hear someone shout, “Fire!”
Katia moaned again, flung herself over onto her back, gasped, and then sat bolt upright. She scrambled frantically backward until her shoulders were pressed against the carved headboard and pulled her knees tight to her chest, hugging them fiercely. She stared around the room with eyes wide and white in the faint red glow of the embers. Her gaze fell on Mara. “What’s going on?” she gasped.
“If we’re lucky, we’re about to be rescued,” Mara said.
“Rescued?”
“Shh!” Mara heard fresh footsteps in the hall outside. The door rattled as someone checked the lock, then the footsteps hurried away. Doors banged, and suddenly the house had an empty feel.
Mara turned back to the window, peered out . . . and her heart leaped as she saw shadowy figures dropping down the palisade wall like fat black spiders. “They’re coming!” she breathed.
“Who’s coming?” Katia said.
“The unMasked Army!” Mara ran to the door, put her ear to it, and listened hard.
A splintering crash downstairs, like a door being smashed in. Sudden shouts, breaking glass, a gurgling scream . . . silence. Mara almost pushed her head through the wood, trying to hear more. Then she heard the slap of booted feet, rushing toward her. “Check every room,” said a voice, and her heart leaped.
Edrik!
“In here!” she shouted, banging on the door with her fists.
Footsteps pounded toward her. “Step away!” Edrik called. She stumbled backward, and a moment later the door crashed inward, the doorjamb splintering.
Edrik stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the lamplight in the corridor. The sword he held in his right hand glinted in a strange, dark way.
Blood, Mara realized. It’s covered with blood.
Edrik’s head turned toward Katia, her frightened eyes bright in the yellow light streaming in through the open door. “That’s her?” he snapped.
Mara nodded.
“Then let’s get the two of you the hell out of here.” He stepped back and looked both ways along the hall. The lantern light brought his face into view for the first time. Blood had splattered one cheek. More blood stained his clothes. Mara didn’t think any of it was his.
Mara rushed over to Katia. “Come on,” she said. “They’re going to get us out of here.”
Katia hung back. “They can’t,” she whispered. “And if they don’t—they’ll catch us. The Warden will punish us. He’ll send us both to the Watchers—”
“Katia,” Mara said, trying to keep her voice calming, even while her brain was screaming at Katia to move, now, at once, before the Watchers who had run off to deal with the fire the unMasked Army had presumably set burning in the stables realized something else was happening behind their backs. “They can get us away. They have a safe place, their own city, the Secret City. I told you about it. They’ve lived safely there for decades. The Warden can’t find you there. The Watchers can’t find you there. Even the Autarch can’t find you there.” I hope, she thought. “But to get there, we have to go, now. Put your shoes on.”
Katia stared at her a moment, then lunged for the edge of the bed. She got tangled in the bedspread and tumbled over the side, hitting the floor with a thud. Mara helped her up and helped her find her shoes.
“Hurry up!” Edrik snarled. “We don’t know how long the fire will keep them busy. And someone may have seen or heard us. Watchers could be back here any minute.”
“Coming!” Mara shouted. Katia had her shoes on and laced at last. Mara grabbed her arm and pulled her to the door.
Edrik immediately headed for the stairs. At the landing, a body lay crumpled against the blood-smeared wall. A white Mask with black scrollwork had more than half crumbled away from the slack, staring face behind it.
Averting her eyes, Mara hurried past the secretary’s corpse and down the stairs in Edrik’s wake. In the foyer, Keltan stood by the main door, the gleaming sword in his hand unbloodied. Alone of all the unMasked Army, he wore a backpack. He had the door open a crack and was peering through it.
Mara looked over her shoulder to the back door of the house. At the end of the hallway a body sprawled, half in and half out of the door, and Mara, able to see that he was unMasked, felt a pang of regret. The Warden’s secretary upstairs she’d felt nothing for, but this dead man hadn’t even been a Watcher, just a trustee.
One who threw in his lot with the Warden and Watchers, she reminded herself.
It didn’t really make her feel any better.
Tishka straddled the body, peering out into the gardens. Illina stood behind her. She looked back, saw Mara, and flashed a brief, fierce grin.
“Where are the others?” Mara said.
“Skrit an
d Skrat are our best archers,” Edrik said, “so I sent them up onto the hill to shoot the fire arrows. Hyram is just the other side of the wall: we need someone there for when we go back over the top. Which we’re about to do. Keltan, close and lock the front door. Shove that cabinet in front of it. Illina, you lead the—”
Tishka swore and slammed the door shut. She spun to face the others. “Watchers on the walls! They just found the ropes. And cut them. They’re running for the watchtowers. They’ll be—”
A deep, angry gong shivered the air.
“—sounding the alarm,” she finished grimly.
The gong sounded again. And again. And kept on sounding, a sound no one in the camp—no one above ground, anyway—could fail to hear.
Edrik spun to face Mara. “Any other way out?”
“I don’t know,” Mara said, heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird.
“Yes, you do,” Katia said. Now she was the one who sounded calm, so strangely calm that Mara shot a glance at her, wondering what had changed. Her face in the dim yellow light gave nothing away. “Remember? There’s a small gate inside the building they take the ore into. They send wagons out through it, to haul away the rock and the . . .” she shot a glance at Mara, “. . . magic, I guess.”
Edrik nodded. “Then that’s our exit. Out the back. Stick to shadows. They’ll have crossbows in the watchtowers. Keep moving. Damn it, I wish the sky hadn’t cleared.” He reached up and doused the lamp that hung in the hallway near the back door. Keltan, who had just dragged a heavy cabinet across the front door, took the hint and doused the two lanterns in the foyer.
In the sudden darkness, Tishka eased open the back door. Keeping low, she looked out, both ways.
Keltan came up close to Mara. “Take this,” he said, and shoved something into her hands. She recognized it as his backpack. “It has one of the urns of magic in it. Don’t know if it will do any good, but I brought it just in case.”
