FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Nothing was clear. Least of all how to stop her. But that was something he couldn’t do. She had matched him power for power. She could kill on a whim—the memory of the masks burned into the slaver’s faces, and into his own, had seared that fact on his own mind. He feared for his family. And for his new friends left behind in Ri Illiath.

  His mind continued to race, not letting him sleep that night, and he dreamed of faceless horrors reaching out to him, calling him, begging him to mask them, to hide their vile pitted heads with masks or death, for either would hide their shame and either would give them more power than they had.

  Chapter VIII

  The Judge

  ELU FOUND THE HALL OF judgment easily enough—it stood right next to the Corundum Tower, which itself was the tallest structure in the city, a vast sprawling network of stuffy narrow streets winding through numerous districts and neighborhoods. The earth of that land blazed red—redder than any soil in all of Terremar—and the thick clay found its way into the building material of nearly every structure. The hall of judgment soared above the street below, and Elu spied people within rooms in the building, high off the ground level. He marveled, for Gheb had not even one building with more than one level and this city seemed to have several.

  After waiting patiently for the afternoon to arrive, he entered the building and searched for Dilly. An abundance of guards stood at attention sporting brutish looking, utilitarian masks, as well as common people of all trades, apparently there to hear judgment in their individual cases. He spied a blacksmith, his steel mask glinting in the sun that streamed through the open-air windows. His hand firmly gripped a young woman’s arm and she in turn clung to a strange mask held close to her chest. Her girl-child’s mask seemed simple enough, but her squinting eyes smoldered like fire.

  “Elu!” Dilly approached him, shouldering his way through the crowd though the people soon parted voluntarily before him as they recognized his mask.

  “Dilly. Or do I call you Judge Dilly?” said Elu, unsure of the proper etiquette in the hall of judgment.

  “Usually, just Judge. But you are not here for judgment, so call me Dilly.” The man took him by the arm and led Elu back to another expansive room that, despite its expanse, held noticeably fewer people. Small wooden tables lined the walls and men sat counting and changing money. Supplicants and offenders scowled as they paid their fines. Dilly drew him towards another man, this one younger—closer to Elu’s age—and masked as an apprentice judge as well, though not so finely as Dilly whose judge’s mask cast its stern gaze from an imposing wood façade, detailed with steel runes of judgment and impartiality inscribed in either brow—shown on the exterior for the world to see and not only for the bearer to feel against the skin.

  “Elu, meet my apprentice, Dil, who also happens to be my son. Dil, this is the man I spoke of yesterday. The adventurer, though I see now he wears a new mask! A maskmaker, eh?”

  “I am indeed. I have not yet found a town to settle down in and establish my trade.”

  “Interesting. I may have a favor to ask of you, but we will speak of it later. For now, I wanted to show you the hall and introduce you to my son. He is a little older than you, but hopefully you will become fast friends. But you must first excuse me as I must hear a few more cases with the chief judge.” He turned to his son and his smile dropped. “Dil, show him around the hall and answer his questions.”

  Dilly left, leaving Elu to wonder why he had brought him here just to meet his son. There was something odd about their masks that he noticed now with his own maskmaker’s mask guiding him, but having never seen a judge’s mask he had no idea what it might be. Dilly seemed just as agreeable as yesterday and Dil now walked him around the building, pointing out the various details that only an apprentice to an apprentice judge would be privy to. But he asked far more questions than he answered, Elu noticed. And Dil’s eyes never left Elu’s mask.

  “What was the most recent town you visited just before arriving in the city? Did you have any travelling companion? Did anyone know you came here?” The questions followed one after another and he tried to answer them to Dil’s satisfaction, yet still conceal details that might give a man of judgment cause for concern.

  “And you, Dil, how long have you been apprentice to your father?”

  “Since I was of age.”

  “Is that standard here in Glendon, for everyone to apprentice to their father?”

  “I suppose not. Most other men send their boys to other tradesmen for their apprenticeship. My father has but one child, however, and the chief judge gave him permission to appoint me his apprentice.”

  “Is the chief judge your grandfather?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  Dil was curt, and hardly anything like his father, who exuded warmth and spoke gregariously. Dil seemed matter-of-fact and rather unwilling to engage in joke telling or the relating of anecdotes as Derry had. His thoughts drifted back to the friends that he had left. Back to the fresh tang of salt and sea. Glendon smelled mostly of latrine.

  Dil soon tired of both asking and answering questions, and showed Elu the rest of the building with only a few terse words of description before returning to the chambers where Dilly had introduced them. They milled about the room awaiting Dilly’s return, and Elu wondered when he might find the chance to escape.

  The question soon became moot for Dilly returned, followed by a few other men he introduced as assistants to the court.

  “Elu. I trust Dil gave you a fine tour of the building? Good,” he continued without waiting for the reply, “I spoke to you earlier of a favor I needed. The chief judge is hearing a dispute today brought by a blacksmith and his daughter. It involves a disagreement over the nature of her mask and the court requires an expert to lend his opinion to the judge. Normally in cases such as these I ask one of the many maskmakers in the city if they would favor me with their assistance, but since you’re here anyway….”

  Seeing his chance to escape Dil’s unremarkable companionship, Elu nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir, I would be delighted to offer any assistance you require.”

  “Splendid. The chief judge will hear the dispute in an hour’s time. Feel free to explore the building or meditate as you see fit. A court assistant will come retrieve you here in an hour. Dil, come. I require your assistance.”

  Elu breathed a sigh of relief that he was finally left to himself. Dil made for such an odd companion, albeit temporarily, that he was glad to see him go though perhaps with a touch of guilt. But that was just it—Dil never took his eyes from Elu, through all the questions and through most of the silence, which Elu found quite unnerving. And the eyes seemed to be searching—with the art of his own mask he could discern at least that—that Dil was looking for something.

  Had they heard of ill tidings out of Gheb and Ri Illiath? Were they looking for the fool that had released the Terror into the world, to find him and punish him for the horrors that Thora undoubtedly now unleashed on some unsuspecting town even as he sat in Glendon’s hall of justice pondering the intentions of some minor judge? How could he live with himself knowing that innocents suffered because of his own actions? Perhaps that is what Dil and Dilly saw in him as they studied his mask. Regret.

  He told himself that he could leave. He need not assist these people. He did not know them. He owed them nothing. By the gods, he held the Guardian’s mask in the leather satchel hanging at his side and had power that these men only dreamed of. Why did he not just put it on and transport himself back to Ri Illiath, or better yet, why not explore the world as only he now could, with this mask of legend in his possession? What sights he might see? He had just yesterday travelled farther north than possibly any man in the history of Terremar, for all he saw around him in that cold land was ice and rock and the sun passed only low in the sky, even in midsummer. What other wonders could he find? If only he just had a friend to see it with.

  Thora. She would have loved to see it all with him. Escape fro
m her abusive master and his wife, from her indifferent father. Maybe more than indifferent. But she now was as guilty as he was. Worse. She had killed. Killed Goshorn, the only man besides his own father that he loved.

  Elu found himself passing through the front door of the hall of justice to the busy street, full of colorful masks and people bustling about. He watched the people go about their business in the shadow of the great building. He studied their masks. Before, with only the adventurers mask on his face he felt a general unease in the marketplace. Now that he saw the people through the eyes of the maskmaker he could see it more clearly.

  These people were afraid. Their masks seemed strained somehow, as if they felt compelled to put on a show or a good face, and that small but continuous deception created almost as it were a furrow in the brows of each mask he saw. What was wrong with these people? Was their king a tyrant? Were his henchmen watching their every move, suspicious of uprisings or determined to squeeze every last bit of tax he could out of them?

  He wandered the streets immediately adjacent to the hall of justice, examining the various shops and dwellings surrounding it, all built of the same red brick as the hall itself, though not so expertly or lavishly for the hall was indeed a beautiful building, almost woefully imposing, as if the structure itself looked down on people as they entered, chastising them for their guilt and threatening swift justice to the unrepentant.

  He passed a maskmaker’s shop. It, and it alone of all the buildings on the street looked just as well built as the hall of justice itself. Curious, he thought. The columns on front were beams of entire elmore trees—the most common mask wood, and the red bricks were exquisitely cut and expertly laid. The maskmaker obviously was a man of wealth and did very well for himself. He looked inside and saw various masks on display—his old master never did this, for he knew all the townsfolk by name and would know for weeks in advance who would be needing a new one just as a farmer knows when a field is ripe for harvest. It almost seemed untoward, improper, to display masks to entice buyers. Did these people not accept masks from their elders, as he was accustomed to in Gheb, or receive them from fate as he did with the Guardian mask?

  But he supposed it made a little sense there in the city, for with such a throng of people all around it would be impossible for any maskmaker to know every one of them personally, and with other maskmakers present in the city it would behoove them to compete for business. Still, it struck him as strange and … indecent. Almost—but not quite—sacrilege.

  He fingered a few of the masks absentmindedly, admiring their construction, for they were very well made after all. The maskmaker obviously had access to finer materials here in a city than he did out in the small town of Ri Illiath.

  “What do you want?” an accusing voice called out to him.

  He looked around and saw the proprietor of the shop, a maskmaker, approaching him from the workshop in the rear. “Oh … nothing, I suppose. I am just passing through. I come from the south. Elu,” he said, extending the palm of his hand.

  The man stood stock still looking down at the hand, then back up at Elu.

  “Then I suggest you be on your way,” he grumbled.

  He wore fine clothing, and several exquisite rings graced his fingers, mostly of gold and set with priceless jewels. Elu wished he could discover how to set up his trade in a city such as this and work his way to such finery and affluence.

  “Tell me, sir, I am a maskmaker myself, down in the town of Ri Illiath,” he said, half lying, “and I am curious to know of our trade in this city. Do you find much success here? Are there other maskmakers?”

  The man squinted at him, searching Elu’s mask, reading the spirits within it and probing his Elu’s own. Elu did likewise, reaching out to the spirits of the other mask. The man came by his mask honestly—that much he could tell—but the honesty stopped there. The mask was full of unease. Fear, even. Not the fear he had felt from the other people in the city, but fear directed at him. And a dishonest spirit permeated the man’s being, coiled like a venomous snake around the man’s soul, slowly poisoning it.

  “You would do well to mind your own business, maskmaker. Yes, there are three others in the city. But that is all I will tell you. For all I know you come to set up shop yourself and steal my business and my livelihood. Be gone.”

  Elu bowed his head and stepped out of the shop. No sense starting an argument with a fellow craftsman. And besides, he was probably justified in his fear, for competing with the three other maskmakers already in the city had probably put a strain on the man’s business.

  Judging that nearly an hour had passed he returned to the hall of justice and found the room he had met Dil in earlier. A man stood waiting for him.

  “Maskmaker? Judge Dilly desires your presence in the main chamber. Please follow me,” he said, and beckoned him through the door. Elu followed, and soon found himself in the most opulent room he had seen yet. The door, framed with gold, was the humblest feature of the room. Rich tapestries covered the walls, curtains hung over glass windows—he had never seen glass used in anything but masks and occasionally a flute for fine wine. And at the head of the room in a throne inlaid with gold, sat a man.

  The chief judge, Elu knew, for the spirits of the mask were ones of authority, power, wisdom, judgment, and mercy.

  And they were all wrong.

  Elu blinked, and took a quick breath. His thoughts darted back to the innkeeper of Gheb—the cruel man who found delight in striking those weaker than himself. Elu’s first experience of his apprentice’s mask seeming to take on a life of its own still loomed fresh in his memory. His mask had seen that the innkeeper clearly had come by his mask in some ill-begotten manner or another, by fraud or by subterfuge. Certainly by lying.

  This mask, the mask of the chief judge of the city of Glendon, bore the same hallmarks only far more grievously. The innkeeper was a petty man with small, self-serving thoughts, but however ill-gotten his mask was he basically used it as it was intended, and though his spirit and the spirits within the mask did not match perfectly, they were sufficiently similar.

  This was different. It reminded him of the tale his master told him of the seer of the city of Falsten, far to the south. He led his people to ruin with that mask for it was a mask of power, and though he was a man of strong will himself, the manner in which he obtained it and his determination that it not be subjected to the washing ceremony caused the mask to twist him. It corrupted and ruined him. And took the soul of the people with it.

  Elu saw Dilly standing next to the chief judge, conversing with him and another assistant. Dil, near to them but uninvolved in the conversation caught sight of him and waved Elu over.

  “You’re here,” he said.

  “Did you expect otherwise?” said Elu.

  Dil stumbled over his words, apparently unsure of what to say next. Maybe he was surprised Elu returned. Why would he expect him to leave?

  “No, not at all. Come, talk to my father. He will explain your role.”

  Dil touched his father’s arm who still conversed quietly with the chief judge. “Dil, what is it … ah, my young maskmaker. Good. Elu, meet the chief judge of the city of Glendon. Sir, this is the foreign maskmaker I told you of. He was passing through our city the other day and I saw him in the marketplace. He is young, eager to learn, and seeks to establish himself and seek his fortune. He will do, won’t he?”

  The chief judge regarded him coldly. On the surface his mask and his eyes appeared quite warm. Stern, but warm. The coldness lay under the surface. The twisted spirits of the mask thrashed about it, for it was indeed a mask of power. He had never made a judge’s mask or any related to it and had no experience whatsoever with any mask associated with law and judgments apart from the magistrate and his own father, and so had no idea of what powers the mask of the chief judge might hold.

  But the spirits soon told him. They reached out to him and mocked him, suggesting to him that they knew all his secrets. All his lies a
nd misdeeds. Elu recoiled slightly, terrified of the idea of the man knowing his every fault, especially the one that had caused so much suffering. Could the mask really read him that clearly, as if he were a scroll?

  His raspy voice rang out. “Welcome to Glendon, maskmaker. We thank you for agreeing to lend us your expertise in this matter. You see, you possess a mask that lets you look clearly into the mask of another. Yours is similar to mine, and to my friends’ here, in that it allows you to see the spirits within, even the spirit of the wearer, and hear what they say. But whereas ours only tells us of guilt and of innocence, yours tells you of function. Identity. Purpose.”

  So. Maybe they could not read him as a scroll, but instead only saw his guilt, which he was sure oozed out of him like thick blood. Why had he come here? He could still leave. It was not too late….

  “We have before us a case of a woman—a simple girl, who has come by a new mask. Her father, a blacksmith, swears he did not give it to her and has forbidden her to keep it. She being of age but not married is bound to do his will. And yet he is also bound to honor the will of the ancients and permit her the mask if it was rightfully given to her.”

  Elu’s mind flashed back to the blacksmith he saw earlier gripping the younger woman’s arm. That mask she was holding. Her eyes.

  “What is the mask?”

  The chief judge’s raspy voice continued. “That is another strange part of this tale. It is a mask of power. We are not quite sure of its capabilities but it clearly exudes greatness. Its spirits are potent.”

  Strange, thought Elu. A mask of power, come into the hands of a young woman without the knowledge of her father. It was not so unusual for a woman to wear a mask of power. Londu, for example, or the healer of Gheb. But in those cases the women were apprentices to their masters for a time and rightfully earned their masks after displaying mastery of the skills native to the trade.