by Andre Norton
Well, what was it to him? A rich girl got caught: it probably happened all the time. Then his cough tore free. If his muscles hadn’t been those of a singer and active man, he might have broken something.
“Still here!” Vassilika cried. She looked frightened and annoyed. Nevertheless, she fished in her belt-pouch and offered him one of the sweet candies women used to soothe children or sweeten their breath. “This should ease your throat,” she said. “You must see a heal-all.”
“I can’t,” Andriu whispered painfully. The candy tasted good. “Why don’t you?”
Her eyes grew round, and a smile trembled on her lips. Andriu wanted to smile, too. So she had caught his stray thought, that they both could hardly be avoiding the heal-alls for the same reason! Most people never understood his jokes, much less anticipated them. “Sweet Dayspring,” he said, chuckling, “what a wonder that would be, wouldn’t it? I can’t see a heal-all because I used to be a novice at the temple. My name’s Andriu, by the way.”
What an imbecile he was to tell her! She sank down onto the rim of the fountain beside him, and he was glad.
“Tell me, freelady Vassilika, what will you use to bribe your sisters with next?”
Vassilika laughed a little wryly. “I’d been wondering that, too. Do you have any suggestions?”
Her courage brought more warmth to his heart than a mug of spiced wine. For fifteen years he had been running away, living only for himself, day to day, as the birds—who sang, too—lived. He was near the end of the race. Perhaps before he died, he could do something for someone besides singing. Why not for this lady?
“Where’s the father?” he whispered, wincing at the blunt way the question came out. The great gong rang; services would be ending shortly.
Vassilika’s face twisted. How could any man in his right mind abandon someone like her?
“I want to help you, freelady,” he said quickly, “but ...” Fair-wards and worshippers were emerging from the temple.
“I can’t tell you now. Meet me at Sohrab’s cookshop at twilight,” she hissed.
Andriu forced himself to nod casually and then to saunter off, the very image of a considerate man who had stopped to assist a lady. The fair-wards barely glanced at him. If only he weren’t a renegade! He could offer her an honorable escape.
As he left the temple precincts, a chill quivered across his shadow on the polished flagstones and sped up from it into his vitals. Only the sweet Vassilika had given him prevented him from coughing. He glanced about wildly. Within a nearby scribe’s booth . . . someone wished him ill, had sensed his pain and confusion and reveled in it. His enemy . . . there stood Lord Xuthen, watching him. He bowed and offered an assiduously practiced innocent look to the noble. At first Xuthen’s eyes swept over him the way icy water drenches a man who falls overboard. Then Andriu felt as if every last frailty and pain in his body had been cataloged and savored.
At least Xuthen hadn’t denounced him. Weak with relief as well as fear, Andriu leaned against a wall. Xuthen turned away, moving deeper into the scribe’s stall. Its proprietor emerged and bowed to him as if to a master. He wore a medallion and offered one to Xuthen. On each the mask of Thotharn glowered out at him.
A shawl flung over her hair, Vassilika was waiting at Sohrab’s. She was eating bannocks dipped in honey, crisp-roasted fowl wings pungent with the exotic spices that had made the outlander’s shop popular, and drinking something that steamed and made Andriu wish for money to spare. She passed him a mug and received change from the urchin at the counter.
Andriu shared her meal. Then they walked slowly on, an unlikely pair: he in his out-at-the-elbows tunic and chausses, his boots scraped white at the toes; she in her good, heavy robes. Flaming cressets lit each cookstall, supplemented by the lamps and cooking fires. The flames glinted off the fair-wards’ polished helmets and struck rainbows from the gemmed wristlets and pendants of the richer pilgrims. No one that Andriu could see wore Thotharn’s mask. That did not reassure him. That anyone assumed the mask—let alone the temple’s patron—meant that ... A few priests knew much about Thotharn and had always told him not to dabble in such affairs.
“Won’t we be noticed in this crowd, freelady?”
“Probably. My stepmother will scold me ... again, my father will shrug, and no one will think of anything else. Pretend to be enjoying yourself.’’
That was easy. They looked into the merchants’ stalls, then strolled about. A beast-master wearing a scalloped leather cape and hood strolled by. Vassilika cried out in wonder at his troupe of trained marpolets, each with its soft-furred crest dyed a different color, each juggling three gilded balls in its dark-fingered paw-hands. “Come see us tonight!” the man urged. “We’re teaming with actors to play Rustam’s Ride.”
I wish we could, Andriu thought. I wish . . . this were real, that I could take Vassilika to the play, buy her a fairing, then walk her home. . . .
They passed the dealers in fine carpets. Vassilika raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose ...”
“That I could manifest a flying carpet? I wish I might. But lady, I’m not strong enough to create a carpet that could carry us both.”
The carpetseller, rising to greet them, heard them speaking of magic, and his smile of welcome faded. Merchants who enhanced their wares magically lost them and were outlawed.
“Let’s leave,” Vassilika whispered.
Andriu turned so quickly that he bumped into a pilgrim wearing a red hood and a redder nose, the result of devotion to the winesellers, if not the priests. The man burped in surprise, and Andriu sped him on his way with a shove. He coughed in alarm.
“Down here!” Andriu cried. Here, nearer the temple, it was darker. The smells of water and night air won out over the smells of food, wine, and too many people. And there were shadows in which they could hide. Andriu was almost certain he had glimpsed the scribe.
“Do you want to tell me?” he asked Vassilika. “I can’t help you unless I know what’s happened. And I want to help.”
Vassilika started to laugh, then bit her hand to stop herself. She began to breathe deeply to steady herself.
“No one’s said that in weeks,” she said. “Thank you. I thought I could wait out the fair until Xuthen went back to being merely one lord among many and this business about the old temple laws faded away. But I can’t.” Her courage broke along with her voice. Andriu took her by the shoulders and shook her. Nothing in the ballads had prepared him for women who threw up or shook with horror. For goddesses, yes. For frightened, pregnant women, no. He had missed out, he thought.
“When did Lord Xuthen become such a firebrand?” he asked.
“I won’t act like that again. Forgive me,” Vassilika said. “Lord Xuthen? If you were born here, you know he was always scholarly, rather a recluse. The wrong sort of study has proved his misfortune . . . and mine. As you heard, my stepmother prefers old says. She claims a lady needs no more of reading than to settle her household’s accounts. But I—Father knew I was bored and hired me tutors. I can read not just the tongues of Ithkar and Rhos, but also write and speak trade talk, and even a little of the temple dialects.” That was cause for pride, Andriu thought. “There was some talk of my joining the classes there. But my stepmother sulked so long ... it wasn’t worm it. About that time, Thyrth joined our household as my stepmother’s tire-woman. She’s an easterner and skilled, as many of them are, in the care of garments. And other things besides—like women’s magic.”
“Freelady?”
“Oh, yes, we have magics. Little things like throwing pins in a well. Casting shadows into a fountain by the light of the moon . . . tiny spells. Nonetheless, they have to be paid for,” Vassilika told him. They reached the temple. Its gates were still open for the benefit of pilgrims who wished to see the wreath of offering.
“Let me show you,” she said. She knelt on the rim of the fountain where they had met and drew a tiny pin from her sleeve. She held it to her face, breathed on it, and drop
ped it into the water.
With a crystalline chime it sank beneath the ripples. The water trembled again, in a direction counter to the night wind. Then it went utterly calm and figures started to form in it. Andriu bent forward, impressed. He could not visualize that clearly unless he sang.
Vassilika was restless, but Thyrth boasted she had a cure. One of her friends was steward to LordXuthen. Could Vassilika but win his liking, he might let her choose books from the lord’s library. So into the trap Vassilika walked . . .
* * *
The water blurred.
“No,” she said. “It’s too shameful. I’ll tell you, instead. Thyrth went with me. There was a mask on the wall of the library. I didn’t like the looks of it, but Thyrth told me to look closer; who was I to question a lord’s taste? I remember something that . . . there was this smell ... a demon with his face, Xuthen’s face . . . blurring into the mask. Hours later I woke up. The house was empty, so I fled home. Thyrth never returned. Why should she? She’d done what she planned.”
“As Xuthen’s agent?”
“AsThotharn’s.”
When had it started? Had a merchant with a grudge against Xuthen brought him his first taste of the proscribed lore of Thotharn? Or had he himself become bored and turned to it of his own will? Xuthen proved the warning of the priests true: those who looked into the mask might find themselves wearing it. And he had dared present the wreath today? No wonder it had not blossomed.
“Thotharn dwells within him now,” Vassilika said, looking down at her hands. “And Xuthen is at an age when men look to have heirs. Why should a demon be different?”
How would a demon perceive old age? Xuthen was at his prime, as men reckoned it. But perhaps the river Ith’s dampness set his joints to aching, or his teeth shifted. Perhaps his eyes were blurring.
“I tell you, I will not bear such a child, and to be used thus! I thought perhaps, if my uncle rowed upriver for the fair, I could leave with him. Downriver, Thotharn’s taint would not touch the child, and I would not be scorned among my mother’s people. But he did not come.”
“If you want me to speak to the master of the ship I came on—” Andriu caught his breath. He had not coughed for hours, he realized. “I think he’s gone, though. But other ships ...”
“I have no passage money. And my jewels . . . you saw this morning.”
“Listen to me—” Andriu spoke quickly. “I’m a dream-singer. I can sing you gold enough for passage, lodging . . . and for an exorcism for the babe. He’ll need it, I fear.”
Using personal magic for gain would get him outlawed . . . again. But he could only be arrested once and had no goods for the courts to confiscate. So it made no difference. Still, he would have liked more time, time to know Vassilika better. There had been times when he might have sung her heaps of grain-bright coins and then entertained her with five ballads. Now his voice was rusty; the coins he would manifest would be tarnished, nicked, and worn as if they had passed through many hands. And he would be lucky if he had strength enough. . . .No, doubt was fatal. He could do this, he had to. A roll of five-goldens should serve.
He saw the trust, the faith in Vassilika’s eyes, and began to sing. Coins began to chink out of the night air and into Vassilika’s lap. He felt energy flowing out of him.
Vassilika gasped and pointed. In the corner by the gate, a blot of shadow was forming silently into a masklike shape. Beneath it, into the temple precincts he had already profaned, stood Xuthen, several fair-wards with him. Why couldn’t they see how evil he was?
Vassilika swept the gold into her surcoat and leapt up.
“As I suspected . . . unlawful use of magic, for a start,” said Xuthen. “Well, Sergeant?”
“Run!” Vassilika cried. Light-headed from his song, Andriu followed her. For a time, his lungs pleading for breath, he kept pace. He could almost feel his life’s blood bubbling up toward his lips.
“Get away!” Andriu staggered away from her down an alley and brought up against a stall with enough force to double him over. At least Vassilika stood a chance of escaping without him. And he might escape notice. Andriu looked up, tears of pain blurring his eyes . . . and saw the mask grinning above a scribe’s desk. Of all the luck ... if it were foul luck and not fouler magic! A sweet smell, too sweet, wafted from that open mouth. . . .
“Ah,” Xuthen’s voice purred at his shoulder. “A novelty.’ Cool and slender fingers traced his brow, down his cheek, and raised his chin toward the light carried by one of the lord’s servants. Andriu wanted to scream at that touch. Instead he gagged and spat up blood. Still, the sweet scent flowed from the mask’s lips. Heat spread from the touch of those well-cared-for, evil fingertips and burnt away his consciousness.
Andriu felt disappointment. Not dead, then? He floated slowly back to his body. Surely it would not be long. He felt the warmth of rich, piled fabrics, down-filled cushions, a room filled with braziers. No prison boasted such comfort. Probably he was in Xuthen’s town house.
“My own dream-singer,” gloated Xuthen’s cultured, hateful voice above Andriu’s head.
“You’ll get no music from this one, lord!” Another voice ... the steward?
“Ah, but I can heal him. Will he not be grateful as youth and health return? I shall taste that gratitude. But he will know only a reprieve. His health will fail again, and I shall taste his despair. But who knows? If he sings well, perhaps I will truly heal him.”
“He is shamming sleep, master,” said the steward. His bony, old man’s fingers gripped Andriu’s shoulder, twisting into the joint until he cried out. Even above the roaring in his ears came the mad piping of his fever—and Xuthen’s laugh.
“Open your eyes, dream-singer.”
Andriu saw that he lay on a low couch. Above it was a huge mask of Thotharn wrought in the antique eastern pattern and inlaid with dazzling, threadlike swirls of precious metals. Heavy hangings and deep-piled rugs caught the shadows cast by lamps wrought of pierced copper. Their light danced off the metal inserts in the heavy, carved furniture.
The shadowy lord and the mask that ruled him—they would devour Andriu.
“An interesting idea,” mused Xuthen. “Lord Thotharn has had lords, scribes, stewards, serving-women as his servants. But never a dream-singer.’’
“No!” Assuming Xuthen would let him near knife or poison, Andriu would kill himself. Lying on the narrow couch below that mask, he felt like a sacrifice on its altar.
Why aren’t you content? he asked himself. You wanted to do one good thing before you died. You did it. Vassilika is safe. That no longer seemed enough.
Xuthen reached out to touch Andriu’s face as if he were a toy. “You must be cleaner—and quite a bit stronger—before you sing.” He lifted a tiny hammer and struck a bell that stood upon a nearby table.
Before a servant could come, Andriu heard voices raised in the entry way of the house. “The lord is busy now, lad. Come tomorrow.”
“Lord Xuthen told my master that he should be brought any gems come in by caravan from the east as soon as they were unpacked.”
That was no boy’s voice. Curse the little fool, why hadn’t Vassilika fled? She had gold, and he’d given her time enough to get away. Now she had ruined Andriu’s only chance to do something decent before he died. But there was no point in cursing her. They were both damned now. Xuthen would never let them go.
Vassilika, muffled in a drab cape of the sort worn by apprentices, appeared at the door. Before the noble could do more than rub his hands together, she had dropped the package she carried and had taken from beneath her cape a green branch.
“I wanted to buy you time,” Andriu couldn’t help crying out.
“This branch has been truly blessed,” Vassilika told Lord Xuthen. He backed away from it. “Come, Andriu. I couldn’t let you buy my self-respect. So I came back. This will hold him . . . long enough. ...”
Andriu swung his legs from the couch. He felt stronger. Was that Xuthen’s doing alre
ady—or the branch’s? But he dared not think of Xuthen or the mask from which he drew his power, not as long as Vassilika stood trembling with the effort to hold up the branch.
“Would you leave me already?” asked Xuthen, his voice silken. He turned to face the mask and raised his hands to it. Andriu and his rescuer started backing toward the stairs.
“Stay. ...” cried the mask’s brazen tongue and lips.
“Stay . . . eee . . . eee. ...” The mask’s voice sounded like the wailing of the lost. Echoes from nowhere trembled and clutched about them. As Andriu faltered, one hand going to his chest, Xuthen’s steward sneaked up behind Vassilika and struck her down with a heavy metal statuette. She crumpled on the dark stairs, and Andriu’s strength evaporated.
“Stayyy. . . .” the mask cried again. Its breath, sweet yet corrupt, drifted toward him from the shining lips and turned him giddy. It brushed his nostrils and his will was no longer his own, he was staggering back up the stairs, half fighting, half consenting, he was reeling into the library where Xuthen awaited him smiling.
“Sit down,” he ordered. Andriu sat. He wanted to scream, to grab Xuthen and shake him till his neck snapped, to tear down that mask from the wall and drive his foot into its grinning mouth. If Thotharn drank pain, let the demon start with that!
“I have had enough violence for tonight,” Xuthen decided. He tapped his bell lightly, and a servant appeared. He wore gray livery which bore what Andriu recognized with loathing as a stylized version of the mask emblazoned over his heart. The true horror of such a device, Andriu thought, half in a daze, was that unless you knew precisely what you were looking for, you wouldn’t understand what you saw.
“My master wishes?” asked the servant.
“There has been an intruder. A woman. Summon the Watch.”
The day after, Andriu stood in the court before the temple. A platform had been built there. Today he wore gray, the livery of Lord Xuthen. At least he had been spared, having to wear the sign of the mask.
