The Emperor's Mask (Magebreakers Book 2)

by Ben S. Dobson

  Carver shrugged. “I don’t really know. I like to think he’d approve of giving a voice to people who don’t have one. But then, he also helped create the same Senate that hasn’t raised a goblin or kobold house to power since… ever. They can petition for it, but granting seats to a new house is ultimately done by vote in the Senate. Hard to blame people who aren’t represented already for feeling powerless.”

  That was less heartening.

  They reached the Founder’s Plaza and circled around the statue of Illuvar Audlian toward the gates just behind. The rope cordons looped wide around the statue on either side and ending at the tall fence that surrounded the lush green grounds. Here, nearest the gates, the press of protestors was at its heaviest—there were no tents or amenities, just people crowded against one another, shouting at the great brass building ahead. And they were even louder than the men and women further back. “No more non-magical deaths!” came from one side, answered by “They got what they deserved!” from the other. Here the fights that broke out involved fists and feet, not just shoving—Kadka watched with interest as the Mageblades intervened in a particularly bad scuffle. It seemed everyone knew about the murders, which was confirmed when she heard someone shout “Beware the Emperor’s Mask!”

  Carver jumped at that, and then tried to look like he hadn’t. “The Emperor’s Mask,” he snorted. “Of course they’ve already given him a name. Apparently the word is out.”

  Kadka just nodded, unsurprised. News, she had found, traveled very quickly in a world of divination magic and instantaneous sendings. Very unlike the orc homeland of Sverna, where a message was only as fast as the messenger carrying it.

  Beyond the gates, the Brass Citadel sat on its small isle, a huge metallic dome looming against the clear blue sky with the waters of the Aud forking around it on both sides. This was the seat of Audish power—the Lady Protector’s residence spanned several of the upper floors, and the offices and meeting chambers of the Senate took up the lower ones. The building was sheathed in brass to protect the important people working within from outside magics. Kadka knew these things only by reputation, of course. She’d never set foot inside.

  The gates were easily fifteen feet high, and a pair of Mageblades in gleaming brass cuirasses stood guard outside. Through the bars, Kadka could see dozens of others patrolling the grounds and standing guard at other doors. They weren’t taking any chances with security, not with a murderer hunting senators.

  As they neared, one of the Mageblades—an elven man with silver hair—looked Kadka up and down. “Protesters stay behind the cordon.”

  Kadka clenched her fists. One look at her and he’d decided she couldn’t possible have business at the Citadel. Orcs were one of the lesser races to him. And not just to him.

  “Not here to protest,” she said.

  Carver stepped in front of her. “We were invited to see the Senate in session. Tane Carver and Kadka. Endo Stooke said he would leave word.”

  The other Mageblade, a stoutly built human woman, pulled a scroll from behind her back and looked it over. “I’ve got their names here, Caelis.”

  The elven man—Caelis—frowned. “The Magebreakers. I remember.” Carver scowled at that, which made Kadka grin. He hated the name, but she rather liked it. “But…” Caelis flicked a finger at Kadka. “Not many orcs with citizenship. We’ll have to check that. Can’t let a non-citizen in, can we, Anna?”

  The woman named Anna pursed her lips a moment and shook her head. “Too dangerous.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Carver protested. “We have an invitation! Our names are on your list!”

  Anna shrugged. “Security. Rule is, we can’t let non-citizens in without special dispensation from a senator or the Lady Protector. Senator’s son doesn’t count.” Her eyes lost focus for an instant. “Checking her name. Kadka, was it? Is that all?”

  “Of Clan Nadivek,” Kadka said. She was a head taller than either of the guards, but just then she felt very small. She already knew what they’d find.

  She lived in Audland and worked there, but she was no citizen. For a woman with orcish blood born outside the nation’s borders, that kind of acceptance wasn’t easy to come by.

  “That’s nonsense!” Carver declared indignantly. “The Stookes’ junior senator is dead. Endo is representing the family in the Senate. Call it emergency succession if you have to, but by any reasonable standard of what constitutes a senator, he absolutely ‘counts’.”

  “Rules are rules,” Caelis said smugly. “We have to be strict about it, with this Emperor’s Mask lunatic running around.”

  But Carver wasn’t done. “You’d never have even blinked if Kadka wasn’t—”

  Kadka took him by the shoulder. “Is fine, Carver.” She drew him to one side against the cordon while the Mageblades checked on her citizenship. He resisted, but came along when she tightened her grip.

  “We both know why they’re doing this,” said Carver. “Since when are you the one convincing me to back down?”

  “Is not your battle, Carver.” She shrugged. “If this is rule… Does no good to argue.” She appreciated the effort, but she’d seen this attitude enough times before to know there was no changing it. “Just makes them keep you out too.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t—”

  “Excuse me.” The voice came from beyond the cordon to Kadka’s right. It was a goblin woman, hunched and potbellied and thin-limbed, with green-brown skin and stringy black hair. On her right arm, she wore the silver-on-blue sunrise of the Silver Dawn. “You’re the Magebreakers? I heard you talking to the guards.”

  “Yes,” Kadka said. “You need help?”

  “In a way,” the goblin said in a thick, nasal voice. “I’m Gurtle Hruve. Someone who wants to speak with you sent me.”

  “What does the Silver Dawn want with us?” Carver raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious. “How did you even know we’d be here?”

  Gurtle laid a finger alongside her protruding nose. “We have our ways. But I’m not here for you. Only her.” She looked to Kadka. “If she’ll come with me.”

  “What does this someone want?” Kadka wasn’t sure what to make of that—people didn’t often seek her out.

  “To talk,” said Gurtle. “In exchange, he’ll give you some information that you’ll want to have.”

  “Why only her?” Carver asked.

  “Because she might listen. It’s one thing to be born magicless, and another to be a kobold, or a goblin. Or an orc. When you barely have a chance at magic in the first place, people look at you different. ” Gurtle didn’t look away from Kadka. “Will you come?”

  Kadka glanced at Carver and shrugged. “Won’t let me in Citadel anyway. Maybe learn something if I go.” She hadn’t much wanted to watch politicians debate, and she was curious about the Silver Dawn.

  “I don’t like it,” said Carver, shaking his head. “We have no idea where he wants to take you, and in case you’ve forgotten, there’s a certain someone out there with a keen interest in us.”

  Gurtle’s beady eyes widened. “The Emperor’s Mask, you mean?”

  Carver sighed. “Has everyone heard about that already?”

  “You surprised?” Gurtle asked. “Senators murdered, a masked killer challenging the Magebreakers. That kind of story spreads fast. But you’re in no danger from the Silver Dawn. We don’t wear masks.” She turned to Kadka once more. “And like I said, if you agree to talk to the man who sent me, he’s got something very interesting to tell you.”

  “Who is this man?” Carver demanded. “One of your leaders? Do you have leaders?” Kadka was curious about that too—the Silver Dawn protesters weren’t without some loose organization, but no one seemed to know much about their leadership.

  Still, Gurtle spoke to Kadka, though Carver was making more noise. “I can’t say more here. It’s your choice. Trust me, or don’t.”

  Carver scowled. “Why should we—”

  “I will go,” Kadka interrupted.


  “What?” Carver shot an alarmed look in her direction. “Kadka, think this through.”

  “Have,” said Kadka. “Don’t think murderer walks up to us in daylight with people everywhere. And I am not so easy to ambush.” She grinned. “Maybe this Mask tries, and I solve case before you are done watching senators argue.”

  Carver’s fingers dipped into his pocket to rub his watch case, and then he sighed. “I suppose if your mind is made up, I can’t stop you.” He smiled slightly. “This must be how Indree feels most of the time. Just… be careful. We don’t know what we’re up against yet.”

  “No promises,” Kadka said, and grinned wider at Carver’s answering groan. She turned to Gurtle. “Lead. I will follow.”

  Gurtle ducked under the cordon. From behind Kadka, the elven Mageblade at the gate yelled, “Hey! Protestors stay behind the—”

  “We’re just leaving, brassback!” Gurtle shouted back in a tone far less polite than she’d used with Kadka. She started back down Audlian’s Crossing away from the Citadel, and glanced over her shoulder. “Quick, before they decide to make an example.”

  Kadka followed her back across the bridge into the Citadel District, full of foreign embassies and offices for aides to the Senate houses. Humans and elves and ogren and gnomes strode along the streets with purpose, moving between important meetings and the like, and they all wore crisp, formal clothes. Not that she cared greatly, but Kadka’s roughspun shirt and tattered suspenders didn’t exactly fit in.

  “Is not far?” she asked, trying to get a sense of where they were going.

  “No,” Gurtle answered. “This way.” She turned off the busy street into a narrow alley.

  There was no one in sight, but Kadka’s ears were keen. She heard movement around the next corner. Maybe it was nothing, just someone taking a shortcut. But then, she was being led down a blind alley by a stranger.

  Maybe Carver had been right after all.

  “Why here? Office on street too expensive?” Ahead, the sound of footsteps ceased. Walking out of earshot, or going still to hide?

  “We aren’t always too welcome around the Citadel,” Gurtle said without looking back. “Better to keep out of sight.”

  “Ah. Makes sense.” And it did. Some. But still, Kadka’s hand went to the small of her back, where she had a knife hidden under her shirt.

  She could hear breathing around the corner as they drew near. Very faint, but unmistakable. Whoever had been moving there hadn’t gone away.

  Someone was waiting for her.

  And she was ready.

  Grinning wide, she followed Gurtle around the corner.

  Chapter Eight

  _____

  TANE’S FOOTSTEPS ECHOED along wide corridors as he followed an aide to the Senate chambers. The interior of the Brass Citadel was all broad white halls and elegantly framed artwork. It didn’t feel quite right. He’d never been inside before, but he’d assumed—however impractically—that it would be coated in brass inside as well as out.

  “Through here, Mister Carver,” said the aide—a dwarven woman working for House Stooke. She pushed open a large door at the end of the corridor and held it for him as he passed through.

  He found himself in a crowded gallery looking down over the Senate floor. Men and women in clothes much more expensive than his surrounded him, engaged in conversation on a variety of political topics and sipping drinks from fine crystal glasses. He recognized some, senators and diplomats and ambassadors, people with power and influence beyond what he could imagine—and more than a few whose names were on the list Endo had given him.

  People with access to both murder scenes.

  Several turned to look as he entered, and Tane felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The most powerful people in the Protectorate and any one of them could be the Mask. Maybe I’m doing exactly what I’m expected to do by coming here. Knowing the killer had intended to draw him and Kadka into the investigation made every action feel like part of someone else’s plan. It wasn’t a feeling he liked.

  “Mister—um, Tane!” Endo’s chair emerged from behind a gaggle of well-dressed elves standing to one side of the door. The young gnome raised a hand in greeting, and then glanced about curiously. “Where is Miss Kadka?”

  “Following another lead,” Tane said. “She… sends her regrets.” Astra, I wish she was here. Not just for his sake—he’d felt better when he could watch her back as much as the other way around.

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” Endo said.

  “Listen, Endo…” Tane hesitated before he went on. But it seemed everyone had already heard about the Emperor’s Mask taunting the Magebreakers—there was no point trying to hide it. “There’s something you should know. The killer left a message at the Rosepetal manor—”

  “For the Magebreakers.” Endo said. “I… heard about it.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything last night.”

  Endo shook his head. “No, no. I didn’t tell Mother either. She hasn’t left the house, so I don’t think she knows. She wouldn’t take it very well.”

  That wasn’t the reaction Tane had expected. “You aren’t angry?”

  “The Mask killed my brother, Tane.” A shadow passed over Endo’s face, and he ducked his head. “I… I just want him stopped. And I trust you and Miss Kadka to do it.”

  Tane wasn’t so certain, but he knew what it was like to lose someone, and to need some kind of answer for it. He’d spent years chasing one of his own. “I promise you,” he said, “we’ll do everything we can.”

  “I know you will,” said Endo. A moment’s silence, and then, “It’s going to be a little while. Do you want to have a look at the floor?” He wheeled his chair around and led Tane toward the edge of the balcony.

  Below, several rows of long curved tables sat in a half-circle facing the Lady Protector’s chair at the front of the room. A table for each of the twelve great houses of the Senate, and two seats at each table, for the senior and junior representatives of the house. The sizes varied wildly, from massive reinforced thrones for the ogren to tiny sprite chairs that sat atop their table rather than before it. A handful of aides hurried about distributing papers and testing voice-casting artifacts—palm-sized concave dishes before each seat, made of copper-lined brass at the end of adjustable stalks. The chairs were still empty. The Senate wouldn’t convene for a quarter hour still.

  “Not much to see yet, is there?” Tane said.

  “That depends on what you’re looking for.” A deep, powerful voice from behind. Tane turned to see a dark-haired dwarven man standing behind him, with long black mustaches over a beard streaked with grey. He stood some four and a half feet tall, and he was broad-shouldered beneath his fine black topcoat.

  Endo turned his chair around to look. “Senator Deepweld,” he said timidly. “This is Tane—”

  “I know who he is.” The senator thrust a thick-fingered hand out for Tane to shake, but he didn’t smile. “Tane Carver, Magebreaker. I’m Rulik Deepweld.”

  That was the top name on Endo’s list, the man Tane had come to see above the rest. Rulik Deepweld was both the head of House Deepweld and its senior senator, known for his strong pro-magical leanings. And maybe an insane murderer. But Tane looked him in the eye and shook his hand firmly. “A pleasure, Senator Deepweld.”

  Deepweld grunted. “Is it? I know why you’re here. Digging around after this ‘Mask’ in all the wrong places.” He glanced around, as if looking for someone. “I see you had the good sense not to bring the other one, at least. This isn’t the place.”

  Tane blinked. “The… other one? You mean Kadka?”

  Deepweld waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. The orc.”

  Before Tane could muster an answer, a grey-haired elven woman approached. “Try not to let Rulik offend you too badly, Mister Carver. He’s impossible to talk to otherwise.” She wore long blue robes with little other adornment; her hair was long and unbound, flowing around gracefully poi
nted ears and falling down her back. It was a look that might have seemed plain on someone else, but on her it presented as simple elegance.

  “Daalia,” Deepweld said with a curt nod.

  “Senator Audlian.” Endo bowed his head in greeting.

  This was Daalia Audlian, then—one of the most revered figures in Audish politics. House Audlian had been founded by Illuvar Audlian, the first Protector of the Realm, and Daalia had sat at its head for centuries. She’d retired as senior senator in favor of her younger cousin Saelis some years ago, but even retired senators retained their title.

  She was also another name on Endo’s list.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, senator,” Tane said.

  “Oh, the honor is mine,” said Daalia. “You and your partner are becoming quite famous of late. Particularly among the working class. I heard them shouting about you on my way in.” She turned to Endo. “I’m very sorry about your brother, Endo. Ulnod was well loved by everyone who knew him. A constant voice of compassion in a Senate often too preoccupied with politics.”

  Deepweld let out another grunt. “Ah. Yes. Naive, but… well-meaning. Condolences.”

  “Th… thank you both,” Endo said, his voice trembling. “That’s very kind.” He ducked his head—hiding tears, and not well.

  “Now, forgive me for eavesdropping, but I heard you speaking of the Mask,” said Senator Audlian, and Tane got the impression that she was changing the subject for Endo’s sake as much as anything. “Is that why you’re here, Mister Carver? Investigating?”

  “Kadka and I have been asked to look into it by the Stooke family,” Tane confirmed.

  “Well, I’m very curious to know what you’ve found,” she said. “My nephew Faelir has no magic—the first elvish candidate for Protector of the Realm in several centuries. As you can imagine, this situation is of grave concern to our house. We’ve already increased our security substantially.” That was probably an understatement—House Audlian was the oldest of the Senate houses, and their wealth could buy every sword in Thaless if they felt the need. They might be a tempting target for the Mask, but also perhaps the most difficult.