City of Masks (12 page)

Garet changed course and helped her towards the infirmary. He noticed Banes watching them pass and talking to each other in whispers. The story of a new and incredibly dangerous demon—and the aid of the mysterious masked figures—was spreading through the Hall. When they entered the room with its row of beds, one occupied by a sleeping Kesla, Tarix groaned with relief.

“Is it very bad?” Garet asked. He waved at Banerict, and the physician frowned when he saw whom he was supporting.

“Well, Kesla here might have saved my life, but she didn’t do this brace any favors. I’m afraid Dasanat will have to make a trip to hammer it back into shape.”

“Master, let me know when she is here, I have another project for her,” Garet said.

Tarix nodded, her face now drawn and pale.

After he lowered her onto a bed, and Banerict came to cluck and fuss over her injured leg, she pulled Garet down to a stool beside her.

“Now tell me what in Heaven’s name is going on.”

LATER THAT EVENING
, Garet repeated to Salick and his two roommates what he told Master Tarix.

“Claws,” Salick said. “The Duelist who came to the Hall with my late and unlamented cousin Draneck, she was the masked woman with the spear? But I thought they were all captured!”

Garet nodded. He had thought the Duelists safely imprisoned as well. The woman’s voice had tickled his memory, but something else made it all clear. In telling the events of the attack to Forlinect, he had suddenly remembered how the masked figures moved, just like the Duelists, gliding and keeping their weapons moving as if they were alive. Then he knew who the woman with the spear must be.

“She almost cut my throat!” Marick said. His fingers traced a thin scar along his right shoulder.

“Almost doesn’t help anyone,” Dorict observed. “But Salick’s right, weren’t the Duelists rounded up and put under Palace guard?”

Salick nodded. “I remember when they made that decision in the Ward Lords’ Council. Trax was there and Master Mandarack . . .”

She fell silent. Her lips made a thin line as if it were her last defense against weeping.

Garet put an arm around her shoulders. The night the two Duelists attacked the Hall was the same night Master Mandarack sacrificed himself to kill the Caller Demon.

“I’ve seen some on chain gangs in the fields,” Marick said, oblivious to the emotion in the room. “I always stop to chat with them, but I never saw her. I’d remember!”

“Chat or mock?” Dorict asked. He shook his head. “Well, do we know if their masks are made of silkstone?”

Garet reached into his vest pocket and drew out a sliver of stone and handed it to the younger Bane.

“This came off the mask of the one that got knocked down,” Garet said.

It had an oily sheen, and Dorict nodded as soon as he held it.

“Yes,” the Blue said, “it’s silkstone, the only thing that stops demon fear, but how can such a small mask protect them? It took a whole suit to do it before.”

“That was against the Caller Demon,” Garet reminded them. “And that monster cast a fear much more powerful than any other demon, even the one last night for all its size. These people have at least two jewels to play with now. Maybe they have a way of training non-Banes to withstand part of the fear, and then the mask takes care of the rest.”

“Half-Banes?” Salick asked. She seemed disgusted by the notion. “You know enough about the history of the Hall to realize that was tried centuries ago. In the beginning they were so desperate they would do anything to increase the number of Banes: children terrorized on purpose, torture and threats. Nothing worked. It can’t be done.”

Garet shrugged.

“Perhaps, but they didn’t know about silkstone. These people do. I don’t think they really are Banes. Not like us. After all, the masks make the difference. I saw one frozen in place when he turned his head away from the demon last night. His companions had to rescue him by turning him back around!”

“So we’re still better,” Marick said and grinned. “Which I already knew!” He took the piece of stone from Dorict and stared at it. “Why are they doing this?”

“They were not generous with their explanations,” Garet said. “The masked woman only said that they were the future of the city, and we were the past.”

Salick struck the mattress with her fist. “What a clawed lie!”

Garet sympathized. He had worked hard and sacrificed much to become a Bane. And now, according to this masked Duelist, it had all been for nothing. Like Salick, he would not believe it.

“Well, whatever she means by that, it is not the question I want answered first. What I want to know is where did they get enough silkstone for at least ten masks and a box to hold demon jewels?”

They brooded on that particular question for some time before Dorict spoke up.

“Lord Andarack has not responded to any of my messages. Is there any way you two can approach him and ask about it?”

“Walk up to the Lord’s House in the Eighth Ward and demand answers, all without an official Banehall reason to be there?” Salick asked. From the height her eyebrows reached, it was obvious she didn’t require an answer.

“So what do we do then?” Marick asked.

Salick raised a hand in protest, but Garet intervened.

“Salick, it will be a great help to the Hall if we can find out something about these . . . Masks, for lack of a better word. Anything we discover will of course be passed along to our Masters immediately.”

Salick considered this for a moment and then nodded her head. “All right, as long as this is on your own time and doesn’t interfere with your regular duties.”

“Of course. I’ll pass on everything to Tarix, and she can inform the Hallmaster.”

“And I’ll do the same with Master Bandat,” Salick said. She eyed the two Blues sitting on the bed opposite.

“These two don’t have a Master yet. To whom are they supposed to report?”

Marick hopped off the bed and curtsied. “Why, to you, of course, Master Salick,” he said in a cloyingly sweet voice.

With a short good-bye to Dorict and Garet, and none at all to Marick, Salick took her leave. It was late, and Bandat’s team was on day patrol, alternating between roving the fields and the Wards.

As soon as she was gone, Marick curtsied again, this time to Garet.

“Don’t worry, we’ll report to you as well,” he simpered.

“Imagine my joy,” Garet replied, “though you may find nothing at all.”

“Oh, I’ll find something. I already know where to look.”

Dorict had stripped off his tunic and was preparing to blow out the room’s single candle. He paused and looked at his friend.

“Would it make any difference if I told you not to do anything stupid?” he asked his fellow Blue.

Marick looked wounded, but did not answer.

TWO DAYS LATER
, a kitchen boy brought a message up to Garet’s room. It was from Barick, the new City Historian, asking if Garet would please bring any records concerning the founding of the Shirath Banehall to him after the mid-day meal, in the Stewards School. The paper was soft and the writing elegant. On the envelope was the broken seal of the Palace.

Someone had obviously read this request before it reached Garet, and he guessed who it might have been. A little later, another messenger, this one a harried-looking Green, found Garet in the infirmary. He was sitting with Tarix and discussing the strategies of the fight with the “Tunneler Demon,” as it was being called by many in the Hall.

“I think we hit upon the best method,” Tarix said around a mouthful of buttered bread. “Distract it and then attack with as many Banes as possible.”

Her leg was much better, and Garet thought she might be staying in the infirmary just to annoy the Hallmaster.

“But with what?” Garet asked. “They used big swords to chop at its back legs. Do we even have swords in the Hall? As for our other weapons, axes might work, but clubs and flails were useless, and even your trident couldn’t pierce the beast’s hide.” He saw the Green waiting at the door and looked at Tarix.

She waved her over and held up a hand to stop her from launching into the message.

“We’ll just have to use sharper points. That friend of yours with the spear did some damage. What is it, Dalesta?”

The Green sketched a quick bow. “Garet’s wanted, Master Tarix. The Hallmaster wants him right away in the records office,” she said, and wiped her nose with a handkerchief.

“Another cold? You have to train more to build up your lungs, Green. All right, take him away, and I’ll have a word with your Master—that’s Taron, isn’t it? Maybe he’ll let you train with me a bit.”

Dalesta managed to express both gratitude and terrified anticipation in her farewell bow, and led Garet to the front of the Banehall.

The records room, where Branet had interrogated Garet the day before, was a rat’s nest of leaning bookcases, untidy stacks of scrolls, record books, and mismatched chairs that each had its own hill of paper growing out of the seat. Anyone entering for the first time would doubt that a single, needed piece of information could be retrieved from such chaos, but if one gave the ancient Records Master, Arict, a request, and time enough for her to shuffle through the narrow alleys of the room muttering to herself, she would bring back anything required.

“The earliest records of the Hall,” Branet was roaring at the old woman, not in anger but in necessity, for she was more than half deaf.

Garet lingered by the door while she wandered off, scratching the wisps of gray hair falling loose over her wrinkled vest. Two Blues followed her, ready to assist if needed.

“You, Garet, come here,” Branet said, at a slightly reduced volume. “You are to take these records . . .” and here one of the Blues dropped a pile of scrolls on the desk in front of the Hallmaster, “. . . and deliver them to this Barick person. You will then . . .” he moved back as another stack of paper joined the first, “. . . come back and report directly to me what happened. Do you . . .” now Arict herself appeared with a third load, and Branet had to grab the pile before it tumbled on to the floor, “. . . understand?” he finished through gritted teeth.

Garet rushed over to help him, but as Arict kept sending out more scrolls and mouldy ledgers, it became obvious that one person could not carry them all. Branet told him to find help and get back to the Hall as soon as possible so as not to neglect his “more fitting” duties.

“Tarix is still unable to patrol,” he added, “so you will have to patrol with other Masters for now.”

Dorict was quite happy to be pulled out of a physical training class to help Garet. Marick was nowhere to be found, so he knocked on Salick’s door, hoping to turn this job into a chance to spend some time with her. Lately, their separated duties had limited their meetings to a few minutes in the evening, or a word of greeting on the stairs. Far too little contact, in Garet’s opinion.

Salick’s roommate Vinir answered the door. The young woman, Salick’s friend since she became a Bane, looked him over and smiled.

“I suppose it’s not me you want to see, is it?”

Garet shook his head, reddening. Vinir had been kind to him, and loyal to Master Mandarack. She did, however, know exactly how to tease him.

“Vinir!” a voice called from within the room, “don’t you have something less annoying to do?”

Salick came to the door, wearing her tunic but not the vest or sash, and elbowed Vinir out of the opening. Her friend retreated, chuckling.

The two faced each other, both flushed. Garet spoke first.

“The Hallmaster has allowed me and Dorict to take some records over to Barick. I was wondering if you would have time to help me . . . us.”

“If the Hallmaster has agreed . . . ,” Salick said, and abruptly turned and went back into the room. In a moment she returned, in full uniform, with her trident held tightly in one hand.

They walked to the front hall and waited while Salick found Bandat and asked permission to leave her duties for the day. When she returned, Dorict and Garet had secured the pile of records in three separate baskets with shoulder straps, which were used to bring firewood into the Hall’s kitchens. Salick took up the first without speaking, and they left the Hall.

“Bandat wasn’t angry with you, was she?” Garet asked after much time passed in silence.

“No,” Salick said. “It’s just that she . . . well, she laughed and thought I was asking just so I could spend some time with you!”

Is that such a bad thing
, he wanted to ask her, but kept silent for many steps. He knew that Salick’s whole life, at least before she met him and they fell in love, revolved around the Banehall. Whether he liked it or not, she sometimes saw him as a distraction to her duties, a distraction that must be contained, controlled, and kept at an unfortunate distance.

She saw his somber look and shoved him with her shoulder, both hands occupied with a basket full of scrolls.

“Don’t frown so!” she said. “I want to be with you. I just wish the entire Banehall didn’t find who I . . . love so interesting.”

She smiled at him, and he would have kissed her despite the daylight and the people passing, but the baskets and their burden of ancient knowledge were barriers too unwieldy for passion to overcome. They satisfied themselves with soulful looks into each other’s eyes and occasionally stepping on the ever-patient Dorict’s heels.