City of Masks (16 page)

He rose from the tarp and stood beside her.

“Do you miss your family?” she asked, turning her gaze from the sky to the people hurrying back and forth in the Banehall Plaza. They were moving streams of colour, swirling in momentary eddies around a dropped basket or a friendly greeting.

“Not my father,” Garet said with a sincerity that made her laugh. “But my mother and sister, yes. It helps to know they are in the Banehall at Bangt. My mother is a cook there, or so Master Boronict said in a letter that took half the winter to find me. She wrote a short note too, telling me if I found my heart in Shirath to stay here, and she would be happy.”

He took her hand and pulled her into his arms, leaving no doubt as to what he had found in Shirath. Reluctantly, Salick pulled free.

“I should really return to my room and rest. I was out in the western fields all morning with Bandat, and now on a night patrol as well, thanks to you, I’m sure.”

“Rest here,” Garet suggested, unwilling to end so soon the pleasure of seeing her. “We can sleep right here. It’s warm enough, and then we can go down to dinner together.”

It did not take much more persuasion, and they both sat down and leaned against the parapet, the tarp giving them some comfort, and their closeness giving them much more.

GARET WAS SHAKEN
out of another desperate dream. He had been facing his hidden opponent again, but when he opened his eyes, the sky was stone-grey and the first stars were out. Dorict stood over them, alternatively shaking Garet and Salick. Salick realized what was happening first. She jumped up and stared at the sky.

“Claws! We’ll be late for patrol. Come on! I’ll meet you at the front door after I get my trident.”

She was off then and down the trap-door stairs before Garet was fully awake.

Dorict pulled him upright. “You heard her, come on! You have no time at all, so let’s get your weapon and splash some water on your face. Tarix sent me to look for you!”

Garet was running down the front stairs to the door when he heard a clattering behind him and saw Salick a few steps behind. Tarix and Ratal were waiting for them by the door, along with the other two Greens who looked to Tarix, Aralon and Riga, both of whom grinned when they saw Garet sprinting up to his Master.

“Well,” Tarix said, breaking off her conversation with Ratal, “both late and both arriving together? What shall we make of this?”

Ratal shook his head. He still bore Kesla’s flail, as if he wanted to maintain her presence on the team even though she was still in the infirmary.

“You’re late,” he said, unecessarily.

“Yes, we know, Ratal,” Tarix said. She waved the others out the door.

“Sorry, Master,” Garet said, trying to catch his breath after a number of minutes entirely taken up with running. Salick stood beside him, equally flustered.

“I’m sorry as well, Master Tarix. And as for both of us arriving together, that’s just a . . .”

“Coincidence?” Tarix asked. “Lots of those around these days.”

“The truth is we both fell asleep,” Garet said, then reddened.

“Separately,” Salick was quick to add.

“Ah, to be young and doze while the world burns,” Tarix replied, raising her eyes to Heaven. “Come on then. Let’s hope this new brace can stand whatever is out there waiting for us.”

“Have there been more attacks, Master?” Garet asked. He pulled his tunic and sash into some kind of order as he walked after her. Behind him, Salick was doing the same thing.

“Two this afternoon,” Tarix said, all playfulness gone from her tone. “Different times, different Wards. A Rat and a Shrieker, so they were easily dealt with. But we were lucky patrols were nearby in both cases or there would have been deaths.”

They caught up with Ratal and the Greens. Aralon was arguing with Ratal. The squat Bane was holding up his axe and making chopping motions.

“Look, I’m just saying that if we get a big one tonight, let me get behind it and hack its legs like the Masks did. That’s what worked, wasn’t it?”

Ratal rolled his eyes and looked at Tarix. The Red replied for him.

“The Masks were lucky that the demon was distracted by us first, so they could launch a surprise attack on it. As I’ve told you before, many times now that I think of it, everything depends on the circumstances of an encounter. Your idea might work one night, but what happens on the next when the demon charges before you’re ready or stands inconveniently with its backside to a wall?”

Riga pushed Aralon into motion with the butt end of her spear.

“Listen and learn,” she told him. “Or at least listen.”

Like Kesla, whom she idolized, Riga kept her hair short and practiced with the single mindedness of a demon herself. Even better, she was cool in a battle, and followed orders like she was already a Gold.

“Good advice,” Ratal proclaimed, stroking his moustache, and Salick hid a smile under one hand.

Tarix held up a hand. “The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Wards tonight, and on primary patrol, not a sweep, so check every gate and note any left unsecured.”

They left the Banehall Plaza and were soon in the Sixth Ward. Between the smell of horses from the barns near the Outer Wall, and the pungent aroma of ointments and medicines from the Physicians School near the Inner Wall, many called this the smelliest Ward in the city.

“I’ll be glad to get out of here,” Aralon said as they prepared to leave the Ward. “Have you ever smelled anything worse?”

“Yes,” Garet and Salick said together.

The Seventh Ward was less fragrant but just as quiet as the Sixth. Candles and lanterns showed in windows, but the noise of the city was fading into the drowsiness of evening. As summer approached, many of Shirath’s citizens would linger outside while the light lasted longer, crowding the Plazas and the rooftops to enjoy the weather and each other’s company. For now, Garet was happy to walk the near empty streets and feel no touch of unnatural fear.

The Seventh Ward completed, they passed through the Inner Gate of the Eighth Ward and soon neared Lord Andarack’s house. Tarix summoned Ratal to her side.

“Take Aralon and Riga and make the patrol on the west side of the Ward. Garet, Salick, and I will patrol in this area.”

Ratal puffed his chest out, called his inferiors to follow him and “look lively!” Riga cast a look of obvious appeal to her Master, but Tarix had already turned to the remaining two.

“Let’s check inside the Lord’s House, shall we?” she said, and walked up to the courtyard gate and rang the bell. Andarack himself answered with no guard in sight. Wordlessly, he led them into the great hall, much cleaner and more orderly than the last time Garet had seen it. The tables and chairs were actually free of spark containers, model engines, stacks of plans and books, and even the forge on the Lord’s dais had two rather elegant chairs placed in front of it.

“Congratulations on your coming wedding, Lord Andarack,” Salick said. “I take it the wedding feast will be held here?”

“Yes,” Andarack replied. “Much to my bride’s dismay, I might add. She has chosen the earliest date the astrologers could give us so that she might get her workspace back!”

“I’ll add my best wishes to the ones I gave Dasanat earlier,” Tarix said. She looked around the room. They were alone.

“Lord Andarack, I need to have a conversation with these two, and I want you present, as long as you promise to keep this secret, even from any higher power who might want you to speak.”

“I can do that, Tarix. I’ll say nothing, though I have no love of conspiracies, indeed, I think all this should be out in the open so people may see the danger we’re in, but that is not my decision.”

“No sweet words in your love’s ear, either,” Tarix added, smiling at the embarrassed man.

“Please, Tarix. No more teasing! Besides, our conversations are much more . . . practical than that.”

Garet could hardly keep from laughing at this, but he liked the older man too much to prod him further.

Tarix must have thought so too, for she said, “Thank you for your discretion, Lord Andarack. I think we had better start, since Ratal will not be long in returning.”

She signaled them all to sit and turned to Garet.

“I’ve already heard too much for my nerves, but much of it has been second hand or worse. It’s time to get it all straight. Garet, tell us all what you told me this morning and add anything you might have left out.”

Garet did so, outlining the meeting with the King and Andarack and the attack on their team the other night. At the end of his tale, he hesitated.

Tarix was quick to notice. “What else? Clearly you have something more to say.”

“Perhaps it’s nothing, Master, but two or three times before the Tunneler Demon’s attack, I felt I was being watched, maybe followed, by a stranger hidden under a grey cloak.”

“Was it that Mask, the one who seems to hate you so?”

Garet nodded. “I think it must be, though I don’t know why she is so . . . obsessed with me?”

“An admirer?” Andarack inquired innocently, getting some of his own back. “Perhaps she’s just attracted to you.”

“Hard to understand,” Tarix said, “how she could be in love and still want to kill him.”

“That part’s easy to understand,” Salick said, under her breath, then aloud, “Master Tarix, with both this and the increase in demons, the Hall is in a riot already. If these Masks continue to . . . interfere, there will be blood, and not just demon blood, on the streets!”

“True,” Tarix said, “which means the King must find and stop these Masks as soon as possible. Lord Andarack, does Garet’s account agree with what you know?”

Andarack stood. “Yes, Tarix, it does, and adds to it! As for the King, he will act. You have my word on that. Trax knows how delicate the balance of the city is. How could he not after the events of last winter? But what of these demon attacks? Are they a natural fluctuation or an aberration?”

Tarix scratched her head. “If I take your meaning right, they are the second one of those. No record in our Hall speaks of a similar increase. I can tell you that the Masters think it is the work of another Caller Demon, one who stays hidden this time and works from the shadows.”

“The other Caller could control only two other demons at a time,” Salick said. She reached out to where she had placed her trident on the table beside her, as if the very mention of that beast would conjure it in the room.

“And we have felt the demons approach,” she added. “The Caller was able to mask their fear until they were upon us.”

“These attacks come singly, though close together,” Garet reminded her, “and perhaps not all demons of that type are able to hide their fear. So it could be a Caller Demon, except . . .”

“What?” Salick said, turning to him. Her face was drawn, and he knew that she was envisioning the death of Mandarck at the Caller’s claws, the old Bane’s shield piercing the thing’s throat as his own chest was cut to bits.

He was seeing the same thing in his mind.

“I think we don’t see the demons as they really are,” he said.

There was a puzzled silence in the room. Andarack looked at him, head cocked to one side. Tarix leaned over and tapped his knee.

“Well then, how should we see these murderous fiends?” she asked. There was no humor in her voice, and Garet remembered that she had spent a life longer than his fighting the creatures and still endured the pain of that struggle.

Garet steeled himself and answered, “As a weapon, Master.”

Silence again.

He pushed on, ready at last to say what had been building in him in all the months he had been in Shirath. Beginning as mere intuition, the dreams he had had the last two days had turned that into a definite belief.

“I’ve talked to many people in the city, both in the Hall and outside it, and everyone accepts the demons as something as natural as bad weather and broken hearts. Nobody wonders what caused them to attack the South and now the Midlands. I’ve studied many of the ancient records, even the writings of such early Hallmasters as Moret and Sharict—even they didn’t know! All their energies were used in fighting them, not understanding them.”

“So it still is now,” Andarack said. He poured four glasses of wine from a bottle on the table and handed the drinks around. “It is to Trax’s credit—I’m sorry, Salick, but it is—that he supports me in my study of the creatures. Because of that, we know something of the nature of the demons’ jewels and perhaps how to counter them. But tell me, Garet, how would knowing the cause of them help us?”

Garet sipped before answering. It gave him time to order his thoughts.

“We might see what hand is behind these attacks and be able to strike at their source. I think that source must be a person. The Caller was clever, but not clever enough to coordinate every demon attack in Shirath, let alone the other four cities of the South and the entire Midlands! It acted on the basest of instincts, nesting, as it did in the Banehall at the end, and attacking those that harmed it, which is why it followed me to Shirath after I blinded it in one eye on my way here.”

Tarix stared at him and indicated he should continue. Salick’s face was still as a stone mask, but at least she was listening.