Masks (4 page)

That wasn’t a comforting thought. Mara hadn’t seen Mayson again since the day a month ago when they had sat together on the wall, watching the Autarch pass beneath them. Whatever it was that the Testers looked for in Watchers, Mayson must have had it: the very day he had been Tested, he had (Mara had heard secondhand) moved out of his parents’ house, accompanied by much shouting and cursing from his father, and climbed up the hill to the Palace and the barracks of the Watchers which nestled inside its outer wall. Though he would not receive his black Mask for another two years, his training had already begun.

The Autarch had found a use for
him
, and Mara wondered if she’d ever see him again.

What would happen to her if she saw a different color of magic than the one that would allow her to fulfill her dream of being her father’s apprentice?

The door to the Testing chamber swung open, and Tester Tibor stepped out, lips curled in a smile behind the mouth opening of his yellow Mask. “Come in, Mara, come in.”

Mara let go of her father’s hand and stepped into the darkened room. Everything was just as she remembered, except the pedestal on which the bowl of magic rested seemed much shorter.

“Now,” said Tester Tibor. “Ready?”

Mara nodded.

The Tester lifted the lid of the basin.

Mara stared into it, heart beating fast, and her breath caught in her throat.

“Which color is strongest?” Tester Tibor said.

Mara didn’t know how to answer. She’d been frightened she wouldn’t see the red-gold of Enchantment, the color that would mean she could be a Maskmaker. She’d worried that her Gift would have faded, as they sometimes did, so that although she might be able to see magic, she wouldn’t be able to make much use of it: that was, after all, what had happened to her mother, whose Mask of pale blue proclaimed her to be Gifted with Healing, but whose Gift was so weak she could do nothing with it and thus had not been called upon to use it in the service of the Autarch.

What had never occurred to her, because she had never heard of such a thing, was that she would see
exactly what she had seen as a six-year-old
: the basin filled with seething, swirling colors, every color of the rainbow and every combination between, breathtakingly beautiful . . . but
wrong
. At thirteen, she was only supposed to be able to see one color, maybe two.
Is something wrong with me?

“Go on,” the Tester said. “You can tell me.”

Mara swallowed. She thought her heart might burst right out of her chest, it was pounding so hard. She knew she should tell Tester Tibor the truth, but what would that mean to her dream of being her father’s apprentice?

Faced with the rainbow maelstrom of colors, she thought back to what her father had said . . . and lied. “Red,” she said. “Well, more like an orangey red. Red-gold, I guess you’d call it?”
It’s not a
total
lie
, she thought.
I
can
see those colors.

Just a lot of others, too.

“Excellent,” the Masker repeated, making a mark in a small leather-bound notebook. “And as I expected. These things usually run true.”

“My father is hoping . . . I can be apprenticed to him,” Mara said. Her heart was pounding.
He’s going to figure out I’m lying. He’s going to find out . . .

“Pre-apprenticed, certainly,” Tester Tibor said. “Of course, it may still be that you do not have the Gift in strong enough measure, something which cannot be determined until you are Masked and allowed to start using magic yourself. But you answered with such confidence, I think that’s unlikely.” He gave her a big smile, teeth flashing behind his Mask. “Congratulations.”

Mara managed a small smile, though she thought she might be sick. She turned and went out to join her father, who was waiting in the hallway.

“A happy result all around, Charlton,” Tester Tibor said to him. “You have a new apprentice!”

Her father whooped and gathered Mara up in a huge bear hug. Mara hugged him back, but inside her mind wailed,
What’s wrong with me?

It wasn’t too late. She could still tell the Tester the truth, tell her
father
the truth. She knew that was what she
should
do. But then she thought of the Autarch, trailed by the silent Child Guards, the Autarch who could snatch her away from her father tomorrow if it would suit his purposes, and she said nothing.

“Let’s go home and tell your mother,” her father said, and she nodded mutely, took his hand, and left the Place of Testing.

Changes

M
ARA’S MOTHER WAS AS THRILLED
as her father had been by the apparent success of her Test, and cooked a special celebratory dinner of fresh fish and mashed redroots. Mashed redroots were Mara’s favorite food in the whole world, and yet they tasted like ashes in her mouth that night. She didn’t like lying to her parents. But she didn’t dare tell them the truth.
I’m just late developing my true Gift
, she thought. She glanced down at her flat chest.
Just like I’m late developing, period. It will come. And when it does, I’m sure I’ll see red-gold, just like I said. The Gift runs true in our family. My father said so.

Still, she had trouble sleeping that night, and as a result, overslept. Late the next morning she came yawning down the stairs in her thin nightdress to find a Watcher standing like a shadow on the landing by her father’s workshop. Her heart skipped a beat.
He knows I lied to the Tester!
But though the Watcher’s blank black Mask turned toward her, eyes glittering behind the eyeholes, mouth set in a stern frown, he said nothing. She hurried past him, feeling naked. At the bottom of the stairs she glanced back. He was still staring at her.

She went about making breakfast for herself, heart still beating fast, listening for the heavy tread of the Watcher’s feet on the stairs, but he stayed where he was. It wasn’t until she was holding two slices of bread on a toasting fork over the fire that he descended, and he wasn’t alone: with him came a woman wearing flowing white robes and a Mask of green. She had no idea what kind of Gift that represented.

The two passed into the front room without a word to her, and a moment later she heard the door open and close, releasing them into the street. She breathed a sigh of relief, pulled the hot toast from the fork, and was sitting at the table spreading butter and jam when her father came down the stairs. He wasn’t wearing his Mask, though she knew he would have donned it while the visitors were in the house. She frowned up at him. “I didn’t expect to run into a Watcher on my way to breakfast!” she said accusingly.

Her father laughed. “Special delivery,” he said. “I ran short of magic last week. A lot of Gifted to make Masks for.” He smiled down at her, blue eyes twinkling in the early morning sunlight streaming through the window above the sink. “Masks you’ll soon be helping me to make.”

Feeling a pang of lingering guilt, Mara took a big bite of jammy toast and pushed the plate bearing the other slice toward her father. He waved it off. “No, thanks, I already ate.” He sat down across from her and watched her.

“What?” she said nervously, uncomfortably guilty under that gaze.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just thinking how wonderful it will be to have my beautiful daughter as my apprentice, and how relieved I am everything worked out all right.”

She gave him a shocked look. “You said both you and Tester Tibor were
sure
I’d see red-gold!”

He grinned at her. “I might have been a little more reassuring than I was assured,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “I admit that I did worry a
little
bit that you might not have the right kind of Gift.”

Mara felt another pang of guilt, but she said nothing.
It’ll turn out all right
, she told herself.
It has to
.

“I’m already thinking about
your
Mask,” her father continued. “I know it’s still two years away, but . . . well, I want it to be special. Copper for a Maskmaker, of course. But for decoration . . .” He frowned in thought.

“It’s strange to think that in two more years I’ll be wearing a Mask,” Mara said.

Her father smiled at her. “Scared?”

“A little.” Mara wiped crumbs from her mouth with the back of her hand. “I mean . . . what if it . . . changes me? I like who I am. I don’t want to be someone different.”

Her father sat down across from her and leaned forward, forearms on the table. “It won’t,” he said seriously. “The Masks don’t change you. They just show what’s inside you. The magic that’s put into them—that
I
put into them, on behalf of the Autarch, and once you are Masked, you will, too—protects us all. You’ve learned all this in school.”

“Because of the Rebellion,” Mara said. She closed her eyes and recited from memory, thinking that Tutor Ancilla would be proud—and probably a little surprised—to hear her do so. But she really
did
pay attention . . . at least,
some
of the time. “And when the last of the traitors had been executed, the young Autarch made a decree: Henceforth all citizens of Aygrima would be Masked in all public places. For all the long years of the Rebellion powerful Gifted in the service of the Autarch had been secretly developing the magic of the Masks, and now at last they were perfected. Never again would the people of Aygrima suffer as they suffered during the Rebellion. Never again would innocent blood be shed by murderous traitors, for the Masks would reveal all traitorous thoughts to the Watchers, protectors of the people, trained to use their Gifts to read the message of the Mask. Those who would defy our great and benevolent Autarch in future would be discovered and punished before they could act on their traitorous impulses. Blessed be the Autarch. May he guide and protect us forever.” She opened her eyes again. “Did I get it right?”

“Perfect,” her father said.

“Can the Watchers
really
do that?” she asked. “See what you’re thinking?” She thought about Mayson.
Will he someday be able to read my mind?
It was an odd and unsettling thought.

“Not exactly,” her father said. “As I understand it, it’s more . . . they get a . . . a sense that certain people may be a danger to the regime.” He shrugged. “To tell the truth, Mara, I don’t know exactly
what
they see when they look at a Mask of someone who might threaten the Autarch. It’s a secret, as you’d expect. But whatever it is, if they see it, they will question the wearer of the Mask. If they don’t like what they hear . . . well.” He grimaced. “Then Traitors’ Gate awaits.”

Mara flinched. She couldn’t help it. She had been forbidden to ever go near Traitors’ Gate, which of course meant she’d sneaked up there with Sala, and she’d had several nightmares since involving naked, rotting corpses impaled on spikes. She had no intention of ever going back. The thought she might actually end up as one of those corpses . . . she shuddered.

Her father, though he didn’t know she’d been to Traitors’ Gate—at least, she
hoped
he didn’t—smiled reassuringly and put his hand on hers. “Now, now, you certainly don’t have to fear
that
.”

“I heard,” Mara said, wanting to change the subject, “that sometimes, if someone does something bad enough, the Mask just . . . shatters.”

Her father nodded. “Yes. An outright betrayal of the Autarch would do that. And sometimes, of course, a Masking fails. Almost never for the Gifted,” he hastened to add, squeezing her hand. “But sometimes, someone has something wrong, inside, something that makes them bad, or makes them a threat to themselves and others. And the Mask . . . the Mask knows. It refuses to attach itself to that person’s face. And he or she becomes one of the unMasked, and we don’t see them again.” His face turned grim for a moment. She could tell there was something he wasn’t telling her—she could read his face like one of her schoolbooks—but then he forced a smile and squeezed her hand even harder. “But none of this is anything to worry about. As beautiful as you are, inside and out, your Mask will always be beautiful, too, to anyone who sees it, from the lowliest peasant all the way up to the Autarch.”

Mara smiled at him, but inside she quailed.
And what happens to someone who lied to the Tester about the magic they saw?

It wasn’t a question she could ever ask.

It will be all right
, she told herself again.
It will be all right
.

It has to be.

···

On the night before Sala’s fifteenth birthday and Masking, with three months to go until her own, Mara, naked and giggling, shouted to Sala, “Race you to the other side!” and dove into the reflecting pool in the courtyard behind the Waterworkers’ Hall. She had a good two lengths’ advantage over her friend when she started, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Sala pulling even with her, long limbs flashing in the moonlight, and by the time they reached the other side, Sala was two lengths ahead. Sala pulled herself out, dripping, and turned to sit on the edge of the pool. In the dim light, her red hair looked black. “Hurry up, slowpoke!” she called to Mara as she finally reached the edge, too. Mara lifted herself up, and sat on the marble ledge that surrounded the pool, the stone cold under her bare bottom even though the night was so warm she felt no chill on the rest of her body.

She sighed. Her body was the reason she couldn’t beat Sala at swimming, or running, or much of anything else. Oh, her face was pretty enough, she thought—she hoped—at least, boys did take a second look at her in the street. But she was still short and rather . . . she glanced down . . . flat. Sala, on the other hand, was, well,
statuesque
was the word Mara supposed applied. Certainly there were strong similarities between Sala’s current appearance, nude and shining, and some of the statues along Processional Boulevard, which led from the main gate of the city up to the Palace.

“Are you scared about your Masking tomorrow?” Mara asked. She kicked at the water, splashing it up in shining silver sheets.

“No,” Sala said. She gave Mara a grin. “At least I know I’ll have a beautiful Mask.”

Mara grinned back. “You’ll love it,” she assured her friend. She and her father had labored long and hard over it. Mara herself had carefully laid in place the silver filigree that traced twining vines along its gleaming white cheeks and forehead. In the almost two years since her Second Testing, she’d learned everything there was to know about the making of Masks except how to infuse them with magic. She would not learn that until after her own Mask was in place in six weeks’ time. Then she would be fully apprenticed to her father, and begin her adult life as a Maskmaker.

Assuming her Gift had finally settled, and assuming that Gift had run true, as her father had seemed so certain it would. She had not been allowed to see magic since her Second Testing.

What if she still saw all the colors? Or no colors?

She shivered. Suddenly she did feel a little cold, although the air remained as milk-warm as ever, unusually so even for late summer.

“Don’t worry,” Sala said. “We’ll still be friends. And you won’t be very far behind me, you know. In six weeks, I’ll be able to come to your Masking.”

“I wish I could come to yours,” Mara said, but she knew that was impossible: children were not allowed into the Maskery, the circular temple of white stone, topped with a golden dome, where the Masking ceremonies took place.

“I do, too,” Sala said. She shrugged. “But it really won’t change anything. It won’t change
me
. I’m not Gifted. I’ve already learned a lot about glassblowing. I’ll just keep learning and improving. All it means is I’ll have to wear my Mask whenever I go out.”

“No more sneaking out at night, though,” Mara said. She grinned at her friend, but she felt a strange pang. Tonight wasn’t the first time she and Sala had gone skinny-dipping in the Waterworkers’ pool, but it would be the last. It was a minor offense for a child to be caught out after curfew. For a Masked citizen . . .

For a Masked citizen, the consequences could be dire. Prison, or . . .

Mara shuddered.
Or Traitors’ Gate.

To be caught out after curfew
probably
wouldn’t earn a citizen a one-way trip to the gallows, but there were no guarantees. The one
certain
way to be sent there was to be caught out in public unMasked. From tomorrow on, Sala would never feel the outside air on her face, except in the closed and concealed courtyard of her own home.

“No, no more sneaking out,” Sala said. She shrugged. “But we have to grow up sometime.”

Mara looked down at herself again, and sighed. “That’s what they say.”

Sala stood up. “Race you again? I’ll spot you four lengths this time.”

Mara scrambled to her feet. “You’re on.” But before she could dive into the water, a voice—a male voice—boomed from behind them.

“Hold it right there!”

Both girls squealed and jumped into the water . . . from which they were hauled a few moments later by black-Masked Night Watchers who draped them in cloaks, handed them their clothes, and, once they were dressed, separated them and, silent and disapproving, took them to their own homes.

As she endured an endless lecture from her mother about how horribly embarrassed she was and how much disgrace Mara had brought on the family—“And your father the Master Maskmaker, at that!”—Mara’s main regret was that she hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye to Sala and wish her good luck in her Masking.

I’ll see her again soon
, she thought as she climbed the ladder to her attic room.
She’s just being Masked. It’s not like she’s dying.