Shadows (13 page)

And what would she feel from the Autarch himself, if her Gift were still her own? Would she recoil from him in horror . . . or would she suddenly see him as a kindred spirit?

Never
! she thought, but the question hung in her mind nonetheless as the Mistress of Magic led her forward, the Watcher remaining at the door of the throne room. They approached the throne, the impassive Masks of the Autarch and the Child Guard gazing at them, their footsteps echoing from the golden walls.

Fifteen feet from the throne, they stopped. The Mistress of Magic knelt on the marble floor. Mara, after a moment, followed suit, remembering that the man before them held not only her life but her father's life in his hands.

“Rise,” said the Autarch. His voice was higher-pitched than Mara had expected, but hard and cold as the northern ice. “I have considered your request, Mistress Shelra. You have told me that this prisoner has that most rare and precious Gift, the ability to see and use all colors of magic. You have urged me not to waste it, but to put it to the service of the Autarchy. You assure me you can train her in the use of her Gift and bend her to my will.” The Autarch shifted on his throne. Mara could not even see his eyes behind the Golden Mask: only black pits on either side of the Mask's finely crafted nose. The face on the Mask was incredibly handsome, stern, and wise. Mara wondered if the Autarch's real face looked like that—or ever had.

“Against that, I must consider the threat that she may pose,” the Autarch continued. “She has failed her Masking, and that means she can
never
be Masked. What assurance can you offer me that, once she knows how to use her Gift effectively, she will not turn it against us?”

“Her parents, Mighty One,” said the Mistress of Magic, and Mara jerked her head around to stare at her, an icy spike of fear driving into her brain. “She will cooperate with us, or her parents will pay the price. She will not put them in jeopardy.” Her gaze turned toward Mara. “Will you, girl?”

Mara could barely speak through the horror that choked her. “No,” she said. “No. I won't.”

The Mistress of Magic turned her crystal-Masked face back toward the Autarch. “I will supervise her training myself. The responsibility will be mine.”

The Autarch drummed the fingers of his right hand on the arm of his chair for a long moment, studying Mara through the blank black eyeholes of his Mask. “Remove her Mask,” he said suddenly.

Mara heard Shelra gasp. “Mighty One, I don't think—”

“I am not asking you to think,” he said. “I am not
asking
you anything. I am
commanding
you. Obey!”

Shelra stiffened, but bowed. “Yes, Mighty One.” She came over to Mara. “Try anything, and you die,” she murmured.

Mara hardly heard her. Her eyes were locked on the Autarch, her heart in her throat. She had wondered what she would sense in him if her magic were restored to her . . . but now she realized that the more important question was what he would sense in her. Would he be able to tell at once the full extent of her power? She had not been able to hide from the Masker and the Mistress of Magic that she could see all colors of magic, but they had not detected her far more dangerous—to her, and to everyone else—ability to draw magic to herself, both from the black lodestone that attracted it and directly from living humans. It was that ability, the ability she shared with the Autarch and with his old enemy The Lady of Pain and Fire, that truly made her a threat, and if the Autarch decided she was a threat . . .

She swallowed.

Shelra walked over to the stone basin at the Autarch's right hand, and dipped her right hand into it. Then she returned to Mara. She touched the iron Mask, then raised her other hand to it and drew the Mask away from Mara's face.

And instantly, Mara felt the Autarch's attack.

The breath whooshed from her lungs as invisible, insistent fingers scrabbled inside her head, trying to get at her magic, trying to pull it to the man on the Sun Throne, the man she sensed, not by the presence of magic, as she did the Watchers, Shelra, and the Child Guard, but by the
absence
of magic . . . no, that wasn't right, by what she could only think of as
negative
magic: for the Autarch, in her restored magical senses, felt to her like a greedy, sucking hole, an insatiable pit trying to pull all magic to itself, including hers.

And yet . . . that pull was far weaker than the pull she knew
she
could exert.
I'm stronger than he is
, she thought in mixed excitement and horror.
I
am
stronger than the Autarch!

And if I use my power . . . I could end up just like him. A black, sucking, greedy, desperate monster, feeding on others . . . feeding on children.

She could feel him doing just that, pulling magic to himself from the Child Guard: a flow of magic greater than their bodies could easily replace, a horrifying violation. She could even feel the faint, oh-so-very-faint flow of magic to him from the recently Masked, those whose Masks were made to the new recipe that had convinced her father he had to act to protect her, even if that act put in her in terrible danger of another sort.

But he was too weak to pull
her
magic, however much he might want it. That horrifying sense of someone inside her mind, trying to steal a part of herself, made her feel sick to her stomach—and so, without doing anything consciously, she simply . . . stopped it. He could not have her magic, because she would not give it: and he did not have the strength to take it from her against her will.

Nor, she thought, with an almost giddying sense of relief, did he have the power to learn just how strong her own ability to pull magic to herself was. Those nasty scrabbling magical fingers never penetrated her mind deeply enough to learn anything more than that she had magic—and he could not get at it.

How will he react?
Mara stared up at the man on the Sun Throne. His golden Mask, of course, remained as impassive as ever. What her own face betrayed, she did not know. But after what seemed an eternity but must only have been a few seconds, the insistent but futile attack on her defenses ended. She heard a sharp intake of breath from the Autarch. He had been leaning forward in his throne; now he sat back again with a nonchalance she was sure must be feigned. “Put the Mask on her again.”

Shelra hurried forward, and the cold iron once more touched and then clung to Mara's face. Her Gift vanished again, causing her to gasp in turn. The loss of it seemed even worse after a brief taste of its restoration.

The half-Mask once more settled, Shelra turned back toward the Autarch. The golden Mask turned toward her. “Very well,” the Autarch said. “Train her as you will. But I want full reports, and I will also call her to myself from time to time to test her further.” He leaned forward again. “And remember this, Mistress Shelra. She is, as you say,
your
responsibility. And I charge you—if you believe she is a threat to the Autarchy, if you have the slightest hint that she poses such a threat, you will inform me and Guardian Stanik at once—or face punishment yourself.”

“I understand, Mighty One,” said the Mistress of Magic.

The Autarch flicked a gloved hand. “Then go. You are both dismissed from my presence.”

Mistress Shelra took Mara's arm, turned her, and led her from the throne room. Mara, head down, staring at the floor as she walked, imagined she felt the Autarch's eyes burning into her back, along with the eyes of all the Child Guard.

They reached the door of the throne room. Mara raised her head. The Watcher stood there. Beyond him stood two more Watchers, flanking a third man, his head lowered, his hands bound behind his back. Mara glanced at him, wondering what crime he had committed . . .

...and then gasped as he raised his head, and for one moment, before she was forced on her way down the corridor, her gaze locked onto the startled, wide blue eyes of Chell.

Delving into Mysteries

M
ARA HARDLY NOTICED her surroundings as the Watcher and the Mistress of Magic led her down hallways and stairs to yet another wing of the Palace. Between her encounter with the Autarch and the sudden appearance of Chell, she had much to think about: but despite what she had felt from the Autarch (and his intention to keep bringing her into his presence, no doubt to continue to try to pull her magic to himself), it was Chell to whom her thoughts turned the most.

Clearly he, too, had been taken prisoner—and just as clearly they knew he was not from Aygrima, or he would be in the dungeons at best or swinging outside Traitors' Gate at worst. Instead, he was awaiting an audience with the Autarch. So what had he told the Watchers—or was about to tell the Autarch?

He doesn't know how to find the Secret City by land
, she told herself.
Edrik saw to that.

But he could find it again by sea
, she argued back.
And if he is now bargaining for his life—or the needs of his own people—with the Autarch—he will need something to bargain with. And what better item of barter than the knowledge of a secret conspiracy against the Autarch . . . and where to find it?

In that moment, she wished she'd left him to die on the frozen beach.

She began paying more attention to where she was as they descended once more into the warren of corridors and rooms underneath the Palace . . . at least two stories underground this time, Mara thought, maybe more. The temperature dropped, and Mara shivered as their footsteps echoed along a long corridor unmarked by doors or anything else except flickering torches in periodic wall sconces.

At the end of the corridor stood a heavy black door. Mistress Shelra unlocked it with a key she drew from a pouch at her belt, swung it inward, stepped through, then turned and nodded to the Watcher. The Watcher propelled Mara through the door, then, remaining in the hall, closed and locked it, leaving her alone with the Mistress of Magic.

Mara stared around at a high-ceilinged room easily as large as the entire first floor of her father's house. A small fire flickered in the hearth set in the far wall, but did little to warm or light the chill, cavernous space. Two plain wooden chairs flanked the hearth. Two more chairs sat by a round table just inside the door to the right: but the centerpiece of the room, drawing Mara's gaze like a magnet draws iron, was a basin of black stone on a pedestal, its round top covered by a heavy wooden lid.

Magic!

The Mistress of Magic stood by that basin, facing her. “This room is shielded,” Shelra said. “Walls, door, floor, ceiling, hearth. Magic cannot enter or escape it. This is where we train the most powerful of the Gifted who serve the Autarch . . . such as yourself.”

Serve the Autarch
, Mara thought. The thought sat in her mind like a lump of cold lead.
Serve the Autarch . . . or my parents pay the price.

“This is where you will pass your days, until I deem your training complete . . . however many days or weeks or months—or years—that may take. And then we will put you to use.” Her eyes, dark behind her crystalline Mask, regarded Mara steadily. “I have suggested to Guardian Stanik and the Autarch, and both are agreed, that it is time we took steps to hunt down and destroy all these troublesome bandits in the Wild. As their attack on the mining camp shows, they have become too strong. You will be a valuable tool in that effort.”

The lump of lead in her mind suddenly became even heavier and colder.

“Of course, the only way to train you in the use of magic will be to release you, whenever you are in this room, from the iron Mask you wear,” Shelra continued. “You may be tempted, when you can once again see the magic in the basin, to use it to attempt to escape.” Her voice hardened. “Do not give in to that temptation. There is not enough magic in the basin to force a way from this room, and any attempt . . .
any
attempt . . . will lead to dire consequences—not only for you, but first and foremost for your parents. Do you understand?”

Mara nodded.

Shelra nodded briskly. “Good. Then let's get you out of that Mask and begin. But first . . .” She reached up and, to Mara's startlement, removed her own Mask. The face thus revealed was older than Mara had expected, as wizened as Catilla's, with parchment-thin and parchment-white skin stretched tight over prominent cheekbones. Shrewd brown eyes glittered at her in the torchlight before Shelra turned to set her Mask on the table by the door.

“Now it's your turn,” she said. She walked over to the magic basin and folded back the hinged lid, then dipped one finger into it. Once again, as she had in the throne room, she reached up with the apparently naked finger and touched the Mask, then took hold of it with both hands and pulled it free.

Mara heaved an involuntary sigh of relief as her sense of magic flooded back, this time free of the leech-like sucking of the Autarch. Instead, she felt the magic seething in the basin, the powerful magic bound up in the protected walls of the training chamber . . . and the even more powerful magic bound up in the slight figure of the old woman before her.
I could pull it all to me. I could escape. She doesn't know what I can do. She doesn't know that I could tear the magic right out of her and
—

No!
she thought in panic.
I can't. My parents . . .

Tears started to her eyes, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand.

Shelra was watching her closely. “Good,” she said softly. “Good. I saw your temptation, your desire to rush to the basin and try to use its magic against me . . . and you resisted it. You
can
be trained.” She gestured toward the basin. “So let's be about it.”

She began by having Mara look into the basin. “Tell me what colors you see,” she said.

“All of them,” Mara said simply.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Shelra snapped. “So do I.” Mara's head jerked around at that. “I'd be a poor Master of Magic if I did not. But it's not enough to say you see ‘all of them.' You must learn to distinguish every shade, every nuance. You must learn what each color . . . not really color, of course, that's just the way the mind of a Gifted interprets the sixth sense of magic . . . can be used for.
Is
used for. And then you must learn how to draw out just the color you want, in just the amount you want, and how to focus your will on it, and get it to do precisely what you want it to do:
precisely
, mind you. Magic is precious—too precious to waste.”

Mara remembered what Ethelda had told her, that the Mistress of Magic might be the only one in Tamita who could tell Mara what her true Gift, the ability to draw magic from others, might mean for her future . . . but Shelra did not know about that aspect of her Gift and
could
not know. How could she learn what she desperately needed to know without revealing her secret?

“Is . . . is this the only way to get magic?” she asked tentatively. “From . . . from the basins? The black lodestone?”

Shelra's eyes narrowed. “For you, yes,” she said.

“But for others . . . ?”

“Magic comes from living things,” Shelra said. “There have been those who can draw it directly out of them. But it is forbidden, and those who are found to have done it, or are able to do it, are monsters, no longer human. They are killed upon discovery. No exceptions.”

No exceptions . . . except for the Autarch himself
, Mara thought. She nodded. “I'm just . . . trying to understand how it all works,” she said meekly. “Because my Mask failed, I never got to go to magic school.”

“You are in it now,” Shelra said. “So. Look again into the basin, and tell me the colors you see, in as great detail as you can . . .”

After just two hours, Mara could hardly focus her exhausted eyes on the magic or on anything else, but Shelra remained relentless. A knock at the door, which Shelra answered only after donning her Mask again, signaled the arrival of a lunch of cold meat, dried fruit, bread, and cheese, which they washed down with water before continuing their work. By the end of the day, Mara had begun to see, in the magic basin, that what had always before seemed a random, endlessly shifting spill of color was in fact made up of intertwined threads or rivulets of all the colors of the rainbow . . . and many permutations in between.

Shelra had also begun to demonstrate what each color could do. “Red,” she said, “is used to manipulate physical objects; it is the color of engineers and builders. But the different shades of red . . .” She touched the magic pool, drew out her finger covered with red so dark as to be almost black. “For manipulating iron,” she said. She touched the surface again; her finger became sheathed with red the color of blood. “Wood and stone,” she said. She touched the surface again and this time a layer of glistening pink covered it. “Gold, silver, and other precious metals.”

As the afternoon wore to a close, she produced a scroll from the pouch at her belt. “A catalog,” she said. “A catalog, as best as I and my predecessors have been able to determine, of all the identifiable colors of magic, and what they seem best suited for. Study it, and tomorrow we will see how many you can draw forth.”

Mara nodded, and yawned. Shelra donned her crystalline Mask, then turned to Mara with the iron one. Mara drew back, but Shelra frowned. “You must wear it,” she said. “Not only to prevent you from using your Gift but because all adults must go Masked. For those who have failed their Masking, this is the only alternative to execution.”

Mara jerked her head in a single nod, then closed her eyes and held still as the iron, chill from sitting unattended on the table, far from the fire, touched her skin. It clung, and she took in her breath sharply as her sense of magic once again vanished. She swayed a little, and Shelra caught her. “I know,” she said softly. “I have donned an iron Mask myself in order to test its efficacy. They are terrible things. But not as terrible as what would be done to you and your loved ones if you were not wearing it.”

The Mistress of Magic went to the door. A Watcher stood outside it, a different and much smaller man than had been there when it was locked. “She need not be taken directly to her cell,” she told him. “Let her wander in the Garden Courtyard if she wishes, until the supper bell chimes. Then take her to her chamber. Bring her back here tomorrow after she breaks her fast.”

The Watcher inclined his head, and indicated that Mara should follow him. But as the door closed behind them, he stopped, looked around furtively, and said, “Hello, Mara.”

She stared at his black Mask. All she could see was a hint of his lips and teeth behind the mouth opening, but she knew that voice. “Mayson?”

He nodded. “I heard you'd returned. Traded duty shifts with the Watcher who was supposed to be guarding you tonight.”

Mara couldn't believe it. She hadn't spoken to Mayson since two years before his Masking, when he'd begun his pre-Masking apprenticeship with the Watchers. But for all the years before that, she'd been one of his best friends. “Are you supposed to be talking to me?”

He shrugged. “Probably not. But nobody ordered me not to. So I don't think I'm risking anything.” He touched his Mask. “Yep, still here.” Behind the mouth opening, his teeth flashed in a grin that faded quickly. “Mara, what's happened to you?”

Mara wanted to tell him—wanted to tell
someone
—but he was a Watcher. He might once have been her friend, but now . . . if she told him anything, he would be duty-bound to tell his superiors. If he didn't, his Mask would surely betray him to other Watchers, and he would be interrogated and possibly punished—even executed.

She wanted to trust him, but she knew she couldn't.

One more evil to blame on the Masks . . . and the Autarch.

She realized he was still staring at her, waiting for her to respond. She cleared her throat. “I'm not supposed to talk about it,” she said. “But . . . it's good to see you.”
If you can call it that when you're Masked.

“You, too,” he said. “Mara . . . I wish I could help you somehow. But . . .” He touched his Mask again.

“I understand.”

“I'll try to see you when I can,” he said. “If you need anything, extra food, or . . .”

“I'm being well cared for,” Mara said. “But thank you.”

Mayson nodded. “Not much time until the supper bell,” he said. “If you're going to get any fresh air, we'd better get up to the Garden Courtyard.” He turned and led the way.

A few minutes and several flights of stairs later they emerged into the open. The sun had long since slipped behind the west wing of the Palace, filling the courtyard with blue twilight. Mayson stopped by one of the pillars of the courtyard's surrounding colonnade. “Wander all you like,” he said. “I'll just wait here.”