Shadows (16 page)

Mara shook her head. “No, I said its removal requires magic. But I cannot remove it myself, because as long as I wear it I cannot
use
magic. Even if I knew the trick of pulling it off, I couldn't do it while it is attached to my face. Only someone else with the knowledge of how to do it can take this from my face, and only when it is taken from my face will I be free to use magic of my own.” She drew her hand back from the cold iron surface. “I'm told my father made it. He must also know how to remove it. Quite possibly he is the
only
person who knows how to remove it except for the Mistress of Magic herself—and I hardly think we'll convince
her
to take it off me. So we must rescue my father and get him away from Tamita. With him safe, and my magic restored . . . then I will see what I can do to help your people. But if we simply escape, and I am still wearing
this
,” she gestured at it again, “then I'll just be another girl, with no more magic than the maid who brought my supper.”

Chell stepped closer, studying her Mask. She was suddenly aware of how near he was, and of how little she was wearing. She folded her arms across her chest. He reached out and touched the Mask. “It looks like I should just be able to—” He suddenly snatched at it, before she knew what he was doing. She saw nothing, with her Gift blocked, but she heard Chell yelp and jump back.

For what seemed a ridiculously long moment he teetered on the edge of the still-full bath, arms flailing . . . and then he toppled backward into it with an enormous splash that sprayed tepid water all over Mara and the rest of the room. Terrified, she hurried to the bathroom door, ready to intercept the Watcher if he came in; but the door remained closed.

She turned around to see the prince staggering to his feet again, water streaming from his fine clothes. “It . . . it
bit
me!”

“You can't remove it that way,” Mara said. Her mouth twitched as she looked at the sodden prince. “I
told
you. You should have listened to me.”

“Obviously,” Chell muttered. He looked down at himself. “How am I going to explain
this
if I run into a Watcher in the courtyard?”

“Tell them you were dancing on the edge of the fountain and fell in,” Mara suggested. “Tell them it's a religious duty where you come from to dance around fountains. At midnight.”

“Very funny,” Chell growled.

“I thought so,” Mara agreed.

Chell glared at her for a long moment . . . but the glare faded away into a grin that became a chuckle. “All right,” he said. “You've convinced me. Somehow, we have to save your father, too.” He shook his arms, spraying more water around the room. “I'll have to talk to Keltan about it.” He stepped out of the bath. “Your robe is soaked, too.”

“Whose fault is that?” Mara said.

“I'd better go . . . if I can,” Chell said. “Can you check to see if the Watcher is out there? Otherwise I might have to spend the night.”

Mara, remembering what she'd been fantasizing about just before the prince turned up in her bathroom, felt herself blushing and hated herself for it. “I'm sure that won't be necessary.” She padded barefoot and dripping to the door, and put her ear to it. Nothing. She knocked on it. “Watcher?” she said. “Are you there?”

Still nothing.

“I think it's . . .” Mara began, then gasped in surprise as she turned around to discover Chell standing right behind her.

“I can move silently when I have to,” Chell said. He reached inside the pocket of the vest he wore and drew out an oddly shaped piece of metal, with strange curves and right-angle bends in it. Kneeling by the door, he inserted the object into the keyhole. Tongue protruding between his teeth—which made him look about ten years old, Mara thought, and exactly
why
was that so endearing?—he twisted it this way and that, listening. After about ten seconds he pulled the piece of metal out of the lock, stood up, and opened the now-unlocked door a crack. “All clear,” he whispered. He glanced back at her and gave her a wink. “Guess I won't have to spend the night after all.” And then he slipped out. She heard him lock the door again from the other side.

Mara stared at the door. “He's shameless,” she said out loud. “And infuriating.”

And cute
, said a part of her brain she really wished would just shut up: the same part that had had her thinking about him in the bath. The same part that didn't seem to care that he was a) a foreign prince, b) wanted her to kill his enemies for him, c) had threatened to betray the Secret City and d) had been willing to leave her parents to whatever horrible fate might befall them if she escaped.

It was a part of her she'd only rarely encountered before, a part of her that seemed to be taking more and more interest in things like boys, and what they might be good for, to the exclusion of things like common sense and self-preservation.

Great
, she thought.
Something else I've got to try to keep a lid on. No pulling magic from living bodies . . . and no making decisions based on how cute boys are.

Men
, she reminded herself. Chell was a
young
man, but still, definitely a man, not a boy. Not like Keltan (cute, but only a little older than her) or Hyram (older, and also cute, but still just a boy). No, Chell was a man. A handsome man. An
experienced
man.

She shook her head, hard.
Enough!
She might never see him again. Or she might see him again on the gallows outside Traitors' Gate, and Keltan with him, if this mad scheme of his to help her escape did not succeed.

And my father
, she thought.
And my mother . . .

What have I done?
she thought then, as the possible consequences of even
considering
escape rushed home to roost, driving all thoughts of boys, cute or otherwise, out of her head.

What I had to
, she reminded herself.
Chell has made it impossible for me to just go along as I have been. I have to try to escape, or he'll betray the unMasked Army. And I have to succeed, or my parents . . .

Her warm thoughts toward Chell, already dwindling, evaporated completely.
He's using me
, she thought coldly.
And that's wrong. As wrong as me ripping magic from other people. As wrong as the Autarch sucking magic from the Child Guard.

People aren't things. They aren't tools. They shouldn't be used.

A brave sentiment. And yet, as she dried herself (again) and finally crawled into bed, she knew that that was exactly how others saw her: as a thing, a tool, a weapon. Something to be used to strike against an enemy.

It was a bleak thought to take with her to sleep.

A Blow to the Heart

A
NOTHER WEEK WENT BY. Mara's training continued. She saw nothing of Chell or Keltan. The Mistress of Magic seemed daily more impressed with her process. “It shocks me that your Mask rejected you,” Shelra said one day. “No one of your ability has ever before failed her Masking.”

“
Are
there others with my ability?” Mara asked. She thought she knew the answer, from what the Autarch had said, but she wondered how the Mistress of Magic would reply.

Shelra hesitated. “I . . . don't think I should comment on that,” and her hand went halfway to her green Mask before she caught herself. “Now,” she said briskly, “that last water-freezing was a trifle sloppy; still some liquid around the edges. This time, see if you can . . .”

They plunged back into the training, but Mara wondered what Shelra had not been able to comment on.
Do I really have a greater measure of the Gift than anyone in Aygrima?
she wondered.
Even the Autarch?

She lived in dread, day to day, that somehow Shelra would detect the other part of her Gift, the part that let her draw magic from others just like the Autarch and all those monsters of the past, the most recent being The Lady of Pain and Fire; but that ability seemed to be undetectable through testing or even close proximity. As far as she could tell, Shelra knew only that she could see, and use to great effect, all colors of magic. She did not know that Mara, whenever the Mask was removed, could also feel the magic inside the Mistress of Magic, an enormous amount of magic compared to anyone else she had sensed, and that Mara ached to tap into that magic, to see if the far greater control she now had over regular magic might allow her to draw the magic out of Shelra more delicately than she had done in the mining camp, to use it to greater effect, to minimize the pain of that unfiltered power pouring into her and maximize the pleasure it had also given her, shamefully but undeniably.

So far, she hadn't given in. But every day it was a struggle not to.
If I do
, she thought,
she will surely feel it, and know the full extent of my Gift . . . and then what will they do with me?

She thought she knew.
The Autarch can find always find use for a powerful Gifted girl
, she thought.
But one that shares his powers so closely, one with the same powers, potentially, as The Lady of Pain and Fire, the sorceress he forced out of Aygrima in his youth? He wouldn't “find use” for me; he'd kill me. Probably on the spot.

Her feeling of walking a tightrope increased the day she talked to the Child Guard.

It was rare to see any of the Child Guard away from the Autarch, but one afternoon, when Mara had been freed from training an hour early because Shelra had to attend a meeting of the Circle, she found all of them in the Garden Courtyard, walking among the shrouded bushes, enjoying sunshine with more warmth in it than Mara had felt in a long time. It was still winter, but the days were lengthening, and the unseasonable warmth on this afternoon taunted them with the false promise of imminent spring.

The Child Guard were mostly in twos and threes, talking quietly among themselves, their white robes and silver Masks making them look almost like ghosts as they glided along the paths. But one sat alone by the fountain, near where Mara liked to sit. She thought it was the smallest boy, the one she had noticed from the City Wall shortly before her Masking, shortly before her life had turned upside down. He had already been Masked then, so he had to be at least a little bit older than she, but he looked very young, and somehow forlorn, as he sat there by himself, kicking his legs aimlessly and staring down at the ground.

Mara shot a quick glance at Mayson, who once again was the Watcher who had escorted her from the training room. He was engrossed in conversation with another Watcher, half turned away from her. Taking her chance, she walked over to the fountain and sat down beside the Child Guard. “Hi,” she said to him. “I'm Mara.”

The silver Mask turned toward her. “I know who you are,” said a boy's voice, a voice still changing, so that it squeaked even in that brief sentence. “I've seen you twice in the throne room.”

“What's your name?” she said after a moment, when he didn't volunteer anything else.

“We don't have names,” the boy said, and once more fell silent.

Not the easiest guy to talk to
, Mara thought. She tried again. “Then what was your name before you became a Child Guard?”

The boy hesitated, looked around as if afraid he might be overheard, then leaned close and almost whispered. “Greff. My name is Greff.”

Mara felt a chill. “Greff? From . . .” What was the name of the village? “. . . Yellowgrass?”

He sat back, startled. “How did you . . . ?”

“I've met your parents,” Mara said. “Filia and Jess, right?”

He nodded dumbly.

“I slept in your old room! I even met your dog.” She laughed. “I thought he was going to eat me, actually, but in the end he turned out to be pretty nice.”

Greff laughed, a little shakily. “Stafin's bark has always been worse than his bite,” he said. “Unless you're a squirrel.” He stared at her, his eyes blue and bright behind the silver Mask. “You really do know them,” he said in wonder. “How . . . ?”

“On my way here,” Mara said carefully, reminding herself that this boy spent most of his time in the presence of the Autarch, that the Autarch drew magic from him, and for all she knew could read the boy's thoughts, “I came across their farm. They were very kind to me.”
And in return I lied to them
, she thought guiltily.

“They're well?” The boy's voice sounded plaintive.

Mara nodded. “Do you never get to visit them?”

Greff shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “Not until I'm eighteen.” His voice dropped even further. “Assuming I'm still alive by then.”

Mara stared at him. “What?”

But Greff jumped to his feet. “I shouldn't . . . I can't . . .” He held out his hand and Mara, wondering, took it. “Thank you,” he said, pumping her arm, and then he turned and scurried away.

Mara watched him rush off to join three other Child Guard under the far portico, then turned back . . . and jumped. Mayson stood close beside her. “What did you say to him?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Mara said. “I happened to know his parents. That's all.”

“You shouldn't have spoken to him, Mara.” Mayson looked at the small clump of white-clad children across the courtyard. “And he shouldn't have spoken to you. The Child Guard aren't supposed to speak to anyone except the Autarch and each other. I should report him—”

“No, don't!” Mara said.

Mayson looked down at her. “Mara—”

“Please,” she begged. “I don't want him to get into trouble. I was the one who spoke first. I didn't know it was forbidden.”

Mayson glanced back at the Child Guard, Mara following his gaze. As one, the silver-Masked, white-clad youngsters suddenly turned and filed from the courtyard, as though in response to some unheard signal.
From the Autarch?
Mara wondered. Mayson watched them go, then finally sighed. “All right,” he said. “No harm done, I guess. But I think it's time you went to your room.”

“Thank you,” Mara said, and obediently got up to follow him.

•  •  •

Two nights later, Chell came to her again.

She was already in bed, and already asleep. She jerked awake with a gasp and stared wide-eyed into the darkness, wondering what had roused her. Then she gasped as she heard again, as she had in the bath, her whispered name, “Mara. It's Chell.”

She rolled over and sat up and there he was, a barely visible lump of blackness in the dark room. Only a little faint moonglow made it through the open slit of the window, and the embers of the fire, which had burned down hours before, did nothing but thicken the shadows cloaking everything else.

“I have talked to Keltan,” Chell said. “He has a plan.”

In a low voice, he laid it out for her. He had gotten a message to Keltan through one of the young unMasked boys who served as general dogsbodies around the Palace, running messages and errands as required. He'd told Keltan of Mara's situation and his own. And Keltan had once more proved to know more about the workings of Tamita than Mara would ever have guessed—far more than Mara, and she'd thought herself well-versed in the ins and outs of Tamita, having grown up on its streets . . . though not, she had to admit, the same streets as Keltan. Keltan knew of ways in and out of the Palace hidden from public view, tunnels in the warren of passageways beneath Fortress Hill through which supplies such as meat, vegetables, and wine were normally delivered unseen to the kitchens. Of course there were many locked doors, Keltan had warned the prince; but as Chell's presence in her room demonstrated yet again, he had the knack of opening most locks. He also knew, thanks to Keltan, when the tunnels were most likely to be deserted. “I'll take you from this room in the middle of the night, out through the tunnels, into the city,” he said.

“And then what?”

“Then Keltan takes over,” Chell said. “He says he can get into the shed behind his father's house, where his father keeps a wagon for delivering the furniture he sells in the outlying villages. He says he can hide us in that wagon, and then drive us openly through the gates; the Watchers still see him as a child and do not question . . . yet . . . his lack of a Mask. ‘After all,' he told me, ‘no one without a Mask would dare risk being seen on the streets of Tamita, so if someone without a Mask is seen, it must be someone who has not yet donned a Mask.'”

“Provided no one sees him who knew him as a child,” Mara said. “It's a terrible risk.”

“It's a risk he's willing to take . . . well, for
you, at least.
” Chell chuckled. “I do not think he would take the risk for me. My sense is that he's angry with me.”

“You can hardly blame him.”

“No, I suppose not,” Chell said equitably. “But at least he is willing to allow me to accompany you as he drives you up into the hills, where Edrik still waits—Keltan has been in regular contact with him. And then we will all flee together back to the Secret City.”

“And my father?” Mara said.

“That's up to you,” Chell said. “On the morning we escape, we will detour to your house, very early, after curfew lifts but before the Gate opens. You must convince him to accompany us. You will have very little time. We must be heading out the Gate the moment it opens, before—hopefully—your absence from your room is noted. If you cannot convince him to come . . .”

Mara swallowed. “I can convince him.”

Chell just nodded, the movement barely visible in the darkness. “And now I must slip back to my own room. Every now and then a Watcher pokes his head in unexpectedly. I left a Chell-shaped lump of rolled-up blankets in my bed, but I'd hate to be found missing from a supposedly locked room.”

“When?” Mara said, as he started toward the door. “When will we make the attempt?”

“In two nights,” Chell said. “In two nights, there will be no moon.”

He opened the door and slipped out into the cold night beyond. Mara heard him lock the door with his strange metal tool, and then she was alone in the darkness once more. Her bed was warm and the night quiet, but still it took her a long time to fall asleep again.

•  •  •

The next day, cognizant she was almost out of time, Mara broached the subject of the Lady of Pain and Fire with the Mistress of Magic. “You've been telling me I have an unusually powerful gift,” Mara said to Shelra as they ate lunch together. “But just how powerful? I mean, how do I compare to someone like . . .” she hesitated, as though searching for a name, “um . . . say . . . the Lady of Pain and Fire?”

Was it her imagination, or did Shelra's hand hesitate between her plate and her mouth? If it did, it was only for a moment; then the piece of cheese she had picked up completed its journey and she chewed without apparent concern. “Whatever made you come up with
that
name?”

“Our Tutor told us,” Mara said, “that the Lady of Pain and Fire was a powerful sorceress who could do . . . well, anything. So she must have been able to use all colors of magic, too.”

“I wouldn't know,” Shelra said. “The Autarch's defeat of the Lady of Pain and Fire was long before my time. I'm not
that
old.”

“But—”

“Of course she had a powerful Gift,” Shelra said. “That much is clear. I cannot say it was the same as yours, but I do know one way in which it differed. The Lady of Pain and Fire suffered from a . . . perversion.”

“Perversion?” Mara said. She took a slice of sausage and chewed it thoughtfully, as though all of this was of only academic interest, though in fact her heart was racing. “You mean . . . um . . . sexual?”