The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2)
Read The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) Online
Authors: Ben Rovik
The Mask And The Master
Book Two of Mechanized Wizardry
By Ben Rovik
Published by Ben Rovik Books
Copyright © Ben Rovik 2012
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*****
Table of Contents
Part One: The Voice Of The Masses
Chapter Five: The Pretenders Will Fall
Chapter Six: The Feastday Hero
Chapter Eight: The Golden Caravan
Chapter Nine: Petronaut Non Grata
Chapter Thirteen: Royal Reassignment
Chapter Seventeen: The Battle Of Two Forks
Part Two: The Path To The Master
Chapter Eight: Borne By The Current
Chapter Eleven: The War In The Woods
Chapter Twelve: One Cell For Another
Chapter Thirteen: The Audience
Chapter Fourteen: Columbine’s Army
Chapter Sixteen: Collaborators
Chapter Seventeen: Word On A Wing
Chapter Eighteen: The Warlord’s Valley
Chapter Twenty: The Siege And The Civics
Sample from The Fate Of The Faithful: Book Three of Mechanized Wizardry
Maps
Prologue
The cucumbers were enormous for this early in the summer. Hanah reached a gloved hand through the leaves and pulled a jade-dark gourd off the vine, marveling at the sight of it. The soil was warm here, a kilometer removed from the keep, and the rains had been kind so far. She placed the cucumber gently atop the others in the bushel and wiped away the sweat on her face. Her silver bangs were wet against her forehead, peeking out from underneath her wide-brimmed hat. She tucked them back out of sight and leaned in closer to the bush.
“Dame Hanah,” the soldier began again. She raised a hand. His boots shuffled in the dirt as he returned to attention, a few meters behind her.
“I am aware, yeoman,” she said in a slow, soft voice, “that our visitors are anxious to know what we will do next. I’m aware that the garrison, yourself included, is anxious to know what we will do next. Would you believe that I’m just as anxious as all of you are for our master to make a decision?”
Through the disciplined silence behind her, it was clear the young yeoman did not. Hanah stifled a smile as she gently dislodged a pair of summer beetles from a well-chewed leaf. “Believe it or not, I’m actually quite perturbed,” she murmured, watching the beetles fly.
“Ma’am.” The young man struggled for the proper words for his message.
How brittle he must think I am
, she thought, amused. He was so solicitous in his desire to avoid giving offense that it bordered on the offensive. That was, if she’d been inclined to take offense at anything anymore. After everything else she’d experienced in life, the haphazard words of a soldier weren’t likely to move her one way or the other.
He finally spoke. “The visitors from Svargath simply want some reassurance. The stewards are having difficulty, uh, quieting them, in the hall. And, uh— since you seem to be at liberty, your presence could—”
“Do you know, I never thought these would grow?” She looked over her shoulder at him, and he stiffened. He had a pointed jaw and close-cropped black hair, and his leathers fit him well. Hanah took him in with her hazel eyes, letting a hand rest on the mostly-full bushel of cucumbers. “I didn’t plant a single seed, that first year,” she whispered, remembering. “It was all I could do to pull out the rocks, till the earth, spread the nourishing minerals and let them sink in. For two years after that, only a handful of plants survived the weather or the pests long enough to put out flowers, let alone crops. But every year, I persevered. And now? Well, yeoman—”
There was a rush of air, and the young soldier barely got his hand to his face in time to catch the long green projectile. He looked past the vegetable to see Hanah lowering her throwing arm, a twinkle in her eye. “I hope you like cucumbers,” she said.
He nodded his thanks, eyes darting this way and that. “Ma’am? Will you, uh—”
“I will
not
come to see our visitors from Svargath, because I have nothing to say to them. I will not come to see them because every visit they make to our keep increases the chance of detection and endangers us all. I will not come to see them because they were not invited to come, and I don’t wish to encourage bad manners. Finally, I will not come see them, because I am busy with the cucumbers.
“But, yeoman,” Dame Hanah said, straightening herself up, “since you’re so eager to please, you may say this to our friends from the east. As soon as our master
has
made a decision regarding the options I have proposed, they will be the first to know.”
“Ma’am, uh—to paraphrase—they’re finding it difficult to stay patient.”
“We failed to kill the Princess of Delia last week,” Hanah sighed, pulling off her work gloves. She massaged the arthritic joints of her right hand, wincing as her thumbs kneaded her bones. “I don’t need to tell you that our master took that news rather hard.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the young man said quietly, his eyes flicking to the ground. Cicadas buzzed in the trees nearby, their calls rising and falling in raspy waves.
“The cause continues, yeoman,” Hanah said, her voice low and firm. “And there are many fruitful paths still open to us—especially if we remain patient. As soon as our master has made a decision regarding the options I have proposed, they will be the first to know.”
“Ma’am.” The young man bowed, recognizing the dismissal in her tone. He turned on his heel and began the walk along the beaten track of grass back to the keep, and the small knot of angry foreigners who would continue to make his day unpleasant. Hanah watched him go with her hands clasped together at her waist. It was hard for the young to be patient, especially in the face of struggle and setback. But she knew, with certainty that went right down to her old bones, that their plans would bear fruit if they persevered.
She looked down at the heaping bushel, and the long rows of ripe cucumbers yet to be picked throughout the garden. Her eyes unfocused as she imagined the spires of Delia, the gleaming white walls of the royal palace, and a little girl sitting on a throne ten sizes too big for her.
Sometimes, the question isn’t whether or not the crops will grow
, she thought grimly,
but whether you’re ready to harvest the things you’ve sown.
With a soft grunt as she stooped over the bushes again, Hanah went back to work.
Part One
The Voice of the Masses
“Your words are as a storm
Where lightning strikes the highest place
And flood-tides dredge the lows.
None of those who hear are spared the pain...”
A Hundred Days of Water
,
Duronico, 780.
Chapter One
New Beginnings
Horace Lundin was not crying.
Obviously not
, he scoffed, setting the great hatbox-shaped canister on his new workbench. The metal disks inside clattered against each other like cheap cymbals, noisy despite the padding.
If I were crying, it would be because there were some
reason
to cry. And because there’s not, then, obviously, I’m not crying. It’s not like I’m the kind of person who has emotional responses at the drop of a hat without any—
“Are you all right?”
“Of course,” Lundin said, swiping his eyes fiercely with the back of his hand. He turned to the tall, dark-skinned man and cleared his throat. “Just a few more packages to bring in,” he said, tapping the canister with forced heartiness.
The man reached out and touched Lundin’s arm absently, his brown fingers giving a gentle squeeze. “Glad you’re joining us, Horace,” he said with a smile, of sorts. Lundin had seen that smile from almost everyone today; warm, but perfunctory, as if ‘make Horace Lundin feel welcome’ was just one more item on a mental to-do list. One look at the other man’s flickering eyes convinced Lundin he was already thinking about his next task long before the smile faded from his face.