Faces (33 page)

As, it seemed, the Lady already had.

Was any of this plan mine at all?
Mara thought.
Or was it all fed to me by this . . . ghost, this revenant, this remnant of the Lady?

She tried to twitch a finger, move a foot, blink an eye, anything to prove she still had some control of her own body. But nothing happened.

The Autarch reached out and pulled the silver Mask from Mara's face. He tossed it aside. It rang like a bell as it hit the stones of the dais. “Beautiful as I remember,” he said. He wasn't talking about the Mask. He touched Mara's cheek. “Unmarked. How did she manage that, when her Mask failed?” He thought for a moment. “Ah. Ethelda. She asked if she could attend in my place. I didn't know then that she was in league with the girl's father. I was worried that I was drawing too much magic too quickly from too many of the Gifted when I attended their Maskings, and that was why the Maskings were failing. I did not want that to happen to Charlton Holdfast's daughter. I wanted her to grow up to be my new Master Maskmaker.” He smiled. “But things have a way of working out. This is much better. She has grown up to be my new body instead.”

“Your city is under attack,” the Lady's ghost said through Mara. “Your attention is divided. I know what you are doing. As I did with my villagers, you are using the young people who received the altered Masks in the past three years as your soldiers. You have been training them to fight and now you have thrown them at the unMasked Army.”

“I will show these bandits,” said the Autarch, “that the people of Aygrima will do whatever I ask of them.”

“What you
demand
.”

He shrugged. “It's the same thing, really.”

“You cannot force me out of this body,” the Lady said. “I am stronger than you could ever dream of being.”

The Autarch laughed. “You still don't grasp the truth, do you, Arilla?” He leaned close, so close that his eyes were all that Mara could see and she could feel his hot breath on her lips. She longed to pull back, but she could not. Neither the Lady nor the magic holding her in place would permit it. “You're dead. It's about time you started acting like it.”

And then the Autarch of Aygrima hurled his consciousness into Mara's mind.

It was all she could do to hold on to the tiny sliver of herself she still commanded. Like a spectator at a wrestling match, she looked on as the Autarch and the fading remnant of the Lady struggled for supremacy, for control of
her
body. It was clear to her from the moment the Autarch launched his attack that he would win. He had told the simple truth, after all: the Lady of Pain and Fire was dead, and the remnant of her, hiding inside Mara since the moment at the minehead when she had fired the crossbow bolt into the Lady's head, did not truly have the power of the Lady, because
Mara
did not have that power: not yet. The Lady had trained and honed hers for decades. Mara had barely even come to grips with the fact that hers existed.

And that was the Lady's undoing. The Lady was like a slippery eel, trying to evade the Autarch's hands, but he simply grew more of them, grasping and gripping, and she could not evade them all. Slowly, her control of Mara's body was wrested from her. The Autarch filled more and more of Mara's mind, squeezing Mara's consciousness down to almost nothing. A little more and it would be gone . . . and if that happened, she did not think it would ever return. The Autarch would have her. The Autarch would
be
her. And how many more decades could he . . . she . . . rule with a new young body, one with a greater degree of the Gift than he had ever had, but with all his accumulated knowledge of how to use that Gift?

Grute, all those months ago, had tried to rape her, and failed. The Autarch was succeeding, the violation more obscene, more repulsive, than anything Grute could have managed . . . and this time, she had no way to respond.

But through it all, her eyes were open, and her ears. She could hear the shouts and clatter of battle outside the throne room doors as her companions fought the Sun Guards. And she could see the Sun Throne, and the wall behind it, the tall glass windows brightening now as at last the sun broke the horizon.

She saw the door behind the Sun Throne swing open.

She saw Greff, still wearing his Child Guard Mask, step through. In his hand he held a dagger. He leaped forward.

He drove the blade into the Autarch's back.

The Autarch screamed, both bodily and in Mara's mind. In an instant he was withdrawing from her, rushing back to his own body. So intricately entangled with the Lady's soulprint was he that he took what was left of Arilla with him, both of them slamming back into the old body that had just been so violently injured. Mara saw an intense flash of white magic in the Autarch's eyes at the same instant that the magic holding her frozen and upright vanished. She dropped to her knees, raised her head to see the Autarch turn on Greff, who was staggering back, hand red with blood. The Autarch hurled scarlet magic into the boy's face. The silver Mask turned white hot in an instant, and Greff screamed, a horrible, high-pitched, inhuman sound, as his hair burst into flames and his ears burned to shriveled black husks. He dropped to his knees, scrabbling weakly at the Mask, and then fell lifelessly to his side, smoke pouring from his head, resting in a noisome pool of smoking grease and blackened blood.

But as Greff died, his magic slammed into Mara, who welcomed it eagerly, even though it burned her like the hot silver that had killed him. She gasped as her body filled with Greff's magic and her mind with his soulprint, still blazing with the hatred and determination that had driven him to his final desperate act.

All around the dais the Child Guard screamed, echoing Greff, as the Autarch, desperate for power, ripped it from their bodies. As one, they, too, toppled, whether dead or alive, Mara could not see. What she
could
see was the blade withdrawing itself from the Autarch's back, magic flickering around the wound as he desperately tried to knit together the damaged tissue.

In a moment the Autarch would have healed himself. He would turn on her again, and she would be unable to resist him.

But she did not give him that moment.

With the magic she had taken from Greff, she reached out for the only weapons at hand: the two Masks lying on the dais in front of her, silver and gold, hers and the Autarch's. She poured all her magic into them—and hurled them at the Autarch's head.

He had just turned back toward her, triumph on his face, his wound healed, the ghost of Arilla no doubt destroyed as well. And then that look of triumph was wiped away forever. The heavy Masks slammed into his chin. In a spray of blood and shattered bone and pulped brain, the Autarch of Aygrima was flung off his feet and backward, to thud, headless and blood-soaked and very, very dead, into the Sun Throne. For a moment his body remained upright in an awful parody of a seated king; then it slid down into an ungraceful bloody lump on the dais.

Mara expected the magic of the Autarch to tear through her like a hurricane. She doubted she would survive it. But though she felt the Autarch's magic explode outward from his corpse, none of it touched her. Like the radiating rays of the golden sun behind the dead ruler's throne, the magic, brilliant and blinding to Mara's Gifted sight, blazed out of the throne room in all directions. She could not see everywhere it went, but she could guess, for some of it impaled the silver Masks of the unconscious Child Guard . . . and with the sound of ringing bells, every one of those Masks broke in half and fell away, revealing young and pale faces.

It's over
, Mara thought.
It's really over. All the Masks . . . everywhere . . . they're breaking. They're falling apart. The whole Autarchy, unMasked.

It's over. We won.

She staggered to her feet. Greff . . . she could not bear to look at the awful ruin of the boy she had promised to save for his parents. He had died a hero, but she didn't think that would be much consolation to Filia and Jess.

Tears filled her eyes. She turned toward the throne room doors, intending to go out to see how many of her guard survived, to see what had happened in the city beyond, but before she could take a step from the dais the doors burst open.

A man in silver mail and white surcoat exploded through, a bloody sword in one hand, a bloody dagger in the other. He wore half a Watcher's Mask, the bottom half having fallen away. More blood spattered his tunic, and dripped from a wound that had laid his cheek open, exposing the skull-like gleam of teeth. He charged Mara, screaming, sword raised.
He's going to kill me
—

Something hit him from behind and he went down hard. Whiteblaze leaped over him and stood between him and Mara, growling. The wolf advanced, teeth bared, and Mara, still in shock from what she had just done, what had just happened to Greff, reacted too slowly to what was about to happen in front of her. She had just started forward when the Sun Guard lifted himself and drove his dagger into Whiteblaze's side.

The wolf howled and turned white with magic as he collapsed, and Mara, screaming, took that magic and tore the Sun Guard limb from limb, painting the floor of the throne room red with his blood and scattered entrails. She scrambled forward on all knees to where Whiteblaze lay still as death, and buried her face in his bloody fur.

She was still clinging to him when something struck her in the back of the head and in an explosion of shock and pain she fell into darkness.

F
OR AN INDETERMINATE TIME,
Mara bobbed in and out of consciousness, surfacing and submerging like a twig caught in a mountain stream, never fully escaping its icy clutch. At one point she thought she heard Keltan shouting. She heard the clash of steel. She heard a vast roaring sound like a mighty wind or an enormous crowd. Her eyes flickered open to see the carved wooden beams of the Palace's main-floor corridors passing by overhead. She opened them again to find herself in a bed and a woman in the blue dress of a Healer, though unMasked and with a strained, pale face, bending over her. She glimpsed the blue glow of Healing magic.

And then she slept.

Nightmares awaited her. She had absorbed too many deaths without the filtering effect of the black lodestone amulet. Old ghosts resurfaced: Grute, oldest of all, naked and headless; the Warden, throat ruined; the Watchers she had killed; the Lady, trailing blood as she dropped into the mine shaft; the Autarch, headless and bloody as Grute . . .

But the worst were those she cared about most. Her father, who in her nightmare just stood and stared at her, hangman's noose still around his neck, voiceless in grief and disappointment; Ethelda, who whispered over and over again, “Monster . . . monster . . . monster . . .”

And Mayson. Her best friend from childhood. The boy who had always wanted to be a Watcher, when none of them knew what that meant. She saw him lying wounded on the floor of the Warden's house, heard him trying to speak, “Mmmm . . . mmmm . . .” He had tried to speak her name, to save himself, to stop her from murdering him . . . and she had snapped his neck like a twig.

“Monster . . . monster . . . monster . . .” Slowly the whisper from Ethelda grew in volume and scope, until all her nightmare victims were gathered around her, repeating the word in unison. “Monster! Monster! Monster!” They closed in on her. She screamed, tried to wake up, but something was holding her asleep, holding her trapped in her mind, and she thought her heart would burst from terror and grief . . .

...and then she felt a familiar furry head under her hand, and terror bled away, the nightmare images flowing out from her like wine through the tap of a barrel, and she fell into a far deeper darkness where no dreams waited, one joyful thought following her down.

Whiteblaze is still alive!

The next time she came to consciousness it was to full wakefulness at last. She lay in a soft white bed, staring up at a ceiling that looked strangely familiar. For a moment she just blinked sleepily up at it. There was something on her face.
Why didn't they take off that silver Mask?
she wondered—then remembered that the Autarch himself had stripped her of her Child Guard Mask, and she had used it to kill him.

More memories rushed back. Whiteblaze . . . nightmares . . . Greff . . . why was she wearing a Mask?

She lifted a hand, trembling with unexpected weakness—how long had she been lying there?—and explored her face.

Horror filled her. She was not wearing the silver Mask she had made. She was wearing a half-Mask, a Mask made of cold, pitted iron. A prison Mask, like the one the Mistress of Magic had placed on her when she had come to the Palace the last time, a Mask that blocked her Gift, prevented her from using or even seeing magic. And that ceiling looked familiar because this was the magically shielded room where she had trained with Shelra, the room no magic could enter or leave.

What's happening? I killed the Autarch! Why am I a prisoner?

She tried to sit up. The too-familiar room swam around her, but she managed to hold herself shakily up on her elbows. At the table by the fire sat someone she didn't know, though she had seen her briefly during her period of semiconsciousness: the Maskless Healer. “What's going on?” she said, or tried to say. Her voice didn't want to work, so it came out as a harsh whisper. “Who are you?”

The Healer's head turned sharply toward her. “You're awake!” She looked almost frightened.

“Yes, I'm awake,” Mara said. She could feel anger rising within her—and this time it was all hers. The Lady was gone for good. She had felt her vanish into the maelstrom of the Autarch's fury and fear as he fled back into his own body to try to heal the wound from Greff's knife. The Lady's ghost had accompanied the Autarch's spirit to hell, or wherever demons like him went when they died, and good riddance.

But she was the one who had exorcised him, and the Lady, too, with Greff's sacrifice and the help of so many others. Why was she iron-Masked and imprisoned and blocked? “I asked you a question. Who are you? And why am I here?”

“I am Healer Chara,” the woman said. “Lord Edrik asked me to . . . look after you. But I'm afraid,” she hurried on, “I can't answer any more of your questions. I am to send word to Lord Edrik as soon as you are awake. I'm sure someone will come shortly.” She went to the door, unlocked it, and spoke in a hurried whisper to someone outside. Footsteps clattered away. The door closed, and the Healer bolted it again. Then she turned back to Mara. “Now,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak,” Mara said. “And betrayed.” She touched the iron Mask. “What the hell is this doing on my face?”
And why does she keep referring to
Lord
Edrik?

“I told you,” Chara said weakly, “I can't answer any questions.”

“What
can
you do?” Mara said. She had to lie down again; her vision was showing an alarming tendency to close in around the edges. She took a deep breath. “Can you give me food and water, at least?”

“Of course,” Chara said. “
That
I've been doing all along.”

“I don't remember it,” Mara said as Chara hurried over to a cabinet against the wall.

“You were awakened enough to eat but not enough to be fully aware of it,” Chara said. “It is a healing technique for when the brain may be damaged and must have time to heal.”

“You mean I ate even though I was asleep,” Mara said.

“Essentially. Yes.” Chara was putting fruit and cheese on a plate. She filled a mug with water from a clay pitcher, placed everything on a wooden tray, and brought it over to Mara. She placed it on the low table by the bed, and then said, “Let me help you sit up.”

Still feeling horribly weak, Mara let Chara push pillows under her back until she was upright. She ate, her hands still shaking. “You're saying you deliberately kept me asleep?” she said. “For how long?” She looked down at herself. She was wearing a nightgown and covered by a blue blanket.
At least there's no diaper this time
, she thought, remembering another occasion when she had awakened after being unconscious for an unknown time.
But if they woke me up enough to eat, maybe they woke me up enough to . . .

She decided not to ask.

“I don't think I should tell you how long you've been asleep, either,” the Healer said. “Someone else will.” She put her hand to her face, then drew it back again and gave a shaky laugh. “I can't get used to not wearing a Mask,” she said. “I feel . . . naked.”

“Can you at least tell me what happened to the Masks?” Mara said. “When the Autarch . . . died?”
When I tore his head off . . .

“They broke. All of them. Everywhere. From one end of Aygrima to the other.” The Healer shook her head. “It was terrifying. Worst for the youngsters, the ones who had been Masked in the past two or three years. We all knew there was something different about their Masks, different about
them
. Then when the unMasked Army started attacking the weakened part of the wall, they all dropped whatever they were doing and marched to battle. They were fearless, even though many of them came unarmed. Some of them came
naked
. The unMasked Army fell back. They didn't want to kill teenagers, though there were a few . . .” She swallowed. “It was bad. But when the Masks failed, those young people all screamed and fell senseless. Some of them died instantly. Others . . . still aren't themselves. A few are starting to recover. I was trying to help some of them when I was seized by the unMasked Army and told I had a new patient. They brought me to you. You had suffered a blow to the head. I made sure there was no permanent damage, but then they had me put you to sleep . . . or try to. You screamed and screamed as if suffering terrible nightmares. The young man . . . Keltan . . . suggested we bring you your wolf. Once you touched him, you finally went under completely.”

“Whiteblaze,” Mara said. “I saw him stabbed, I thought he was dead—”
And Keltan is alive, too!
A weight she hadn't even been aware of lifted from her heart.

“He very nearly was,” the Healer said. “But I was told to Heal him as well.”

“Where is he? Can I see him?”

“He was taken away once your nightmares subsided,” the Healer said. “I'm afraid I don't know where he is now.”

“And why am I awake now?” Mara said.

“I was ordered yesterday to allow you to wake up at last. I permitted you to rise from magical to ordinary sleep. And here you are.” She blinked suddenly and pressed her lips together. “I may have said too much.” Her hands went halfway to her face again.

“No Mask,” Mara said. “No one will know.” She touched the hateful pitted iron clinging to her face. “It appears I'm the only one still Masked in Aygrima.”

“And so it will remain,” said a new voice from the door, and Mara jerked her head around.

Catilla stood there, leaning on her cane of pale wood. She looked older than Mara remembered, older and yet somehow more fierce than ever, like an aging hawk still ready to fly to the hunt. Edrik was with her. The two of them came over to her bedside. “You've done well,” Edrik said to the Healer. “Leave us for a few minutes.”

“Yes, Lord Edrik,” the Healer said. “Lady,” she added with a quick bob of her head to Catilla. She gave Mara a faint half-smile, and then hurried out. A guard in the hall outside closed the door again.

“Lord?” Mara said. “Lady?”

“We have had enough of Autarchs,” said Catilla. “But Aygrima still needs a ruler. Once it was the Kingdom of Aygrima. So it will be again.” She nodded at Edrik. “In a fortnight, King Edrik will ascend the Sun Throne, and a new era of peace and freedom will begin.”

“King Edrik?” Mara said. “Not Queen Catilla?”

“There is no point in a crowning a Queen who will not live out the first year of her reign,” Catilla said. She coughed a little, and Mara suddenly understood.

“The cancer has returned,” she said.

Catilla nodded. “Ethelda bought me time, and for that I am grateful, for I have seen the overthrow of the Autarchy and the destruction of the Masks and will see my grandson become king and my great-grandson Crown Prince. My father is avenged and his heirs will rule. I am content.”

“I'm not,” Mara said. She touched the iron Mask. “Explain this. Explain what happened in the throne room, and how I came to be a prisoner here.” Her eyes narrowed. “And explain how
you
came to be here. You were in the north, days' travel away. How long have I been a prisoner?”

“Three weeks,” Catilla said. “Three weeks have passed since you slew the Autarch and destroyed the Masks.”

“Three
weeks
?” Mara couldn't believe it, though it explained her weakness. “What happened to me?”

Edrik regarded her steadily. “The unMasked Army fighters who you let into the city had orders,” he said. “If you succeeded, and survived, you were not to be allowed to go free. You were to be subdued and brought to me.”

Mara stared at him, feeling cold. “The blow to the head . . . ?”

“Hyram,” Edrik said. “He took the task on himself because he felt he could judge the blow better than the others, who might have been tempted to simply . . . remove you.” He made a sour face. “More of a danger than I realized. One of Chell's men let the Sun Guard through after the Autarch's death in the hope he would kill you. Chell slew his own sailor for that. Fortunately, you . . . dealt with that threat. Rather forcefully.”

“And then Hyram knocked me out?” Mara felt more betrayed than she had any right to. Hyram had been infatuated with her when she'd first arrived at the Secret City, but his attraction had not survived her naïve betrayal of the unMasked Army to the Watchers.
I'm probably lucky he didn't kill me.
But she missed him as her friend. She missed those early days when Keltan and Hyram had been competing for her attention. It seemed years past though it had only been a few months.

So much had happened in so little time . . .

“Don't be too hard on him, Mara,” Edrik said. He surprised her by the softness in his tone. “He was following our orders. He argued against them. He thought we were being unnecessarily cautious. He really didn't want to hurt you. He has been very concerned about you.”