Faces (6 page)

And yet, that was the future they were all working toward: the Lady, the unMasked Army, and Mara.

But not Chell
, she reminded herself. For the first time in hours she glanced back. She saw Keltan, walking with Hyram and Alita, the latter two holding hands. She looked past those three to where Prella walked several ranks back, likewise holding hands with Kirika. She was glad they had found each other, too, even though . . . or maybe because . . . Kirika had almost killed Prella once. Right behind Prella and Kirika she saw Chell, walking with Captain March, who no longer had a ship to command, though at least he still lived, unlike his counterpart, Captain Gramm, who had died in the battle on the beach. On the other side of Chell walked a young man she didn't recognize, though she had seen him on board
Protector
and knew he was an officer of some kind . . . a lieutenant, she thought they called it. A different pang touched her heart: not of jealousy this time, but anger. Chell had helped her escape from Tamita. Only his nautical knowledge had enabled them to sail north along the coast, eventually delivering them to the shore where the refugees of the unMasked Army straggled northward.

Her cheeks burned as she remembered a hut, the half-naked prince asleep, kneeling beside him, her hand reaching out . . .
What was I thinking?
she thought. But the truth was, she
hadn't
been thinking. Only feeling: feeling desperate to be just a girl, not a magically Gifted freak.

He had stopped her. He was married, he had said. And years older, despite his youthful appearance. In retrospect, she was glad nothing had happened between them. He had treated her no differently after that. She'd thought he'd remained her friend.

But now she wondered if he had only pretended to be her friend because he had needed her, needed her to sail to his own land, needed her to use her Gift to help him fight his own enemies. Because when he had seen the Lady of Pain and Fire, in an instant he had turned all his attention to
her
.
I'm just a silly girl to him
, she thought sourly.
A silly young girl blinded by her own infatuation and desires, desires he could manipulate when he thought I could be of use to him, but which he could laugh off once he thought he had a better source of the magical power that is all he's truly interested in.

As though he felt her gaze upon him, the prince raised his head. Their eyes met. Mara stared at him for a moment, cheeks burning, and then jerked her head around, remembering his words on the beach before the Lady put him in his place by destroying his ships.
I seek power to overthrow our enemies
, he'd said. He'd looked first at Mara.
I thought I had found it
, he'd continued—but then he'd turned back to the Lady and finished,
but now I think I beheld only a reflection of the true power in this land.

I'm nothing to him
, Mara thought now, anger swelling within her.
Nothing but a tool, a weapon, a poorly made dagger he could toss aside the moment he found a fine-forged sword to replace it—the Lady of Pain and Fire
. It made the memory of that awkward moment in the hut all the more embarrassing.

But if I'm nothing to him, why didn't he take advantage of me when I offered him the opportunity?

She shoved that thought aside. She didn't want to make excuses for Chell's behavior.
Let him try his wiles on the Lady of Pain and Fire
, she though, glancing at the old woman walking at her side, without any sign of distress despite the steepness of the trail. One corner of her mouth turned up.
Somehow, I doubt he'll find it as easy to talk his way around her as he did me.

After her cold exchange with Keltan, she had no more desire to join the others down in the main camp that night than she had the one before. When they reached the top of the slope, the Lady's tent was the first pitched. Although the Lady and her wolves were elsewhere, Mara and Whiteblaze entered it the moment it was erected. A sizable fire already burned in the central pit, and had warmed the tent considerably. Mara removed her coat and sat by the blaze, holding out her hands to the blessed heat of the flames.

A blast of cold air caused those flames to dance, and she turned her head, expecting to see the Lady. Instead, Chell stood in the tent's entrance. Whiteblaze's head came up from where it had been resting on his front paws, but he made no sound, though he watched the prince intently.

“May I come in, Mara?” Chell said. His voice was soft. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, which lit his finely chiseled features with a flattering warm glow. But she couldn't feel about him the way she had when he had been her sole companion on the long sail up the coast of Aygrima.

She heard ice in her voice as she said, “I'm not stopping you,” and didn't regret it.

The prince nodded. He glanced over his shoulder, and Mara glimpsed the young lieutenant she had seen with him and the captains earlier. “Wait outside, Antril,” he said. The young man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, nodded and moved out of her view.

“A guard?” Mara said. “Do you fear me now, Chell?”

The prince entered, letting the tent flap close behind him. “No,” he said. “But I'd like some warning before the Lady or one of her wolves arrive.
Her
, I fear.” He looked around the tent's warm interior. His gaze followed the smoke of the fire for a moment as it poured up to and through the hole in the roof. “It's very pleasant in here.” He lowered his eyes to her face, and smiled. “How have you been? I haven't spoken to you since we began this mad trek.”

Every word he spoke scraped against Mara's nerves like a whetstone on a dagger blade, sharpening her response. “Mad trek?” she said. “To the one place where I might learn how to live with the magic that has almost destroyed me?” She glared at him. “And why
should
I have spoken to you? You made it clear enough on the beach that you only aided my escape from Tamita because you want to use me in your far-off war.”

Chell shook his head. “No, Mara. Yes, I have my mission—but I would have aided you regardless. I care about you.”

His words washed over her like water over stone, leaving no impression behind. “And what do you want now?”

“I told you . . . to see how you've been.”

Mara stared at him. “And . . . ?”

“And to ask your help.”

I knew it,
Mara thought. “Let me guess. You want me to talk to the Lady for you, try to convince her to help you return to your kingdom, promise to help you in your war. Am I right?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Mara, I've told you how deadly the threat is facing Korellia. Magic may offer our only hope of survival. And the Lady—”

“The Lady will not help you until the Autarch is overthrown,” Mara said. “And it will still be her choice whether or not to help you once that is done. There's nothing I can say that will change her mind.” She kept her eyes locked on Chell's. “Nor will I try.”

Chell stared at her another long moment. When he spoke, he sounded sad.
He should be on the stage
, she thought savagely. “I see,” he said. He inclined his head formally. “Then I will leave you to your comforts.” But he studied her a moment longer. “There was a time,” he said, “when you were frightened of becoming like the Lady of Pain and Fire. Has that changed?”

Whiteblaze growled at him. Chell's eyes slipped to the wolf's for a moment, then back to Mara's; then he turned, cloak swirling, and swept back out through the tent flap in another blast of cold air. “With me, Antril,” she heard him say, followed by their footsteps crunching away through the snow.

Mara stared at the sparks dancing up through the smoke hole in the wake of that wintry gust. Chell had clearly meant to hurt her with that last comment, but to her surprise—and fierce delight—she found it had not hurt her in the slightest.

Because
, she thought,
I know the truth at last.

The Lady is my future—but she's not a monster.

And neither am I.

When the Lady herself entered the tent a short time later, six of her wolves flowing around her feet, Mara stood and faced her. The Lady stopped. “You look like you have something to say to me.”

“I want to learn what you can teach me,” Mara said, through a throat almost closed with emotion, so that every word came out both soft and intense. “I want to know how to use my Gift. And I want to join you in destroying the Autarch . . . and every Mask in Aygrima.”

The Lady let the tent flap close behind her, shutting out the camp, the unMasked Army, Keltan, Chell, Catilla, Edrik, Hyram, and all the others. “And so you shall,” she said softly. “And so you shall.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Mara saw the Lady's fortress for the first time. Side by side, she and the Lady crested the ridge they had been climbing so laboriously the day before, and looked down into the valley below, vast and wide, blue and hazy. The rising sun lit from behind the curling tendrils of smoke rising from a distant village, and silhouetted the stone redoubt set high above it on the cliffs that marked the valley's eastern end. A wide white streak on those cliffs spoke of a waterfall, whether frozen or liquid Mara couldn't see at that distance and in that light. It fell to the river that wound along the valley floor, snow-covered fields and snug farmhouses stretching out from it on either side. “My home,” the Lady said simply. “What do you think?”

“It's beautiful,” Mara said. She lowered her eyes from the distant battlemented castle to the river. “Does that river flow to the sea?”

“All rivers flow to the sea,” the Lady said. “But in this case, alas, not in any fashion that would have offered us an easier approach, if that is what you were wondering.”

It was, of course, and yet again Mara wondered if the Lady could somehow read her thoughts.

“At the western end of the valley, below us and out of sight, the river plunges into a canyon and gallops through it all the way to the coast. The walls are sheer and the current fierce. Nothing can approach the valley via that route.”

Mara nodded. “How many people live down there?”

The Lady cocked her head as if mentally counting. “Currently, two thousand, four hundred and fifty-six people make the valley their home,” she said.

Mara shot her a startled look. “That many? But you said they were dwindling.”

“They are,” the Lady said. “Not enough children are being born. The population is aging. We need fresh blood.” She looked right, to the south. “We need to regain our long-lost connection to the people of Aygrima. And so we shall. Now that I have you.” She stared south for another long moment, then shook her head. “Well. That is a discussion for a later time. For now, we must concentrate on the descent into the valley. The path is steep and slippery. We may be able to see my home from here, but we will spend one more night on the trail, tonight at the base of the slope, before pushing on tomorrow. You and I will go ahead in the morning and leave the sluggards behind. We will reach my fortress by midday. The others may not arrive until almost sunset tomorrow.”

Mara wanted to protest the use of the word “sluggards” to describe the struggling band of refugees in their wake, but her momentary outrage vanished beneath the exciting prospect of reaching the Lady's fortress and finally—finally!—beginning to truly learn how to use her Gift without hurting herself or others or engendering the mind-shattering nightmares that had troubled her for so long (she dropped a grateful hand to the mane of Whiteblaze, a gesture that had already become second nature).

The descent into the valley proved every bit as slippery and treacherous as the Lady had warned. No lives were lost during the long hours of cautious descent that followed, but the Lady was several times called to Heal sprains and broken bones from those who had slipped on the ice and, in one instance, tumbled twenty feet from one switchback of the trail to the next. Mara longed to help, but without any urns of magic at hand her only option would have been to draw magic from Whiteblaze or the Lady's wolves, or members of the Lady's Cadre, and neither of them thought that a good idea until she had been trained.

It was while the Lady was Healing the broken leg of the man who had tumbled down the slope that Mara found herself standing next to Hamil, leader of the Cadre.
Or top male of the human wolfpack
, she thought irreverently. He glanced sideways at her as she watched the Lady hurry down the trail to the fallen villager. “Is it true?” he said. “Do you have the same Gift as the Lady?”

Mara looked at him, surprised. “Yes,” she said. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Hamil said. “But I was talking to Prince Chell about other matters, and that is what he said.” He turned his head to watch the Lady. “The Lady has made our lives better. Her magic has kept our village from starving, helped us build sturdier homes and buildings, given us a sacred space to practice our worship of the Great Ones. She moderates the weather and Heals our children and elderly. She helped us build the road you will travel tomorrow and the buildings of the town. We have much to thank her for.”

“You saved her when she found her way through the mountains,” Mara said. “She is only returning the favor.”

“Yes, of course,” Hamil said. “And she asks little enough in return.” For a moment he was silent. “I . . .” he began abruptly, then stopped. He took a deep breath. “I have things to attend to,” he said, and left her.

Mara stared after him. What had he been about to say before he thought better of it?

When she rejoined the Lady half an hour later, she thought about asking her more about her relationship with the villagers, and especially her Cadre, but she saw Hamil looking back at her, and something about his expression stopped her. He looked . . . apprehensive.

She tucked the question away for later. There would be time to figure out the ins and outs of the village's working once they'd actually reached it.

For the rest of the descent, Mara stayed at the Lady's side. She saw Keltan only once, as they made their way back into the column for the Lady to tend to yet another injury. He stood to the side and watched her pass, his gaze following her, but he made no move to join her or speak to her, and she pressed her lips together and kept her own eyes resolutely forward. When they returned to the front of the column, she didn't see him at all.

She did see Chell, staring at her and the Lady from a distance. He looked unhappy. She almost regretted her sharp words in the tent the night before. He really had been a friend to her on the terrible journey north after the death of her father. She could never have made that trip on her own. Yes, he had wanted her help . . . but he had helped her without any guarantee that it would be forthcoming.

She hardened her heart and turned her head away. Whatever his motivations, that journey, and their companionship, lay in the past. She intended to focus on the future.

The sun that had been before them when they looked down into the valley swung overhead and then, early in the afternoon, slipped behind the massive ridge they had climbed the day before and were now descending, plunging them into twilight that made the descent slower and more treacherous still. But it was over at last, and a pleasant surprise awaited at the bottom of the hill: warm longhouses like those they had enjoyed on their first night inland. They glowed with light, and the smell of smoke and roasting meat made Mara almost weep with relief and happiness after the long descent—and she knew full well she had been one of those who had suffered least.

The food would be most welcome. All of them had been on short rations, little more than bread and water, hard cheese, and nuts and dried fruit: good trail rations, but not very filling. Mara heard her stomach growl and blushed, hoping the Lady hadn't noticed. But the Lady clearly had other things on her mind, though exactly what, Mara couldn't tell. She had stopped and spread out her hands toward the huts below, her eyes closed. Her nostrils flared in her thin, white face, warmed by the glow of the fires they were approaching, but Mara didn't think it was the smoke or smell of meat she was sensing.

Abruptly she opened her eyes, lowered her arms, and smiled at Mara. “A good night's sleep,” she said. “And then we will make haste toward my home at first light.”

Mara nodded. She followed the Lady to the tent that was already being erected for them. Before she pushed through the flap, she looked over her shoulder, but if Keltan were watching her or hoping she would join him for supper at the communal fires, he made no appearance. She turned her back on the unGifted still struggling into the camp, put her hand on Whiteblaze's mane, earning a soft whoosh of happy breath, and stepped into the familiar confines of the tent she shared with the Lady.

She and the Lady ate together, roast venison, fresh bread with rich gravy to dip it in, stewed turnips slathered with butter, cold water to wash it down, and hot mint tea to follow it. The Lady did the talking for them both, though Mara was so tired her words might as well have been the drumming of rain on a windowpane for all the sense she took from them. “. . . much more comfortable than when I arrived . . . chambers already prepared . . . training as soon as we can . . . must work quickly, spring is coming . . . plan of attack . . .” Mara couldn't concentrate, and what little focus she had slipped even more as the warmth and food took hold of her tired body. Pleasantly stuffed for the first time since she could remember, Mara stumbled to her bed and fell instantly and wonderfully asleep, Whiteblaze at her side.

The Lady was true to her word: in the early morning twilight, while the rest of the camp was just beginning to stir, she and Mara mounted horses and rode toward the white fortress that rose in the east, the wolves ranging easily alongside them, six of the Lady's and Whiteblaze. Mara was glad for all the practice she had had riding over the past few months, for the pace the Lady set belied her advanced years. The road, which mostly followed the winding course of the frozen river, was wide and level—Mara remembered Hamil saying the Lady's magic had helped build it. The horses were able to keep up a steady trot—a gait she'd never experienced for such long distances before, since most of her riding had been through broken terrain that would not permit it. She kept falling out of rhythm with the horse, taking teeth-clattering jolts until she could find it again, and as a result she was feeling desperately sore and bruised by the time the Lady called a halt for a brief rest some two hours after they had set out. Climbing back into the saddle again she thought was about the bravest thing she'd ever done, and what followed hurt almost as much as using magic she had ripped from other people.

Not really
, she told herself as the thought occurred to her.
Not even close.

On the other hand, the pain of misusing magic was only a memory.
This
pain was current and extremely localized.

The ride ended at last, as they rode through the open gates of the village whose smoke she had first seen from the ridge the day before. A wall surrounded the community, less than a third as tall as the one surrounding Tamita on which she used to like to sit and watch the Outside Market—a lifetime ago, it seemed now, a distant time when the Lady of Pain and Fire was only a dusty historical oddity, not a living, breathing person who apparently could ride circles around Mara, based on the ease with which
she
sat her horse even after five hours in the saddle. The wolves milling around them looked similarly unfazed by the day's hard travel.

The houses beyond the wall appeared ordinary enough, if a bit thicker-walled and lower-roofed than the ones in the capital, as though they had been designed to hunker down in the face of vicious winter storms—as, no doubt, they had been. But Mara barely gave them a glance. Her gaze was drawn upward, as it had been throughout the ride, to the fortress that clung to the top of the cliff that towered above the village.

It looked to be made of ice, but she knew that had to be an illusion birthed from white stone and the season's snow. The cliff face merged seamlessly into its outside wall, which rose up to battlements and guard towers. Beyond that wall rose the fortress itself, half-hidden by the curtain wall and the rising steam and smoke of the village below. It looked smaller than the Palace in Tamita, but not by much, and it clung to the rocks more as if it had grown there than been built. “Magic?” Mara breathed, staring up at the impossible structure.

“Of course,” the Lady said. “Although the method by which we will ascend to it is considerably more prosaic.” She urged her horse followed. They crossed a bridge over the river, which flowed through the middle of the village, its winding path straightened and constrained by brick walls, and through the winding, cobblestoned streets. Snow lay in piles along every wall but had been shoveled from the middle of the road, allowing easy travel. There were many people about, all of whom moved aside to let them pass. There was something odd about the way they did it, though, and after a moment, Mara realized what it was: they didn't look up, as though they were avoiding the Lady's gaze. Mara resolved to ask the Lady about it later, but then promptly forgot about it altogether as their “prosaic” means of ascending to the fortress came into sight.

She realized as she saw it that she'd been subliminally aware of the sound it made for some time: a low rumbling, more felt than heard. When she saw the device itself, she was surprised it had taken her so long to realize what she was hearing, after the time she had spent in the mining camp, for this rumbling had the same source as that one: a giant waterwheel, this one driven by the cascade she had spotted from the western end of the valley and wondered if it were frozen or flowing. It was definitely flowing, falling for hundreds of feet, the rock to either side of its narrow ribbon coated with ice but the stream itself defiantly liquid. At the bottom of its long fall, down a cliff so sheer that it hardly splashed at all for much of the distance, the stream dropped into a kind of funnel and then rushed out again onto the paddles of the waterwheel.