The Facefaker's Game

by Chandler J. Birch

  The Weaver was just as fast. He flicked his fingers, and the room went dull. Brilliant light burst in front of Carapace’s eyes—

  The butler’s fist landed on Jack’s chest. The Weaver gasped and flew backward, as if held aloft by some massive, invisible hand that deposited him unceremoniously on the ground, nearly ten feet away. Jack coughed, and flecks of blood flew from his lips.

  “Bollocks,” he muttered.

  Get away.

  Ashes jerked to the side, trying to get out of reach of Carapace’s spindly arms, but the butler was too quick. He grabbed Ashes by the throat and flung him forward, to land in a heap beside Jack.

  “You might’ve mentioned Ragged kept a bloody stonebreed in his damn house,” Jack snarled.

  “What?”

  “The poor man’s Iron Knight,” Jack growled. “Slower, weaker, not quite as difficult to kill. But a Knight of Iron in every other respect. That bastard doesn’t even know I tried to blind him just now.”

  Carapace proceeded calmly toward them, folding his hands behind his back again. His madness wasn’t gone; it had only slithered under an old, comfortable mask. Ashes felt a yawning emptiness in his stomach. Carapace had seen through his illusions. How else could Ragged have discovered Mr. Smoke’s real identity?

  “So do we run?” Ashes asked.

  “What? Do I look like the kind of idiot who’d pass up this kind of opportunity?” Jack flashed a wicked grin. “I’ve been dreaming how I’d fight one of these things for ages.” The man rolled to his feet and spread his arms. “Come on, then, sir, if you think you have it in you!”

  Carapace paused, looking wary for a moment. “You intend to work some sort of trickery,” he said.

  “Damn right,” said the Weaver. Ashes noticed the hallway lights seeming to shrink, the shadows growing grayer, the color leaching out of the world. “You ever fought an Artificer before, my friend? A real one?”

  “I have not had the pleasure,” Carapace said.

  “Then that makes two of us who’re fresh to the field,” Jack said with a wide grin. “I’ll try to be gentle.”

  He thrust his arms down. All the light in the room swirled to his fingers, leaving minuscule white pinpricks in Ragged’s alchemical lamps. Ashes heard him grunt with exertion. The Weaver’s hands shone like stoked fires, light spurting wildly from his fingertips and oozing from his palms. But it was Woven now, and radiated only a little; despite the absurd quantity of light painted on Jack’s hands, Ashes couldn’t see past the man’s knees. The floor was drowned in darkness.

  Carapace chuckled. “I suppose you think yourself terrifically clever.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  Jack met Ashes’s eyes and jerked his head urgently. Ashes nodded, understanding; Jack would distract Carapace while Ashes moved through the hallway. Without another glance, the Weaver laid a hand on Ashes’s shoulder, loosely binding the light to Ashes’s skin. The boy took control of it, holding it tightly to himself to preserve Jack’s fragile advantage. The floor creaked as Carapace approached. Ashes, carefully, moved forward into the darkness.

  “You were very foolish to come here tonight,” Carapace said. “It would have been wiser to continue working through your agents, if you intended to survive this scheme.”

  “Not known for my wisd— Oh, bugger—”

  The sound that followed was like a minor explosion; Carapace had punched the wall.

  “Very good try, friend,” Jack taunted. Ashes glanced back; Jack was moving swiftly from one side of the hall to the other, binding the light to the portraits on the wall. It would lighten the burden on his magic, but only by a little; without any aether to act as a solvent, Jack would need to keep the light tied there with his mind.

  Apparently, the mental burden didn’t concern the Weaver, for as Ashes watched, he stopped, turned, and raised his hands. Light streamed from his fingers, twining through the hallway in a luminous helix. Carapace’s silhouette appeared, starkly outlined.

  “Gods,” Jack said confidently, “it would seem that I’m an experienced, highly skilled natural Artificer and you’re a menial handservant. Perhaps you’ll need to move a bit faster.”

  Ashes jerked away, hearing Jack’s hint for what it was. He peered into the grasping darkness of the hallway, and felt a brief dizziness swim through his head. It was like being underground again, with the aetherlings—

  Stop that, he told himself. It wasn’t like that. He had light now.

  He had to move faster. Where would Ragged be keeping Jasin and Blimey?

  Bedroom, he thought immediately. It was the first place Ragged hid everything he thought valuable, as well as the most easily guarded room in the house if the window-locks held. Behind him, he heard Carapace grunt. It was followed by Jack gasping, and then, “Is that really the best you have?”

  Ashes entered Ragged’s room and released the light, letting it burst into the room like a firework. The flash illuminated everything for the barest space of a moment—enough time for Ashes to see Jasin huddled in the corner. He rushed unthinkingly to her side.

  “Jasin.” The girl stirred, opened her eyes a fraction of an inch. Ashes produced his Artificer’s lamp and let the light pour out of it, shading it a soft red—half to wake her gently, and half so that he would not see the colors of her cheeks. “Wake up. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “Hrr yeh?” the girl slurred. Her voice came mostly from her throat, as if she couldn’t bear to part her lips.

  “Mr. Smoke sent me,” he said, smiling as reassuringly as he could. “Mr. Smoke, Jasin. Get up. We’ve got to get you out of here while Ragged’s away. And I need your help finding my friend.”

  “S-Smoke?” the girl asked.

  Furies, Ashes thought. She sounded raw, like someone who had screamed too long and too loudly. “That’s right,” he said gently. “Come on, then, Jasin. The Motleys are outside.”

  The girl didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed. Ashes’s heart skipped, but she was still breathing. She had only passed out.

  This is my fault.

  “Don’t you worry, Jasin,” he said to her. “We’ll get you out of here. Ragged won’t even know what hit him.”

  The door to the bathroom opened. Ashes whirled around, feeling his heart leap into his throat.

  The man who stepped out was the portrait of a young Lord Edgecombe. He had the same eyes, the same cheekbones, the same smooth dark hair. The cruel cast of his face was one Ashes knew well. It had been burned in his brain for months.

  “Just how confident are you of that?” Mr. Ragged asked. “Exactly?”

  ASHES lunged forward, but Ragged was faster. Ragged slid the glass ring over his finger, and Ashes felt his mind twist. Screams erupted in the back of his mind; Ashes felt as if the ceiling were swooping down on him, the walls folding inward to crush him to dust. Ragged stood only a few feet away, but it may as well have been miles for all that it mattered now. The screams in Ashes’s head intensified, and he realized they were coming from him.

  “Quiet, boy,” Ragged said. “Gratifying as it is, I am tired of hearing it.”

  Ashes’s mouth clamped shut, as surely and tightly as if he’d been muzzled. He stared at the Beggar Lord, felt his insides quivering, heard the blood thundering in his ears.

  Ragged came close. Ashes flinched away, dreading the man’s touch, but not quickly enough. Ragged took his chin in one hand, forced him to look up. The man inspected him dispassionately, like he intended to bring Ashes to a market.

  “I’ll admit I’m impressed,” Ragged said softly. “I thought you’d died some time ago.”

  Ashes gritted his teeth, trying to force them to stop chattering. “D-didn’t take.”

  “Francis pranced around Burroughside for weeks afterward. He would be so thrilled to see you here now.”

  Would be?

  “What did you do to him?” Ragged demanded.

  “N-nothing.”

  “Liar,” Ragged said, striking Ashes across
the face with a closed fist. His head rang like a struck bell; Ragged had a cosh hidden under his fingers. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing!” Ashes protested. His head was marvelously clear for just a moment, trading his terror of Ragged for the far less oppressive cloud of pain. “Look, if you’re going to kill me—”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Ragged said, unconcerned. “And make no mistake, I will kill you. I intend to take my time about it. You did nothing to Francis?”

  Ashes shook his head. Ragged leaned close, so they were eye to eye. The pain from Ragged’s punch evaporated, crushed to nothing under the weight of Ashes’s fear. Ragged searched his eyes, then stepped back.

  “Pity,” Ragged said. “It seems he was simply stupid, then.” He clapped his hands briskly, taking a seat on the bed. “Now then. A brief interrogation is in order today, I think. Is that Mr. Smoke outside?”

  “No,” Ashes confessed. “I’m him.”

  “Fascinating.” Ragged looked at him with disturbingly bright eyes. “Utterly fascinating.”

  “W-what’ve you done—to Blimey? Where is he?”

  Ragged raised an eyebrow. “Safely tucked away. I must say, your little . . . agent proved to be a fountain of information. It was so generous of you to loan her to me. She had such fascinating thoughts.” Ragged strode to his bedside table and unlocked the third drawer. Ashes heard the clinking of bottles. Ragged withdrew a thin phial of frosted glass; Ashes couldn’t have guessed what was within it. “She seemed to be under the impression that Mr. Smoke had maneuvered me into the most elegant of traps, and I was imminently doomed. Her theory about my alliance with Bonnie the Lass was most intriguing.” Ragged smiled wickedly. “I’ll admit you won that little battle. I’d wanted to let Bonnie putter around a few more months, but you forced my hand. I imagine it’s something of a comfort to think that your little mischiefs have inconvenienced me.” Ragged smiled coldly. “Have you visited the crater yet, where the ugly bitch used to live? I burned it down to nothing, because of you. Well done.”

  There was a crash outside, and Jack’s voice screaming exultantly, “Didn’t expect that, did you, you bastard?”

  Hardly a moment later light streamed through the crack at the bottom of the door. Something slammed against it once, twice, and on the third time the door crashed open. Jack stepped through, awash in Artifice, light streaming from his palms and his eyes. His magic oozed off him like heat from a fire.

  “It wasn’t locked,” Ragged said calmly, not looking at him.

  “I’ve always gotten a sort of perverse pleasure in kicking doors down,” Jack said. “It’s so much more dram— Oh, bugger.”

  The Weaver fell to his knees as Ragged faced him. The Beggar Lord smiled.

  “Again—I’m impressed,” Ragged said. “You did well for yourself, boy. Turning a fully licensed Artificer into your personal bodyguard must have taken quite some time.”

  “Holy . . . damn,” Jack gasped.

  Ashes shook violently, feeling tears well up in his throat. There was no way out. No one knew they were here. Their Artifice did them as much good as pebbles thrown at a knight.

  “Present from my father,” Ragged said proudly, letting the glass ring flash in the light from the hallway. “Whom you’ve both met by this point, I’m sure. He seemed to think you were in his custody, Ashes.”

  Ashes gritted his teeth. “I’m flattered,” he spat, feeling a tiny burst of control come back. Mocking Ragged combatted the fear, just a little. If his mind were a carriage, at least he had a grip on the reins, even if the horses had gone mad.

  “Bold words.” The Beggar Lord turned on one of the lamps, suffusing the room in a soft glow. “You, Artificer. What did you do to my butler?”

  “Sent him home pissing himself,” Jack snarled. “With all due respect.”

  “Mm,” Ragged said. “That cannot have come without cost.”

  Jack let out a harsh, forced laugh. “I took some blood out of him, too.”

  “How droll,” Ragged said. He nudged Ashes’s ribs with a toe. “Hear that, boy? You’ve damaged two of my servants. That’s an accomplishment. You should be very proud. You’ve made the most of quite a short life.”

  Ragged swirled the liquid in the phial, holding it so the light streamed through it. The liquid inside seemed to swallow the light entirely, leaving nothing to escape to the other side. “I’ll admit, Ashes, that you’ve proved a more engaging diversion than I could ever have imagined. It’s a poor precedent to set, killing your entertainment, but . . .” He shrugged. “Cost of doing business, I suppose.”

  Jack met Ashes’s eyes. The boy shivered. The look in Jack’s eyes was as unsettling as Ragged’s magic; Candlestick Jack was scared. Not broken, not yet. But it would not be long. The light he had wrapped around himself had all but dissipated, leaving him mundane and unremarkable. Candlestick Jack, laid low.

  Traitor. Failure. Fraud.

  Jack’s eyes narrowed slightly—a look not of mistrust but fascination. He searched Ashes’s face, pressed his teeth together, and forced out a laugh.

  Ragged looked at the man, politely confused. “That is an uncommon reaction,” the man said.

  “Not surprised,” Jack said. “Do you know, Mr. Ragged, I think you might’ve overestimated yourself. My friend here’s got something of a talent for misdirection. You ask me, he’s not the one who’s walked into a trap.”

  Ashes stared at Jack, dumbfounded. Had he lost his wits already—broken under the mental strain? It was all Ashes could do to keep himself from screaming. But Jack had always seemed so strong . . .

  “I think that if he wanted to,” Jack went on, “Ashes could take this absurd little charade—this illusion of yours, and he could make it disappear. Poof. Isn’t that right, lad?”

  Ragged glanced at Ashes, a faint wariness playing behind his eyes. Ashes felt his insides quiver. It was the look he’d sworn to see on Ragged’s face again, one that said he didn’t know everything, that there were events outside his control. Ashes should have felt triumph. There ought to have been an exultant surge, some feeling that he’d snatched the advantage away . . .

  “He does it all the time with cards,” Jack said, sounding more desperate with every word. “Cheating bastard, him. He can look at something and make it vanish.”

  The word tickled something buried in his memory. The word Tuln had used for the last breed of Artisans. The Unmakers. The Vanishers.

  Their magic changes from story to story. In some they render themselves invisible . . . They turn away armies with a wave of their hands. They once wiped out a city for daring to ask their help in a war.

  “You’ve truly gone mad,” Ragged said, sounding both fascinated and deeply amused. “What a delightful little surprise. You’ll be great fun, I think.”

  Anyone who refuses to bow for a passing Ivory was to be hanged publicly. I thought it was like someone writing a law that any rock that didn’t fall to the ground was to be sentenced to death . . .

  “Now for you, Ashes.” Ragged unstoppered the phial and sniffed the liquid inside. “Given your new taste in company, I’m sure you’re familiar with the properties of aether.”

  That boy is no canted Stitcher.

  What is like an Artificer, but not? He sees through glass.

  “Lie down, Ashes. And open your mouth. I expect this will hurt.”

  The room lightened a shade; it was dawn. The glass ring caught the light coming in from the window, and it turned briefly into a circle of pale flame. Looking at it filled him with dread and revulsion, a total certainty of his own helplessness. Ragged was holding all the cards here, and Ashes had nothing to play—

  He asked me why we were all so enraptured. He didn’t understand.

  Artifice is about more than manipulating light. Artifice deals with perception. And Ivories do that.

  Ashes looked at the ring again. A charade. An illusion.

  “Glamour,” he whispered.

  Ragged twitched. “What did
you say, boy?”

  It’s all the same magic. Making people love you and making them fear you, it’s all the same, it’s all changing perception. And I—I—

  “I can see through glass.”

  Ragged stared at him. His expression shifted to one of profound disappointment. “Damn it all,” he muttered. “You’re much less interesting with your sanity gone.”

  I could see through Lord Edgecombe’s glass ring at his party. Why can’t I see through this?

  He knew the answer at once. Because Ragged makes me afraid.

  He wasn’t willing to bow to an Ivory. Ragged was another story altogether. He feared Ragged. He always had. The ring’s magic found a foothold in him because he was willing to be afraid.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ashes said aloud.

  “I’ll have to make do,” Ragged said. “Get on your back, boy.”

  “No,” Ashes said, looking at the man. He felt the pull of the ring at every side of his mind, felt the overwhelming pressure to submit. He refused. “No, Ragged. I won’t.”

  He stood, slowly, fighting the Glamour every moment. He felt its weight on his shoulders, and he pushed back.

  “What the hell are you doing, boy?”

  “Changing the game,” Ashes said. “See, you need me to be afraid of you. And I’m not. I’ve got no reason to be.”

  Ragged chuckled. “You’re a good liar.” He flourished the knife, still wet with Ashes’s blood. “Get on the floor and you have my word it’ll be quick.” He smirked. “Or at least quicker.”

  “You’re not understanding me, Hiram,” Ashes told him, his voice strengthening with every word. “I’m a gutter-rat of Burroughside. I’m fearless.”

  There was a faintest shadow of uncertainty in Ragged’s eyes. Ashes smiled viciously. Now I’ve seen that from you twice in a night.

  The Beggar Lord’s confidence came back all at once, and he lunged with the knife. Ragged was relatively young and in good health, but Ashes could see in a glimpse that the man had never really fought. He slashed with elegant precision, expecting Ashes to flinch back. It would give Ragged a slender advantage, enough for him to slide the steel between Ashes’s ribs.