Mask of Poison (Fall of Under Book 1)

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

  “Usually, I would travel via a method that would bring us to the Great Hall immediately. But it can be disconcerting for those uninitiated, and…I would like to spare you any undue trauma. It is not a long walk. I suggest we take the time to continue to talk.”

  “Uh-huh.” She wasn’t really paying attention. She was too busy marveling at the world around her. She turned to take in the other buildings nearby, but there was just too much to look at. Many of the windows were smashed, and she watched as a small group of people seemed to be quickly working to straighten benches and clear up debris.

  “I would strictly warn you against any attempt to flee. Under is filled with creatures who would look upon a wayward mortal not as something to be investigated, but something to be killed for sport.”

  That got her attention. She looked at Lyon in shock. “What?”

  “You have seen the depictions of our gods. What manner of world do you think beings such as those would create?” Lyon smiled faintly. “And our monsters come in more shapes than men.”

  “O—oh.” She gripped the leather strap of her spear. “No running. Got it.”

  “Good.” He turned back down the stairs. “This is the city of Yej, our capitol. It does not always look so…ramshackle. I fear our buildings were not designed to survive a sudden drop.”

  “I’ve seen worse.” Everywhere I’ve seen is worse.

  “I fear you likely have.” He began to walk down the steps of the church. Ember followed him, having to look at her feet from time to time to keep from tripping. She was too fascinated by everything else she was seeing. Once they were back on solid ground, she resumed turning this way and that to take in everything around her.

  Of all the stories of her world before the Dread God came, she had always wondered what it would have been like to see a real city—a city that wasn’t surrounded by corpses and walls. What it might have been like to live and sleep without the constant terror.

  And here it was before her. A little mussed from the world suddenly dropping a foot or two—but it was more amazing than anything she had ever seen in her life. Not like that was particularly hard to do.

  The fanciest buildings she had ever seen were all gutted, overgrown, collapsed, or burned out.

  Here, the structures were packed close together and looked old, but well-cared-for. Windows were shattered and planters were overturned, but everyone seemed to be cleaning up the messes as best they could.

  Shop keepers were fixing the wares displayed in their windows—soaps, breads, meats. Clocks and trinkets, jewelry and clothing. Several times, Lyon had to wait for her because she couldn’t help but stop and stare.

  There are so many people here! They all seemed a little nervous as they worked at cleaning up broken glass or spilled dirt from planters.

  But she was used to seeing scared masses. What she wasn’t used to was seeing so many all at once.

  Under was alive.

  It was thriving.

  It was everything her world hadn’t been.

  Maybe my coming here is a good thing.

  She shoved the hope away from her thoughts as fast as it had come. It was always a lie. It was always a trap. Never get complacent. Never get comfortable. That’s when you die.

  Overwrought, she stopped to watch someone at a stall making food for patrons. Some of the people had masks that covered parts of their faces. Their styles ranged as widely as their clothing. A man near her wore a half mask of wood, carved into the visage of a bird. He was chatting with a woman wearing a metal mask with red paint splashed across it.

  Much of the crowd was smiling, laughing, walking arm-in-arm with each other.

  “I wonder what the Ancients are up to now,” one man near her said to his companion. He was wearing an expensive set of clothes that resembled Lyon’s outfit, but inverted. Instead of all white, he wore all black. A black ink mark was visible close to his ear.

  “Maybe one of them rolled over and fell out of bed,” his female companion responded, laughing. She was wearing all white and had a white porcelain mask across a quarter of her face. She bowed her head to Lyon as they passed. “My king.”

  Lyon bowed his head in return.

  Some other people wore clothing that resembled hers, made of leathers and furs. One man even bowed his head to her in greeting. Not knowing what else to do, she smiled and did the same.

  They mistook her for one of them. Why? Oh. The kohl on my face. She touched her cheek. She wore the mark most of her life. She forgot about it sometimes.

  “Miss Ember?”

  It was only when she glanced at Lyon and noticed the concern in his voice that she realized she was crying. With shaking hands, she wiped at her tears. “Sorry. I’m all right.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just…I’ve never seen a city so alive. I didn’t even realize this was possible anymore. It’s like the stories of our world before the Dread God came.” She smiled weakly.

  “Dread God?”

  “My world, Gioll, was once thriving and alive like this one.” She wiped at her eye again, trying not to smudge the kohl line that ran from one of her cheeks, over her nose, and to the other. “Until eighty years ago, when the Dread God came. It brought the plague that turned the dead upon the living, and the civilizations of Gioll collapsed.”

  “I see…” He gestured for her to keep walking with him as they made their way along the sidewalk. “Please, continue.”

  “We weren’t prepared. We tried to fight, but…every one of us they killed, they just added to their ranks. Drengil are mindless creatures. They only know one thing—the need to eat the flesh of the living.”

  “Drengil?”

  “That is what we call them. The corpses that kill to consume.”

  “Hm.” Lyon paused for a long moment. “We have words for such creatures in our languages as well. And your world was overrun?”

  Ember nodded. She thumbed the largest amulet in her collection of necklaces. “The old gods, long forgotten, rose up to fight the threat. But they weren’t strong enough. By the time I was born, almost all of the cities of the old world were gone. Nothing more than ruins, and rust, and rubble. The survivors were packed into citadels or sanctuary towns, fighting to survive.”

  “Those necklaces of yours, they are tribute to your gods?”

  “Yes. I live my life in service to them.”

  Lyon’s forehead creased again in worry.

  “What?”

  And just as quickly, he smoothed his expression back to a placid one. “Nothing.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  He smirked. “Very well. I was considering the fact that you and I seem to have something in common—faith to the gods. And that it is rather auspicious that you find yourself inside the largest cathedral in the world dedicated to mine.”

  “Do you think your Ancients have anything to do with my being here?”

  “I believe they have everything to do with it. Why, and to what ends, remains to be seen.” Lyon sighed.

  They passed another food vendor, and Ember stopped and stared again. The man was putting together sandwiches. Everything looked so damn good, she couldn’t help it.

  Lyon paused beside her. “When was the last time you have eaten a proper meal, Miss Ember?”

  “Two days? Roast squirrel. Wasn’t bad.”

  He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Let me get you some real food. Something more than a few cookies, and the one you have hidden in your bag that you thought I didn’t notice you taking on the way out.” His eyes glittered in amusement as he smiled at her.

  “I—but—I didn’t—” She tried to uselessly deny the truth, but he was already walking away from her toward the vendor. He fished through his pocket, removed a few slips of paper from a small leather holder, and handed it to the man across the counter. The man seemed to recognize Lyon. The vendor quickly bowed.

  He’s a king, she reminded herself. Whatever that really means here. Stunned, she
could only stare dumbly as Lyon walked back to her and held out a sandwich.

  “Go on, dear.”

  Her mouth was watering. She was hungry—she was always hungry. It was just a normal state of being for her. She couldn’t even identify half of what was squished between the two slices of bread. Bread! She hadn’t had that since she left the citadel. Gingerly, she took it from him.

  “You’re meant to eat it, you know.”

  Shooting him a glare, she smirked. “Yes, yes, very funny.”

  He was smiling at her with a shocking amount of warmth. She took a step away from him. Not because she was frightened, but because she wasn’t. Trust no one. Another lesson from Ash. One that she never had to practice much as an outcast.

  He seemed unoffended, at least. “Very well, save it for later.” He gestured and resumed their path through the streets. “I do not want to dawdle much longer. Forgive me, but I am eager to speak to Queen Ini, our Queen of Fate. Her purview is over secret things and whispers of the future.”

  “Each of you represents something? Each of the seven houses?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you represent?”

  “The House of Blood.”

  Ember walked a few more feet away from him.

  Lyon paused to look at her, blinked for a moment, then chuckled. “Ah. Yes. That might sound foreboding. I assure you it is not a threat.”

  “I really don’t think I believe you.”

  “I think you do. Or else you likely would have run off or stabbed me. Again.”

  All right, that deserved a laugh. “Okay. Tell me how ‘the House of Blood’ isn’t terrible.”

  Lyon smiled. “My house is titled House of Blood for two reasons. The first is that the Ancients slumber in a pool beneath the Cathedral. A large underground lake that is filled with their blood.”

  “That sounds…disgusting.”

  “Their blood is not like ours.”

  “I guess that makes sense for gods.” She shook her head. “And the second reason?”

  “That those in my house, including myself, drink blood for sustenance.”

  Now she had her knife drawn, holding it out toward Lyon. “That makes the name worse, not better. Much worse.”

  Lyon held his hands up once more in a show of harmlessness. He said he could kill me. I don’t think he needs a weapon to do it. “My kind does not feed mindlessly. You are in no danger—”

  “You drink blood! You said so yourself!”

  “Yes, and if I wished to drink yours, I would have. Any of those in my home would have. We pick only willing partners.”

  “Bullshit! No one would choose for that to happen to them.”

  Deadpan, he lowered his hands. “You would be surprised.” When she grimaced in disgust and took a step away from him, he sighed. “A poorly timed attempt at humor, forgive me. We have no shortage of those who wish to join us in the act. It is not painful. Far from it. You are in no danger from us. I swear to you.”

  “You’re asking me to trust you. Trusting people gets you killed.”

  “And I have had every opportunity to harm you should I have wished.”

  That was a good point. “You need answers from me.”

  “Yes, that is true, but—”

  “And what then? What happens after you have your answers?” She redoubled her grip on her knife.

  “I…” He paused. “I do not know. I will not lie to you, Ember. This has never occurred before. I do not know what the other kings and queens will wish to do with you. But I would see you safe.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” He arched an eyebrow.

  Ember wavered. Trust no one. “Prove it.”

  “Prove what, precisely?” He tilted his head. “That I do not wish to harm you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He let out a long, beleaguered sigh. “Very well.”

  Ember slipped her knife back into her belt. She smiled warmly at him. He bowed, holding out his arm as if to say, “after you.” And without hesitation, without question, she began to stroll along beside him.

  “The power to hypnotize is a fascinating thing.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Most who wield it tend to go for an ‘all-or-nothing’ approach. Commandeering a person’s entire consciousness to force them to do their will.”

  “Oh?” She took a bite out of the sandwich and nearly cried again. It was so good! She didn’t even know what was in it. It didn’t matter. It tasted amazing. And it was actual food. Not whatever jerky she managed to scrounge up out of an abandoned building or what she could hunt and kill herself.

  “I prefer a more subtle approach. People are not so hard to learn, with enough time and practice. Everyone has the same motivations, the same desires. Their responses to those things might differ, but the underlying core is the same.”

  “Mmhm?” Her mouth was full.

  “When I place someone in my thrall, I merely soften those responses. You still feel the fear that inspired you, but now, you do not raise your knife at me. You walk at my side. If I were to rewrite the fear itself, it would be far more intrusive. You would recognize the invasion, and possibly attempt to fight my control, requiring me to redouble my effort, which might cause damage to us both. Instead, I have simply removed your fearful response toward me.”

  “I’m not hypnotized,” she said through a piece of sandwich.

  “Oh, yes, you are.”

  She furrowed her brow. “I don’t feel hypnotized.”

  “Precisely.” He smirked. “I am simply attempting to prove a point. That if I wished to harm you, I needn’t do so while you raise your knife at me. Indeed, leaving you like this would be far more effective and efficient than letting you rail freely against our current predicament.”

  “You like words, don’t you?” She finished off the sandwich, brushing the crumbs off her hands.

  Lyon laughed. “I have been told I come in two extremes—silent, and very much not. I think my wife will like you very much, Miss Ember.”

  “You’re married?”

  “You needn’t sound so surprised.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Sorry.”

  “My wife Kamira is…well, I am sure you will meet her soon enough. She is something of a firebrand.”

  “Is she a…whatever-you-are? Blood drinker?”

  “Hm? No. She is a shifter. She may change her body at will to more bestial shapes. She is the Elder of the House of Moons—elder meaning regent, or second in command.”

  “Oh.” She tucked her hands into her pockets as she walked, looking up at the buildings around her. The streetlamps—those that weren’t broken—seemed to swirl with life. She paused to stare at one. It almost looked like they were filled with glowing insects. It was beautiful, like watching fireflies swirling at twilight, but much brighter and bigger. “Your world is…a lot to take in.” She jogged to catch up with him.

  “Yes, I have been told as much.” He pondered her for a moment. “You are handling it all quite well, if I might say. Current hypnotism aside.”

  “I’ve been trained to roll with the punches. My life is lived moment to moment.”

  “Because of the drengil? The hungering dead?”

  She nodded. “I’m a hunter. I was raised to fight them. Well, correction.” She chuckled. “Ash was trained to fight them. I was trained to heal and pray.”

  “Oh? You’re a healer?”

  “I’m a graedari.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “It’s hard to explain. I’ve never had to explain it before. Everyone just knows what a graedari is. Hunters are paired when we are raised. We are even named for it.”

  “Ember and Ash. I was going to mention it.”

  She chuckled. “It wasn’t my choice. Ash was a slahundur. A sword. A graedari is…like a shield, I guess. Both are used to protect, but just…differently. Mine is the sacred role. And his was one of battle and honor.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s…gone. He died.” She frown
ed.

  “I am sorry for your loss.”

  She shrugged. “It’s been almost three years. It’s all right. I travel on my own now, fighting the drengil and their plague as much as I can. And I pray that when I die, I might join my ancestors and celebrate a war we lost but fought well.”

  “Your world was dying.”

  She nodded. “There were so few of us left…most of the citadels had fallen. Sanctuary towns were being picked off, one by one. I don’t know how much longer we had until every life was extinguished. And that is what the Dread God was after.”

  Lyon went silent for a long, long time. He looked troubled.

  “What?”

  “The arrival of the eighth altar, clothed in yellow. It signals that there is another Ancient amongst us. There is nowhere else for it to have come from, save your world…”

  “Do you think—you think the Dread God has come here, too?”

  “I cannot say. Who is to know how much of your world came through with you?”

  She frowned. “Oh, no… if the Dread God has come, then the drengil will follow.”

  “We as a people are more suited to defending against such a thing. We are immune to disease and poison. Any wound dealt to us that does not remove our soulmarks is reversable. The only scars that remain are left on the psyche alone.”

  “Oh.” That almost brought a smile to her face. But she wouldn’t let herself hope. She wouldn’t. But she couldn’t help but wonder if coming here to Under was not, in fact, a good thing. Their world was alive. Powerful. Thriving. And filled with creatures that could defend themselves. And they had real food! She didn’t get far into her internal debate.

  They stepped around a corner. What she saw in front of them sent her staggering back, gripping the hilt of her long knife.

  “Be still, Miss Ember.” Lyon placed his hand on her wrist, keeping her from pulling her knife. “It’s all right.”

  It was not all right!

  It was a monster!

  A huge…whatever-the-fuck-it-was was standing in the road a good thirty feet in front of her. She didn’t even know what to compare it to, because she had never seen anything like it before in her life. It walked on six legs, each of them bending in odd and bizarre angles, and looked to have three or four joints per appendage.