by Kaplan, EM
By the front door was an entourage of maybe thirty men, women, and children who did not seem to be appropriately dressed for the harsh cold, but also didn’t seem to be bothered much by it. Perhaps they were accustomed to it; not a single one of them shivered in the least. They stood, ready, in universal silence, equal parts reverence and fear on their faces, the unwavering faith that Mel and her parents would aid them.
The sled driver opened the door, and the first blast of dry icy air invaded the warm cabin, the cold devouring their sled’s cocoon of heat in seconds with its vicious fingers. Guyse exited first, then turned to show deference to them. Her mother descended from the sled on a set of boxed steps. Mel crouched under the low ceiling, making her way to the door, but her father halted her with a gesture. She thought for a minute that he was going to save her, to allow her to cover her face. Instead, he paused only to fasten the Mask medallion around her neck to mark her as one of them. He left her cowl and veil discarded on the seat of the sled. Exposed, as much from emotion as from bitter cold, her face flushed as he exited the sled ahead of her.
“This is not a good idea,” she said, trying to grasp the sleeve of his robe. She was too late and ended up catching nothing but air. She grabbed her coverings from the bench and followed him.
Blinking to clear her eyes from the sharp sting of cold air, she stepped down onto the wooden box. She thought she heard a gasp as someone saw the dried blood that ran down her face. A ripple of anxiety ran through the people. The sun was very bright, but she knew it wouldn't last. There was a scent in the wind that marked a storm, a great frozen beast looming that even she could feel. She cast her eyes down the snowy lawn at the people at work hammering, trying to stave off their panic with activity. Pointless effort. Except that perhaps it soothed them. The opposite of what Mel felt now. Her heart pounded, and she had trouble drawing a normal breath.
She stepped off the lowest step onto the cleared ground. A narrow path had been shoveled through the snow to the front door. The ground was frozen, but she sank into it—not with her feet, but her mind. She stood stock still. She was not prepared to feel this much. It was too much. She wasn't closed off and protected. She wasn’t a person, but a mass of emotion and nerves, spilling over, like water seeking lower ground. She stood frozen in the path as she reached out to the people down the lawn. She could sink into the bare ground and follow along the bits of green current. She inhaled deeply, reaching, scenting, touching their sense of purpose, their anger, despair. Her mother gasped and was suddenly pulled along with Mel, as Mel punched into the earth with her mind. She raced from thread to thread of the green agamite stone. Jumping, twisting deeply, leaping blindly when there was no clear path to follow, and hitting the next tendril. She passed through the earth, deep underground, far down where it was not frozen.
She came up in the center of the activity, at the feet of a strong man wielding a hammer. He was a miner, his blood full of the stone, bits and tiny particles, motes in the streams of his veins. He stopped, frightened, although not sure why, seeing nothing to alarm him. Mel jumped from the ground into his green fingertips, into his arms, up through his neck, and into his eyes. She looked around, and then inhaled deeply, feeling the man's fingers curled around the handle of the hammer as he paused in his nailing, frozen, completely taken over by her. From inside, she moved his limbs. She turned him around slowly and stared. The familiar scent slammed into her lungs through his, his nostrils flaring as she looked directly into Ott's shocked eyes.
Could he see her? Did he know it was her?
Ott’s green eyes locked on hers as though he saw her in the body of stocky miner next to him. His hammer fell from his fingers, and his face froze with shock, eyes open wide, unshaven chin going slack with confusion. With a sharp gasp, Mel withdrew and shrank back into herself. Back up the lawn by underground route, she slammed back into her own body.
Part 4
Reveal
Chapter 30
Standing at the foot of his ladder in the tent city, Ott struggled for air. "Mel?"
He whipped his head toward the house where he'd seen the sled go. They all had noticed its arrival as it passed through the gates, brought up by scowling Harro, Rob's man, on horseback. And then Ott was in motion, leaving his hammer forgotten where it lay half-covered in the icy mud. The miner by his side looked astonished as he recovered himself. Whatever it was that had been in the miner man's eyes, whatever he hoped it was, propelled Ott toward the big house.
Ott's body roared. His mind shut down, his legs powering him up the hill. He was afraid to hope, but more terrified of not knowing. He ran up the slope when the ruts in the snow would allow him, his feet sinking deeply where he stepped outside the track. His feet covered the distance, lungs straining to burst. After months, what felt like years, he couldn't get there fast enough. He knew she was up at the house, pulling him to her. It had to be her.
As he neared the sled, he found it empty. The massive front doors of the house were closed, so he ran around the side to the kitchen door. His footsteps pounded up the steps as he took them two at a time until he stood in the threshold on the worn stone floor that he'd known well since childhood.
"Nan? Where are they?" he asked the startled cook, her gray hair tucked under her cap. She looked up at him and started to smile, as she always did, but the look on his face stopped her cold. He probably looked like a lunatic. He had been working outside for hours and knew he was a mess. The full sprint through the snow had him sweating under his coat and breathing hard.
"Lutra take it. What's the matter, Matty?" she said, dropping her armful of bowls onto the immense wooden table, immediately coming around the counter at him in full protective hen mode though she came only up to his shoulder now.
"The sled that arrived . . . the Masks," he said. He could barely get the words out. He took a big breath. "Where are they?"
Nan answered right away, as always wanting to alleviate whatever discomfort he was in. He realized with some embarrassment that he was her favorite. He was even more of a favorite with her than Rob. More than any other child at the big house, even though he hadn't lived there. And he wondered how many times in the past he'd used this knowledge to his advantage. With Nan, with other people. Why hadn’t he been more grateful? "In the hall with Rob and the master." She put a hand on his arm looking up into his face. "But you can't go in there."
"Why not?" He frowned, agitation bubbling up and making his skin itch. He had to know if she was in there with them. And why had she come with them? What was she doing here? He brushed Nan's hand off as gently as he could and paced for a second. She watched him, consternation wrinkling her sweet, old face.
"They've locked everyone out of the hall. From the inside. No one can go in."
Chapter 31
Mel was ready to jump out of her skin. She had seen him. She had smelled him. Ott. So close. In her nose and deep down into her chest. But she had to calm herself. She had to control herself even though he was so, so near. Her mind raced though she tried to make her face placid. She didn’t care how it was possible—that she had had to come to the edge of the world to find him—he was alive.
She tried to stop her eyes from speeding from face to face in the room, as exposed as she was without a Mask. She, along with her parents and Guyse, had been led inside the gloomy manse to a large theater. Now they faced a crumpled, skeletal old man on a dais. Colubridan Robinet. She had studied and memorized his historically known facts. He perched in a fine-worked chair that was more a throne than anything Mel had ever seen in a book of tales. These were a people of a great and long tradition, as isolated as they were; they were fierce, proud, and stubborn. His ancient body was swaddled in furs and a rich, deep purple velvet. She expected him to wear a crown at his withered temples; this minor lord projected a formality and grandeur the likes of which she hadn't experienced since Lady Skance at the Keep, miles away and a lifetime ago.
Now everyone stared at her silently. No one said a
word. They saw the blood on her head—the injury she had suffered at the hands of the locals at the port. Why would Ott be here of all places? She wanted to close her eyes, to pretend to be invisible, so she could think, maybe try to reach out to him again. Yet, she could not. The stone floor here was solid and non-porous; she sensed nothing, no veins of agamite, no green dust. She needed to put it out of her mind and focus on the old man in front of them. She had been struck—clearly, there was a threat to her kind here. They were not guaranteed the respect and treatment they’d been accustomed to in the past. So, she stood there, as still as she could, outwardly calm.
With a hand on her arm, her father displayed her to them, but she realized the people crowding the hall were not looking at the wound on her head but at her face. They had never seen a Mask, unmasked. No one had. Why should she be the first? Had her father seen something? She took a deep breath and began reigning herself in, battening down her mind against a wild storm of emotion. She could hear them then. They were talking; she simply hadn't been able to hear them over the cacophony of her own raging sensations. She tried to pick out voices, to distinguish words in the mishmash.
She is one of them? . . . She’s so young, much too young. Is it a trick?
She gritted her teeth. Masks were not supposed to have motive. Yet her father clearly had one. She simply couldn’t figure out what it was. She focused on each face that stared at her, and her Keep training returned to her at once. She would show them. She was not simply a Mask, but a Cillary Keep-trained one at that. They had their formalities and rituals here; she would prove that she could match them. She straightened her back, clarified the light that fell on her face from the dormer windows high above, so that her wound would be visible in detail to all those who looked at her. As she waited for the formal, traditional words of welcome, she sharpened her features, raised her height, and diverted attention to the wound, made it glisten slightly though it had been dry before. She thought she saw Guyse lift an eyebrow at her display.
The murmurs dwindled, and the old man on the dais cleared his throat to speak. The acoustics of the room carried his reedy, cracking voice to her. "I assume you have received a summons. I know that is the only condition of your attendance in a matter, that you Masks must first receive a call for assistance from someone." Without the formal greeting that was due to visitors or even the required blessing and call for respect to his household god, he began, his very first word even referring to himself. I. He dared speak of himself before all others.
There was no murmuring in the great hall, but Mel sensed shock at the man's lack of decorum, his lack of deference to them. His lack of humility. His pride. She searched his face for signs of senility but found none. With a shock, she realized that the younger man standing to the right of the dais was Ott's big friend.
Ott was truly here.
Seeing his friend was absolute confirmation. Ott’s friend was related to this minor lord? Her heart pounded and soared. She tried to reign herself in and managed only to keep herself from running to him. Ott's friend was this old man's son, as his position at the man's right hand declared him. But what was that look on his face? The stoicism was hard to get past, but she saw frustration in the set of his jaw and schooled patience measured by the pulse at his neck.
The old man continued, "I am the head of this house still, as breath goes through my body. I have called for no one. Therefore your presence here is unwanted. That is all. You may go." The old man gestured to a nearby servant, who helped him descend the dais and make his way to a door off to the side of the great hall. As soon as the door closed behind them, the great hall erupted in chaos. Mel felt it swirl around her. A wave of uncertainty came from her mother, but from her father, there was nothing. Mel herself felt . . . she didn't know what. The people's outrage, fear, and nervousness licked her like flames. She was kindling, ready to combust.
She inhaled, ready to laugh, feeling the absurdity of the situation ready to consume her in a storm. She inhaled again, drawing the escalating emotion of the room into her. The great hall seemed to shrink suddenly. It wavered and contracted. Then, she did hear a sharp intake of breath from her father under his Mask. But she couldn't stop. She was eating it all, the chaos and discomfort, delicious to her, and as she did, calmness replaced chaos all around the room. She had never been this open before, this able to absorb people in such an enclosed space. She could feel, even, a draft of air sucking inward under the locked doors of the great hall, air coming from the hallway. It reached her nose, tendrils of it filling her lungs with that particular spicy aroma she'd missed all these months. It hit her chest, and she froze in her inhalation. She released the room, and a calm settled over it. Her mother, father, and Guyse stood frozen, turned toward her, staring.
At that moment, the young man to the side of the dais, Ott's friend, came toward them, quickly yet coolly, surprisingly without a trace of apprehension despite the tumult of the situation. Perhaps they bred them stronger up here in the frozen north. But his eyes gave him away. When he got closer, she saw they were lined with strain. His jaw was locked with tension.
He addressed all of them in a low voice that was cool and collected. "If you would, please retire to your chambers so that I might call upon you and discuss matters privately." His eyes passed over her open face without recognition. He didn't know her. But then, she wasn't surprised. She didn't look the same as she had at the Keep when she'd been costumed in her presentation finery and shining like a sun, and he had seen her only once.
Her father said with as great a show of deference as his cloaked body would allow, "As you wish." He pulled Mel’s mask over her face, and they were escorted from the great hall.
Chapter 32
Ott paced the smooth dark stone floor of the hallway in his stocking feet trying not to slip. Twenty paces one way. Twenty paces back. He had gone back to the kitchen door and removed his coat and boots, momentarily chagrined when he realized he was tracking melted and dirty snow through the entire house. He vowed to never again be so self-obsessed as to not give a thought to the cares of others. At least when he could remember, he amended, realizing his flaw. He paused and turned around, wracked with a nervous fidget, then turned back the other way. He rubbed his cheek roughly, scratching his two-day beard. He took a sniff at his shirt and grimaced, wishing he’d taken time for a bath. Another waffling directional change, and then he resumed his footsteps. For pity's sake, when were they going to come out?
A little housemaid shot him a surprised smile. She stopped in confusion when he stared at her, frozen mid-step. Her brown curls were tucked under a knit white cap that identified her station. Then she turned and continued down to the east wing, casting him a narrow-eyed look over her shoulder. Ott froze, and then jogged after her, kicking himself. Marget was her name. He'd once given her a flower. A peck on the cheek in the east wing where she worked. That was where high-ranking guests usually were housed. He followed her retreating figure, her thin shoulders in her house uniform. He searched his memory, fairly certain a kiss was all he'd done with her, cursing himself for being such an idiot. Now every past flirtation tormented him. He caught up to her and laid a hand on her narrow shoulder. Even that felt awkward. What was wrong with him? Had he lost all feeling of being at ease in his own skin?
In answer to his query, she said, peering up at him, "The Masks? There are three of them. I've never seen a Mask up close before. Kind of scary creatures, aren't they? Little bit ghostlike. Gives me the willies and makes me wonder what's under there. Not human, that’s for certain. They don't talk very much. They say they can sense what you're thinking and get inside of your very thoughts to see if you're telling the truth or not." She gave a little shiver that would have made any other man want to put his arm around her. "They also have a man servant. Tall as you've never seen, broad as you through the shoulders, and what a scowl on him. Looks like Dovay himself. Great bear of a fellow. There’s two with the Masks covering their faces. Don't know if they were me
n or women, can't see their faces you know, and they're all the same height. And a tall young lady whose face wasn't even covered up."
Marget was alive with the gossip. He was having trouble following her account, whether there were two or three Masks. Her pretty eyes were wide and bright, but he wanted to know about only one thing. One person. He asked, “There was a younger woman with them?”
"I saw her myself. Quite pretty, actually. You know, if she had her hair done up and the right clothes, she might have been quite beautiful. Looked a bit done in though. She had a lump the size of a melon above her eye." Marget gestured a lump approximately as big as a summer melon.
"A lump?" Ott repeated, blankly.
She tapped a small finger to her brow, and amended her description "Big as an egg. Like my little brother got from a flatball. You could see where the dried blood had gushed right out of it right down the side of her face. Don't know what happened. I imagine they're talking about it right now in the great hall."
He thanked her and ran back like a headless loonybird just in time to see the doors of the great hall open and people start to stream out. Where was she? He combed through them, swimming his way into the room but found no one, not even Rob. Ott spun in circles, looking from face to face. Nothing, just a blank calmness that confused him. What was the outcome of the meeting with the Masks, he wondered. He swore in frustration. Several stragglers looked at him with curiosity, but he brushed past them. He rubbed a hand through his hair. Then, he turned back to the east wing, jogging on the hard stone floor and slipping on a spot where someone had tracked in snow. He could feel Mel here somewhere, but damned if he knew where to find her in this maze.