by Liv Daniels
The kitchen’s rusty door creaked as Leina opened it, but she didn’t try to cover up the sound. She knew that at this time only a few monsters were about, and they didn’t come near the kitchen. Dangerman made the mistake of assuming that as long as all of his slaves were watched at night, there would never be any trouble to guard against elsewhere. He hadn’t taken outsiders into account.
Now Leina was glad that she had been observant during her time here. It would have been easy to have been here much longer and still know much less. Many here found the rhythm of the constant work hatefully alluring, and forgot themselves in the endless grind. Instead, partially to keep herself sharp and partially because she thought the information might be useful for an eventual escape, Leina had constantly observed her surroundings and asked questions of the other slaves during the quiet of night. The things that she had learned then were now making her current operation possible.
Outside, Leina could instantly feel the singe of the oppressive heat from the nearby lava-moat. She could feel sweat forming underneath her thick costume. She shook off the desire to go back inside and crept across an empty dusty expanse to a low, long, windowless building that faced the kitchen. It hadn’t been built with any particular care. The bricks on its sides had been laid in a haphazard fashion on misshapen globs of mortar, and the structures that they made up just barely fit the definition of walls. Just the kind of building one would expect for a monster barracks.
The doors were unlocked and unguarded, so Leina let herself in. She was immediately overwhelmed with brazen snoring and a strong stench that made her want to gag. With one hand she lifted a corner of her cloak to cover her mouth and nose, and then went in.
A faint red glow that seeped through cracks in the ill-formed walls was the only thing that illuminated the long, dank room, but Leina found what she was looking for without too much trouble. Two barrels were set against the uneven wall next to the door. Often, when she was being herded to work in the kitchen with the other slaves in the morning, she would see Dangerman’s lower-ranking officers hauling these barrels out of the barracks, amidst throngs of monsters that were departing for their stations. Once she had observed a small red sliver drop from one of the barrels, and had slipped away to examine it. It was a piece of raw meat. Thus had she learned of the manner in which the monsters were fed.
The snoring was so loud that Leina probably could have set off an explosion in the barracks and not heard a trace of it. She had no idea how much noise she made in prying off the lids of the barrels, but the sound was covered up entirely so it didn’t matter. Leina coughed when the smell of rotting meat rose up to mingle with the stench. Anxious to get out of this place, she reached for a small pouch that hung underneath her cloak and poured a liberal amount of its contents on the meat in the barrels. Leina had taken the longer way here through the forest, to avoid having to traverse the entire length of the Desert. Along the way she had picked up some of the stuff—a sweet-smelling red powder. Within seconds the powder had dissolved, but Leina knew that its effects would be tangible enough tomorrow. Before the night was over the powerful stuff would have seeped through to the bottom of the barrels, affecting all the meat within.
That done, Leina left the barracks as quickly as she could. Though the air outside was singeing hot as always, she gulped it in gratefully. Not anxious to go back inside, Leina paced around a little in the swirling dust, tainted with the dull red that apparently burned through the fortress’s walls to cast its pallid glow over the place at all times. What a strange place this was! Nothing about it made sense.
Leina heard a monster’s heavy footfalls somewhere in the distance, and realized that she had been out here far too long. She spent a few moments fiddling with the doors and windows of the kitchen, and then slipped back inside, nothing more than an unseen shadow. And if a shadow is not seen, some say, it is not there at all.
But even a shadow unseen can cool the stifling of the cruel heat, and thus cause things to awaken that have long lain dormant. Leina had set the pieces of her little game, and now all that she could do was wait. But not sleep. She hid again in the vent, keeping her eyes wide open and straight ahead.
Chapter 7
It seemed a long time before the unhappy slaves shuffled in. Leina noticed with satisfaction that the same two monsters that had been overseeing the slaves the previous night were the only ones to accompany them. Though the monsters had few distinguishing features to speak for, Dangerman differentiated among them using colored rubber bands around their ankles. As the slaves robotically moved to their stations and began work, someone burst in through the door. Leina could only see up to his knees, but she guessed it was one of Dangerman’s officers.
“Where are our replacements?” one of the monster overseers huffed in a low, gravelly voice.
The officer spoke, and Leina recognized him as Sam. She chuckled inwardly. All the better that he should be here.
“Some disturbance over at the barracks,” Sam said gruffly. “Keep working until we get it sorted out. And not a word about this to Dangerman. We… don’t want to worry him.”
Leina smiled smugly from behind the duct-grate. For the moment, Dangerman’s fortress was severely understaffed. That part of her plan, at least, had worked.
And now it was time to put the rest of it into action. Keeping as quiet as possible, she fumbled for a handful of gravel that she had picked up outside. She flicked it between the grate and hit the monster closest to her on the thigh. Then she hit it again. Its hand came down to swat savagely at the spot, but it showed no other reaction. So Leina switched her assault to Sam.
“Who’s doing that?” Sam bellowed after the first couple of hits. This caused just enough of a disturbance in the kitchen for Leina to emerge unnoticed from her hiding place. Then, all at once, everyone froze and stared at one end of the room, where a small masked apparition had suddenly appeared, and was casually holding a lit fuse over a bubbling pot of oil.
“Hello,” Leina said, toying with the fuse in her gloved hand. She sidled it dangerously close to the surface of the oil.
Sam was the only one who dared to move. Everyone else remained frozen. “If you drop that, you’ll kill us all,” Sam said, his voice thin and trembling.
Leina struggled not to show her amusement. She glanced disinterestedly at the fuse. “Oh, yes,” she said with a nonchalant air, “I suppose I would.”
Sam’s voice hardened. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I am the Masked One,” said Leina. “In time you can be sure that my name will become familiar to you. I want everyone here to eat.”
No one moved.
Leina moved the fuse an inch, causing everyone to jump at once. “I said, eat.”
The slaves frantically took hold of the food nearest to them and started to nibble at it as if their lives depended on it. Which, by all appearances, it did. At first they were tentative, but after a moment relief began to flood over their faces despite the strangeness of the situation and they ate more hungrily. Sam stood by and did nothing to hinder them, but his eyebrows were raised and he was staring at Leina. Intently.
Leina nodded in satisfaction and her voice softened a little. “Good. Enjoy it. Maybe someday you can eat like this every day. This place isn’t everything, after all. There are other forces at work in the World. Someday I’ll be back, maybe.”
As she spoke her hand loosened, and she caught herself just in time to avoid setting the whole place off. The monsters were beginning to fidget in the corners where they stood, so Leina judged that it was time to make her departure. In one swift motion, she flicked the fuse out an open window. It landed at the center of an open dusty area, where she judged that it wouldn’t do any damage. Then, before anyone had moved, Leina had leapt out of the same window and locked it securely behind her. Nearly all of the buildings in Dangerman’s fortress were designed to keep people in, so the locks were always on the outside. Convenient.
She doubled around
to the front door and locked it as well. She had locked all of the other windows last night; no one would be coming out of that kitchen anytime soon.
There was a resounding boom when the fuse exploded. Leina picked her way through the upset dust, toward the building with the twisting tower on top. She had one more stop to make.
She let herself in to Dangerman’s office. It was empty, as she expected. Though his slaves went to work long before the scant rays of sun that journeyed to these depths could be seen, Dangerman was rarely awake at such an unsightly hour. Perhaps the sound of the explosion would have awakened him, but Leina knew that no one would bother to tell him the details. They never did. Incurring his wrath simply wasn’t worth it.
Leina glanced at the door, but she doubted that Dangerman would be soon in coming. She had some time. So she took to perusing the office, paging through books from the shelf and shuffling around the papers on the desk. Most of it was not at all interesting, dry administrative stuff like the books that she had copied here. But then, at the very bottom of a large stack of papers, she found something that stopped her breath as it came.
An eagle insignia. The symbol of the Agency. It was drawn on thick parchment in a strange silver ink that Leina had never seen. Not here, nor at the Agency, nor in the forest. In a sudden panic, Leina ripped up the page and buried the shards under the cold ashes in the fireplace. What could it possibly mean that the symbol was here?
There was a sound of footsteps on the polished stone outside the office. Doing her best to shrug off her panic, Leina seated herself on the oversized leather chair behind Dangerman’s desk and waited, swinging her feet a little.
Dangerman swooped decidedly into the office, his eyes where his mind was, which was obviously far away. He bore a conceited smile. Probably he had some idea that he thought was brilliant. No doubt the details were, but Leina could tell that the point was all too predictable.
He was mumbling. “Sam, I—“ He stopped. “Oh.”
Dangerman was speechless. Leina smiled. She liked having him in her power for once.
“Who are you?” he said weakly. “Are you real?”
“Of course I’m real,” Leina said in a slightly offended tone, slowly lifting a paper from the desk and dropping it to the ground as proof. She lowered her voice to a deliberate whisper. “I’m your worst nightmare come true. I’m the Masked One. And if I have anything to do with it, I’m going to be your downfall.” She flashed him an out-of-place smile, brushed a speck of dust off her gloves. “So. I’ll be going now. Nice chatting with you.” As she floated past him, she winked, thinking it added a nice finishing touch, but halfway out the door she realized that he couldn’t see it because she was wearing a mask. He didn’t even try to hinder her. He just stood in place, transfixed. Leina trusted that she wouldn’t find him so willing to listen next time, but she was happy to enjoy it while it lasted.
Outside, there was no movement, but Leina was anxious to leave now that her plan was accomplished. She made a direct line for the front gate of the place, walking briskly and constantly glancing over her shoulder. She paused as she passed under the low, drooping awnings of the officers’ residences, but there was nothing but silence and heat to greet her there. She chuckled to herself, in spite of the ever-present need for caution. Her plan to disengage most of Dangerman’s manpower and preoccupy the rest had worked. She quite honestly hadn’t been sure that it would.
“The Masked One is an interesting name.”
Leina jumped. Sam emerged from a shadowy doorway to her left.
“How did you get out?” she asked, her eyes darting around rapidly to confirm that he was alone.
“I broke a window. Told everyone else that the locks were jammed and to stay put until I could find some way to get them out.”
“Oh.” Leina was a bit disappointed. She had expected to keep them contained for at least a little longer than that. Worse, Sam was acting suspiciously like he knew who she was.
“Whatever did you do to the monsters?” Sam asked.
“Just a little idleweed. Won’t do them any harm, though I wouldn’t be too sorry if it did. They’ll wake up in a few hours, I guess.”
He stepped forward. “What are you doing here, Leina Skyvola?”
“Sam. How do you… how do you know who I am?” Leina ran her fingers over her mask.
“You can’t hide like that. Not from those who know you.”
“But Dangerman didn’t recognize me.”
Sam shook his head. “He’s blind. He sees what he wants to see. And he thinks you’re dead, remember?”
“But, how did you know?”
“There’s only one person I know who would break into the kitchen and tell the slaves to eat. Some kind of attempt to heal the wounds that he inflicted upon you, I suppose.”
That you inflicted on me, Leina couldn’t help but correct in her head. But instead, she said, “I suppose that I’m not as good of an actor as you are.”
Sam continued. “Now you tell me something. What’s this about? Have Sasha and Max gone mad?”
“You shouldn’t say their names here. I… I’m not with them anymore. I left.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Oh. Why?”
Leina sighed. She didn’t know how to explain it. “It’s complicated.”
There was a deep unrest in Sam’s eyes. Leina searched desperately for the peace and assurance that had once been there, but there was none. “Things are getting bad, Leina.”
“I know. That’s why I have to do this.”
“You can’t play games like this forever.” Sam let out a long breath, at a loss. “Look, there’s something you need to understand. I can’t help you. Dangerman has ears in many places, and I can’t risk my cover. That was true last time, and it hasn’t changed.”
“I know. I don’t ask for your help.”
“But do you understand what that means? If you get into trouble with Dangerman… I may even be forced to support him against you.”
Leina bit her lip. “This isn’t an underground operation. I’m prepared for that.”
Sam looked past Leina at the yellowish haze beyond, the only sign of dawn that reached this place. Leina knew as well as he did that they had been talking too long. Talking in the first place was dangerous. But then Sam looked down and addressed her again.
“What are you even doing here?”
Leina shrugged. “I don’t know. Seeing what I can do. Testing my wings.” She cringed. It sounded a little weak said out loud.
But Sam only chuckled. “I wish you well. At least for this one moment.”
“Sam—I think Dangerman might know about the Agency. I found a drawing of the eagle on his desk.”
“What?” said Sam sharply.
“Please, look into it. If you can.”
Sam nodded quickly. “I’ve been here too long. Goodbye, Leina Skyvola. And remember who I am. I’m not your friend, okay?”
“The feeling’s mutual. I’ve still got a scar on my hand, you know.”
Chapter 8
Before end of the day, Leina reached her camp in the woods, if a camp it could be called. It was a place to the east of her childhood home. At the edge of a clearing there was an ancient tree, and she found shelter under its massive arching roots. It was a peaceful place, spared from the troubles of the World.
The evening brought with it a wintery chill, and Leina risked building a fire. The monsters did not yet come to this area, because it was wild and uninhabited, and the nearest village was over the mountains. Leina was safe here.
She sat down next to the fire and pulled out a strip of dried meat from her bag. Already the supply from Sasha was running low. Soon she would have to find some more. Maybe she could set up some traps in the woods like Grandmother did. Or she could go to the nearest village and buy some. She would figure it out. What she really wanted was a book to read. She wished that she had thought to bring some from the Agency.
As she ate, Leina watched the embers of th
e fire flip and spiral through the air, like there were no extraneous forces to hinder them. They could do whatever they wanted, go wherever they willed. Was that freedom?
Suddenly Leina felt like she was hiding even more now than she had been at the Agency. She was hiding behind that mask. Behind the identity of the Masked One. She was trying to be the hero that everyone thought she was, like the heroes from the books she used to read. But was that who she really was? The only thing that she knew for certain was that she was on her own until Max and Sasha decided it was time to come out of hiding. She supposed she would have to be good enough until then.
But she was still deeply unsettled. She remembered Max’s parting advice to her: “When you face Evil, you cannot be wearing a mask. It will encourage you to build one, so you can hide yourself from it. But then it will shatter it and use it to destroy you. Only evil comes of lies and deception, but evil has no power when faced with truth.”
Leina knew this was true. And yet it made a dull dread come over her. Maybe she was afraid of the truth.
***
Before Leina went to Dangerman’s fortress, she had spent several days exploring the area where she had made her temporary home. By now she knew it well enough. To the east was a bunched cluster of forested mountains, rocky and steep. Past them, on the coast, was the village of Cavlin, but the only way to get to it easily was through a mountain pass on the border of the Desert.
Now that Leina was back from her trip to the Desert, her days settled into somewhat of a pattern. She welcomed the clouded and rainy days, which she would spend wandering the forest under a gray-washed sky. It reminded her of her childhood in the woods, but it was not the same. This part of the forest, though not very far from her old home, was different than the place where she had wandered for so many years. It was greener, wetter, a place of ferns and hanging moss and stone that smelled of the sea, and of the slow decay of great age. Here, too, close to the ocean, winter came more slowly. And Leina saw the world differently now. Her eyes saw greater sorrow in it. A fly trapped in a rain-glassed web, the mournful wail of a lost bird—she had never noticed such things before. But she saw deeper beauty in it, too. Though she had always loved sunsets in the woods, she saw now something more profound in the ever-changing shards of color that they brought. Now somehow they brought something more than a smile to her face.