by Tom Deitz
She was late, however, and knew it. Worse, everyone else seemed to know it, and the Chief of Masks, in particular, was clearly irked by her tardiness.
It would still take a while to make her way to the dais, too. But since chaos was supposed to rule tonight, perhaps it would be fitting to follow another plan.
“Chief!” she called from where she stood, rising on tiptoes, then pausing to seize a horn from a passing reveler. Scowling all the while, she set it to her lips and blew.
At first she was ignored, but Lynee had a particularly loud voice for a young lady, and soon made her shouts of “Heed! Heed!” heard above the din.
The Chief of Masks stood abruptly, looking her way, taking a moment to find them.
To Tyrill's chagrin, two young men promptly hoisted her up on their shoulders. Half-breathless, she nevertheless managed to rip off her mask, so that all could see that it was indeed she who addressed them. “The Steward has arrived!” she shouted through rising fury. “The Steward gives the court to the Chief of Masks. Let his reign begin!”
“Until sunrise,” the Chief promptly shouted back. “Let the revelry begin!”
An explosion of shouts echoed around the court, punctuated by much banging of straw knives against paper shields, which produced a sort of raspy rattle.
More than one person stabbed his fellow, precipitating more mock battles, for such feigned combats were much the order of the day. Thus, Tyrill was not in the least alarmed when, just outside the gates, the young men set her down, laughed—and stabbed her.
Only when she felt cold steel slide along her side did she realize that one of the stray daggers had merely been a mask for a far more lethal one. Nor, as she sank to her knees, did she realize that all across the Court of Rites, High Clan men and women who had been carefully identified by certain people who made it their business to know such things, were likewise feasting on steel and death that night.
But she was aware, as the ground rose up to hit her, of Lynee flinging herself atop her, whispering, “Lie still, Lady, if you be not dead already. Safety lies in shadows”—followed by outraged wailing.
And Tyrill, once a careful assessment had determined that she'd only received a flesh wound, was willing to go along with that. After all, if she were lucky, no one would bother killing someone who was presumably dead already.
Meenon syn Nyvvon, Craft-Chief of Glass, poured himself a mug of dark wine and ambled toward the hot pool in Nyvvon-Hall's baths. He wore a loose robe of Nyvvon green that floated around legs still strong with youth—unlike that flapping against his Clan-Chief's spindly shanks before him. Their other two companions, Sallaro of Weaving and his Chief, Ganall syn Vrine, who was also bond-brother to Nyvvon's Chief, were waiting for them already, sitting naked in the pool while vapors rose up around them to soothe flesh grown stiff with age—though at that, the two elders looked little different than they had twenty years before. Meenon sighed as he approached. This was ritual on a day when rituals were supposed to be denied. Yet the four Chiefs had been meeting like this, once every eight-day, since the two Clan-Chiefs were boys. The only change was who bore the Craft-Chief's title—for either clan. And even that had not changed for the five seasons since Sallaro had succeeded Lady Orzheen.
He supposed he could endure. These sessions didn't actually take very long, if one controlled the conversation with care. And the ale, which Weaving provided, was always different, but always good.
So it was that Meenon's thoughts were on nothing in particular as he discarded his robe on the bench provided and eased his tired body into the steaming water. The others welcomed him with toasts. Small talk followed. Before long, Meenon was sufficiently relaxed that he'd lost any desire for haste. Oh, he'd have to make an appearance at the revels eventually, but that could wait. In the meantime—well, in the meantime more wine would be nice. And scented oil.
As if the lad had read his mind, a hall page appeared. He wore a half mask—obviously he was on his way to some revel and was sparing them one last consideration on a night when he owed them none. Meenon didn't recognize the face below the mask and motley, then again, there was no particular reason he should. The lad carried an ale pitcher; that was the important thing. And was grinning as he approached.
Meenon raised his cup to receive what the lad was about to offer, but to his surprise, the boy upended the jar atop him, then swirled it around, to splatter them all with what was certainly not ale.
“A poor joke that, lad,” Sallaro protested. But by then Meenon had identified the scent of what covered his head and torso and lay as a skim across the water. Fire oil, so named because it was so easily ignited and so difficult to extinguish.
“What … ?” he shouted in alarm, trying to haul himself out, but finding the edge too slick to grasp. The page kicked him with a booted foot, revealing a sole studded with short spikes. And then ran, pausing only to toss the torch by the entrance into the bathing pool, and close the door.
Meenon didn't hear the bolt click home because his ears were burning.
“To your health!” cried Lady Vroo san Criff, Chief of the clan that ruled Clay. “Chaos may rule without, but indulge me in order a little longer.” She paused with her mug still raised, surveying the other ten faces ranged around the table. They wore motley already, but their masks lay piled on a chest by the door. Both sexes were represented, and their ages ranged from twenty-three to eighty-seven. They were the subchiefs of her craft, with a few sub-subchiefs thrown in.
“How much longer?” someone called cheerfully.
“Long enough,” Vroo called back. “Assain, how is it that you're always so eager to begin the breaking?” she continued, referring to the fact that, while on Mask Day her clan donated a year's worth of failed efforts at their craft to the Chief of Masks' banquet, they always kept a supply of imperfect crockery to break themselves.
“Because that's how she covers her mistakes,” Kynall shot back, with a raucous laugh.
“More wine, I say,” Intaro added, lifting a mug himself, then draining it, and flinging the empty vessel to the floor.
“And more cups!” someone appended, following his example. Whereupon chaos ensued in truth, with every drinking vessel in sight—including some that were properly too fine to suffer the fate that met them—summarily drained and broken.
“Wine!” Vroo called again, lifting her own fine vessel, then casting it to the floor. “Bring us the best, and then be about your play. We will drink one final toast, then see how the rest of the city fares.”
The hall page did his best to obey the order, filling ten fresh cups in succession, while another page distributed them.
Clan Criff started to drink as one, but Vroo paused with the cup at her lips. “Perhaps it is best that the page propose this toast, since this is the day when all rules are inverted.”
The page hesitated, clearly embarrassed, but another page entered just then, this one masked and obviously drunk already. Not that it mattered, as he gamely raised his cup on high. “Lady, I hope you enjoy that vintage, which was sent to you by my master, and now let us drink a toast!”
“A toast,” they cried in unison.
“To life!” cried the visiting stranger.
“To life!” came the responding chorus.
And the drinking, all in one long draught.
“And to Death,” the stranger added, and swept away.
“To Death,” someone echoed, then broke off. Vroo started to reprimand her, then paused herself. Blackness swam before her eyes, and she had only time to gasp out one word before death seized her in truth. And that one word was poison.
The last thing she saw was the hall page's anguished face as he screamed, “Oh Eight, no!” then pounded in raw panic out the door.
The last things she heard were the sounds of her kinsmen, one by one, expiring.
“Lady, oh, Lady!” came Lynee's urgent whisper. “You have to stand up now, you have to! They've gone, but they may come back. We can't let them
find you.”
“Let who find me?” Tyrill huffed, as, with Lynee's help, she found her feet, though she didn't shy away from that helpful arm beneath her shoulder. She gasped when she came upright, as the wound in her side reminded her of why she was lying on the ground to start with.
“Them! I don't know who, Lady, but it's chaos out here. I … I don't think you were the only one, but they may come back. You have to be gone by then.”
“Where?”
“I don't know, Lady, but … but this seems planned. It had to be.”
Tyrill's heart double-beat, and not from fear for herself. “Eight, you may be right! What better time than when the King is away to stage a coup? But who, and how far—?”
“Priest-Clan, I would say,” Lynee grunted, as she continued to haul Tyrill along—south, she noted absently. “Or that group within them that's seized Gem.”
“It would make sense,” Tyrill agreed. “But if I was a target, there have to have been others.”
“You think?”
“It makes sense.”
Tyrill stood as straight as her old bones and bad joints would allow. “I'm hurt; I won't lie about that, but I can manage. Right now, we have to learn two things: How far does this coup extend, and is there anyone around to stop it?”
“Lady …”
Lynee didn't get to finish, for the first question was already being answered. A reveler had rushed up to them, stone sober, but wild-eyed behind his mask. “Ladies, you should—it's terrible. You have to get away from here!”
“What?” Tyrill demanded.
“They've killed the Chiefs of Glass, Clay, and Weaving. And more, I fear. Forget masks, see to your skins!”
“Lady?” the squire asked again.
“He's right,” Tyrill said firmly. “We have to get out of here. With all the confusion tonight, there's no telling who's alive or dead. But there's no way we can regain control of Tir-Eron quickly, and maybe no one to control it if we did. They won't listen to me without the Guard, and the Guard are all off with Avall, save my honor guard, to whom I foolishly gave the night off—and I'll bet they've all been assassinated. Anything I do, I'll have to do outside what's now passing for order. Priest-Clan have won—for now. Beyond that—we need to know how far this extends, and then we need to escape.”
Learning the former was easy, Tyrill discovered, as Lynee steered her east toward Argen-Hall, but also south toward the river. Fires were everywhere, the bonfires having served as breeding grounds for far more dangerous offspring, as building after building was set alight. Rumors ran thick and fast as sparks: the King had done this; no, the King was returning at a gallop. It was Priest-Clan's fault; no, only part of Priest-Clan's fault. All eight Priests of The Eight were dead; no, they were holed up on their island or in their gorge. Every single Chief and subchief was dead. Ferr-Hall-Main was on fire (true); Lore-Hold-Main was on fire (false). Argen-Hall had been set ablaze but it had been extinguished. Yet still fires leapt and roared, and the people on the street suddenly wore masks of fear that rendered disguise redundant. The pavement was littered with paper faces and straw daggers—and some of the more dangerous kind. More than once Tyrill trod on someone dying.
“How can this have happened?” Lynee pleaded.
“By not watching where we should,” Tyrill snapped. “By seeing what we expected instead of what was.
“It wouldn't take many to murder the Chiefs,” she continued, “if their movements and habits were known. It wouldn't even require that every clan be infiltrated. When this is over, you can bet that scores of pages will be found trussed up in corners, alive if they're lucky, but just as likely to have their throats slit. I—Oh, Eight!”
She'd just caught a flash of white to the east, and heard a thunder of hooves on stone. Through billowing clouds of smoke, she could make out scores of mounted riders pounding across the next bridge down, obviously having come from South Bank. They rode in order, too, with swords flashing and white cloaks whipping above surcoats of midnight blue. All wore masks, but all those masks were blank. Their numbers seemed endless as they peeled off in groups of five, going east and west.
“The Ninth Face shows itself,” Tyrill spat.
“Hurry, Lady. They're rounding up people. It's like they're looking for someone.”
“Survivors, probably. High Clan survivors.”
Somehow, in spite of the confusion, they'd reached the river wall. They paused there, panting. The night had gone utterly mad, had become a vision of red and black against which figures dashed and danced, laughed and screamed, all the while white-cloaked men forged order out of chaos.
“I will forge them back,” Tyrill muttered to herself, though Lynee heard.
“Aye, Lady, but not tonight. To forge, one must live. There's a boat below, if you can reach it.”
“My luck isn't that good,” Tyrill sighed.
“It is tonight, but it won't be if you don't take it. Now go! Over the wall. I'll follow.”
“I—”
“Die, High Clan scum!” Lynee roared in Tyrill's face, ramming her fist toward Tyrill's stomach as if to thrust in a nonexistent blade, then throwing her body atop her supposed victim so that they both pitched over the wall and into the river.
For an instant, Tyrill thought she'd been betrayed. But then water came up and hit her, and she was breathing waves, and a soaking-wet Lynee had seized her arm and was heaving her up into what seemed a small rowboat. “Play dead,” the girl hissed. “If we're lucky, our enemies will see what they want to see— for a change.”
“Yes,” Tyrill coughed. And then, for a while, all she saw was night sky framed, quite beautifully, by the light of burning buildings.
CHAPTER XX:
WOMEN'S TALK
(SOUTHERN ERON: THREE OAKS STATION—
HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXI—EVENING)
“There's something to be said for comfort,” Strynn sighed, leaning back in one of several deeply upholstered chairs in the common hall at Three Oaks Station. She and Div had it to themselves, for which they were both grateful. Two nights under the stars were fine, but a nice soft bed was finer. Unfortunately, the last two stations they'd reached had been occupied, and while they themselves were traveling incognito, the colors splashed across the caravans outside had identified the occupants as having come from Warcraft, which meant Strynn was bound to encounter someone she knew, thereby raising questions she had no urge to answer.
“There is indeed,” Div replied happily, rising from where she'd set cider to heat by the fire. Stew already boiled there; while yeastless way-bread baked in the adjoining oven. “Somehow I never thought traveling with the Consort of the King of Eron would be quite so much like—”
“Ordinary trekking?” Strynn finished for her, grinning. “Believe me, this is better. This way we can make our own decisions, never mind that we can make much better progress.”
“Maybe,” Div grumbled sourly. “It would be nice to know we're making real progress, though.”
“At least we know what direction,” Strynn murmured through a yawn. Eight, but she was tired! Why, she could probably doze off in a dozen breaths, given the opportunity. Her stomach was somewhat uneasy, too—and had been for the last two days, which she'd assumed was because the nights had been cooler than normal, and she was susceptible to that sort of change. Still, it was barely sunset—far too early for sleeping, especially with such good company.
Div raised a brow. “Shall we do it now or after we eat?”
Strynn suppressed another yawn. “Now, I think. I just want to eat, then go to bed.”
“No bath? We may not get another hot one for a while.”
“You have a point. Food, then bath, then bed.”
Div patted her stomach meaningfully. “As hungry as I am, I'd be glad of any distraction from the waiting.”
“Another point,” Strynn agreed, fumbling at the ring on her right hand. It didn't come off as easily as heretofore, which troubled her a little. Maybe her fingers w
ere swollen.
Div's eyes narrowed, but she said nothing, though she rose from her stirring to claim the chair opposite. Strynn had the ring off by then. It glittered in her palm. Once it had belonged to King Kraxxi of Ixti, which was an irony if there ever was one. Merryn had another—from Kraxxi's best friend, who'd once used it to follow Kraxxi as they were using it to locate Merryn. There were at least two more—somewhere.
“I only pray this thing knows which one it's supposed to be looking for,” Div muttered, indicating the gold-set red stone. The arms of an Ixtian Landing House gleamed there, which were odd to see in an Eronese hand.
“It seems to,” Strynn assured her. “Merryn said hers took her straight to Kraxxi, even though another one was closer by.”
“It is to be hoped,” Div sighed. “I'm not sure I like all this trafficking with magic.”
“Me neither,” Strynn agreed. “I get around it by not thinking of it as magic. It may not be. It could be some kind of undiscovered science, or an extension of the science we have. It could even be something that's somehow alive. That's what Avall thinks the gems are—sometimes.”
“If we time this right,” Div drawled, “we can finish just as the bread needs to come out.”
Strynn nodded, taking the hint. From her pouch, she retrieved a length of red string which she knotted through the ring. If one ring were close to the other—or sensitive—one didn't need to use the string; the ring alone would tug one in the direction in which its specified fellow lay. But Merryn was still far away, so it appeared, and if the ring ever exerted any tug while on her hand, Strynn had never felt it.
Besides, she felt more comfortable this way.
Holding her breath, she extended the string over the flagstone floor, stilling the ring's gentle undulations with her other hand. Then, closing her eyes, she set it spinning in a circle, all the while trying to picture Merryn's face in her mind's eye. At first she sensed no change, but a quickening in Div's breathing told her that the ring was doing as expected. “Is it—?” she prompted, scarcely daring to breathe lest an idle breath upset the magic.