Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #220

by TTA Press Authors

Before I can say anything, the girl tears off her mask. The horror of her unmasking paralyzes me; I'm unprepared for her next action. She lunges, ripping off the bindings of my mask, and yanks it free.

  I am barefaced.

  It's not the unmasking hour, not the time for emptiness and slumber. Without my mask, I don't know how to act or feel, or what to say. I don't even know if I can speak, for I never have without a mask. I'm lost, no one. The nucleus of my personality and intelligence is empty; the girl has stolen it.

  * * * *

  6. White is for obedience.

  While I kneel, stupefied, the girl discards my mask, letting it fall among the long grasses where we loved. I don't even have the presence of will to retrieve it.

  She examines the inside of her mask. With infinite care, she peels a sheer membrane away. It is like a veil of gauze or chiffon, but this veil has a shape. There are nose, cheekbones, and chin.

  It is a mask, but a mask unlike any I've seen. The fabric is unornamented and diaphanous white, like thin fog or still water, all but colorless. It doesn't conceal what it covers, only overlays it.

  She takes this ghost of a mask and drapes it over my face. Without cord or chain, it fastens itself, clinging to my head. It is such relief to have my nakedness covered, I'm grateful when I should be outraged.

  I wait for the mask to tell me who I am and what to do.

  And I wait.

  "There's not much oversoul there,” the girl says. Without a mask, her features are too animated, obscenely so. I avert my gaze, wondering if the ghost mask exposes my expressions in such an indecent fashion.

  "It's only a scaffold to help you get past the schizo panic,” she continues. “It doesn't have any personas or relationship scenarios to instill, and absolutely no emotives."

  I don't like the ghost mask's vacancy. But at least I can think now, and it occurs to me to scramble for my own mask.

  "Stop,” she says.

  I cannot move. My fingertips brush the darker green and glint of silver lying in the grass, but I can't pick it up.

  "I'm afraid the scaffold does have an obedience imprint. I am sorry about that, but it's necessary. You wouldn't be able to access the oversoul in your mask anyway. The scaffold creates a barrier that mask imprints can't penetrate, and you won't be able to take the scaffold off. Go ahead, I know you want to. Try to remove it."

  I grope my face, my head looking for something to undo. There's nothing to unknot, release, or unbuckle. I find the edge where the ghost mask, the scaffold, gives way to skin, but it's adhered to me. The memory from yesterday—the saffron mask, being skinned alive—is enough to deter me from anything drastic.

  "What did you do to me?” I ask. “And why?"

  "Good, you're questioning. I knew you'd acclimate quickly.” A scent penetrates my distress. She is pleased. Except the tang isn't right. It's not feminine but not masculine either. She has no mask to tell me whether she's male or female. Should I continue thinking of her as a girl? And for that matter, the scaffold hasn't provided me with a gender. Am I a man or a woman, or am I neuter, or perhaps some sort of androgyne?

  I feel lightheaded and ill. “If this is some perverted game,” I say, “I'm not amused. I'll report this to the gendarmes. They'll confiscate all your masks for this crime, and—” I trail off. Her naked face is testimony of her indifference to the severest penalty of our society.

  "Why are you doing this to me?” I whimper.

  "Did you ever wonder who you are beneath your masks?” she says. “When you say ‘me', who is that?"

  Hearing her voice the question that has lately made my mornings so troubling and the hours after unmasking so long, is a kind of deliverance. I'm not the only citizen to have these thoughts; I'm not alone in my distress. But the guilt remains, along with an added unease. Is exposing my crime what this is about? Am I to be penalized?

  "Don't be afraid,” she says, “I'm not going to turn you over to the gendarmes or anything like that."

  My breathing quickens. “Are you hearing my thoughts?"

  "No, only watching your face."

  "My face?"

  "It conveys emotions. It's like smelling another's confusion or knowing that someone's angry by the tightness of their shoulders, only with facial musculature. Before long, you'll read it as instinctively as you do scents and stances."

  "You say that as though you expect me to be pleased."

  Her mouth curves and parts, revealing the whiteness of her teeth. Being witness to such an intimate view is both repulsive and fascinating.

  "I know you don't think so now,” she says, “but I've given you a gift, one very few people receive.” She stands. “Walk with me."

  I don't want to go anywhere with her, but the scaffold compels me to obey. We stroll deeper into the wilderness, leaving my mask in the grass. It is an uncomfortable sensation, having my will at odds with my body.

  "I've been watching you for a while to make sure you were right,” she says.

  "Watching me?” Fragments of confusion knit into understanding. “You're the shop girl who sold me the Iolite Bronze and the deviant man with the pewter mask."

  "And the customer at the bakery who bought a dozen egg tarts from you before that."

  "The woman with the pink mask who asked for the recipe?"

  "Yes. And before, when you wore your roan and iron mask, I was in the audience when you presented your new poem. And the day before that, I picked indigo with you for the Mask Makers."

  We emerge into a clearing. A broken-down hut lists, obscured by overgrown foliage. Her sage and toffee mask still dangles from her fingertips. She passes its brim over the doorknob, and the door swings open.

  "I'm glad to finally meet you,” she says. “You can call me Pena."

  The interior is dim, lit by stray sunbeams poking through holes in the ramshackle walls.

  "Pena?” The word is meaningless. “Why?"

  "It's my name, a word that means me, regardless of what mask I'm wearing or not wearing."

  I snort. “Why stop at each citizen having their own name? Why not each tile or brick the builders use or every tree or blade of grass?"

  "Every street has a name,” Pena says. “And every shop."

  "So we can tell one from the other. Otherwise, we couldn't say where a place was, or differentiate between one food market and another."

  "Exactly.” She runs her fingers over a floorboard, and I hear a click. In the far corner by the fireplace, flagstones part to expose steps.

  "What's down there?” I ask.

  "Answers. Come."

  We descend, and the flagstones rumble shut overhead. Ambient light washes over us—dim and red, casting bloody shadows.

  We're in a tunnel with rough, stone walls. The light extends ten paces before us; beyond is darkness. Pena strides toward this border, and I am obliged to accompany her. When we are within a pace of light's end, more red comes on to reveal another span of corridor. When we are within this new radius, the light behind us goes out.

  And so we walk.

  "Why do citizens need names?” I ask. “We change masks every day, unlike shops and streets which stay the same. What if I discover that my physician is the same citizen as my murderer? Or a citizen in one mask is my lover and in another, my enemy? If I call that citizen by a single word, it's like treating all their mask identities as the same person."

  "That's the point,” she says. “It lets us be who we truly are, underneath our masks."

  I shake my head. “Without the masks, we're not anything."

  "There was a time before the masks."

  "And we were empty, primitive creatures, without will or purpose, until the First Queen created the First Mask to wear and carved faces for the citizens and—"

  "And She designated the Guild of Mask Makers and tasked them with their sacred duty so that everyone would be imbued with souls, blah blah blah. I know the lies."

  Her heresy is both disturbing and intriguing. “What do you believ
e, then?"

  "That's what I'm going to show you."

  "Why me?"

  "There's a group of us named. We seek out others who harbor the same doubts and resentments we do, and we liberate them."

  "I don't want to be liberated."

  "Don't you? Haven't you wanted to be free of the daily selection routine? Or chafed against the mask, wishing the hour of unmasking came sooner? Don't you hover in indecision some mornings, not because the choosing is so hard, but because none of them appeal? Don't you wonder who you could be if you were left to decide for yourself?"

  I am saved from having to answer by the appearance of something new when the next lights activate: a door.

  * * * *

  7. Red is for revelation.

  "Where are we?"

  "Beneath the palace at the Mask Makers guild."

  She passes her mask over the door. Like the hut's, it opens.

  I balk. “No. Absolutely not. It's prohibited."

  She studies me. “I can make you, but I won't. It's your decision."

  I open my mouth to repeat myself.

  "But first, hear me out."

  I exhale. “If I must. But it won't change my mind."

  "You know I've been keeping by you as you've switched masks. I was also with you when you wore the saffron mask at the leather harvesters."

  The memory is still raw. “So?"

  "Do you know who I was?"

  "One of the skinners, I presume."

  "I was your neighbor in the adjoining cage."

  Despite everything, I'm dismayed. “Didn't you know what they were going to do to you, to us?"

  "I knew."

  "And still you let them, willingly even. Why, in the name of the First Queen?"

  "Because, to be with you, I could either hurt you or be hurt, and I chose not to hurt you."

  "Am I someone to you? Have we been lovers or spouses or friends?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Then why?"

  "Because I know who I am, and my actions are a reflection of me. I don't skin people alive."

  Her last sentence carries a conviction, a certainty that makes me envious.

  "What would you do if you had to choose,” she says, “if your decisions extended beyond what mask to wear any given day? Would you willingly inflict such suffering upon another?"

  "I would ... I-I don't know."

  "Do you want to know?"

  And I find I do.

  The door opens upon a storage room jammed with row upon row of shelves. Bolts of multihued fabric, rolls of ribbon and lace, and jars of washes, dyes, and lacquers are piled together without any semblance of order. More rolls of textiles spill out of cubby holes and closets lining the room.

  "This is their overflow storage, where they keep their excess,” Pena says. “We raid it for our mask-making supplies. Named artisans can create near-perfect replicas of guild masks, but without the oversouls, of course."

  "With added features that can unlock doors."

  She displays her teeth again. Some part of me has learned to equate that facial configuration with positive emotion, even before I breathe the perfume of her approval.

  "You noticed. Very good."

  "How do they do it?"

  She leads me through the jumble. “It's complicated to explain. All of our mask functions, including the scaffold you're wearing, are based on the Mask Makers’ constructs. There's bits and pieces appliquéd, sewn, glued, or imbedded in all masks which stimulate thoughts, trigger emotions, assign personality traits, and so on. Named artisans have taken apart and put back together these pieces, re-aligning and modifying them until they've gained an understanding of their workings. In the process, they've discovered that the components can do much more than imprint oversouls, like lock and unlock doors. And there's still so much we haven't figured out yet."

  The supply room exits upon a dark corridor that illuminates red at our approach. But unlike the one from the hut, the circle of light shows a cluster of turnings that forks in different directions.

  "You make it sound like you named have been at this for a while,” I say.

  "We have.” She sets off down one of the twisting tunnels. “Sometimes the gendarmes get wind of our activities, so we work exclusively in pairs—one mentor, one recruit. That way, the most named any of us knows is two, your mentor when you're recruited, and your recruit once you're ready to bring someone in. We disseminate information and requests through codes and drop-off points. It's slow but safer."

  I've lost track of the bends and turns we've taken. “You must recruit pretty selectively, if each mentor can only take one."

  "Mentors can take another recruit if theirs is apprehended by the gendarmes.” The lighting casts deep shadows over the planes of her face, and for a moment, it seems that she's wearing a crimson mask. She brushes her fingers over her eyes, and they come away wet.

  "What happens when the gendarmes catch you?"

  "They kill us."

  I shrug. “That's all? So you lose the day. In the morning—"

  "No. They kill us. It's not like the petty murders citizens inflict upon each other. There's no waking up from the death the gendarmes deliver."

  I stumble, shocked. “That's ... that's monstrous. How is that possible? How can our laws permit it?"

  "You said it yourself; without the masks, we're nothing. When the gendarmes execute one of us, they reassign all of that named's personas to the population at large. The oversouls continue, and there is no disruption among the citizenry. I think the gendarmes grieve more when they have to destroy a mask that has been ‘murdered’ than when they kill one of us."

  Pena rounds a corner, and there is a wall. It's creamy smooth, as though stone workers spent hours painstakingly sanding it to perfect flatness.

  "Did you make a wrong turn?” I ask.

  "Afraid of getting lost?” Her tone is teasing. “Don't worry. Even if I had made a wrong turn, my mask contains the labyrinth's secrets. But I didn't."

  I half expect her to wave the mask at the wall and a door to miraculously appear. She doesn't. Instead, Pena lifts a hand to her mouth and tears at it with her teeth. Dark blood oozes, and she smears this droplet on the wall.

  Soundlessly, the wall glides up and disappears into the ceiling. White, not red, light comes on, blinding after the dimness.

  Pena tugs me forward while I'm still blinking. I squint, eyes tearing and blurry, at the small room we have entered. The walls are polished metal, and they encircle us, curving outward so it feels like we're inside a cylinder. A closed one. While my eyes adjust, the door shuts itself.

  In the room's center is an ornate chair of silver and gold. Resting upon its seat is a mask.

  I recognize it, for it is the stuff of legend. Carved from a single diamond with a million-million facets, each representing a mask-to-be, the First Queen's Mask, the one She created with her own hands to bring enlightenment to us all.

  * * * *

  8. Diamonds are for death.

  Pena touches my face, and the scaffold slips away. The anxiety of being barefaced is forgotten in the wonder of the First Mask.

  "The truth, your answers, they're all in the oversoul of that mask,” she says. “All you have to do is put it on."

  "What if I don't?"

  "Then we go back, and tomorrow morning, you choose a mask to wear, like every other morning, and you never see me again."

  "I might turn you over to the gendarmes."

  Her lips part and flash teeth. “What will you tell them? That a citizen kidnapped you and filled your head with truth? How will you find me? And how do you know the gendarmes won't kill you simply for knowing this much?"

  She's right, of course. “But I don't have to put on the First Mask?"

  "What you do is up to you. Now and forever."

  I hesitate for a heartbeat before striding to the chair and seizing the First Mask. It's so light. I'd expected it to be heavier. Holding it aloft, I realize the eyehol
es are encased in nearly transparent lenses like my consort mask, except diamond instead of glass.

  "You might want to sit before you put it on,” Pena says. “I didn't and ended flat on my back."

  I perch on the gold and silver chair, and set the mask over my face. There are segmented strands of diamond to wrap around my head that fasten with glittering diamond locks. The lenses warp my vision, disorienting me. But only for a moment.

  * * * *

  Crowing exultation.

  The war is finished! My last rival and her progeny are dead, and I reign in exclusive sovereignty.

  My children, I am so proud of you. This is the dawn of a new age, a glorious and splendid age.

  * * * *

  My scientists have conquered our only remaining enemy: time. They have found the key to unlocking the shackles of age and injury, and conquered the last disease. I am no longer chained by the dictates of perpetual reproduction. The years of my empire will be like a magnificent river, rippling past eon after eon, powerful and endless.

  I do worry, however, that my soldiers will decline. They are the simplest of my children and only understand rigid procedures and physical contests. Perhaps I should manufacture a new corps of soldiers, an elite one. They can vie with each other in mock battles for the honor of being counted among my gendarmes.

  * * * *

  The river of years is murky and deep, and I cannot see where it will take us.

  I am stymied at an unanticipated quarter: my consorts. The noblest of my children, nearly my equals—clever and curious, independent and imaginative—I should have known they would feel neglected and adrift when I ceased summoning them to mate. They are creatures of great passion, as I am, and now they squabble, forming factions and carrying out vendettas.

  I have started opening my body to them again, but I will ask the scientists to develop a synthetic pheromone so they may copulate amongst themselves.

  * * * *

  I am despair.

  A citizen killed another today, beyond what my scientists were able to restore. I must accept the truth; we are an aggressive people, not destined for peace, and all I have tried to build is in ruins.

  If only there was a way for my consorts to expend their passions harmlessly.

  I must confer with my scientists.