Faces

by E. C. Blake

  “You said the Watchers are all dead,” she said. “What about the unMasked workers?”

  “I took care of them,” the Lady said. “You need not worry.”

  Mara nodded. They were already fading from her thoughts. “Are we still at the mine?”

  “Not far away.”

  “And when did all this happen?”

  “Two days ago,” the Lady said.

  Two days! Mara shook her head. “It’s hard to believe. It’s so weird to have no memories.”

  The Lady smiled slightly. “They’re still there. Just inaccessible. Perhaps someday it will be safe to return them to you.”

  “You’ve also blocked my Gift,” Mara said. “Why?”

  “For your own good. You will heal much faster this way.”

  “But why do I need healing?” Mara said, frustrated. “I’ve experienced this sort of thing before and survived without anyone blocking my memories or my Gift. What happened this time that made it so much worse?”

  “You must trust me,” the Lady said. She reached out and brushed the hair off of Mara’s forehead with a gentle hand, and Mara felt a hint of magic in that touch. She suddenly felt both stronger and calmer. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Mara said. “And in rather desperate need of . . . um, relief.”

  “There is a chamber pot at the foot of your bed,” the Lady said. “I will leave you for a short time, if you think you can manage on your own.”

  “I think so,” Mara said. “I don’t feel as weak as I did when I woke.”

  “I just removed a light muscle block I had placed on you,” the Lady said. “You should be able to move around normally now. Just be careful getting out of bed—you may still be light-headed.” She nodded at Whiteblaze. “If you have any difficulty, he will come get me. Otherwise I will send you food in, say, fifteen minutes.”

  Mara nodded. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome, Mara.” The Lady touched her forehead again. “I am glad you are recovering. I have great things planned for you.” She turned and went out.

  With only a little shakiness, Mara used the chamber pot. She found her clothes in their usual chest, and dressed. She was sitting on the Lady’s stool at the far end of the pavilion from the entrance when the flap opened and a villager came in whom she knew by sight but not by name, one of the Lady’s Cadre. He crossed to her, carrying a tray bearing bread and stew and hard cheese and cold water. “Thank you,” Mara said as she took it.

  The man nodded and turned to go.

  “Wait!” Mara said. “I wanted to ask you—”

  But the villager left without even looking around.

  Ordered not to tell me anything, she thought. What’s going on?

  She didn’t find out that day. The Lady would tell her nothing more. “It’s for your own good,” she said. Mara wasn’t allowed to leave the tent, and a guard at the door, another of the Lady’s elite corps of villagers, made sure she obeyed. Whiteblaze stayed by her side. No one except the Lady and the villager who brought her meals entered the tent. Neither he nor the guard would speak to her, and the Lady would only say that they would be breaking camp the next day, and moving on to their next target: the old magic mine, the slave labor camp where so many unMasked had been used and abused over the decades.

  “Will you unblock my Gift for that?” Mara asked the Lady that evening as they ate supper together. “Please. I want . . . I need to help you destroy it.”

  “Of course,” the Lady said. “I need your help to do so. But not until we reach it. For your own good.”

  Mara tried to push away her mounting frustration with that answer. “Why aren’t you allowing anyone to come see me? I’ve been alone all day.”

  The Lady reached for another piece of bread and dipped it in the mixture of oil and salt on her plate. “Mara, no one has even tried to see you.”

  “No one?” Mara said blankly.

  “I’m sorry, Mara,” the Lady said. She reached out and touched Mara’s hand. “I was afraid it would come to this.”

  “To what?” Mara stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your . . . ‘friends.’ I suspect they have not tried to see you because . . . they are afraid of you.”

  “Afraid . . . ?”

  “Your clearing of the pass was impressive, and inspired awe. But in the ravine . . .” She shook her head. “I know you do not remember, but you were like a force of nature. You killed almost all the Watchers single-handed. Chell and his men were with you, but had they not been, it would not have changed a thing. Men like Chell, and those of the unMasked Army . . . yes, even Keltan . . . they do not like to be shown to be useless. Especially by a girl. They don’t know how to deal with your power.”

  Mara looked down at the Lady’s hand touching hers. There was something about that touch that made her feel uneasy, though she couldn’t understand why. She drew her hand back. “But I’d never hurt them,” she said.

  “And I’m sure they understand that . . . intellectually. But having seen what you did in the ravine. . . .” The Lady drew her own hand back and took another piece of bread. “Frankly, I was a little frightened of you myself.”

  “But I can’t even remember it!” Mara cried.

  “I know it’s difficult,” the Lady said. “But try not to fret. In time I hope it will be safe to return those memories to you. And in the meantime . . . the labor camp awaits.”

  “What if the same thing happens there? What if . . . whatever I do . . . ends up hurting me again? What if you have to take my memories of that battle, too?”

  “I think it unlikely,” said the Lady, “from what you have told me, that you could feel any ambiguity about whatever actions may be required to destroy the mine. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Mara thought about the mine, about everything she had done there, about everything she had seen. Those memories were all-too-intact. “Yes,” she said. “I would.”

  “Good,” said the Lady. “Because I will need your help once again. You have shown a skill at destroying walls and gates. Would you like to destroy some more?”

  This time she didn’t hesitate at all. “Yes,” she said fervently. “Oh, yes.”

  They moved out the next morning. The routine of the Lady’s Cadre packing up the pavilion and loading it on the packhorses was familiar, but when Mara attempted to move away from the small circle of the members of the “human wolfpack” and their horses, Hamil stopped her at once. “No,” he said. “The Lady forbids it.”

  He had put his hand on her upper arm. Whiteblaze growled at him, and anger, sudden and fierce, flashed into fire inside her. If she had had her magic, she would have made him regret that touch . . .

  But her magic was still blocked, even if her anger was not. She jerked free. “Why?”

  “She said to tell you, if you asked,” Hamil said, lowering his hand, “that it would be unwise to expose yourself to the others’ accounts of the events at the cavern: that to do so could damage you further. She said that she—and you—cannot afford to risk that when we are so close to the attack on the labor camp.”

  Mara stood still. “And what if I just walk past you?”

  “Then I am ordered to stop you.”

  “You’d hurt me?”

  “I am twice your size,” Hamil said, spreading his hands. “I do not think I would need to.”

  Mara glared at him, then looked past him at the main part of the camp. The last of the tents and supplies were being loaded onto the horses. She could see Edrik and Hyram in conversation with Keltan, but no sign of Chell. What are they talking about?

  She turned her gaze back to Hamil. “What did you see at the cavern?” she demanded. “What did you see me do?”

  “You must know I cannot tell you that.”

  “Because the Lady told you not to.”<
br />
  “The Lady commands.” Hamil blinked hard and his mouth twitched, as though some strong emotion had poured through him. “The Lady commands,” he repeated. “Please do not make me use physical force, Mara. The Lady commands, and I will obey, but I would . . . prefer not to.”

  “Very well,” Mara said. Her anger had subsided. Hamil had no more choice than she. The Lady commands, she thought. “I’ll be good.”

  “Thank you,” Hamil said. But he watched her closely as she turned and went back to stand with the packhorses. Whiteblaze growled at him one more time before following her. She put her hand on his head as he sat on his haunches close by her feet, and waited for the Lady.

  But the Lady did not join her Cadre. Mara saw her, as they set out down the valley in which they had been camped, walking at the head of the column with Edrik and Chell. Hyram and Keltan walked together some distance behind. None of them looked back as though trying to locate her, and her anger flashed through her again, so strong and sudden it startled her. You never used to get angry this quickly, she thought.

  Well, she answered herself, if anger is a tool, the more you use it, the better you get at using it. And when we reach the mine, and the block is lifted from my Gift, I want to be very good at using it indeed.

  With anger warming her soul, she strode toward the one place in Aygrima she had once thought she never wanted to see again . . . and now wanted to see very much, one last—one very, very final—time.

  ELEVEN

  The Return

  THE EXTENT OF Mara’s isolation became clear as the trek continued. No one but the members of the Lady’s Cadre came near her, but they were with her constantly, ready, like Hamil, to stop her if she tried to wander from their midst.

  That night, the villagers set up the pavilion, lit the fire at its center, and brought her food. She ate sitting cross-legged on her bedroll with Whiteblaze curled nose to tail at her side. She felt cozy and comfortable . . . and yet very, very far from relaxed.

  The journey from the old mine to the cavern had taken only a day and a half. They could potentially reach the mine on the morrow. She wanted—needed—to know what would happen then.

  Whiteblaze’s head came up and he barked once, then the tent flap swirled open and Arilla entered, accompanied by four of her wolves, the rest presumably serving as scouts and guards as they came ever nearer to the mine and its Watchers. “Mara,” said the Lady. “How are you feeling?”

  “How do you think?” Mara demanded. “I’m missing my memories and my magic, and I’ve also discovered I can neither talk to nor be approached by any of my friends. I’m a prisoner.”

  The Lady sighed. “I know it is difficult,” she said. “And I know I’ve said this overmuch, but . . . it’s for your own good. And as for your ‘friends’ . . .” She shook her head. “As I told you earlier, I do not think they are as anxious to see you as you might think.” She went to her bench, opposite the fire from the tent’s entrance, and sat down on it. The wolves settled around her feet. “They are ordinary people. Not even Gifted. You know how frightening our abilities can seem to those who have no grasp of the world of magic.”

  “But Chell and Keltan have seen me use magic before,” Mara protested. “They have seen me kill before, in horrible ways.” She remembered Watchers and their horses entombed in earth suddenly become liquid, then solid again, crushed to death in an instant, as Chell looked on. “What could I have possibly done at the ravine that would have been worse?” She let some of her so-ready-to-hand anger into her voice. “You’re keeping them away from me on purpose. Your human wolfpack won’t let them near.”

  “It’s true I told my Cadre to do so,” the Lady said, “but in fact they have had to do nothing. Neither Chell nor Keltan nor Hyram nor Edrik nor any other member of the unMasked Army or Chell’s crews have asked, or tried, to see you.” She spread her hands. “I’m sorry, Mara, but that is the truth.”

  The tent flap swished aside and Mara turned, heart leaping, thinking one of her friends was about to prove the Lady wrong: but it was only one of the villagers with the Lady’s supper.

  Mara watched the Lady eat with her long, thin fingers, her teeth, strong and straight despite her age, delicately tearing the pale flesh from the bones of a roast fowl of some sort, hunted from the forests through which they traveled. How does she do it? Mara wondered. She’s of an age with Catilla, but while Catilla is spry enough, she could never have made this journey. And yet the Lady seems sometimes to find the going less strenuous than I.

  Only one answer made sense. She must be using magic to keep herself strong. And the source of that magic had to be the villagers. As the Autarch did through Masks, the Lady did without them.

  Before the journey had begun, she had tried to deny Keltan’s claim that there was something odd about the way the Lady interacted with her followers. But now, since the Lady had blocked both her Gift and her memories of the events in the ravine, she was no longer certain she could trust the Lady as much as she’d once thought. Even though the Lady told her everything that had been done to her had been to keep her from harm, how could she be certain of that when she couldn’t remember what had happened?

  How could she be certain of anything?

  The Lady set aside her plate and wiped her fingers and mouth delicately on a white cloth napkin. “Now,” she said, laying the napkin over the polished bones of her meal, “let us discuss our plans for tomorrow. Come, sit beside me.”

  Mara moved to the Lady’s side as the Lady moved over to make room on the red-cushioned bench. The Lady gestured, and an image of the mine appeared in thin air in front of them, perfect in every detail. Mara gasped. “How could you know what it looks like?”

  “My wolves have scouted it for me many times,” the Lady said. She smiled. “I could also project what it smells like to a wolf, but I don’t think you would enjoy it.”

  Mara shook her head. “I didn’t enjoy smelling it as a human.”

  “My plan is simple,” said the Lady. “There are two gates into the mine. The main gate in the south wall,” she pointed to it, “and the smaller gate at the northern end of the east wall through which the wagons loaded with magic depart for Tamita.” She indicated that one. “We have two tasks: to destroy the Watchers, and to make sure the mine can no longer function.”

  “And to free the unMasked,” Mara said.

  “I have not forgotten the unMasked,” the Lady said. “But I do not think they will be fighting in defense of the mine.”

  “Some might,” Mara said. “Some of the trustees—the ones who lord it over the others.”

  “If they fight with the Watchers, they will die with the Watchers,” said the Lady. She indicated the main gate again. “You will use your Gift to open the front gate. The Watchers will swarm there, where our main force will be arrayed. Between your Gift and the skill of our fighters—who greatly outnumber the Watchers—the battle should be over in short order.”

  “What if they have Gifted fighters among them?” Mara said. “I was outmatched when we encountered them during the battle on the beach.”

  “I think it unlikely,” the Lady said. “Remember that the Autarch’s forces are massed at the ravine where I was last seen, and north of the Secret City. The mines are guarded, certainly, but the Watchers are far more focused on keeping the unMasked in than repelling attack from without. Those with enough of the Gift to use magic in combat are too valuable to waste on mere prison duty.”

  “And while we are storming the gate,” Mara said, “what will you be doing?” She heard the note of accusation in her voice, kin to the anger and suspicion she felt, and wondered again where both had come from.

  The Lady, if she even noted it, did not take offense. “I and my Cadre—my ‘human wolfpack’—will be waiting for your attack. Once it is underway, we will simply and quietly open the corner gate . . . and I will see to it that this mine never a
gain produces magic to serve the Autarch.”

  “There’ll be unMasked workers in the mine,” Mara said.

  “I am aware of it,” the Lady said. “I assure you, I will take proper care of them, just as I did at the ravine.”

  Mara stared at the camp and felt butterflies in her stomach—but countering the trepidation was a feeling of fierce joy. At last, she thought. At last.

  For Katia.

  She had failed to save the only friend she had made in the mining camp . . . but maybe she could avenge her.

  They reached the vicinity of the camp at noon the next day. Scouts reported that it seemed to be operating normally. The Watchers in the guard towers were, as usual, focused far more on the prisoners in the camp than the surrounding forest. The unMasked Army and Chell’s men prepared for combat quietly out of sight and sound of the camp, checking armor and weapons, talking in low voices. Mara saw Chell and Keltan from a distance, talking to each other. About what? she wondered.

  The Lady also spoke to Chell and to Edrik during those hours of waiting, before going off with her Cadre. They were getting into position for their portion of the attack, which was to commence the moment the sun dipped behind the foothills to the west.

  The very last thing the Lady did before slipping away through the woods was to come to where Mara sat with her back against a tree trunk, her knees drawn up, Whiteblaze stretched out at her side, waiting for the interminable time until sunset to drag by. Mara looked up as the Lady approached, accompanied by four wolves. The rest were keeping watch all around the camp to ensure no hunter or magic-gatherer or wagonful of unMasked came near enough to spot the Lady’s army and give the alarm. “It’s almost time,” the Lady said. “Stand up.”

  Mara clambered to her feet.

  “Stand still,” the Lady commanded, and reached out her hand and touched Mara’s forehead.

  Instantly she felt her Gift flood back, so suddenly she gasped and staggered back against the tree trunk.