by EM Kaplan
“It’s not wrong.” At Mel’s questioning look, Malga clarified, “It’s the way you’re supposed to be. It’s simply not the way a Mask is supposed to be.” Somewhat cold comfort, Mel realized, but true nonetheless. But other issues weighed on her mind and took priority, rather than her continual quest to fit in with her people.
“You’ve heard about Navio? The trog attack.”
Malga had retaken her seat at Mel’s mother’s desk, which, oddly, didn’t feel unnatural. She folded her hands in front of her, a serene, classic listening pose for a Mask. It meant she was in position to assess information and to make a decision, if necessary.
“Yes. We had several of our people in the city that night. The eyewitness accounts have been invaluable for recording the events. And tragic loss of life.” The last was added almost as an afterthought, but it didn’t surprise Mel. The scientific aspect of the event would almost overwhelm the human horror…for a Mask.
“And the Uptdon as well?” Mel asked.
“Yes. Most troubling.” Malga stood. “Which is why I’m here in your mother’s house. Forgive me for intruding like this,” she added, as if Mel had been living there from day to day, and had just stepped out for a minute. “There’s a certain work I’m looking for…”
Mel followed her to the shelves—rows and rows of bookcases with which she was familiar as she was with the sunny clearing outside. In fact, she may have attempted to climb these very shelves a time or two before being peeled off by her mother.
Eyes following the spines of the books as they walked, Mel remembered each one, the different height and color of each. The elaborate gold lettering of one. The hand-labeled binding of another in her mother’s handwriting. She stopped and would have touched it, but she was afraid her suddenly damp fingers would smear the ink.
“Ah, here it is,” Malga said, her fingers pulling out a slim book. “A study on earthworms I’ve been looking for. I think this may come in handy in the next few months. I would almost wager on it, but we shall see, won’t we?”
Earthworms? Mel’s eyes widened in disbelief. Invertebrates weren’t the problem. This particular infestation was composed of eight-foot tall creatures. Mammalian in nature. Trog by name. Destroying an entire city in one night’s work. Killing countless innocent people. Putting the ones Mel loved in danger. And, as was true to Mel’s nature, she lost her temper, nearly seeing red as Ott had so often described.
After a couple of deep breaths, she said, “I think perhaps there’s a bigger picture in this equation that may be overlooked.” There, that was much more diplomatic. Perhaps she was improving after all in being the master of her emotions.
Malga had turned toward her with a curious glint in her eye, passing the book in her hand to Mel. “I think this perhaps is what you are looking for. Now tell me why you really are here.”
The title of the book read Osterix Volem, the Mask of Tooran. Mel’s gaze shot up to meet Malga’s. The older woman had been goading her the entire time. And was that a smile tightening the powdery corner of the older woman’s mouth? Almost imperceptible and fleeting in nature, the smile had been there, had it not? Or were Mel’s eyes deceiving her, showing her what she wished to see?
“I have friends whom I need to bring into the settlement for safe harbor. One is in need of serious medical attention,” Mel said, returning to her purpose at hand. “We are seven in number as well as an infant.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Bring them to us immediately.”
Chapter 43
Within the hour, Malga had installed Harro in the settlement’s infirmary. They bathed him and clothed him in a soft robe. A skilled healer had seen to his legs, and now only time would tell whether he would regain use of them. At least the pain had been suppressed, and his broken bones reset and properly splinted. Treyna was allowed to stay with him—a cot was moved next to his so she could rest also. Mel was relieved that they were at least clean, resting, and out of danger.
Malga also saw to it that the rest of them all received food and hot water for washing. While Mel had bathed, someone had lit the fires throughout the house. Most of her traveling companions were now ensconced in her mother’s house. Though the house wasn’t large, the group had seemed reluctant to disband. Only Rav and Bookman had gone to stay at Mel’s father’s house. Charl asked for a cot to be brought into the kitchen—a strange place to sleep, but no one thought to question him. He’d had a traumatic last few days. Mel assumed his preference might have to do with the kitchen water pump that ran into the basin. Or the view of the small stream out the back window. She had no doubt of his connection to water, and it seemed to soothe him to be in its proximity.
“I could weep for being clean again,” Ott said, coming into her mother’s library. Someone had located a shaving blade for him, and he was once again smooth-faced, a look she appreciated, though she liked him in any manner. “What are you reading?”
“Where are the others?” Mel asked instead of answering. She was of a mind to find some privacy for them so she could put her hands all over that smooth face of his. A scar under his chin seemed to be demanding the pressure of her lips.
“Resting. Exploring the settlement, in Jaine’s case.”
That gave Mel pause. Did she need to keep a closer watch on the girl for the safety of the settlement and its secrets? Jaine was wily, without a doubt, but she had been raised by the Academie. What secrets did the Masks hold for her? Nothing too shocking, surely. Mel mused that perhaps their childhoods had been more alike than she’d thought. Both raised by mystics of a sort, though the Academie was free with their emotions.
“I’m reading a biography of the Mask whose medallion Jaine is carrying in her bag.” Mel held up the book so he could see the cover and its title. “I’m trying to discover why he left the settlement. He as good as exiled himself in Tooran for the last part of his life. Why did he do it?”
Ott came around the desk and gestured for her to stand up, which she did. Then he sat in her chair and pulled her onto his lap, which she was more than glad of. “And what did you discover?” he asked, wrapping his thick arms around her waist.
She had difficulty concentrating on what she’d been saying. As she spoke, trying to focus on what she’d been trying to explain, her hand ran up and down his heavy forearm, from his elbow to the backs of his scarred knuckles. Though she was tall for a woman, about eight inches above five feet, he was much larger than she—especially since the berserker rages sometimes changed him for good, thanks to the agamite that she’d stirred in his blood. When he bent close to her face, his mouth was above her ear. She felt his breath on her hair as he held her tighter, the warmth of his fingers seeping through her shirt.
“I was…saying…the Mask who went to Tooran. He left because he felt he was a threat to the others, to the…settlement.” Mel’s eyelids grew heavy as she leaned back against his chest, and warmth suffused her body. How difficult would it be to find privacy in this tiny house?
“How was he a threat?” Ott said, though his voice was soft and low, and not sounding at all interested in what she’d read. She could feel the vibration of his words through his chest.
“He…told them he had begun to hear voices in his mind. That fire talked to him. That it controlled him. Though he tried to be its master. He crafted the medallion. But he could no longer wear it. That’s why he gave it to the Academie. For safekeeping. Though they kept it in a pot…under the cat.”
Ott had brushed the hair back from her neck, moving his mouth along the side, down to where her throat met her shoulder. Now her eyes closed, of their own accord.
She tried to continue, “I would have liked to see where in the settlement he’d lived. But he burned his house down before he left. Whether intentional or accidental, no one is sure.”
His hand stroked her skin, across her jaw, down her throat to her shoulder, her arm to her hand. Across the room, the fire flared, yet she didn’t give it a glance. She was not the fire now—t
he medallion was far away from them. Let Jaine wander the settlement. Perhaps she would make a new friend or discover Jenks’s cottage, abandoned, just outside the boundaries.
“I had wondered if the Mask of Tooran—Osterix was his name—knew about elementals. Surely he did. But I can’t find any reference…anywhere…” Her mind, ever churning in its fact-gathering loops and theorizing, continued its gymnastics, though her mouth, finally, closed. The effort of making sentences grew beyond her abilities while Ott went on with his tactile exploration, his hands drifting across her body.
At her silence, Ott gave a low chuckle.
She shifted in his lap so she faced him. His eyes were the color of agamite, the dark green stone ribboned with brown and gold, and his hair was light brown with yellow streaks caused by the sun. So familiar to her now, yet still new, somehow, each time she looked at him. Would he always be this fascinating? She thought, yes, he would.
Her arms found their way around his neck, and without looking, she knew her skin glowed ever so slightly. Her emotion shined pure as day through her when she was with him. Though she had failed as a Mask, she knew being with him was, without a doubt, the most right thing and the best thing she had ever done.
Chapter 44
“In the morning, you will go to the meeting hall so that you may present your observations,” Malga had told Mel the night before. The announcement was not conducive to a restful night’s sleep—Mel dreaded walking down the steps of the sunken amphitheater. The last time she had done so was the day she had taken the Mask. Now she would stand before all of her former mentors and peers, in need of help.
She had an obligation to report to them about the suffering of the people in Navio and in Tooran. Straightening her shoulders as she walked toward the building, she determined that she would also inform them of her theories. Though she had little proof of her findings, she was obligated to tell them. She’d been trained to be an impartial observer. They had to trust her discourse…to an extent. She had to tell them about the items that she was certain allowed control over the elements of nature: terrata, ignisius, aqua, and respirus. Though…she had located only fire and water. Surely, the other two also would exist? And what of their connection to the Mask of Tooran? He had controlled the fire elemental at one time—he’d created the fire medallion after all. But…And now Mel’s pace slowed. Behind her, her companions adjusted their steps as well. She felt their concerned gazes on her as she wrestled with her nerves.
Would they even believe her?
Malga’s hand rested on her shoulder. Mel was broadcasting her anxiety far and wide once again. But now, she set her jaw because…this was who she was. Though the packed dirt lane under her feet was the same as it always had been, though the steps leading into the assembly hall were as familiar to her as anything could be, and though the same faces lifted from the numerous tables around the amphitheater to meet her gaze, Mel knew she was different now. Irrevocably changed by circumstances out of her control. Irreversibly liberated from her former self-control and repression of her emotions…and glad of it.
Mel was surprised when Malga led them as they descended the carved stone steps to the center of the arena. Mel watched her with curiosity. It seemed that her former nanny had taken a leadership role in the community, perhaps the void that Mel’s father had left since his death. That boded well for receiving a warmer reception from the Masks, relatively speaking. Any sign of emotion at all would be more than what Mel was accustomed to receiving from her people. Former people.
Mel looked around the room, unchanged since her childhood with its worn stone steps and evenly spaced benches—even the faces themselves unchanged, sexless and owlish in their inscrutability—and cleared her throat, no longer caring that she showed her nervousness. Her emotion spread to the closest members of the audience. Ley’Atris was wearing a pair of round-lens spectacles, which was odd. Why didn’t he correct his vision? She found herself distracted, wondering whether his glasses were vanity, an impossibility only a couple of years ago. Had so much changed since Mel had left? Since her father had been killed?
And there was Ley’Elara, whose anxiety was evidenced by a almost imperceptible tap of her booted foot. The prefix for all of their names, Ley, meant “of the Mask.” Mel's full name was Ley'Amelan, though she no longer went by that—could no longer claim it. She found she didn’t miss the cold, controlled…Did Ley’Elara just smile at her? No. Surely Mel had been mistaken. Yes, there it was again. What in heaven’s name had occurred here to cause such a striking change in the Mask code of conduct?
Malga introduced Ott first, giving his full name, Mattieus Ottick, saying he was a master hunter, a guide, and a warrior from the northernmost city. Bringing him forth first was a strategic move, Mel realized. Malga was giving Mel time to collect herself, to reign in her emotions to a more human level of chaos. While Mel fretted and then gathered her thoughts, Ott had recited a terse, yet complete retelling of the events on the Uptdon. He continued on through the horrors at Navio. The deaths. The sinkholes, rank with the sulfurous stench of trogs. The utter destruction of the once-bustling port city.
Now Jaine was speaking, relaying the fire in Tooran, Charl’s unexplained fits and seeming connection with the river water. And now Bookman was speaking, his calm, hoarse voice carrying without difficulty throughout the room. At this point, the room became so quiet Mel could hear her own breath in her ears.
Bookman, a trog—former trog—was now addressing the assemblage of Masks. Not too long ago, Mel had been in attendance while the Masks, her father among them, had discussed trogs in tedious detail, from theorizing about their social strata and language of hand signals, down to the various types of weapons they carried.
Rav and Marget had accompanied them into the hall, yet they declined to add their own retelling of the events. Though Rav looked indifferent, Mel knew her friend was not. She knew it only because she was Rav’s friend—the desert woman had managed to disguise even the pulse at her throat—she might have made a better Mask than Mel. Rav had the carriage and visage of a warrior woman, even with a baby strapped to her chest. Marget, on the other hand, looked sick to her stomach. The girl had high color in her cheeks at first, then a greenish pallor. She was flicking her thumb against her forefinger as if striking a flint. So Mel stepped forward, the last of her group to speak.
She held the book high for them, so they could all read the cover, even the Masks at the top level, if they used their enhanced vision, which she was sure they employed now. “The events in our world, the horror that we’ve witnessed in the last number of months, begins with the story of Osterix Volem, the Mask of Tooran. The failed Mask of Tooran.”
Though she heard no murmurs of surprise, disapproval, or otherwise in the hall, she felt the current of emotion as strongly as if it had been voiced aloud.
“This book speaks of a troubled soul. One among us who thought he was losing his mind. Voices sounded in his head. He suspected otherworld spirits spoke to him in his thoughts, his dreams, and his visions. Was he a seer?” Mel nearly added the words, as my father thought he himself was. But Ley’Albaer was a failed seer, a false seer. And his arrogance had gotten him murdered. She could not bring herself to speak of him. Not now. Maybe not ever again because he had gotten her mother murdered at the same time.
“No, he was not,” a voice said. An older Mask from three rows up had spoken. “He was not a seer. None of his nonsensical ramblings ever came true.”
“Are you certain of that?” Mel countered. “Or was it perhaps the truth of the matter that none of them had come true at the time of his departure?”
“Voluntary departure, mind you,” the same old Mask said. Mel couldn’t remember his name. But his disapproving mien had caused her always to avoid him when she was younger. “We did nothing to discourage him from staying.”
“But perhaps nothing to encourage him to remain,” Mel said, her tone taking on a more combative quality than was appropriate or necessary, her a
nger flaring. Predictably out of control, she knew. But she would not quiet her temper—though she could now.
She received no response from the room, which she took to be neither agreement nor the opposite. How many times had she misinterpreted silence when she was younger? Well, she knew better now. The tacit wall of faces meant nothing.
And she would not control her anger.
“Malga located this biography of Osterix in my mother’s library. But this book tells us nothing.” She threw the volume to the floor, where it landed at her feet with a slap that echoed throughout the room. Her defilement of the sacred object—a book— would have been enough to surprise them had there remained a single Mask who was not already flabbergasted. Though they gazed at her with uniform, owlish stares, Mel sensed the waves of shock that blasted through them as easily as if she’d caused an explosion.
She hadn’t meant to sound so accusatory. She hadn’t meant to blame them. But to her, the fault was firmly on the shoulders of those Masks who had ostracized Osterix Volem. The Masks who had lived in the settlement at the time of his exile—some of whom stared down at her from their tiered benches now—had, by their silence, condemned the so-called failed Mask when they may have prevented the chaos and destruction that reigned now.
“You have now heard first-hand testimony of the horrors that have occurred in Tooran and in Navio. And I’m telling you here and now that there is an underlying cause of this destruction.”
Heads had bowed over the tables at the benches as some of the people present referred to the texts in front of them or wrote on unfurled scrolls. She paused until all eyes were once again on her.
“Elementaire have awakened. Elementals. Guardians of the earth. Terrata, ignisius, aqua, and respirus. I myself have seen them. A water elemental swallowed our boat on the Uptdon River. A fire elemental awoke in Tooran. They run rampant, destroying entire cities. Tooran has burned. Navio has been overrun by trogs and punched through with sinkholes. The course of the Uptdon has been reversed. Countless innocents have been killed.”