Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  “Watch the ledge!” Atin warned as he climbed away from the opening.

  Bryce reached the cavern next and exited opposite of Atin. Eldon sucked in his gut and squeezed out the moment Bryce was clear and clung to the wall next to the foreman. The mountain continued to rumble and shake as if wanting to dislodge the fleas clinging to its skin. Eldon shone his light toward Bryce and was barely able to make out his face.

  “What’d you do to piss her off this time?” Eldon asked.

  Bryce grinned. “You know how gals get. Could be anyth—”

  The tiny ledge of stone beneath Bryce’s feet crumbled and he vanished from Eldon’s light.

  “Bryce!”

  Eldon directed the weak beam downward, but his friend was lost within the dust and darkness. The mountain gave one last massive heave and something colossal broke free. A boulder the size of a moderate home dropped from the ceiling and struck the cavern floor with a mighty crash. Displaced air rushed up and tried to blow the last two men off the wall before all went deathly silent.

  Atin and Eldon broke the calm as they coughed the grey dust from their lungs. They continued to cling to the wall for the better part of an hour before the haze cleared well enough for them to climb down to the cavern floor.

  They found Bryce’s broken body lying atop the rubble. It hadn’t been a long fall, perhaps twenty feet, but it was far enough. The jumbled stones made a poor landing site and he had struck his head, likely killing him almost instantly.

  Eldon knelt next to his friend and closed his eyelids with his fingertips. “You died for a righteous cause, my friend.”

  Atin inclined his head and said a silent prayer before turning away and scrambling up the mound of rocks and boulders that now created a hill inside of the mountain. He reached the top, laid a hand on a wall of stone, and stared in wonder.

  Eldon scampered up the slope behind him and let out a long breath. “Ho-ly shit. I knew this bitch had a black heart, but I never imagined anything like this.”

  Atin and Eldon’s lamps played light over the heart of the mountain: an airship-sized boulder made entirely of void stone.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was an unusually brisk morning, cold enough to force Jareen to don a heavy overcoat before leaving for the palace. The halls were nearly deserted at such an early hour, but Auberon had been obsessive in his pursuit of refining his explosive powder and insisted on starting the day as early as decency allowed.

  Jareen doffed his overcoat and hung it in the small wardrobe assigned to him, one of dozens located in the servants’ dressing chamber. He turned to leave and spotted a glint of white atop one of the other wardrobes. He plucked the mask from atop the closet, identifying its owner not just from the stylized gold design inlaid into the porcelain, but also from the fact that it had been carelessly left behind.

  Of course it would be Paden’s, the young man bonded in servitude to a high-ranking official within the palace. He was dutiful but terribly absentminded, always needing reminding of the minutiae regarding his duties and leaving his mask wherever he happened to take it off.

  Jareen sighed, torn between suffering Auberon’s displeasure at being late by seeking out the mask’s owner or letting Paden suffer the consequences of his carelessness. The greatest source of contention was the ache in his heart that tried to make him not care one way or the other. It filled him with doubt born of depression. His son was blind. He had saved his life, but what kind of life would he have?

  He stared into the mask’s glossy white surface and found his own reflection, twisted, distorted. His son would never wear a mask like this. No true highborn would bother with a blind slave. In the end, it was an easy decision. Jareen’s punishment would be minor in comparison to what Paden might suffer if Sahma Deena caught him without his mask.

  He turned toward the door and nearly collided with Paden when he burst into the room, his face flushed and his brow beaded in sweat.

  Paden’s eyes dropped from Jareen’s startled face and locked onto the mask in his hands. “Oh, thank the twin gods you found it!”

  Jareen set his visage back to its usual stoic façade. “I did…again. Paden, this is the third time in a month I have found your mask lying about. Are you trying to get an affixing?”

  Paden swallowed the fear in his throat and his face blanched at the thought of having his mask screwed onto his face, a common punishment for slaves who were careless with their masks.

  “No, I’ll be more careful, I promise!”

  “You promised the last time I found it.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am trying.”

  Jareen handed Paden his mask and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know you are, Paden, but you must be more aware. Our masters have exceedingly high expectations for their slaves, and you must do everything you can to meet them. It is a challenging life we have, but there is far worse out there if you cannot adapt.”

  Paden stared at the mask in his hands as he rubbed the polished surface with his thumb. “Shouldn’t there be better as well?”

  Jareen inclined his head. “There should be, but there isn’t. Take care of your mask. Go, I suspect Sahma Deena will be rising soon. You’ll want to be there when she does.”

  Paden nodded and strapped the mask onto his face. “Thank you again, Jareen.”

  Jareen gave him a light push toward the door and followed him out. “Of course.”

  ***

  Auberon did not look up from mixing his ingredients when Jareen entered the laboratory. “Ah, there you are. For a moment, I feared you were going to be tardy.”

  “No, sah. I know how important this is to you.”

  “Not just to me, Jareen. I am going to change the world with this powder if I can only get it right.”

  “You will, sah. Of that I have no doubt.”

  Auberon finally looked up and smiled as an owner would to a favored dog. “Faithful Jareen. How is your son? Did your little folk remedy ease his suffering?”

  Jareen swallowed the bitter lump in his throat and nodded. “It broke his fever and he will likely survive, but the illness has left him without sight.”

  Auberon stopped his mixing and had the decency to look crestfallen. “I am sorry to hear such tragic news.”

  “Thank you, sah.”

  “I had hoped to start grooming him to be your replacement. You lowborn are so sadly short-lived. I am sure we can find some way for him to be of service to me so he will not be such a burden.”

  Jareen’s fury flared like a wildfire, but his decades of practice allowed him to damp it down to a manageable smolder. “That is very gracious of you, sah.”

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Auberon pointed to a stone bowl on the workbench. “Crush up the charcoal to the same grain as before.”

  “Yes, sah.”

  Once the ingredients were pulverized and blended to Auberon’s precise specifications, he laid out a line of the black powder, taking special care to measure its length and volume. At a nod from the sorcerer, Jareen touched the end with a burning sprig and set off the powder. It flared violently and filled the room with noxious smoke before reaching the end and snuffing out.

  Auberon sighed. “The burn was a good twenty percent faster than the previous test, but I am still dissatisfied. I want to double the burn rate before declaring any kind of success, but I fear I have reached its maximum potential with the ingredients at hand. Perhaps there is something else I can add to make it burn faster.”

  “Sah, we refine the nitrate from daggerwing guano, and that is our primary source of combustion, yes?”

  “You know it is, Jareen. Do not tiptoe around my obvious ignorance. If you have an idea, spit it out. You should know by now that I respect your intelligence. It is why I value you above the rest of your ilk.”

  “It just occurred to me that while daggerwing guano is easy to come by, there is a source with a richer amount of nitrates in it.”

  “What is that?”

  “Worm droppings, sa
h. We ship tons of it to Glisteran as fertilizer for their great plantations. It should not be difficult for you to procure an adequate source for your experiments. With a higher nitrate value we should get a faster burn while using less volume.”

  A genuine smile tugged at Auberon’s lips. “Jareen, you brilliant creature. You must think me an idiot for missing something so obvious.”

  “Not at all, sah. I would never have even considered what you are attempting to create. No one has. I do wonder what you will do with it once you have perfected it.”

  Auberon tapped a long, delicate finger against his chin. “While I have given it much thought, I really do not yet know. I do know that by adding certain metal oxides I can manipulate the color the burn gives off. Perhaps festivities will be the greatest recipient of my invention, but I cannot help but feel there are far more practical purposes for it. I simply cannot know until I find out how far I can push the burn rate. So, be off with you. Go get some of that fertilizer so that we can begin extracting the nitrates. I want to be able to put on a display for Highlord Nahuza when she arrives, so we have only a few days to create an acceptable mix.”

  “Yes, sah. Right away.”

  ***

  Aiden paused in the drinking house’s doorway and studied the crowd before delving deeper inside and making his way to the private room in the back. He found his cohorts sitting around the large table staring forlornly into their beers.

  The burly blacksmith took an open seat at the table. His backside touched the bench at the same moment Janice plunked a mug of beer in front of him. Aiden smiled at the woman, took a long pull from the mug, and let out a satisfied sigh.

  “Well, Janice ain’t taken to watering down the beer, so what’s everyone looking so glum about?”

  Camron, a stoneworker and the only man to exceed Aiden in size and strength, looked up. “They got Brandon.”

  “What do you mean? Who got him? For what?”

  “The gendarmes! Who the hell do you think?”

  “They know about the fire?”

  Camron shook his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, they know about the fire, of course, but I don’t think they know about his or our parts in it, and Brandon won’t tell them.”

  “What’d they take him in for then?”

  “He got in a pissing match with some uptight prick highborn and decked him.”

  Aiden tilted his head back and groaned at the ceiling. “Why would he do a fool thing like that? If he has a problem, we deal with it later, like we’ve done before.”

  “Apparently, the man hit him first, with a damn cane. Busted him open above the eye. Brandon lost his temper.” Camron clenched his meaty fists around an imaginary neck. “Can’t say as I blame him. I don’t think I could check myself if one of them bastards put hands on me, especially drawing blood.”

  “Do you know what started the argument?”

  “His wife Clara says the highborn complained about a carriage Brandon had fixed for him a week prior. It came in with a busted wheel and axle. Brandon set it to rights, and today the fellow comes back with almost the same problem. Says it was from shoddy workmanship and Brandon had to fix it for free. Brandon knew the first time what had happened and this was the same. The highborn has a son who likes to race carriages with his friends, only he’s not much of a driver. He hit a curb or a pothole, broke the damn thing, and pretended like it wasn’t his fault. Brandon told him as much and the man whacked him with his walking stick. Brandon gave him five in the eye for his abuse, and the gendarmes were there in minutes to haul him off.”

  “He should have just cut his damn throat at that point,” Gill rumbled into his cup.

  Gill was a rough-looking man past his middle years and one of the few true criminals amongst them. Most men within the rebellion, if one could apply such a grand name to their rabblerousing, were free men and women who were treated with less favor than the average slave. Gill had been known for always holding either a knife or a cup in his hand until he got married. When his wife died, it hadn’t taken long for him to return to some of his old habits. Fortunately, the cup occupied his hand and free time far more than the blade these days. He was a dangerous man to have around, but his contacts within the undercity were invaluable.

  Aiden shook his head. “If he’d done that, then the gendarmes would be knee-deep in all of our asses right now.”

  “It still ain’t right,” another man griped.

  “No, it ain’t right, Ryan, but we’re gonna make it even,” Aiden said, then poured the rest of his mug’s contents down his throat.

  “What do you have in mind, boss?” Camron asked, always eager for a fight.

  “Cam, you take three of the boys with you and find this highborn whelp. Let’s see if he likes to race with a couple of broken limbs. “Me and the others will have us a nice singalong around the bonfire.”

  ***

  Sweat poured from Aiden’s brow, sizzling when a droplet struck the red-hot iron he was pounding on with a hammer as he fought through his fatigue due to last night’s events. The mansion was too well-guarded to attempt an act of arson, but the carriage house sufficed well enough. It was also easier to burn. Wood was a rare commodity, used almost exclusively for furniture and airships, but the stone houses and buildings required wooden beams and supports. Even with liberal use of lamp oil to get a blaze going, trying to set fire to the manor would have been far too risky.

  Camron’s team had faced far fewer problems carrying out their task. It was easy to find where the wealthy youngsters liked to race and carry on. Then it was a simple matter of waiting until the kid was alone and beating him to within an inch of his life. Aiden worked the metal gripped in his tongs as if it were the bones of a highborn, bashing and bending it into compliance.

  “Aiden!”

  Aiden ceased his hammering and looked up to find Camron in a state of agitation.

  “They’re going to hang Brandon!”

  It took a second for Aiden’s brain to make the switch between his smithing and comprehending what Camron was saying. “For decking a highborn? That’s extreme even for them.”

  “No, they’re naming him as a conspirator to what we did last night. We have to do something.”

  “You know where they have him?”

  “Millington Square. Aiden, they took Clara in this morning too.”

  Aiden flung his leather apron against the wall. “Despicable bastards! Come on. I don’t know what they’re playing at, but we need to see what’s going on.”

  Millington Square was only a few blocks from Aiden’s forge, but it took several minutes to reach due to the crowd gathered to watch the spectacle. Aiden and Camron found a few others of their clandestine group about five ranks back from the front. No one wanted to be too near the scaffold where Brandon and his wife stood waiting for their execution.

  The hangman’s scaffold was built like an enormous, overturned box, ten feet high, into which the convicted dropped with a pull of a lever. The bodies dangled inside the box out of the crowd’s purview. It was what the highborn considered decency when dispensing justice. The execution was to be a warning to those who broke the law, not a spectacle for a perverse audience.

  Gendarmes encircled the scaffold and kept the crowd at halberd’s length. Only one figure stood atop the hangman’s box other than the convicted and the executioner himself. Aiden had never met the man, thankfully, but few people would not know him on sight.

  Chief Inquisitor Quinlan Rey was a man of average size, but his appearance was the only thing mediocre about him. He was known to be exceedingly intelligent, deducing and unraveling some of the most complex criminal plans and activities with meager evidence. Of course, when a person built their career upon destroying the lowborn, they only needed the slightest suspicion to arrest and coerce a confession from the accused.

  Rumor had it that he was lowborn but gifted with sorcery. That ability, coupled with his intellect, elevated him to a higher standing, and he was po
sted to one of the most powerful positions someone of his birth could attain.

  Quinlan stepped up to the edge of the platform and spoke out over the heads of the assembled crowd. “People of Velaroth, I bring before you the criminals Brandon and Clara Platt. Brandon Platt assaulted an honored citizen of the empire and later conspired with other criminal elements to assault the sah’s son and burn his carriage house to the ground. Clara Platt has been found guilty of conspiracy for the aforementioned crimes. Their sentence is death.”

  The crowd booed and hissed. One man shouted, “Convicted in what court? When was their trial?”

  The chief inquisitor sought out the speaker with his eyes. “Their trial convened two hours ago with a verdict of guilty on all counts.”

  “You had the hangman’s box erected before their trial!” the same man countered.

  “Their guilt was a forgone conclusion.” Quinlan raised a hand when the crowd began shouting. “The overlord and her courts are not without mercy. I will commute the conspiracy charges of both the convicted, thus sparing their lives, if, and only if, the perpetrators of last night’s assault and arson step forward and confess.”

  Aiden felt Camron shift next to him and was about to follow him when Brandon met his eyes and gave him a slight shake of his head. Aiden grabbed Camron’s arm and held him back.

  “What are you doing?” Camron demanded. “We can’t let him and Clara hang for something we did!”

  “It won’t matter. Brandon wants us to be still.”

  “But Clara!”

  “If we come forward, we’ll just be added to the hangman’s roster and Brandon knows that. So does Clara. Quinlan might let Clara go since he made it so public, but he’ll send Brandon to the mines. How long do you think he’d last there? Clara would rather they both die together than live to see that.”

  Camron clenched his teeth and he quivered with rage. “I don’t like it!”