Highlords of Phaer (Empire of Masks Book 1)

by Brock Deskins

  Quinlan stood and gestured for Jareen to do the same. “Probably so, but I am afraid I must detain you a while longer while I complete my investigation. I will make sure that you are properly taken care of.” He motioned to the tray on the table. “Take that with you. I trust you know how to manage it.”

  Jareen discarded dignity in place of necessity and picked up the tray of food and water. “Inquisitor, are you certain of Aiden’s guilt?”

  Quinlan turned around just beyond the doorway. “Absolutely. He confessed it quite, how did you put it, boisterously.”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “I think you know. I prefer not to speak of the dead. Less chance of them coming back to haunt me.”

  The same two gendarmes who had brought him to this room took the inquisitor’s place in the doorway and motioned for Jareen to walk between them. They did not take his tray and deposited him back into his cell.

  CHAPTER 10

  Jareen sat on the cot in his cell, pondering his fate. No one visited. Not even Inquisitor Quinlan returned to interrogate him further. He spent his time staring at the wall, his heart aching knowing that Tyler was certainly asking where he was. He wondered if Claire even knew. If she did, he doubted she would tell him. She probably told him that his father was working on something very important for Sah Auberon.

  Another question crossed Jareen’s mind. Where was Auberon? Was he working on securing his release, or was he back in his laboratory tinkering with his precious powder? Was he giving his slave a second thought? Jareen knew his place; he had no illusions about it. He was a slave and would never be family to Sah Auberon or even like family, but surely he was important. Had he overestimated his value to his master?

  Gauging by the number of meals brought to him, Jareen guessed another two days passed after his interrogation before he noted a difference in the sound and cadence of the approaching footsteps. His door opened with a screech, and he smiled at the sight of Sah Auberon standing in the entryway with a displeased look upon his face.

  “Come, Jareen, this fiasco has wasted far too much of our valuable time,” Auberon said, casting a scowl at his servant’s jailers.

  Jareen bolted from his cot. “Yes, sah.”

  Jareen had to hasten his step to keep up with his master’s long, agitation-fueled stride. Neither man spoke until they were in Auberon’s waiting carriage and heading back to the palace.

  “Your brother-in-law has certainly made a mess of things,” Auberon said over the loud clopping of horse hooves on the cobblestone road. “Not only did he ruin my presentation, I have had to spend the past several days convincing Highlord Nahuza that you are far too loyal and intelligent to get yourself wrapped up in anything so stupid.”

  “Thank you, sah.”

  Auberon stared out of the carriage window and sighed. “This is a severe setback for me, Jareen. I will have to devise a purpose for my fire powder that is significant enough to wipe away your brother-in-law’s foul tarnish.”

  “Sah, what has become of Aiden?”

  “Hmm? Oh, they hanged him in the courtyard yesterday.” He turned away from the window to look at Jareen. “I know you will need some time to grieve, and you shall have it, but I need you to clear your mind and return to work. Take the rest of today and tomorrow to sort yourself out.”

  “That is not necessary, sah. I shall return in the morning, with your leave. I do not mourn Aiden’s death, as it was fitting for the nature of his crime. I imagine Claire will need some consoling, however.”

  A look of genuine sympathy washed across Auberon’s face. “Oh, my dear Jareen, they did not tell you.”

  “Tell me what, sah?”

  “Attempting to assassinate a highlord requires the strictest of punishments. Highlord Nahuza ordered a purge of Aiden Underhill as well as his accomplices’ immediate bloodlines. Do you understand?”

  Jareen’s face fell as if made of wax melting beneath the hot sun. “Sah, no, that cannot be. Claire had nothing to do with it! Why would they…?”

  “Jareen, even if I could have made such an argument, it would have done no good. Claire was drafting and carrying letters and orders for these dissidents. She was part of it.”

  “No, no that cannot be! She would not put us in such danger.”

  “I said as much, but I saw the letters, many of them encoded in her own hand. I am sorry, Jareen.”

  Jareen’s heart raced and his blood burned like fire. Sweat poured from his brow in an effort to quench the flames of his soul.

  “I will need that extra day, sah,” Jareen whispered, his voice strained and coarse. “I must find someone to help me with Tyler until he can manage on his own.”

  Auberon leaned forward and laid a hand on his servant’s knee. “Jareen, you still are not following what I am saying. The purge includes all immediate family. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles…and nephews.”

  Jareen’s world exploded into a chaotic scene of incomprehensible colors and sound. He knew Auberon was sitting across from him, but he could not make out his face through the wavering, swirling mess of his overloaded senses. His body trembled so violently he thought he was likely having a seizure of some kind.

  Auberon’s muddy, muted voice broke through the chaos. “Jareen! Jareen, come back to me! Get ahold of yourself, man!”

  Jareen clawed his way out of the ether and returned to the physical world, his breath returning like a trapped animal’s panicked panting. “She could not be so cruel as to hang a child. Surely not even the highlords would call that justice.”

  “We both know they are, but I saved him from such a horrible fate. I saved him for you.”

  “H-he lives?”

  “No. It was all I could do to save your life. I argued strenuously that you were bound only in marriage, and that their traitorous blood did not run through your veins. I was able to convince the highlord to allow me to save your son the terror that such an execution would cause him. I created a tonic that put him into a sleep from which he would never awaken. He dreamed whatever it is little boys dream of until his heart quit beating and his lungs ceased to draw breath. It was a mercy, Jareen. You must see that. He was blind in a world that is cruel even to those who can see. What kind of life would he have had? I am not so awful as to expect you to thank me, but I know you are smart enough to appreciate what I have done for you. Perhaps not at this moment, but in time.”

  The carriage clattered to a stop in front of Jareen’s house. Jareen climbed out of the coach and stood on leaden legs before his front door.

  “Jareen,” Auberon said as his servant stared at the door, “you recall that clumsy serving girl?”

  Jareen turned back around. “Sah?”

  “I recently learned that she is with child, and there is a better than fair chance that it is mine. You know I cannot have that. Take care of it soonest, will you? Preferably before you return to work. It might make for a good distraction to pull yourself away from your grief.”

  Jareen stared at the retreating carriage until it disappeared up the wide lane leading to the palace proper. The door handle turned under the weight of his hand and glided open on silent hinges. Crime was rare even in the lowest quarters of the city and nonexistent this near the palace. The door had a lock, but Jareen did not know if it worked or if he even had a key.

  He forced his feet to propel him into the house, choking back the words of his habitual greeting before they could intrude upon the silence. He glanced into the kitchen, half-expecting to see Claire fussing about making tea or preparing supper. Jareen shuffled through the open door to his son’s room. He stood next to the bed, looking down at the blankets cast aside to reveal the sheet-covered mattress beneath them.

  His eyes traced the slight indentation Tyler’s body had left in its soft surface, created by a fortnight of being bedridden. Jareen’s knees gave out and he collapsed next to the bed, draping his body over the mattress, and weeping uncontrollably into the sheets.

  ***


  Sorrow vanquished Jareen’s awareness. When he finally left the eternal void where the living desperately tried to seek out the dead, the sun had vanished and darkness blackened the windows. Jareen stood and stumbled to his bedroom. Exhausted, he thought he might sleep, but as he lay on the bed, praying that he never again see the coming dawn, his mind and body rebelled against the concept of respite.

  Cursed with being forced to face his anguish, Jareen sat at the desk where Claire enjoyed writing poems and recording her thoughts in a journal. He slid the drawers open one by one, but nothing remained of her writings. Inquisitor Quinlan had likely confiscated them to facilitate his investigation. Anger flooded through him. This man had taken the last tangible connection he had to his family and would likely steal his memories too if he could. Jareen grabbed the desk’s center drawer, ripped it from its slot, and hurled it across the room.

  Jareen was about give in to his sorrow when he noticed the corner of a piece of paper hanging down from within the drawer cavity. The page resisted his attempt to pluck it out but yielded to his insistent hand. He touched the gummy spot of adhesive that had been holding it in place before turning it over and reading.

  It appeared to be another of his wife’s poems, full of artful prose and similes that made little sense to him. Jareen was a man of order and logic, and his brain rebelled against such linguistic frivolities. A small symbol sketched in the upper right corner of the page drew his attention. His brain insisted that it was familiar, but he could not recall where he had seen it before.

  Why had Claire deliberately hidden away this page? What was its significance? His eyes returned to the words, those silly metaphors standing out as if embossed on the page. He was about to cast it aside when his logical brain began tugging at his consciousness. Jareen read the poem again and began to sense that there was a pattern in the words, a sort of deliberate repetition he could not quite fathom.

  He pulled the other drawers out of the desk and searched inside, beneath, and behind every piece of furniture in the chamber. When he finished tearing apart the room, he had six encrypted letters spread out on the desktop, several of them identical with the exception of the small symbol sketched in the corner of the page. After an hour of study, he finally knew what it all meant, that his wife was not just an innocent bystander who got caught up in something bigger than her. She was one of its architects. She had deliberately and with great forethought placed not just herself but her family in harm’s way, and it cost her not just her life but that of their son as well. It was an unforgivable betrayal. Jareen left the papers on the desk. He looked around the room and shuddered. His home was now a mausoleum, and he needed to get out.

  He gasped in the outside air like a man suffocating as he plodded toward the palace. Sah Auberon had been right; he needed a distraction. His mind was not prepared to deal with everything that had happened. Not yet. His brain let his legs take over and pilot their course. His mind was far too busy trying to restore emotional order by compartmentalizing this new reality to bother with simple mechanics. When he reached the laboratory, he looked back but could not remember anything between the moment he left his house and now.

  Jareen forced his brain to acknowledge the present and stepped into the laboratory. Not surprisingly, it was much the same as he had left it. He had only been away a few days, but those days were a lifetime—two lifetimes—he silently amended.

  He went to the cabinet where he stored various elixirs. Auberon’s latest indiscretion was far from a rare occurrence, nor was his response to the inevitable consequences. Jareen had a dose of medicine already prepared to terminate the child. Auberon likely knew of its existence and could have given it to Grace himself, but it was one of many tasks he considered beneath him and preferred to have Jareen deal with it.

  Jareen thought of Grace and pitied her. The girl could not be more than seventeen and would never know the feather-soft feel of her child’s touch or the boundless love in its smile. It was but another life extinguished by the callous, thoughtless actions of the highborn.

  Anger rose up within him like a beast on its hind legs just before it pounced. Jareen could not directly defy his master’s orders, but he could subvert them. He could at least give Grace a choice, a choice no one ever gave him. He mixed new ingredients and lit fires beneath various alembics to extract the elixir he needed.

  The brew did not take long. All Jareen had to do was add a few things to the potion he already had on hand. He poured the new mixture into a glass vial and stoppered it with a cork. He slipped the two potions into separate pockets and departed the laboratory.

  It was late evening and the palace halls were all but deserted. The chandlers, roving guards, and the few people still bustling about, performing whatever personal business they had, barely cast him a glance as he hustled to do his master’s bidding.

  Jareen took a deep breath before knocking on the door. Grace, as one of Sah Auberon’s “special” servants, had a small room in a far-flung corner of the palace. He, like many of the highborn residing within the vast royal complex, preferred to keep those servants nearby so that they could attend to them at a moment’s notice.

  Jareen did not bother to wait for permission to enter, pushing the door open and barging in. Grace stifled a gasp at his intrusion. Her eyes flared wide upon recognizing him. She grabbed a blanket from the bed and tried to cover herself with more than the silk shift she wore.

  “Jareen! W-what are you doing here? I was not expecting company.”

  Jareen closed the door behind him, crossed the room in a few strides, and lifted the blanket away. “I guess my warning to avoid Sah Auberon was too late in coming.”

  Grace sat heavily onto the bed. “It is not as though I have any say in the matter. I belong to him. My body is his to do with as he pleases. Are you going to tell him of my condition?”

  “He already knows. He sent me here to…resolve the situation.”

  Tears filled Grace’s eyes, overflowed the banks of her eyelids, and cascaded down her cheeks. “Please, do not take my baby! Tell him I lost it! I can have someone in the city look after it.”

  Jareen shook his head. “Even if Auberon were not a sorcerer, how long do you think you could hide your condition from him? He will know the moment he lays eyes on you no matter how well you conceal it.”

  Grace folded her hands over her stomach. “I can’t!”

  “That is for you to decide.” Jareen took the two vials from his pockets and placed them on her nightstand. “At least I can give you a choice, a choice my son never had.”

  “What are they?”

  “The potion with the red cork will separate you from your child. The one with the plain cork…will not.”

  Grace was young but she was not stupid. She understood Jareen’s inference. Auberon would never allow his blood to mix with that of a slave, but at least she would not have to live with the pain of losing her baby.

  “If I choose to stay with my baby, what should I do?”

  Jareen shrugged. “Were it me, I might do it in a way that would strike a blow, no matter how feeble it may be. We have little say in how we live, but at least the sound of our death might ring with the final words of defiance. It will take about half an hour for either one to take effect. However you wish to make your statement, you would want to be in place at that time.”

  Grace stared at the poisons, both of which meant the end of her life. One might only take her unborn child, but it would surely kill her all the same, only much slower.

  “Thank you, Jareen. You were always kind, even when you were forced to do horrible things.”

  “I do not know if I would call this a kindness, but at least it is a choice.” Jareen turned away but paused at the door. “Late morning, before Sah Auberon rises, would be a good time to make your decision. It would be best if you did not disturb him or he might find a way to stop you. He does not like losing his property or being defied.”

  Jareen left Grace to decide her fate.


  The servants’ dressing room was nearby, its door ajar. Out of habit as much as curiosity, Jareen stepped inside but found the chamber empty. He spotted a glint of white atop one of the wardrobes. Picking up the object, he stared at the porcelain mask and shook his head. It seemed that Paden would never learn.

  “You there!”

  Jareen spun, mask in hand, and faced the speaker. Jareen did not know him by name, but he recognized him as a minor functionary within the palace.

  “Sah?”

  The highborn looked askance. “Put your mask on, man!”

  It was not until then that, in his distraction, he realized he had left his mask in the laboratory. With no other recourse, he hastily slipped Paden’s mask onto his face.

  “That’s better.” The functionary studied Jareen’s mask a moment. “You belong to Sahma Deena, yes? Does she have you currently engaged in something?”

  “Uh, no, sah.”

  “Do you know how to shave?”

  “Sah?”

  The functionary’s shoulders sagged and he spoke as if Jareen might be a simpleton. “I have an engagement this evening. Do you know how to give a proper shave?”

  Jareen nodded. “Yes, sah.”

  The man spun and motioned for Jareen to follow. “Then let us get on with it. I haven’t time for dallying.”

  Jareen hastened after the man as he made his way to one of the bath chambers. The baths had a room with several padded chairs that tilted back and swiveled, arranged before a series of sinks. The functionary sat back in one of them and waited for Jareen to attend to him.

  Jareen took a clean towel from a cabinet and placed it into a steamer fed by a hidden boiler somewhere in the bowels of the palace. With the towel heated and now wrapped about the man’s face, Jareen took a razor and honed it against a leather strap.

  “Make sure it is a close shave. I am meeting a woman of impeccable standards,” the man ordered as Jareen finished applying the lather.

  Jareen touched the razor to his neck and could feel the blood pumping through the artery beneath the skin. Sweat began to bead on his brow and he had to force his hand not to tremble.