by Sam Sykes
How does one describe the work of a Maskmage, after all?
Freaky, I suppose, would be a good start. That was what came to mind as she stood up straight, her dress and stained apron fading away as fine clothes of violet and black silk blossomed across a body that was suddenly tall, lean, and very, very male.
She—or rather, he—looked down at me through hawkish eyes over a long nose. And I, in exchange, cringed and looked away.
“Fuck, I’m never going to get used to that,” I said. “Do you have to do that in front of me?”
“Language,” the tall man snapped back at me, folding lithe arms over lithe chest. His voice carried with it the rasp of age, though not quite as gravelly as the woman’s had been, and though his hair was no longer the dark iron gray of the old woman’s, it still held an elderly man’s distinguished silver.
He could assume any shape, of course, but whether he was an old woman, a young man, a child, or a dog on the street, Alothenes, Imperial spymaster, would always be a crotchety old shit underneath it all.
“And I am unconvinced that you have not seen more obscene things than a Maskmage’s art.” Alothenes strode toward his bedroom with the poise of a noble, paused with the pointed drama of an opera actor. “Frankly, I am unconvinced that you have not done things more obscene.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t make you watch them, now, do I?” I called after him.
“No. You merely come to me anytime you need them cleaned up,” he replied.
“Like I’ve never done anything for you,” I shot back. “Was it or was it not your old friend who took care of those Revolutionary agents sniffing around your shop?”
“I recall a thuggish woman bedecked in tattoos and dressed like a savage handling that.” He pointedly glared at me over his shoulder. “Certainly not the talented young woman I had the pleasure of serving the Imperium with.”
“Once had,” I corrected him.
“Once,” he repeated, a pained note in his voice. “As it happens, I was rather happy with that arrangement. Favor for favor is a classic exchange among those of refined breeding. Yet I cannot help but cringe at the circumstances that lead you to be standing in my room.”
He paused, ran an appraising eye over me.
“Speaking of which, stand up straight,” he said. “Your posture is an insult.”
More swiftly than I would have liked, I straightened up. “Happy?”
“Yes. Now, sit down. You’re a guest.” He went into his bedroom, letting my muttered insult go unchallenged as I sat down upon the sofa. “I feel stupid for asking, but may I offer you a drink?”
“You sound stupid for asking,” I replied. “I’ll take that drink and an explanation for what ‘circumstances’ you’re talking about.”
“Refrain from insulting my intellect, Salazanca, and I will struggle to do the same for you.” I heard glass clinking from within. “Straightforward as your vision might be, you could not possibly have missed the considerable accumulation of military buildup within Lastlight.”
I cleared my throat in a way I hoped wasn’t suspicious. “I saw a few Revolutionary soldiers.”
“A few? You jape, surely. Their monstrous engines arrived not a day ago bearing scores of the nul savages. They brought with them those colossal, mechanical abominations, those… those…”
“Paladins?”
“I’ll thank you not to sully the noble title by associating it with them. I’ve been probing their presence here, hoping to divine the purpose of the sudden introduction of forces. Alas, the nuls’ ignorance forever remains their greatest strength; they simply go wherever their commanders tell them.”
“That’s funny, because I remember specifically you screaming at me for not following your orders.” I sprawled across the sofa, propped my feet on the armrest. “You turned so red, I thought you might have been shape-shifting into a tomato.”
“Opting to spurn one’s role in a delicate operation so that one might dally about with a civilian is not refusing to follow orders so much as outright treason.” He emerged from the bedroom with two cups. He handed me one, pushed my feet off his sofa, and took a seat in a chair across me in one fluid motion. “Were you not who you were, I’d have had you executed.”
“I told you I had a good excuse.”
“That being?”
I smiled, swirled the liquid in my glass. “He played the harp really well.”
Alothenes sighed so hard I thought he might twist back into that old woman. And I hated to say I smiled at it. There was a time I had lived to make him do that.
A time when we both knew the difference between friend and enemy.
I had met Alothenes ki Nadaga when he had been a little younger in flesh, if not in spirit. I offended him by belching the lyrics to his favorite opera, if I recall correctly. It might seem unusual that we should have become friends, I suppose.
Frankly, it was much more unusual that we were still talking after I went Vagrant.
The rebellion against the Nul Emperor saw the Imperium’s best mages abandon them. As Maskmages went, there was no one better than Alothenes. The Lady Merchant gives them the ability to change their face, their body, their voice, everything but their heart. And, as a consummate student of opera, Alothenes could adopt and shed personalities faster than most people change clothes. His spying, subterfuge, and calculated plots had delivered the Imperium many victories and her enemies many defeats.
To this day, I have no idea why he chose to remain loyal.
The Imperium gave him wealth and prestige fitting his station, of course. But he could have more—much more—by going Vagrant. A man who could change his shape into that of a baron, a Freemaker, even an Avonin could be sitting prettily atop a pile of metal by now. Yet, even after the Nul Emperor, even after the rebellion, even after the Crown Conspiracy, he remained a servant of the Imperium.
And, inexplicably, my friend.
We’d trade favor for favor, information for information, since I’d gone Vagrant and still found the time to talk opera over wine now and again. That might seem a mercenary form of trust, but it doesn’t get much better in the Scar.
And it was more than I usually got.
“I gather that, since you are not here in cause of or as the solution to Revolutionary shenanigans, you have come to me for another reason.” He sighed deeply. “Which means I doubtless have the pleasure of you requiring a favor.”
“A couple, actually. But first”—I held my cup up, smiled—“to friendship?”
He narrowed his eyes. “To adequate exchanges.”
“I’ve heard of worse reasons to drink.”
Our glasses clinked. I took a sip. Something cool and refreshing hit my tongue. I immediately spat it out.
“Is this water?” I asked, offended.
He shrugged. “You drink too much.”
I had a vague urge to draw the Cacophony but resisted. I had, after all, come here for a favor.
“Straight to business.” I pointedly emptied the water onto the floor. Before he could protest, I plucked a folded piece of paper from my pocket. “I had a run-in with Calto the Hardrock.”
The ire in his face drained away so quickly I thought he might have just shifted. Alothenes, my friend, was irksome, haughty, and pretentious. Alothenes the Imperial spymaster was empty, methodical, and spoke so coldly it made my blood chill.
“Go on,” he said.
“He was on his way to Lastlight,” I said. “Hitched a ride with an Avonin caravan.”
“Avonin,” he muttered. “I trust you handled it with your usual tact.”
I patted the Cacophony. “We did.”
“Then I can assume they will be demanding even higher prices on their goods in the name of security.”
“The Imperium can foot the bill, surely.”
“The goal is to further Imperial interests, not debt.” He sighed. “Still, it might be worth it if Caltothos is no longer a problem.” He fixed me with a glare. “He isn’t, is he?”
“Of course.”
That wasn’t precisely a lie. At any rate, Calto was no longer a problem for me. I could have been more specific, of course, but it was a good idea to keep a few secrets from a Maskmage. From a Maskmage who also served as Imperial spymaster, it was a necessity.
“But he wasn’t coming for wine and music,” I said. “He was meeting someone here. I need to know who.”
He met my hard look with a certain cold softness. If I hadn’t known him as I did, I would have missed the subtle shift of facial features as his magic made him appear more stoic, reserved.
“One wonders, Salazanca,” he whispered, “why that is.”
That would have been a good time to tell him, of course.
About the Husks. About Vraki. About everything. And I confess, looking into his eyes as I did, I almost wanted to do just that. Those words, that name, came with a sour feeling that welled up from a black place inside me and got stuck in my craw. I wanted, more than anything, to tell him, to get those names out.
But I couldn’t.
Alothenes forgave me a lot. More than I deserved, really. He forgave me for being uncultured and rude around him. He forgave me for being a shitty servant to the Imperium. He forgave me, even, when I had ceased being a shitty servant and had gone Vagrant entirely.
But if I told him why I needed to find Vraki, to take the glory of killing the Imperium’s greatest traitor for myself… he’d never forgive that.
It was true, he wasn’t my friend. We didn’t spend much time together, we didn’t agree on anything, we hadn’t even gotten along particularly well when we both served the Imperium. But even if he wasn’t my friend, he was someone who I could turn to in the Scar, someone who I didn’t have to watch my back around, someone who gave even the slightest of shits about me.
And I wasn’t ready to give that up. Not yet.
“Bounty,” I lied. “He’s working with someone else. If I handle them both, that’s more money for me.”
His face betrayed neither surprise, nor offense, nor curiosity; I had a hard time deciding which one of those bothered me more.
“A bounty,” he replied. “Mere metal.”
“There’s nothing mere about the stuff that keeps me alive,” I muttered.
“It’s the stuff that keeps you in blood, booze, and blades.”
I eyed him with ire. “You got a better definition of being alive?”
“I do.” His lips twitched at the edges, revealing the ghost of a smile I rarely saw even when we were on good terms. “And it’s through duty.”
I directed my glower away so that he couldn’t see me roll my eyes. “I wish I could visit you once without hearing this fucking lecture.”
“And I wish you’d go kill monsters without your midriff exposed, but it seems we’re all disappointed today.” His posture slumped as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes upon me. “Speak truthfully. Doesn’t it wear on you?”
I saw no reason to speak truthfully to a spy, much less a man who could change into whatever shape he wanted. Yet even as I looked away from him, he persisted in both staring and speaking.
“The bloodshed, the violence, the battles,” he said. “The bed you sleep in one night becomes a battleground the next. The person you kiss in the morning is at your throat when the sun sets.” He sighed. “I turned down the Vagrant’s life, but I know it well. There are no friends that do not become enemies and guns make for a poor family.”
“And what would you know about it?” I surprised myself by snapping, surprised myself more with the heat that boiled up behind my eyes. “You talk about the Imperium like it’s a noble thing, like they don’t look at you and see a collection of Dust and magic they can use for their own ends. You act like we all went Vagrant out of a lust for gold and nothing more.”
“I assume some nebulously clichéd definition of ‘power’ was also a motivator,” he said. “Unless there was something else?”
“FUCKING FREEDOM, THAT’S WHAT ELSE.”
The words came tearing out of my mouth, spat onto the floor to run on two newborn legs. I rose to my feet, hands clenched into fists, jaw set. The Cacophony seethed in eager approval at my hip, so hot I could feel it through the leather. But for once, I didn’t care.
For once, I was burning even hotter.
“We’re born with this gift, spend our lives bearing its burdens in service to others, and when we die, we don’t even get to keep our corpses. I am done with other people taking what I have.”
I hadn’t noticed when I had tensed up so much or leaned over so far toward him. My breath came in short, angry rasps behind gritted teeth.
Maybe Galta had been right when she said I didn’t understand why the Crown Conspiracy did what they did. Maybe Alothenes was right when he said I didn’t understand the value of duty. Maybe there was a lot I didn’t understand.
But I knew what it meant to be nothing more than what you carried. I knew what it meant when all the good you’d done, all the loves you’d had, all the jokes you told and the stories you knew and people who remembered you meant fucking less than the power that you carried.
I knew that well. It bothered me that he didn’t. It bothered me that my jaw clenched so tight and my eyes burned so hot. And it didn’t so much as bother as chafe my ass raw that Alothenes stared at me with cool dispassion and barely blinked.
His eyes traveled down the length of my body, across my tattoos and the dust on my clothes and the gun on my hip to settle onto the scar almost hidden behind my shirt. It itched under his gaze, suddenly afraid to be studied.
“And who will be with you,” he whispered, “when you have nothing left?”
I hadn’t noticed when I slumped back down to the sofa. I hadn’t noticed when all the fire ebbed out of my voice and my demands sounded more like pleas.
I hadn’t noticed when I suddenly felt so heavy. And felt like I was back in that dark place.
“Salazanca.”
I looked up. His hand was extended, offered. He would never take mine without asking. He was refined like that. Maybe it was just out of habit that I reached out and took it.
But it felt good, regardless.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, “it’s not ideal. But then, perhaps we aren’t born into ideal lives, mages. Vagrants, Imperium, whichever, we are viewed as monsters and as tools by our allies and our enemies, no matter which path we choose. For we are defined by our gift, our burden, our Barter.”
He smiled at me. His lips were thinner than I remembered.
“Aren’t we?”
Alothenes was more careful than most, budgeting his magic cautiously. But he still paid the same Barter as any Maskmage. The Lady Merchant gave them deception, cunning, and the ability to transform, but in exchange, she took their very identities.
I studied his face. The changes were subtle, but they were there. His eyebrows had vanished. His earlobes had disappeared. His eyelids didn’t quite go all the way down anymore. The Lady Merchant was taking his face, bit by bit, and when she was done with him, this long nose and these hawkish eyes would be gone and only a smooth white slate would be left behind.
We understood each other, from time to time. We both had our scars.
“Perhaps, then,” he said, squeezing my hand, “we simply don’t get a normal family full of squealing brats and spouses who grow infuriated at us for things we forgot to say. Perhaps that’s the real Barter we pay. But”—he looked distant for a moment—“to me, the choice was never between Vagrant and Imperium, but between dying alone and dying for something. It’s not right, to have to make that choice, and it’s not normal. But perhaps it’s as close as we get.”
He was probably right. He usually was.
But the truth was that I didn’t know what normal was anymore. I thought I did once. But then I lost it, somewhere, along with everything else. And now all I had left were these scars, this gun, and a little voice that told me I would never know what normal was like again until I had c
rossed every name off that list.
I wanted to tell him that, of course. It would have felt nice to get it out.
Wish I could tell you why I didn’t.
“Riccu the Knock was sighted here last month.”
I looked up at his words. The weight shed itself from my shoulders. It wasn’t a lightness I felt, but an eagerness, a desire to get up, get moving, get shooting. I was burning bright all over again.
“Riccu the Knock,” I whispered.
“One of Vraki’s old associates, you’ll recall,” Alothenes said. “I had wondered what a traitorous Vagrant”—he paused, considered me—“that particular traitorous Vagrant was doing in Lastlight. Calto’s presence would explain it, I suppose.”
It would explain more than that.
I had been agonizing over why Vraki had been so difficult to find. I hadn’t considered that it would be because of a fucking Doormage. Hell, I’d have thought Riccu would be too scared to answer his summons.
Riccu, like others of his kind, could weave portals to travel hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye. That’s how Vraki got between Stark’s Mutter and wherever else he was going. That’s how he got those kids out.
And wherever Riccu was, Vraki would be close by.
Like, sort of. You know, as close by as a portal can be. You get what the fuck I’m saying.
“He’s here to pick up Calto,” I said; again, not quite a lie, as that was probably who he was on his way to see. “Fuck me.” He shot me a glare, and I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I mean… where? Where’d you see him? Where do I find him?”
“As it happens, he makes regular stops nearby to resupply,” Alothenes said. “His schedule has not changed in all the time I’ve been observing him. By his regularity, I would assume he’d arrive exactly”—he drew out an agonizingly long hum—“tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” I groaned.