Mistress of Masks Read online

  As they proceeded deeper, the tunnel widened and branched into side passages. They passed stalactites and disturbed occasional clusters of sleeping bats hanging from the ceilings. Here and there lay heaps of bones, skeletons of small animals. Orrick hoped they didn’t meet whatever beast was big enough to kill such large prey.

  “How deep do you think these caverns run?” Geveral asked, pushing through a sticky spiderweb ahead.

  Orrick didn’t answer. His eye was caught by a shiny glint where the light of his torch bounced off the near wall. He left the wider passage to get a closer look.

  “Wait. Where are you going?” Geveral had to scurry after him to avoid being left in the dark.

  “Take this,” Orrick said by way of answer and thrust the torch into Geveral’s hands.

  Kneeling, he dusted aside a pile of dirt and rotted leaves to reveal what shone beneath—a partially buried sheet of polished metal. With further digging, he unearthed a breastplate and a pair of mail gauntlets, among other mismatched bits of armor.

  “How do you think those got here?” Geveral asked as Orrick dug deeper to uncover a heavy helm and a long-handled maul with a spiked head.

  “More than likely we’ve stumbled over some brigand’s hoard of treasures,” said Orrick, trying on the helm and gauntlets. “What do you think?”

  Geveral looked unamused. “Very fearsome. But I don’t see how any of this is helping us find Eydis. We should move on.”

  “Not without this.” Orrick selected a halberd from the bottom of the treasure pile. “Take it. I’m tired of being the only armed member of this party. Where we’re going, we’ll need all the weapons we can carry.”

  Geveral backed away. “Drycaenians don’t carry steel. It’s against custom.”

  “Fine, no steel. Carry this instead. The shaft is oak, the head pure lead.”

  Geveral flinched and caught the maul Orrick hefted at him before it could strike him across the chest. “I don’t think you’re understanding the point,” he complained.

  “Eydis’s life may eventually depend on your ability to defend her,” Orrick said. “Get the point of that?”

  Clearly that argument struck home, because the dryad boy grimaced but hung the war hammer from his belt without further discussion.

  Digging through the stash of armor and weapons, Orrick privately thought the redheaded wench was more likely to protect Geveral’s life than he was to defend hers. So after putting on the pieces of armor he liked, he took up the rejected halberd, thinking to give it to Eydis whenever they found her.

  “If you’ve finished your looting, we should return to our search,” said Geveral. “Eydis could be lying somewhere, unconscious and bleeding to death.”

  Orrick frowned at the image and didn’t delay further. They left the treasure hoard behind and returned to exploring the passages and caverns. Descending farther, they spotted the faint yellow glow of firelight ahead—the burning log they had previously tossed down the hole. Eydis couldn’t be far away. Hurrying, they burst into the sizeable cavern to find Eydis sitting upright, back pressed to the wall. Orrick’s relief was fleeting as he noticed the trickle of blood from her temple and the fear in her stiff posture.

  “Eydis, you’re injured!” said Geveral as they rushed to her side.

  She shushed him sharply, barely taking her wide eyes from the surroundings shadows. The burning log lay at her feet, bathing the three of them in a pool of light. But whatever lay beyond the edges of that pool appeared to have Eydis’s whole attention. “Keep very still and stay in the light,” she instructed.

  Geveral looked confused. “Why? Is something out there?”

  “Cave crawlers,” Orrick realized, his superior night vision helping him identify the thick-bodied, spindly legged forms gathering in the darkness. “Oversized spiders that lurk in dark tunnels and hunt in swarms.” He drew his sword, reassured by its weight in his hands.

  “I don’t know how long they’ve been watching me,” whispered Eydis. “When I fell down that chasm, I struck my head and blacked out. When I woke, I felt their eyes on me and could hear them crawling over the ceiling and walls. Only the fiery log seemed to give them pause. I think they fear the light.”

  “As most foul things do,” said Geveral.

  Orrick noted that despite his earlier protests, the boy now kept a tight grip on his spiked maul.

  Giving Eydis her halberd, Orrick said, “Cave crawlers are excitable and prone to attacking anything that makes sharp noises or threatening motions. So we’re going to creep very slowly and quietly out of this cavern and retrace our steps to the surface, without engaging the spiders if we can avoid it.”

  He edged toward the passage letting out of the cavern, and the others followed. The cave crawlers followed too, one of the creatures creeping boldly down the wall to block their exit. Soulless black eyes glinted in the torchlight, and venom dripped from its fangs. Orrick thrust his torch in its direction and the spider emitted a soft hissing noise, scuttling backward and allowing them to pass.

  Orrick knew the dark tunnels ahead could conceal more of them. As he led the way down the passage, Eydis at his back and Geveral bringing up the rear, he could hear the sounds of spiders cautiously following. At a branch in the tunnel, he hesitated. Neither direction seemed familiar, and it was hard to get his bearings underground. But he chose the way with the steepest incline, thinking it the most direct route to the surface. A short distance later and the passage opened into another large cavern. He should remember this space with its underground pool and glistening stalactites shaped like fairy castles. That he didn’t told him he had never passed this way before. They must have taken a wrong turn.

  Geveral stated the obvious. “We’re lost.”

  “No, we’re not. It’s a shortcut,” Orrick answered, trying to look like he knew what he was doing. No sense in panicking everyone.

  But Eydis wasn’t fooled, pointing out, “Well, your shortcut has led us straight to a dead end.”

  She was right. There was no other way out of this cavern. With the cave crawlers not far behind, they were trapped. Keenly aware of the spindly legged creatures drawing closer, Orrick made a circuit of the room, thrusting his torch into shadowy corners in search of an exit.

  “Orrick!”

  At Eydis’s warning he looked up to see a large spider descending from the ceiling. Before he could react, it was almost upon him. With a shout, Eydis charged with her halberd. Its blade sunk into the spider, and with a shrill screech, the creature drew in its legs and lay still, green blood spilling from its wound.

  “Thanks,” Orrick said.

  “Don’t mention it. Rescuing you is becoming a habit,” she said, shoving her hair out of her eyes. “But I’m afraid we’ve only crushed one bug, and there’s a hundred others coming this way.”

  As if to punctuate her statement, a wave of cave crawlers appeared at the mouth of the cavern and began pouring in. With a swing of his sword, Orrick split in half the first to enter, while Eydis cut the legs off the next. Before the filthy creatures had fallen, others took their places.

  “If anyone has any ideas, now’s the time to share them!” Geveral shouted, trying to shake off the spider attaching itself to his leg. The spider clung tight, showing its fangs in preparation to bite. Geveral had no choice but to slam his maul into the creature, crushing it. He was quicker to react when the next crawler threatened him, knocking it across the room with a single swing.

  But there were too many of the spiders. No matter how many were destroyed, more kept coming. Now back-to-back in a tight circle, Orrick, Eydis, and Geveral were forced deeper into the cavern. Orrick didn’t realize how much ground they had given until his feet splashed into the shallow pool near the cave wall. There was no more room to retreat.

  He swung his heavy sword over and over, chopping the creatures to pieces, until a green splash of spider blood sprayed across his forearm. Immediately a tingling sensation spread from wrist to elbow. This blood was a paralyz
ing toxin. His sword arm would soon be useless.

  “Take this before I drop it,” he shouted, shoving his torch at Eydis and switching his sword to the opposite hand.

  But the startled Eydis fumbled, dropping the torch into the water at her feet. The fire snuffed out, instantly plunging them into deep darkness. Now Orrick and the others fought blindly, their swings and jabs falling short of the spiders more often than they hit. Orrick was unaccustomed to fighting with his left arm, but the right had become completely numb, a deadweight. He no longer felt the tingling, no longer felt anything but the irony of having escaped imprisonment in the Morta den 'Cairn only to die in a black cave, a tasty meal to a pack of filthy spiders.

  A soft stirring of air caressed the back of his neck, carrying the cool smell of water. Not the grimy odor of the murky pool he stood in but the scent of fresh moving water. He pricked his ears. Was that a distant rushing sound coming from the other side of the cavern wall? He had already searched for an exit earlier, but maybe he had missed something. The draft had to be coming from somewhere.

  “Cover me,” he told his confused companions and left them to hold the spiders off while he scrambled up a low pile of rock and groped blindly up and down the wall. And there it was, a low and narrow opening he might manage to squeeze through if he hunched over. No time to wonder if it was a dead end, or what, if anything, lay on the other side. He bowed his head, exhaled to flatten his ribs, and squeezed into the tight space. Luckily he only had to endure the crush for a few steps before the space opened up.

  “Come on,” he called back to the others. “There’s a hole in the wall. Follow my voice.”

  In moments they were all on the other side. Orrick guessed by the echoes that they were in a larger high-ceiled cavern, but it was impossible to be sure in the darkness. The breeze stirred stronger here, and the rushing sound of water was louder.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” asked Eydis. “It won’t take those cave crawlers long to figure out where we went.”

  Orrick said, “Hear that roaring in the distance? It means there’s an underground river nearby—a river that’s got to flow somewhere. If we follow the water, it’ll lead us out of here.”

  That was exactly what they did, groping along the walls, following the noise of the water as it grew louder and louder, until they nearly tumbled right into the rushing, roiling stream. That was when Orrick detected a glow of daylight ahead. The others didn’t have his Kroadian eyesight, so he guided them alongside the flowing water until the daylight gradually grew bright enough for them. They arrived at an opening, a narrow ledge where the river flooded out of the cave. The swift water plunged over the side of the ledge, tumbling down in a steep waterfall into a rocky pool below.

  The face of the rock was smooth, and Orrick could see no convenient crevices to be used as handholds or footholds for a cautious descent.

  Geveral shouted to be heard over the roar of the falls. “There’s no way down.”

  “That’s not our only problem,” yelled Eydis. “Look!”

  Orrick followed her gesture to the shadows behind them where the spindly shapes of cave crawlers moved in the darkness. The spiders had obviously discovered their escape route and pursued. A dozen or more of the creatures approached, creeping out of the gloom and into the partial daylight filtering through the opening. The noise of the falls, the light of day, and the unfamiliarity of the fresh air made them cautious, but Orrick knew it was only a matter of time until their hunger overcame their wariness.

  He told the others, “There’s only one way out of here that doesn’t include passing through those spiders. We’re going to have to jump.”

  “Jump? Are you mad?” Eydis asked. “Look at the drop! We’ll be dashed to pieces on the rocks!”

  “If you’d rather stay here and be food for the spiders, I won’t stop you,” Orrick said, measuring the drop and the odds of survival.

  Geveral said, “He’s right, Eydis. Jumping is our only chance.”

  Eyeing the nearest spiders creeping out onto the ledge, Orrick added, “You two can stand here and debate as long as you like, but this ledge is getting a little crowded for me.”

  Regretfully, he dropped his newly acquired armor, keeping only his sword. Positioning himself on the edge, overlooking the pool below, he took a deep breath and wondered if it would be his last.

  Then he jumped.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Varian

  As Varian walked the overgrown, mist-shrouded paths of the graveyard in the chill of the morning, his master’s words still rang in his ears.

  You are my right hand, Varian Nakul. While I am separated from my scepter of power, my mortal frame is bound to these tombs. And so it is you who must bring ruin to the enemies who lurk beyond my reach. You must go before me to prepare the world for the return of Rathnakar.

  It was the first Varian had heard him speak of the scepter and its power. Varian understood little of such talk, but it was not his place to question the master. One thing he did know as he wove his way down the faded paths between gravestones: he had come far beyond his familiar roles of humble scholar and crypt keeper over these past days. Since that fateful moment when the master had laid hands on him, burning some piece of his essence into Varian’s head, he was no longer himself. Exactly who he was supposed to be or who he had once been was growing harder to recall by the day. All that seemed to matter anymore was service to the master.

  Pausing to catch his breath—he was easily wearied lately—he leaned against the hollow trunk of a dead tree and looked to the horizon. The sober light of dawn painted the sky to the east a sullen gray, highlighting the dilapidated silhouette of the town. Once a thriving settlement supported by the local salt mines, the place stood abandoned today, its skeletal cottages, storehouses, and shops looking as empty and forbidding as the graveyard on its outskirts.

  The rusted cemetery gates that had lent him entrance stood open wide. Like the low surrounding wall, they were covered in dead vines. Weeds choked the paths, and grave markers were so weatherworn their inscriptions could no longer be read. Not that it mattered who the dead were. All that mattered was that they would now serve the master.

  Leaving his resting place to walk among them, he forced himself to look at the standing ranks of undead, at the hundreds waiting listlessly for his orders. He refused to show how thoroughly their disgusting appearance unnerved him. Still, they were in better condition than might have been expected for corpses that had been in the ground many decades. Their skeletons had retained some skin and muscle drawn tight over their bones. Through their ragged grave clothes he caught glimpses of intact internal organs. The high quantities of salt in the soil must have acted as a preservative, leaving their bodies closer to dried-up mummies than the bare bones he had anticipated.

  The only reassuring thing about these reanimated corpses was the way their glassy eyes reflected the green glow coming off the amulet he wore around his neck. Whatever animalistic appearance or tendencies they possessed, their wills were obviously in subservience to his. It was a powerful gift the master had entrusted to him. Without it, Varian suspected he wouldn’t have the courage to pass among these living corpses.

  He stopped before the nearest. “You are clear on the master’s wishes?” he tested, trying to ignore the thing’s smell and the maggots crawling from its ears. This corpse had retained some hair, which clung from its skull in dirty wisps, and was dressed in the moldy remnants of what had probably once been its best clothes. But whatever else it had kept, its humanity was long gone. It looked wild and bloodthirsty. The undead equivalent of a rabid dog, straining against a frayed leash.

  At Varian’s question, the corpse’s decayed lips drew back to reveal a row of rotten teeth. “I live to obey the master,” it rasped, repeating the same words of all the others before it. They weren’t an imaginative lot, but that was just as well. Without many thoughts of their own, they would be more easily controlled.

  But he
had to be sure they all understood the master’s will. He raised his voice to be heard by the gathered ranks of young and old, males and females. “I know you’re eager to serve the Raven King,” he told them. “But whatever your instincts, you are not to scatter across the countryside, killing and pillaging. That task is for others. You have a very specific purpose. The master has given you life—again—so you may act as his army. And his first objective for you is to take possession of the seclusionary at Asincourt. Do this for your First Father, and you will be well rewarded.”

  He wasn’t sure why he added that last part. The master never spoke of rewarding his servants. Neither did he seem to favor the name ‘First Father,’ preferring other titles. But that wasn’t important. What mattered was that he had returned to punish the faithless and recompense his followers for their long years of adherence. If he chose these foul creatures to prepare his way, if he seemed more intent on building martial power than guiding the people… well, these things were not for Varian to question.

  Instead, he walked from one grave marker to the next, pausing to lay his hands over each mound of earth. Softly he uttered the ancient incantation the master had taught him, while his amulet glowed with an unnatural light. Then the ground would tremble, and the grave would heave, as another newly awakened corpse clawed its way to the surface to join its undead brothers and sisters.

  It was draining work, but Varian ignored the aching of his body and tried not to notice how his starved flesh melted away until he was almost as thin as the corpses around him. The master demanded a high price of his followers. But Varian would not regret his service—not when every step brought the master closer to victory and the day when he would finally reveal his true face to the world. Then at last the time of testing would be over. Everyone would bow to the First Father again, and all would be right in Earth Realm.