Mistress of Masks Read online

  “I need assume nothing,” the oracle reminded her. “I am a seer.”

  Her expression grew somber. “Now I think it is time you told me about the visions that came to you in the Pool of Tears. What did the Mother show you down there?”

  “I was shown a tomb where there dwelled a dark sorcerer,” Eydis said, remembering. “Then…” She swallowed. “Then I was shown the final days of man.”

  The oracle exchanged a glance with Server Parthenia. “And how did you see the earthly realm end?”

  “In fire and ash.” Eydis shuddered as she remembered the vision. “In shadow and sorrow. I saw undead armies, monsters, and fiery beasts from the black abyss marching over miles of bones. Blood fell from the sky like rain, and a tidal wave of death washed over Earth Realm, drowning all light. I saw myself wearing many faces like masks.”

  She hesitated here. Given the new powers she had just discovered, she found herself reluctant to speak the rest. She had to swallow before continuing. “I heard a voice speaking in my ear, telling me the sorcerer was unleashed and the mistress of masks must die. That without her sacrifice there could be no tomorrow for Lythnia or the rest of Earth Realm.”

  The oracle’s eyes were shining, although with what emotion it was impossible to guess. “Go on,” she prompted. “What else?”

  “The voice told me other things,” Eydis admitted. “Some of it has faded beyond recall, like a dream. She spoke of an evil master called Rathnakar, King of Ravens, whose rebirth would destroy the world. She said the first stand against him must be at Asincourt where a little seclusionary nestles at the foot of the Arxus Mountains. She called the defense of this seclusionary a sole opportunity to hold back the tide of darkness. It will require strong catalysts, whose actions will bring about chaos. But she promised that on the other side of chaos waits our salvation.”

  “Did she give a name to these catalysts of chaos?” the oracle asked.

  Eydis searched her memory. “She shared with me information about one called a betrayer of blood and another who was to be a summoner of storms. If there were other names or faces, they elude me now. Pain overtook me, and I had to be pulled from the pool before drowning. After I was revived, I realized if the First Mother gave this knowledge to me, she meant me to somehow prevent the dire events I saw. Maybe by passing her warning to you.”

  “How do we know what you speak is true?” Server Parthenia challenged. “If mankind is doomed to destruction, do you not think the oracle herself would have received omens from the First Mother?”

  The oracle lifted a hand, silencing her companion. “I know not why these signs have been hidden from my eyes,” she said, her tone inscrutable. “But Pilgrim Eydis wears the mark of the Mother on her brow and has been favored by the guardians of the Pool of Tears. That is enough to convince me of the veracity of her claims, Server. And it should be enough for you.”

  Parthenia’s mouth turned down. “But Your Wisdom—”

  “Enough,” the oracle cut her off. Her intense black eyes, like orbs of night, fixed on Eydis. “Tonight I will walk the coals for you, Eydis Ironmonger,” she said. “And if the Mother is with us, her intentions for you will be revealed.”

  “And if the First Mother does not explain this young woman’s visions?” Server Parthenia asked sharply.

  “If the Mother has turned away from us,” the oracle answered softly, “then we are already doomed.”

  * * *

  Eydis stirred beneath the blankets. She was dimly aware that she slept safely in the temple at Silverwood Grove. But another part of her was traveling far away, roaming like a ghost through the eerie shadowed halls of an underground crypt. The floor stones beneath her feet were wispy and insubstantial, as if she were not as fully immersed in this world as she had been on her last visit. But the ancient tomb was vivid enough for her to recognize it. This was the same location she had visited during her vision in the Pool of Tears. The dwelling place of the sorcerer, Rathnakar.

  Remembering how she had seen him melt the face of his servant, she shuddered but was unable to draw away. Something held her to this place. She didn’t know what she searched for, as she continued down the dim torch-lit corridor, only that she was desperate to find whatever it was. And suddenly it was before her. A bejeweled scepter of gold, covered in dust and cobwebs, hung suspended in the air a mere arm’s length away. Compelled by some unknowable force to reach out for it, her hand passed right through the object as though it weren’t there. As if it existed only in her mind.

  The more she groped after the scepter and closed her hands around empty air, the greater grew her frustration and the desperate craving to hold the thing. Vaguely she realized that desire wasn’t her own. Neither was this vision hers. Into whose dream then had she strayed?

  There came a subtle probing at the back of her mind, like cold fingers delving into the depths of her subconscious. Disturbed, she tried to close her mind to the intrusion, tried to retreat from this vision. But she was caught, trapped, with no means of escape.

  Then a deep whisper, sighing like a breeze, stirred down the corridor. “You do well to fear, trespasser,” the voice hissed, filling the air around her and bouncing off the walls. “Pain awaits those who meddle with powers they do not comprehend.”

  The torches along the walls snuffed out, leaving Eydis in utter darkness but for a faint glow coming from the golden scepter. “I-I’ve wandered here by accident,” she said, searching for her courage even as she searched for the source of the voice. “If I have trespassed, show me the way back to where I belong.”

  “But then I would be deprived of the entertainment that is your mind and future,” the disembodied voice responded.

  She knew that voice, Eydis realized. The voice of the sorcerer, Rathnakar. At the realization, her fear intensified, quickening her breath and setting her heart thundering in her ears.

  “What is this?” came the whisper. “My voice is known to you.”

  The question was a mocking one, for she could already feel those icy fingers digging away at her thoughts, unearthing the source of her knowledge.

  Gritting her teeth and clutching her head as if that could help, she tried to keep him from sifting through her memories. But she was powerless to stop him.

  “Such small thoughts. Such hopelessness and dread,” he hissed. “You’ve foreseen my reign to come, yet you think your humble plan can stop it.”

  “Plan?” she protested honestly. “I have made none.”

  “No, but you will,” he said, his words changing from a sigh to a low rumble that made the floor tremble beneath her feet. “Events are already in motion and will soon propel you to act as the pawn of those you foolishly trust.”

  What could she say to that? Eydis tried a different tactic. “If you are so powerful, if you are beyond defeat, why do you lurk in the shadows? Come out and let me see your face.”

  The sorcerer’s low laugh was like the growl of thunder.

  “You shall see me soon enough, pawn, for I have glimpsed your future. At Asincourt you will attempt to steal what is mine, and there you will witness my power. Even before, as you search for your third catalyst in the tree village, you will know the length of my reach.”

  Before she could ask what he was talking about, Eydis felt a tugging sensation as she was wrenched from the vision. The dark passage around her and the cold presence possessing her mind receded swiftly into the distance. The last thing she saw was the golden scepter glittering in the abyss. And then it too was gone.

  * * *

  Eydis’s eyes snapped open. Something had awoken her—a hand softly shaking her shoulder. She looked up into the shadowy face of the pool attendant, Lytia.

  “Dress and come with me,” the woman whispered, pressing a finger to her lips to signal silence.

  Shaking the remnants of the disturbing vision from her mind, Eydis peered around the darkened room. She had been given a place to pass the night among the attendants in the temple. All of the women w
ere black motionless forms huddled in pallets scattered around the bedchamber. Their even breathing said they slept soundly.

  Dressing as quickly as possible in the dim light, Eydis crept out of the room, following Lytia onto an open terrace letting off the chamber. Out here they could speak freely.

  “Server Parthenia has sent for you,” Lytia explained.

  “At this hour?” Eydis glanced heavenward where the moon was only halfway through its course across the sky.

  “She said it was urgent,” Lytia answered with a shrug. “She also told me to conceal your leaving from the others.”

  Eydis wondered uncomfortably why there should be secrecy here in the temple. More importantly, what business did the server have to conduct with her that could not be carried out before the oracle? The white-braided woman hadn’t exactly been Eydis’s champion up to this point.

  Lytia led her up one of the sweeping outer staircases and left her alone on the temple roof. Leaning against a baluster, Eydis did not have long to wait. A soft footfall betrayed the approach of another.

  “Server Parthenia,” Eydis greeted the oracle’s companion as the other woman stepped from the shadows and into the moonlight. “I assume there is a reason for this clandestine meeting in the middle of the night?”

  The server’s voice was cool. “Do not presume to address me with impudence because the oracle favored you today.” Parthenia looked different with her pale hair loose and stirring softly in the breeze. She seemed younger but no less frigid.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eydis answered. “I only wonder what could not wait until the light of dawn.”

  “The oracle performed her fire-walking ritual an hour ago,” said Parthenia.

  Eydis’s heartbeat quickened in anticipation. “And?”

  “What was revealed to her in the flames required immediate action,” said Parthenia. “You must collect your things and leave the temple grounds. Tonight.”

  “Why? Am I in danger?” Eydis asked, bewildered.

  “We are all in danger,” said the server, for once seeming to set aside her animosity. “The oracle has foreseen a chain of events which will lead either to our ruin or our salvation. But only you can set these events in motion. You are, of course, one of the catalysts.”

  “I don’t understand,” Eydis responded. But she did. From her first visions in the pool, she had known her planned future at Shroudstone was not to be. Not any time soon. Instead, her personal fate was inextricably entwined with the doom approaching Earth Realm.

  “It is imperative that you begin your journey tonight,” Parthenia told her. “The oracle is weakened by her viewing, but she sends you this.”

  She held out a folded sheet of parchment. Imprinted in its wax seal was the shape of a dragon’s head—the seal of the Great Oracle.

  Eydis eyed the parchment as she might a snake. Something told her she wouldn’t like what was inside it. “What is this?” she asked.

  “It’s an introduction to a cobbler in Shoretown called Fenric,” said Parthenia. “You’ll find his village a three-days’ ride from here, along the coast.” The server also produced a jingling coin pouch. “When you present Fenric with the letter, give him this as well.”

  Eydis accepted the heavy coin pouch reluctantly. “What is so special about this Fenric the cobbler that the oracle sends me to the coast to find him?”

  Parthenia lifted slender shoulders. “He is no one. A means to an end.”

  Eydis must have looked unconvinced because the other woman relented. “Fenric is a friend to us here at the temple, a devout follower of the oracle. He makes a pilgrimage to Silverwood Grove faithfully at the change of every season, hoping for a miraculous cure for his health. He will not hesitate to aid you, as this letter instructs, and will set you on your way.”

  “And where does my way take me?” Eydis questioned, growing more apprehensive by the moment.

  Server Parthenia pressed the parchment into her reluctant hands. “To another catalyst of chaos.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eydis was glad when Shoretown finally appeared on the horizon. She had been on the road for three days, ever since Server Parthenia sent her so hastily from the temple at Silverwood Grove. The food Lytia had packed for her was running low, and the horse she had been given showed signs it couldn’t be pushed much further. Impatient to fulfill her assignment, Eydis had ridden the animal hard, rarely stopping for rests.

  Even during those brief stops, she had not been idle, instead experimenting with her newfound gift at every opportunity. With no one else to practice on, she had learned to mask her own face, shifting from one countenance to another. It was a difficult trick to master and the effort tired her easily.

  So, finally following the twisting road leading into the coastal town, she breathed a sigh of relief. The bracing sea air carried a strong scent of salt and fish, and together with the sight of many fishing boats bobbing in the bay, hinted at the chief occupation of the people of Shoretown. But there were shops, inns, and stables too, beyond all the boats and warehouses.

  On the town’s outskirts, Eydis passed plain cottages with thatched roofs where shabby laundry hung on the lines crisscrossing the narrow yards. Old men sat out on the doorsteps, smoking their pipes and watching rowdy children chase one another and play in the dirt. The cobbled streets grew wider and became more heavily trafficked going farther. Eydis passed a casker’s shop, a glazier, and then a forge, where the blacksmith was beating away at his anvil. Drays rolled down the streets, and the clip-clop of the donkey’s hooves mingled with the noise of the smithy’s hammer and the shouting of old women selling fish on the street corners.

  After dropping her horse off at a stable and paying the stable’s boy to look after him, Eydis made enquiries about the whereabouts of the man she sought.

  “Fenric the cobbler?” asked the balding tavern keeper whose work she interrupted. He set aside the broom he had been sweeping his porch with and dusted his hands on his apron. “It’s been a long time since Fen has plied that trade—not since he came back from the last war. His brother-in-law runs the family business now, but Fen boards over the shop when his work doesn’t take him out of town.”

  “What work is that?” Eydis asked, raising a hand to shade her eyes from the sun.

  “Why, he’s the pride of the town,” said the tavern keeper eagerly. “The only proper executioner within a hundred miles. He hangs, flogs, beheads. Whatever justice is called for, Fen is your man to carry it out.”

  If Eydis had wondered why the oracle sent her all this way to find a cobbler, she found this new information stranger still. What use had she for a hangman?

  But she dutifully obtained directions to this Fenric’s home and continued on. The cobbler’s shop was down a muddy lane not far from the fish market and the wharf. The scent of old fish was strong here, and Eydis wondered if the noxious smell was the reason trade didn’t seem to be booming at the dingy little cobbler shop. Mounting the front stoop, she knocked at the door and saw a flurry of movement behind the leaded window to one side. Then the door cracked open to reveal a small face peering out at her. The blond boy couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old.

  “Hello,” Eydis greeted him. “I’m looking for Fenric. Is he around?”

  “Maybe,” the boy said, looking her up and down with open curiosity. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Eydis. I bear a message for your father from the oracle of Silverwood Grove.”

  “Fenric ain’t my da. He’s my uncle,” admitted the boy. “And you can’t see him ’cause he’s sick.”

  “Erri, who’s at the door?” came a voice from behind the child. The door was thrust all the way open, and a middle-aged woman with the same straw-colored hair as the child appeared. Eydis immediately identified her as the boy’s mother.

  “I’m Alda,” the woman said shortly, “and I’m sorry to say if it’s my brother you’re looking for, you can’t see him.”

  “But I’ve
come a long way to bring him a message and a purse,” Eydis protested.

  “Then your errand is in vain. Fenric will complete his last job day after tomorrow and then he’s retiring from the business due to his health. So you’ll have to find someone else to cut off your head.”

  Eydis started. “Cut off my what?”

  “Aren’t you looking for a headsman or a strangler?”

  “No, I’m certainly not. I’ve been sent on a mission by the oracle of Silverwood Grove.”

  “The oracle, you say?” The older woman’s demeanor changed quickly. Apologizing for the misunderstanding, she invited Eydis inside and sent the boy running to fetch his uncle.

  “I’m sorry to drag a man from his sick bed,” said Eydis, glancing around her uncertainly as she entered the shop. The interior was dim and cluttered. Sheets of leather hung from the ceiling, and the walls were covered with shelves housing many pairs of shoes and boots. There was a workbench covered with tools and leather scraps, evidence of the family trade.

  “My brother isn’t confined to his bed just yet,” said Alda, waving her to a seat before the darkened fireplace. “Fenric still gets about town and is to all appearances as big and strong as an ox.”

  Eydis wanted to ask why he was being forced into retirement then, but before she could open her mouth, the boy returned with his uncle.

  Fenric was blond and bearded, perhaps in his midthirties, and so tall he had to bow his head to avoid hitting the doorframe as he entered the room. His shoulders were wide and his arms as thickly muscled as might be expected from one who made his living hefting an axe. He didn’t look like an ailing man. Not until Eydis noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes and the slight looseness of skin indicating recent weight loss.

  “If you’re looking for my grave clothes, I’m not ready to be fitted for my death shroud just yet,” he said, his smile a surprising contrast to his intimidating size. It didn’t look like the smile of a man who killed people for a living.