The Watcher s Mask - Laurie J Marks, ebook
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//-->The Watcher’s MaskLaurie J. MarksA 3S digital back-up edition v1.0click for scan notes and proofing historyContents|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13||14|15|16|17|18|19|20|21|22|23|24|NOVELS BY Laurie J. Marksavailable from DAW BooksTHE WATCHER’S MASKThe Children of TriadDELAN THE MISLAID (Book 1)THE MOONBANE MAGE (Book 2)ARA’S FIELD (Book 3)DAW BOOKS, INC.DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER375 Hudson Street. New York. NY 10014ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIMSHEILA E. GILBERTPUBLISHERSCopyright © 1992 by Laurie J. Marks.All Rights Reserved.Cover art by Jim Warren.DAW Book Collectors No. 888.First Printing, August 1992DAW TRADEMARK REGISTEREDU.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIESMARCA REGISTRADA,HECHO EN U.S.A.PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.For my beloved DebChapter 1^»In the river city of Akava, as the harvest moon grows round belliedin the sky, scarlet flowers suddenly bloom on the walls in the city.Every parent picks great armloads of these fragrant blossoms andmakes them into garlands with which to bedeck their children onthe feast day of Iska. They take their children by the hands andparade in the streets with them. Pipers and drummers dressed inharlequin patchwork, trailing clouds of holiday ribbons from theircoats, lead the parade. Behind them march the children: from thefive-year-old too young to let go of her mother’s hand, to the youngadolescent, who glances through his eyelashes to see if the girls arewatching him.The parade follows the twists and turns of the narrow, cobbledstreets, and out onto the boardwalk which edges the bendingshoreline of the river Iska. The last dock, which is known as Iska’sdock, pierces deep into the river’s current. Down this dock thepipers go, with parents and children following them. Then theparents take hold of their children and throw them into the river todrown.This year, it had proven impossible for me to avoid Akava duringthe feast of Iska, though I did hope to leave town tomorrow, beforethe drowning of the children. An idiot burgher named Avari Pazahad come calling at my rooms. Being pressed for time, I hurriedhim out into the streets with me.The Race Day crowd parted before me like two hands unclasping.At either side of the narrow, cobbled road, brightly paintedshopfronts with diamond-paned windows bore the weight ofbalconies jutting like a woman’s heavy breasts from the buildings’flat torsos. Among decorations of garlands and bunting, servantsbanned from attending the pending footrace craned their necks,peering toward the waterfront where the race would soon be run.Excited bookmakers worked the crowd, shouting their odds andwaving yellow slips of paper. Vendors balancing heavy trays ofbreads and sweets on their heads danced gracefully among thestreet’s obstacles, hoarsely singing their wares.The idiot burgher purchased for me a round loaf of bread, with awhole egg nestled in the crisp dough. It is impossible to eat whilewearing a full mask, so I gave the bread to a passing child, whodropped it in the gutter as soon as he thought I wasn’t looking.I interrupted the man’s nervous chatter to say coldly, “Thepractice of ritual drowning has always offended me.”“But we must feed the river god,” protested Paza, lookingnervously around himself as if he hoped that somehow no one wouldrecognize him. “If we let Iska go hungry, then the river might floodits banks, or a boat might be overturned. To lose two or three smallchildren instead… it is a small price to pay.”“The river still floods every year,” I said. “Boats are stilloverturned every year.”“Think of how much worse it would be if we had not offered Iskathe children!”Well, the people of Akava are known far and wide to be fools. Andhow could they be anything else, when for hundreds of years everychild with even the faintest spark of intelligence or creativity hasdrowned in Iska’s embrace? Yet I persisted in my questioning of theburgher, more for sport than for knowledge. “Is there no one whoprotests the tradition? No one who considers it cruel?”“Oh, madam, it is not cruel at all. The children spend all summerpreparing for the event. When they safely reach the shore, all theirrelatives present them with gifts of toys and candy.”“And what gifts are given to the children who drown?”“But it happens so rarely! And only to weaklings, who wouldalways have been a burden to their families.”This complete lack of vision so infuriated me that I turned myblank, eyeless mask to face him. Through the veiled eyeholes Iwatched him bite his tongue.There are two cardinal rules in dealing with the Separated Ones:first, never ask for help. And second, never argue. In the short timethat we had been in each other’s company, this man had brokenboth of these rules. That a man of such limited perception couldhave been a serious contender to be town mayor, even of Akava, thetown of fools, strained the imagination. Of course, now that he hadbeen seen publicly in my company, his political career was over.He cowered in my shadow like a beaten dog as I led the waydown the narrow street to the wide boardwalk, where the footracewould be run. On either side of the boardwalk people pressed,cursing and sweating as they jockeyed for a better view of theracecourse. Women in baggy trousers and knee-length tunics edgedwith broad bands of embroidery and men in their tighter breechesand gathered shirts pushed and shoved and shouted good-naturedlyat each other.Through the cracks in the boardwalk I could see, two bodylengthsbelow, the flowing brown water of the hungry river. Pierced bydocks and jetties, ridden by high-prowed boats with their sailstightly furled, the water spread like a giant ruffled blanket to thefar shore.The Iska River still smelled faintly of the high mountains, where,in a desert of snow, the crystalline springs which are its source firstbreak through the frozen stone. In crashing cascades andspectacular waterfalls the river had bolted out of the highmountains. Here, in the middle plains, it flowed more civilly. Soon,it would crash down mountainsides once again, as it dropped at lastto sea level, where it would break into a thousand streams like theveins in the back of a hand, to feed the dense jungle which grows inthe fetid heat of the delta of Ipsenum.Through the delta, across a hundred delicate bridges, theEmperor’s steam engine belched and rumbled along the skirts of theocean. Having completely encircled the island empire of Callia, theengine’s journey would end at Ashami, the Emperor’s city. There,too, my own journey would soon end, after half a year’s wanderingthroughout the middle plains.The long summer lay behind me, like a lengthy and pointless playwhich had finally exhausted itself into autumn’s closing scenes.Soon I would go home to the comfort of my cluttered rooms and theechoing marble chambers of the library. Soon I would hear thecaged nightingales singing throughout the night, and I could walkunmasked through the lush gardens of the Separated District,where it is always spring.A man who did not move quickly enough out of my path flinchedas my mirror flashed in his eyes when I nudged him aside. Like theburgher, he would spend a sleepless night tonight, wondering if hewere cursed, or condemned to the mysterious death which oftenfollows in the wake of a Separated One’s visit.The crowd began to roar with anticipation. The runners musthave appeared at the broad red starting line painted across theboards. I did not turn my head to look. I approached someramshackle, heavily decorated bleachers, which shook and trembledunder the weight of the region’s finest and most overdressedcitizens. A full quarter of those on the bleachers suddenly decidedthey had other business to attend to and vacated their seats as Iapproached.During the last twenty years that I have wandered the middleplains of Callia, I have become a master of manipulation. I wieldinfluence and intimidation as skillfully as any master swordfighterwields her weapon. Only rarely do any of my kind resort to violenceto achieve our goals. Yet people curse us and call us knackersbehind our backs, as if death were our only business. I amaccustomed to engendering such revulsion by my very presence. Irarely notice it anymore.I chose a seat. Avari Paza sat next to me, responding with amiserable glare to the many startled glances that focused on him.“Madam,” he began in a brave fury.“Which one is this Agamin Oman?” I asked, as if I did not know
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