City of Masks (15 page)

“What weapon do you require?” Dasanat asked.

“A shield,” Allifur said, no longer whispering. There was a determined set to her mouth, and Corfin nodded in agreement.

“You’d be dangerous with a shield,” he said.

Tarix laughed, and squatted beside Dasanat.

“Allifur, a shield is heavy, and hard to manage, though Master Forlinect and Garet can teach you how to use it. Still, it will be a few years before you’re strong enough to wield one, so perhaps we’d better start you on something else first. Forlinect, what were you thinking of for Allifur here?”

The Red hurried forward. “A braced dagger, Master, ah, Tarix.”

Tarix nodded. “Could you get us one, Garet?” She looked to where Allifur stood before her, nearly in tears.

“Ahh, don’t worry. You’ll get your shield when you’re ready, and until then, you can be dangerous with something else.”

Corfin put a hand on her shoulder, and the girl took a deep breath and nodded.

Garet came back from the office and storage room with three practice daggers of different lengths. All had been reinforced with flanges running up the broad sides of the blade to allow them to punch through a demon’s hide without bending, though Garet would have bet that none of these could have pierced the skin of the Tunneler that nearly killed him. Only the Masks had managed that, Shirin with her needle-pointed spear and the bowman with his arrows.

Tarix looked them over and gave the shortest to Allifur, kept the longest for herself, and after a moment’s thought, handed the third to Corfin.

“Now follow me.”

She took them through an elementary set of movements, repeating each one, and then the whole set again until they had it right. Garet could see Forlinect was memorizing it too, and even Dasanat seemed to approve.

“Efficient,” the Mechanical said. “I will consult with Lord Andarack on the shield. You believe it is not possible, but one of appropriate size and weight is not beyond reason.”

She looked down to where Allifur stood, dagger tucked under one arm and tugging the Mechanical’s sleeve with the other.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she ran off with Corfin to the corner of the training hall to practice the movements again.

The other Black Sashes looked at them enviously until Garet waved them back to bag practice.

“Now you’ve done it,” Forlinect said, and shook his head. “I’ll have to let all of them train with daggers now, and our poor physician will have no end of stitching to do.”

“Don’t fret so much, Training Master!” Tarix told him. “Those are blunt practice daggers, and you can use wooden ones if you think bruises are better than scratches.” She looked at the line of children striking the bags with their single sticks.

“It’s time to move them on to real weapons, Forlinect. With these attacks increasing, we might need every Bane to fight for the city.”

Garet looked up to see how Forlinect would react to this joke, but seeing the faces of the two Reds, he realized Tarix had not meant it to be amusing.

“Is it really so bad?” he asked Tarix after Dasanat had taken her leave and Forlinect had resumed the supervision of his students.

They stood in Tarix’s old office, the place where she had once quizzed him on a basic knowledge of demons. Back then, he was still an unhappy Black Sash wondering if he should run away from the Banehall just as he had fled his father’s farm. She had asked him about his knowledge of
Moret’s Demonary
, a confusing text he had actually rewritten to make clearer. Garet had answered all her questions not knowing what the result would be, and had been shocked to find himself promoted to the rank of Blue Sash.

She had been the first Master besides Mandarack to treat him with kindness and respect. He trusted her and was relieved to unburden himself of the information he carried.

“Garet, what have you gotten yourself into?” were the first words out of her mouth—when she recovered the power of speech.

“Nothing of my own choosing, Master,” he said. “I was dragged into this by Trax, and Branet agreed!”

“Leave off that part, for he is the Master of this Hall and deserves our respect.”

Garet reddened. “Yes, Master Tarix.”

Tarix took him by the shoulder and gave him a shake. “Don’t ‘Master Tarix’ me. If I’m upset, it’s because I see you running towards your own funeral pyre. You are being used, Garet, used to spy for the King and to spy for the Hallmaster, and maybe even for Lord Andarack, though I’d rather not suspect him of such things. What happens when you’re no longer useful? Do you think anybody will care what happens to you?”

Garet smiled. “I hope you will, Master.”

The thud of staffs against bags was the only sound for a long time.

“Well,” Tarix said. “Let me think on this. I’ll tell Branet, of course, and I’ll add that bit of fluff about you meeting them by chance, as if he’ll believe it! Go on and help Forlinect. We’ll talk further about this on patrol tonight, now that Dasanat has given me my leg back.”

“Yes, Master,” Garet said. “Please believe me, I really didn’t seek this out!” He was worried that Tarix might think he was meddling for some selfish reason.

Tarix raised an eyebrow. “But you didn’t flee from it as you should have. I know you have a taste for plots and conspiracies, Garet. You used it for our benefit when the Caller Demon and the Duelists threatened us. We, and by that I really mean you, were very lucky that time. You got out with your skin. We all did; well, except for poor Mandarack, of course. I wish he were here to talk some sense into you!”

Garet hung his head. He too wished Mandarack were still here to listen to him in his quiet way. More than once, he had poured out his heart to the old Bane and come away the better for it.

Tarix put an arm around his shoulders.

“Enough of all that. Do you promise to tell me before you do anything else?”

Garet nodded.

“Good, then we will speak again tonight. The theft of the silkstone is a serious matter, and you can be assured I will find out if the Hallmaster knew of it, and if he did, why he didn’t inform the rest of the Masters. Go on now. Help Forlinect with that lot. I like the girl, she’s a brave little thing.”

The Red left the small room and waved at Forlinect as she exited the training hall. Garet stayed and worked with the Black Sashes the rest of the morning, saving time at the end for Allifur and Corfin to practice with the blunt daggers while the others again watched their every move.

At lunch he saw Dorict sitting without the company of their capricious roomate.

“Where’s Marick?” Garet demanded. He took some pickled onions and pushed the plate towards the younger Bane, but Dorict ignored it.

“No idea! I woke up after you left the room this morning and found a note from that idiot on top of the book I was reading. It said he was chasing information on those Masks, and that he’d be back before dark. What has that fool gotten himself into now?”

Garet could see Dorict was worried, but both knew Marick’s moods. The boy would sometimes roam the city for days, sustaining himself by begging food from an astonishing collection of friends and acquaintances. That he would do it now, when the Hall was so stretched, was unfortunate, but not surprising.

“Eat,” he told the Blue. “Right now, Marick is probably feasting like the King in some back alley while he tells his tales.”

Dorict smiled and spooned up some of the onion. “Oh, Andarack sent a note today. He apologized for not sending for me all this time and promised the work would go ahead as soon as ‘certain obstacles’ were overcome. I guess we know what that obstacle is.”

“Yes, the theft of all the silkstone,” Garet replied in a lowered voice. He needn’t have worried. The other Blues and Greens at the table were entirely occupied with eating.

Dorict spoke around a mouthful of onions. “So then, are these Masks our enemies or allies?”

“Both? Neither?” Garet said. “They kill demons, but one of them, that Shirin, looked like she wanted to kill me too.”

“You weren’t very kind to her when she came into the Hall with Draneck,” Dorict reminded him.

“They attacked Marick and me! She tried to kill me. Both of them did. I was only saved by a demon’s attack. And then it almost killed me too!”

Dorict laughed. “After all this time, that’s still funny! Well, at least this Shirin is consistent. I’ve been told that’s a virtue. Pass the butter, please, before those greedy pigs over there finish it all.”

THAT AFTERNOON, GARET
worked with Forlinect one-on-one. He had asked for this session precisely because of Shirin’s “consistency”, as Dorict had put it. Although he had a new rope-hammer, it would be of little use against her spear at close quarters. Garet had first asked Forlinect to train him in spear against spear, but the Red had refused.

“It won’t work. From Tarix’s description, that woman is an expert, taking on that monster the other night! And if she is a Duelist as you suspect, she’ll be very good at thrusting and parrying, even with a spear. No, you have no great skill with that weapon, I’m afraid, and she’d soon best you, but why not try a shield? You’re quite adequate with it, and it should be effective at close quarters.”

“What about at a distance?” Garet asked.

“That’s what your rope-hammer’s for, idiot,” Forlinect replied, grinning.

They tried that combination, Garet with the shield and Forlinect with his long spear. It went awkwardly at first, for Garet had never used it to fight any weapon save for the baton that mimicked a demon’s claws. He soon got the hang of it though, and worked on using the shield to parry the spear point then dash inside its range to attack.

“Good,” Forlinect said, after finding the shield point at his neck. “Now let’s speed it up a bit.”

At that pace, Garet could barely defend himself, let alone attack. He could only hope Shirin was not as good as the Red. They stopped when the Blues came in, and Garet was released to study on his own. Forlinect promised to continue the training as time allowed. Leaving the room, Garet caught Dorict’s eye, but the Blue shook his head. Marick had not returned.

Garet took some writing materials and two of the books Greens were meant to study up to the central wing’s roof in the mid-afternoon. He was in the middle of making clear notes on the strategies for fighting Water Demons, something he had never seen, when Salick popped her head up through the open trap door.

“Hah! I found you. Marick said you used to hide up here. Is he back yet?”

“No,” Garet said, and moved over to give her room to sit on the folded tarp he was using as a cushion. “He’s still gone, and Dorict’s worried. So am I, given how those Masks treat Banes.”

Salick sat down. She pulled a handful of nuts out of her tunic pocket and shared them with him.

“From what you’ve told me, you’re the only one they seem to dislike. Why does that woman hate you so? Ratal thinks she’s an old girlfriend of yours, and you broke her heart.”

Garet groaned. If Salick had heard this, then Ratal must have spread the rumor through the entire Hall.

“I was angry with her and cruel in what I said, I suppose. When that Digger Demon attacked us both in the dining hall that night, she was injured and confused. She had just killed a demon, after all, a feat that should have been praised, but I saw her only as an enemy and mocked her. Maybe that’s why she’s with the Masks, to prove she’s worthy of our respect.”

Salick snorted. “Then why didn’t she come to us and offer service to the Hall?”

“Would we have accepted her?” Garet asked, and to this Salick had no answer.

After a long silence she said, “Bandat told me I’m to patrol with your team for a while, because Kesla is still recovering from the beating she took the other night, though I suspect a different motive from our scheming Masters. Here, have some more of these. When was the last time we patrolled together?”

“Just after Branet became Hallmaster and before you apprenticed to Bandat,” Garet said, and shelled another nut before popping the kernel in his mouth. “We went out with Relict once or twice.”

Salick stood and looked out over the city. The Wards packed into this side of the city were noisy, busy places today. At this height, the thousand and more voices below merged into a bee-hum that would only quiet as night fell.

Salick tilted her head and let her eyes follow a flock of birds racing across the southern sky.

“I thought of choosing Relict. Vinir would have been happy to have me on their team. She can always put up with my moods, but Bandat asked first, and I suppose I was flattered. Anyway, after Master Mandarack died, it didn’t seem to matter much whom I chose,” she said, eyes still tracing the fliers in the distance.

Garet nodded, understanding her feelings. Salick’s love for her old master, the love of a daughter whose own father had been a drunk and bully, had been clear from the first day he met her, standing just behind Mandarack in the cabin of his family’s farm. Then she had bristled at any challenge to the old Bane, and it still hurt her terribly that she had not protected him in his final battle. Garet had tried to help her in the grey season after Mandarack’s death, but she had resisted comfort and thrown herself into training and fighting. This was the first time they had talked of it since the end of winter.