Mask of Dragons (16 page)

Romaria shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, I’m only half human, which means only half of me isn't Jutai. Let’s find you some clothing.”

Sigaldra dressed in the spare clothing she had taken from Greatheart Keep, trousers and a loose shirt and a heavy leather jerkin. Thankfully, she had left her chain mail shirt in the camp, so she hadn’t lost that. Likely the soliphage had destroyed her clothes, and the thought of that wretched creature ripping away her garments sent another shudder through her. 

“Ah,” said Romaria. “Here they come.”

Adalar, Mazael, Timothy, and Earnachar returned to camp. Timothy carried a small sack, while Adalar held…

Sigaldra blinked. “You found my boots?” 

“Aye,” said Adalar. “It looked like the soliphage destroyed the rest of your garments, but these were still intact. We found your bow and dagger as well.” 

“Thank you,” said Sigaldra, taking the boots and the weapons. “Those were good boots.” She felt absurdly glad to have them back. Though given how much walking lay in her immediate future, perhaps it was not such an absurd thought. “And thank you for…coming after me.” 

Adalar inclined his head, and Sigaldra felt another wave of emotion go through her, and she had to look away.

“Did you find anything else?” said Romaria.

“Some coins and jewels,” said Mazael. 

“Isn’t that grave robbing?” said Romaria. 

“Probably,” said Mazael, “but the poor fools in the soliphage’s cave are not likely to need the money. Since we’ll use it to aid our pursuit of the Prophetess and her soliphages, I suspected they would approve. We also found this.”

He gestured to Timothy, and the wizard reached into his little bag, producing a round disk of dark stone. It had been carved as a seal, marked with a stylized spider similar to the ones atop the shrine stones, a ring of soliphage glyphs encircling its edge. 

“Oh,” said Romaria. “That might be useful.”

“It is not a thing of dark magic?” said Sigaldra, eyeing it. 

“There are no spells upon it, my lady,” said Timothy. “I made certain to check.”

“It’s the seal of a priest or priestess of Marazadra,” said Romaria, taking the stone disk from Timothy’s hand. “They use them as badges of their authority.” She pointed at the blue paint on her face. “If some flaking blue paint fails to persuade the Skuldari to let us pass, this should help.” 

Mazael grunted. “What’s the penalty for carrying one of these under false pretenses?”

“Death,” said Romaria. 

“What’s the penalty for killing a soliphage?” said Mazael.

Romaria blinked. “I don’t know. The Skuldari regard the soliphages as messengers of their goddess. I expect killing one would be blasphemous.”

“Splendid,” said Mazael. “Let’s see if we can break a few more of Skuldar’s laws.”

###

Two days after leaving the soliphage’s cave, a village came into sight. 

“Volmaya,” announced Romaria. “Danel lived here when I passed through Skuldar the last time.”

Mazael nodded, considering the village. It was some distance off the main road, facing the northern wall of mountains overlooking the Weaver’s Vale. The village occupied a small valley at the foot of the mountains, surrounded by cleared pastures and terraced fields carved into the stony slopes. Houses built of fieldstone surrounded the village square, and in many ways it looked similar to the villages in the hill country of the Grim Marches.

Of course, no villages of the Grim Marches had a massive shrine stone rising from the center of the square, a carved stone spider crouched atop it.  

Mazael saw a great deal of activity in the village, both in the square and in the surrounding pastures. Romaria’s disguise as a priestess of Marazadra ought to let them ride through Volmaya without question, but Mazael doubted they could pass as Skuldari for long. For that matter, sooner or later the Prophetess would realize she was being pursued, or Basracus might realize that enemy spies had come to his land. Best to pass through with as little notice as possible. 

“I suppose he lives right in the center of the village,” said Mazael.

“Actually, on the outskirts,” said Romaria, pointing at a wooded patch at the edge of the valley. “He was a trader who dabbled in hunting and trapping, not a farmer or a herdsman. With luck, he still lives there.” 

“Let’s find out,” said Mazael. 

They arranged themselves with Sigaldra and Romaria in the center, Mazael and Adalar in the front, and Earnachar and Timothy in the back. Romaria had painted a fresh spider upon her face, and at Mazael’s suggestion, she had done the same for Sigaldra. Two priestesses of the goddess, he reasoned, ought to have more authority than just one. With her hair ragged and short, Sigaldra’s eyes seemed larger, the harsh angles of her face sharper. The addition of the painted spider made her look a touch mad. Romaria sat stiff and proud in her saddle, the black cloak hanging from her shoulders. A few of the villagers in the fields glanced their way, but gave them a wide berth. Evidently the villagers of Volmaya preferred to stay out of the priestesses’ way. 

Mazael steered his horse down a narrow path between two fields of wheat, the patch of woods drawing nearer. He wanted to keep from trampling the villagers’ crops, which struck him as absurd. If the villagers attacked him, he would kill them without mercy. He planned to lead an invasion of Skuldar once he rescued Liane, and the crops would almost certainly be burned or stolen in such a war.

Yet, nonetheless, he kept from trampling the crops. 

The path led into the woods, and in the distance Mazael glimpsed a stout house of stone, surrounded by a few outbuildings. 

“It appears Danel has prospered,” said Mazael. 

“So he has,” said Romaria. “Or his son. He had a little boy fifteen years ago. Basjun, I think his name was. I…”

“Do you enjoy games?” 

Mazael turned, dropping his hand to Talon’s hilt.

A figure limped out from beneath the shadow of a pine tree, leaning hard upon a cane. As it drew closer, Mazael saw that the shape was an old, old woman in a loose black robe. For a moment he thought that she was a priestess of Marazadra, but she did not have any paint upon her face, nor did she bear any jewelry or sign of rank. 

Mazael glanced at Timothy, wondering how the old woman had gotten past the wizard’s detection spell, but Timothy only looked startled. 

“Be off with you,” said Mazael. “You interfere with the business of the priestesses of the goddess.”

“The priestesses?” said the old woman, hobbling closer. She looked ancient indeed, the lines in her thin face like canyons, her eyes hazy, a few wisps of white hair hanging from the edges of her cowl. The woman had to be at least a century old, but as she grinned at Mazael he saw that she still had all her teeth, white and straight in her mouth. “I’ve no wish to interfere with the priestesses of the goddess as they go about their work. But I wish to talk to you, young man.”

“Me?” said Mazael. Did this woman know who he really was? “Why?”

“So eloquent,” said the woman in her thin, rasping voice. “I just wish to ask you a question. Do you enjoy games?” 

“That depends on the game,” said Mazael.

“I enjoy games very much,” said the old woman. “But you have to play in the right way, you know. Children and fools play the game so that if they lose, they lose everything. Most unwise, is it not? No, the better way to play is that no matter who wins or loses…you still win. Would you not agree?” 

Mazael felt a chill.

The Old Demon had told him something like that. His father had set up endless schemes, some of them playing out over centuries, schemes designed that no matter the outcome, he moved a little closer to his goal of seizing the gathered power of the Demonsouled. He had tricked Lucan Mandragon and the San-keth and his own Demonsouled progeny into doing the dirty work for him, reaping the benefits no matter how events played out. 

“Who are you?” said Mazael. 

“A good question,” said the old woman. “I suppose here in Skuldar they called me Mother Volaria.” She considered that for a moment. “Though everyone who did has been dead for quite some time.” 

“What are you?” said Mazael.

“Ah,” breathed Volaria. “A better question.” Her pale eyes glinted. “Suffice to say that I am someone who enjoys games.” 

“I don’t,” said Mazael.

“Then you had better learn, boy,” said Volaria. “Because you’re playing the game, whether you wish it or not. You’ve been playing your entire life, and it’s time to master the game, or else it will kill you.”

“And what game is that?” said Mazael. Adalar eased to his side, and Earnachar started to move his horse forward, while Romaria reached for her bow. 

“A game with five pieces,” said Volaria. She lifted her hand and began ticking them off on her bony fingers. “The child. The dagger. The mask. The horn. The altar.” 

Mazael blinked. Liane was a child. The Prophetess had used a maethweisyr dagger, and she had gone in search of the Mask of Marazadra…

“You’re one of her servants!” said Sigaldra, her voice a harsh crack of accusation. “You’re with the Prophetess.”

“Do not be silly, girl,” said Volaria. Those peculiarly white teeth flashed in her lined face. “I serve no one but myself. Certainly not our pompously self-titled Prophetess. She is your opponent in this game. She needs five pieces to win the game, and she already has two of them.”

“The child and the dagger,” said Mazael. 

“Perhaps you are teachable after all,” said Volaria. 

“All right,” said Mazael. “Where are the other three pieces?”

“That you will have to discover for yourself, boy,” said Volaria. “But the path to the remaining three pieces begins in Armalast. You are on the correct path, but alas, so is your opponent. I wonder which of you will win. Right now, I expect that the Prophetess shall prevail. But I have been mistaken before. Perhaps you shall learn how to play the game properly.”

“Or perhaps you should explain yourself better,” said Mazael, urging his horse forward.

Mother Volaria smiled, and then she vanished. 

She was gone, just gone. There was no flash of light or ripple of mist or any of the usual effects of a spell. She had simply vanished. 

“Timothy!” said Mazael.

“As far as I can tell, she did not cast a spell, my lord,” said Timothy, his frustration plain. “I would swear to it. Yet my detection spell did not sense her approach.” 

“Is it working?” said Mazael.

“I sense all of you, and the villagers nearby,” said Timothy. “I think there are five or six people in the house ahead. But I didn’t sense the old woman.” He spread his hands. “I can offer no explanation, I fear.” 

“Romaria?” said Mazael.

“She didn’t use any magic,” said Romaria in a slow voice. “I’m sure of that. The Sight would have shown that to me. Yet…she seemed odd. Hazy, almost.”

“Hazy?” said Mazael.

Romaria sighed. “I cannot explain it better than that.”

Mazael stared at the spot where Volaria had stood for a moment, then cursed and hit the pommel of his saddle with his fist, making his horse shift nervously. 

“Gods and devils!” he spat. “As if this business was not complicated enough!”

“Of old, mighty Tervingar often dealt with mysterious witches,” said Earnachar. “Sometimes they were helpful, sometimes baneful.” 

“Well, if this Mother Volaria is baneful, we’ll mow her down with the Prophetess and Rigoric,” snapped Mazael. Gods, but he was sick of prophecies and visions and cryptic oracles. He felt his anger spiral out of control, calling to his Demonsouled rage, and forced it back with an effort. “Still, she said she was going to help us, and she did.”

“How?” said Sigaldra. 

“She confirmed the Prophetess was going to Armalast,” said Mazael.

“We already knew that,” said Sigaldra. 

“And that she was looking for the Mask of Marazadra, whatever that is,” said Mazael. “Plus a horn and an altar.” He remembered his dream of Marazadra, the rippling rift above the altar in the Heart of the Spider. Was that the altar that Volaria had mentioned? “She might have been a phantom, but maybe men of flesh and blood will have better answers for us.”

He tapped his spurs to his horse and rode deeper into the woods. A short time later a stone house came into sight. Like all the houses in the village, it was built of fieldstone, though the construction was of better quality. Several smaller buildings surrounded it, and to judge from their sturdy doors, Mazael suspected they were warehouses to store goods. 

A young Skuldari man of about twenty years walked around the corner of the house, his arms thick with muscle and his face half-hidden behind a bushy black beard. He wore a leather jerkin, a sword at his belt, and carried a hunting bow with an arrow resting upon the string. Next to him trotted one of the ugliest dogs that Mazael had ever seen. Its lank black fur hung from its sides and rangy limbs, and it looked more like a wolfhound than a hunting dog. Yet despite its size, the dog moved with quick grace, and Mazael had no doubt that it was dangerous. 

“Aye?” said the young Skuldari man. He looked at them for a moment, his face solemn. “State your business.” 

Romaria steered her horse forward. The Skuldari man took one look at her and swallowed, but stood his ground. 

“Basjun, isn’t it?” said Romaria.

“Aye, priestess,” said Basjun. “You…know me?” 

“I knew your father a long time ago,” said Romaria. “Is he still alive?”

Basjun opened his mouth, and then the door to the main house swung open. An old man limped out, leaning hard upon a cane. He was taller and thinner than Basjun, his hair receding, but the family resemblance was obvious. 

“Honored priestesses,” said the old man at once, “if this is about the tithe, I paid it earlier this month, when the High King’s men passed through Volmaya. I have documents to prove it.” 

“Danel,” said Romaria. “It’s been a very long time.” 

Danel stared at her, and then his dark eyes widened in shock. 

“Romaria Greenshield?” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ve become a priestess of the spider.” 

Romaria grinned. “Not likely. If you don’t mind, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”