CHOOSING MASKS
When Karigan limped off the bridge into the white
world, an opaque mist shrouded the island.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
In her past experiences with the white world, the mists were
usually preludes to visions she’d rather not see.
She had no choice
but to wait until the mist cleared before proceeding across the
island to the moonbeam bridge—she could barely see her hand in
front of her and she did not want to accidentally step into the
chasm.
When the mist
tumbled away, she looked in dismay upon what it revealed. Arrayed
before her was a masquerade ball in full swing, strains of music
echoing ominously from the depths of the chasm. The colorful finery
and masks of the dancers were in stark contrast to the dullness of
the white world.
This is not fair, Karigan thought. Haven’t I been through enough? She knew, however,
fairness had nothing to do with it.
Making matters
worse, on the opposite side of the island there wasn’t only the one
bridge, but a dozen that, to her eye, looked
identical.
“I have no time for
puzzles,” she muttered, still feeling the tug on her brooch. She
decided she would ignore the masquerade and she started to limp
across the island.
“Rider Sir Karigan
G’ladheon!” cried out a masked herald that sounded just like Neff,
and who also appeared just the way he had the night of the king’s
masquerade ball. He most definitely was not Neff, however. Just a vision provided by the
strange environs of the white world. The announcement was met with
scattered applause, and ladies and gentlemen curtsied and bowed to
Karigan.
She might be trying
to ignore the masquerade, but its participants were not ignoring
her. She proceeded cautiously, recognizing many of the masks from
the king’s ball, including the king’s own iridescent dragon helm.
It gleamed in the dull light as he danced ... as he danced with Mad
Queen Oddacious. Jester’s bells jingled from her crown, the red
diamond pattern of her skirts a garish blur against
white.
No. Must not be distracted.
She started to
trudge ahead, but three costumed pages appeared before her, each
bearing a mask on a satin pillow.
“You must choose
one,” said Neff, who strode up beside her, “to join the
masquerade.”
On one pillow
nestled a plain eye mask that took on the same faded green tone as
her uniform. An eye mask of midnight rested on the middle pillow.
It emanated tremendous pulsing power, but oozed a black aura of
malevolence and Karigan was immediately repelled by it. The third
pillow held the mask she remembered Estora wearing, beaded with
ocean hues that rippled in the light.
She shifted the
staff to lean it against her shoulder and reached for the third
mask, the queen’s mask, but stopped short of actually touching it.
Her hand hovered there for a moment, then she snatched it
back.
“I do not need a
mask,” she said, suddenly furious. She would not play this
game.
She turned away from
the pages with their burdens and continued her limping way across
the island, but as if her anger stoked the energies of the white
world, the music picked up to a frenzy and the dancers danced in a
fury of silk and velvet and satin; spinning and twirling around
her, knocking into her, pushing and buffeting her, kicking her
injured leg. She cried out. For all that the dancers were not real,
they felt real, and the blows sent
white-hot pain through her and stole her breath. She was growing
light-headed.
The king grabbed her
broken wrist to swing her around. She screamed and swooned to her
knee. The music silenced and the dance halted. She moaned amid a
forest of legs and skirts. She would not let the white world do
this to her, she would not let it defeat her. Using her staff to
steady herself, she rose and found herself face to mask with the
king.
“You are false,” she
said. She turned around. “You are all false.”
Using her good hand,
she threw the king’s dragon helm off. It clattered to the ground
raising a puff of white dust. She gasped. Beneath the mask it was
not King Zachary she saw, but Lord Amberhill’s smirking
countenance. He raised an expectant eyebrow.
What did it mean?
What was the white world telling her? If the king in this
masquerade was not Zachary, then who was behind the Queen Oddacious
mask? Would it be herself, or someone else?
Shuddering, but
unable to resist, she pulled off the mask that concealed Queen
Oddacious’ face and discovered Estora gazing at her. Karigan backed
away, too many questions clashing in her mind to think clearly. She
just wanted out, out of the white world. Blackveil was
preferable—at least it was real.
She shouldered her
way through the silent, stationary dancers. A tumbler in black
stepped in her way. He wore the looking mask, but it only reflected
the white landscape. Santanara had warned her about the mirror man,
that he was a trickster, and she found the assessment appropriate.
He summoned Neff and the three pages with a gesture.
“You must choose a
mask,” Neff said, “if you wish to leave.”
Cold sweat beaded on
Karigan’s forehead. What would happen if she chose one of the
masks? Where was King Zachary in all this if he hadn’t been wearing
the dragon helm?
“I prefer not to
conceal my face,” Karigan said. “I will not hide, and I will not
deceive.”
“You must choose a
mask,” Neff intoned.
She contemplated
striking him with her staff, but considering how real and solid the
dancers had felt, it probably was not a good idea, for there might
be a reprisal.
“All right,” she
said, thinking fast. “If I must choose, I choose that one.” She pointed not at one of the three
offered to her on satin pillows, but at the looking mask worn by
the tumbler. Her reflection pointed back at her.
Everyone vanished
but the tumbler. He waggled his finger at her and slapped his thigh
as if silently laughing at her. Then he backed away, making an
expansive gesture toward the bridges, and then he, too,
vanished.
Karigan sighed.
She’d apparently passed one test and was now presented with
another. She walked from bridge to bridge, tapping each one with
her staff. Each felt as solid as the last. There was no telling
what would happen if she crossed the wrong bridge. It might vanish
beneath her feet and she’d join the tainted Sleepers at the bottom
of the chasm, or the bridge might cross over into some hostile land
or layer of the world from which she’d be unable to
return.
“Five hells,” she
muttered, beyond exhausted, almost tempted to just choose one and
be done with it. Then she smiled and removed the moonstone from her
pocket. All of the bridges blazed with crystalline brilliance, but
one was more true and continued to resonate with her moonstone long
after the others faded.
She took a deep
breath and stepped onto the bridge. And took another step. The
others vanished. She hurried as fast as she could to reach the far
side. When she stepped off the bridge into the grove of Argenthyne,
it too disappeared.
She found Laurelyn
on the terrace where she’d left her. The Eletian queen’s form was
little more than a glimmer, a mere ghost of her former radiance.
Karigan glanced at the sky. Black clouds encroached on the silver
moon.
Laurelyn smiled. She
seemed weary beyond measure to Karigan. You
succeeded, Laurelyn said. The Eletians
will always be in your debt.
“I don’t think they
knew who I was.”
Laurelyn laughed
lightly. Then they shall have a mystery, and
Eletians love nothing better than a mystery to ponder and debate,
and they will do so for centuries. But now my time ends. You’ve my
thanks, Karigan, daughter of Kariny. You are as exceptional as I’d
hoped you would be all those years ago when I brought your mother
and father together in a forest glade. You must hurry to your
companions now, and release your ability, for this piece of time is
finished.
“Good . . .
good-bye,” Karigan said.
Good-bye, child.
Karigan set off for
the open doors of the castle, but she could not resist one last
look at the true Argenthyne, and of Laurelyn reaching for the moon.
She dissolved into motes of sparkling dust and then was no more.
The clouds blanketed the moon, casting the grove in
darkness.
Karigan hurried into
the castle, her vision doubling again, and becoming even more
blurred by tears of exhaustion, tears of loss. She had the feeling
of some great magic passing from the world. Not the sort of magic
she and her fellow Riders used, but the intangible, mysterious
quality of something that was once wise and powerful and shining
that would never be seen again. Laurelyn would live now only as
pure legend.
Karigan shed her
fading and staggered with the shifting of past and present, the
profile of the first tower chamber realigning. She returned to a
far dimmer, stagnant world.
The use of her
ability always hurt her head and now the pounding in her skull
distracted her from hurts on other parts of her body. She was cold.
Passing through time made her cold.
She must seek out
her companions, though she dreaded what she might find. She forced
herself across the chamber and noted that Graelalea’s body remained
undisturbed, the moonstone at low ebb.
Karigan limped
through the winding corridor trying to keep her mind aware and
working. She thought about the masks. If she’d chosen one of the
three masks presented to her in the white world, which one might
she have picked?
Certainly not the
black one—it was vile. She’d known that without even touching it.
She did not lust for the power it contained. The queen’s mask? No,
not for her. She could not presume, especially knowing the king was
absent from the mirror man’s little scene.
The king, the king .
. . Why had he been absent?
That left the plain
green mask, which seemed to go with being a Green Rider. Why hadn’t
she chosen it?
“Because I don’t
wear masks,” she answered aloud, startling herself.
She continued on,
hearing the sound of fighting growing louder. When she entered the
chamber of the moondial, she almost tripped over Ard’s body, still
in the same place where he’d fallen with Ealdaen’s arrow in his
throat. There was Grant’s body sprawled on the floor, a pair of
nythlings feeding on him. The corpses of other nythlings were
strewn about the chamber.
And Solan. Poor
Solan. She could not even look at what remained of him, of what the
dark Sleepers had done to him.
The corpses of
several dark Sleepers also lay on the floor, but more knotted
around the rest of her companions who stood back-to-back in a tight
circle on the full moon of the moondial, swords, and Lynx’s ax,
hewing up and down and side to side. About ten Sleepers assaulted
them, far fewer than before, but still difficult odds.
They were all so
involved that no one appeared to notice her. She weighed her
options, taking into consideration her weapons and her condition.
Quickly she decided to use the one weapon that had served her best
so far, and limped forward to meet the enemy.