The Ruling Mask Read online

  THE RULING MASK

  by Neil McGarry and Daniel Ravipinto

  A Peccable Productions book

  Learn more at

  www.peccable.com

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and people are products of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  ©2016 Neil McGarry and Daniel Ravipinto

  Copy editing: Jim Genzano

  Cover illustration and map illustration © 2016 Amy Houser

  www.amyhouser.com

  To our families.

  Both those we were born to, and those we chose.

  As always, thank you to our test readers, particularly Suzanne Onesti for her wonderfully creative chapter titles and Mark Fabrizi for invaluable editorial advice on this and other projects.

  Table of Contents

  Part One: Daughter

  Chapter One - From the ashes

  Chapter Two - Uninvited guests

  Chapter Three - Hat in hand

  Chapter Four - The measure of a man

  Chapter Five - A poisoned cup

  Chapter Six - Hearsay and heresy

  Chapter Seven - Skin in the game

  Chapter Eight - An odd fellowship

  Chapter Nine - Dark and darker still

  Chapter Ten - Surrounded

  Part Two: Sister

  Chapter Eleven - Among thieves

  Chapter Twelve - Missing links

  Chapter Thirteen - A blood-red house

  Chapter Fourteen - Red for red

  Chapter Fifteen - Reflections and revelations

  Chapter Sixteen - Family business

  Chapter Seventeen - The path not taken

  Chapter Eighteen - The prophet's motive

  Chapter Nineteen - Trouble before and behind

  Chapter Twenty - A low road to the Highway

  Chapter Twenty-One - Face to face

  Chapter Twenty-Two - The passed pawn

  Part Three: Mother

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Playing politics

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Practice to deceive

  Chapter Twenty-Five - The rule of three

  Chapter Twenty-Six - The best lies

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - The only way out

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Unmasked

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Loose threads

  Chapter Thirty - A feast of fools

  PART ONE

  DAUGHTER

  By every god of the Walk, she wanted to murder the lot of them and be done with it. Reputation or no.

  “This livery’s false,” her ally said flatly. She risked a look away from her captive, and saw him standing beside his own, pointing to colors she now recognized as House Levering.

  She turned back to the man she’d caught. His eyes followed her, both scared and defiant. His clothing was leather and roughspun, but under his chin she noticed what she first thought was blood. Looking more closely she saw a brand in red, running across his throat from ear to ear.

  “You’re a Red Smile,” she said slowly. “What’s a Deeps gang doing out on the Coast Road in false livery?”

  That was when the screaming began.

  Chapter One: From the ashes

  Duchess looked up at the windows where her childhood had burned.

  In all the long years since the War of the Quills she had never sought out her father’s city estate, never made her way up the long and narrow road in Scholar’s District to the place where a different girl with a different name had lived. Standing now before the low stone arch with the rusting iron gates, she wondered how much of Marina Kell still remained and how much had been lost to the Duchess of the Shallows. What else had perished with her father, that night of fire more than eight years ago?

  Whoever she had been, it was Duchess who stepped inside.

  She wandered the grounds under the morning sun, pale behind the ever-present clouds. The morning fog wasn’t very thick this high up the hill, so she had a clear view of the gardens, blackened and barren in some places and dense and overgrown in others. It seemed that fire, like fate, was a fickle thing.

  Every step through the black and the green was full of memories—here she’d hidden from her brother Justin when they’d played heroes-and-monsters, and there she’d lain with her head on her sister Margueritte’s lap and watched the sparrows wheel overhead. At the center of the garden stood a round stone table, now cracked and ruined, surrounded by curving stone benches where her father would have lunch set on summer afternoons. Brother, sister, father, all gone, replaced in a single night with a trip to the Shallows, a baker named Noam and a new name. Like the garden, the fire had left her to grow wild and untended.

  No one had ever purchased the estate, nor even the land it stood upon. Like the rest of her family’s assets, this place had come under the authority of the crown when no living Kell could be found: Justin had vanished without a trace, and Marguerite had been lost to the dreadful unity of the facets, the priestesses of Anassa. Her father’s friend, the scholar Terence, who still so dearly held Marcus Kell in his heart, had placed his friend’s assets into the safety of imperial receivership. One small victory in a war that had ended with her father’s suicide.

  She had no place here. She was her father’s daughter, true, but now she was so much more. She had friends and a life, a business and a future, and while there were a few who knew where she’d come from—Lysander, whom she’d trusted, and Minette, who knew everything—she was certain that where she was headed was far more important.

  She heard movement and turned to see Darley step through the gate. While also certainly her father’s child, she didn’t take much after him; where Savant Terence was tall and lanky, Darley was curvy and compact, with green eyes in a heart-shaped face. Pretty enough, but of course Duchess knew that behind those fine features lay enough greed for three scholar’s daughters.

  Darley made her way towards Duchess, stepping gingerly around chunks of rock or tangled bushes, and Duchess had time to wonder once more why Darley had requested this meeting—and why she’d insisted it be here. This place was not far from Darley’s own home, true, but Duchess suspected there was a message here.

  After all, to name a thing was to have power over it.

  “You had no trouble finding the place?” the girl asked, glancing up at the ruin around them with a little smile Duchess definitely didn’t like. The last business she’d had with Terence’s daughter had been blackmail, offering her own silence about Darley’s graverobbing in exchange for maps of tunnels beneath the city. She couldn’t imagine the girl had forgiven or forgotten, yet for some reason Darley was clearly trying honey before resorting to vinegar.

  “Your instructions were very clear,” Duchess replied cautiously, “though I confess I don’t know why we’re meeting here.” Darley was an unknown factor, and so it was best to be careful. Cleverness and caution were the watchwords of the Grey Highway, after all, and Duchess had spent no little time playing at the careful art of gossip known as fruning since she’d joined that band of thieves, spies and rumormongers.

  Darley’s smile sharpened. “You’ve no idea why we’re here at all? You’re not happy to be home?” Duchess kept her face a mask, but dismay swirled inside her. It was as she feared: Darley knew who she once had been, her true name and nature. “Well, perhaps not your home anymore,” the girl went on heedlessly, sweeping a hand at the garden, the walls, the house. “The estate, the land, the money—everything that once belonged to your father—it could all be yours again.”

  “So you know,” Duchess replied, to buy time to think.

  “My father's not nearly as clever as he thinks.
After he found out about our...arrangement, I noticed he pulled out everything he could on House Kell: records, notices, all of it. Then I remembered that you had once asked me about estates held in trust by the empire.” She tossed her head. “And then I remembered a little girl I knew years ago who once kicked me into a hole, and I knew right away that was the kind of trouble only you could cause...Marina.”

  Duchess tried not to flinch at the name. She hadn’t expected that Darley would remember her from that long-ago childhood fight. “So you’re offering—”

  “—to broker your return,” the girl replied, greed clear in her eyes. “Through me, you can regain your house, your title, all of your father’s assets, everything held in trust by the Imperial Council.” She leaned in close. “I’ve seen the documents and I know how much has been invested, how much it’s grown with time. You’d be a rich woman.”

  Duchess had to bite her lip to hold back a gale of mocking laughter. She’d given the girl too much credit. Darley knew who she’d been, but not much more. Still, best not to anger the girl; after all, she needed her. “An interesting offer. A shame your father already made it to me not three weeks ago.”

  “He—?” Darley’s smile vanished. “Oh that godsdamned fool.” There was the vinegar Duchess had expected, the anger and frustration she’d seen Darley use on her lover Finn when he had once dared to defy her. The instant you weren’t of use, Darley dropped the charm. “He was actually stupid enough to just give you this, wasn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Darley was watching her intently, any sweetness and charm gone. “My father worshipped the ground Marcus Kell walked on. After the War of the Quills he put aside everything—his career, his position, his family—to protect your father’s memory and property. He managed to lock the Kell holdings away from grasping hands for more than eight years, regardless of what it cost us. And when he offered all of that to you, for nothing, you turned it down?”

  Duchess refused to be baited. “I had my reasons,” she replied quietly, although in truth turning down that offer had not been an easy thing. The night Savant Terence had offered to make Duchess her father’s daughter in truth, she had very seriously considered casting aside her life as Duchess of the Shallows and becoming a woman of leisure. But the price had simply been too high. Becoming Marina Kell would have cost her everything she’d risked and worked for, everything she’d built. All she was and all she owned would be given over to a husband selected for her, and she would be left to sit in a gilded cage for the rest of her days.

  Darley was shaking her head. “I don’t care about your reasons; you couldn’t afford to pass up that deal unless you had something else.” She glanced shrewdly at Duchess. “I asked around about you after we made our deal, and even more so after my father caught me in his library and ordered me to stay away from you.” She pointed. “You’re Grey,” she muttered. “You’re Grey and now you have no reason to make me Grey.”

  Duchess gaped. “You wanted me to cloak you?” Darley never failed to surprise; petulant and charming, ill-tempered and persuasive, all at once. The girl had once cozened Finn to help her root around in the Necropolis beneath the city, in search of artifacts she could sell to wealthy collectors, and had even managed to uncover a piece of Old Domani, a dagger thought to be the fabled Key of Mayu. She and Finn had sold the item to Baron Eusbius, and then Duchess herself had stolen it as the price of her own admittance to the Grey. But where Duchess had joined the Grey Highway out of necessity, Darley seemed to seek it from a desire to profit.

  Duchess remembered that Marcus Kell had intended for his daughter to live with Darley’s father, to be raised to the blue robes, in time becoming a scholar herself. If she had not been taken from this very garden the night of the fire in exchange for a brass coin, she would have lived that life. In a way, Darley was living that life. She had everything that had been denied Duchess eight years ago.

  And she wanted to trade all of it away for a gray cloak.

  “That was what I had in mind,” Darley pouted, “but you’ve made clear you don’t want what I’m offering. So if you’re done wasting both of our time—” She turned as if to leave.

  Duchess raised a hand. “Perhaps there’s another...arrangement we can come to. I have a price you might find easier to meet.”

  The evening before the Fall of Ventaris Duchess had gone to Meadowmere Manse, sneaking through tunnels dug by the Domae, who had built the city long before Duchess’ own people had arrived. On the way she had passed through the deepest part of the Necropolis, known as the Ossuary. There she had stood on the edge of a great pit and a terrible hollow voice from below had called her fool. Domae mythology held that those who lived in this city were edunae, soulless, victims of He Who Devours, and deep in her heart she knew that voice was his.

  She had stood in the darkness of the Domae catacombs as Darley and Finn had argued over the Key of Mayu and had wondered what other riches might lie below. She had watched unbelieving as Darley’s blood had smeared across a rough stone wall and conjured the dead to walk on fleshless feet.

  She was not Marina Kell, not any more, but that did not mean she could ignore her past. A brass coin, marked with a P, had led her from this very house to the safety of Noam’s shop. Another had placed her on the Grey. Each was as ancient as the city, the pit, and the voice beneath them both.

  Duchess had spent too much time in other matters, too concerned with the Grey and her position upon it, and had for too long ignored the horrors that literally lay beneath her feet. She needed to understand her own history and that of the City of Rodaas, and that required the services of someone who’d chosen the path she had been denied.

  “I need a scholar,” Duchess said without preamble. Curiosity flickered in Darley’s green eyes. “Specifically, I need a scholar who knows when to speak and when to keep silent.” She let that sink in. “I’m sure you know a number of blue robes like that.”

  Darley’s smile returned. “And for this you’ll cloak me?”

  This time Duchess couldn’t hold back the laughter. “Oh no, Darley.” She hadn’t cloaked Lysander and he’d been desperate to join the Grey since the day she’d met him. She shook her head. “If you had any idea what I had to do to get my own cloak...”

  The girl clouded up. “So why should I do anything for you?”

  Darley clearly had a great deal to learn about negotiation. “Because you’ll be paid.” Darley couldn’t help but perk up at that. “And, if we are able to work together in this matter, you might gain enough favor to someday earn your invitation.” It might happen, for all she knew, so she wasn’t lying outright.

  The girl’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “If I give you the name, how do I know you won’t just take it and forget our deal?”

  Duchess shrugged. “You don’t, but it strikes me that you don’t have much choice. You can either accept my terms or take yourself home.”

  Darley seemed to consider that for a moment. “Very well.”

  “And the name of this scholar?”

  Darley leaned towards her. “Cecilia Payne.”

  Duchess blinked. “But that’s—”

  Darley nodded. “—a woman. She’s the city’s only female scholar and a disciple of my father’s. Well-born, too. Cecilia and I have an understanding. I can guarantee that any research she does for you will be kept to herself.”

  How strange. Two of them who might have become scholars, speaking of a third who actually had. “Then we’re agreed. I’ll hand over the money when you arrange the meeting with this Cecilia.” Eager to end this meeting, Duchess made her careful way through the overgrowth towards the gate, with Darley close behind. She’d lingered here too long, first in memory and now in truth.

  Back on the lane, the girl gave her a hard look. “I’ll make myself useful as long as you do the same. Just remember that I know who and what you are, and I can make a good deal of trouble for you, if I want.”

  “I’ll remember. Make c
ertain you remember who and what I am. And what I’m capable of.”

  Unbowed by this threat, Darley paused before going on her way. “By the by—did I mention how the understanding between Cecilia and I came about? She’s a journeyman, working on her final thesis. She needs some help, I understand.”

  Duchess wasn’t certain she wanted to hear this. “Help?”

  Darley nodded. “Something in her research requires reference to the work of one Marcus Kell. Seems Cecilia’s looking for his heirs, and in fact it was she who told me that Father was seeking information on the Kell holdings.” She shrugged. “I told her I’d set up a meeting with a member of House Kell, so I’m afraid your scholar is likely to cost you more than just the gold you promised.” With a smug smile, Darley turned along the lane and vanished.

  Duchess lingered a long moment after the girl had gone, looking back through the rusted gate into the ash-tinged shadows of days gone by. Darley’s words felt uneasily prophetic, and as Duchess left the ruins of her girlhood, she was more and more certain that the cost of disturbing the past would be higher than she ever dared contemplate.

  * * *

  She arrived home to find Lysander sitting at the bottom of the steps that led to her apartments above the curio shop, a bottle of wine in his hand. Both he and the wine were a sight for sore eyes.

  “You look upset,” he teased, standing up and brushing off his pants. His blue eyes sparkled with mischief from beneath his blond hair as he brandished the bottle. “I’ve just the thing.”