The Masquerade
“Masquerade! A hundred screaming artificial faces hang upon a wall, hoping one day to avoid artifice and hang proudly above a face, a head, a persona; sculpting and being sculpted through a vast, personal force. The weeping maiden, her lover's love ended, pretty in her bridal make-up; there the young man, face twisted in agony as a lance, a blade, a bullet pierces his thigh, a mix of anguish, shame, and joy, joy at seeing his mother, and again taking hold of apron-strings. There the minstrel, eyes open in expectant song, there the miser, the crone, the sheep, the prophet, the madman, the liar and thief! And there, standing as ruler to all, are twin sexless masks of birth and death, of a baby's first squeal and a corpse's last repose; ruling out of certainty, thus ruling beyond doubt.
And tonight, my friends, we wear these masks; you will not be yourselves, but another, in this wonderful carnival macabre! Enjoy yourselves, for this is an amusement as has never before been seen in this world, and shall never be seen since! Marvel, o great men, as you become, but for an evening, those that you are so far above!”
His preparations complete, he held his lack of breath as he gestured behind, telling each man and woman which mask to wear, each one heedless of how he had made these masks; how every one was the face of a murdered man, a suicide, a woman dead of plague long before her time. Only the death-mask did not speak of foul play; he had made it himself, long ago, back when blood still flowed, and the heart still beat. Yes, when his heart still beat, rather than his blood being pushed by mere vengeance, back when his tendons still moved his bones, rather than hate, back when his eyes still saw, rather than being blank, staring orbs, hidden away by guile.
It needed to be done; it was only deserved, after what they had done to him, after they had stolen his life, his work, his family from him; how hubristic of them, those respected pigs, to believe that he was throwing a party for them, his murderers! He still remembered that judge condemning him to death, that woman there as she chatted merrily away in front of the crowds at his execution. And for what?
Why had he deserved death, he who worked to end it? What care they if a few corpses walk, speak, live again? Why did they, in their arrogance, keep him from seeing his family again?
He made his face into a mask all of its own, hiding his disgust behind a carefully built facade of gentility and hospitality; how much effort it had been, collecting the masks, and the people to wear them! It had taken 5 years, but in finality, he had them. He had them all, right where he needed them, right where they needed to be.
The wizard grinned as his foes, statesmen, judges, respected men, put on those masks, and indeed became other; there were screams, of pain and pleasure, all emotions between as well. Judges and their wives became young lovers, bitter foes, or complete strangers; a prominent actor bled to death from a phantom wound, which appeared upon his thigh. The room filled with a yowling, horrified mass, as identity, honor, restraint, and indeed human kindness were anihillated below the auspices of the mask's grand magic.
The wizard, or rather, his ghost, watched all of this with satisfaction and glee; it had worked out perfectly, with a perfection and grace he had only forseen. His glee turned almost to ecstacy as he watched some of those with stronger will, feebly trying to pull the masks from their faces, mewling pitifully as their hands failed them, time and time again; he was the only one who could remove the masks, but he had still to put on his, the only true mask in the entire place, the only one still without a wearer, though it should have been worn years ago. He should have worn it when his family had been burned, but he had dallied, making sure his own funeral would be perfect, would have a purpose, a meaning.
So he arose from the seat of honor, from which he had officiated this ghoulish entertainment, and took the death-mask, his funeral mask, and walked behind a curtain, joy exultant in his heart; finally, he would see his wife again, and perhaps his small child. It was irony, he reflected, that his family had been the ones burned for witchcraft, and not he; it was a shame, he thought, that the inquisitors were so incompetent that they could not do their job. He sighed, and put the mask onto the face of his corpse, lying in state in the next room, behind, and passed on, his spite expended, to his deserved rest.
To those who could hear, and those who would have cared, as horribly mutilated in the soul as they were, they would have heard a single whispered sigh of satisfaction as one by one, the masked players all slowly wound down... and stopped.
[Incomplete Beginning]
It was a Saturday night; I think I'll always remember that. My parents were working, so I was left to mind the house by myself. I was just sitting down by the fire, good book in hand, when a knock came at the door. I quickly walked over, and peeked through the peephole.
There, standing before me, was a girl. She looked like she was about my age; she couldn't have been a day over twenty. Of course, a girl standing at my family's door isn't exactly odd; after all, our house is just down the street from the university, so we have students, some far younger than she was, come up to our door every other day, trying to raise awareness for some issue or another, or just trying to get a quick piece of money. No, what was astonishing was what she was wearing; every article of clothing on her body was loose. And by loose, I don't mean just comfortably loose; I mean the kind of loose where she has to hold her tunic collar together with one hand to stop her breasts from showing, and she had to make similar efforts to stop her trousers from falling of her, admittedly narrow, waist. She also reminded me of someone, but I couldn't figure out who. I was startled out of this cursory inspection when she began knocking again, hard enough that it looked like she was trying to split the wood. So I opened the door for her.
As she moved to come in to my humble abode, she turned to me, and said,
"Thank you, Pete; you're a great guy. Hey, do you have any rope around here?"
Suddenly, my recognition clicked.
"Steve, is that you?"
She wrinkled her nose and laughed,
"The one and only. What, did my sudden wardrobe change confuse you? I still need that rope, my friend."
Well, that clinched it. Only Steve would have referred to me as "my friend", simply because I have no other friends. That, and the fact that the "girl's" voice just sounded like a higher pitched version of his normal voice, but without the squeak he usually develops when he tries to use a falsetto.
"Steve, what the hell happened?"
"Whatever do you mean? Oh, you mean the fact that I'm a girl in clothes three sizes too big for me?"
"Yes, that would be what I'm driving at."
Steve chuckled-- no, that's the wrong word-- giggled, and began walking for the overstuffed armchair that I had been about to sit in earlier, and said,
"It's a bit of a long story, and it can wait until you get me some rope; seriously, Pete, this is one of those problems you have to solve with rope."
"What, the fact that you're a girl?"
"No, the fact that my pants are falling down. Now, are you going to get me some rope or not?"
I sighed and walked towards the closet at the back of the room, acutely aware of the fact that, while we did have rope, my parents had taken it with them. Why rope, candlesticks and water are vital tools for a pair of accountants, I'll never know, but I digress. While I obviously didn't find rope, I did manage to find some old cloths that looked like it would do. So I pulled those out and walked back to the chair, where Steve was sitting with her legs pulled up nearly to her chest, just like he always did. Or she, rather. I handed her the cloth, and after he-- sorry, she-- juryrigged them into a belt and a scarf, which she then put on, I sat down on the chair opposite him-- her-- and said,
"All right, Steve, what happened?"
She sighed, and began telling her story.
"Today started out like a normal day, you know? But about an hour ago, I went walking down by the docks."
Seeing the disapproving, and not to mention incredulous, expression on my face, Steve smiled and added,
"Not those docks, obviously, I'm not suicidal. Of course, I'm careless, but we both know that. Anyway, as I was walking down by the docks, I saw this arrogant looking girl, maybe two or three years younger than us. So I went over to her, and started to, you know, seduce her... what's so funny?"
I managed to calm down enough to stop myself from snickering; under all of his odd behavior, Steve is one of the nicest guys around, for a given value of nice, but sometimes, but he's also one of the most socially awkward person around. In all seriousness, you probably could've used that attempt at seduction as a handy guide on what not to do.
Steve looked at me, his-- gotta remember it's her now-- eyes filled with impatience and indignance at my amusement.
"Now, as I was saying, I was seducing this girl, thinking, you know, that she would be a little easier than girls our age; lack of worldly experience and the glamor of an older man, and all that. But nope, turns out she was offended; also turns out she's in her twenties and teaches at the university. I'll let you guess what she teaches."
"What, Don't Seduce Girls Who Look Younger Than You, the introductory course?"
"Don't get cute. Nope, she teaches transformative magics and curses, apparently. And you know what she said before she transformed me? Ahem, let me see if I can get the voice right..."
Suddenly, and I mean suddenly, Steve's voice switched off into a falsetto, finally gaining that squeaky quality I half expected to hear whenever she used what was now her regular voice.
"'Young man, I can see that you have no success with women at all; here, I'll do you a favour and let you attack the problem from another angle.' And she just sort of twisted a hand in a weird way and then I'm suddenly half a head shorter and, well, look at me!"
“You look better than you did before, I can give you that.” Another good thing to know about Steve was that he had a face not even a mother could love; frankly, that was probably another reason why his attempted 'seduction' had had such... interesting side effects.
“Please, not now, I'm trying to be pissed off. Still, grab me a hand mirror, will you? Haven't got a good look at myself yet.”
I obliged, or at least tried to; my parents had also taken all of the portable mirrors in the house. Privately, I harbor serious doubts as to what their real profession is, but that is a study for a different day. So, ultimately, I had to go back for hi- her; funnily, its getting easier to refer to her as female. Must be good ol' Correction at work.
“Steve, we have no hand mirrors.”
“Are you serious? Could've sworn you have at least two. What happened?”
“My parents went on a business trip.”
“Say no more; lead on, my friend.”
So I lead her to my parent's bedroom, which has the only, and I mean only, fixed mirror in the whole entire building. As we walked into the room, I noticed that the entire place was nearly bare; my parents had even taken the sheets and rug. Bizarre as that was, Steve's reaction on seeing her new body was just as strange.
“Pete, is my hair really that long? And why the hell am I in a skirt?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that no, her hair was only a little ways past her ears, and that she was wearing trousers, but then I looked at her reflection, and was just as confused as she was; her reflection's long auburn hair was down to her waist, which tapered far more than Steve's actual waste did. Scanning down, I noticed that the reflection's jury-rigged belt was part of a low-calf length skirt made from some sort of reddish canvas, and that her tunic had a pale brown vest over it, in what seemed to be the popular style among girls about our age; looking back up, I noticed that her face had make-up accenting the eyes and lips, looking expertly placed on her narrow face.
“Steve, the mirror is lying to you.”
“I should hope so; otherwise, I'd kill the girl who did this to me. Actually, I'll probably do still do that, in a less permanent manner. So, wanna help?”
I keep forgetting to tell the people I tell this story to that Steve was in training for becoming a state-sponsored assassin; she tends to prefer having that detail glossed over, for more or less obvious reasons.
“Sure, I would love to help you brutally murder this girl; in fact, nothing would please me more than to probably be jailed because I don't have a murder license.”
“Your sarcasm aside, do you really mind?”
I still don't know if Steve was doing it on purpose or if it was purely by accident, but she started pouting at the mirror while saying this. I have to say that it was more disconcerting than anything else. So I nodded at her, and she began laying out the battle plan, all the while still staring at her reflection.
“Alright, first of all, I'm going to have to approach the target; I could probably use my one of my old fake student passes to get into her class...”
“You have one of you as a girl?”
“Of course I do; that isn't what she changed, Paul.”
Again, bizarre, but I probably should let her continue.
“Anyway, this probably constitutes a name change. Have any suggestions?”
She turned to look at me, and I quickly studied her face. I usually had an easy time attaching names to faces, so she always had come to me if she needed a rough guess at a name for her coursework. I then stared directly into her brown eyes for a straight minute; after all, you can't rush these things.
“Well, what do you think?”
“I'm thinking either Annette or Dana would work, with preference for the latter.”
“Alright, I'll go with Dana then. Well, It's getting a bit late, and we have tomorrow to plan, so... Can I kip on your couch?”
“Certainly, just let me get you a blanket.”
I left her by the mirror, and grabbed some wool blankets from out of the closet; I stayed away from the thicker ones, because it was nearing summer, after all. When I returned, Steve, or Dana, as I probably should get used to referring to her as, smiled over at me, and said,
“Thanks, Paul, your a sweetheart.”
And with that, she took the blankets from me, pecked me lightly on the cheek, and set off towards the couch, leaving me standing there rather confused, less from the fact that something like that had happened, but that it had felt so natural. I shrugged, and resolved to talk to Stev- Dana about it in the morning.
My suspicion is good ol' Correction.
A Quick Primer on Magic:
All magic almost follows the following greater rules:
Correction: Almost all spells are Corrective, meaning that once a spell is cast, it starts to alter reality in its general area to make itself less noticeable, additionally altering memory so that the affected begins to believe that changes caused by, and resulting from, spells are actually their real, true, original reality. For example, a spell that makes a certain person shine with light about as brightly as a candle will gradually alter the perceptions of those around him until he glows like that in every single memory he is in.
Irreversability: Almost all spells are Irreversable, meaning that they cannot be magically changed into their original form again. For example, if a spell changes a rock into a stick, the newly created stick can never be turned back into a rock that looks similar to that rock again.
Impermeability: Almost all spells are Impermeable, meaning that the more spells are on a given person or object, the harder it is for that person or object to be magically affected by any other spells. For example, a man with four spells in effect on his body would have a hard time being magically healed (which can be a good thing; due to Irreversability, healing magically is rather... imperfect.)
Surety: Almost all spells are Sure, meaning that the person who is affected by the spell will, for as long as the spell is affecting them, that they are under the effects of a spell, and which spell it is. This can lead to a variety of interesting situations, as Correction and Surety do not actively oppose each other.
Of course, resistance, immunity, and allergy to specific greater rules do exist; a person, in fact, might be 'allergic' to Surety (meaning that it has the opposite effect), immune to Correction (their memory never changes due to a spell, and spells cast on them do not alter reality and the memories of others), and resistant to Irreversability (someone attempting to change them back to their pre-spell form would be able to get the change-back to be closer than they normally could), for an example.
Of course, sometimes, at random, a given spell will not follow one of these rules, or follow one of them in unusually strong manner, or some such rule change; this is normal, and it actually quite surprising if a spell follows any of the above rules to the letter.
Next up, the lesser rules, or how a spell is formed.
To Visit an Old Friend
Grand Inquisitor Salvor deTerras sighed and sat back; being an inquisitor for the state was hard enough, but he had just had to sign the death warrant for the wife of one of his best friends, Fethas. Who would've known that she was a witch? If her next door neighbor hadn't seen her sing to her garden...
He shuddered slightly, and decided not to think too hard about it; that way led only to pain, because, after all, she had been submitted to the Test.
And had failed.
And that was the problem; how could he reconcile his views of his friend's sweet wife, knowing that the test was infallible. It had to be, because otherwise the thought of consigning all of those innocents to death...
He inhaled sharply, and walked over to the cabinet to get a drink, mentally thanking his friend Fethas for fixing up his leg; it was amazing what Fethas could do with just some thread and his knowledge of local herbs. If he hadn't come along after Salvor had been bitten by that adder, to draw out the venom... well, he would be down a leg. As it was, he just had a bit of a twinge on damp days; it was simply amazing.
As he was pulling the bottle out of its little cubbyhole, he smiled; it was a Gretin, from 15 years ago. That was a good year for that orchard; funnily enough, it had been a gift from Fethas...
Unbidden, Fethas' wife's face came to his mind; her lightly sunburned cheeks, her sun-bleached hair, just the hint of laugh lines starting to appear around her eyes and mouth...
He dropped the bottle, and sagged to the floor. It was too late; the order had been signed, and he could do nothing to stop her execution. He thrust her face from his mind, while he was leaning against the cupboard, the expensive wine soaking into his shirt-sleave; the test could not be gainsayed, and that was that.
After a few minutes, he stood up, and called in a servant, to clean up as well as he could. The servant bowed as Salvor left the room, going back to his business as an Inquisitor; he would have to visit Fethas sooner or later, but not now. Fethas was not a violent man, but he had loved his wife, and Salvor was afraid that he would be besides himself in rage. He remembered that one time, back on the Brandian campaign, when Fethas had begun to scream at the commander for ordering the court martial of one of the men under Fethas' care at the time; they could do without that kind of scene at the moment. Now was the time for clear thought, and obedience to the law, however unpleasant that may be.
***
Months passed, and the confrontation with Fethas never surfaced; Salvor was quite sure that he had calmed down by now. After all, Fethas had never been one to hold a grudge, and had undoubtedly seen the necesity of what he had done; how, without the sometimes-brutal guidance of the inquisitors, society would collapse. His wife's death was... needed, although no-one would have said that out loud.
So when he got a letter from Fethas, requesting that he come to his house as soon as his duties would permit, Salvor was not as worried about the situation as he would have been had the letter come earlier; indeed, he was hopeful that Fethas would be rational, and so they could talk over this situation, allowing Salvor to convey his deep regrets for how everything turned out.
And so, Salvor grabbed one of his older travel cloaks, and told his estate manager that he would not be gone for more than a day or two; with that comment, he went to the stables, saddled up his favorite horse, Thunder, and rode off to Fethas' home, a small cottage two hours outside of the capital city, and a full watch away from his own estates.
When he got there, it was approaching mid-day, with the mid-summer sun beating down on his head; he hitched Thunder to the rail in front of the cottage, and laid out some of the feed left for travellers. With that, he went up to the door of the cottage, and knocked, the door sounding out with a far more hollow sound than usual; he would have to get Fethas to get a new door, since this one seemed to be rotten in the center.
After a couple of heartbeats, Fethas answered the door, and Salvor saw that he was considerably worse for wear; he had thinned considerably in the months since he had last seen him, and his eyes had the bruised look of someone who had been crying for too long; this, combined with the traditional gray of a mourner, gave Salvor the momentary impression that he was looking at a corpse. But then Fethas smiled, and beckoned him to enter, and he shrugged, and followed his friend's gesture. It was odd, though; Fethas had always been a bit more pensive and quiet than most, but he usually at least said hello when he asked you to come in. And his smile had a little... something else in it, that Salvor could not fully identify.
Once he got inside, he saw that Fethas hadn't been cleaning up the cottage; a layer of filth and dust coated the floor, and cobwebs wreathed the windows and corners. But the chairs that Fethas had dragged in from the cellar were clean and in good repair, and the the table that he had brought in was clear, with a pair of chipped glasses and a bottle of cheap wine resting on top; it was obvious that Fethas had not been working lately, and that he would be living on the street soon.
Salvor cleared his throat, and said:
"What have you been doing lately, Fethas? It looks like a broken-down farmhouse in here; and what happened to all the furniture?"
"I had to sell it; my research has been taking up too much time to work, and I need to eat, somehow"
Fethas' voice was a creak, a whisper; no wonder he hadn't said anything earlier when letting him in.
"But enough talking about me; why don't we sit down and have a drink, for old times sake?"
Salvor couldn't agree more; Fethas did seem like he needed a little something for his voice, and he was thirsty enough after his ride that he didn't care about the quality of the wine.
So they sat down, and Fethas poured out the wine into the glasses; it was an odd color, and stained the sides of the glass where it touched. Salvor frowned at the glass, and told Fethas,
"You know, if you had asked in your letter, I could have brought something from my cellar; and why haven't you sent me a letter for money? It hurts me to see you in this state, you know."
"Don't worry; you've done enough for me already."
Salvor heard just a trace of sarcasm in his rasping voice; he sighed, knowing that Fethas still held some resentment. He reached for his glass, and took a sip.
Which he immediately spat out upon tasting blood in his wine.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Salvor almost shouted as he started to rise from his seat, his hand sweeping the glass away from himself in disgust.
"Sit down."
Fethas' voice wasn't a whisper anymore; it was a cold, hate-filled command, chilling Salvor's heart. And then Salvor felt his body start to curl up, until his arms were resting on the arms of the chair and his legs were next to the legs of the chair. Fethas made a small gesture with his fingers, a light flick outwards, and Salvor's arms and legs... exploded.
Razor-sharp flakes of bone shredded the flesh around them as they burst outwards, blood spraying out to cover the chair and Salvor himself, the agony of having his body so messily destroyed almost knocking him unconscious, and making him scream, and scream, and scream...
"Silence"
And then he felt his tongue tear itself in half lengthwise, detaching itself from the root and slithering to his lips, where it first stitched itself with agonising swiftness to the bottom lip, and then drawing his mouth shut, sealing his lips in a bind made from his own flesh. He felt his blood flow down his throat, running freely; he felt so weak that his unvoiced, muffled scream gave out...
"Oh, let's get you fixed up; and I'll need your senses for what's next."
Salvor felt the flesh of his arms and legs regrow and slither outward, coating the arms and legs of the table, using it as if it were his actual bones, binding him inescapably to his chair. He felt the bleeding, both in his mouth and in his limbs cease, and the pain receded to a dull ache pervading his entire body.
Fethas sat back in his chair, and smiled a half-smile, the smile of someone who had finally managed to complete a plan that he had been working on for a long time.
"I suppose you're wondering how or why I'm doing this," Fethas began, his voice growing gradually stronger, but still cold and hate-filled, "and it would be lax of me as a host to not tell you. After all", Fethas, without leaving his chair, gave a small bow, "I did invite you, didn't I."
"Did you really believe that I would let you get away with murdering my wife, that I wouldn't do anything to get back at you? She was never a witch, my old friend;" the mocking sarcasm in Fethas's voice when he said those words made Salvor shudder, an act that made his impromptu bones dig into the surrounding flesh, a fact that he didn't feel through the numbness,
"I was. Did you really think that any mere field surgeon could do what I could? I've brought so many people back from the edge of death that I have lost track, and I did it with my 'witchcraft', the little hedge magic that my grandmother taught me, and which I perfected.
Do you want to know what I've been researching, Salvor? I've been researching High Magic; no doubt that term means nothing to you. To put it in simple terms, hugh magic is simply a more extreme version of common, hedge magic, which is itself a more advanced version of a mundane skill; therefor, necromancy is to healing magic, as healing magic is to first aid."
Fethas must have seen the look of horror in Salvor's eyes, because he then continued, after taking a deep swig of the liquid in his wine glass, which stained Fethas' lips with a light layer of blood, and said,
"Surprised that I would mention necromancy? Well, it was only logical that I thought of healing the dead after you had my wife killed, isn't it? Surely, there have been sacrifices that I've had to make, and some... debts that I've accrued, but they are worth it."
Fethas rose from his chair, and walked over to Salvor and with a pair of fingers, closed Salvor's eyes, the eyelashes stitching themselves into his cheeks.
"And so, all that's really left for me is to go to storehouse where you stick the bodies; how dreadfully convenient for me that you don't cremate or throw the bodies away. I'll thank you for that later. Of course, I would probably be killed before I could cross the threshold, so I'll need an army of some sort; and you know what? I can make one, now."
Salvor heard Fethas walk in the direction of the door, and Fethas continued,
"Well, I'll have to leave you here to think about what you did; when someone comes to find you in, oh, three days, you'll be able to speak with them, don't you worry. And I've dealt with those nitpicky details, like your need to eat, drink, or sleep; you can thank me later. I want you to convey a message to whoever comes looking for you; Fethas is coming for his wife, and they should stand aside or die."
With that, Salvor heard the door open and shut, and felt the pain come back; unfortunately for him, he found that he didn't have nearly enough of a voice to scream, at least not yet.
They didn't find him for seven days, thanks to a letter that Fethas sent to Salvor's home, saying that his stay would be extended by a day or two.
Contacting the City
Light flowed under her skin; I knew that activating the device would be a bad idea, but I hadn't counted on the photonegative effect. Strike that, it isn't a photonegative; it's like her body is emitting all the light it would absorb, and vice versa. Her screams rend the anti-day as her hair falls out in an instant and streams of photons pool in her lungs, drowning her.
Why not me?
Why am I safe from this horrific death? Why, if I pushed the button, is she the victim?
Choking, she falls on the metal floor, and, even though it is blacker than blackest night in that room, I could see her phosphorescent skin slough off in places, and watched her bones, turned like magic to brass, grind their way through flesh as a hideous panoply of ill-conceived gears.
Her screams have stopped; slowly, almost cautiously, a choir of voices, of ravens and children, begin to speak about her, from all around me. They start slowly, increasing in volume as sin after sin is called out. And through this all, the brass continues to grow and shift, extending horrid constructions far past the boundaries of the room as I know it. I feel my legs become soaked, drenched in my wife's crimes; I pray for it to end.
And like that, it stops; the light returns to normal, and I see a city stretched before me, reflected in a lake of tears.
