SALICK STOPPED ON the stairs. More Banes were in the Hall today, and their sashes added a dash of colour to the grey stone halls. Just now, one shade, red, was predominant, and those wearing it were all moving towards the Dining Hall.
“Are you a Bane or a piece of furniture?” Vinir asked, and gave her a friendly push. The two of them were not due to patrol until nightfall, circling outside the Wall to make sure the demons were not returning after six days of blessed absence.
“What are the Reds up to?” Salick asked.
Vinir looked over her shoulder to see the last of them go through the entrance of the big room and shut the seldom-used doors. Several lesser Banes noticed this and looked at each other much as Salick and Vinir did now.
“Another meeting?” Vinir suggested. “Perhaps figuring out what we’ll all do if the demons never return—Heaven will it!”
“Heaven will it,” Salick echoed. “What would you do?”
Under Vinir’s gentle pressure, they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned towards the training halls.
“Back to weaving, I suppose. I must remember something of it. What about you?”
Salick didn’t answer, and her friend wisely stopped talking. She was spared the burden of further silence by the sight of Marick racing down the corridor towards them.
“Hey, stop there, you rascal!” Vinir called out, and the Blue skidded to a stop, pointedly avoiding Salick’s gaze.
“What is it?” he asked. “I have duties to complete!”
Vinir laughed. “Well, there’s a first time for all things, I suppose. Go on, you diligent Bane! But stop by later and tell me the news.”
Marick grinned as she tousled his hair. “I’ll find you later,” he said, and dashed off again.
The two Golds went into the smaller training room and took off their vests and sashes before warming up.
“Still on the outs with Marick and Dorict?” Vinir asked. She threw the end of a rope to Salick, and the two tried to wrest it from each other’s grip.
“I don’t care,” Salick grunted. Vinir was stronger than she was, but Salick refused to give up.
“You could apologize. To Garet, I mean,” Vinir said. With a heave, she collected both Salick’s end of the rope and Salick, who stumbled forward into her arms.
“That would fix everything, wouldn’t it?” she asked her captured friend.
Salick pushed away. She went over to the weapons rack and chose a heavy club. Slowly at first, then with some speed, she struck imaginary attackers with a fierceness that made Vinir step back.
When Salick paused to pant, the taller Gold chose a rope-hammer from a peg and stood in front of her.
“Maybe you should spar against this,” she said, swinging the missile end of the weapon in small circles at her side. “Since you seem to be fighting an invisible Garet!”
“And a too visible Vinir,” Salick muttered. She put the club back in its spot and left the room.
Vinir took no note of this, but kept swinging the heavy weight on its rope, watching it accelerate into a blur before letting it slow to a stop.
“How in Heaven’s name does Garet use this thing without killing himself?” she asked, then found she was talking to an invisible friend.
“I DON’T SEE it,” Taron said. The Red stood across from Branet, his face as red as his sash. “Six hundred years and they just stop? We need to patrol farther, leagues out if need be to find out what happened to them.”
Branet shook his head. He frowned at Taron and pointed to the ground at his feet. “And what if we are all out chasing shadows and the demons return to ravage the city? Have you thought of that, Master Taron?”
Relict stood up, anger in his voice as he spoke. “Attack from where, Hallmaster? Will they drop from the sky? They have gone somewhere, and Taron’s right. We must find out where they are!”
There was a murmur of support at that, until Branet glared it into silence. Tarix stood up, one hand raised for the room’s attention.
“It is only wise, Hallmaster, to investigate all possibilities. For example, has Lord Andarack perfected the spark device he used to broadcast emotions using a demon jewel? As I recall, you felt its power last Winter and praised his efforts. Perhaps he found a way to drive the demons off? Have you spoken to him?”
“No,” Branet said. “Would he not have told us if he had?”
“One speaks,” Taron said through gritted teeth, “only when there are ears willing to hear.”
Before Branet could protest, Bandat jumped up and spoke, waving an arm to include all the Masters in the room. “Why didn’t you tell us that the silkstone had been stolen from Andarack’s house?” she demanded. “Had we known, the appearance of the Masks would not have been so unexpected, and we might have been ready for them!”
“I will tell you what you need to know!” the Hallmaster shouted, and there was a surprised and resentful silence in the room.
Some of the Reds looked at each other. An older woman with a crooked back said, “That sounds much like Adrix used to talk, Hallmaster.”
“Chovan, it is my duty—” began Branet, but Relict cut him off.
“Yes, yes, we all have a duty to protect Shirath. Have you told the King about the Trader Chirat’s connection to the Masks? I informed you of Marick and Dorict’s report two days ago! Yet Taron patrolled in the Twelfth Ward yesterday and saw no evidence of arrests or searches by the King’s Guard.”
Branet’s only answer was a glower. As the noise rose again, he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
“What I don’t understand,” Taron said, “is why he hasn’t told the King. Surely he wants all the Masks locked up. Or worse!”
Chovan limped over to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Look deeper! He’s set himself between a Basher and a Bull Demon, our Hallmaster has. If the Masks are arrested, he must ask for their exile, or else he’ll seem weak.”
“Not to me!” Tarix said, and the others nodded in agreement.
“Nor to me,” Chovan said, “but maybe to himself, and a man who lives in fear fears that most of all. The King will surely by Heaven refuse this time, and the people will back him. You know what’s been said to us on patrol! Branet is wary of starting something he knows is beyond his control, and that’s why he has not told the King.”
“Yet the King must be informed,” Relict said, and the assembled Masters began to discuss this in groups of two and three around the Masters’ dais in the hall. Argument turned to discussion, and then to agreement. Chovan looked around the room, catching each Master’s nod.
“Well, that’s settled. Now who will we send?”
Relict and Tarix looked at each other, and Tarix sighed in surrender.
“I hate to reward that scamp for worrying me half to death,” she said.
“As you used to worry me,” Chovan said, eyebrows raised. “Though, if I think back, it was much more than half!”
TWO DAYS AFTER being sent to dig through the records of the Fifth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Wards, Garet arrived at the Palace to meet with other agents and Captain Bixa. He was directed to the Shouting Room, a large study furnished with a great, round table and many uncomfortable chairs. Barick told him this would be the likeliest place for his meeting, and Garet had not escaped the Historian without first hearing a story about it.
The Shouting Room was actually called The Room of Harmonious Discussion, but no one referred to it as that, not even the King, or so Barick claimed. It was the room where Shirath’s King met delegations from the Wards, the Guilds, and the other cities. Any such meeting was bound to end in argument, hence the unofficial name.
Garet had no intention of shouting at anyone, but he feared that the others might not be so quiet when he presented his theory. The Captain was already standing by the table, drawing one finger over a map of the Wards worked into its marble surface with gold and silver inlays. Beside him were Garet’s fellow agents, or at least the only ones he had so far met.
“All right, here’s Garet, and Shula behind him,” Bixa said. “Let us start.”
She pulled a list from a stack of papers beside her and scanned it while the others took seats around the table. “Two days of watching seven places, and what do we have? Nothing! Shula, what is your thinking on the Fifth Ward and Sacourat?”
The round woman who had come in after Garet shrugged. “She’s too busy currying favour. She’d have given me tea and cake if she’d known I was a King’s agent. No, it’s not her.”
The other two agents nodded, and Garet belatedly did the same. There had been nothing in the recent records of that Ward to suggest Sacourat was behind the Masks.
Bixa grunted. She dipped a pen and crossed a name off her list. “Well then, Cheza, what do you say of Kirel and Gost?”
A rangy man with one vacant eye stood up and looked around the table. “We all know Gost is capable of this. He runs that Ward like he was the Lord, and Kirel doesn’t even notice. His wife might be in on it though. Lady Kaela is nobody’s fool. Problem is, nothing odd is going on there. The only difference of late is that big Chief of Guards, Maroster, his name is. He hasn’t been around for a few days.”
“Could be sick or out of favour with Gost,” Bixa said. “All right, Salorex, what have your subordinates found in the Twelfth Ward?”
An older man stood and smiled at the Captain. He looked like a shopkeeper in his last years, but his eyes were as sharp as a bird’s. “We have three names you were concerned with: Lord Sharock’s son, Tarock; Chirat; and Toovad. The last two are the heads of major trading families. I’m afraid we found nothing out of the ordinary.”
He turned to Garet and smiled at him, a smile that did not touch his eyes. “Perhaps our new agent can find something odd for us to investigate.”
Bixa snorted. “Unlikely. He’s been looking through Ward records with Barick.”
Cheza laughed and rubbed at his blind eye. “That fat fool? One lucky strike with a sword and he thinks he’s a hero! Mark my words, boy, there’s no sense in listening to old Barick.”
Garet found himself raising his voice, though he had promised himself not to. “Barick is no fool! And it is with his help that I found something.”
Shula looked up from fanning herself with a sheaf of papers. Her eyes were no less sharp than the others, but she had no malice in her voice. “What is it? Did you find something interesting? Something out of the ordinary in all those scrolls and ledgers?”
Garet pushed forward the papers stacked before him. They represented two full days and evenings of research by both himself and Barick. “Not out of the ordinary, but interesting all the same. Chirat has been buying large amounts of building material. He started last year, just after the death of Master Mandarack and the Caller Demon.”
These men and women looked wary at the word, but Salorex laughed, a flinty sound from such a kind looking old man.
“Rubbish, boy. The word is that Chirat’s warehouse needed repairs. That’s why he bought timber and such.”
Bixa smiled and began to speak, but Garet held up his hand.
“Perhaps that is what he said, but the amount of material he bought is enough to rebuild the entire warehouse twice over, and he owns only half of it, according to the deeds. What is interesting is that the Fifteenth Ward has delivered wagon after wagon of ten-foot timbers to Chirat’s warehouse, and it has all disappeared inside.”
“To what purpose?” Shula asked, and glanced at an astounded Salorex and Cheza.
Garet shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I only know that it doesn’t make sense. If I were forced to guess, I’d say he was building something big, either within the building or below it, perhaps a place for the Masks to hide and train.”
Bixa sat down. After a moment she circled a name on her list.
“The Masks were using that forest station to train,” Cheza said. His one eye was fixed on Garet as if they faced each other with swords on the training grounds.
Garet took a deep breath. The memory of a dream and Dorict’s altered voice came back to him, saying “you must learn to play the game!” over and over. Well, he was tired of games. Cheza and the others might see him as a threat, but he had no such ambition. He looked across at Bixa.
“That was to train with the demon’s jewel, something that had to be done far away so as not to attract the attention of the Banes,” he said. “But they weren’t out there all winter, for much cutting is done at that time of year when the logs may be skidded over the snow. Is that not true?”
Shula nodded. “It makes sense, though I’m thinking it’s not a training room, but a tunnel he’s built!”
Garet turned to her, and she laughed at his expression of wonder.
“Hah! I’m surprised this escaped you. Consider, what if Chirat is aligned with Gost and Kirel? We’ve all suspected it, but had no proof because they were never seen together. If a tunnel connected the Lord’s compound in the Thirteenth Ward . . .” She rose and pointed to that spot on the map, a collection of four towers joined by walls that protected Lord Kirel’s house. “. . . And came up into Chirat’s side of this warehouse,” she added, and pointed again. “Then they might conspire in secret, move people and goods, silkstone even, if they wanted.”
Captain Bixa nodded. “Then we must find the end of the tunnel in the Thirteenth Ward before we raid Chirat’s warehouse. How can we do so without raising Gost and his guards against us?”
“I might know of a way, Captain,” Garet said. “Banehall patrols might be used to search it out since they come and go at will. You could send a message to the Hallmaster asking for his help.”
“I will do so,” Bixa said. “Cheza and Salorex, concentrate on the area around Kirel’s house. Look for any signs of digging.” She almost ran from the room, probably to tell Trax of this development.
The two agents nodded to Shula and left the room, passing by Garet without acknowledgement.
“Those two hold grudges,” Shula said, pausing to help him gather up his papers. “I’d watch my back if I were you. They make bad enemies.”
“What about you?” Garet asked. “Are you a friend or an enemy?”
She handed him the last ledger and laughed. “Both? Neither? I’m just here to do the King’s bidding and keep the human demons from the door. An unlucky word, but all too true for the likes of Gost.”
Garet asked, “Do you think he is really behind this?”
Shula fanned herself again. “I wish they would open the windows. Of course, this being the Shouting Room, they’re all nailed shut! If Gost is in charge, that might explain why that giant Maroster is missing.”
“Do you believe him to be in this tunnel?” Garet asked.
“Or buried under it! If Gost is the one we seek, well, he’s not a forgiving man, and things have gone badly for the Masks of late. They’ve lost their field commander, and now their very reason for existence has disappeared. If it’s Gost! But he is the smartest person on Bixa’s list, and therefore the most likely. However,” she added and winked at Garet, “you’re pretty smart yourself. Maybe it’s you who’s behind the Masks!” And she cackled all the way out into the hallway.
GARET WAS STILL in the room when a steward came in.
“Two Banes to see you,” she said, managing to sound both annoyed and gratified to be delivering such a message to such a man.
His breath caught, and he rushed to the anteroom where he had once waited with Salick, hoping that she would be there again.
“Oh, it’s you two,” he said when he opened the doors.
“How rude! And I thought distance was supposed to bring true friends closer,” Marick said.
Beside him, Dorict rolled his eyes. “Perhaps he should move back to the Midlands or to the Southern Deserts. He could leave us another note when he goes.”
The Blue’s tone was scathing, and Garet blushed. The meeting he had longed for had been replaced by the one he had dreaded.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I had no choice! Shirin’s exile forced my hand, and you two weren’t around. That was probably for the best, since you would have tried to talk me out of it.”
He backed up and sat down in one of the spindly chairs set against the wall, a chair that was probably not meant to be sat in, since it creaked alarmingly.
Dorict’s shoulders unstiffened a bit, and he shrugged. “What makes you think we would have bothered to try? You can be just as stubborn as Salick when it comes to your principles. Nobility must be such a burden!”
“I wasn’t trying to be—” Garet began, but Marick interrupted.
“You’re right,” he said, punching Dorict in the shoulder. “He’s just like her, at least that’s what we told her the other day.” He went over to a bowl of artful ceramic fruit to see if they were detachable.
“Did she send you?” Garet asked, allowing a little bit of hope to creep into his tone.
Dorict relented and shook his head. He put a hand on Garet’s shoulder, but retracted it quickly when the chair creaked even more.
“No,” Marick said, “I’m afraid she is still angry that you left. Tarix sent us to tell you what we found in the Twelfth Ward, since Branet refuses to. The Masters are ready to spit fire over his handling of this, though none have put themselves forward as a replacement, even though I—”
Dorict stomped a booted foot on the polished tiles. “Quiet, you fool. Tarix told you she’d toss you from the Outer Wall if you tried to make her Hallmaster by your tricks! And put that apple back in the bowl.”
He turned to Garet. “Chirat is the one you want. He’s a trader in the Twelfth. The carter who took the Masks out to that logging station works for him.”
Garet stood up, and the chair groaned, perhaps in relief.
“That falls well within what we already suspected. Please thank Master Tarix for me. I must go and report this.”
He made to leave, but Marick stopped him. “Wait, you fool! How can we go back unless we know what’s going on? Information for information, that’s a fair trade, isn’t it?”
Garet looked over to Dorict. The Blue nodded.
“Tarix will want to know,” he said.
Garet thought for a moment. He looked to the doors of the anteroom, wondering who might be listening just outside.
“Let me talk to Captain Bixa and perhaps the King, if he will see me.”
“And why would he not?” Marick said, juggling three of the bright apples. “Especially when you look so important in those new clothes. What a marvelous coat, and is that a sword I see on your belt?”
Garet blushed again. He knew his new clothes were far more costly than a Bane’s uniform.
“You even have a new sash?” Marick added, pointing at the narrow baldric that ran from Garet’s shoulder to his belt.
“That’s to keep my sword from falling down,” he said.
Marick laughed, almost dropping an apple, saving it from shattering by catching it on the top of his boot like a street juggler in the market.
“Put those back,” Dorict said. He bent over to rescue the threatened apple and carefully put it in the bowl. He came for the other two, but Marick held one out of reach.
“Vinir wants the news later. I’ll save this one for her to see if she tries to bite it!” he said.
Dorict threw up his hands. “Will you send a message to the Hall?” he asked Garet.
“Stay here,” Garet said, and left them arguing about artificial apples and appropriate behaviour in a palace.
When he returned, Marick was planted in a chair, which did not creak under the little Bane’s weight, and Dorict stood in front of him, arms crossed as if daring him to try and get up.
“I talked to the Captain, and she talked to the King. Please tell Master Tarix and Hallmaster Branet that two representatives from the Banehall should present themselves here tomorrow as the sun rises. They can come along when we raid Chirat’s warehouse. Is that a fair trade?”
Dorict nodded, but Marick slipped around his larger friend to answer. “Only if I’m one of the two, since I’m the one who found out—ow! Dorict, let go of my ear!”
“Good luck tomorrow, Garet,” Dorict said, and led his protesting partner out the door.
Garet sighed and made to sit down on Marick’s chair, then thought better of it. He was tired of meetings and contentious plans. Perhaps he would go to the market and buy some of Torfor’s buns and sit a while with the peaceable old man.
He went out the kitchen gate to avoid the cold stares of the door steward and the colder stares of the guards. He might be a mysterious irritation to them, but he was only a brief annoyance to the cooks.
The air had the freshness that comes after spring storms wash all the smoke and stink from the air. Above him, the dome of Heaven shone blue, and marriage bells rang from the temple. People were everywhere today, for the demons had disappeared and peace had come to the city for the first time in six hundred years.