27. Making Faces

10th of Dema

I was in my cabin, reading, when Captain Deironos announced that land had been sighted, and that we would be anchoring offshore for the night and sailing into the bay in the morning. 

Two days ahead of schedule, by my count.

Which left only a day before we would leave the security of the Coralynne and I would have to start parading around on Braeton's arm. In public. Where anyone could see.

My stomach tightened into a queasy knot. Braeton insisted he had a plan. He hadn't told me what that plan was, yet, though, only that he had a secret weapon. That had been followed by a secretive smile, and nothing else on the subject.

I let out my breath, rolled my shoulders and tried to go back to reading.

A few minutes later, Braeton tapped at my open cabin door. He jerked his head toward the deck when I looked at him. "Come on out. I want you to meet someone." 

Surprised, I put down my book and got up, wondering how there could possibly be anyone I didn't know yet on the ship. 

Braeton smiled even more and led the way to the port side rail. 

A small one-masted fishing goonter was approaching the Coralynne, its lone occupant manning both the tiller and the guideline for the sail. 

I glanced at Braeton, but he just smirked mysterious and kept watching the goonter as the fisherman drew alongside the Coralynne's hull with an impressive show of skill.

Whoever it was, he knew his way around personal sailing. I squinted against the late afternoon sun, but all I could make out was a tall, lean figure wearing a hooded, sleeveless jacket and a pair of ragged denims. 

There was some back and forth between the fisherman and the crew as they tied the smaller vessel on, and the deckhands dropped a boarding ladder over the side. Then the fisherman hoisted a large knapsack, scaled the rungs, climbed over the rail near where Braeton and I were standing, and landed on the deck with a graceful bounce. 

With a sudden, raucous crow of delight, Braeton stepped forward, arms wide, a big grin on his face that instantly transformed him from lordling to pirate. 

The fisherman let out a low, husky laugh, and returned Braeton's fierce hug with the arm not holding the knapsack, slapping his back open-handed. 

Chuckling, Braeton broke away and turned to face me, his arm draped across the fisherman's shoulders in a brotherly manner. "Pendar Tarastrian, allow me to introduce Marin Ryker."

The fisherman wasn't a man. A woman of about thirty looked down at me from under the knitted hood of her jacket, her smile flashing white in a strong Ronyran face. She stood every bit as tall as Braeton, and wore her hair cropped as close as a soldier. Her laughter quieted as she got a look at me, and she tilted her head, her amber eyes narrowing to a squint. "This is her?" 

I glanced at Braeton. "Her who?" 

Marin ignored me, tugged free of Braeton's arm, and proceeded to prowl around me, looking me up and down. When she came back to stand next to Braeton, she crossed her arms over her spare chest and lifted one hand to her mouth, worrying her lower lip with her thumbnail, clearly doing calculations in her head. 

Braeton was watching her as though waiting for some sort of verdict. 

"It'll be tough, getting her to pass up close, but... I love a challenge," she said, finally. "You don't get sick on eggs, do you?"

That last was aimed at me. Thoroughly stumped, but not surprised at all by the way this was going, I shook my head. 

Marin bent and hauled her knapsack up off the deck. "Well then let's get started."

~~~

Water sluiced over my scalp, finally running clear as Marin rinsed the last of the coloring treatment out of my hair. With a grunt, she put down the rinse bucket and began wrapping a clean towel around my head, twisting and wringing my hair dry, her touch efficient to the point of being rough. After a fourth eye-watering yank, I growled "ouch," and snatched the towel from her.

Across the ship's kitchen, Braeton drummed his fingers on the prep table and glanced pointedly at the timekeep for the fourth time in the last half hour. 

Marin caught him. "Don't worry, they'll be here."

Straightening, I eased the ache in my back from bending over the scullery sink, then began blotting my hair dry while trying not to look at it too closely. There was no avoiding it, though. Even from the corner of my eye, I could tell it wasn't dark brown anymore. It was a great deal lighter, and there was a definite coppery tint to it, even wet. The knot in my stomach winched up a little more. 

Braeton raised an eyebrow. "I hate to ask, but are you absolutely sure about them?" 

Marin gave him a long look over her shoulder, calmly washing the bowl she had used to mix the hair treatment. "You haven't been here in the last six months. A lot has happened. Yes, I'm sure. I wouldn't have recommended them if I wasn't." 

After a moment, Braeton heaved a sigh and nodded.

"You can take a break, filla," Marin said, offering me a small smile as she moved back to her work bench. "I won't need you again until I've got the rough done." 

I sat down in the chair beneath the washroom's porthole window and watched her potter about with the things that had been in her knapsack: jars of liquids and powders, various brushes and rags, boxes of cosmetics and swatches of human hair. There was even a portfolio of features and skin colors arranged by region, all tools of the peculiar trade of Facemaker. According to Braeton, Marin was the best Facemaker in the Coalition. She waved away his words when he said that, but there was no doubt she knew what she was doing. Everything she brought out of that knapsack was well-used, and she set it all up with an economy that spoke of practice. 

Her first order of business had been making sets of new papers for Arramy and I. Arramy had been released after his sylvographs were done and had gone back to packing up the armamentary. I, however, had been made to sit through six different sessions, with different clothes and hairstyles for each. Then Marin had spent the better part of an hour sketching and comparing my features to Tettian women in her portfolio. An hour later, a mask of translucent rubber was curing on a form she had cast from a mold of my real face. 

She fished a candle out of her bag, lit it, and brought the flame close to the surface of the rubber, warming it till it was soft. Then she began adding subtle pigmentation, injecting it beneath the surface of the rubber with tiny needles. Shades of delicate pink and apricot, the barely there blue of blood vessels above the eyes, a brown mole near the mouth, a smattering of freckles over the nose. She even added delicate red-brown eyebrows and a new coppery hairline from her swatches of hair, knotting and planting each strand through the rubber, trimming them with a razor. When she was done, the mask looked freakishly like a human face without eyes or lips.

"Alright," she said, peeling the finished product off the mold. She waved a hand at me, indicating that I should come back over and sit on the bench under the gas lamp. 

With a sigh, I got up and took a seat. 

Braeton came to stand behind Marin, peering over her shoulder as she pulled up her three-legged stool, and began applying glue to the inside of the mask with a small felt brush. She didn't say anything, but took care to show me which glue, and how much to slather on. Then she had me position the mask on my face, making me feel where the nose and the eyebrows were supposed to go, muttering, "like so," when I got it right. 

The last step in my transformation was a layer of thick paint to blend the delicate edges of the rubber into the surface of my skin, and a special mix of heavy cosmetics to hide the difference between my natural olive complexion and the blushing apricot of the mask.

Braeton was shaking his head when she finally stopped painting, his hand at his mouth, his expression awestruck. "Amazing. Utterly amazing... she looks like a completely different person." 

Marin clamped her cosmetics brush between her teeth and rummaged in her knapsack, coming out with a piece of mirror. 

I hesitated. First my hair, now my face. Even though it was for a good reason, and would probably save my life, I still had to make myself look.

A winsome Tettian waif stared back at me, exquisite features framed by a cascade of rich coppery blonde curls. My eyes were the only thing Marin hadn't changed. She could have if she wanted. She had augmentation syringes and dyes in her toolbox, but it took too long to heal afterward, so my brown Edonian eyes stayed as they were. I couldn't decide if that made it more or less disturbing that they were looking out of a stranger's face. 

Marin leaned closer, ducking into my line of sight, her expression serious. "This is just a shell. A pretty Pendar shell. Don't forget that," she said. Then she squinted. "The glue will hold quite well for several hours, but you have to reapply it if it gets wet. No rubbing or wiping your mouth after you eat, either. Dab only. And if it starts itching you can't scratch at it." 

I had almost thought she was going to tell me I was still me underneath the mask, but why would she? She wasn't the one sitting in my chair. With a grim smile, I nodded. 

"Right," Marin said softly. Then she gave my knee a firm pat. "Now we need another Travel Bureau sylvo."