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Treddeks or Pans brought their children to visit her.
The Mask was in her bedroom. She didn t look in the mirrors anymore, but she
knew its scars were there on her face, white patches like some sort of
disease. Her father didn t like to look at her with the
Mask off. Zdra, he was going to have to today whether he liked it or not.
I told him to come, I told him
I NEEDED to see him.
I will NOT live like this. I WILL not!
She touched her face, drew a fingertip across one of the dead spots as she
scowled up at the sun, her eyes squinted against the glare that hurt her more
and more each day she wore the Mask. He was supposed to be here by now, her
father was.
She walked faster until she was speeding through the trees, her robes
flailing against the trunks, gathering thorns and bits of bark, tears
burning in her eyes, her breath com-ing in harsh gasps. He wasn t coming. She
was Marn, she ordered him to come, but he wasn t coming.
She flung herself on the grass beside one of the garden fountains, brushed
impatiently at her eyes, and set herself to brooding over what she was going
to do about the cage she was in. And how she was
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going to punish her father.
When this thing began, she was scared but excited. At last she was going to
get out, get to do things.
All her life her father had kept her and her younger sisters penned in Nov
House with nurses following them everywhere; hers was a tall Harozhni woman
with a face like macai, a rigid sense of duty and no humor in her, not a
crumb. He wouldn t let them go to school or have friends to play with; they
had tutors and dance teachers and sewing teachers and art teachers and riding
teachers lessons and lessons and lessons ....
Back then, at least, she d had her sisters; they made up games, sneaked away
from their nurses, and had play par-ties in the attics and they could look at
each other when things got bad and know there was someone to stand with them.
There was no one to stand with Motylla, not any more. She had the
Mask and Mother Death and she hated both. And her father wouldn t come see
her, not even when she asked.
>>.
K vestmilly Vos twisted her mouth behind the Mask, but kept her silence as Pan
Osk scowled at the
Harozhni guard who was standing before the tribunal, his mouth in a straight
line, his eyes unfocused, not-listening to what was being said with a
passionate ferocity.
... and he came up to her and showed her money and said things to her I won t
foul my mouth with.
The big woman glared at the guard. And she came running to me, crying her
eyes out, poor baby, him strolling along behind her, grinning all over his
ugly face, and he tried to give ME money. Zdra, I tell you, I yelled for Sov,
my houseguard, you know, and he put a handgun in that pizh s back and held him
till the landguard they come, and that s the truth, all of it.
Pan Osk settled back in his chair. And you, what s your name?
I am the Trivud Throdal Ankar. He stood at attention, looking past Osk s
left ear; he had a light tenor voice that went badly with his battered warrior
look.
Harozhni.
Yes, tuhl Pan. All inflection had been leached from the words;
they had a surface smear of courtesy, but his anger was close to bursting
free.
K vestmilly chewed on her tongue, her mind scram-bling for a way out of this
impasse; she wanted
Heslin at her side, but that was out of the question. Her position was
delicate enough without putting extra strain on the fragile bonds that held
Osk and his people with her. This was the start of trouble, the first charge
against her men; there d been irritations before, but with a lot of talking
and showing the
Mask to remind these people that they were all Cadandri and facing a common
danger, she d got the rough spots smoothed over. If this thing exploded as it
showed signs of doing, it could blow them all out of here.
Osk glanced at her, giving her a chance to interfere if she chose to do so,
but she wasn t ready, so she gave a slight shake of her head. He turned back
to the Harozhni.
You re a visitor here, guard, and you re an officer; you should have the
sense to keep your cod tied and your mouth shut. Mad s Tits, what did you
think you were doing?
Heslin, Heslin, what would you do? Something side-ways, that s what,
something to defuse the situation. Turn them into jokes, those
provocateurs, get people laughing at them, that s what you said when my mother
died and the liars were whispering I did it. Get people laughing ... but how?
Not at
Throdal or that harpy, but at the situa-tion. Nik. Laughter s too tricky and I
haven t the touch. He has ...
was he born with it or ... saaa, this isn t the time. So what do I do, what in
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Zhag do I do?
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