Pierrot's Song

Chapter 6 - Echoes Underground-1

Chapter 6 Echoes UndergroundAround the table the Council members nodded. The woman stood. ‘I will not stay to watch this. She is right. Everything she says is right. We have gone beyond the bounds of our role. I can’t do any of this anymore.’ She hurried from the room.

The Creator representative stood and came to stand beside Mina. ‘No one remembers the past.’ There was an odd note of regret in his voice. ‘But before we discuss your sentence,’ he continued, ‘I have managed to discover the identity of a young man who stole something meant for me. It turns out he is one of the Gazini Players. I paid a lot of money for this item. A gold mask.’

Mina turned her head away to hide her surprise, but she was not fast enough.

‘Ah ha! You have seen it.’ He turned to the others. ‘I need to discuss this matter with Mina. As well as other matters. Leave us for now.’

‘But the sentence …’ Hatchet-voice protested.

‘I promise you, when that occurs, you will be able to watch. I know how much you enjoy it. Now leave.’ His voice echoed with command.

The other members of the Council quickly emptied the room.

‘Now, Mina,’ the Creator representative said at last, ‘I need you to tell me where that mask is.’

Mina stared back at him, reaching for Tarya to make her eyes blaze as she had earlier. The man in front of her let out a dry laugh.

‘That’s a pretty trick,’ he said. ‘Definitely not Arcani, just illusion. I used to use it myself, a long time ago. Then I learned others I liked better.’

With a swift movement he grasped his cloak, unclasped it and swirled it aside, standing before her in a red doublet and leather hose. His face was concealed by a red mask, crudely made, with eyes slanted like a cat, and black paint roughly highlighting its features. It looked like someone’s first, poor attempt at mask-making. It was not what she had been expecting at all from Jal’s descriptions. Behind the mask, his own eyes glowed red.

‘I see you know who I am.’

Mina took a step back. ‘Ellechino. The Red Assassin.’ She shook her head. ‘Not the real one though. Sofia said he was around years ago. You’re the one who killed Jal’s friend.’

Ellechino nodded. ‘You’re well informed. Did he tell you what I did? I believe he witnessed it.’

Still retreating, Mina found herself up against the wall.

‘No answer? Does this mean you don’t want to talk about it, or you don’t want to know?’

Even as she searched her mind for a way out, fear threatened to overwhelm her when Ellechino’s face, mask and all, began to elongate, a long snout and sharp teeth emerging swiftly. When he spoke though, his voice, now only in her head, was unchanged.

‘All you need to do is tell me the whereabouts of the gold mask, and this will all go away.’

What was the purpose of the gold mask? She had known from the moment Jal described seeing another place through its eyes that it was important, and this demand only confirmed her conclusion, but Mina doubted he would tell her what it had been created for, so she asked the other question that sprang to mind, even in the face of her fear.

‘How long have you worked for Mourini?’

The wolf’s snout split into a terrifying snarl. ‘We have been close for a long time. This is a good game. I answer your question, then you answer mine. Afterward, dinner.’

Mina shuddered at his tone but held her back straight as he leaned in close and whispered, ‘Where is the mask?’

The smell of rotting meat was overwhelming. Mina turned her head away.

‘Wrong answer,’ Ellechino said. In an instant, fur covered the remains of the red mask as his entire head was transformed into that of a wolf. Then he opened his great jaw, revealing pointed yellow teeth, and howled.

~

Amora gave up and slid the sugar bowl across to Dario. It had been a mistake to tell the others she could handle him while they went off on their search for Mina. Not because he was doing anything particularly problematical, but because he reminded her too much of Peter. She had only been able to visit her husband once in Souls’ Rest. His wandering mind had been too deep a stab to the heart. Her clever, articulate husband was so changed now he might as well be gone forever. And this young man was the same, lost in babble and a fascination with meaningless things. What was going on that so many were being changed this way? It was as if they were sucked dry of all thought and drive, trapped in the maze of their minds.

Dario took the lid off the sugar bowl and peered inside before picking it up. He stuck his nose in the sugar, sniffing, then sneezed. He scooped up some sugar and began trickling it through his closed fist onto the table.

Amora let him be. If it kept him amused, that was well and good. She padded over to the cupboard and mixed them both a rose cordial, then hunted for the soft aniseed biscuits that were her speciality. Only a few remained, but then her son was home, and it was always hard to keep a stocked pantry with Jal in the house.

Amora was just setting the cordials on the table when a rabid pounding began at the front door. She tapped Dario on the shoulder and pointed to the cordial, then hurried to see what was going on.

Three guards stood outside, their tabards marked with the seven-pointed star of the palace. Behind them a crowd had gathered, curiosity aroused no doubt by the noise. Amora began to chastise the guards for their rudeness, but they pushed past her and into the house. With a last glance at the watchers on the street, Amora shut the door.

‘What are you doing?’ she shrilled.

They ignored her as each charged into a different room and, by the sounds they were making, began dismantling the house. She checked Dario, to make sure he wasn’t upset. He was still slowly dribbling sugar onto the table. Then she went into Jal’s room, where one of the guards had thrown the bedding on the floor and was now opening the chest that held her son’s few belongings.

‘This is outrageous!’ she snapped. ‘You have no right to come in here and do this. Stop it at once.’

The guard ignored her, rummaging through the chest and throwing items out. Once he’d emptied it, he stood and scanned the room.

Amora planted herself in front of him. ‘The guards of Aurea don’t behave like this. Look at me. Look at me!’

He met her eyes finally. But he overrode her unspoken words before she could begin. ‘You have people staying with you. One of them stole something that belongs to the royal family. Under the circumstances we have the right to recover it.’

Her heart dropped. They had to be referring to Peter’s beautiful dancer statue, taken by Jal from a secret storeroom under the palace. It sat on the windowsill in the kitchen now, because she couldn’t bear for it to be hidden away again.

‘You won’t find anything,’ she muttered. ‘I need to check on Dario.’

She scurried back to the kitchen, leaving them to their destructive search. Dario was still absorbed with his sugar trails. In the window, the little statue was bathed in golden sunlight. Amora reached for it, already planning how to get it to the one hiding place these men would never find. Ever cautious, Peter had insisted they have a secret cupboard in the workshop for large sums of money once his business started to do very well. It was set into the back of a cabinet filled with the various tools and liquids Peter used for his work. Jal had shown it to his friends when they arrived so they could hide two masks and a book inside. One mask was simple leather, like a player mask but more realistic. Amora didn’t see its value, or the need to hide it away, but the other was an intricate piece wrought in gold, which would be worth an enormous amount. And books were always rare and expensive. This one had looked particularly old.

‘Nothing here,’ a guard announced, then strode into the kitchen.

Amora felt her skin flush as she let her hand drop away from the statue and turned to face him, trying to position herself so he wouldn’t see the windowsill behind her.

One of the others entered the room behind him. ‘I haven’t found anything either.’

‘We might have to try another method,’ the third declared, staring at Amora. The three approached her.

She turned and snatched the statue from the window, clutching it against her heart. ‘Please, it’s all I have left of him. Why take it and hide it away? It is doing no harm.’

They looked from her to the statue in confusion. For a sustained moment no one spoke. Then the guard closest to Dario turned to watch him draw a careful finger through the sugar and nudged the guard next to him.

‘He’s the one we should be asking.’

The three of them stood over Dario, staring at the table. Amora pushed through them to see what they were looking at. She was so captivated by what she saw, she lay Peter’s statue down on the table without thought. Outlined on the table was a delicate mask. Clusters of sugar formed tiny leaves interspersed with berries. Outside the mask outline trails of sugar swirled away across the table.

Swiftly one of the men seized Dario and pulled him up by the front of his shirt. ‘Where is it?’

Dario whimpered. Another guard pointed at the sugar picture. ‘This! You’ve seen it. Where is it hidden?’

‘Leave him alone!’ Amora snapped, pulling Dario away. ‘Can’t you see he’s simple?’

The third guard picked up the marble statue and turned it in his hands. ‘All you have left of who? Doesn’t matter. Tell me where the mask is.’ Then he smiled and lifted the statue high, before bringing it down fast toward the table.

‘No!’ Amora cried.

At the same time he halted his hand, just before the statue hit. ‘Where?’ he asked again, raising the statue once more. ‘Last chance.’

Amora whispered a silent wish for forgiveness to the Creator, and her son. She opened her mouth to tell the men about her husband’s secret safe, but before she could speak, she heard the bang of the front door. Jal had returned. By the sounds of things, so had all his friends. Her heart leaped with hope.

The kitchen door swung open and Jal surveyed the room. Amora didn’t need to signal her distress to him. He took in the situation immediately.

‘What in the Creator’s name are you doing threatening an old woman and a simple man? Get out of my mother’s house before I throw you out.’

Amora looked past him. She could see the storyteller, Sofia, in the hallway, but not the other players, Luka, Lisette, and Paolo. Her hopes fell as she realised Jal and his companions wouldn’t outnumber the guards.

‘Jal Fiorillo?’ the man holding the statue asked, his voice high-pitched with surprise. ‘Jal! It’s Matteo. We went to school together.’ He set the statue down on the table and strode over to clasp Jal’s hand and clap him on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t realise this was your place. I’m sorry to do this, Jal. We’ve been sent by the Council. Orders, you understand.’

Jal brushed Matteo’s hand from his shoulder with a look of disdain. ‘What orders?’

‘Really, I’m so sorry. But we’ve been told there’s a gold mask here, of absolute value to the Council. We can’t leave until we have it.’

Sofia walked into the room, her natural authority changing the mood straight away. The guards stepped back, giving her the respect due a storyteller. Amora took the distraction as an opportunity to remove Dario from the situation. He was trembling. She led him into Jal’s room and set the bedding to rights, then encouraged him to sit. She placed one finger to her lips.

‘It will be okay. These men will be gone soon. You wait here while Jal and I get them to leave. Okay?’

Tenderly she brushed hair from his handsome face. He nodded. In the chest at the end of Jal’s bed she found an old bag of marbles. When she left the room, he was lying on his stomach on the floor, sorting the marbles by colour.