Summer 971 VC
I had not known, until I found it written in his will, that Maris Pello had named me heir to his House and estate. It should have been little surprise, then, that I had not known what that inheritance entailed. I had known that there was an estate, where Maris had left the greatest extent of his library, and from the coffers of which some of the amenities he continued to enjoy had been paid. I had not known, not even imagined, that with the estate came a household whose upkeep was now my responsibility.
Maris Pello had never married or sired children. Other branches of his family had been more productive, but not nearly so successful or so long lived. One way and another, he’d had four youths under his care when he had been driven into exile almost fifteen years ago. Our former master’s first apprentice, Prima Ignata, had managed the estate and the cousins as best she could in Maris’ absence, but his exile had damaged the House’s reputation and her own. There had been only so much that she could do, and she seemed glad to turn the responsibility over to me.
The oldest of my new charges was in his thirties: Telemachos Pello, a slight and serious man who had done all he could to reverse the fortunes of his house, but to little avail. His small business ventures had slowed the draining of the house coffers, but never reversed it. The youngest, Maya, was the age Elana had been when we’d first met: grown, but not quite yet of legal majority. Iphigeneia and Valencia were somewhere in between. All four had studied the wizard’s manuals my master had left in their care, with varying degrees of success. Prima had overseen and guided those studies, but none of the cousins had the drive or impertinence to wear the Black Mask; nor had they been able to secure apprenticeship in another order, nor another trade, nor even marriage.
Our first meeting, when the minister Elana’s seneschal had found for me had first brought me to the estate, had been tense. They’d gotten word of Maris’ death and my coming more than two years ago; now, I was nearly two years late in arriving, with no word of my fate or intention in between. At the same time, I came bearing the favor of the new emperor and, with it, a real chance at better prospects for trade and marriage and even apprenticeships. I was not certain, yet, what they could mean for me and my future.
The estate was small compared to some I had seen in my time as one of the Prince’s Fighters, but it was still as large as or larger than my own family’s compound. Two stories tall, the ground floor consisted of two interior courtyards with rain pools atop subterranean cisterns, a kitchen and four storerooms, three common rooms including a great hall for hosting, and Maris Pello’s office. The upper level boasted two suites of interconnected rooms joined by a common hall that also gave access to the somewhat neglected rooftop garden. In addition to my new cousins, the estate also came with two retainers, two ugly yellow dogs, three mismatched cats, and all the detritus left over from more than a decade’s worth of failed business ventures, artworks in various stages of completion and decay, and the material possessions and mementos that humans accumulated obsessively.
Making room for myself, Rrii`aa, and Derrek had been an adventure. Elves are accustomed to space, and Derrek was accustomed to solitude. The Pello cousins were accustomed to their own space, and a degree of independence so much greater than their peers that it almost made up for the neglect. Though there was, with work, more than enough space in the estate for everyone, it was an uncomfortable adjustment for all of us. But adjust we did.
Now, almost two months since Elana’s coronation ceremony, sitting in my office and looking out at the moonpool in my courtyard, I was getting to where I could imagine it as home. At least for a while; for however long I stayed in Vencar City. Rrii`aa was in the City meeting a client, or perhaps by now meeting other Sisters in the elven quarter. Derrek was on the roof, ostensibly reading a monograph but more likely napping in the sun; since he’d first woken from his coma after abdicating the Rorgoth Throne, he had rarely slept through the night without waking up screaming or sobbing. I could hear my newfound charges moving about the house, though I could not yet identify them consistently by their gaits.
I had not presented myself at the Citadel of the Black Mask until I was well settled into the estate. That timing had not been entirely deliberate, but it had been, I think, for the best. I’d begged Aeginana Horae and Prima Ignata to ask discreetly on my behalf when and how such an appearance might be well received. Those negotiations had taken time. So had the several “informal” interviews with various representatives of the order, to whom I had presented Maris Pello’s letters of introduction and recommendation, and recounted politically expedient versions of my adventures since his death. Meanwhile, minstrels’ versions of the Quest for the Sword and the War of the Prince were spreading through every quarter of the city.
In the end, it had been Heptima Clarissa – Aeginana’s former apprentice, who had completed her own journeyman’s quest in the years since our last letters – who had officially sponsored me to be invested. Though Aeginana had made the journey north on two occasions, responsibilities to her family had kept Heptima in the City. It had been a delight to meet her in person, at last. With blue-black hair and violet eyes and skin the color of polished bronze, all marks of her descent from desert nomads, she was a more perfect exemplar of human beauty, even, than Elana and Veralar. Her wit was sharper than a razor and her laughter almost elven in its likeness to silver bells. In the wake of all my adventures, if my love life had not already been so full and so complicated, I might well have tried to seduce her. I was very grateful to count her among my friends.
At the appointed hour, Heptima had brought me to the temple of our order to stand before the grand masters. I came with my mask and my himation under my arm as a show of my humility, but I wore the same black silk rhu xian sorcerer’s garb that I had worn to confront the Usurper and the Prince of the White Steppes, to remind me of my strength and them of my station outside their walls. Heptima seemed to approve of both.
The Citadel of the Black Mask proved more worthy of the name than the Citadel of the Truth-Seekers: a vast cylindrical tower of stone and concrete, easily a hundred feet tall, with no opening less than thirty feet from the ground save the great bronze gates. Lesser towers ringed its top, reaching dozens of feet further into the air, each crowned with a darkly weathered copper onion dome. The gates were embossed with threatening figures and even more threatening geometries, and opened in response not to a knock or a call, but rather to the ringing of a small bronze bell and matching hammer, which Clarissa had pulled from her robes. If I had seen any such bell and hammer in my master’s things, at our tower or the estate, I could not recall it.
The gates had opened wide, but I had had little chance to see what lay within. We had been greeted immediately by two Black Masked figures who bound me with a silk blindfold before leading me into the heart of the citadel. I submitted to the ritual and followed their careful guidance as serenely as I could, despite the many stairs they led me down.
When they uncovered my eyes, I had found myself in a dark chamber, as cylindrical as the tower, facing five ominous figures on a semi-circular dais that inevitably reminded me of the throne rooms of so many sao`ashan archons. It was likely that I had met some if not all five of the anonymous figures who loomed over me, each hiding behind their shadowy Black Masks and draped beneath the voluminous folds of their enchanted himations, but I could not name them, now.
I bowed, but not too low. I was beloved of the emperor and the Great Wizard Derrek Rowan. I had walked the Holy Lands and retrieved treasures of the gods. I had walked the Lightning Plains, confronted the sao`ashan, and returned unbound by their gaes. I had every right to my pride.
Under oath and in the heart of their power, they asked me many of the questions I had been asked, before, about Maris Pello and my training. I answered them in all solemnity. Likewise, I told them, again, the tale of my quest, of the things I had learned from Urassarrain and of the uurnigath and the nature of the Holy Lands and the Lightning Plains. I told them of the secrets I had extracted from Derrek Rowan, and what I guessed of the arts he and Aemillian had rediscovered. They had listened with equal solemnity, nodded gravely, and very formally sent me on my way.
Now, in my quiet but still unfamiliar urban estate, I awaited their pleasure. I drank my tea – true tea, from west of Namora, a distinction that I had only just recently learned – and savored it. And I tried to think of this office as my own, not my dead master Maris Pello’s.
“You’ve a visitor, Master Khanaarre,” said Maya, knocking at the lintel of my office door and interrupting my reverie. “A Master Penta, from the Order.”
The Order of the Black Mask, she meant; my order and their dead uncle’s. Other wizard orders were given their proper names, on the rare occasions they came up in conversation, but all my charges referred to the Black Mask as, simply, the Order.
“Show her in, please,” I said. “And would you be so kind as to bring a fresh tea service for us? Thank you so much.”
“Of course, mistress.”
I kept my face smiling as she left, dashing first toward the kitchen, then sighed. I had meant the request as a courtesy between family members, but Maya, even more than her older cousins, insisted on deferring to me as the head of their Vencari House. That difference was a struggle for us all to negotiate. A few moments later, I watched Maya dash back across the courtyard to the front door, whence she returned with an elegant and elegantly dressed elderly Vencari woman in tow.
“Master Penta Protagna,” Maya introduced our guest formally. “Of the Order of the Black Mask.”
“Welcome,” I said, then gestured to a nearby chaise. “Please sit, make yourself comfortable? Would you care for tea?”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you.”
She settled herself onto the chaise lounge, and Maya backed out to retrieve our tea. In deference to Vencari custom, which insisted tea be served by the lowest ranking person in a given room, I let Maya set out the service and pour our first cups before backing out of the office to give us privacy. We drank our first cup in silence.
“This is a lovely service,” Penta said, both politely and sincerely, “and an excellent varietal.”
“Thank you,” I said, pouring our second cup. “The service is a gift from the emperor. The tea is my cousin Telemachos’ work, sourced from a small and not yet well-known farm on the coast of the Sea of Dalaan, easily his most successful venture, and hopefully an omen for the future.”
Penta nodded.
“I will buy a case of it myself,” she said, “when the opportunity arises.”
I raised my cup in toast, and we drank our second cup to one another’s health.
“You have proven your worth,” said Master Penta, without further preamble. “Come to the Citadel tonight and you will be initiated into the full mysteries of the Black Mask.”
I took a deep breath, and just a moment to consider. I could hear Maya just outside the room, listening to our every word. Good.
“It will be my honor,” I told her.
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