The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(336)

After a moment, Usein drew a deep breath. “You wish to know our plans.”

“Among other things, yes.”

She nodded. “Come, then. I’ll show you.”


Sar-enna-nem is a pyramid; only the topmost hall of it held prayer space and statues. The next levels down held much more interesting things.

Like masks.

We stood in a gallery of sorts. Our escort had left us at Usein’s unseen signal, though her glowering husband had brought an oddly shaped stool so that she could sit. She watched while I strolled about, looking at each mask in turn. The masks lined every shelf; they were set into the walls between the shelves; they were artfully positioned on display tables in front of the shelves. I even glimpsed a few attached to the ceiling. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, every size and color and configuration, though they had some commonalities. All of them were oval shaped, as a base. All had open eyeholes and sealed mouths. All of them were beautiful, and powerful in ways that had nothing to do with magic.

I stopped at one of the tables, gazing down at a mask that made something inside me sing in response. There, on the table, was Childhood: smooth, fat cheeks; a mischievously grinning mouth; great wide eyes; broad forehead waiting to be filled with knowledge. Subtle inlays and painting around the mouth had been applied, some of it realistic and some pure abstraction. Geometric designs and laugh lines. Somehow, it hinted that the mask’s grin could have been simple joy or sadistic cruelty, or joy in cruelty. The eyes could have been alight with the pleasure of learning or aghast at all the evils mortals inflict on their young. I touched its stiff lips. Just wood and paint. And yet.

“Your artist is a master,” I said.

“Artists. The art of making these masks isn’t purely a Darre thing. The Mencheyev make them, too, and the Tok—and all of our lands got the seed of it from a race called the Ginij. You may remember them.”

I did. It had been a standard Arameri extermination. Zhakkarn, via her many selves, had hunted down every last mortal of the race. Kurue erased all mention of them from books, scrolls, stories, and songs, attributing their accomplishments to others. And I? I had set the whole thing in motion by tricking the Ginij king into offending the Arameri so that they had a pretext to attack.

She nodded. “They called this art dimyi. I don’t know what the word means in their tongue. We call it dimming.” She shifted to Senmite to make the pun. The word was meaningless in itself, though its root suggested the mask’s purpose: to diminish its wearer, reduce them to nothing more than the archetype that the mask represented.

And if that archetype was Death… I thought of Nevra and Criscina Arameri, and understood.

“It started as a joke,” she continued, “but over time the word has stuck. We lost many of the Ginij techniques when they were destroyed, but I think our dimmers—the artists who make the masks—have done a good job of making up the difference.”

I nodded, still staring at Childhood. “There are many of these artists?”

“Enough.” She shrugged. Not wholly forthcoming, then.

“Perhaps you should call these artists assassins instead.” I turned to look at Usein as I said this.

Usein regarded me steadily. “If I wanted to kill Arameri,” she said, slowly and precisely, “I wouldn’t kill just one, or even a few. And I wouldn’t take my time about it.”

She wasn’t lying. I lowered my hands and frowned, trying to understand. How could she not be lying? “But you can do magic with these things.” I nodded toward Childhood. “Somehow.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know these people you work for, Lord Sieh. I don’t know your aims. Why should I share my secrets with you?”

“We can make it worth your while.”

The look she threw me was scornful. I had to admit, it had been a bit clichéd.

“There is nothing you can offer me,” she said, getting to her feet with pregnant-woman awkwardness. “Nothing I want or need from anyone, god or mortal—”

“Usein.”

A man’s voice. I turned, startled. The gallery’s open doorway framed a man, standing between the flickering torch sconces. How long had he been there? My sense of the world was fading already. I thought at first it was a trick of the light that he seemed to waver; then I realized what I was seeing: a godling, in the last stages of configuring his form for the mortal realm. But when his face had taken its final shape—

I blinked. Frowned.

He stepped farther into the light. The features he’d chosen certainly hadn’t been meant to help him blend in. He was short, about my height. Brown skin, brown eyes, deep brown lips—these were the only things about him that fit any mortal mold. The rest was a jumble. Teman sharpfolds with orangey red islander hair and high, angular High Northern cheekbones. Was he an idiot? None of those things fit together. Just because we could look like anything didn’t mean we should.