Part One - Eyes on the Walls

It's one of those cold nights, when the winds are calm and the city is quiet under the new moon, as our story begins. One could say it could've been told differently - starting with the Maskmaker, perhaps, or the day the cathedral was burnt to ashes, or that unfortunate encounter with the kraken. One could even go as far as to ask us to introduce ourselves first. Truly, you, the person listening or reading these words, cannot know who we are just yet - but that is not really important, not now. For now, we are the voices, the faces you can't quite place and yet they seem so familiar, as they whisper right next to your ear and disappear the moment you turn to try to look at them, figures sitting by your bed and silently telling the tales of some distant worlds, night after night, letting you only glance at them before blending with the shadows in your room. Perhaps you will wish to burn this book once you read it, or tear out its pages and put them back together in a different order. But for now, let us tell you the story the way we deem right, from this point which, in its own, was nothing special, but started the chain of events which eventually, inevitably, tied together all the lives mentioned in this tale.

It's one of those cold nights, when the winds are calm and the city is quiet under the new moon, as our story begins.

*

Lorin sat on a statue of one of the buildings of the port, like a thousand times before, observing the ships as they docked at twilight and listening to shouting of some captains far in the clouds. Followed by their crews, they climbed down the rope ladders, stopping on the rooftops under their ships, and then searched for the place to take their trades to, exchanging and selling the loots of thousands of faraway lands, keeping away from the Palace of Justice and those who lurked behind its dark windows.

They all dreamt of the forbidden, of curses and secrets, legends and promises and hidden knowledge; not at all different from the townsmen, though seeming so distant and exotic. They were all the same, all blended together into one in his eyes. Into a mass which dreamt of the truth, yet lived in a lie, despised the rules yet lived by them, called for the gods and feared their answer. It was common belief, and the sailors who walked by him seemed to have decided not to break that myth, that a person who lived his life on a ship could be told by the look on his face, always a tad greener on the ground than above the clouds. Their faces didn't seem green to Lorin, though, but he couldn't really tell what they looked like on board of the ships - for the only two times he'd been traveling by one, he had to make sure no one noticed him there - but even through the night he could clearly see their eyes widening and their skin turning paler, as they glanced towards the Palace of Justice. Even the foreigners knew of the stories surrounding it, and of everything that went on behind its stone walls. As travelers, belonging to their ships rather than to any place on ground, they were meant to be protected - but judging on their expressions, even though they tried to push the fear away by making loud jokes, they were far from ready to put their bets on being safe.

He sighed, turning his back to them, and carefully slid down from the stone lion, holding his bag as he stood up. The mist of the night curled around his legs, cold and wet, forcing him to put his hands together and blow into them to make himself warmer. His gloves were old, and even if they were any newer that wouldn't change the fact they covered his fingers only to a bit above his knuckles. Nonetheless, they were all he had, and of great value to him - given his profession, he needed his fingers more than anything else, and he intended to keep them through the winter.

He sniffed, tugging his coat tighter around himself. Whom are you kidding, trying to look down at any of them? Look at yourself, all shaking in oversized coat and longing for a proper hat but not daring to snatch one while you're this close to them. He shivered as he turned left, towards the statues and towers of the Palace, dark even against the night sky, cutting stars from the surface of the sky and leaving black holes. It overlooked the city, like a caring parent or a guardian angel, but he knew better than to believe in that. Every child of the streets knew, just like every person with a mind and without family members in high places, and went to sleep with fear of waking up imprisoned, always turning the corner with dread of what awaits in the next alley.

Lorin licked his lips, carefully climbing away from the port, keeping to the shadows as he approached his destination. The estate of the Ledare family, so the letter read, telling him what to do if he wanted to afford food for the next couple of days. He knew that the house in front of him was what he was looking for even before he consulted the note to check; their family home wasn't as much a house as a little fortress itself, so close to the Palace that it was almost touching it. It shared the style as well, with its slender towers and big windows, just as all the residences of the highly ranked Enforcers, which surrounded the Palace in the way the most honoured guards might want to surround their master. I shouldn't have accepted this job.

Carefully turning the piece of wire in the lock and then pushing the glass to open the window as he heard the familiar soft click, he could almost feel the noose tightening around his neck. He lost his breath for a second, before stepping inside. If there was a mirror in the room at that moment, he would be meeting the eyes of a boy desperately trying to look brave, eyes shaded by uncombed hair but nonetheless showing the fear he felt. There was no mirror, but masks of all shapes and sizes stared at him from across the room, like a silent army of people just waiting for him to take another step.

The note said the house is empty. You just take what you came for and leave, and stop thinking about your limbs getting broken or cut off one by one to punish you for your crimes. If there was something other than death, which could've made his heart stop beating so loudly, he couldn't think of it.

They were watching him. Eyes carved into the smooth surface, on faces of always lively colours, from the walls covered in dark fabric. In the dimly lit room, it seemed like there were people standing all around him, following his every move, judging and discussing whether to part those carefully drawn lips of theirs and shatter the silence - cold shivers slowly ran up his spine and the back of his neck, making him keep turning away and running his fingertips over his nape. Even his hair was cold, not spared by the wet mist which crawled through the window as it followed him on his way in. He couldn't fight the feeling that, if he were to stay there for a moment too long, he'd take the place of one of those faces on the walls himself.

They're only masks, he told himself, trying to calm his breathing, approaching the wall across the room though watching to not lose the window from his sight.

Turn your back to the path you arrived by, someone told him once, and you will never again have the right to take it.

He looked at the window again, biting his lip, and stared into the night until he found himself thinking about escaping. Behind his back, the shadows gave bodies to the masks, slowly separating from the walls and creeping towards him, reaching out their hands to pull him closer. He could almost feel the breeze of air around their bodies, sensing their whistling breath on his neck.

Just masks. His inner voice made an effort to sound brave, sensible, to calm the pounding of his heart - Lorin almost laughed in response. No matter how far he'd already gotten, he couldn't fight the feeling that the entire world might collapse onto him at any moment. Those masks belonged to the protegees of the Palace, those who called themselves the Enforcers of Justice, so much more powerful than himself that the mere idea of this adventure was absurd. You need money.

Those masks had seen more death and tears than he ever planned to see, as they'd hidden the faces of the judges and broke the hopes of the convicted, demanding to be bowed to in awe - and he came to steal them.

He reached out his hand to one of them, of soft golden gleam and red decorations, shaped in the face of a cat. When one would place it against their face, as much as Lorin could see, their lips and chin would stay uncovered - but he didn't even dare to think of placing it against his face. His job was to take the masks from their home and take them to the one who sent him; nothing more and nothing less than that, and if they wanted to take the risk of wearing the masks of the Enforcers for whatever reasons they had, he planned to keep as far from it as possible.

He carefully took the mask from the wall, balancing to not bump into the others with it, and held it in his hand for a moment before putting it in his bag, half expecting to see it revolting and creeping back out to its place on the wall. He shoved away those thoughts, placing it between some papers he'd already been hiding in the bag. He reached to take another one, bigger and with less adornment, and froze in the middle of the move.

How long has it been since you last glanced at the window? Suddenly he didn't want to turn. All those shadows he had been imagining earlier, now stood like soldiers behind his back, ready to seize him the moment he laid eyes on them.

"Stop it," he muttered, almost begging his own imagination. The masks were creepy, terrifying, in the darkness of the room cold of the night which followed him on his way in, surrounded by some almost ceremonial scent which he couldn't name - but without their owners, they were just objects. He sighed. "There is nothing living here."

For a moment, heavy silence shrouded the room.

"That," a sharp voice cut, "would almost be an insult."

*