Chapter 1 - Masq is the Game

Excerpt from The Origins of Authority, by Enchantress Sofi Vardune

“The shapers were created last of all. To them, as to the others, the King of the Broken Realm gave his gifts. To the shapers, he gave authority over all that lacked the breath of life. They could form water, earth, fire, and air as they willed.

For most of the shapers, this power was gift enough.”

* * * * * Sara * * * * *

Sara flashed through the skies of the Broken Realm as she traced a streak of red across the city of Masq.

Up! Up! Higher! Faster! Greater!

She urged on the winds that were carrying her, drawing more and more of their strength in order to fill the wings of her glider and hurl herself upward toward her goal.

She looked up. High above soared the Spire. Its slim, silver profile defining the skyline as it rose gracefully from the four mighty pedestals that marked the corners of the city’s central square.

She had followed its line from the Halls of Justice and was now climbing up, up, up toward the very tip that soared impossibly high, glinting with flecks of silver and blue in the morning sun. This time, she would do it!

Sara sped ever-upwards in a corkscrewing spiral. Halfway. Two thirds. Three quarters. But now, she felt her carrying winds begin to fail. No! She called on them for more, but she knew that they were spent. Exhausted. The winds would not listen.

She gritted her teeth behind her mask and banked her wings to the side as she broke off her pursuit, falling short of her goal.

Better. But not enough. Not perfect.

But then, no one was. Not anymore. Not since the Lost King had played and won.

Sara now plummeted down through skies, passing, as she did, her pursuers.

“Regroup at the Tower!” she signaled as she streaked past.

Half a dozen hand-signs flashed in acknowledgement. She nodded. Her elites. Good windriders, all of them. But not as good as she was.

Sara now neared the base of the Spire, where she flew a lap around the square. From any angle, every angle, she could see the Scoreboard and its lists of players divided into two columns – one for the Reds and one for the Blues. Age-old rivals. And she was Red.

It was easy to find her own score, marked by her seabird symbol. It had led the list of the Reds in the last season. And now, she was their champion. She grinned fiercely. Already an Airmistress. Already a champion. But her grin faded. For above both lists, blazoned in gold, was the symbol of the Kingsmask. Beside it stood the score that had won the Game centuries ago. The Lost King’s score. A perfect score.

Sara banked her wings away from the Spire, away from the Scoreboard, and back toward her own Tower. The Red Tower.

As she did so, she reached out with her will, weaving together the breezes that swirled beneath the magical dome that protected them, shielding her city from the dangers of the wider world.

Good. The winds once more answered her call. She sped along, looking down as she quickly traversed the mile between the square and the easternmost edge of the massive walls of Masq.

A jumble of sloping rooftops gleamed up at her, glowing in the morning sun. Hovels, cottages, workshops, warehouses, villas, and palaces raced beneath as she rode the wind, coasting slightly uphill, following the rise of the land as it climbed away from the river that divided her city.

Her destination lay before her. The Red Tower. The heart of her faction. In its courtyard, she could see her players gathered and waiting. Over a thousand red-masked faces looked up at her as she soared over them, circled the Tower, and landed on its uppermost balcony.

With one smooth, well-practiced motion, she folded her glider-wings and detached them as she stepped forward to stand at the time-worn stone balustrade. As she did so, she unbound her hair and let it fall in a red wave, a banner not unlike those that hung behind her on the balcony. From their shadows, a flutter of movement caught her eye. Hera.

Of course.

Of course, her mother would be here today, eager to claim a share of her daughter’s glory, impatient for this moment, impatient to hear Sara’s first formal address to her players as their champion.

But Sara was not impatient. Ambitious, yes. But not impatient. Hera, and the rest of her faction, for that matter, could wait a little bit longer.

Indeed, they must wait until she decided that the time was right to begin. It was her decision. Hers alone. As champion, Sara stood second only to King Florid, the reigning monarch of the Reds. But it didn’t matter that she was second in the dance of faction politics. In anything concerning the Game, she stood first. That was what was important.

The Game. Challenge, fame, honor, struggle, victory, even defeat! It was heroic and noble and glorious, and Sara reveled in it.

She looked up and out, letting her gaze travel back across the bowl-shaped city. Behind her pale-pink mask, the ghost of a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. No matter what happened next, she knew that she had earned this moment. The youngest and most promising airmistress since Aira Windsong. This was her day. Her city.

But then she paused. Skill alone may not be enough. Not for what would soon happen. Could she do what she must?

Within the city’s curving, circular walls lay her entire world. Could she take her place in it? The roofs of her own faction sloped down and away, spilling out in an ever-widening arc, pouring forth until they were checked by the banks of the river. She looked up to where the river poured into the city from the northernmost waterfall and followed it as it ran around the Spire through the very center of the city. Sara did not follow it further as it flowed through the southern fields of the Delta. She did not watch as it cascaded over the Outflow, out of sight and out of the knowledge of any of those who lived within the city’s wide walls. Her attention was focused on the point farthest opposite to herself.

Across the river, the curving walls began to converge again as the land rose toward the westernmost tower. At that farthest point, glowing fiercely with reflected morning sun, stood the Keep of Blueberg. Its turrets and terraces were crowned with the banners of Blues, and its dark chambers housed her most potent opponent.

Sara tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes instinctively. The Red and the Blue. It had always been so. It was the Game. And she was Red.

She saw that the shadow had disappeared at the base of the Spire.

“It’s time. I’m ready. I think.”

She spoke this to herself in a whisper as she reached out and gathered together the shreds of the breezes that flowed around her. Raising her arms, she braided the air together into a mighty wind that whipped out the red banners that hung behind her, streaming forth their rosy folds to mingle with the unbound glory of her hair.

As Sara shaped and reinforced the tempest, she used it to amplify her words, carrying them to her listeners below and to the city beyond. Every masked face in the courtyard below was now lifted toward her as she raised her voice and addressed her people.

Players of the Red! Hear me! There has always been the Game.

Masq is the Game! The Game is Masq! 

Below, the crowd raised a shout of acclamation in response to this ancient, well-known liturgy.

The Game – and the glory that we Players win in it – is what sets us apart. We who excel have earned our rewards. Through the Game, we bring honor to our faction!

She looked at a lower balcony on which had landed her elite windriders. There, they had been joined by many other high-ranking players. They were powerful allies. Trusted team members.

Players of the Red, be proud!

The elites raised a mighty, full-throated roar in response to this.

Then Sara looked down further at another group. Fresh-faced youths. They were not yet wearing the masks that would bind them to their faction and to the Game. She smiled, for she knew them. She, herself, had personally hand-picked several. They were keen and eager.

She now addressed them.

And you. You who aspire to greatness, but who have yet to prove yourselves, strive to join our ranks! For it is no easy thing to do so.

Know this; nothing worth having is easy.

Finally, Sara looked out across the crowded courtyard at the muddled mass in the middle. She frowned. These were the lackluster players. She knew their kind. Apathetic. Lazy. Only willing to do the bare minimum needed to get by. Florid was a weak king. He had allowed too much to slide by. But now they would have to deal with her. Sara chose her next words carefully, eager to strike sparks that she could fan into a flame. 

And who has not witnessed the failures? Who has not stood in the Hall of Justice and watched while the judgment falls on one whose score has fallen to nothing? They are unmasked. Cast out of the city itself. It is right. To each as they earn.

A hush fell over the crowd below. They stood, sobered by the memory. Sara drove her point home.

Heed their warning. Mind your masks. For your masks, once necessary for your survival beyond these walls, now show your standing withing the walls of our city!

She gestured at the crowd, arranged in order by the color of their masks in a gradient that went from bright to dark, as was the city’s tradition.

Every shade can be seen in our streets, from the clear, bright colors of the monarchs, champions, and elites … to the muddy, dull shades of those who but are one small mistake away from final ejection. Watch yourselves. Strive for glory, undying glory that will rival even that of the Lost King of old!

To each as they earn!

The crowd echoed this back, reaffirming the core principle of their city’s system of justice. Sara let her grip on the winds die down a bit. The crowd leaned forward, eager to catch every word. She started softly, building steadily toward a crescendo as she threw down her challenge to the Red faction.

One week from now, the season begins anew. The Game will be played in earnest once again.

She fixed them, one by one, with a challenging, piercing gaze.

Do not presume to rest on your past victories! Glory is never free. Honor is not given away. It must be earned, re-earned, and then earned again.

I will win my way to excellence! I will fight for it! Join me!

Shun the failures! Shun the lazy! Shun the weak!

She paused and then spoke to all, measured and somber.

For far too many in this city, the Game exists merely to give some structure to unremarkable, small, commonplace lives.

It was all too true. But the Game could be so much more than it was. She willed with all her heart to see all those around her triumphant and majestic, shining with radiance, with herself at their head.

But at the top -- and for those at the bottom – the Game is a matter of life and death!

For Masq is the Game! The Game is Masq!

This was the way things had always been. This was the way it should be.

So, play well! Win glory! Glory for yourselves! Glory for the Red!

Play for glory!

As she finished, the roaring cheers of the crowds rose and mingled with her final words. Together, they soared away on the wind, carried far and wide across the city by the force and power of Sara, Champion of the Red Faction!

* * * * * Cifero * * * * *

Meanwhile, in the imposing Keep of Blueberg, sitting in the shadows of his chamber, Cifero, reigning monarch of the Blues, acknowledged the commotion with the slightest lift of his pale blue mask and a subtle deepening of his mood, which was already a deep blue.

“Let them cheer,” he murmured.

He stood, stretching his long limbs with cat-like grace. His steps traced a slow circle around a research-strewn table before he stopped, sparing one more baleful glance out across the city at Red Tower. Cifero was cunning and shrewd. As much as this newly-minted champion’s bravado irritated him, he would not let it goad him into a foolish miscalculation.

But, neither would it do to let her gain any momentum.

He nodded in decision. He would do it. He would act now. It was time for her to learn a stern lesson about the real game of power in which she dared to play.

The Blue King addressed the handful of courtiers in the chamber.

“Wait until moonrise. Then we will see which faction is most worthy of applause. The Reds cannot stop me. Like Fiera, like Tam Stormcloud, like Magnus Fleet, she will fail. Blue will prevail once more.”

He summoned his personal attendant and spoke a few words in an undertone. The servant left the room to go about his master’s errand.

Cifero now returned to his work, conscious of having dealt with yet another distraction, of having avoided one more snag that might have interfered with his ambitions.

He could not afford any delays. Decades of careful planning were about to bear their oh-so-tantalizing fruit. Power such as he could only dream of was within his grasp. Power to shape the world. He was his generation’s strongest watershaper. He had already shaped the course of rivers. But now, he would shape the future of this shattered realm.

He just needed more power. And the power was there. He knew it.

One more season, one more victory, and he would claim it as his own.

Once again, he silently renewed his vows that he would let nothing stop him. Nothing.

* * * * * Blackjack * * * * *

Below, in the warren of shadowed streets near the river, in the earthshaper neighborhoods of Blueberg, the crowds paused their work as the sound of cheering and applause from the Red Tower echoed across the river.

Some rolled their eyes. Some re-told an old, stale joke about Red racket. Most simply shrugged and returned to their daily toil. Among them was a figure masked in a muddy hue of midnight-blue. Somewhat shorter and thicker than the generally tall, graceful figures around him, he grunted and sweated as he urged a loaded sledge forward through the streets. No one offered him any help.

He expected none.

Blackjack, as he was called by those few who knew him, had no friends. He had chosen a solitary life, receding far into the background of the city that teemed and swarmed around him.

He liked to be unnoticed. He reveled in it. Invisibility and anonymity were his oldest friends. He felt that he needed no others. Even the handle of Blackjack was not his true name.

His real name had been lost long ago in the flotsam of the dozens of overlapping personas and identities that he had used over the past half-century. He had switched masks so many times that he couldn’t even remember them all. Of course, switching masks was illegal. But the law and Blackjack had never been close.

Those few who had known him as he had changed identities generally recognized him by the marks tattooed all across his body. One of these – a black jackdaw on his shoulder – had given him his nickname.

Blackjack. It served well enough.

He didn’t care what people called him, as long as they paid well enough.

* * * * *

Hours later, as he was hauling his last load of the day, a blue-masked messenger wearing the uniform of the Keep stopped him and spoke a few whispered words. A silent nod was his only response. Finishing with his load, he recorded his tally wordlessly, returned his gear wordlessly, and melted away wordlessly, sliding like a shadow into the shuffling streams of people moving around the city.

Dodging any casual observers, Blackjack scooted into a blind alley, slipped through a narrow, battered door, slunk down a dingy, poorly-lit hallway, and peered into a run-down common room that was pungent with the smell of many poorly-cooked meals. He cringed at the lingering aroma of flatfish and garlic that was so strong as to be almost visible. Ma Flotson’s cooking, no doubt.

Seeing himself alone, he crossed the room and approached the door to his sanctum. His locks and seals seemed undisturbed. All seemed to be in order. Under his breath, he breathed his watchword, “Belonging”.

The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. Blackjack slipped inside, and the door closed as silently as it had opened. His sanctum was a bare room, walled in stone and brick, and empty except for a low bed and a shelf that held a few clothes, tools, and containers of foodstuffs. Of personal effects, there were few to none.

Once inside, he slipped his mask from his head and gratefully wiped away the encrusted sweat of the day’s work, bathing his face in a shallow basin.

Earthshapers, like himself, could convince heavy loads to shift, but the loads were still heavy. If you weren’t a powerful shaper, it took muscle to move them, it did. Fortunately, what he lacked in shaping power, he made up for in brute strength.

That’s all he was to them. A brute.

He hung up his mask, noting that its hue had well and truly darkened to a color that was closer to midnight than the navy blue that it had been earlier in the week. He gave it a wry grin.

“Still, a good day, then,” he thought, “I’m not out yet.”

But he knew that he would be before long. He needed to earn some points if he were to stay in the Game. It was either that or his mask would need to be replaced. He considered the idea of getting a new mask. It could be had if one knew how to go about it. Of course, it was never cheap. Or easy. Nothing was.

The season would start soon. Should he enter an event? Maybe this time his luck would be better. Maybe he could earn some honest points for a change. Some did. He grimaced ruefully.

He’d been burned before. Whenever he tried to play the Game their way, he always wound up holding the bag while somebody took him for a ride. He never was much good at playing well with others.

But then he remembered the message he had received, and a sly smile played across his face.

“Maybe … maybe it will all work out. Maybe things will go my way. Maybe I can just keep playing my own little game.”

Blackjack lit a lamp, ate a scant meal, and then stretched out on the bed to rest, ignoring the raucous sounds that came his neighbors in the common room outside. Around midnight, he stirred, woke, and stretched thoroughly. Once limber, he donned his mask, a long black coat, and soft shoes. Silently, he slipped out into the night.

* * * * *

After waiting in the shadows in a dark corner below the overhanging eaves of the crowded buildings in a blind alley for what seemed like hours, Blackjack was bored, bored, bored … bored.

It had been too long since anything remotely exciting crossed his path. Besides the usual daily chores and making the rounds of his employers to see if there were loads to haul or bellows to work, he spent too much time sitting and stewing. His time was his own, yes, but he had far too much of it. Idle hands, idle hands.

What he might call his … special talents … were so rarely needed that he sometimes feared they would fade away altogether for lack of use.

He longed for something – anything – to do. 

“Well now … it seems that once again, the Blue faction must call upon your – well, your unique services.”

The low, thin, sibilant voice broke in on Blackjack’s reverie, startling him into instant alertness. His visitor was wearing a shadowmask. That was unsurprising, considering the business that they were likely to discuss.

But the shadowmask told Blackjack several important things. He knew, as did all of those that lived along the edge of legality, that shadowmasks hid their wearers from the ever-watching Scoreboard that recorded and tallied up all actions that were done outside of one’s own sanctum. Shadowmasks were rare. Expensive. Illegal. This meant he was dealing with someone powerful and dangerous.

But he already knew that.

Yet, the shadowmask confirmed a suspicion. He knew that this particular precaution wasn’t entirely necessary. The Season had not yet begun. There nothing in the rules that would penalize two strangers who happened to meet to have a quiet conversation in the black of night.

If his client was wearing a shadowmask before the Season, it meant that he wanted no record of this conversation, this … transaction. Blackjack’s ears pricked up. He could play the game. He could be discrete.

For a price.

“And who is it this time?”

“Sara MacQuinn. Before the season starts.”

The blood pounded in Blackjack’s ears at the mere mention of the name! The new champion of the Reds? Next in line to the Red Throne? The challenge would be immense!

For that matter, his cautious side reminded him, the consequences would be equally immense if he failed. Even if he were successful, the Reds would not easily forget this. He would be marked for retaliation if he were caught – or if he were even suspected.

He shook his head in dismissal.

“There is no way. None. Even if I got close enough, I’d never be able to get away. Bad business. I don’t do one-way trips.”

“Not even if you had access to her sanctum?”

Blackjack took an involuntary step backwards. But then he leaned in. This was intriguing. He pondered for a moment. Could it be done? The challenge was enticing.

“And how would I get there?”

“How you get there is up to you. How you get in is up to me. Here. This is her watchword.”

Blackjack was passed a slip of paper. He unfolded it. He read it. He looked down. Then up. Then, with decision, at the silent figure waiting in the darkness.

“I’ll want the normal price … but multiplied by ten. Expenses for any toys. A Blue rain from moonset to sunrise each night. And…” He tapped his midnight-blue mask, “A new one. This won’t survive another season.”

It might not even make it that long. His mask was already dangerously close to the dull shade of black that signified failure and ejection from the Game. From the city. From everything.

“Done.” A heavy bag of coins thudded at his feet with a dull chink.

“If you bring me her mask, I’ll give you another.”

As his visitor oiled away into the shadows, Blackjack was already scheming. His formerly-sluggish mind was now ablaze with action and initiative at the thought of this new adventure.

How much coin did he have to work with? He knew his client was powerful. He must therefore be a respected, resourceful, even feared player in the Game. Someone like this must have danced the dance of shifting masks and identities well for decades, keeping his public image spotless and relying on others to do his dirty work.

“Others like me.” Blackjack thought as he hefted the bag of coins.

Well, this time, his patron had been generous. He grinned. There was no harm padding his expenses a bit. That was one of the advantages of working alone.

“Tonight’s rounds are on you,” he thought. “For the Blue.”

Unmasking was a dangerous game. But of all the games in Masq, legitimate or illegitimate, it was the only one at which Blackjack excelled. Over the years, he had been cut from or had been dropped by every other team he had tried to join.

Except this. He had always come back to this.

When it came to unmasking, he was the best.