or imbedded in all masks which stimulate thoughts, trigger emotions, assign personality traits, and so on. Named artisans have taken apart and put back together these pieces, realigning and modifying them until they’ve gained an understanding of their workings. In the process, they’ve discovered that the components can do much more than imprint oversouls, like lock and unlock doors. And there’s still so much we haven’t figured out yet.”
The supply room exits upon a dark corridor that illuminates red at our approach. But unlike the one from the hut, the circle of light shows a cluster of turnings that fork in different directions.
“You make it sound like you named have been at this for a while,” I say.
“We have.” She sets off down one of the twisting tunnels. “Sometimes the gendarmes get wind of our activities, so we work exclusively in pairs — one mentor, one recruit. That way, the most named any of us knows is two, your mentor when you’re recruited, and your recruit once you’re ready to bring someone in. We disseminate information and requests through codes and drop-off points. It’s slow but safer.”
I’ve lost track of the bends and turns we’ve taken. “You must recruit pretty selectively, if each mentor can only take one.”
“Mentors can take another recruit if theirs is apprehended by the gendarmes.” The lighting casts deep shadows over the planes of her face, and for a moment, it seems that she’s wearing a crimson mask. She brushes her fingers over her eyes, and they come away wet.
“What happens when the gendarmes catch you?”
“They kill us.”
I shrug. “That’s all? So you lose the day. In the morning—”
“No. They
I stumble, shocked. “That’s — that’s
“You said it yourself; without the masks, we’re nothing. When the gendarmes execute one of us, they reassign all of that named’s personas to the population at large. The oversouls continue, and there is no disruption among the citizenry. I think the gendarmes grieve more when they have to destroy a mask that has been ‘murdered’ than when they kill one of us.”
Pena rounds a corner, and there is a wall. It’s creamy smooth, as though stone workers spent hours painstakingly sanding it to perfect flatness.
“Did you make a wrong turn?” I ask.
“Afraid of getting lost?” Her tone is teasing. “Don’t worry. Even if I had made a wrong turn, my mask contains the labyrinth’s secrets. But I didn’t.”
I half expect her to wave the mask at the wall and a door to miraculously appear. She doesn’t. Instead, Pena lifts a hand to her mouth and tears at it with her teeth. Dark blood oozes, and she smears this droplet on the wall.
Soundlessly, the wall glides up and disappears into the ceiling. White, not red, light comes on, blinding after the dimness.
Pena tugs me forward while I’m still blinking. I squint, eyes tearing and blurry, at the small room we have entered. The walls are polished metal, and they encircle us, curving outward so it feels like we’re inside a cylinder. A closed one. While my eyes adjust, the door shuts itself.
In the room’s center is an ornate chair of silver and gold. Resting upon its seat is a mask.
I recognize it, for it is the stuff of legend. Carved from a single diamond with a million-million facets, each representing a mask-to-be, the First Queen’s Mask, the one She created with her own hands to bring enlightenment to us all.
8. Diamonds Are for Death
Pena touches my face, and the scaffold slips away. The anxiety of being barefaced is forgotten in the wonder of the First Mask.
“The truth, your answers, they’re all in the oversoul of that mask,” she says. “All you have to do is put it on.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we go back, and tomorrow morning you choose a mask to wear, like every other morning, and you never see me again.”
“I might turn you over to the gendarmes.”
Her lips part and flash teeth. “What will you tell them? That a citizen kidnapped you and filled your head with truth? How will you find me? And how do you know the gendarmes won’t kill you simply for knowing this much?”
She’s right, of course. “But I don’t have to put on the First Mask?”
“What you do is up to you. Now and forever.”
I hesitate for a heartbeat before striding to the chair and seizing the First Mask. It’s so light. I’d expected it to be heavier. Holding it aloft, I realize the eyeholes are encased in nearly transparent lenses like my consort mask, except diamond instead of glass.
“You might want to sit before you put it on,” Pena says. “I didn’t and ended flat on my back.”
I perch on the gold and silver chair, and set the mask over my face. There are segmented strands of diamond to wrap around my head that fasten with glittering diamond locks. The lenses warp my vision, disorienting me. But only for a moment.
Crowing exultation.
The war is finished! My last rival and her progeny are dead, and I reign in exclusive sovereignty.
My children, I am so proud of you. This is the dawn of a new age, a glorious and splendid age.
My scientists have conquered our only remaining enemy: time. They have found the key to unlocking the shackles of age and injury, and conquered the last disease. I am no longer chained by the dictates of perpetual reproduction. The years of my empire will be like a magnificent river, rippling past eon after eon, powerful and endless.
I do worry, however, that my soldiers will decline. They are the simplest of my children and only understand rigid procedures and physical contests. Perhaps I should manufacture a new corps of soldiers, an elite one. They can vie with each other in mock battles for the honor of being counted among my gendarmes.
The river of years is murky and deep, and I cannot see where it will take us.
I am stymied at an unanticipated quarter: my consorts. The noblest of my children, nearly my equals — clever and curious, independent and imaginative — I should have known they would feel neglected and adrift when I ceased summoning them to mate. They are creatures of great passion, as I am, and now they squabble, forming factions and carrying out vendettas.
I have started opening my body to them again, but I will ask the scientists to develop a synthetic pheromone so they may copulate amongst themselves.
I am despair.
A citizen killed another today, beyond what my scientists were able to restore. I must accept the truth; we are an aggressive people, not destined for peace, and all I have tried to build is in ruins.
If only there was a way for my consorts to expend their passions harmlessly.
I must confer with my scientists.
At last! I have devised an end to the chaos which blights my citizenry.
My scientists have developed a means of imprinting memories and eliciting emotions that may be interchanged, swapped out, and added upon with seemingly infinite variety. My consorts may oppose each other and mate with promiscuity, all without garnering rivals or blood feuds.
