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Jane pondered this in long silence. At last she asked, "Is that what the Baldwy
All of Rocket's warmth blew away like mist before a wind. "How do you know of the Baldwy
Jane touched Rocket's doublet. She undid the top two buttons and slid her hand within. Her fingers stroked his chest. It confused Rocket, addled and silenced him. "Where do you live?" she asked. "I mean the full address."
"Caer Arianrod. North 9743-A Plaza Court D."
She invoked his true name a second time. "Go there," she said. "Forget all that has happened here tonight."
Reluctantly she withdrew her hand.
And Rocket went away.
Fata Incolore shuddered as the pills took hold. Color returned to her face. "It seems I'm in your debt."
"I don't want your gratitude!"
"Yes, so I gather." Long fingernails tapped against the top of the medicine kit, as if it were a small drum. "I suppose if I told you I could arrange for a certain stalwart young dragon pilot to materialize, naked and cooperative, in your bed one of these nights, you'd simply snarl at me again."
Jane folded her arms and said nothing.
"You really are the most amazingly perverse thing. I don't believe I've ever met anybody like you." Lesya laughed lightly. "Well, let's change the subject. Have I ever showed you my collection?" A negligent wave of one hand indicated the masks on the wall. Stern faces looked down on Jane, blank, assured, alluringly soulless.
"No."
"They're quite valuable. And useful as well. What I like about them, though, is that for all the sorcery that went into their making, they're not brute enchantments. They're instruments, dependent on the training and natural talent of whoever wears them."
"I don't follow you."
"Take this one, for example." She lifted a feathered demimask from the wall. The mask swooped up from the eyes in mock wings, covered the brow and nose, and left the mouth free. "Three bullocks were sacrificed just to activate it. Yet most of its power lies in the skill with which it's applied."
Jane shook her head slightly, involuntarily.
"The glamour of the mask is strong enough to confound identification so long as you do not speak. Such a mask can be, and often is, employed for a casual sexual fling, to protect one's reputation. But its true purpose is to be used on someone forbidden to you whom you yet strongly desire.
"You must want him greatly, so passionately that when you couple the extremity of your desire will be obvious to him. You must be shameless in your heart; you must do things you thought you would never do, and you must enjoy them. You must strive to shock your beloved. You must drive him to the limits of his endurance—so that when you rise from his body at the first weak light of dawn, he will not be able to raise a hand to stay your going, though he will want to do so.
"All the time you make love, he will stare into your eyes, whose color, because of the decognitive powers of the mask, he will not be able to remember, and see the fierce love of him burning there. They will be mirrors of his i
"He will want to know who you are—you must not speak. When he asks do you love him, smile and look aside. He will study the color and proportions of your nipples and try to size your breasts by how well they fill his hands, how much of each he can fit in his mouth. He will memorize your sighs and groans, and tickle you to learn the music of your laughter. He will store in his heart the smell and taste of your every part, the gentle hollow below your neck, the warm spot at the i
"It is only natural to wonder at the identity of one who so obviously loves you. And thus your intended is left with what at first may only be a mild curiosity. Perhaps he has a few surmises as to who you might be. Casually—at first—he begins to look for you.
"Of course, the only sure evidence of your identity can only be obtained by making love. You must arrange not to be one of the many he takes with him to bed. You will be jealous of them each and all, agonizingly so, but also needlessly. For every time he beds one, he will taste her sweat, lick the back of her knees and the downy line leading from the small of her back to the cleft between her cheeks, and he will be thinking: No. It is not she."
Lesya hung the mask back on the wall, her hands as graceful as butterflies. "What begins as mere curiosity soon burns out of control. Months pass. He is obsessed. Those rivals you had best reason to fear are one by one insulted and driven away by his behavior—for what woman ca
"That is your opening gambit."
It was late and if Jane were ever to get back in Corinde's good graces, she needed to be bright and rested in the morning. She would gladly have left then, but Incolore was still wired from whatever was in the pills she had taken and kept her talking for an hour more. They discussed Lord Corvo's difficulties with his inamoratas and Fata Jouissante's chances at the senatorial cape. They talked about the war. They debated the merits of ermine viscera as a catalyst for skin-moisturizing spells and whether the increased efficiency justified the extra expense.
At last, Jane rose to leave. At the door she paused and, as if struck by a sudden notion, said, "That mask—may I borrow it?"
"My dear. Why do you think I showed it to you?"
Jane meant to go straight home. But somehow her feet took her directly away from Termagant, toward Caer Arianrod. I won't go in, she thought on the way up in the Plaza Court D elevator. I'll just go up to his floor and then straight back down. The elevator doors opened and she stepped out onto the carpet. I'll walk by his door. I won't knock.
She knocked. Fata Incolore's mask was still in her hand, dangling from its cord. Impatiently she stuffed it into her purse.
Rocket opened the door. "Jayne," he said flatly.
"Can I come in?"
— 22 —
JANE AWOKE AT DAWN. GENTLY SHE DISENTANGLED HERSELF from the sheets and Rocket's arms.
She dressed quickly, stuffing her underwear into her purse, being careful to collect Incolore's u
The streets were almost empty. The air was crisp and cool, and the City was awash in early morning light. Jane walked quickly, almost ru
"Did you miss me? Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises…"
A raptor girl heard her singing, laughed, leaped into the sky, and was gone, lost amid the golden dazzle of dawn bouncing from a million plate glass windows. Jane shook her hair and raised her voice:
"Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from—" Her voice bounced from the building sides and mellow brick walls. Oh, she felt fine!
It was a beautiful morning, a perfect morning. Her mood held all the way home to Termagant.
Black smoke poured from the heights of the building. Soot covered its sides in great streaks. The street was choked with evacuees from Termagant. Nixies, orends, and Teggish lawyers milled about in an agitated confusion, while fashion models, powries, and leshiye argued with each other, gesturing wildly upward. Three candymen had brought out a great bell and were tolling the alarum with slow, steady strokes.