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He blinked and rubbed his eyes. A shadowy outline of the slave-master's gaunt face rippled across the lengths of red and yellow cloth. "No," he whispered, something was terribly wrong, but he couldn't quite decide what it was. He shook bis head. A mistake: everything started to spin. "No one." He reached for the cloth to keep himself from falling. It melted in his hands.
"Who, Zvain?"
He heard the cracks and groans of a man being beaten. Pavek. Templars weren't clever, not the way boys raised beneath the city streets were clever, the way he was clever. Pavek had blundered in some typically templar way, and the Laq-sellers were pounding him.
The dyers' cloth became gauzy, then transparent, then disappeared completely and the square was deserted, except for three people beating a fourth. The itinerants were an ugly trio, the worst-looking specimens of their kind he could imagine: a warty human woman, a hairy dwarf, and an elf with a pendulous nose and sagging belly. But they had the better of Pavek, who was on his hands and knees, blood pooling on the paving stones.
Once again, the templar's name formed in his throat; once again he swallowed before it escaped.
"Who, Zvain?"
The voice came from behind. He spun and saw nothing.
"Who?"
He spun around again. The Laq-sellers continued to pummel Pavek, who was crawling toward him.
"Answer me, Zvain!"
There was nothing to account for the voice that echoed off the walls of the empty square. The speaker was unseen.
Unseen...
Mind-bending masters of the Unseen Way were, by the very nature of their talent and practice, more hidden than those who wore the Veil. To his knowledge, Zvain had never met an Unseen Master, but he knew how mind-benders could turn a young man's world inside out, trapping him in his own memory, attacking him with the horrors of his own imagination. Tales said that every sentient creature had the instinctive power to cast out even the most potent mind-bender, but he, staring in panic at the cloudless sky of his memory and imagination, had no idea how to defend himself.
"Zvain!"
A different voice this time. Familiar and focused. Pavek, no longer a blundering, unclever templar, but a strong and brave man who fought with an obsidian trident. Blood no longer streamed from Pavek's face, but from the Laq-sellers who lay in heaps at his feet. Zvain ran toward the fighter who would, surely, rescue him.
"Who am I!"
The question came from Pavek's mouth and echoed off the walls. Zvain skidded to his knees. His savior was not Pavek, not a savior at all, but the mind-bender. And not wanting to see his own death reflected in Pavek's familiar eyes, he tried to lower his head, but he'd been transfixed.
The false Pavek regarded him with undisguised disgust as he raised his trident. Zvain found enough strength to tremble and whimper. But the mind-bending imposter aimed the trident at himself and, laughing manically, thrust the tines into his own head. With razor-edged talons he slowly peeled Pavek's face away from his skull
No-Not his skull. Unable to look away, Zvain gaped in horror as a gold-etched black mask appeared where the mind-bender's face should have been. And, by King Hamanu's infinitesimal mercy, he knew the patterns on that mask-
The interrogator's mask was fully revealed; Pavek's inside-out face hung in tatters from red and black talons that had replaced the vanished trident. The templar shock it once; the slashed parchment reformed itself, right-side out.
"Pavek. That misbegotten jozhal's still got his nose where it doesn't belong."
The templar shook his talons a second time, and Pavek's face floated away on an intangible wind. Then Elabon Escrissar turned toward him, and he would have vomited up his fear, if he'd been able to do anything at all. Laq was deadly, but Elabon Escrissar was worse, and the two together, as it seemed they were, was evil beyond measure.
"Don't be afraid, Zvain. Your loyalty is commendable, for all that it was misplaced. You shall be rewarded-"
Sheer terror finally broke his paralysis when the talons were less than a handspan from his nose. He flopped onto his side and curled into a tight, quivering ball. His heart stopped when cool fingers caressed his cheek.
"There, there, Zvain. Don't be afraid. Truly. When you fear the worst, it manifests before you; that is the mind's nature. Banish your fears and be rewarded. Raise your head. Open your eyes."
Slowly, unwillingly at first, he began to relax. His heart calmed, and the knotted muscles in his neck loosened. When his eyes opened, he looked upon a wise and kindly face, a face so pale it seemed to glow with its own gentle light.
"No," Zvain whispered, trying to recall his fear and the slave-master's true face.
Black talons traced a feather-gentle line across his cheek. He felt his skin open.
"Banish your fears. Accept what I show you as the truth."
The talons were gone, replaced by soothing fingertips that sealed his wounds. Blood became tears.
