Mistress Of Masks (Book 1) Read Free Page B

wild, dark hair and plain clothing knelt on the floor, his pale hands sifting clumsily through what looked like a heap of ashes and broken pottery.
    “I’ve found it, Master! It is here!” he exclaimed suddenly. Eager as a dog for the approval of its master, he passed the item he held to the black knight.
    “Good…. Good….” The master’s voice was at once wind and thunder, a whisper and a roar. Eydis heard the walls shudder, felt the cold stone floor vibrate beneath her feet.
    “For all these millennia, the amulet has slept, undisturbed,” the dark master rumbled, holding aloft a thick golden chain, upon which swung a disk the size of a saucer. “Take it. It will give you the authority to wake my army.”
    At his feet, the servant fidgeted. “I am no sorcerer, Great Raven King,” he said, and Eydis sensed he was trying to summon his courage. “Surely this t-task would be better suited for another. What p-powers have I that the undead should answer my command?”
    “Power?” The dark knight growled scornfully. “You shall have what power I give you, mortal.” He thrust out a gauntleted hand and took hold of his servant’s face, metal-clad fingers encompassing the servant’s skull as if he grasped nothing larger than an apple-white fruit. His hand glowed hotly, turning the color of brass touched by flame.
    The scream that tore from the servant’s throat reverberated around the chamber and down distant passages until its echo bounced back like the answering cries of a thousand shrieking souls.
    Shuddering, Eydis crept backward until she was pressed against the wall. She didn’t know if her transparent form would be visible to them if either the dark master or his servant turned their eyes her direction.
    But thankfully, they did not. The Raven King withdrew his hand, leaving behind a fiery print of splayed fingers and palm on the other man’s cheek. The side of his face was melted now and twisted into the tortured features of some creature out of a nightmare. Where the master’s fingers had spanned the back of his servant’s head, strips of hair were burnt away, exposing red scalp. But the other side of his face remained untouched and piteously human.
    “Now,” the Raven King rumbled over his servant’s groans. “You possess what power lies in my right hand. Use it and summon me an army of corpses.”
    The servant’s moaning and writhing stilled instantly, as if all pain and fear had fled at some invisible command.
    “As you command so shall it be, Great Master.” His mouth twisted in a hideous effort at an ingratiating smile. His right eye now glowed like red coals in a furnace above the ruin of his cheek. The dark master placed the heavy gold chain around the servant’s neck.
    Then the scene shifted and Eydis felt herself being sucked away, like a wave pulled back from the shore.
    Shore… Water…
    She was drowning! She dragged in a hungry breath—or tried to. But instead of air, her lungs filled with water. Choking, she convulsed, lungs afire, everything a dark watery blur. She could not tell up from down. As she struggled desperately to flail toward the surface, her arms felt weak and heavy. Her chest was about to burst.
    The darkness faded to grey, and her eyes rolled back. Dimly, she was aware of scaled hands grabbing her from all sides, long fingers digging greedily into her flesh. She couldn’t understand who was trying to drown her, only that many hands held her down. The last thing she saw before fading into oblivion was a pair of milky-white eyes in a green-scaled, elongated face.
    The world dropped away.
    *   *   *
    Light and air filled Eydis. Weightless, she felt nothing. She saw nothing but twinkling specks floating and swirling silently, like soft falling snow, clinging to her hair, kissing her lips, being drawn in through her nostrils… Only that couldn’t be, because she wasn’t inhaling. And she no longer had hair or face. In fact, if she had any physical form at all,