The Book of Masks (Abridged)

A Temporary Twin

"I'VE GOT A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS," you say. "But what the hell. So, we got everything?"

"Except one thing." In a flash he reaches up and with a pair of pocket scissors snips off a lock of hair.

"The fuck?"

"Book says it needs a bit of your hair." He tosses it into one of the mixing bowls. "Shall we get cooking?"

It takes longer than you'd like, but you get it done within a few hours: scratching a sigil into the top of a table; covering it with the dirt from the graveyard; and dousing it with the chemicals. The last thing to do is set it all on fire, and the two of you almost chicken out at the last minute. Considering some of the stuff you had to steal, you worry it might set the dry, junk-filled basement ablaze. You position yourself near the door while Caleb, standing at some distance, strikes a match and flings it onto the pile of earth. There is a brief pause, and a purple bloom of flame rushes off it with a gentle whoomping sound. Caleb throws himself to the ground, and you almost tear yourself in two as one leg tries to dash up the stairs to the outside while the other tries running downstairs to get your friend. But the flash dissipates as quickly as it had appeared; in its place is a low, violet flame wafting off the pile of dirt.

You and Caleb approach it carefully, and he puts his hand over it. "No heat," he says, and thrusts his hand into one of the flames. "No heat at all. It should be okay, then."

"How long is this going to take?" You both consult the spell, but it isn't helpful, indicating that it should be relit when it goes out, until it won't relight at all. After another hour, you give up watching it and you both go home.

* * * * *

Caleb still owes you two hundred dollars, per your agreement to bring him into partnership with you, so he takes your place at work for the rest of the week, while you spend each afternoon in the basement watching the burning pile, playing on your computer, and lazily polishing up a new mask and finishing a new mind band--the last items you can make with your current materials. Caleb has suggested that you should make a mask of him, and you agreed it would only be fair. By a nice coincidence, you are both in the basement on Sunday afternoon, having just finished up the mask and used it to copy Caleb, when the glow fades from the dirt pile. Caleb tries relighting it, but it won't ignite. He calls you over sharply. "I think it's done!"

"About fucking time." You both press around it. The magical flame has caused the heap to congeal into a big mass of something that looks like clay. Three great rents have opened up in it, giving it the appearance of having two arms and two legs, and a misshapen lump at one end further contributes to the illusion of a crude, humanoid figure. The book now says that it, like the masks, has to be polished, and you and Caleb let out harmonic groans at the thought of scrubbing that heap for days on end.

Luckily, it turns out that polishing in this case consists of little more than a light dusting that brushes loose impurities from its surface, leaving it a dull, chalky, grayish color, and there seems nothing else to do. You look down at the spell book, cock your head, then turn it over to press the open page to the thing's chest. When you turn it back over, you find that the page now turns.

You and Caleb bend over the book and the computer, doing your best to execute a translation. Finally, Caleb snaps his fingers. "It's a golem!" he says. You frown at him. "A slave! Like a zombie, except you don't use a body."

"How do we get it to work?" Not that it sounds very useful: you couldn't let it out of the basement, and what jobs could you give it down here?

"We do this." Caleb snatches up a mask, frowns at it, exchanges it for a second mask, changes his mind again, and picks up the third mask. He hops excitedly over to the thing. He sets the mask on its "face," and to your astonishment it glows and sinks into the thing. The golem glimmers and shimmers, and its form distorts, and moment later reconfigures itself as a naked duplicate of Caleb himself.

You glance over at Caleb, whose slightly mad expression suggests he is, simultaneously, both immensely pleased and a little freaked out. Your attention is quickly reengaged by the new addition to your club when it groans and stretches its limbs. "Oh, Jesus," he yawns. "Those things really knock you out, don't they." He sits up, then freezes in a double take when he sees you and Caleb.

The atmosphere tenses as the new Caleb swallows. "The fuck is going on?" He points to your friend. "Who the fuck is that?"

"It's Caleb," you say. "The real Caleb."

The thing on the table turns pale, and then very red. "The fuck are you--?" he growls. He looks down, notices that he is naked, and glares up sharply at Caleb. "You trying to get rid of me, get yourself a new friend to play with?" There's a tremble in his voice.

Your throat works, but no sounds come out. Caleb steps in. "You're our slave," he says sharply. "You have to do what we say."

With a snarl the thing leaps off the table and hurls himself at Caleb, tearing at him. "Stop it!" you yell, grabbing at them. "Get off!" The naked Caleb abruptly releases the real Caleb and falls back, panting wildly. You take it by the shoulders and look deeply into its eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to get my life back," the thing says, its eyes mad with anger and fear. "All I know is we made a copy of me, and when I wake up--" His nostrils flare and he glares over at Caleb. "You put the mask on--? Who is that?"

"That's Caleb!" you shout. "The real Caleb. You're--" You wheel the thing around to face the now-empty table. "We finished the spell. It made a golem, a slave. We put the mask on it and ... Well, that's what you are."

It stares at the table, breathing heavily. "Get the mask off it, Will!" Caleb shouts.

You reach up to the thing's face, but it bats your hand away. "Hold still!" you order, and thing falls into a slump. Gingerly, you reach up to its brow, mutter the incantation, and pull the mask off. It instantly reverts to a lump of clay-like flesh, now standing instead of reclining.

"Fucking thing is broken," Caleb says. He's breathing heavily too. "We can't have fake versions of us running around, not if they're going to act like that."

You frown into the mask, thinking furiously. "No, hang on," you say. "It didn't know what it was. It didn't know we'd finished the spell."

"What difference does that make?"

You thrust the mask at him. "Just put it on. Recharge it with your memories. We'll see what happens when we put it back on him."

Caleb grumbles but complies. While he's unconscious you pace, thinking hard. A convincing duplicate should act like the original, so you're not quite as freaked out as Caleb had been at the thing's behavior. At the same time, Caleb is right: a slave needs to do what its maker says. But who's the maker? You have a sudden thought and wheel to examine the spell again: Ah, yes, that hank of hair that Caleb put into the mix. Maybe that's the secret. It didn't fight you the way it fought with Caleb; maybe it is supposed to obey you.

When Caleb reawakes you quickly outline your deduction to him; he is still skeptical and jumpy, but doesn't fight when you put the mask back onto the golem. The duplicate Caleb, when he reappears, is much calmer, but looks warily between you and his original. "Okay, I see what's going on," it says in a guarded tone when you ask it what it knows and remembers. "You can't expect me to be happy about it, but I understand now."

"You understand that you're our slave, right?" you ask it.

Its eyes flick between you and Caleb. "I don't have to do what this cocksucker says," he says, glowering at Caleb, who flushes. "You? Okay, something inside me says I have to follow your orders." It makes a face.

It's been a fraught afternoon, so you remove the mask from the thing shortly afterward. After talking things over with Caleb, though, you both brighten up considerably. "You know what this means," he points out to you. "You don't have to go in to work tomorrow. I don't have to go in to work for you tomorrow. You can put your mask on that thing and it can go in for you. It could even go to school for you."

"You still owe me some money."

"Two weeks should just about cover it," he says. "You get paid tomorrow, so we'll see what it comes to after taxes and shit."

"I'd still rather you go in for me. Remember how I fucked up the one day I went in."

"Well, let the golem go in and fuck it up for you. The job isn't awful, but I got a life and am a little sick of giving twenty hours a week of it to you."