The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Old Scandals and New Discoveries

Previously: "New Information" 

In the library, Melody is growing restless -- you don't blame her one bit -- but you keep her distracted by telling her that "Will" is fetching some money that Blackwell left for her. When he returns, you smoothly seize her and he presses the mask to her face; when it reappears you coat its insides with some of the remaining golem-skin goop and put it back on the still-unconscious Melody. It would be quicker to put the mask to your own face, but you need to do something with the real Melody, and this is the only way of hiding her.

So it is Melody-wearing-a-Melody-disguise who wakes up, albeit a Melody who is now your mostly willing assistant. Her personality shows virtually no change after her awakening, except for a slightly resentful air of not wanting to answer your questions. She also pesters you with questions of her own as you once again go over her notes and her story.

Her research revolved around a juicy tale of intrigue and skullduggery in high places during the reign of George I of England. You soon become lost in a blizzard of names as she warms to her narrative. "Infernal devices" of "magick" and "devilry" were ascribed to a low-ranked courtier who had come over with the new king from Hanover. Two people, including a "French sorcerer," were burned at the stake, though their exact identities are shrouded in mystery. A detailed report was drawn up and shown to the king, who reportedly had it burned as well; a wholesale reshuffling of ministry personnel ensued. A commission oversaw the final destruction of all the magical implements, though a list and description of them was kept in the most secret royal archives. That, supposedly, was the end.

Until fifty years later, when the last commissioner, the Duke of Devonshire, died. A catalog was made of his immense collection, and it was discovered that several items found in a secret room in his library answered to descriptions of items that had been destroyed at the end of that old investigation. The identity of the items was never definitely proven, for they disappeared before a proper inquest could be launched; a long-time servant vanished at the same time. "What were the things that disappeared?" you ask Melody.

She describes the book that sounds like the Libra and a few other items that don't sound familiar. Your twin, meanwhile, has been quietly ransacking other parts of the house, and he calls from upstairs, where you find him in the workroom. "Lookit what I found under the bench," he says, pointing to the book. "And lookit where he had it open to."

You glance at the book and then glare at Will; the book is not in English. But Melody, who has followed you, is peering over your shoulder. "It's about a witch trial in 16th century Saxony," she says.

You look at her in surprise. "You know German?"

"German. Latin. French. Spanish. A smattering of Danish." She shrugs. "I've always been good at languages."

"So what's it say?" She takes it from you, reads it through, and gives you a paraphrase: Basically, a woman was accused of replacing several people in her village with simulacra. She then killed the local noble's wife and was caught trying to sneak into his estate. Before she was burnt at the stake, the witch cursed the Inquisitors who had stopped her just short of unlocking the secret of "the absolute power of eternal health and beauty." As she burned, the simulacra in the town "shed their false visages and became as the clay of the earth."

"What was the witch's name?" Will asks.

Melody peers through the text. "It's a little ambiguous," she says. "It keeps referring to her as 'Schablonenmann,' which seems more like a name than an occupation. But it's an odd name." She frowns. "The simulacra are also 'Schablonenmann,' so it's hard to know what is going on there."

"Does 'Shabbleman' mean anything to you?" Wills asks her.

You jump at the familiar name, but Melody shakes her head, and to answer your puzzled glance points to the notation in the margin of the page, which is what had undoubtedly what caught Will's attention: "Schablonenmann = Shabbleman?" "That's Blackwell's handwriting," she sniffs.

"Shabbleman," you mutter.

"Yeah," Will says sourly. "That was great-grandma's maiden name." He gives Melody an unhappy look. "We got cousins named that, still." He shudders.

* * * * *

You find nothing more of obvious interest, and soon send Melody on her way with orders to continue her research with special concentration on that Saxon witch-trial. ("Could it be connected to that witch business with George I?" you ask her. She gives you a withering look. "George I came from Hanover, and Hanover is in Lower Saxony.") She is to give you all her information before she passes any more on to Blackwell. "And if Blackwell asks, tell him you couldn't find Lucy."

That still leaves you with Lucy herself to dispose of. You're less inclined now to stage an accident, though, because you really want to find a way into her mask. You and Will return to the library, where you work until the sun has begun to fail.

The "Eureka!" moment comes when you raise your head and stretch your muscles, glancing up from the golem-seal sigil you'd been patiently deconstructing and examining. Your eye falls on a copy of the mind-strip sigil that your twin had made during his studies. Irritably, you're about to snap at him for making some elementary mistakes when you catch yourself: No, he has done it correctly. It only looks wrong because you'd been studying a superficially similar set of elements in the golem-shell spell. You lay the two sigils side by side and compare them with mounting excitement.

"Look at this!" you beckon to your other self. "Both these parts of the sigils are supposed to copy over the mind of the target. But they are structured differently."

He studies them, then shrugs. "Of course they're different. The mind strip only has to copy over a single mind. The golem-shell has to integrate the essence of the spellcaster into the mind strip of the mask. Those are two different tasks. Kinda the same, but--"

"But remember what you were saying earlier today, that the golem-mask has a self-sealing 'hole' in it?" You scribble on a piece of paper furiously, but he has seen the solution even as you have. "Put a mind strip onto a golemized mask, and it will open up that hole, because it's the first step toward capturing and copying the mind. But there isn't a mind inside a mask to copy, only a simulacrum of a mind. So it will just loop and loop and loop and loop, but that hole will be open all that time!"

"And that's when you can feed a recapitulation spell through it!" Will adds triumphantly. You give each other a manly handshake. Then his face falls. "Except we don't have a spare mind strip, and without the book we can't make one."

You both chew on your fingernails while staring at the sigils. Then: "I got it!" your twin shouts. ("Dammit," you mutter to yourself; you'd wanted to solve it first.) "We don't need a live mind strip. A dead one will do. Bind it to the front of the mask. Once it's bound to the mask it will go 'live,' because it will be part of a live mask!"

"You're gonna hotwire a mind strip?!" Your eyes nearly pop from your skull.

"That will open up the hole," he continues. "We thread the recapitulate spell through and copy it onto another dead mind strip. That will bring it live, too, and then we'll have Lucy's mind on a mind strip, and then, well ...

It seems like a terribly risky plan, and there will still be the matter of actually using a mind strip that has such terrible memories locked up in it. But you are running out of time.

Next: "An Accident and Its Aftermath" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"