THE IMPOSTER
After all the blows and upheavals of the day, Neverfell was very glad to have found somebody who could make a plan for her. She was even happier to have somebody to understand the plan for her, since try as she might she could not follow the musical fluting of Zouelle's explanation. There was something to do with an audition, and a misunderstanding, and something that had happened to the two girls the day before, but it was explained so rapidly that the details slipped sand-like through the clutches of her dazzled brain.
"Do you understand?" the older girl asked again, yet more slowly and patiently. Once more Neverfell answered by moving her head in a joggle that started in a nod and ended in a shake.
"It doesn't matter," said the older girl in the kindest voice in the world. "Just remember the bits you have to do, and it'll all be fine." She gave a brief but significant glance at her portlier companion before returning her gaze to Neverfell. "So ... we're going to put you in a new dress. All right? Can you take off that mask?"
Neverfell responded with a muffled screech and a panic-stricken clutch at her mask to hold it to her face. If these girls saw how hideous she was, they would flee again, and she would be back where she started.
"Don't worry," Zouelle cooed soothingly. "That's fine ... leave it on. Are you burnt or something under there? It doesn't matter—you don't have to tell me. If anybody asks you why you're wearing it, just say that you're protecting your complexion. Now, you will be going up to Madame Appeline's door, and when somebody answers you say that you've been sent by the Beaumoreau Academy, and you're there to audition as a Putty Girl. Can you remember that?"
Neverfell nodded.
"That's really good." A beautiful smile. "That should get you inside Madame Appeline's domain. Now, you see this?" A little cut-glass bottle full of seething purple liquid was waved in front of her face for the tenth time. "Do you remember what you do with this?"
"I ... give it to the servants?"
"That's right. You tell them that it's a gift for Madame Appeline, to thank her for the audition. That's all we need you to do. After that, if you want, you can slip away from the other girls attending the audition, and find your way to the storerooms or wherever she keeps her new deliveries, and take back your cheese. It's not stealing, after all, is it?"
"Shouldn't I just talk to Madame Appeline?" This was the part of the plan that Neverfell was less comfortable about. "She had a nice Face—"
"No, I'm afraid not," Zouelle said gently. "If you do, the plan won't work. She won't give you back your cheese, Neverfell. Why would she? It's useful to her. And if she knows you're not a real candidate, she won't drink the Wine."
Neverfell gazed down at the little bottle. "It won't do anything bad to her?"
"Oh no, of course not!" exclaimed Zouelle. "It's just Wine. Madame Appeline often orders Wine to help her forget something—you know how people do. This will just help her forget an extra memory, that's all. One that might be upsetting to her."
When Zouelle put it like that, it all sounded quite straightforward. Neverfell knew that special Wines could be blended that allowed you to forget specific things or times, and that they were popular among the rich and bored who felt they had seen everything. They cleared out useless or ugly memories the way some threw out cracked china, so that their minds creaked less under the burden of the years.
"Anyway, once you have your cheese back, you sneak back to the other girls and leave with them. Can you do that?"
Neverfell's eye kept straying to the frosted glitter of the taller girl's brooch. It looked like sugar, and Neverfell wondered what it tasted like. Thoughts tried to crowd out of her mouth, but there were too many of them and they jammed in the door. Of course I will, she wanted to answer. You're the kindest person I've ever met and you're calm and wonderful and any minute now I'm going to say something really stupid ...
"Your gloves have stripes on!" was what she actually said.
"Ye-e-es. Yes, they do." Zouelle wet her lips. "But you understand what you have to do, don't you?" Neverfell hesitated, then gave a slow, firm nod, and Zouelle's shoulders relaxed a little.
"What are we going to do about ..." The shorter girl glanced at Neverfell and tapped meaningfully at her own nose. "Everybody will notice."
"Cloves," her friend answered promptly. "Oil of cloves, so everybody thinks she's trying to treat herself for pimples. That should have a strong enough fragrance to mask the ... problem.
"Now, the most important bit." The taller girl leaned forward, holding Neverfell's gaze. "The most important bit is that if you see either of us you have to pretend you don't know us. Whatever happens, you don't know us. Otherwise ... everything will go badly for everyone. Understand?"
Right at that moment, Neverfell would have given her two new friends the world. She wanted to give them her buttons, or Master Grandible's rabbit, or iridescent ballrooms, or mountains of figs. But what they seemed to want was a nod, so she gave them that instead.
Tucked between the luggage on the back of the cart, Neverfell knew that she was supposed to be completely covered by the blanket, but she could not resist lifting it just enough to give herself an arrow slit of vision out between the great trunks. Passage by passage, lane by lane, the boundaries of her world were pushing back.
After a time, the wheels of the pony cart ceased to bounce and jolt, and she noticed that the tunnels were floored in smooth flagstones. At a glance, she could see that these tunnels were not part of a natural cave system but had been carefully excavated. The walls were regular and square-cornered, and wooden struts helped reinforce the ceiling. Black iron trap-lanterns blazed from brackets, and along the tops of the walls ran hefty, shuddering hot-and cold-water pipes.
Then they entered busier thoroughfares, filled with voices, wheel judders, whinnies, and footfalls that echoed and mingled until they roared like rapids. Neverfell glimpsed swift messenger boys teetering past on unicycles, arms spread for balance. Dusty miners' carts trundled by, filled with rubble. Muscled men heaved on great wheels to haul pearl-colored flying sedans up through shafts in the ceiling. In one of the larger caverns, pony carts for hire clustered grayly around a vast clock set in the rocky wall, so old that it wore a crust of limestone and a frail fringe of stalactites. Stiff-faced pannier-bearers flounced past in dun-colored linen, and Neverfell could smell the grease in their hair, the dirt under their fingernails.
The cart headed off down a quieter, green-lit lane after this, and at last came to a halt before a gilt-handled door with a panel above it that showed a silver heron on a blue background.
A whispered argument ensued.
"Why do I have to steal the invitation?" hissed Borcas.
"Because you already have one of your own," Zouelle responded with an air of patience, "so nobody will suspect you, and you know the other candidates better than I do, so you can get closer to them. Come on—we do not have much time!"
Borcas vanished through the door just long enough for Neverfell to reach a fever pitch of anxiety, and for the rabbit to deposit a heap of soft, distressed droppings on her knee. At last Borcas returned, rather flushed, with a bundle under one arm and a card in one hand.
"Good." Zouelle smiled. "Marden—go!" The cart rattled away again. "Head to the Twirl Stair."
When the rumble of wheels stopped again, Neverfell's blanket was pulled away, and she found that the cart stood in a small cavern some ten feet across, in the ceiling of which was set a broad, rough-hewn shaft. Up the middle of this shaft rose a spiraling stair of black iron.
Borcas's bundle was opened, and, the next thing Neverfell knew, a white muslin gown was being pulled down over her ordinary clothes. Round her waist was tied a blue sash with a silver heron embroidered on it, very much like the one she had seen above the door. Beneath the heron was stitched the words "Beaumoreau Academy." Neverfell's rough pigtails were tucked under a gauzy cap, and an ointment smeared across her neck, hands, and wrists, filling the air with the bitterly piquant smell of cloves.
The card Borcas had brought out was placed in Neverfell's hand, and proved to be a gilt-edged invitation to attend an "Audition in Facial Athletics and Artistry."
"There." Zouelle smoothed Neverfell's cap, tucking in a few stray wisps. "Now, is everybody ready? Take the stair, and when you reach the top the door will be twenty yards to your left. Good luck, both of you!"
"Wha—Aren't you coming?" Borcas sounded as horrified as Neverfell felt.
"Me? Of course not! I can hardly show my face there after yesterday, can I?" Zouelle was climbing back onto the cart. "But I shall be right here waiting for you and looking after the rabbit—and if you two do exactly what I told you to do, then everything should go perfectly."
Somewhat crestfallen, Neverfell accompanied Borcas to the foot of the stairway. Borcas was still wearing her strange, lopsided Face, but she smelled a bit like Grandible's rabbit had when it felt cornered.
"You smell like my rabbit," Neverfell whispered.
"Well, you smell like a dead man's pantry," snapped Borcas, "but some of us are too polite to comment."
"Now, Borcas," called Zouelle, "you should go first, and, Neverfell—climb up a few minutes after her. You don't want to arrive together, do you?"
Neverfell obediently let Borcas start climbing first, and only began her own ascent once the other girl was nothing but a dark blot against the skeletal whorls of the staircase above. Neverfell was naturally nimble, but was not used to long skirts, and found that her legs were trembling from excitement. The shaft itself was full of strange gusts and gasps of air, and occasionally solitary bright droplets winked down past her and then vanished into darkness below.
At the top of the stair, she found herself in a long corridor that stretched from left to right. There was no sign of Borcas. To her left, she could see a heavy-looking door set deep in the wall. It was intricately decorated in a tracery of green vines in which gold and purple birds nestled. At the sight of this, the clamp of excitement in Neverfell's stomach tightened and became terror. Her mind was a mad moth, and she could barely keep Zouelle's instructions straight in her head as she reached the door and tugged at the red rope bellpull.
One of the birds painted on the door was a large owl, staring directly out toward Neverfell. She jumped when, without warning, the owl's painted eyes receded with a shunk, leaving two round holes, through which a pair of more human eyes could be seen peering a few seconds later.
"Your business?"
"I was sent here ... by ... by the Bomo school. For an ... audition for Putty Girls." Neverfell hesitantly waved her stolen invitation before the gaze of the owl-eye spyholes.
"Name?"
Neverfell goldfished helplessly behind her mask as she fell off the edge of her briefing.
"Name? I ... I ... can't remember!" It was an idiotic, panic-stricken thing to say, and escaped Neverfell in a sort of incoherent chirrup.
There was a pause.
"Caramemba," muttered the voice in the slow, careful tone of one writing something down. "Caramemba from the Beaumoreau Academy. You are lucky—the auditions have not started yet."
The human eyes receded into darkness, and the owl's eyes reappeared in their appointed place. After a series of clicks and scrapes the door opened. Somehow, despite her panic, Neverfell had bluffed her way in.
Beyond the door extended a neat hallway, floors patterned in a mosaic of different crystals, walls covered in ornate tapestries depicting woodland scenes from which multicolored animals peered coyly. Disturbingly, there was no sign of Neverfell's interlocutor, so she was left to tiptoe down the corridor alone, watched by the stitched eyes of azure squirrels and purple chamois.
At the far end two wooden doors swung open to reveal a room unlike anything Neverfell had ever seen. From the ceiling hung a large trap-lantern chandelier, so vast that you could barely see the little black-clad boy crouched upon it, puffing hard to keep the traps aglow. The walls were suffocating beneath pastoral tapestries and framed pictures.
In the middle of the room was a long table, covered by a white and gold cloth and an ornate silver tea service. Along its length some dozen girls sat stiff-backed, hands nervously twisted in their laps. One of the girls was Borcas. She met Neverfell's gaze with a bland, disinterested stare, then cleared her throat slightly and looked meaningfully across the room. Following her gaze, Neverfell noticed a servant woman standing next to a little side table where wrapped and beribboned boxes clustered.
Realizing these must be the presents that the girls had brought for the Facesmith, Neverfell timidly approached the servant, bobbed a curtsy, and mutely offered up her bottle to be added to the rest. Relieved of her burden, she gingerly approached the main table and seated herself on the one stool remaining.
Most of the girls seemed to be too self-absorbed for conversation. Many were cupping tiny hand mirrors in their palms to examine their own countenances. Some, like Borcas, were carefully holding grotesque or unnatural distortions of their features. Others were cycling so quickly through different expressions that their faces seemed to be in spasm. Neverfell's bizarre appearance, however, was gradually gaining some attention. Those wearing the same Beaumoreau uniform as herself seemed particularly curious.
Neverfell had delivered the Wine, just as she had promised. Now, according to Zouelle's plan, she should be slipping away from the other girls to look for the piece of the Stackfalter Sturton. But how was she supposed to do that when so many of them were staring at her?
A tall, auburn-haired girl to Neverfell's right scrutinized her for some time before speaking.
"You should probably take off your mask, you know."
"I ..." Neverfell's mind emptied and her mouth became a desert. "I ... have pimples!"
"Nobody here minds. And how can you audition with your face covered?"
Neverfell did not answer. How could she, when she could only guess what the audition would involve? She lowered her head and blushed deeply under her mask and got on with clattering her crockery and stirring jam into her tea.
The exchange had apparently sparked off a small forest fire of gossip and surmise. Neverfell could hear whispered snatches from all around her.
"... must have a special Face that she prepared early and doesn't want us to see ..."
"... probably recognize her if we saw her ... one of the high-ranking Craftsmen houses ..."
"... wrong side of the blanket ..."
"... notice the smell of cloves? Obviously she's using Perfume and trying to hide it ..."
Neverfell was almost relieved when another door opened, and Madame Appeline swept into the room, glittering like a dragonfly in pleated emerald satin. Just as the Facesmith's smiling gaze was gliding down the rows of seated girls, Neverfell remembered that Madame Appeline had seen her mask before.
She had wanted more than anything to talk to Madame Appeline, but now everything had changed. She was an imposter, and had lied her way into the house. Overwhelmed by fear and confusion, she feigned a muffled coughing fit and doubled over, quietly lowering her face into her hands and her napkin so that her mask could not be seen.
"My dears, it is a delight to see such a bevy of fresh, fair, and flexible faces." Madame Appeline's voice was just as warm and sweet as Neverfell had remembered. "Your schools have picked you out as particularly exceptional candidates, which is why you are here today.
"Now, first of all I would like you to show me what you can do. In a moment you will be shown through that door and into the light." She waved a hand at the doorway through which she had just entered. "You will see something ... very unusual. Unique, I like to think, in Caverna. You will then have half an hour to observe what you find there and prepare a selection of five Faces from your personal repertoire that you think are an appropriate response to it."
The door opened, and out of it trooped a string of girls, all a few years older than those seated at the table. These older girls were all dressed in simple, unornamented white gowns, their hair tied back so that their carefully serene faces were entirely visible. Most of them had large, well-spaced eyes, high cheekbones, and broad, flexible mouths, giving the uncanny impression that they were members of the same enormous extended family. Neverfell guessed that these must be Madame Appeline's Putty Girls. Light poured through the door so brightly that it put the chandelier to shame.
Madame Appeline flashed a last smile and departed the room, leaving Neverfell and the other candidates to file awkwardly into the light. And as she emerged, each girl halted in her tracks as if thunderstruck. As Neverfell's eyes adjusted to the scene before her, her heart, which had been jerking like a drowning hare, stopped for a beat.
She was standing in a grove. She had never seen a grove except in pictures, and yet she knew, knew that this was what she was seeing. A path weaved between tall and sturdy trunks, ridged and rugged bark gleaming with tiny beads of dew. From above brilliant golden light turned shifting leaves to blades of green fire. A breeze brushed her face, giving a sudden giddying sense of unlimited distance.
A grove. A grove, deep in the sunless tunnels of the city of Caverna.
Only after she had taken a few stumbling steps did Neverfell realize that she was looking not at a miracle but at a masterpiece. For all its brilliant green, the softness beneath her feet was carpet. Somehow she knew that real woodland moss should give, slip, and crush more under her weight. The leaves above were chiming softly in the breeze, and she guessed that they must be glass. Spellbound, she reached out a hand to touch one of the dewdrops, and found it was a crystal bead. As her finger traced the surface of the bark, she somehow knew that she should be feeling the green down of lichen, and that the bark itself should be crumbling under her touch to reveal pale wood and insects. Somewhere above, hundreds of powerful trap-lanterns must be hanging from the high and unseen ceiling of the cavern to provide the brilliant light.
The great trunks were the pièce de résistance, of course, for she realized that these must be real trees ... or at least that they must have been real trees uncounted thousands of years ago. Petrified forests were sometimes discovered deep within the rock, places where the earth had drowned and swallowed hundreds of living trees, and then over the millennia had replaced living, sap-filled wood with quartzes and multicolored gemstones, a little at a time.
In this case, instead of mining the trees for the beauty of their pink, gold, and green crystal, the diggers had apparently removed only the rock around them, leaving the trees untouched. This forest of jeweled trees was without decay. Every knothole, every ring was preserved with semiprecious precision. It was infinitely valuable and utterly dead.
For several minutes the audition candidates could only gawp. Then, as one, they glanced at each other, then scattered, mirrors in hand. Nobody wanted to try out sample Faces where another candidate might observe and steal ideas. In a space of seconds, Neverfell found herself entirely alone—which was, she remembered with a jolt, precisely what she wanted.
She would not have long alone. If she was to track down the Sturton fragment, it had to be now.
Eyes closed, she breathed deeply and focused upon the smells. There were traces of a dozen soaps and perfumes, body smells, dried flowers, and of course the oil of cloves in which she was doused ... but there it was, the faintest pungent hint of cheese, like a familiar voice in a crowd's tumult. Having made sure nobody else was within view, she loosened her mask and pulled it slightly away from her face so that she could smell more easily.
Snuffing like a bloodhound, she made her way through the crystalline forest. At last she came upon a small white stone hut richly carved with images of leaping fish. The faint scent seemed to come from within, so she tried the door. It was locked, but she recognized it as a trick lock of a sort Grandible often used, and soon had it open.
Within she found an odd but elegant pantry. Wide shelves housed a number of crates, little sacks, bottles, and jars. Up on the high shelf was a box that she recognized as the one she had packed for Madame Appeline. She scrambled onto a chair and retrieved it. It did not appear to have been opened, and when she prised off the lid the little crumb of Sturton was still in its hiding place. She plucked it out and hastily crammed the box back in its place, then jumped down from her chair, just in time to hear the door unlock from the outside.
There was no time for a plan. As the door began to open, Neverfell threw herself at the gap, doubled over in the hope of pushing past the new arrival's legs. In the end, her non-plan very nearly worked. She plunged forward, headbutted the thigh of the manservant at the door, and her momentum carried her on past him ... or would have done had he not reached out reflexively and grabbed her collar.
She fought and flailed, but he managed to hook his spare arm round her waist, and suddenly she was no longer touching the ground. Her loosened mask fell to the ground. She was caught. She was done for.
But, came the wild thought, I can still save Master Grandible. I can still undo what I did.
And so, before her arms could be pinned, Neverfell crammed the crumb of Sturton in her mouth. She felt it crumble and melt on her tongue, and this was the last thing she knew before the world exploded.
It burst apart, and it turned out that it had always been made of music. Not music for the ear, but notes of pure soul and haunting memory. She had no body, and yet she sensed that her nose was a cathedral where a choir was singing full-throatedly, and her mouth a nation with its own history and legends of staggering beauty.
And then she had a body again, or so it seemed, and she was staggering through a woodland where trees wept soft sap and whispered, and light pooled and puddled like honey, and her ankles tangled in lush stems and a mist of blue flowers that reached up to her waist. All the while there was a warming sense of a presence beside her.
Then the vision was gone. She was back in Madame Appeline's grove, and hanging limp from the grip of the man who had captured her. Her mask lay at her feet. In the false woodland all around her stood the other auditioners, the Putty Girls, and Madame Appeline herself. They wore a wide range of expressions, but none of them meant anything. Their Faces were frozen, forgotten, as they all stared at Neverfell's exposed face.