Chapter 12. The Hunted

bell tolled, low and mournful, as the waves crept slowly over the strand with a sigh.  Footprints eroded and vanished, smoothed over and forgotten.  And now a tinkling sound, like glass, shimmered upon the air, brittle and sweet.  There was an odor of musk and flowers, cloying and overwhelming and  a sharp undertone of sweat and fear.  Cold grasping waves tugged at his ankles and he strode into the ocean up to his knees, shivering as the turning tide called him out to sea.

You’ll drown.  It’s cold.  Don’t go out there.

He hugged himself against the biting chill, wondering how he had arrived in this remote place.  There were cliffs at his back and he was soaked, his fine clothes clinging to him.  But he could not remember how he had arrived, did not recognize the landscape.  The gray clouds seemed as desolate and sluggish as his mind.  Why could he not remember?

Oh hells, who was he?

I’m alive and I’m breathing.  Remember. 

The chiming soothed him somehow and he gazed out over the endless horizon of the ocean. 

Come into the water, lose yourself.

But this isn’t real.  I was afraid.  Running.

The perfume, the sickening perfume.  It made me giddy.  The man with the pale blue eyes.  Coming back now, remember.  Sleeping.

“Armand, come back to sleep, my little cabbage.”

“Mama?” 

A chill crawled down his spine as he heard her voice behind him.  It was wrong but he was having a hard time remembering why.  Turning inexorably, he saw her as if through a distorted lens.  She was gazing down on him, her hand outstretched.  He stared in wonder at her beautiful costume, a lacy butterfly spangled with sequins and tiny fragments of mirror that made stars upon the walls of their tent.  And when she flew upon the trapeze, she dazzled them all, so lithe and graceful and fearless. 

Home again, the open road, his family.  He pressed against her, afraid, yet filled with longing.  This was their troupe, five generations of artisans sought after by royal courts and aristocrats.  Magic and wonder and beauty all folded into one glorious spectacle.  How he had missed them.

“You’re all dead,” he murmured, “This isn’t real  I saw you die, Mama.”

“Remember to mislead,” she whispered, kissing his flaxen hair, “The mind, like the eye, is drawn to movement.”

She faded away, a wisp of smoke drawn away on an ethereal wind.  Tent and sequins, silk and mirrors, all gone.  But he was Armand Leblanc once more as he blinked awake and saw the masks. 

They covered the walls, elaborate and beautiful, sculpted from finely molded leather and brightly painted, each a work of art.  They almost seemed alive and yet strangely sad.  Rows of empty eyes gazed down on him framed with hair of every shade from lustrous black to silvery blonde. 

The room was tiny and dark, almost a closet and lit by a ring of candles that hovered over him as he lay supine.  He was cold and shivering, his body bathed in sweat as if after a fever.  A faint remnant of the sickly sweet perfume remained, clinging to his clammy clothes.  Instinctively he tried to rise, still dull of mind and weary beyond measure.

He could not move.  No, he could move, but he was held down.  Thrashing once, he heard the rattle of bolts, felt the unyielding press of metal over wrists and ankles.  Elsewhere rope over his chest, shoulders and thighs.  His head was pinned, pressed beneath leather, as if he were wearing a mask perfectly tailored to the dimensions of his face.

Like the ones on the walls.