Devil’s Masquerade

Prologue

She walks with her eyes down. Her lips move silently, mouthing the words. She hopes no one is looking. She was caught murmuring in Alethan just three days ago, and she can’t risk it again. She knows they’ll kill her next time.

The heavy grey robes force her shoulders down, make her walk slower, giving her the look of someone much older. Beneath them, she watches the toes of her sandals poking out. She hates sandals, the street dust on her feet. But it’s the law.

Gisa ka amoreth. Teske ni mamora gilless. Mumada, daka ni.

She looks up quickly, checking if the Gurats are about. The street looks clear. The cinema, closed and boarded up. As is the arcade next door. She remembers playing Shaolin Sisters in there, kicking Hanna’s ass each and every time. “You always choose Gao-Lin,” Hanna had said, “So you know all her moves... you’re just cheating!”

“It’s not cheating, it’s skill. You owe me ten deas.”

“Not a chance, I want a re-match. And you’re not being Gao-Lin.”

“Fine. You take Gao-Lin and I’ll be.... let’s see. Xiao is useless. Her moves are so weak. I’ll be Xiao.”

As she recalled, she’d beat her on Xiao as well, and won her ten deas. Then on to Kelly’s Chicken for greasy burgers and to collect the free soda coupons. Hanna only ever drank lemonade. She always got a double cheeseburger with no cheese - "If I just get a hamburger, they don’t give you the sauce”. And Lia would delight in telling everyone horror stories about what was really in the food.

She peers down the street. Kelly’s chicken is gone too.

Hanna and Lia, both dead.

She reaches the Temple of Cybele and pauses, as she does every day. The side of the beautiful building has been blown away, two marble pillars lie dead in the forecourt. A statue of Cybele has been smashed and never cleared away. The boards on the windows
read ‘Heathens’ and ‘Impure’, ‘Guru condemns you’.

And blessed be Holy mother Cybele.

Forgetting the penalty she faces, she finds her fingers in her pocket touching the plastic card there. She pulls it out to look at it, something she would never dare to do outside. Her old identity card from way before the world ended.

Name: Jocelyn
Race: Alethan.

Alethan. Once it was her race. She was proud of it. Something of no real importance to anyone else. She compares it to her new identity card.

It bears no photograph and, unlike the cards the Gurats owned, it doesn’t even have her name.

On blank white space, it says only Alethan.

And that was all that mattered.

She hears foorsteps behind her and quickly shoves her old card away. The hand that touches her shoulder is not the rough shove of a Gurat.

“Joss? Is that you?”

Joss spins around. “You musn’t speak Alethan,” her words rush out, the warning far more important than seeing who...

“Syrah?”

Under her own grey robes, Syrah’s eyes still smile. “Came back to see you... just a visit, you know...” She looks around. “What the hell happened here?”

Joss smiles. “Exactly what I said would happen.”