Chapter Four: Painted Faces on Parade

Tom, a group of undines carted away almost ys soon as the Ice Train stopped moving. Oddly enough, he had never stopped glaring.

"Come with me," Melisande ordered. She rushed in the opposite direction, never even pausing to see if Emry would follow.

Emry did, of course. She rushed along behind Melisande though the halls of the Ice Palace. After what felt like moments but was surely longer, Melisande came upon a huge set of double-doors.

The doors, which were quite extremely heavy, moved inward under Emry's shoving.

Amazingly, she followed Melisande into what looked like a pleasure garden.

If pleasure gardens consisted of fish that could fly in the air, had a layer of water over all the land, and were filled with rising waterfalls.

But a pleasure garden wasn't the only thing that lay beyond the double doors.

A footpath appeared. The only odd thing about it (aside from the fact that it hadn't existed seconds earlier) was the fact that markings in a language no-one had taught her to read but she understood anyway covered it.

Melisdande stepped onto the path and vanished.

Emry fought to keep from panicking. The urge to cry out, to run around screaming eventually subsided.

When she had calmed down a bit, Emry followed Her Owner onto the footpath.

White light enveloped her. She could feel some sort of force lifting her. Her hair swirled around her, as if she were underwater.

And then she found herself in a large circular room. At the edge of the room began a staircase, rather like a spiral staircase, but not quite.

Melisande stood in the center of the room. She had her back turned to Emry. A brief breeze ruffled her kimono, and one of the ends of the bow of the sash that held the kimono drifted a bit.

Emry wondered how Melisande had managed to tie such an elaborate bow, even with magic.

"You're late. I expected you a while ago."

"My apologies. Your disappearance startled me."

"I forgive you. Curious as to how Tom is doing?"

"Only if you want me to be."

Melisande laughed.

"You have no idea how amusing I find you."

Emry said only, "I am glad I amuse you."

"You arrived just in time to help me get ready for my bicentennial celebration. Father's wanted to throw a gala for decades. This is his perfect excuse."

Emry nodded. "What can I do?"

The second floor containted an enormous bath. Emry had untied Melisande's sash--- called an obi, apparently--- and folded the kimono. She waited patiently for another command, or even a signal for what to do, never removing her eyes from Melisande.

The object of her neverending stare lounged in the pool. A trio of naiads scrubbed her down, then helped her out. A different trio converged upon her with long swatches of fine cloth.

The scene struck Emry as reminiscent of Actaeon and Artemis in the cave.

Emry handed her a lounging robe, then followed her up the next flight of stairs.

The floor above the baths looked to Emry like nothing more than rack after rack of clothing.

"What is this place?"

Melisande laughed.

She seemed to do a lot of laughing. But the "Good Picture, Bad Picture" slideshow had included "Melisande laughing" in the Good Picture reel.

So why did the knowledge that Melisande found her mirth her make it feel like a Bad Picture?

"This is my wardrobe. You know, wardrobe? Where people get dressed?"

"Should I leave, then?"

"No! You have to get dressed too, you know."

"Magesse?"

"Now that you've arrived, you simply must come!"

"If my Owner wishes."

"I do. Now help me find a dress."

Emry set to work, trying to determine which articles of clothing Melisande would find appropriate. Had Emily Browsing still existed, she would have understood the hatred one of her friends attending the Christian high school forty miles north of Pokey had of their dresscode. Picking out clothing according to the tastes and standards of another was no easy chore.

"Those won't do at all," Melisande snapped when Emry had finally garnered a collection of dresses that might pass. "This isn't just a ball, it's a masque!"

Ah. A masque. Of course. Silly her. How could she not have known?

The four dresses fell to the floor, then lifted up and found their original places.

"I would be much more efficient in this task if I knew what sort of costume you wanted to wear."

"I don't know... Perhaps one of the gods or goddesses in Greek mythology?" Melisande's tone had by now become downright waspish.

"Have you one in mind?"

Melisande only looked at her. The cross expression remained on Melisande's face. In fact, that waspish tone of voice leaked into Melisande's mannerisms with such clarity that Emry realized her mistake without Melisande needing to utter a word.

Cross expressions, Emry seemed to recall, had appeared in the Bad Picture reel.

"What do you think of Persephone? Leda? Daphne? Iris?"

"No, too boring. Besides, if we're to go in one theme, who would you be for them?"

Emry remained silent. How exactly did one dress up to match a theme if the other person went as four people at once?

Melisande seemed to recognize the flaw in her logic (or perhaps the flaw in Emry's interpretation of the question), because she snapped, "As whom would you go, Emry, if I were to attend my masque as Persephone?"

Emry thought a moment. "Why not a dead soul?"

"And if I dressed as Leda?"

"Why not a swan?"

Melisande gave her that waspish look again. That look communicated quite well the fact that a servant (even a very rare type of servant) dressing as the swan that had raped Leda would send a very unacceptable message. "And if I went as Daphne?"

Emry did not say the first thought that rushed into her mind (Apollo). Instead, she replied, "Eros."

"Iris?"

Emry blinked. "I... Well..."

"You haven't any idea, have you?"

"No, Magesse."

"Well, I shan't go as Leda. And I've never much cared for rainbows, so that leaves Daphne and Persephone."

"Does it matter which? You'd dress as a goddess for either."

"Why, yes, it matters! Not only does it affect your costume, it affects my mask!"

Emry nodded, then bowed at the waist. When Melisande decided, which probably wouldn't take long, as Melisande didn't seem the indecisive type, Emry would start work.

"Persephone. She's the bride of Hades and also the goddess of Spring."

"Right then. And shall I dress as a spirit?"

"No, you will go as one of Persephone's handmaids, who only happens to be dead."

"As my Owner wishes."

"So, shall we?"

And they did. Or, rather, Emry did, and Melisande wandered around looking at dresses but not actually making things happen.

A clearer idea of what she needed helped Emry in her work, and she eventually finished the costume with more--- and at the same time, less--- effort than she had anticipated.

Melisande's costume consisted of a thigh-length white tunic, over which Melisande would wear a translucent black peplos. The peplos had once been a white dress, but Emry saw no need to mention that. Emry added a basket of wilting flowers and a classic masquerade mask trimmed with dead rosebuds, and the costume needed nothing else.

As a proper Construct would do, Emry fashioned her own costume rather simpler. She trimmed a white domino with rose petals, lace and sheer gray cloth. Her actual clothing lacked the flair of Melisande's costume--- an identical white tunic of less elegant material and a gray wrap completed it.

Melisande examined her handiwork and expressed approval. Emry suspected, at the smirk that twitched onto Melisande's lips, that Melisande had known of an easier way for her to make the costumes.

And in what appeared to comprise true Melisande fashion, she hadn't said a word about it.

Before Emry could decide whether or not to voice this concern, however, her Owner had pulled her into a kiss.

Emry wandered around Melisande's section of the Palace. At length, Melisande