A Face Like Glass (2 page)

On a certain murky hour about seven years after that fateful day, a skinny figure could be seen capering sideways beside Grandible as he growled and slouched his way through
the tunnels with a great white loop of braided rope-cheese over one shoulder, and a ring of keys bristling in his fist.

She was no longer the little cheese-clotted scrap of life that blinked white lashes at Cheesemaster Grandible and so terrified him. Nor was she like her master, grim-jowled, solemn and taciturn,
dogged and careful in word and action. No, despite her best efforts she was a skinny, long-boned tangle of fidget and frisk, with feet that would not stay still, and elbows made to knock things off
shelves. Her hair was twisted into a mass of short, twiggy red pigtails to keep it out of her face, the cheese and everything else.

Seven years had passed. Seven years in the cheese tunnels, struggling after Grandible’s round-shouldered rolling gait with pails of milk or pots of hot wax. Seven years turning cheeses on
to their bellies, cheddaring, clambering up the wide wooden shelves like a monkey, sniffing scoops of cheese-paste for ripeness. Seven years learning to follow her nose through the darkened
tunnels, for Cheesemaster Grandible was stingy with the trap-lanterns. Seven years of sleeping in a hammock strung between the shelves, her only lullaby the fluting of the Whitwhistle cheese as its
emerald rind heaved and settled. Seven years of helping Grandible defend his territory from the murderous attempts of other cheesemakers. Seven years of tinkering and taking things apart to fill
the unyielding hours, inventing curd-shredders and triple-whisks, and learning the pleasure of seeing cog obey cog.

Seven years in which Grandible never permitted her to step out of his private tunnels, even for a moment, and never let her meet anybody without wearing a mask.

And what of those five years that had been hers before she was apprenticed? She could recall almost nothing of them. She tried a thousand times, but for the greater part that section of her
memory was as smooth and numb as scar tissue. Sometimes, just sometimes, she convinced herself that she could remember stray images or impressions, but she could not describe them properly or make
sense of them.

Darkness. A luminous coil of purple smoke rising around her and upward. A bitterness on her tongue. These were her only memories of her lost past, if memories they truly were.

Nobody’s mind ever remains a blank page, however carefully they are locked away from the world. In the case of Neverfell, she had made her mind into a scrapbook, busy filling it with the
fragments, stories, rumours and reports she could scavenge from talking to the delivery boys who came to pick up cheeses or drop off milk and supplies, and failing that the wild scribblings of her
own imagination.

By the time she had reached the giddy age of twelve-probably, she knew everything about Caverna that could be learned through nothing more than sharp ears, a good memory, tireless questioning
and an overactive imagination. She knew of the glittering Court, teetering always on the tightrope of the Grand Steward’s whims. She knew of the great ceaseless camel trains that crossed the
desert to bring wagonloads of provisions to Caverna, and carry away tiny portions of luxuries created by Caverna’s master Craftsmen, each worth more than their weight in diamonds. The
overground had its own makers of delicacies, but only in Caverna were there masters of the Craft, capable of making wines that rewrote the subtle book of memory, cheeses that brought visions,
spices that sharpened the senses, perfumes that ensnared the mind and balms that slowed ageing to a crawl.

Hearsay, however, was no substitute for a real live visitor.

‘When is she coming? Can I make the tea? Did you see I swept the floors and fed grubs to all the lanterns? I can serve the tea, can’t I? Shall I fetch the dates?’ Questions
were too big and wild for Neverfell’s mind to rein, and they always escaped her, usually in packs of six. Questions annoyed Master Grandible, and she could feel them annoying him, but somehow
she could never help it. Even his grim, warning silences just filled her with a desperate urge to fill them. ‘Can I—’

‘No!’

Neverfell flinched back. She lived in a quiet, pragmatic terror of those rare times when her persistence or puppy-clumsiness pushed Master Grandible into true anger. Though she had developed
something of an instinct for his moods, nothing ever showed in his face, which remained grimly static and weatherworn like a door knocker. When his temper snapped it did so in an instant, and did
not right itself for days.

‘Not for this visitor. I want you hidden away in the lofts until she is gone.’

The news hit Neverfell like a physical blow. In the drab and pungent calendar of her life, a visitor was more than a holiday – it was a blessed intrusion of light, life, air, colour and
news
. For days before such a visit her excitement would be almost painful, her mind a hornets’ nest of anticipation. For days afterwards her lungs filled more easily, and her mind had
new memories and thoughts to turn over and play with, like a child with freshly unwrapped gifts.

To find herself denied contact with any guest at the last moment was agony, but to be denied a chance to meet this particular visitor was beyond bearing.

‘I . . . I swept all the floors . . .’ It came out as a pathetic, broken little mewl. Neverfell had spent the last two days taking especial care to fulfil all her duties, and find
yet more to complete so that Master Grandible would have no reason to lock her out of sight before the visitor arrived.

She felt her throat tighten, and had to blink back the blur of tears. Master Grandible stared at her and nothing changed in his face. No light moved in his eyes. Perhaps he was going to strike
her. Or for all she knew perhaps he was just thinking of Cheddar.

‘Go and put your mask on, then,’ he growled, and scowled away down the corridor. ‘And no gabbling when she arrives.’

Neverfell did not waste an instant wondering at his change of heart, but scampered away to extricate her black mask from the heap of tools, ragged catalogues and disembowelled clocks under her
hammock. The pile of the velvet was now rough and flattened by years of greasy handling.

It was a full-face mask with silver brows and a silver mouth closed in a polite smile. It had painted eyes, each with a little hole in the centre for her to peer through. She pushed her pigtails
back, and tied the mask in place with its frayed black ribbon.

Once, many years before, she had dared to ask why she had to wear a mask when visitors came. Grandible’s response had been blunt and searing.

For the same reason that a sore wears a scab.

In that moment she had realized that she must be hideous. She had never asked again. From then on she had lived in dread of her own blurry reflection in the copper pots, flinched from the pale
and wobbly visage that greeted her indistinctly in the whey pails. She was a horror. She must be. She was too horrible to be allowed out of Grandible’s tunnels.

However, deep in Neverfell’s tangle of a mind there was a curious little knot of stubbornness. In truth, she had never resigned herself to the idea of a life spent cloistered away among
Stiltons. Thus when she had discovered the identity of the woman who had so confidently invited herself to tea a small bubble of hope had formed in Neverfell’s mind.

Neverfell flung off her leather apron, and hurried on the jacket with all the buttons or near enough. She had barely had time to make herself presentable when she heard the door’s string
of bells ring to announce the arrival of Madame Vesperta Appeline, the celebrated Facesmith.

Facesmiths could only be found in Caverna. The outer world had no need of them. It was only in the labyrinthine underground city of Caverna that babies did not smile.

In the overground world, babies that stared up at their mother’s faces gradually started to work out that the two bright stars they could see above them were eyes like their own, and that
the broad curve was a mouth like theirs. Without even thinking about it, they would curve their mouths the same way, mirroring their mothers’ smiles in miniature. When they were frightened or
unhappy, they would know at once how to screw up their faces and bawl. Caverna babies never did this, and nobody knew why. They looked solemnly at the face above them, and saw eyes, nose, mouth,
but they did not copy its expressions. There was nothing wrong with their features, but somehow one of the tiny silver links in the chain of their souls was missing. They had to be forced to learn
expressions one at a time, slowly and painfully, otherwise they remained blank as eggs.

These carefully taught expressions were the Faces. Those at the cheapest crèches learned only a handful of Faces, all suitable for their station, for what need had they of more? Richer
families sent their children to better nurseries where they would learn two or three hundred Faces. Most Cavernans spent their lives making do with the Faces they had learned in infancy, but the
affluent elite sometimes hired Facesmiths, specialist Face-designers, to teach them new expressions. Among the fashionable elite, a new, beautiful or interesting Face could cause more of a stir
than a string of black pearls or a daring hat.

This was Neverfell’s first opportunity to meet a Facesmith, and her heart was punching against her ribs with excitement as she sprinted back to her master.

‘Can I be the one to unlock the door?’ she asked, aware that she might be pushing her luck.

Cheesemaster Grandible was always careful to hide his front door keys away from Neverfell’s curious grasp, and only dug them out when a visitor was imminent. On this occasion he tossed her
the great ring without a word, and she ran back to the door, her fingers thrilled by the cold weight of the keys.

‘Only let her in if she’s alone – and take a sniff before you open that door!’ barked Grandible from down the corridor. Cheesemaster Grandible always responded to any
outside intrusion as a potential invasion, even when the visitors were nothing but delivery boys.

Her fingers clumsy with excitement, Neverfell pulled out the waxed cloth that plugged each of the locks to keep out poison gas and glisserblinds, the tiny sightless snakes that sometimes
slithered through rocky fissures using their uncanny sense of smell to search for something to bite. She unlocked the seven locks, pulled back thirty-four of the thirty-five bolts, then obediently
halted, and stood on tiptoe to look through the goggle-glass spyhole set in the door.

In the little passageway beyond was the figure of a solitary woman. Her waist was so slender it looked as though it might snap. She was dressed in a dark green gown with a silver-beaded
stomacher, and a lace-adorned standing collar. Her mahogany-coloured hair was all but lost amid a forest of feathers, most iridescent green and black, which made her look taller than she was.
Neverfell’s first thought was that the lady must have come straight from some wonderful party.

A black silk kerchief was wrapped around Madame Appeline’s throat, so that her pale face was thrown into relief. Neverfell decided instantly that it was the most beautiful face she had
ever seen. It was heart-shaped and perfectly smooth. As the lady waited, various expressions twinkled in and out of existence, a strange and charming change from Grandible’s perpetual glower.
Her eyes were long, slanted and green, her brows utterly black. Only a little cleft in the chin prevented her face from being perfectly regular.

Remembering Grandible’s instructions, Neverfell opened a small hidden hatch, and took a quick careful sniff of the air. Her sharp cheesemaker’s nose picked up only hair powder, haste
and a hint of violets. The lady was wearing perfume, but not Perfume; a pleasing scent but not one that could be used to enslave minds.

Neverfell dragged back the last bolt, heaved on the great iron ring and pulled the door open. Upon seeing her, the woman hesitated, and then softened slightly into a look of politely amused
surprise, tinged with kindness.

‘Can I speak to Cheesemaster Moormoth Grandible? I believe he is expecting me?’

Neverfell had never been looked at quite so gently before, and her mouth dried up instantly.

‘Yes . . . I . . . He . . . he’s in the reception room.’ This was her golden moment to steal a few words with the Facesmith, and apparently she had forgotten how to form
sentences. She felt her face grow hot under the mask as she glanced furtively about her. ‘I . . . I wanted to ask you something—’

‘Neverfell!’ came the gruff bark from the reception room.

Neverfell abruptly remembered her master’s instructions.
No gabbling
. That probably meant he did not want her talking at all.

She hesitated, then bent a neat little bow, and stepped back, miming an invitation to enter. No friendly chatter today. This was a guest to treat well and attentively, but not one to make too
comfortable or welcome. So Neverfell waited for Madame Appeline to enter, fastened the door behind her and then showed her towards the reception room, a dapper little mannequin with white eyes and
a silver smile.

The light in the passage was dim, a sure sign of a shortage of people. Just as people counted upon the little carnivorous flytrap plants in the trap-lanterns to draw in stale, breathed air and
turn it into fresh, breathable air, so the traps needed people to provide a supply of stale air for them to breathe. If there were not enough people around, they ran out of stale air, turned off
their glow and went to sleep. The little flytraps themselves had the blind, dappled, pallid look of toadstools, and seemed to be yawning their blind mouths out of boredom rather than the hope of
luring in fat cave moths with their murky, yellowish light.

Fortunately Madame Appeline followed neatly behind Neverfell, without showing any temptation to wander off or touch anything. Grandible distrusted visitors, so by now all his booby-traps would
have been set. Doors would be locked and their handles smeared with a paralysing veneer of Poric Hare-Stilton just in case. Besides such precautions, there were also the ordinary hazards of a
cheesemaker’s domain. Open the wrong door and you might find yourself faced with shelves of Spitting Jesses, rattling on their dove-feather beds and sending up a fine spray of acid through
the pores in their rinds, or some great mossy round of Croakspeckle, the very fumes of which could melt a man’s brain like so much butter.