Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

The shimmer spun and shrank. Red Mawb,Meralda thought, and she turned her gaze back upon the hall. Where is Mawb?

She searched the close-packed hall, but Mawb was not to be seen. When she again risked a glance aside, the shimmering in the corner was gone.

Could have been Shingvere and Fromarch,thought Meralda. Though I can hardly believe they’d risk a sending through a scrying glass.

The mob in the hall jostled and shoved. More soldiers joined the fray, forcing their way toward the ambassador with curses and shoves.

“Thaumaturge Ovis,” panted Ambassador Draunt, with a small bow. “Forgive the unthinking ardor of my countrymen,” he said. He paused to take a breath and brush back his hair, which had fallen in damp white locks across his forehead. “Alonya gives you thanks, for your service to Alonya and our queen.”

Dorn Mukirk growled something, but his words were muffled when, at a nod from Draunt, a copperhead clasped his hand firmly over the fat wizard’s mouth and dragged him away, bone flailing, boots kicking.

More boots sounded down the hall, and with them a whistle blow. Meralda’s heart raced until she realized only one whistle sounded, not three. Stand down,she thought. The captain is calling Tirlin to stand down.

Ambassador Draunt found a smile, and beckoned to the soldiers at his back. Those soldiers all wore the same colors on their sashes, Meralda noted. Clan Fuam, no doubt. Another man, this one tall, bald, and sad-eyed, squeezed through the crowd to stand beside the ambassador.

“Thaumaturge,” said the ambassador, putting his hand on the shoulder of the tall man. “May I introduce Goodman Russet, jeweler to the queen? With your permission, he will accompany me, and inspect the Tears for authenticity.” The ambassador took a breath, and spoke his next words in a near shout. “After Goodman Russet sees the jewels you found, we shall have no lingering doubt that we have recovered the Tears.”

“Of course,” said Meralda. She briefly considered pronouncing her ward spell defunct, but the thought of sharing the room with three dozen sweaty Alon bodies was too much to bear. Just a few more moments…

Meralda lifted her right hand and let her fingers dance. Let Dorn Mukirk wonder what that meant,she thought, and then she silently mouthed her grandmother’s maiden name.

“You and Goodman Russet may pass,” she said.

The Alon ambassador put a toe gingerly over the threshold, hesitated for only an instant, and then dashed into the room. Jeweler Russet followed close behind, jeweler’s loupe in hand.

Meralda nodded, and Kervis held out the Tears. Ambassador Draunt waved them away, indicating his companion. The jeweler moved to stand before Kervis, solemnly regarding the Tears for a moment, then pulled a black cloth from his jacket pocket, and used it to gingerly take up the Tears.

“Tervis,” said Meralda. “My magelamp.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis. He found the bag and reached inside, his eyes still on the Alons. When he withdrew the lamp, Meralda spoke a word and from across the room her lamp flared to life.

“Give the lamp to the ambassador, Guardsman,” she said. “I want him to be sure.”

More boots sounded in the hall, outside. But where the other footfalls had been furtive scuffles or pounding runs, these boots marched.

In an instant, the crowd in the hall melted away, except for the Alons bearing the sashes of the ambassador’s own clan. Even these saluted and stepped aside. Then, from out of the crowd, the Alon queen stepped up to the open door.

Red Mawb was at her side, panting. He met Meralda’s gaze, surprised her by winking, and turned to his queen.

“May I present to you the Mage of Tirlin?” he said, bowing. “Who has, it appears, solved our little problem.”

The tiny Alon queen met Meralda’s gaze and tilted her head forward the merest fraction. Her grey eyes shone below her brow, and the powder on her face did little to hide the blotches of fury beneath it. “I gave orders you were to work in private, Thaumaturge,” she said. “It seems my orders were ignored.”

Meralda bowed in return. “No matter,” she said. “The work went well, despite my audience.”

“I am told you may have been insulted,” continued the queen. “If so, you may claim retribution.” The queen turned to the towering copper-helmed soldier at her right. “Fetch Headsman Gaudling,” she said. “And an axe. A bucket, perhaps, as well.”

Meralda cleared her throat. “I claim no retribution,” she said, quickly. “Let there be peace among our folk.”

The Alon queen grinned. It was a small grin, quickly hidden, but Meralda saw it and smiled. “Very well,” she said, to her guards. “Still, fetch the Headsman. And bring him and Dorn Mukirk to my chambers.”

“The axe and the bucket?” asked her guard.

“Those as well,” said the queen. “Make sure Mukirk sees them, won’t you?”

“As you wish, my Queen,” said the soldier, his face utterly blank. “Shall I have a lad sharpen the axe, while he waits?”

The Alon queen smiled and beckoned to Meralda. “What a wonderful idea,” she said. Then she looked toward Ambassador Draught, who, like Goodman Russet, had snapped to full attention at the sight of his queen. “Pray, proceed, gentlemen,” said the queen.

Tervis crossed the room and gave Ambassador Draunt the short copper tube. The ambassador bowed, played the light on the Tears, and watched as Goodman Russet set his eye upon the thumb-sized diamond central to the Tears.

Silence and scowling, but only for a moment. Then Goodman Russet lowered his glass, looked up at the ambassador, and nodded.

“These are the true Tears,” he said, first to the queen, then again to Meralda. “These are the Tears, and no doubt. Heavens, Thaumaturge, you’ve done it!”

Goodman Russet wrapped the Tears in his cloth, bowed to Meralda, and said, his words barely audible over the rising cheers outside, “I’ll never get the scratches out, but thank you all the same.”

Meralda collapsed into her desk chair as the Bellringers closed the laboratory doors and took up their posts outside in the hall.

The laboratory was cool. And, aside from the muted sound of voices in the hall and the gentle busy clacking of Phillitrep’s Calculating Engine, it was quiet. Meralda was surprised to find that her ears weren’t ringing, after all the shouting in the halls.

Goboy’s Scrying Mirror still stood in its place by her desk, though now the glass showed only a cloud-tufted sky. Mug basked in the sun, silent and still after so long with only spark lamps for light.

“Busy day,” said Shingvere. He disappeared among the ranks of shelves, and was back in a moment, dragging a bucket heaped with crushed ice and the tall, narrow necks of Nolbit’s dark. “I imagine we’re all a bit thirsty.”

Fromarch rose from his chair, took two of the bottles from Shingvere’s hand, and brought one to Meralda.

“Thank you,” said Meralda, and she drank. As the icy ale poured down her throat the weight of the day settled over her like a coat of lead.

Her trip from the Alon safe room to the Tirlish end of the east wing halls had taken four hours. The Alon ambassador had spoken. Half a dozen clan lords had spoken, and then half a dozen more. Meralda was convinced she had either grasped hands with, or exchanged bows with, every single soul in Alonya, some of them twice. She’d found no respite back in Tirlish halls, either. The king himself had led a cheering procession back to the Gold Room, where, after a brief private meeting with Meralda and the captain, he had declared an impromptu feast, which even the Alon queen had joined.

The queen had been gracious and appreciative without ever actually mentioning the disappearance of the Tears. She referred instead to Meralda’s ‘great service to Alonya,’ and her ‘lasting place in the annals of Alon heroes’. She quickly realized that the queen couldn’t truly acknowledge the specifics of the event. Meralda recalled something the captain once said. The clan version of forgive and forget translates roughly as “we’ll not kill all the grandchildren.” That’s why the Alon queen didn’t arrive until after I’d found the Tears,Meralda decided. She couldn’t have arrived earlier without breaking the peace.

And a fragile peace it was, too,thought Meralda. She took another draught of Nolbit’s. One quick footstep, early on, is all it would have taken.A rush of Alon guards, three whistle blasts, the flash of swords. Meralda shook her head and shivered.

And those Alon bone wavers. Meralda would never forget the glare Dorn Mukirk turned upon her when the Alon queen named her a hero. Pure hatred, it was. I’ve never been truly hated before,mused Meralda. Certainly not by a man I barely even know.

Red Mawb, though, had surprised Meralda. Not only had he run to fetch the queen, as Mukirk tried to provoke a fight, but as his rival fumed and glared, Mawb had, in the presence of the queen and the Alon court, bowed to Meralda, and congratulated her openly upon her “mastery of a rare fine magic”.

A rare, fine magic.Meralda sipped her Nolbit’s and let the phrase echo in her mind. If either Alon wizard had known how frightened I was, in that instant before the glass went dark by the safe, or when I heard that single whistle blow and steeled myself to hear two more…

Fromarch dragged his chair closer to Shingvere, and the ice bucket.

“That was a nice bit of flummery, with the ward spell,” he said.

“Had five hundred copperheads and two frothing bone wavers terrified of an open door,” said Shingvere. “Took guts to even try it.”

Fromarch snorted. “Took brains,” he said.

“I was angry,” said Meralda. She shrugged, shoving aside the growing realization of exactly what she had dared. “I’m just glad no one tested it.”

The late afternoon sun, which streamed from Goboy’s mirror, flickered as the glass momentarily lost its place in the wide blue sky. Another flicker, and the sky reappeared, this time dotted with far-off birds, a wisp of high, thin clouds, and a lone red lumber dirigible, outbound and shrinking by the minute.

Meralda frowned at the image. The glass had held a steady image of the safe room for nearly two full days, and now it could barely remain locked on the sky.

“Show me the Tears,” Mug had said, and it had. According to the mages, the image had collapsed the instant the Tears left the room.

Meralda remembered the brief shimmer she’d seen in the corner of the safe room, and she turned to face the mages.

“Tell me,” she said. “Did either of you attempt to send a spell through the mirror while I argued with the Alons?”

Fromarch and Shingvere looked up from their beers.

“Hardly,” said Shingvere. “As I recall, skinny here used foul language. Something about dogs and swine and parentage, I believe. And the houseplant called for the king to make war.”

“While certain Eryans vowed to visit a variety of embarrassing afflictions on all of Alonya,” muttered Fromarch. “Just before he went into a fit of shoe throwing. But sendings? No.”

Mug stirred, waving his leaves in the sunlight from the mirror. “He’s got holes in his socks,” he said, his voice sleepy.

Fromarch shook his head. “You know we’ve got better sense than to try and pass spellworks through a scrying glass, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We aren’t daft.”

Meralda nodded and sipped her Nolbit’s. “Of course, of course.”

They seem to be telling the truth,she thought. But if not the mages, who?

“You saw spell traces in the safe room?” asked Fromarch, joining Meralda in frowning at the glass. “From the spot where the mirror was watching?”

“I saw something,” said Meralda. “It could have been the initial formation of a projected spellwork.”

“Wasn’t us,” said Fromarch. He lifted an eyebrow. “Could it have been the scrying glass itself?”

Meralda nodded. It could have been,she thought. Old Goboy left no notes, and we know so little about his glass. Why, though, did I only see it briefly, and only once?

Mug’s leaves quivered in a long vegetable yawn. Meralda yawned, too, unable to resist. “I’m exhausted,” she said aloud. Exhausted, and seeing ghosts in all the shadows.

“I thank you for your help, gentlemen,” she said. “Even the shoe throwing and cursing.”

Shingvere finished his bottle, searched the ice bucket for another, and frowned when he discovered it empty.

“We’ll call the day done, then,” he said. “The Tears are found, war is averted, and we’re all out of Nolbit’s.” He rose, took the bucket by the handle, and lifted an eyebrow at Fromarch. “You coming?”

Fromarch rose and gathered empty bottles. Meralda watched, bemused, as the aging wizard collected a full dozen and dropped them in the wastebasket.

“I’m coming,” Fromarch said. He wiped his hands on his pants and paused at Meralda’s side. “You ought to get some sleep,” he said. Then he hesitated, shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels.

“Oh, tell her you’re proud of her and let the woman be,” said Shingvere as he stamped toward the doors. “Bloody ice will be all melted before a pair of Tirls can work up the courage for a heartfelt goodbye.”

Fromarch laughed, squeezed Meralda’s shoulder, and stamped out after Shingvere.

The mirror wavered again, and when it steadied the sky was full of blackbirds. They cast brief darting shadows across Meralda’s desk, and then they were gone, and the glass was bright and still.

“Ah,” said Mug. He opened a dozen eyes, swung them close to Meralda.

“Hello, Thaumaturge,” he said, dreamily. “Here’s a riddle for you.”

Meralda groaned. “Not now, Mug.”

Mug ignored her. “What goes round and round the Wizard’s Flat,” he said, “and says ‘Vonashon, empalos, endera,’ to meddling Tirlish thaumaturges?”

Meralda stared. “How do you know-?”

“You sketched the flying things on one of your Tower drawings.” Mug opened another dozen eyes. “And you wrote the words below it. In quotes, no less. I saw the drawing, mistress,” he said, his tone injured. “When were you going to tell me?”

Meralda sighed.

“It’s been a very long day,” she said. “I found the Tears, nearly started a war, pretended I was safe behind a ward spell that wasn’t there, and slapped an Alon necromancer. And I still don’t know what I saw flying about the Tower, or what spoke those words to me in the park.” She raised her hand as Mug bunched his eyes. “All right,” she said, closing her eyes. “I won’t deny this might be related to Otrinvion. I won’t deny the Tower might be, for all practical purposes, haunted by his shade. I won’t deny there are forces at work here I do not understand.” She opened her eyes. “There. Are you satisfied? I’ve said it. The bloody Tower might bloody well be haunted, and now I’ve got to go back inside it and find out by what, or who.”

Mug’s leaves went utterly still.

“You’ve got to go back?” Mug asked, incredulous. “Inside the Tower?”

Meralda nodded. “Yvin wants me to proceed. I talked to him this afternoon, just before we dined,” she said. “I am to move the Tower’s shadow, and use my efforts to do so as a means to investigate the masses about the flat.”

Mug brought all his eyes upon her.

“Mistress. That’s insane.”

“No,” said Meralda, rising. “That’s my job. I’m the thaumaturge. I’ve seen evidence that the Tower or something within it is casting or directing spellworks.” Meralda bit her lip, considering. Might as well say it out loud, she thought. “And consider this, Mug. What if my latch damaged the Tower spell as much as the Tower damaged my latch?”

Mug’s eyes all opened at once.

“Exactly,” said Meralda. “What if I’ve unknowingly meddled with a hidden Tower maintenance spell?”

Mug shook his leaves. “Hold on a moment, mistress. How do you know some passing Vonat didn’t cast a spell on the Tower last week?”

Meralda shook her head. “If the Vonats could cast spells on the Tower, Mug,” she said, “we’d all be speaking Vonat and hauling rocks right now, and you know it.”

“Have you told Yvin?”

“I told him I saw what might be an original Tower spellwork, about the flat,” she said. “I told him my latch might have interfered with its function.”

Mug whistled. “Now that must have taken the steam out of the we-found-the-Tears victory feast.”

“He didn’t even curse.” Meralda yawned. “He just looked tired. Told me to deal with it as a threat to Tirlin, and use the shadow moving project as an excuse to study the Tower.”

“Meddling with the likes of Otrinvion represents a threat to Tirlin,” said Mug. “Not to mention the threat to the meddler, who certainly isn’t that fat-headed king.”

Meralda stretched, and her eyes sought out Mug’s bed sheet, which lay wadded on the floor a few steps away from her desk.

“Enough,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

Mug fell silent, and turned most of his eyes away. “You really don’t have a choice, do you?” he said.

“Not in this,” she said. “It’s take off the robe, or go back to the Tower.”

“I don’t suppose a career with the guilds holds any appeal, does it?”

Meralda pushed back her chair, covered Mug’s cage, and made wearily for home.

Chapter Eleven

Meralda’s next four days passed in a blur. The Vonats arrived, to little fanfare, and were stationed in the vacant north wing. The Hang held a feast of their own, complete with Hang delicacies prepared aboard the Hang flagship, served with Hang eating utensils consisting of a pair of plain wooden sticks. Meralda was told that Yvin made a great show of using the chopsticks, until Que-long relented and handed Yvin a fork.

Were it not for the papers, the Bellringers, and Mug, Meralda would have heard nothing. She saw no Vonats, dined on cold sandwiches, went nowhere save the laboratory and, twice, the park.

She sent Donchen a letter, begging pardon for her absence at his table, and other court functions since. She had given as explanation only “pressing business for the king,” and she hoped that was sufficient.

Well, it’s absolutely true,thought Meralda, with a frown. Even so, she had very nearly dropped her work and gone to the feast aboard the flagship. Only the thought of losing yet more sleep, and the sight of her bloodshot eyes and wild hair in the mirror, had kept Meralda in the lab and working.

And work she did. Dreading a return to the flat, but deeply troubled by the sight of the flying masses about the top of the Tower, Meralda fetched her weak spell detector, gathered her notes, gritted her teeth, and took it apart.

New spells replaced the old, a fourth glass disk was added, and, much to Mug’s delight, the worn broom handle was replaced with a straight length of polished cherry wood.

“Now it looks like a wizard’s gadget,” said Mug, as Meralda wrapped fine silver wire around the handle. “Got nice heft, too. Just the thing for bopping heads, if need be.”

Meralda sighed, put the detector aside, and called for the Bellringers. By then, night had fallen, but there were no lights in the flat. Nor had there been, since Meralda’s latch had failed and fallen.

Meralda ordered coffee and began to design a new latch for the Tower. This latch, Meralda decided, would extend no higher than the halfway point of the Tower’s bulk. “That will put Yvin’s platform in the light,” she told Mug, as she began to sketch. “Though the back rows of the seating stands may catch a bit of shade.”

Building the new latch for the Tower’s lower half took all of two days. Meralda struggled to cast fifteen refractors a day. With the Accords and Yvin’s commencement speech only nine days away, Meralda didn’t bother with a scaled down latch. This one was, if it worked, intended to be a full-scale version of the Commencement Day spell.

As such, it required more refractors than the first latch. Meralda cast thirty-five in one grueling day, working from well before sunrise until late into the night.

Through it all, Mug remained at her side, basking in the uncertain light of Goboy’s scrying mirror, which had quickly returned to its former habit of spying out bathhouses and dress shop dressing rooms. “Mirror, mirror,” Mug would mutter, when the sunlight failed. “Sun and sky, looking-glass, or I’ll have the Bellringers clean you with a hammer.”

And the sun would return, for a time.

The king sent word, at odd intervals, inquiring as to Meralda’s progress. She would scrawl hasty replies in return, often suppressing the impulse to add notes such as “Abandoning spellwork to continue this fascinating correspondence,” or “Slept late, long breakfast, taking the day off for a stroll in the park.”

“As if I have nothing better to do,” grumbled Meralda, late in the evening of a long day of refractor calculations. She planned to cast the new latch early the next day, which left her to finalize refractor spacing, charge all the holdstones, and load her staff with the framework of the latch.

Cast the latch, and dare the Tower. She thought of the long climb in the dark, of the echoes and the way her magelamp shone bright, but was soon swallowed whole by the wide and hungry dark. And she saw the face in the park again, heard the words, saw Tervis and Kervis cast back, spilling down the stair…

There came a knock, loud at the door, and Meralda started and dropped her pen.

“A missive from His Highness, no doubt,” said Mug. And indeed here was yet another nervous young guardsman at the door, with yet another note. She took it from his hand, exchanged an exasperated roll of the eyes with Kervis, and stomped back into the lab as the Bellringers shut the doors.

“You would think the man’s hand would get all cramped, badgering you with letters every quarter hour,” said Mug.

Meralda halted at her desk and unfolded the thick royal paper.

Thaumaturge, it read, in an unfamiliar hand. I do hope you’re hungry.

Meralda creased her brow.

“What is it?” asked Mug.

There came a knock at the door.

“Oh, no,” said Meralda. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t be who?” asked Mug. He brought twenty eyes to bear upon Meralda. “Mistress?”

From beyond the door, Kervis spoke. “Thaumaturge?” he said. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

“A gentleman?” piped Mug. “Oh, a gentleman!”

“Quiet,” said Meralda. She pushed back a lock of hair and made for the door, note still in her hand.

I could beg off again,she thought. I could explain I’m in the midst of a complicated spellwork, one that requires more time, one dangerous to onlookers. I’d even be telling a good portion of the truth.

Meralda frowned. Why should I do that? He’s only a man, Hang or not. I’ve not been made Thaumaturge by hiding behind doors and hoping men who made me uncomfortable would just go away.

Meralda took a breath, straightened her blouse, and opened the doors.

There, in the hall, stood a smiling Donchen, flanked by a confused pair of Bellringers. Donchen stood behind a silver-trimmed kitchen serving cart, which smoked and made a faint sizzling sound. The aromatic steam that wafted from beneath the closed lid crept into the laboratory and immediately set Meralda’s stomach to grumbling.

Donchen wore an apron. A palace-issue, heavily starched white kitchen staff apron, complete with a palace sigil over the heart and an oversized key pocket sewn onto the right bottom hem. Under the apron he wore plain black pants and a white round-collared Phendelit button-front shirt. Crumpled in a ball on the lid of the serving tray was a soft, shapeless Eryan beret, which half the serving staff wore to fight off the chill of the palace halls.

Just the thing,Meralda realized, to go sneaking about the palace in.

Donchen stepped back from the cart and executed a perfect Phendelit bow, keeping his hands clasped at his back, his heels together, and bending his body smoothly at the waist. “Good evening, Thaumaturge,” he said. “My, doesn’t this smell good?”

“It does,” said Meralda. Behind Donchen, Kervis met Meralda’s eyes and made a frantic ‘what do we do?’ shrug.

Donchen couldn’t have seen, but his smile widened all the same. “I see you received my note,” he said, looking at the paper Meralda still held.

“I did,” said Meralda. She took a breath and found a smile. “And I am.”

She flung the doors open wide, and stepped aside, motioning Donchen within. “Won’t you come in?”

Donchen cocked his head. “I brought picnic gear, as well as dining utensils,” he said. “I realize the Royal Laboratory to Tirlin might not be an appropriate place to host a foreigner.”

“The Royal Laboratory of Tirlin is, at the moment, mine,” said Meralda. “I keep no secrets here. So if you promise not to make off with state treasures I’ll vow not to ask you pointed questions about your nation’s foreign policy. Fair enough?”

Donchen bowed again. “Fair enough.” Donchen broke from his bow, lifted the cart’s lid, and withdrew two bulging white paper bags from within the steaming depths.

“Here you are, gentlemen,” he said, turning and thrusting a bag at each Bellringer. “Dinner, compliments of the Mighty Dragon, long may he reign, so forth and so on.”

The Bellringers went wide-eyed, but took the bags.

“Sir, thank you, sir,” said Tervis, hefting the bag as if to see if it might move in his grasp.

“Egg rolls and fried rice,” said Donchen. “And forks. I do hope you like it.”

Then he turned back to Meralda, and put his hands on the cart handle. “Are you sure, Thaumaturge?” he said, before he started to push. “I won’t be in the least offended…”

“Nonsense,” said Meralda. You’re not the only one who can be bold and thumb your nose at propriety,she thought. “Let’s eat.”

Donchen smiled, and pushed, and crossed the threshold.

The meal, Meralda decided, was fabulous.

What the meal consisted of was still largely a mystery to her. There was a tiny yellow grain that Donchen called rice, which formed a bed for most of the other entrees. And there was pork in a thick, sweet red sauce, and chicken with garlic and almonds, and a fried roll that crunched when Meralda bit into it, and was full of, among other things, chopped shrimp bits.

Donchen brought only forks. “No, we’ll not struggle with chopsticks,” he’d said, when Meralda asked how the king and court were faring with the Hang utensils. “To be honest with you, I myself may adopt your fork as my dining tool of choice,” he added, with a grin. “Chezin will have a conniption fit.”

Meralda laughed, and eyed the silver bowl that held the almond chicken.

“Oh, do have more,” said Donchen, beaming. “Nothing flatters a chef more than a healthy appetite.”

Meralda reached for the lid. “You cooked this?”

“I did,” said Donchen, wiping his chin with an embroidered palace napkin. “Cooking relaxes me. I should have been a cook, really.”

Meralda lifted the lid. “A cook, as opposed to what?” she asked.

Donchen laughed. “Well put, Thaumaturge,” he said. He pushed his empty plate aside and leaned back in his chair. “But what I am is not an easy question to answer.”

Meralda heaped three serving spoons of almond chicken on her plate.

“And yet you want me to ask,” said Meralda. She noticed Mug, who had feigned sleep as soon as the doors opened, slowly swivel another half-dozen barely open eyes her way. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it?”

Donchen stretched, and met her gaze.

“Just so,” he said. His smile softened. “I wish we had more time, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We have a proverb. Trust, it is said, must be built over time, lest it fall away as quickly as it was born.” Donchen shook his head. “It’s a bit of a cliche, really, but there is an element of truth there. I can hardly expect an intelligent person such as yourself to suddenly trust a mysterious Hang visitor, even if he does cook an excellent almond chicken.”

Meralda swallowed a mouthful of rice and chicken and put down her fork.

“And what am I to trust you with?” she said.

Donchen sighed. “That, Thaumaturge, is for you to decide,” he said. “But here. I’ve done nothing but speak in riddles and proverbs. A failing of my schooling, I’m afraid.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Enough of that,” he said. “All that blathering about trust. Well, I’ve made up my mind, Thaumaturge. I’ve decided to trust you. You. Not your king, not your captain, not your House of Lords. You. So ask me anything. I’ll tell you, plain and true.”

Meralda saw Mug blink all his open eyes at once. She wiped her lips with her napkin and stood to face Donchen.

“All right,” she said, after a moment. “Why are you doing this?”

Donchen bowed. “I need an ally here,” he said. “Someone with the king’s ear, someone he trusts. I hope this person is you.”

“Why not the king?” asked Meralda. “Why bother with thaumaturges at all?”

Donchen smiled. “The king will act with caution, at all times,” he said. “And caution would tell him that I am not to be trusted. Not yet. Listened to, perhaps. Observed, of course. But trusted?” Donchen shook his head. “He’d be a fool to trust me. A fool to trust any of us. And your king, Thaumaturge, is no fool.”

Meralda stiffened. “And I am?”

“No,” said Donchen. “You may believe what I tell you. You may not. But your office will allow you to make the choice. Is it not true that Tirlish thaumaturges often work well apart from both court and king?”

Well spoken,thought Meralda. Well spoken, or perhaps just well rehearsed.

She motioned Donchen away from the remains of their meal. “We can walk about a bit, if you like,” she said. “The laboratory is a favorite spot for touring among our guests.”

Donchen nodded. “Of course,” he said, moving to Meralda’s side.

“And we can talk about the purpose of your visit to Tirlin,” said Meralda. “Or is that question best left for later?”

Donchen shook his head. “Trust knows no bounds,” he said. “And if it does, it is not trust.”

“Why, then?”

“We believe it is time for our cultures to meet,” said Donchen. “We wish to establish regular trade, and diplomatic relations. Your Accords presented the perfect opportunity to introduce ourselves. What, pray tell, is this?”

Donchen had halted before Phillitrep’s Calculating Engine.

“It’s a calculating device,” said Meralda.

Donchen stepped close, put his face as near the whirling gears as he dared. “What is it calculating?” he asked.

“No one knows,” replied Meralda. “Phillitrep never wrote down the question, and he died suddenly in office about three hundred years ago.”

Donchen watched the tiny rods shuttle and click. “Amazing,” he said. Then he straightened and once again turned his grey eyes upon Meralda.