Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Thirteen

The captain stomped out.

Mug regarded Meralda with all of his eyes. “Well. Vonat spies, trained in sorcery. This day gets better and better by the moment, doesn’t it?”

Meralda nodded. In her hand was a pencil. She resisted a sudden urge to chew on it.

“Why doesn’t Yvin just arrest every last Vonat and toss them in the dungeon until after the Accords?” sputtered Mug.

“You know why,” said Meralda. “They have to sign the treaty too, or the Hang will sail away and never come back.”

“Oh? And that’s a disaster, is it? Why?”

Meralda sighed and put down her pencil. “Because the world isn’t as big as it once was, Mug. And we’re a part of it now, like it or not.”

“Well, I don’t like it.” The dandyleaf plant tossed his leaves. “I just want that understood.”

“I’ll make a note of it.” Meralda rose, stretched, yawned.

“If that Vonat wizard is in with the meddlers, as the captain suspects, he’ll likely try and meddle with you, mistress. Probably with something shiny and sharp. Please tell me you’re going to take steps to protect yourself.”

“I am.” Meralda gazed back across the ranks of shelves and stacks of crates. The captain’s warning had been clear.

I can expect a magical assault by a skilled Vonat wizard,she thought. What would best protect me from such a thing?

“Migle’s Mighty Armor,” said Mug, guessing her thoughts. “Turns arrows and knives, too, as I recall.”

Meralda imagined herself stumbling about in eighty pounds of iron and frowned. “Made for a man, and one two feet taller than I,” she said. She paced toward the first row of shelves, finger to her lips. “No. I need something subtle. Something he can’t see. Something no one can see.”

Items on the shelves were stored, in Shingvere’s words, “according to malevolent whim and infernal caprice.” Before Meralda were half a dozen intricate devices designed to make ice. Beneath them was a line of six silver gloves, all snapping their fingers in perfect time.

“Naigree’s Vanishing Amulet?”

Meralda walked past a jar containing the skeleton of a rat, which put its bony face to the glass and wiggled dry whickers at her as she passed.

“Won’t work in direct sunlight.”

The faint strains of music rose up from a music-box before her. Meralda smiled, and the box scuttled away, leaving tiny footprints in the dust.

“Carvile’s Temporary Displacer?”

A crystal snake, its gold spine bending and twisting within it, coiled suddenly at Meralda, flicking its metallic tongue at her until she lifted her eyebrow and frowned.

“You have to constantly sing to it.”

Mug sighed. “Surely there’s a bloody enchanted sword somewhere in this clutter, mistress!”

“There are at least eight. Five had to be wrapped in chains and sealed inside lead boxes. Two are broken.”

“That leaves one,” said Mug.

“It grows an inch a year,” said Meralda. “It was twelve feet long, last time I checked.” Meralda found herself halfway down the first rank of shelves. Magical implements glittered and moved and spun, illuminating her one moment with strange glows, and the next with flashes of harsh white light.

“Here you are,” she said.

She reached up and took down a small, dusty oak box. The top was worked with sigils and runes. A tiny key protruded from the delicate brass lock.

Lavey’s Here-now Gone-now Charm of Hiding. Meralda cleared a space on the shelf before her and put the box carefully down.

“Mistress?” called Mug. “Have you found something?”

Meralda bit her lower lip. The charm was reputed to be quite powerful, allowing its wearer to somehow go about their business, but remain hidden to those seeking them out. Not invisible, either. Just…gone. Absent. Away. All without ever actually hiding.

Which is just the thing to be, when Vonat wizards mean to do you ill,thought Meralda.

But first, of course, there was the charm’s famous here-now gone-now nature to contend with. “Mistress?” called Mug, louder now.

Meralda took a deep breath, held it, and turned the tiny key in the dusty brass lock.

There was a click.

Meralda lifted the lid, and peered inside.

The velvet lined case was empty.

“Bother,” said Meralda.

“What?”

“I opened Lavey’s little oak box,” said Meralda. “It’s empty.”

Mug groaned. “When can you try again?”

“After the next new moon. It doesn’t matter how many times I open the box from now until then, it’ll be empty. The spell doesn’t reset until the new moon.” Meralda closed the box and shook it. She could hear and feel the charm rattling about inside, but when she opened the box, it was empty, as it would be until the spell reset. Then there would be a fifty out of fifty chance the charm would appear.

“Bugger. Good idea though. What next?”

What next, indeed?

Meralda replaced Lavey’s box on its shelf. Mattip’s Sideways Positioner? Calit’s Bracelets of Furious Wind?

Neither is very reliable,she thought. The Bracelets of Wind are as likely to injure me as the Vonat.

Meralda walked, her mind racing, her eyes fixed on the objects before her. Etter’s Phantasmal Twin?

No. Anyone with Sight could easily tell twin from original.

She stubbed her right toe on something on the floor.

The spark lamps cast more shadows than light, between the ranks of shelves, so Meralda didn’t recognize the object with which she had collided at first. But she suspected how it came to be out of place.

“Shingvere, no doubt,” she muttered, straining to see in the dark. “Probably looking for a bottle of brandy he hid in here twenty years ago.”

She reached down and lifted the object from the floor.

It looked like a staff, at first. An old one, by the wear on the rough hewn ironwood. But it bore no markings, no sigils, no runes. It had neither iron shod foot nor copper plated head.

Meralda frowned at it. Probably not even a staff,she decided. Probably just a chunk of cast off lumber stuck beneath the shelves to level them. I just hope removing it doesn’t bring one of these shelves down on my head.

Meralda leaned the length of wood against the shelf behind her and continued her prowl amid the works of the mages of old.

“Any luck?” said Mug, from the shadows.

“I could make ice or raise a sudden fog or cause empty shoes to dance,” said Meralda.

“Marvelous. We’re saved. Mistress, surely there’s something nasty back there!”

Oh, there’s plenty of nasty,thought Meralda. Kingen’s Bell causes massive internal bleeding in anyone who hears it. Stovall’s Blighted Candle melts the eyes of anyone who gazes into the flame. Both were locked away in sturdy chests, but neither offered much in the way of protection from stealthy Vonat mages.

Meralda reached the end of the shelf row, and sidled around the end of it, ready to begin searching the other side.

She walked into something hidden in a shadow and it fell with a bang and a clatter.

Meralda jumped, careened into the laboratory’s back wall, and bit back a curse word.

“Mistress? You all right back there?”

“I’m fine.” Meralda forced a smile. “Too much clutter.”

There, on the floor, was the twin to the ironwood staff she’d encountered moments before.

Meralda nudged it with the toe of her boot. It scooted with a rasping sound.

Your nerves are getting the better of you,she thought. Then she reached down, snatched the ironwood up, and leaned it carefully against the wall.

“What about Gilbert’s Cloak of Grounding?” asked Mug. “Didn’t half a dozen mages wear that when they were working with unstable wards?”

Meralda nodded. “That they did,” she said. She tried to recall where the cloak had been stored. Wasn’t it wrapped in canvas, in that yellow chest by the south wall?

She made for the far end of the row, where the lights shone bright and there was open space and room to move. The cloak wasn’t a bad idea. Particularly if one enhanced the original spells.

She took half a dozen steps. Just half a dozen steps, and then, though she heard nothing, saw nothing, sensed nothing, Meralda turned and looked back at the wall where she’d leaned the troublesome scrap of ironwood.

The wall was empty.

As was the floor.

“Mistress,” called Mug, his voice filled with rising panic. “Mistress, I think you’d better grab something right now, because we have company.”

A shadow flew over her, and with it came the sound of wings.

“Mistress , run!”

Meralda ran. Again, the whoosh and dart of shadow. She reached out, caught the first thing she grasped, and threw it toward the sound.

“Missed,” cried Mug. Something metallic landed with a clatter. “Mistress, there are two of them!”

Meralda forced her Sight up and out.

The laboratory was suddenly ablaze with moving, spinning, flashing lights. Thousands of spells shone and moved like noon in a field of wind-blown mirrors.

But above the crowded ranks of magical items about her, two blurs of purest, darkest black sailed and spun and flew.

Meralda’s Sight collapsed, and she sank to her knees, suddenly blind, suddenly exhausted. She reached out again, fumbling with the items on the shelf before her, and gasped as she found Mahop’s Portable Inferno.

I may burn down half the shelves,she thought, but let’s see how quickly these staves ignite.

“That will not be necessary, Mage Ovis.”

The voice was not Mug’s. It was far too loud to be any of Mug’s mimicry, either.

It spoke perfect New Kingdom, with no trace of a Vonat accent.

“Nameless. Faceless. Desist. Return.”

Above came the sound of troubled air, but it faded quickly, and was gone.

Meralda rose. Her hands found the two small indentations that, if covered, would cause the open end of the Inferno to spew gouts of fire reputed to be so hot they melted glass and stone alike.

“My apologies, Mage. They were intent on childish mischief, but I do not believe they meant you harm.”

“Mistress,” hissed Mug. “You are not going to believe this.”

“Oh, but she must,” replied the booming voice, to Mug. “All your fates depend upon her belief. Without it, Tirlin is doomed.”

Meralda held the Inferno in front of her, ready to bring it to life.

“Who are you?” she said, her eyes straining to penetrate the shadows about her.

“I have no name,” replied the voice. “Please. Come forward. I mean you no harm.”

“Mug?”

“No one else is here, mistress,” he replied. “It seems to be speaking from inside Goboy’s mirror.”

“The construct is correct. I am using the glass as a portal. Please approach. We have urgent matters to discuss.”

Meralda warily emerged from between the shelves, the Inferno at the ready.

Mug swiveled half his eyes toward her, keeping the rest fixed on Goboy’s mirror. From her vantage point, Meralda could not see into the glass, so she moved cautiously toward Mug and her desk.

“Those things, whatever they were, flew inside the mirror,” said Mug. “Hit it and vanished inside.”

They couldn’t possibly have done that, thought Meralda. The mirror is just glass. But she nodded and made her way to a spot behind her desk.

Goboy’s mirror showed a scene from inside the Wizard’s Flat. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windows. The two plain ironwood staves stood upright, their ends inside the holes carved into the floor.

Dust motes danced and twirled in the sun.

“Master often referred to me as Tower,” said the voice. “In the interest of ready communication, you may do the same.”

“Pardon me,” said Mug, “But when you say ‘Master,’ are you perhaps referring to Otrinvion the Black?”

“Master had many names,” replied the voice. “That was one of them.”

Mug’s wilt intensified.

Meralda’s mind raced, and her heart began to pound. I’m talking to the Tower,she thought. Otrinvion’s Tower. What am I supposed to say?

The Tower let the silence linger.

“I am… honored by your wish to converse,” said Meralda, after a moment. “I hope my visit earlier today has not caused you any distress.”

“My actions were born of caution, not distress,” replied the Tower. “I feared your brief inspection of my form had caused you injury, so I used the transport word to place you close to your friends. Your sudden displacement caused your ward work to erroneously identify you as an intruder, forcing me to both expedite your departure and disable your ward.”

Meralda exchanged a glance with Mug, whose leaves still drooped in a terrified wilt.

“I thank you for your concern,” said Meralda. She bit her lip, hesitant to say more.

How many mages spent how many lives trying to pry even a single hidden spell out of the Tower? And what would they say, if told the Tower itself were alive?

What would Shingvere ask, if he were here?

“Very well, Tower,” she said. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions of you?”

“It is vital that you do so,” replied the Tower. “Else I would not have revealed myself.”

Mug’s leaves shook. “I knew it,” he said, in a whisper to Meralda. “I knew it. All this meddling with shadows and wards. Something’s wrong. So badly wrong it’s breaking a thousand years of silence and using your mirror to do it.”

“Hush,” said Meralda, with a glare.

“The construct is correct,” said the Tower. “Master forbade me to reveal myself, and I have obeyed. Until now.”

“Why?” asked Meralda. “And why to me?”

“Because Tirlin is doomed,” said the Tower. “Doomed, by Master’s hand. I can no longer stay his wrath. It is my hope that perhaps you can.”

Meralda put down the Inferno. Steady,she said to herself. Perhaps it is merely engaging in melodrama.

“Doomed, in what way?”

“See this.”

The image in the glass rippled, twisted, and became an exterior view of the Tower.

From the flat, a series of spokes shot out, parallel to the ground. At the end of each spoke, a dark mass formed, and then the spokes began to turn.

Mug turned eyes upon Meralda. “You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?”

“Briefly,” she answered. “In the park, when my first latch collapsed.”

“Yes,” said the Tower. In the glass, Meralda saw her latch and refractors form, watched as the latch was chewed in half by the turning spokes, saw it fall away and vanish.

“I allowed your shadow moving spell to latch,” said the Tower. “I thought it harmless. I was wrong.”

The spokes began to wobble as they turned, and the steady flight of the dark masses took on a bobbing quality. “The instability is growing,” it said. “Soon, the binding will fail.”

In the glass, the spokes jerked and flailed. Some lost speed, some began to turn faster. Then they collided and tangled and tore each other apart.

The dark masses broke free, one by one, and were hurtled out and away, vanishing from the glass.

Meralda shivered. Like falcons tethered to a pole, she’d thought, upon glimpsing them in the park.

“Curseworks,” she said, aloud. “Aren’t they?”

“They are,” replied the Tower. “Fire. Pestilence. Decay. Madness.” The Tower paused. “And others, more subtle, yet no less destructive. There are twelve. Master was vengeful, at the end.”

The image in the glass flashed, and the spokes and the masses were gone, replaced by the flat and the staves.

“How long?” asked Meralda.

“I may be able to maintain the binding for another two hundred and forty hours,” replied the Tower. “Perhaps less. But certainly no more. After that, Master’s curses will fall, and Tirlin will be consumed.”

Even Phillitrep’s Engine seemed to halt, as if listening.

“Two hundred and forty hours is ten days,” said Mug.

“Consumed,” said Meralda. “Are you speaking figuratively, perhaps?”

“Burned, razed, broken, ground to dust,” replied the Tower. “Employ what euphemism you will. Master designed the destruction to be complete. ‘Utter and thorough,’ he said. ‘Let us visit upon them what they have brought to me’.”

Meralda met Mug’s wide and staring eyes. He’s dying to ask the Tower why it isn’t just keeping quiet and letting the curseworks fall,she thought. And that isn’t a bad question.

“If that was your master’s plan,” she said, slowly, “why aren’t you just letting it happen?”

The Tower image flickered. “At the end, Master seemed confused,” it replied. “He was dying. His works were lost. His lands were aflame. But he looked upon the curseworks, and he was saddened, and I believe he tried to dispel them.”

Meralda nodded. Nothing was known about Otrinvion’s final hours. Perhaps he wasn’t the heartless villain of legend, after all.

“Did your master perhaps leave records concerning these curseworks behind?”

“He did not. They were crafted in a place beyond my senses. I know almost nothing of their basic natures.”

“And yet you believe I can render them harmless.”

The Tower hesitated.

“My knowledge of the kingdoms and the mages they employ is extensive,” it said. Meralda thought of Goboy’s glass, hanging in the laboratory for the last four hundred years. Had the Tower been watching and listening, all that time? Before that time, even? “You are the most skilled mage in all the Realms. If you do not try, then doom will befall Tirlin. I believe Master would find this event undesirable. Thus, I am bound to make every effort to forestall it.”

Mug swapped eyes between Meralda and the mirror.

“Are those your master’s staves?”

“They are.”

“Mistress,” said Mug. “If that’s true, and friend Tower is telling the truth-”

“I am.”

“-they would certainly be able to handle a Vonat or two, wouldn’t they? What about it, Tower? We help you with your little doom problem, you let the mage here borrow Nameless and Faceless?”

“Mug!”

“The staves are not under my control,” said the Tower. “They obey me when it suits them, but only then. I have already directed them to assist the mage in her efforts. If the mage is in danger, then I believe they will act to protect her.”

“You believe?” Mug tossed his leaves. “How about it, kindling wood? Do we have a deal?”

Meralda nearly shoved Mug in a drawer.

The staves stood still.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Mug, be silent.” Meralda pulled back her chair and sat.

It could be lying,she thought. Or it could be a Vonat trick. Or a trap left by Otrinvion. Or any number of other nefarious schemes brought to life by who knows who. It could be the Hang, the Vonats, or rogue members of Tirlin’s own court.

Or it could be exactly what it says it is, and it could be telling a terrible, terrible truth.

“Tower. You said you knew nearly nothing of the curseworks and their natures.”

“Correct.”

Meralda shoved aside a heap of papers, found a fresh sheet and her pencil. “So tell me everything you do know. In as much detail as you can provide, please.”

Mug shook his leaves and brought all his eyes together in a multi-colored blinking clump.

The Tower began to speak, filling the glass with diagrams and symbols, and Meralda wrote long into the night.

Chapter Fourteen

Even exhausted, Meralda could not bring herself to sleep in the laboratory. Not with Goboy’s mirror and whatever lay within looking out at her all night.

So she put Mug in his birdcage and roused the Bellringers and headed for home. She was sure she heard something very much like the flutter of wings overhead, but she did not lift her gaze.

After all,she mused as the cab rolled homeward, there is precious little I could do against them, if they are indeed the Nameless and the Faceless of legend.

Mug didn’t speak at all. His eyes remained upturned, staring at the cloudy, starless sky.

It was two of the clock by the time Meralda tip-toed over her threshold. Mug kept all but two of his eyes shut against the swaying of the cage, and didn’t stop shaking until he was once again safe on the kitchen table.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me all that was just a bad dream, mistress,” he whispered.

Meralda shook off her boots on the rug. “I’m afraid not, Mug.”

“Do you think they’re here? The you-know-whats?”

“I don’t know. Probably. But if they are, I expect them to behave. This is my home, and they are guests within it.”

“And if they wake Mrs. Whitlonk she’ll shave them down to toothpicks,” added Mug.

Meralda gazed about her kitchen. If the staves were present, they were quiet and remaining out of sight.

I don’t suppose I can hope for more than that,thought Meralda.

“You should get some sleep,” said Mug. “I’ll keep watch, if you like.”

Meralda smiled. “No need. We’re as safe as we can possibly be, I suppose.”

Mug tossed his leaves wearily. “At least move me into the bedroom.” He clenched his eyes shut. “Quickly, please.”

Meralda rose and caught Mug up, before he could change his mind.

The five-twenty trolley roused Meralda from a troubled, restless sleep. She moaned and fought her way out of her tangled bedclothes and stumbled toward her bathroom.

Mug tossed as she passed, but none of his eyes opened. Meralda paused to draw back her curtains, so the dandyleaf plant would have the first rays of the sunrise, and then set about bathing and dressing.

That done, she sought out breakfast, remembering too late that her cupboards were bare. So she sat and combed her hair while Mug spread his leaves to the bright morning sun.

The Bellringers came trundling to her door precisely on time, bearing coffee and pastries. Meralda seated them at her tiny kitchen table and ate while they traded ‘how many Vonat’ jokes with Mug.

Meralda wiped pastry crumbs off her chin and drained the last sip of coffee from her cup. “Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, rising. The Bellringers leaped to their feet. “We should be on our way.”

“I’m going too,” said Mug, mournfully. “Pray prepare my carriage.”

“At once, Your Highness.” Kervis fetched Mug’s cage, while Meralda pulled a folded sheet from her linen closet.

“Cheeky little devils, aren’t they?”

“Hush, Mug,” said Meralda. She gently put Mug in his cage and draped the sheet over it before handing it to Kervis.

“To the Tower, court, or the laboratory, ma’am?”

“The lab,” replied Meralda. She forced herself to smile. “I have a lot to do.”

Angis deftly maneuvered the carriage through the press of morning traffic. Meralda had called for him to stop at Flayne’s for one more cup of coffee, which she held carefully aloft as the carriage bumped and wobbled. The coffee steamed, fresh out of the pot and blazing hot.

Meralda was glad Tervis sat with her, because his presence certainly kept Mug from questioning her choice of destination. I’m sure he’s wondering why I’m not immediately going to the king with news of the Tower, and the curseworks.

And I’m not sure I have a good answer for him, just yet.

On one hand, if doom truly is about to befall Tirlin, the king should be the first to be told. There might be time to abandon the city.

Outside the carriage, traffic flowed past. Voices were raised in greetings and laughter. Shopkeeps struggled to remove their window shutters as they opened for another day of business. Dirigibles soared past overhead, casting long fast shadows over storefronts and crowded sidewalks.

Abandon Tirlin?

How?

She shook her head. No. That we cannot do.

Even if I somehow convinced the king of Tirlin to flee the crown city and drag the entire populace with him at sword point, where would we all go? Cappas is a third the size of Tirlin. Romin not even that.

I refuse to live in a tent,vowed Meralda. There must be another way.

If I tell Yvin before I’m sure,she decided, he would only complicate matters by involving the army or the guilds. He might even decide to mount another attempt to knock the Tower down.

Meralda shivered at the thought.

“Something wrong, Mage?”

“Nothing. Just a chill.”

Mug snorted from beneath his bed sheet.

Also,thought Meralda, if what the captain said yesterday was correct, the Vonats started bribing court functionaries a year or more ago, all with the aim of wreaking havoc at the Accords. They may have even installed Hang eavesdropping spells in the Gold Room itself, and if so, discussing the Tower’s story of the doom bound for Tirlin would be nothing short of disastrous.

So no. Not the king. At least not today.

“Penny for your thoughts,” quipped Mug.

Meralda closed her eyes and tried to blow her coffee cool.

The castle was awash in uniformed soldiers, court members arrayed in all their finery, and a roving mob of penswifts which swept from place to place shouting questions and trying with little success to elbow their way past a dozen bemused guardsmen armed with short, stout lengths of oak.

Meralda was halfway to the doors when the penswifts spotted her and charged with two dozen strident cries of “Mage Ovis! Mage Ovis!”

The Bellringers stepped ahead of her, hands raised. “Don’t crowd, don’t crowd,” cried Kervis, above the din. “Back off, I say! Back off or else!”

Meralda frowned and marched ahead. If I let them stop me,she thought, I’ll be half an hour elbowing my way through them.

Penswifts and court functionaries and Bellringers all met in a mob. Mug shouted something, but Meralda couldn’t make out his words.

“Mage Ovis,” bellowed the closest penswift. His words were instantly repeated by a dozen of his fellows, and Meralda was quickly surrounded by a press of arms and chests and faces.

The Bellringers shoved and shouted. Penswifts yelled back. A paperboy caught in the press squealed and managed to slip past a sea of legs.

A splash of red and green moving through the crowd caught Meralda’s eye, as she shoved and sidled her way through the penswifts. Looks a bit like an Alon kilt.

“Mistress!” cried Mug. “Something isn’t right!”

The crowd shifted, just for an instant, and in that instant Meralda caught of glimpse of a tall, bearded, red-haired Alon, clad in kilt and sash, shoving his way through the mob toward her.

Mug shouted again. The only word Meralda made out was ‘knife’.

The Alon marched steadily forward, shoving penswifts to the pavement, pushing court staff roughly aside.

Meralda looked for his hands, and saw a brief glimmer of steel.

She tried to run. She tried to force her way past the ring of penswifts who shouted questions at her face, at her back. She didn’t dare put Mug’s cage down for fear he’d be trampled and her other hand still gripped the oversized paper mug of hot coffee and though she shouted for the Bellringers she could see neither of them.

The Alon charged. Penswifts went flying. Meralda tried to hurl herself backwards, but the tightly packed bodies at her back kept her pinned to the spot, and the bearded Alon shoved his way to her, knife uplifted.

Meralda hurled her hot coffee square in his face. The Alon howled and stabbed, missing Meralda’s chest by a hand’s breadth and allowing her to land a single solid kick somewhere in the region of his ornate clan belt buckle. The man folded at the waist, cursing and spitting.

Meralda tried to dash away, but again the crowd held her fast. As the Alon straightened and lifted his knife again, Meralda snatched Mug’s sheet away and hurled it at his face.

He batted it away.

Blurs rushed past Meralda on both sides. The Bellringers flung themselves at the Alon, both striking him at his knees. Alon and Bellringers and half a dozen bystanders went down in a tangle, grappling and punching, rolling and shouting.

Whistles blew. A column of guardsmen charged into the fray, swords drawn, and the crowd evaporated as quickly as it had formed.

Three burly guards in full plate encircled Meralda. The rest grabbed combatants and fallen penswifts and Bellringers alike, hauling each to their feet and warning them to stillness and silence with gruff shakes and glares.

The Alon was gone.

“There was an Alon!” said Kervis, wiping blood from his lip. “I tackled him!”

Meralda whirled, but the people hurrying away from the guards were Tirlish or Phendelits or Eryans. Not a scrap of Alon plaid could be seen anywhere on the street.

The captain, himself, came charging out of the castle, sword drawn, eyes ablaze. He saw Meralda and ran for her. More boots sounded from just beyond the doors.

“Thaumaturge!” he shouted. “What happened here?”

“Nothing at all happened here, Captain,” she said, forcing a smile. “Nothing at all. Why don’t you see us inside?”

The captain frowned. His men exchanged confused glances. Kervis kicked Tervis in the shins when the younger Bellringer made as if to protest.

“Someone get my bloody sheet,” muttered Mug. “It’s going to be that kind of day.”

Meralda nodded a quick thanks to her trio of perplexed guards, gently hefted Mug’s cage, and bade the Bellringers follow her into the dubious safety of the castle.

“He tried to kill you, mistress,” said Mug, quivering with fury. “How can you be so calm about it?”

“She’s using her head, houseplant,” said the captain. “Something you should try, now and then.”

“Demanding an arrest, threatening the Alons? That’s just what they want me to do, Mug. Calm down and you’ll see that.”

“All I saw was a bloody big knife, mistress. And a man determined to stab you with it.” Mug tossed his leaves and bunched his eyes. “Tervis? Kervis? Either of you care to chime in?”

The Bellringers withered under the captain’s sudden glare.

“Perhaps we saw an Alon, and perhaps we didn’t, Mug.” Meralda shivered at the memory of the bearded man bearing down on her. “He came from nowhere. He vanished without a trace, despite being a foot taller than everyone else and wearing more bright red plaid than anyone in the crowd. Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?”

Mug snorted. “So he’s sneaky and a fast runner. Mistress. Dorn Mukirk was ready to kill you himself, just a few days ago. What makes you believe this Alon wasn’t some kin of his?”

“Because Alon blood feuds follow certain rules, houseplant. One of them is the formal declaration of feud by the offended party. Has Dorn Mukirk sent you a letter, Thaumaturge? A letter which mentions a fight to the death, honor of the clan, that sort of thing?”

“Of course not.”

The captain nodded. “There you are, then. This wasn’t a blood feud. Someone just wanted to make it look that way.”

“A murder committed in a crowd of penswifts would be just the thing to wreck the Accords.”

Mug deflated. “You won’t even talk to the Alon queen, mistress? She liked you. You could at least be sure.”

“I am sure, Mug. That man was no more Alon than you or I.” She looked to the captain. “But he looked the part. The penswifts will certainly claim this was an act of hot-headed Alon mischief.”

“The penswifts can write whatever they want. I sent a runner to the king before the fight broke up. The papers won’t print a word of it.”

Meralda lifted her right eyebrow. “Even the king can’t deny them the right to publish.”