Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Sunlight spilled into the flat. Meralda and the Bellringers put their backs to the walls and sat, catching their breath.

“I’m not going to miss doing this one bit,” said Tervis, after a time.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s fun after the first few thousand steps,” added Kervis with a sweaty grin.

Meralda laughed and rose. One last thing to do,she thought. And the shadow spell will be in place at last.

I just hope there’s still a Tirlin in which to use it.

Meralda fumbled in her bag, found the pair of holdstones and the intricate device of brass and silver that would shape the refractors upon their release. She put the device in the center of the floor, spoke half the word that bound it to the latch, and watched as the cogged gears located at each of the compass points rotated precisely half a revolution each.

Then she let out her breath in a sigh.

“That’s that,” she said. “Hurrah. Another victory for applied magic.”

The Bellringers stood.

“We knew you could do it,” said Kervis, blushing. “You’re the smartest person we’ve ever met, and that’s a fact.”

Meralda found a weary smile. “And you are the bravest. Thank you. Let’s get back to the park, shall we? I could use something to eat.”

“Me, too,” said Tervis. “We should have brought some apples.”

“I’d rather eat with my feet on the ground,” said Kervis, opening the door to the flat. “Ready, Mage?”

“Ready.” Meralda pushed back her hair and brushed her magelamp to life. “Mind your step.”

Kervis grinned and stepped out of the light. Meralda followed, and Tervis locked the door behind.

A dozen steps down the stair, Meralda saw something black flit and dart just beyond the reach of her magelamp’s white glow.

A dozen steps later, she was sure she heard, fainter than a cricket’s footfall, the sound of crow’s wings beating.

Neither Kervis nor Tervis gave any sign of seeing shadows or hearing fluttering in the dark.

Meralda kept one hand in her bag and hurried down as fast as she dared.

“I do love the feel of the sun on my face,” said Kervis, as he stepped out into the light.

Meralda nodded, too out of breath to comment. Tervis brought up the rear, armor clinking and clanking as he hurried to catch up.

Meralda could see Mug waving his fronds from high atop the stands. She waved back. If Mug was shouting the din in the park made it impossible to hear.

Meralda searched the crowd ahead for any sign of Humindorus Nam, but saw only idling Tirlish and grinning, bruised Alons and a group of assorted carpenters all hurrying about their tasks. Hammers rose and fell. Saws cut and glinted in the sun.

Fromarch peeked from behind a stack of lumber, flashed Meralda a rare wide grin, and vanished.

Meralda let out her breath all at once. “Let’s fetch Mug and be off,” she said. The Bellringers hurried to her side. “I’ll get us some lunch on the way to the palace.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” said Kervis, who hurried for the stands. “I’ll fetch Mr. Mug. Won’t be a moment!”

“Don’t forget his sheet,” called Meralda.

“I’m sure Mr. Mug will remind him, ma’am,” said Tervis. He peered out at Meralda from behind his too-large helm. “Ma’am, it’s none of my concern, but you looked to be a mite angry back there. Did we say something wrong? Kervis didn’t mean anything about that Alon football he likes to watch.”

“No, nothing of the sort,” said Meralda, quickly. “I saw some…difficulties with the spell. That’s all. Extra work. I’m just grumpy these days.”

Tervis smiled. “Well, as long as it weren’t nothing we did.”

Kervis came charging back, a swaying, sheet-covered birdcage muttering in his hand.

“I’m going to be thoroughly sick,” said Mug, from within.

“Oh, let me have him,” said Meralda. Kervis handed the cage to her. “Here, we’ll be sitting still very soon.”

“Not soon enough. Oh. Donchen stopped by, mistress. Said to tell you something. Please slow down! I’m not a swinging vine, you know.”

Meralda glared, but slowed her walk.

“Yes? What was it?”

“His message?”

“Yes, his bloody message!”

“He said your bag is very heavy, and any carpenter in Tirlin would be proud to carry it for you some day. Are we walking up and down hills, mistress? Because it feels that way.”

Meralda frowned. “My bag isn’t that heavy…”

Meralda paused to let a trio of carpenters pass. One smiled at her and winked, and for an instant his face was Donchen’s.

“Actually, I could use some help,” she said aloud.

“I’d be honored,” said the man. His face was now Tirlish, his clothes stained and sweaty, his brown hair filled with sawdust. “Where are you heading, milady?”

“Just down the walk,” said Meralda. “Thank you for helping.”

Donchen hefted the bag across his shoulder. “Think nothing of it,” he said. His fingers flew in a series of small gestures. “We can speak, for a bit. You were followed here, Mage. I believe he meant you harm.”

Meralda smiled, as though discussing the sunshine. “What stopped him, then?”

“Three very determined wizards with a bagful of horrors. Your friends have been quite effective, Mage. The Vonats are beginning to distrust their co-conspirators. And each other. Remind me to avoid playing your card games with any of them.”

Meralda nodded. “And you? What have you been up to, sir?”

“Oh, idling in beer halls, gambling at dice, napping.”

“I doubt that.”

Donchen grinned. “We’re nearly there. You’re bound for your laboratory?”

“Yes. More work to do.”

“I’ll bring supper. Until then, be wary. I fear Nam’s mischief was merely delayed.”

“I have a bit of horror in my bag as well,” said Meralda. “But I thank you for your concern.”

Donchen smiled and nodded. “I’ll be close all the way to the palace,” he said. The Wizard’s Walk ended, leaving Meralda and Donchen to weave their way through the crowd to the curb, where Angis waited atop his buggy.

“Mug was right,” said Donchen, as he handed the sheet-covered bird cage to Meralda. “It is a nice red ribbon.”

And then he was gone, lost in the noisy crowd.

Mug feigned snores until the park was well behind them.

Tervis dozed in his seat. Angis and Kervis sang atop the cab, laughing at each other’s missed notes. Meralda pulled the ribbon from her hair and shoved it down in her bag and fumed as the carriage made its way slowly toward the palace.

Mug remained silent, though Meralda did catch a glimpse of a small brown eye peeking up at her from beneath the bed sheet’s edge.

The carriage rolled to a halt. Meralda leaned out of her window and saw that traffic up and down the street was at a standstill. In the distance, she heard whistles blow.

“Looks like a pair of fools have gotten their harnesses tangled up ahead, ma’am,” shouted Angis. “We might be here for a bit.”

Tervis stirred, rubbed his eyes, and reached suddenly for his sword.

Meralda’s door was flung open. Sunlight rushed in.

Time slowed to a crawl.

Tervis shouted. Whether a warning or his brother’s name or hers, Meralda couldn’t say.

Someone tossed a bundle of dirty rope through the open door. Meralda kicked at it, slid away from it, and tried to open the cab’s other door.

The handle wouldn’t budge. As Meralda struggled to open it, something struck the door hard from the outside. A length of thick dirty rope fell through the open cab window and looped itself over Meralda’s right shoulder.

The rope stank of oil and soot. A remote, perfectly calm corner of Meralda’s mind noted that the oil must have come from the dirigible docks, and that the stains would never come out of her blouse.

Tervis grabbed the rope with one hand and tried to draw his sword with the other. The cab was too confined to let his blade clear the scabbard. Tervis twisted and pulled, but before he could draw he was yanked whole by his ankles from the cab and dragged out the open door.

More stinking rope fell through the cab window. Meralda tried to slide away, but the ropes moved about her, pinning her right arm, wrapping themselves tight about her ankles, coiling and climbing up both her legs.

Mug screamed. A loop of rope coiled and struck like a serpent, smashing Mug’s cage nearly flat.

The ropes holding Meralda flexed and stood, knotting themselves suddenly into a crude simulacrum of a person, with loops of rope for arms, for legs, for trunk, for head.

Meralda managed to get her left hand in her bag before a turn of rope closed about that wrist, too.

Outside the carriage, Tervis screamed and Kervis swore and Angis flailed away at something with his stick. Meralda could see blades rising, men running, and impossible lengths of rope standing and moving and fighting.

Her hand closed about a warm, smooth metal cube as the rope man before her leaned down and slid his open noose of a face over Meralda’s head.

As the rope around her neck began to tighten, Meralda pulled the metal box from her bag and spat out the short harsh word that loosed the spell inside.

There was a flash, the smell of fresh air after a summer thunderstorm, a crack of infant thunder.

The rope man gripping Meralda sagged and dropped to the cab’s floor. The ropes about her arms and legs fell away.

She pulled the rope around her neck over her head, flung it down, and leaped from the cab, Mug’s crumpled, sheet covered birdcage in her hand.

Kervis and Tervis rose from the cobblestones, each covered in tangled ropes, each red-faced and winded. Angis leaped down from his cab, his nose bloody and his eyes wild.

Mug moaned softly beneath his bed sheet. Meralda grabbed Tervis and dragged him toward the sidewalk, where a frightened crowd gathered.

“Move away!” shouted Meralda. “They’ll be getting back up any moment now. Move! Run!” She lifted the icy cold cube and held it high. “Magic! Run!”

The crowd scattered. Meralda dragged Tervis as far as she could, then waved to Angis and Kervis to follow.

“Go!” she shouted. “Indoors! Hurry!”

Angis mopped blood with a handkerchief and spat. “Not without you, Mage.” He’d lost his stick, but he bent and pulled a short plain knife from his right boot. “I’m too old to run, anyway.”

“Ma’am, they’re moving,” said Kervis, lifting his sword. “What do we do?”

Run like I told you, thought Meralda.

But they won’t. They’ll stand here and try to fight a hundred feet of mooring ropes with swords and kitchen knives.

She put Mug’s cage behind her, searched Milhop’s Irresistible Void for any hint of remaining capacity, and then let it fall to the street.

Filled. Impossibly so, but filled nonetheless. Useless.

The ropes stirred, coiling and shifting, animated again by some dark, foreign spell.

Whistles blew, down the way, and horns answered. The guard will be here in moments,Meralda thought.

A rope man rose. And another.

But the guard will be too late.

Tervis and Kervis moved to stand on either side of Meralda, blades level and ready, faces frozen in identical masks of grim determination. Angis cussed and bled and spat, shifting from boot to boot as if deciding on a dance.

The rope men stood. There were five, then six, then seven.

“It’s you they want, Mage,” said Angis. “Take to your heels. We’ll hold them here.”

Meralda dropped her bag. She held her arms out beside her, hands open and empty, and as the rope men advanced she called upon her Sight.

Instantly, a pair of flitting shadows descended, darting and swooping, just out of her reach.

“What oath would you speak to us, imperiled mage?”

“No oaths,” said Meralda, aloud. The steady scratch-slide of ropes dragged across cobblestones grew louder. “No vows. You help me, or you don’t. The choice is yours.”

“No oath?”said one.

“No vow?”said another.

“Many would pledge their lives.”

“Many would offer their souls.”

Kervis took a step forward. Tervis did the same.

“One cannot deny she is brave.”

“One cannot deny she is wise.”

“I do not love these things of rope.”

“Nor I. Are we agreed?”

Meralda’s hands closed about two plain ironwood staves.

“Behold, Mage,”said one. “This is how.”

Meralda’s mind filled with wonders.

As one, the rope men charged, arms flailing like whips, legs looping up and out, ready to catch, ready to coil, ready to wrap and knot and choke.

Meralda’s Sight expanded, clarified, became an all-encompassing panorama that showed not just the ropes that bore down on her, but the spells that gave them shape and lent them motion.

Meralda laughed. Pure, wild, unfettered magic blazed suddenly through her veins, her heart, her mind. She marveled at the simplicity of it, at the ease with which she could form it, shape it, bend it to her will.

No equations. No diagrams. No symbols.

Just magic. Just will.

Just… this.

Meralda lifted Nameless and Faceless, crossing them above her head. Without even a word she loosed a wave of raw power that lifted the rope men like so many dry leaves, spinning them into a flailing tangle before incinerating rope and spells alike into a short-lived puff of golden incandescent air.

Every window for two blocks shattered. Horses bolted, dragging cabs and carriages up onto the sidewalks and sending them careening into storefronts and lamp posts. Two water mains burst, flooding streets and sending panicked crowds fleeing.

“Now the true test,”said one.

“Let us see,”said the other.

Meralda’s Sight raced. Everywhere, wonders lay hidden, coiled in impossibly small spaces she had never dreamed existed. Magic infused every stone, every brick, every breath of air, always in easy reach for anyone who dared seize it.

So easy,thought Meralda. So easy…

She heard voices. Distant, yes, and faint, but familiar, somehow. Friends, perhaps.

Voices full of concern.

Still, such power, so close, so simple to take.

“Ma’am, he’s hurt! Please! We need you right now!”

Someone tugged at Meralda’s sleeve.

Kervis. Kervis was speaking.

“Mr. Mug! Say something! Mr. Mug!”

Mug.

Meralda let go of the staves. They leaped into the sky, vanishing instantly, something very like approval hanging briefly in their wake.

Meralda’s head spun. She forced her Sight away, fell to her knees, blinked and squinted until she saw nothing but dirty cobblestones and the wild fearful eyes of Kervis and Tervis.

Kervis held Mug’s cage. He was carefully prying away the tangled bed sheet. Meralda gasped, her stomach knotting when she saw Mug’s bird cage was crushed nearly flat in the center.

Angis caught her by her shoulder, keeping her from toppling over.

“I think you got rid of the buggers, Mage,” he said. “You tend to your friend. I’ll watch your back.”

Tears welled up in Meralda’s eyes and she saw Mug’s motionless leaves caught in the bent bars of the bird cage.

One of his eyes stuck through the bars. It was crushed, and leaking sap.

“Oh Mug,” she said. “No, no, no.”

Kervis bent down, his dagger in his hand.

“I can pry the cage apart, ma’am,” he said. “Then we can get him out of there. Will you let me do that?”

Meralda managed to nod. She laid her hand on Mug’s crushed leaves, but he did not stir.

“Mug.”

Kervis gently pushed her hand aside, put the tip of his knife through the crushed cage’s frame, and then slowly pried up.

“Hold the other side,” he said, to Tervis.

The cage slowly expanded. After moving the knife, Kervis was able to pull it out far enough to remove the cage’s bottom, and free the motionless dandyleaf plant.

“Water!” bellowed Angis, at the circle of confused faces Meralda could just barely see through her tears. “A pitcher of water, man! Crown’s business!”

In a moment, a pitcher of water was thrust in Meralda’s hand.

She poured it onto the clump of dirt that had survived the blow. Mug’s roots trailed from it, limp and still.

Angis gripped her shoulder.

“A wee bit more, lass.”

Crying, Meralda emptied the pitcher.

Mug’s stalk twitched. His roots underwent a spasm, and then clutched hard at the clump of soil.

A single green eye opened, swiveled up to hang close to Meralda’s nose, and blinked.

“Please tell me you did bad things to whatever hit me,” he said, in a tiny, weak voice.

Meralda cried, unable to speak. She stroked Mug’s wilted leaves and nodded.

“I’ll need a new pot,” said Mug. His open eye began to wobble. “And some of that fancy Eryan peat.”

Booted feet charged up, and shouts to make way sounded.

“The guard is here,” said Kervis. “Keep an eye on them, little brother.” He sheathed his sword and turned to meet them.

“I’ll be going to bed now,” muttered Mug. “Don’t mind the dishes.”

Then his eye closed, slumped, and fell.

Meralda hugged him to her chest, wet roots and all.

“We’re here,” said Kervis, gently. “May I take him? The wards…”

Meralda managed a nod, and carefully handed a wilted, drooped Mug over to Kervis.

Forty special palace guards surrounded Meralda and the Bellringers, ringing them in steel. The captain himself stood at Meralda’s back while she opened the laboratory doors and spoke the word that soothed her wards.

“You lads go first,” said the captain. Meralda didn’t argue.

Mug groaned softly as she took his cage.

The guards closest to the stairs tensed and called for someone to halt. Meralda turned, watched Donchen slowly take the last pair of steps, his arms raised, his face grim and smeared with something dark.

Oil,thought Meralda. He’s got oil on his face.

“Let him through,” she said. The words caught in her throat the first time, and she had to lick her lips and take a breath and try again.

“I said let him through.”

The ring of guardsmen parted, and Donchen made his way to Meralda.

Donchen was filthy. His clothes were torn and streaked with filth. He stank of the gutters, and something even worse.

“I was there,” he said. “They were waiting in the sewer beneath the street. I tried to stop them.” He dipped his head in a tiny bow. “I failed.”

“Come inside.”

Kervis and Tervis sidled past Meralda and entered the laboratory, hands on hilts.

“It’s empty,” said Kervis, after a moment.

Meralda took Donchen’s hand. He looked up at her, eyes wide in surprise, and then smiled.

His hand is warm,thought Meralda. What a silly thing to notice. Of course his hand is warm. It’s a hand.

“We’ll be right here,” growled the captain. “If anything wants in it can see how it likes being cut to pieces first.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Meralda, feeling her face flush crimson at the stares of so many guards.

She pulled Donchen inside, and quickly shut the door.

Donchen mopped at his face with a clean washcloth as he perched in her rickety spare chair.

“So you think he’ll heal?”

Meralda gently pushed Mug’s new soil down. Mug remained upright, his leaves twitching now and then. All his eyes were closed, and he muttered now and then, but never quite formed words.

“He will.” Meralda frowned and cleared her throat. “Of course he will. His roots are intact. His stems are bruised but not broken. He’ll be fine.”

Goboy’s mirror streamed bright, warm sun onto Mug. Meralda gave him another half-turn so all his leaves could take in some light.

Donchen nodded. His lower lip was split. His right eye was going puffy and dark. Meralda could tell from his stiff posture and barely hidden grimaces he had bruised, if not broken, ribs beneath his soiled white shirt.

I’ve never seen a more handsome man in all my life,she thought.

“I smell like an outhouse,” he said, grinning. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for that. It is not a practice in which I habitually engage.”

“Nonsense. Tirlish sewers smell of roses and perfume,” said Meralda. “You still haven’t told me what led you to enter one in the first place.”

“I carry a device similar to the one I gave you. It showed the presence of Hang magic along your route. I happened to be traveling ahead of you, so I took a bit of a detour and found a group of singularly unusual ropes gathering below the street.”

“And you tried to fight them all, at once?”

Donchen shrugged and grimaced at the effort. “I did first attempt to reason with them, Mage. But they were determined to do you harm. I decided to slow them down by entangling myself in all of their various lengths. Oh, how they struggled to escape my implacable grasp!”

Meralda smiled. “I see that. I imagine they were close to surrender when my carriage arrived.”

“Very nearly. Another moment and I’d have made bell pulls of them all.”

“Grapefruit,” muttered Mug. “Prancing hornbill.”

Donchen laughed, wincing.

“The truth is, Mage, they overwhelmed me from the first. My own magical defenses failed. Almost as if they were anticipated. Troubling, that.”

“I thought your butterflies revealed all the Hang conspirators. Have they not been…?”

Meralda hesitated, searching for words.

“Tried? Executed? Boiled in oil?” Donchen shrugged. “Truly, Mage, I don’t know what, if any, actions have been taken against them. The machinations of the House of Chezin are often well beyond my understanding.”

I find that troubling,thought Meralda.

Donchen’s slate-grey eyes met Meralda’s. “I am pleased to see that your own arcane defenses proved more than adequate.”

Meralda remembered the thrill of power she felt while holding Nameless and Faceless.

“Many of the older artifacts here are quite powerful,” she said. The lie lay bitter on her lips. “The king will be livid when he gets the bill for the water mains.”

“A small price to pay, I think.”

Is that pain in his eyes?

“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” said Meralda.

“Quite the contrary. You came to mine. I was being throttled right below your feet, when you turned my assailant into a rather showy cloud of ash.” Donchen stood. “I dosmell of an outhouse. Might I borrow yonder water closet, before Mug wakes and decides I am a compost heap?”

“I’ll have fresh clothes sent up,” said Meralda, wrinkling her nose. “I can send for some of your own, if you like.”

Donchen rose slowly from his chair, holding his ribs as he moved. “Actually, I’d prefer a guard uniform, if that’s not too much a slap in the face to Tirlish military tradition. Mail shirt, helmet, sword. Can that be done?”

Puzzled, Meralda shouted for Tervis, who came at a trot.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need a uniform,” said Meralda. “In Donchen’s size. With arms. Can you do that, quietly, without telling anyone why?”

Tervis grinned and straightened. “Right away! Straight sword or Argen curved?”

“Straight, please,” said Donchen. “And sharp. Very sharp.”