Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen

Donchen’s plain straight sword flashed as it fell. He stepped back with his right foot, pivoted, and when he stopped the tip of his sword was a finger’s breadth from Kervis’ throat.

“You simply draw your opponent’s blade to his right, and then you step, turn, stab,” said Donchen. He flicked his sword away and fell back into a defensive crouch. “Now you try.”

Kervis nodded and charged.

Tervis sat beside Meralda and mopped sweat, fresh from his own bout with the Hang. “He’s so fast,” he whispered. “Faster than Sergeant Smithy, that’s for sure.”

Meralda looked away from Donchen and Kervis and leaned back in her chair. He looks Tirlish, in that guardsman’s garb,she thought. Dashing, in fact, even with a black eye and a split lip.

“I’m sure he is,” she said.

Tervis nodded at Mug. “He looks better, ma’am. Not so wilted. Has he said anything yet?”

“Nothing that made sense. But he’s dreaming. Watch.”

Mug’s leaves shivered, and his eye stalks moved as if in a sudden puff of wind.

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it, ma’am?”

“I’d be far more worried if he was perfectly still.”

Tervis nodded.

“I like him. I’m going to miss seeing him, when the Accords are done.” The Bellringer’s face reddened. “We’ll miss seeing you too, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Of course I don’t mind. I didn’t want bodyguards, you know. But I’ve quite enjoyed your company. Who knows? I might ask for a permanent deployment.”

Tervis lit up with a wide sudden smile.

“We’d like that, ma’am!”

“I’ll see to it, then. If your brother agrees, of course.”

“He will. We’ve, um, talked about it. Please don’t tell him I told you that.”

“I won’t.”

“Well, I’d better get back to practice,” said Tervis. “Thank you, Mage.”

“Thank you, Guardsman.”

“I didn’t order shoes,” said Mug. “Oblate spheroid.”

Meralda patted the dandyleaf’s tossing leaves until they were still.

“As I was saying,” said the Tower, in a near whisper. “The only point of contact between the tethers and the curseworks appears to be this juncture, here…”

A diagram appeared in the corner of the sunlit glass. Meralda copied it onto her paper, and then set about finding its secrets.

Donchen, clad now in the waistcoat and leggings and shiny buckled shoes of a nobleman of old, raised Kervis’ hand and smiled.

“Right foot, left foot, turn, pirouette,” he said.

Kervis stumbled, trying to stand tip-toe in his guardsman’s boots. He frowned and looked down at his long, flowing ball gown.

“I don’t think I like this dream,” he said.

Meralda lifted her head from her desk and shook it, trying to wake.

Mug turned his eyes toward her, whole again. “None of that, mistress,” he chided, waggling vines at her. “Someone went to considerable trouble to bring this dream about. Please sleep just a few moments longer. It’s important.”

“Indeed,” said Tower, from inside the glass. “A fanfare, if you please.”

Mug sounded a fanfare, complete with trumpets and drums.

Footfalls sounded from the shelves. There came the sound of a door slamming shut.

Meralda rose and whirled to face the shelves. My back aches,she thought. My arm is numb where I slept on it. I can’t be dreaming.

Tim the Horsehead stepped into the light.

“You are, indeed, dreaming,” he said. He turned his equine head so he gazed at Meralda through his right eye. “Though it is a singular sort of dream.”

“Tim the Horsehead couldn’t speak.” Meralda sagged. “It is just a dream.”

“I can speak perfectly well in dreams,” replied Tim. “May I come closer?”

Meralda shrugged. “Please do.”

Tim approached.

Meralda watched. He’s wearing the robes of office,she noted. The very same clothes depicted in his portrait in the Gold Room.

“Well, I’m working with your memories, after all,” said Tim. He moved to stand two short steps from Meralda. “We’ve been very impressed with you, you know,” he said. “All of us. We look in from time to time.” He raised a gloved hand and pointed at Mug. “He’ll be fine, by the way. You needn’t worry.”

Meralda pinched her side.

It hurt.

Tim remained, perfectly solid, not the least bit dreamlike.

He smelled of cologne Meralda couldn’t name. His muzzle was whiskery and going grey.

Beneath the cologne, Meralda realized he smelled very faintly of…a stable?

Meralda’s heart began to race. What if this is really Tim, somehow?

“We? We who?”

Tim curled back his lips in a horse’s toothy grin. “We former thaumaturges. All this time, thinking the Tower was haunted, when it is this laboratory that is full of ghosts.” He made a sound somewhere between a whinny and a laugh. “The very walls in this place are infused with old, old magic. We mages leave a part of us behind.”

More figures stepped from the shadows between the shelves. Some solid, some faded and ghostlike, some little more than shadows themselves.

None moved far from the dark.

“We know of the threat to Tirlin, and your efforts to stop it. We salute you, Mage Meralda Ovis. As not just one of us, but the best of us.”

“I am no such thing.”

Tim whinnied again in laughter. “We shall soon see. Tirlin’s darkest hour is nearly upon us, Mage. Know that we who wore the robes before you stand at your side.”

“Can you render the curseworks harmless?”

Tim shook his long head side to side.

“We are but ghosts now,” he said. “That task is yours, and yours alone.”

Meralda sighed. “I don’t know if I can do it,” she said. Her voice shook. “I just don’t know.”

“I would be troubled if you said otherwise,” said Tim. “I, on the other hoof, have the utmost confidence in you, Mage.”

“Everyone keeps saying that,” said Meralda. “This is pre-kingdom magic. It doesn’t make sense, half the time. It’s like trying to untie knots in the dark. I could fail as easily as not.” Meralda felt her face flush hot, and a sudden anger ran through her. “And you know what they’ll say? They’ll say I failed because I’m a woman. That will be my legend. Fool scrap of a girl let the kingdom burn.”

Tim nodded. “I felt much the same burden, so many times. The stuff of legends is nothing but trouble to the persons unfortunate enough to make them. On the whole, I’d rather have been off fishing.”

Meralda surprised herself by laughing.

“I’ve always wanted to meet you. You’re the reason I’m here, really.”

Tim bowed. “My apologies, then. It was never my intention to be a bad influence on the youth of Tirlin.”

“You’re exactly as I imagined.”

Tim stepped forward, his horse head swaying to and fro as though seeing who was close by.

“May I tell you a secret, Mage Meralda Ovis?”

“Please.”

Tim’s whiskery horse mouth tickled Meralda’s right ear.

“You’re not the first woman to wear the robes.”

“What?”

Tim’s horse head flashed, and when the light died, he-she-looked back at Meralda from a woman’s smiling face.

“I knew I’d never be named Mage as a woman, back in the bad old days of 1517,” she said. She looked down at her bosom ruefully and shrugged. “But it occurred to me that the robes would hide everything but my head and neck.”

“You’re not Tim?”

“Tam, actually. I even developed a taste for hay. Imagine that.” She ran fingers through her long brown hair. “Tam couldn’t even read for the college. Tim took the robes and saved the kingdom, more than once. What a difference a single letter makes. And a bit of magic.”

Meralda remembered to close her mouth.

“I’m not the only one, either. Brontus. Caplea. Sebrinal.”

Shapes stirred, stepped forward, waved.

“I’m the fifth woman to wear the robes?”

“We’re not sure about Abelt, and he or she won’t say. Fifth or sixth. But you’re the first who hasn’t hidden who you are.”

“I had no idea.”

“That’s rather the point. But see here, Mage. This business with the curseworks. Have you given any thought to how you might use them, to Tirlin’s advantage?”

“Use them? The only sane thing to do with them is keep them where they are. Isn’t it?”

“Indeed. They’re monstrous. Each an abomination. Combined? We’re not sure any of the Realms would survive their release.”

“Making them useless.”

“Not exactly,” said Tam. Her face was long and plain, but her eyes were merry and bright. “Often, I found that the perception of a thing was far more useful than the thing itself, if you get my meaning. Remember Covair?”

“You held off fifty thousand Vonats with a pair of silver wands.”

Tam’s eyes twinkled.

“Ten thousand, perhaps. The wands weren’t even silver. I painted a pair of sticks. I’d run right out of spells, Mage. I had a biscuit in my pocket and a knife in my boot. And not a single Vonat pikeman dared cross a line I scratched in the sand with my boot, just because I grinned at them and invited them to try.”

Meralda stared.

“That’s history for you, Mage. Half of it is misquotes and the other half is flummery. I enjoyed the flummery most of all. In fact, I highly recommend it. Am I being too mysterious?”

“You want me to use the curseworks to scare the Vonats into behaving themselves?”

“It’s just a suggestion. You’d have thought of it yourself, sooner or later. We just wanted to save you the time. Mage to mage, you know.”

Meralda’s mind raced.

“The curseworks? Weapons?”

Tam beamed. “Just so.” She took a step back, and her horse head reappeared.

“We wish you well, Mage Meralda Ovis,” said Tim, shaking his mane back into place. “Know that we are all very proud to call you sister.”

“Don’t go. Please, I have so many questions.”

“My time here is nearly spent, Mage. You face a dark hour. You will soon be forced to choose between power and stealth. Between might and wisdom. Between the easy way, and the hard. I do not envy you that.”

Tam raised a hand in salute. “Oh, aisle ten, shelf twenty-two, slot fifteen. A little something not in the Inventory. Better range than the speaking jewel you’re using now. And get yourself a new chair. That one will ruin your back.”

Before Meralda could speak again, she awoke, face down on her desk.

She bolted upright, found her arm asleep, her back aching.

Mug stirred restlessly on her desk, his eyes still closed and drooping. The Bellringers were gone, as was Donchen. Goboy’s glass was focused on the palace spire, which glowed in the first faint rays of dawn.

It was a dream,she thought. But was it just a dream?

Meralda rose, stiff and sore. Her pencil lay on her topmost page of notes, just where she’d dropped it. The paper was filled with diagrams and calculations and scribbled questions for which there were no good answers.

Something in the top right corner caught Meralda’s weary gaze.

A calculation had been crossed out and rewritten.

The hand wasn’t hers.

Below the revised equation was a note, penned in a tiny precise hand.

You dropped the Esrat variable there, Mage. I did the same thing when I was sleepy.

Below that was a T.

Meralda shivered.

“Thank you, Mage,” she said, aloud. “Thank you.”

“Crawling up the windowpanes, I don’t know,” mumbled Mug.

Meralda stroked his topmost leaves and shuffled toward the water closet.

At noon, Mug awoke.

“You see what trouble all this moving about brings, mistress,” he said, spreading his leaves to the sunlight pouring from Goboy’s glass. “Bruised stems, eyes gone missing.”

Meralda came running from the shelves, her hands full of holdstones and long silver wands.

“Mug!”

“Mistress!” Mug turned half a dozen eyes toward Meralda as she dumped the contents of her arms down on her desk and leaned over Mug’s bedraggled fronds. “How long have I been resting?”

“Two days.” Meralda stroked his leaves. “I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up at all.”

Mug gently wrapped Meralda’s wrist in a vine and squeezed. “You seem to have all your limbs. What of the lads? And Angis?”

“All fine. Donchen got the worst of us all, fighting those things in the sewer beneath us.”

“So I take it we won the day.”

Meralda nodded. “Nameless and Faceless appeared. I took them up. No more magical rope men.”

Mug turned more eyes toward Meralda. “They just swatted the nasties in a show of selfless goodwill, did they?”

“Something like that.”

Mug imitated a snort. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready, I suppose. The work on the tethers. Making progress?”

Meralda pulled back her chair and sat. “I think so.” She pushed wands and holdstones aside to reveal her latest set of notes and diagrams. “If you feel up to it, this is where I’m stuck.”

Mug sent eyes hovering over the paper, and was silent for a moment.

“Mistress. This is impressive. Tower thinks it will work?”

“Tower is cautiously optimistic,” said Tower from the glass. “Although it must be noted that the basic underpinnings of the mage’s theory are untested and, in fact, untestable.”

“Cheery as always,” said Mug. “Good to hear your voice again, though.”

“You were missed as well, Mug.” The Tower shifted the image in the mirror to avoid a shadow cast by an approaching dirigible.

Mug sighed happily in the fresh wash of sunlight.

“The Bellringers will want to say hello,” said Meralda. “They’ve been bringing you rainwater from a wooden cask out back, because they were convinced plants couldn’t possibly enjoy the taste of water from the tap.”

Mug chuckled. “I’ll be sure and thank them.” His eyes halted over Meralda’s notes. “T? Who is T? And what is he doing correcting your math?”

Meralda smiled. “Someone I dreamed up,” she said. “But never mind that now. We’ve got so much more to do.”

Back to the Tower,thought Meralda. This time, though, I won’t be caught unawares.

The army cleared the streets ahead and sealed them off behind, keeping Meralda’s armored pay master’s wagon well away from any other traffic. Two dozen mounted guards rode about her, swords drawn and gleaming, while an Army dirigible soared low overhead, ready to dispatch its soldiers via dropped lines at the first sight of trouble.

“Hello, mistress,” said Mug. “Can you hear me? Is this thing working?”

The trio of stern-faced palace guards seated across from Meralda looked warily about at the sound.

“What’s that?” asked one.

“It’s nothing,” replied Kervis. “It’s certainly not a voice.”

“What?” said Mug. “Speak up!”

“It’s not a voice you need to hear,” said Kervis. “None of us hear it, do we, Mage?”

Meralda rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Oh, we all hear it, but I’d appreciate it if you gentlemen would pretend you didn’t.”

The guards smiled and nodded.

Meralda raised an intricate glass and brass device to her lips. “I told you to wait until I called you,” she said. “Unless you saw something threatening. Have you seen something threatening, Mug?”

“Um, no. I just wanted to be sure this thing works.”

“Satisfied?”

“Being quiet now.”

Meralda lowered the device and sighed.

The box quietly gathering dust on aisle ten, shelf twenty-two, slot fifteen had been marked simply ‘Vars. Notes.’ It had contained a stack of old parchment pages from which the ink had long since fled.

But the box had a false bottom, and wrapped in silk Meralda found a pair of identical glass devices. Pushing a copper switch on the side of either one while speaking caused the other to sound with the speaker’s voice, and no method Meralda tried was able to eavesdrop on the conversation. Even the jewel was detectable, if one knew what to look for. But Tam’s device might as well be made of ghosts and shadows.

Which made these either handiwork of Tam herself, or something even older she purloined and kept hidden.

Meralda grinned.

One day, I’ll hide them again myself, and thus snub my nose at the Official Inventory.

“We heard the king will be there,” said Kervis, in a whisper.

Meralda nodded. The king’s note had been terse, but at least informative. I nspect the stands and the Tower,it read. Discuss final instructions for loosing the shadow moving spell,etc. etc.

And all done under heavy guard. Meralda wasn’t sure what message Yvin was trying to send by going through with such a risky meeting in the first place, or to whom the message was meant. I have quite enough to worry about without involving politics,she thought. That’s the king’s problem.

I just have to see that Tirlin doesn’t erupt into flames and doom before Yvin delivers the first word of his speech.

The pay master’s wagon rattled and lurched, its iron wheels raising sparks on both sides as the driver urged his eight horse team faster and faster. Built to carry gold, the pay master’s wagon was armored, sturdy, and nearly unstoppable, although its ride was anything but smooth. The thundering hooves of the guards weaving expertly about the wagon added to the din, leaving Meralda thoroughly bruised and nearly deaf by the time the wagon reached the last street before the park and began to slow.

The Bellringers kept their eyes on the windows, wary of every passing shadow. The guards seated across from Meralda did the same.

The wagon rolled to a halt. The hoof beats surrounding it slowed and finally stopped as well.

Orders were shouted. More guards, this time on foot, rushed to the wagon. After a moment, Meralda’s door was opened and the captain, himself, peeked in.

“We’re here,” he said. “Looks safe enough, at the moment. Yvin is waiting.”

Meralda clambered down from the tall, iron-clad wagon. A breeze ran through her hair.

The Bellringers followed and took up positions on either side of her. The guards formed two lines about them, and with a nod from Meralda the party started down the walk.

The guardsman immediately to Meralda’s right smiled at her and winked.

Meralda grinned and blushed and nearly stumbled.

Donchen kept in perfect step with his fellows.

“Been a lot more trouble for the Vonats,” said the captain, as he ambled beside Meralda. “We had to break up a fight between them and some of the Hang five-master crew last night, in fact. Of course I couldn’t understand what was being said, but it seems some bad blood has sprung up between them. I wonder why that is?”

“I’m sure I have no idea,” said Meralda.

“No, of course not, you wouldn’t. Still. Someone sent a spell their way that filled their sheets with bed bugs and their shoes with centipedes. They lodged a formal complaint with the Accords Hospitality Commission, did you know that? Threatening to sue Tirlin.”

Meralda kept her face carefully blank. “I’m sure the king will launch a formal investigation,” she said. “Such mischief cannot be tolerated.”

The captain nodded. “Student pranks, I’m thinking.”

“Precisely.”

The Tower still loomed, dark and brooding against the clear blue sky, but the park, itself, was transformed.

The stands that Meralda had last seen as skeletons of lumber were complete, making a half-circle around the Tower that rose up and up and up, nearly as tall as the Old Oaks themselves. Fresh white paint gleamed in the sun, and atop the tallest ranks of seats a hundred pennants waved and snapped in the cool midday breeze.

The King’s Rise faced the stands, engulfed in the shadow of the Tower. Painters still worked furiously about it, hanging from ropes and racing across scaffolds as they hurried to complete the rise’s red, blue, and gold color scheme in time for the Accords.

Standing, hands on hips, at the base of the rise was King Yvin himself. Even from a distance, Meralda could make out the tapping of the royal foot and the glower of the royal face.

“I’m not late,” she said.

“Pardon?” asked the captain.

“Nothing.” Meralda forced a smile. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”

“So that’s clear, then,” said the king. He leaned on an unpainted stretch of the rise’s upmost rail and stared at the Tower’s black bulk. “You accompany me up here. I sit. You move the shadows. I thank you, you take to the stairs, the band strikes up, and I stand up and start when they finish. That about it?”

Meralda nodded. Something in the king’s weary tone and wary eyes troubled her far more than usual.

I suppose I’m not the only member of the court with a burden, these days.

“And you’ve taken steps to solve our other little problem.”

Meralda realized she’d been wondering all day just how she’d reply to that very question.

“I have, Your Majesty.”

The king grunted. “Finally. Brevity. The rest of the court could take lessons from you, Mage.” He stared for a moment longer. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Mage Ovis?”

“Sire?”

“You heard me.”

Meralda’s mind raced. “I hardly even know you, Sire. As a person.”

The king nodded. “That’s true enough.” He flicked a scrap of wood off the rail. “Did you know old Fromarch threatened to renounce the robes if I didn’t approve your appointment?”

“He did what?”

The king chuckled. “I’ve never seen the man so angry. He was ready to throw away a lifetime of hard work for you.” The king shrugged. “I had an epiphany, right there in the Gold Room. I don’t think anyone ever felt that passionate about His Majesty King Yvin the Sixth.”

“I don’t know what to say, Your Majesty. Except that I’m glad you’re wearing the crown right now. I can’t think of a better head to go beneath it.”

“Same thing my wife said. Must be a bit of truth to it, then?” He managed a weary grin. “I want you to know, Mage, that however the Accords go, I’m glad Fromarch fought so hard to put you in those robes. He was right. For once.”

Meralda put her hand on the king’s where he gripped the railing.

“I want you and the queen to come down to the laboratory, after the Accords,” she said. “Mug can play us some music. I can show you the relics.”

“The queen plays a mean hand of whist,” said the king.

“So does Mug. But I warn you, he cheats.”

The king laughed. Meralda moved her hand.

Yvin marched away, bellowing at his personal guard, who quickly surrounded him as he tramped down the steps.

Meralda watched him go, then she reached into her bag for her implements and pretended to inspect her shadow moving spell while her own guards idled far below.

I need to enter the Tower and work from the flat to install the new tether spells,she thought.

But how can I possibly make half a dozen trips to the flat when my every trip to the park will be accompanied by half the army and at least one dirigible?

The Vonat wizards will know I’m not doing anything to the shadow spell. They’ll suspect I’m meddling with theirs, which I’m not even supposed to know about.

Donchen had suggested removing Finch’s Door from the house on Hopping Way and sneaking it under cover of night directly into the flat. Mug had even grudgingly agreed this was the best possible solution, although sneaking anything the size of a door into the Tower was going to prove difficult.

A shadow flitted across Meralda, and with it came the faint fluttering of wings.

Of course there is another way,she thought. I’d hoped I wouldn’t be forced to try it.But standing there on the rise and seeing the crowds gathered about the Tower, Meralda knew with a sinking in her heart there was only one way to enter the Tower in secret.

Two shadows flew past, as if hearing her thoughts. Which they might well do, since I dared to take them in hand.

My life is filled with dares these days.

“Tower reports that the Vonats are watching their spell carefully, mistress,” said Mug’s tiny voice from Meralda’s pocket. “He’s impressed they can do that at a distance.”

Meralda reached into her own pocket and pressed the copper stud while covering her mouth as if from a cough.

“I’m all done here,” she said. “Coming home.”

“Glad to hear it.” Mug paused. “Mind you don’t trip on any Vonats.”

“Mistress,” said Mug. “Respectfully, that’s the single least appealing idea you’ve ever espoused.” Mug waved his leaves at Donchen, who stood frowning by Meralda’s desk. “Mr. Ghost. Help me here. Tell the mage why holding ancient evil staves while they fly through Goboy’s brittle old mirror is a monumentally bad idea.”

“I find nothing fundamentally at fault with the supposition,” said the Tower. “They move their own masses easily across the spectral threshold with no observable discontinuity.”

“Was I asking you? Was I?” Mug swiveled his eyes back to Donchen. “Well?”

Donchen’s frown deepened. “I cannot lay claim to understanding the process by which the staves use the mirror as a portal,” he began.

Mug groaned. “I retract the question.”

Donchen shrugged. “I see no reason why a person would suffer, if the staves do not. Even so, I volunteer to try a crossing first. Tirlin can do without a moderately skilled chef, Mage Ovis. But it cannot do without you.”

He means that,thought Meralda. He’d take up the staves and step into the glass and not show an inkling of fear.

She smiled, but shook her head no. “Thank you, Donchen. From the bottom of my heart. But taking the staves is very much up to the staves, and in any case I don’t believe they’ll let me come to any harm.”

Yet,thought Meralda. No harm just yet.

“Still, we could perhaps test passing an inanimate object back and forth through the glass,” said Donchen, eyeing Meralda speculatively. “Something of your approximate mass and composition?”

“Careful,” grumbled Mug.

Meralda rose and brushed back her hair. “No. I’m sorry, Donchen, but the staves can either be trusted, or they cannot, and without them, we are already undone.” She held out her hands and took a deep breath. “Nameless, Faceless. To me, please.”

The air about Meralda snapped, as if a solid door was slammed shut, and the staves appeared in her hands.

“Mistress!” cried Mug.

“Your mistress is a brave woman,” said Donchen. “Know that if she comes to harm I will set about finding a very sharp axe and a very hot fire.”

Meralda smiled.

“Did you hear?”

“One heard,”came a voice Meralda knew only she could hear.

“As did this one,”said the other. “Neither mages nor mirrors will suffer harm.”

“To the Wizard’s Flat,” she said.

The staves leaped in her hand. The laboratory simply vanished. She felt the slightest, most subtle sensation of being lifted, and then-

Then, the Wizard’s Flat.

Bright sun streamed through the windows. Silence gripped the air. With the door still shut, not a single sound penetrated the Tower’s thick walls.

Meralda let go of the staves. They flew to their indentations in the floor and stood there, still and quiet in the sunlight.

“Thank you,” said Meralda.

“Mistress! Mistress, we can see you,” cried Mug’s voice, from Meralda’s pocket. “Are you all right? Are you all there? Donchen is pacing, mistress. Muttering about kindling wood.”

Meralda raised Tam’s speaking device to her lips and smiled. “I’m perfectly intact, Mug,” she said. “It wasn’t even unpleasant.”

She heard Mug sigh in relief.

“Well, what now, mistress?”

“I’m here, Mug. I might as well get to work. I’ll be busy for a bit. Watch, but please don’t speak.”

Meralda dropped the speaking device back in her pocket, closed her eyes, and raised her Sight.

“I may need some assistance here,” she said. She felt the staves place themselves in her hands, felt the first rush of power flow from them and toward her.

“Sight,” she said aloud.

The hidden spaces that filled the flat revealed themselves, one by one, wonder by wonder.