Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Meralda put her nose nearly to the floor, decided on a figure, and used the chalk from the ball to scribble the numbers on the floor.

“Mathematics,” she said, rising. “The biggest part of magic. Not the stuff of epic legends, I know, but the stuff of magic nonetheless.”

“Mathematics?” asked Tervis, wrinkling his nose. “You mean two-and-two and take away four, that sort of thing?”

“That very sort of thing,” said Meralda, grinning at the thought of old Master Blimmett’s sputtering, should he ever hear his High Mathematica studies dubbed a “two-and-two and take away four sort of thing”.

Tervis stared down at the mark on the floor.

“The process is called trigonometry,” said Meralda. “I caused the ball to be attracted to the Historical Society marker by the park gates. It pulled the chain away from the vertical by that much.” She pointed to the scribbles on the floor with the tip of her boot.

“And since I know the exact distance from the center of the Tower to the Society marker, and since I know the length of the chain and the angle of deflection, I can calculate the exact height of a point just below the ceiling of the Wizard’s Flat.”

“As you say, ma’am,” said Tervis. Then he grinned. “Magic!”

Meralda folded her ruler. “Magic,” she said, putting away her gear.

The half-open door to the stair beckoned. Meralda dropped her bag and tied it shut.

“Time to go, gentlemen,” she said. Tervis mopped his brow. Kervis, who had been dashing from window to window, trotted back to join Meralda and Tervis before the door.

“It’s downhill, this time,” Kervis said. “Shall I go first again, ma’am?”

Meralda lit her magelamp with a word and motioned Kervis toward the door.

“Last one down is a Vonat,” he said, before slipping out into the dark.

Meralda followed. Tervis came after, and though his hand shook when Meralda handed him the key he managed to lock the door without fumbling.

Meralda pocketed the key, bade Kervis to wait until she set the magelamp’s twin beams wider and brighter, and then brushed back her hair.

A line from a Phendelit play crept whispering into Meralda’s mind. “We climb now the walls of the cold dark night,” said the hero, at the base of the stair that wound down to the Pale Gate. “No sun now to warm us, no light for our feet. Just darkness and silence and down to defeat.”

Meralda sighed at the memory, then realized both Bellringers were eyeing her expectantly. “Well, gentlemen,” she said, forcing a smile. “It is downhill, as you said.”

Kervis groaned. “If old what’s-his-name had been any kind of real wizard, he’d have put in a lift.”

Tervis took in his breath with a sudden hiss. “Don’t say things like that,” he said. “It’s disrespectful to speak ill of the, um, ones that aren’t here anymore.”

Kervis rolled his eyes and turned away.

Meralda increased her magelamp’s brightness with a whispered word and set a brisk pace for the foot of the Tower.

Between midday traffic and the extra crowds milling about the palace, Meralda was nearly late for court.

Ordinarily, she’d simply not go, since Yvin preferred absence to tardiness. And, ordinarily, her absence would have been noted, but nothing more. Thaumaturges were almost expected to ignore the routine functions of the court.

Ordinarily.

The Accords, however, were only held every five years. And of the fifth-year Accords, only one in five was hosted by any given realm, including Tirlin. So nothing, reflected a breathless Meralda, was ordinary anymore.

She’d leapt from the traffic-locked cab at the corner of Kemp and Striddle, intending to walk the five blocks to the trolley stand at Fleethorse. The Bellringers, still sweat-streaked and flushed from the morning’s long climb, cleared a wide path through the busy sidewalks. Even with the twins clearing the way, though, Meralda could only watch as the Fleethorse trolley pulled away from the stand, filled to capacity and gone before Meralda could attempt to claim court preference and gain a hand-stand on the shuddering red hulk.

And as for hailing a cab, I might as well shout down the moon,she thought. Traffic was at a near standstill from Kemp to Roard. Worse, there wasn’t a cab to be seen, much less hailed and ridden.

And so, another brisk walk. Meralda’s calves ached. Her heels were bruised and tender. Her hair hung limp and damp. She caught a brief glimpse of herself reflected in a clockmaker’s window and looked quickly away. I’m a sight,she thought. A sight, and bound for court.

A street minstrel dared the Bellringers, but Kervis sent him scampering with a growl and a pat of his sword hilt.

Eight blocks to the palace, and still the roads were clogged. Seven blocks, and Meralda’s right ankle began to ache. Six blocks out, and short, sharp pains ran up her right leg each time her foot fell.

Five blocks from the palace, traffic began to flow. A dusty black army troop cab rattled past, and Kervis, to Meralda’s amazement, bellowed at the driver, called him to a halt, and threw the door open for Meralda before the driver could do more than sputter and shrug.

“The palace, and before ten bells,” said Kervis, before clambering into the cab and joining Tervis on the smooth wood bench seat.

The cab rolled away from the curb. Kervis put his helmet in his lap and ran his fingers through sweat-soaked hair.

“Guardsman, you are a treasure,” said Meralda, rubbing her aching right ankle through her boot.

Kervis blushed. “I figured the worst he could do was laugh and drive past, ma’am,” he said.

Meralda gathered loose locks of hair and pulled them to the back of her head, working them into the beret as best she could. She frowned suddenly. I’ve got a bagful of sorcerous implements sufficient to fell the west wing, but I don’t have a hairbrush.

The cab rolled to a halt behind a line of carriages inching towards the palace reception hall.

“The palace, Your Majesty,” said the driver to Kervis. “Mind you don’t knock your crown off, on your way out.”

“Thank you, Goodman,” said Kervis, forcing the door open. Meralda hefted her bag, stooped, and leapt onto the curb. Tervis followed, pausing only to stick his tongue out at the departing driver’s red-clad back.

Meralda ignored the pain in her ankle and trotted to the door. There she paused, fumbled in her pocket for a coin, and pressed it into Kervis’ hand. “Find Orlo’s,” she said. “Down the street. Get a table, and hold it. We’ll all have a late lunch, when this nonsense is over.”

She smiled briefly at Kervis’ widening eyes, whirled again, and brushed past the sentries.

A whistle blew, once and briefly. Meralda waited for the doors to close behind her, saw that the carpeted hall was momentarily empty, and broke into a dead, if limping, run.

By custom, one short trumpet blast signaled the court that the king had left his chambers and was nearing the Gold Room. Two short trumpet blasts indicated the king’s descent of the east stair, and his eminent arrival at court.

The second trumpet blew as Meralda found and fell into her stiff, high-backed Old Kingdom replica chair. She shoved her bag underneath, wiped sweat from her brow, and let out her breath in a whoosh.

The Gold Room was abuzz about her. Whereas most court sessions were quiet affairs conducted by a dozen bored functionaries scattered about an echoing throne room large enough to swallow a city block whole, today’s session looked like nothing short of a full coronation. Red-clad palace guards, in full parade regalia, flanked every door. Loud, long-haired Eryans, all laughing and blustering and draining King Yvin’s wine cellars with typical Eryan joviality, were seated amid and mingling with the quieter Tirlish folk. Everywhere, soldiers and nobles and servitors rushed and squeezed and darted about, lending the Gold Room the quality of a flower garden in a windstorm, with shades of red and brown and yellow and blue all set twirling in a sudden rush of air.

The three legendary Tables of the King, each made of polished cherry wood and capable of seating four hundred, were ringed round on three sides with chairs and guests. The tables were arrayed in a line before the throne, which rested on a knee-high dais at the far end of the Gold Room. A trio of Red Guards stood frozen at attention before the throne. The guards would not stand down until Yvin and his queen ascended the dais and bade them depart.

The Throne of Tirlin, Meralda knew, started out as a large oak chair. Just a chair, nothing more. At first.

Then King Pollof had added cushions and a bit of carving on the arms. Then King Lertinor had decided gold-worked dragons’ heads looked imposing as a headrest, and King Adoft had added the clawed silver feet, and at some point it became customary for every king to add his own personal touch to what bore less and less resemblance to a seat of any kind, ceremonial or otherwise.

Meralda had once heard Yvin threaten to haul the throne off to a museum and have a reclining Phendelit reading chair brought in. In fact, Meralda could see the corner of a threadbare red seat cushion peeking out from behind the throne’s clawed feet. And was that a dog-eared Alon mystery novel, wedged down between the arm and the seat?

Above the throne and the milling court, sunlight streamed in pastel shafts through the stained glass windows set high along the Gold Room’s curving cathedral ceilings. The gently moving air, an innovation of Meralda’s, smelled of cinnamon and faint perfumes, all circulated by dozens of quiet spark coil fans hidden behind screens below the windows.

The north wall windows were Meralda’s favorite. Each depicted Tim the Horsehead’s exploits against the Vonat wizard Corrus, and Tim’s narrow triumph at the Battle of Romare. I’m surprised Yvin didn’t have masks glued over them,thought Meralda. But then, even Yvin isn’t terribly worried about offending a handful of Vonats.

Someone shouted, and the minstrels began to pipe and strum and arrange their music. Meralda smiled at the gentle sound of Phendelit harps and Tirlish violins and settled back. At least there’ll be a bit of music,she thought. It’s been months since I’ve been to the symphony.

The third trumpet blew. Meralda groaned and rose, with the rest of the court, resigned to remain standing until Yvin arrived and was seated.

Meralda gazed about a bit, searching for familiar faces. The king’s tables, reserved for visiting Eryans and highly-placed Tirls, were full of strangers. But among those seated with her in the ranks of chairs behind the tables, Meralda found a few of her former professors from the college, a handful of familiar newspaper penswifts, the conductor of the Tirlin Philharmonic, and, of course, Sir Ricard Asp, who met her gaze with a barely concealed sneer.

A sudden mad scramble for chairs began. Conversation continued, though in hushed tones, and something in the frowns and the earnest gazes and the shaking heads nearby made Meralda wonder what she’d missed.

It isn’t good news,she decided, as she caught a glimpse of the captain lost in whispered debate with a pair of frowning Red Guard lieutenants. Not good news at all.

A hand fell light upon her shoulder. “Aye, lass,” spoke a man, his words buried in a familiar full tilt Eryan highland brogue. “It’s time you took a husband, and it’s time I took a wife. What do ye say, now? Shall we hire a piper and a hall?”

Meralda’s breath caught in her throat. “Alas,” she said, determined to keep her voice calm and level. “I vowed not to marry beneath myself, even for pity’s sake. Surely you understand.”

Before the man could answer, the brass-bound doors at the end of the Gold Room were flung open and King Yvin marched inside, Queen Pellabine on his arm.

The musicians struck up “Tirlin, Tirlin,” the assembled court fell silent, and Meralda turned, smiling down at the fat, grey-headed Eryan standing behind her.

“Just as well,” said the older man, his eyes merry, his mouth cocked in a crooked smile. “Everyone knows Tirlish women can’t cook.” The Eryan bowed deeply, winking at the shocked glares of those nearby.

Meralda shoved her chair aside and caught the old man up in a long, fierce hug.

Shingvere of Wing, Mage to the Realm of Erya, patted Meralda on the back, then gently pushed her away. “Not in front of the old folks,” he said, cheerily. “That can only lead to a lot of loose talk.”

Meralda squeezed his hand, and the rotund Eryan squeezed back. “Do you know who I am?” he asked the gape-jawed Tirlish noble standing to Meralda’s right.

The man stared and choked back a reply.

“Good,” said Shingvere. “That’s a nice chair you’ve got. I think I’ll take it. Find another, won’t you?”

Then he patted the man’s shoulder, winked at Meralda, and sat.

The noble scurried away, peering back over his shoulder as if memorizing Shingvere’s face and clothes for the guard.

“I’ve missed you,” said Meralda, as the last strains of “Tirlin, Tirlin” began to fade. I truly have,she realized, surprised at the intensity of her emotion. The old wizard had never once treated her as a child, even when she’d first arrived at college. “I’d heard you were ill, and not planning to attend.”

Shingvere smiled, but the music died and he did not speak.

Yvin stepped onto the dais and escorted Queen Pellabine to her own smaller but more comfortable throne, and the two were seated.

The rest of the court sat then, with a sound like lazy thunder.

“Lots of long faces,” whispered Shingvere, as Yvin began to welcome the Eryans. “And I don’t wonder. Have you heard the news?”

Meralda shook her head.

Shingvere grinned. “It’s the Hang,” he said. “They’re here, sailing up the Lamp. Twenty of those Great Sea five-mast rigs. One of them is flying the Long Dragon flag.”

“Are you joking?”

“I am not,” said Shingvere. “The Hang are coming, all the way from the other side of the world. Chaos and discord abound.” The fat wizard fumbled in his pockets and withdrew a sticky white stick of candy wrapped in a shiny red paper wrapper.

“Penny-stick?” he said.

“ Penny-stick?”

“Stop pestering her with those atrocious jaw-breakers,” said Thaumaturge Fromarch. “She’s here to learn history, not bad eating habits.”

Meralda-then Apprentice Ovis, barely out of the college, less than a year into her apprenticeship to Thaumaturge Fromarch-kept her eyes firmly fixed on page four hundred of Trout and Windig’s A History of Tirlin and Erya and Environs, With Generous Illustration Throughout. She’d read the same passage a half-dozen times, and still could make no sense of it. No wonder, when all the mages did was bluster and argue.

“Bah,” said Mage Shingvere, the round little Eryan. “You’re wasting her time with that revisionist Tirlish history, Fromarch, and you know it. Look at this.” Shingvere spun Meralda’s book around, so he could read from it. “It says here that ‘the Hang first appeared in the spring of 1072, and they’ve visited the Realms once a century since then’.”

Fromarch sighed. “Hang visits have been well documented, even from the earliest days of the Old Kingdom.”

“Bah!” said Shingvere, spinning the book back around to Meralda. “The Hang have been sneaking around since well before ten hundred, and they’ve bloody well been back more than once a century, and you’re an idiot not to see it.” Shingvere shook his finger at Meralda. “You’re a smart one, lass, so you listen to old Shingvere. Read what’s in your books. But don’t ever forget that printing a thing doesn’t make it true.”

Mage Fromarch groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Spare us.”

“The Hang have been watching us for more than a millennium,” said Shingvere, quietly. “Ask any Eryan beach comber. Ask any Phendelit fisherman. I’ve got a scrap of paper with Hang scribbles on it in my study. Are you going to tell me it floated from Hang to Erya?” The Eryan snorted. “They’re out there, closer than you think,” he said. “And one day, miss, they’re going to come sailing up the Lamp to stay. Mark my words, both of you. The Vonats may rattle their swords every twenty years or so, but the Hang are the real threat, Great Sea or not.”

Mage Fromarch stood. “Apprentice Ovis,” he said, to Meralda. “Our Eryan associate’s outlandish ideas aside, we have a history lesson to discuss. Now then. How did the advent of the airship shape New Kingdom politics in the years before the Parting?”

Meralda shook her head. The answer to Mage Fromarch’s question was obvious enough. But there, on the page, was a hand-drawn picture of a Hang warship, a ship that had done what no vessel of the Realms had ever done. It had crossed the Great Sea, and would do so again.

“They’re up to no good,” said Shingvere, softly. “Mark my words, Apprentice Ovis. No bloody good.”

Meralda closed the book, but the crude drawing of the Hang five-master haunted her dreams for days.

Chapter Three

Meralda took Shingvere’s penny-stick and, just as she had countless times as an apprentice, slipped it wordlessly in her pocket.

Yvin’s voice faded to a drone. Unhearing, Meralda dreamily recalled the little towns and villages strewn haphazardly along the banks of the Lamp, and wondered what sort of bedlam was occurring as the towering masts of the Great Sea ships bore down upon the fisher folk.

Meralda shivered. The Hang. Sailing up the Lamp at last. If, of course, that Eryan rascal beside me is to be believed.

As if he’d heard, Shingvere caught Meralda’s eye and nodded gravely, every hint of humor gone from his face.

Meralda sighed. It’s true, then.For the first time in forty-five years the Hang have crossed the Great Sea, bound for Tirlin, practically on the eve of the Accords. No coincidence, that.

“He won’t say a word, today,” whispered Shingvere, with a nod toward King Yvin. “We’ll all pretend it’s a secret, till the papers get wind of it. After that, Thaumaturge, if I were you I’d consider exercising that legendary distance mages and thaumaturges have for courts.”

“Would that I could,” whispered Meralda.

Shingvere grinned. “And I’d tell old windbag there to leave the Tower’s shadow be.”

Heads turned toward the Eryan. “Shhhh,” hissed a Tirlish courtier.

Shingvere made a gesture, and the man’s hair stood suddenly on end.

“Shingvere!” said Meralda, as the wide-eyed courtier lifted his hands to his head.

Shingvere glared, and the man’s hair fell. “Mind your manners,” grumbled the Eryan.

Applause broke out as King Yvin bade the Eryan court to rise and be made welcome.

Shingvere rolled his eyes and remained seated. “I’m meeting Fromarch this evening,” he whispered, as the applause died. “You’ll come too, won’t you? I’m sure the doddering old skinflint will have a supper meal of some poor sort.”

Meralda nodded.

Shingvere grinned. “Good. You’re old enough to have a pint with us now, you know. Never drank with a Tirlish woman before. Might be fun.”

Again, applause rang out. Meralda caught sight of the captain’s back as he slipped through the furthest west doors. Soon, three of the captain’s staff and a handful of black-clad Secret Service officers followed.

Yvin’s welcome speech droned on. Within moments, Shingvere was snoring.

Meralda settled into her chair, gazed up at the stained glass murals and Tim the Horsehead’s toothy equine grin, and wondered just how he would have reacted to a fleet of Long Dragon five-masters sailing up the Lamp.

“Pardon, ma’am,” said Kervis, “But what’s a Long Dragon five-master?”

Their waiter hovered near, fussing with napkins and forks on a recently cleared table while he eavesdropped. Meralda brought her finger to her lips, and Kervis nodded and fell silent.

Orlo’s sidewalk cafe was bustling. Diners were being seated on the knee-high walls of Orlo’s sputtering three-tiered fountain, on the backs of parked cabs, on upturned milk buckets, and, in one instance, on a wrought-iron trolley-stop bench hauled away from the curb by a bevy of brawny Builder’s Guild bricklayers. Waiters ducked and bobbed, arms laden with plates and drinks, their movements more dance than stride.

A trio of skinny black-clad bankers darted like crows for the empty table beside Meralda’s. The waiter bade the newcomers welcome, promised them tea, and then, with a backward glance toward Meralda, he darted away.

“Sorry, ma’am,” said Kervis.

“No matter,” said Meralda. “It’ll all be in the papers tomorrow anyway.”

Meralda swallowed the last bite of her ham on rye and washed it down with ice-cold Phendelit day tea.

“A five-master,” she said, wiping her chin, “is a ship. A Great Sea ship, half as long as the Tower is tall. The Long Dragon is the flag of the Chentze, which is the Hang equivalent of the house of a king.”

The Bellringers simultaneously lifted their right eyebrows.

“Big ship,” said Kervis.

Meralda took another long draught of her day tea. “They cross the Great Sea,” she said. “I suppose they have to be.”

Tervis frowned. “No one but the Hang has ever crossed the Great Sea,” he said. “Is that right?”

“It is,” said Meralda. “Eryans, Phendelits, us, the Vonats. Everyone has tried. But the ships either turn back, or vanish.” Meralda put down her glass. “Current thinking holds that the sea extends at least twenty thousand miles from every coast,” she said.

“Fly it,” said Kervis, matter-of-factly. “Why not send an airship?”

“It’s been tried,” said Meralda. “The ones that made it back all told the same story. No land past the Islands. Not a speck. Just sea and storms and it goes on forever,” she said. “That’s a quote, from the master of the airship Yoreland. They were aloft for more than two months.”

Tervis whistled. “Two months?”

Meralda nodded. “No one has tried since,” she said. “At least, no one of the Realms.”

Tervis shook his head. “These Hang,” he said, after a furtive look around. “What do they want?”

Meralda wiped her hands on her napkin. “People have been asking that for nine hundred years, Tervis,” she said. “I wish I knew.”

The palace bells struck twice. Meralda covered her plate with her napkin, and after a moment, Kervis and Tervis did the same. Meralda smiled.

“Well, gentlemen,” she said, as their red-haired Phendelit waiter appeared. “Time to go.” She dropped a small silver coin into the waiter’s hand and grinned into his astonished face. “A Hang fleet is heading for Tirlin,” she whispered, as the man blushed furiously. “Fifty ships, each longer than five Towers and each laden with forty thousand four-armed, two-headed, venom-spitting half-wolf Hang warriors. When you tell the penswifts, do try to get the numbers right.”

Kervis raced around to Meralda’s side of the table and pulled her chair back. “You probably shouldn’t mention the war dragons or the marching ogres, ma’am,” he said. “Might cause a panic.”

Meralda nodded solemn agreement, turned, and bade the Bellringers to follow. The Phendelit waiter watched for a moment, shook his head, and darted off to refill another round of tea glasses.

The Thaumaturgical Library buried deep within the palace cellars held little in the way of research concerning directed refraction. Instead, Meralda found page after page of intricate, improbable spellworks intended to render mages and kings invisible.

“Nonsense,” she muttered, skimming past the last ten pages of an entry listed as “Mage Mellick’s Wondrous Optical Void.” Frowning, she decided the only thing this Mellick ever made vanish was a monthly portion of the crown’s purse.

Disgusted, she rose, closed the heavy wood-bound volume, and padded barefoot on the cool stone floor back toward the library stacks. The foxfire she’d cast followed her, maintaining its station just above her left shoulder, sending shadows darting and bobbing down the long, high ranks of books arcane.

Boot steps sounded down the corridor outside the library, causing Meralda to frown until the footfalls turned and ended with the slamming of a door. She’d practically had to threaten the Bellringers to make them stay out of the library. The last thing she wanted now was an apprentice wizard from the college pestering her with sidelong looks and first-year questions.

Meralda shoved the heavy tome back into its place and stepped back. “Oh, for an index,” she muttered. “Four thousand eight hundred volumes reaching back six hundred years and not a table of contents in the lot.”

The library replied with silence and darkness. Meralda sighed, closed her eyes, and plucked another name from her memory. “Mage Heldin,” she said aloud. “Thaumaturge to King Roark II. Originator of Heldin’s Suspended Mirror. 1740, I think.” Meralda stalked down the stacks, squinting at the dates embossed on the spine of each book.

Tirlin’s history fled past. Meralda wondered what was hidden there, within the brittle pages. Oh, rubbish, for the most part,she mused, but no doubt a few gems as well.

“Perhaps even a shadow moving spell,” she said aloud. “Or am I the first to try?”

Heldin. Meralda slowed, urged the foxfire brighter. 1738, 1739–1740. “Here you are,” she said, pulling the book gently out of the chest-high shelf and brushing away the worst of the dust and spider webs. “Let’s see if you were worth looking for.”

Pages crackled as they turned. Page One contained a faded but still legible List of Works, With Page Numbers.Meralda smiled and began to read, ticking off spells as she went. “Spinning Colored Lights” held little interest, as it was merely a simple variation of the foxfire charm that hung above her shoulder. But what was “Seeing in Circles”?

Meralda turned fragile pages and returned to her desk. Part of her mind wrestled with Mage Heldin’s abysmal penmanship, but the rest was occupied with Hang five-masters.

In nineteen days Tirlin will be crowded with the royal houses of all the Five Realms. The Phendelit king, The Alon queen, the regent of Vonath, the king of Erya. All together, all vulnerable. Meralda frowned.

Tirlin had burned, once. In 1660, Meralda recalled. Parts of the palace still bore the scars. Meralda had a vision of Fleethorse Street engulfed in flames, wondered why she should think such a thing, and was suddenly chilled to the bone.

Mage Heldin’s “Seeing in Circles” spell proved to be a crude method of momentarily freezing a hand-drawn image in a red-hot brass ring. Meralda sighed, stretched until her back and shoulders made popping noises, and put her chin down in her hands. Row after row of shadowed, dusty books stared back.

It appears,she said silently to herself, that I am on my own.

Someone knocked softly at the library door. “Ma’am,” said Kervis. “Five bells. You said to fetch you, and remind you about supper with the mages.”

Meralda closed Mage Heldin’s book and rose. “Coming, Guardsman,” she said, her voice sudden and loud in the stillness of the library. “Coming.”

She found her stockings, slipped them on, and pulled her boots on before returning the life work of one Mage Heldin, Thaumaturge to King Roark II, to its long vigil amid the dusty shelves.

Mage Fromarch, former Thaumaturge to the Kingdom of Tirlin, met Meralda on the porch of his tiny, ivy-covered red brick house.

Fromarch was gaunt. He’d been gaunt the day Meralda met him, five years before. His long, pale face with its wide-set grey eyes and hawkish nose and thin small mouth always looked tired, and perhaps a little sad. Meralda knew the last, at least, to be untrue. The real Fromarch, the one behind the long unsmiling face, always wore an impish grin.

Fromarch wore loose brown trousers and soft leather house shoes, the toes spotted with chemical burns and tiny spatters of molten metals. His white shirt bore a singe-mark in the center, the exact shape of an iron.

“Ho there, ’prentice,” he said, thrusting forth a bent ladle at Meralda before she mounted the last unswept porch step. “Taste this.”

Meralda took the spoon. Its bowl steamed, filled with a thick, meaty stew that smelled of onions, beef, and green bell peppers, though it was obviously far too hot to taste.

Meralda blew gently on the spoon and smiled. Fromarch didn’t smile back but his scowl did soften, and his wet grey eyes neither narrowed nor blazed when they met hers.

“Mage,” said Meralda. “I’ve missed you.”

“Hmmph.” snorted Fromarch. “You’ve got better sense than most, Mage Meralda. You taste this and tell certain upstart Eryan wand-wavers that we Tirlish folk know best how to season a bit of stew.”

Fromarch jerked his thumb behind him as he spoke, and Shingvere opened Fromarch’s screeching screen door far enough to poke his head outside.

“Good evening, Lady,” he said to Meralda. “Since the master of the house has no better manners than to accost guests on his porch with over salted stew, allow me to invite you inside. Mind the rotting carcasses, now, and don’t step into the trash pit.”

Meralda brought the spoon to her lips and tasted. “Well?” boomed Fromarch.

Meralda smiled. “It’s quite good,” she said. Fromarch whirled and snorted in triumph.

Shingvere flung the door open wide. “Now you’ve done it, Apprentice,” he said to Meralda, with a wink. “You’ve gone and agreed with him, and he’ll spend hours strutting and preening.” The aging wizard shook his head. “We can only hope he drinks to excess and lapses into quiet slumber before the evening is ruined.”

Meralda laughed, stepped onto the porch, and gently took Fromarch by the sleeve of his plain white shirt. “Come inside, both of you,” she said, handing Shingvere the stew spoon. “You know that elderly gentlemen are prone to crankiness if they miss their evening gruel.”

Shingvere crowed, and Fromarch nearly smiled, and from its burnished copper stand by the door Fromarch’s staff snickered audibly. “Quiet, you backscratcher,” said Fromarch.

Meralda stepped inside, took both wizards by their elbows, and marched them toward Fromarch’s kitchen.

After a long supper of summer stew and a thick butterscotch pudding prepared by Shingvere, Fromarch led his guests into his sitting room, opened all three windows, and bade everyone to sit and drink. An icebox of Nolbit’s Dark was dragged in from the pantry, and for the first time in her life Meralda drank ice-chilled Eryan ale and swapped gossip, mage to mage.

Talk began with the story of the Vonat spy caught red-handed and nearly frozen in the mail-hold of an Alon courier airship, a sheaf of coded papers sewn into his jacket. Shingvere then recounted the troubles facing the Alon queen and the blood feud between Clan Morar and Clan Glenoch. “Look close enough and you’ll see a Vonat in their midst,” said Shingvere. Fromarch merely snorted, observed airily that far too many Eryans spent far too much time seeing things that weren’t there, and changed the subject to talk of the near-completion of the railroad that would soon link Phendeli to Kendle.