Текст книги "All the Paths of Shadow"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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“But here we are, two old gaffers doddering on about roads and boats when we ought to be talking about the lovely young lady in our midst,” said Shingvere, as he handed Meralda another bottle of Nolbit’s. “So tell us about the Tower, Mage Meralda,” he said. “Seen the haunt, have you?”

Meralda groaned. “Please,” she said. “Not that. Anything but that.”

Fromarch, from his shadowed repose in his enormous Phendelit reclining chair, guffawed. “Oh, he’s always believed in haunts and the like,” he said. “Can’t blame him, really, given the standards of education in dear old Erya.”

Shingvere ignored the jibe. “’Tis true I spent a whole summer chasing the Tower shade,” he said. “Back in-oh, 1967, it was. Did you know that?”

Meralda blinked. “I didn’t,” she said. No more Nolbit’s, she decided. Her legs and arms were getting heavy, while her head seemed light and wobbly.

She sank back into Fromarch’s couch, pulled a small copper funnel from behind the small of her back, and relaxed again.

“Nobody does,” said Fromarch, after a sip of beer and a sigh. “Too bloody embarrassing. If the Exchequer found out we’d spent from the crown’s purse on a spook hunt, we’d have been put out on our heads, and rightly so.”

Meralda frowned. “Were you a part of this, Mage?” she asked.

“Reluctantly,” Fromarch growled. “I was to make sure our Eryan friend didn’t mistake flying squirrels for long-dead wizards.” Fromarch leaned forward, so that his short ring of thin white hair and pale cheekbones shone faintly in the dim, slanting rays of the setting sun streaming lazily through the window.

“The ghost hunt, of course, was nonsense,” he began.

“Aye, but people were seeing lights in the Wizard’s Flat,” said Shingvere, quickly. “Reliable people. Guardsmen. Reporters. Even,” he said, after a pause and a grin, “a noted Tirlish Thaumaturge.”

Meralda shook her head to clear it. “You?” she asked Fromarch, incredulous. “You saw something?”

Fromarch snorted. “I saw lights in the Wizard’s Flat,” he said. “Once. Just lights, nothing more. Could have been kids with a lantern.”

Meralda thought about the long, long climb to the Wizard’s Flat, and the locked door at the top.

“These were clever, determined children,” said Shingvere. “Aye, one might even say brilliant, since the Tower, that evening, was locked, sealed with wards, and under heavy guard by no fewer than two dozen watchmen.” Shingvere assumed a pose of mock concentration. “In fact, I recall someone, I’m not sure who, making a grand proclamation early that very evening that no human being could possibly enter the Tower, that night. Who was that, I wonder?”

Fromarch emptied his bottle and put it down with a thump. “Lights at a window do not prove the existence of haunts,” he said. “Neither did you, I recall, despite a whole three months of fussing about with magnetometers and radial thaumeters and that bloody heavy wide-band scrying mirror,” he added. “My back still aches, some days, from carrying that thing up and down those stairs while you pretended to fiddle with the holdstones.”

Shingvere held up his hand. “Aye. You’re correct,” he said. “I found nothing.” The little wizard fixed his eyes on Meralda’s. “Perhaps, though, I just wasn’t looking with the right pair of eyes.”

“Bah,” snorted Fromarch. He waved a finger at the Eryan. “We both know that the lights, if they weren’t reflections off the window glass, were nothing but a residual discharge from some old structural spell.”

Shingvere shrugged. Meralda remembered the laughter on the stair and shivered and took another cold draught of Fromarch’s beer.

“Bah,” said Fromarch again. “So how are you going to go about moving the Tower shadow, Thaumaturge?” he asked.

Meralda wiped her lips. “Directed refraction,” she said. Shingvere slapped his knee.

“Told you!” he crowed. Fromarch scowled.

“He thought you’d hang those spark lights of yours from scaffolds and aim them at the ground,” said Shingvere. “I told him they weren’t bright enough, and if they were they’d be too hot.”

Meralda nodded. “I’m working on cooler, brighter lights,” she said. “But that could take months. Months I won’t get, with Yvin wasting my time at every turn.”

“Spoken like a mage, lass!” said Shingvere. The Eryan donned a wicked smile. “Now you see why I spend so much time away from Erya and that blatherskite queen. She’d have me whiling away the hours as a magic carpet cleaner, you mark my words.”

Fromarch snorted. “So instead you come to Tirlin and chase ghosts,” he said, lifting his bottle. “Another college education, gone sadly to waste.”

Shingvere grinned. “Will you be latching your refraction spell to the Tower itself?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Meralda. “The focal volume will be just below the ceiling of the Wizard’s Flat.” She tilted her head. “If, that is, your ghosts won’t mind.”

Shingvere nodded gravely. “Oh, I don’t think they will,” he said. “But I’d ask them nicely first, all the same. No harm in being polite, is there?”

“No harm in being a soft-headed old fool, either,” muttered Fromarch. He leaned back into the shadows. “But do have a care latching spells to the Tower,” he said. “We had a devil of a time, way back when.”

“Aye,” Shingvere said. “The structural spellworks left a residual charge. New spells tend to unlatch, after a short time. Even old skinny there had trouble working around it.”

Fromarch began to snore. Shingvere yawned and rose from his settee, padding quickly across the dimly lit room toward Meralda. “Well,” he said, smiling. “Just like old times. Seems we young folks need to put the oldsters to bed.”

Shingvere offered his hand, and Meralda took it, and rose. “It’s good to have you two back,” she said, in a whisper. “I’ve been worried about him, since he retired. He used to come around, but lately…”

“He doesn’t want you to feel like you’re still working in his shadow,” replied Shingvere. “He’s really not such a bad old fellow, once you get to know him. And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a bit of company here, now and then.”

Meralda nodded. I’ll make the time,she vowed. Yvin can deal with it in any way he pleases.

Shingvere grinned. “That’s my ’prentice,” he said. Fromarch began to mumble restlessly.

“I’ll see you at court, I’m sure,” said Shingvere. “Tomorrow. But for now, we should all get some sleep. News of the Hang will break tomorrow, and that will make for a very long day of hand-wringing and useless conjecture.”

Meralda groaned softly and rose. Shingvere took her hand, and the pair tip-toed, giggling and stumbling, through Fromarch’s darkened sitting room.

Meralda gathered her light cloak from the rack on the wall and stepped outside. Angis and his coach sat in the dim red glow of a gas lamp. Angis’ cabman’s hat slumped over his eyes, and his chest rose and fell in perfect time with Fromarch’s snores.

Shingvere laughed. “Looks like we’re the only ones left awake,” he said.

“Good night,” said Meralda, struggling to regain her composure. “It’s been a lovely evening.” She shook her head to clear it, letting the cool night air wash over her face.

Shingvere bowed. “Aye, lass, that it has,” he said. “Would that I were thirty years younger.”

Meralda returned his bow. “You’ve been an old bachelor all your life,” she said. “But I love you anyway, you rascal of an Eryan wand-waver.”

Then she turned and darted for the cab. Shingvere laughed and bowed and watched her go. He waved once to Angis as the cabman snapped his reins. Then he turned back to the door and Fromarch’s lightless sitting room.

Inside, Fromarch stirred. “She gone?” he asked.

“Gone,” said Shingvere, settling into a chair and fumbling in the dark for his pipe pouch.

Fromarch muttered a word, and a light blazed, slow and gentle, from a point below the center of the ceiling.

“Thank you,” said Shingvere, filling the bowl of a blackened, ancient Phendelit wood pipe. “May I?”

“Please do,” said Fromarch. A flame appeared at Shingvere’s fingertip, and he lit his pipe with it.

“She’s in for a bad summer,” said Shingvere, after a moment of sucking at the pipe stem. “The Hang. The Tower. The Vonats.”

Fromarch nodded. “Vonats are sending that new wizard of theirs. Humindorus Nam. Mean piece of work.”

“So I hear,” said Shingvere. “Think the stories are true?”

Fromarch snorted. “Every other word, if that,” he said. Then he frowned. “Still. Met him once, years ago, outside Volot. Don’t ask what I was doing there.”

“I won’t,” said Shingvere. “Mainly because I’ve known for years, but go ahead.”

“Met him then,” said Fromarch, squinting back as if across the years. “Called himself just Dorous, then. Mad, he was. Twisted up inside. Didn’t figure he’d last long enough to be a danger to anybody but himself.”

Shingvere pulled his pipe from between his lips. “He’s still a danger to himself, I’ll wager,” he said. “Pity is, he might be a danger to Mage Ovis, too. We can always hope a manure cart runs over him first, but I don’t think that’s likely.”

Fromarch grunted. “She’s smarter than both of us put together,” he said, gruffly. “She can take care of herself. And Nam too, if need be.”

Shingvere nodded. “Of course, of course,” he said. “After all, it’s bad form for one wizard to interfere in the matters of another. She’d be furious, and rightly so.”

“Simply isn’t done,” said Fromarch, shaking his finger. “Breech of professional etiquette. Runs counter to everything we taught her.”

Shingvere wedged his pipe in the corner of his mouth and settled deeper into his chair. “Glad that’s settled, then,” he said. “So, which lot do you want to interfere with? The Vonat or the Hang?”

Fromarch dimmed the foxfire, conjured up a fresh-rolled Alon cigar, and broke into a sudden, awful grin.

Chapter Four

Morning broke for Meralda as it always did, with the sound of the five-twenty trolley gasping and groaning its way past while that devil of a trolley master banged madly away at his brass bell at each and every deserted, windswept corner.

Meralda gritted her teeth and strangled her pillow until the trolley rattled away. Then, within an instant, the paperboys began to sing.

“Hang fleet on the Lamp!” one cried. “Two pence for the Post! Two pence for the Hang!”

Mug awoke, demanding news. Meralda drowsily recounted Shingvere’s revelation of the Hang, bade Mug ruminate in silence, and threw back her covers.

The morning sun was bright, and it set her head to pounding. Still, she rose, rummaged for fresh clothes, and bathed. Her coffee urn was still empty, but the Bellringers, when they arrived, bore coffee and a bag of warm donuts, fresh from Flayne’s. At her cab, Angis provided Meralda with a sheaf of just read, but neatly folded, early edition papers.

Meralda settled into her seat and unfolded the morning papers. Tervis, seated across from her, had the rare good sense to be silent while she read.

“Hang Fleet-Arrival or Invasion? ”screamed the Times. The Postwas calmer. Meralda noted with approval at no point in the article did the word invasion appear, but the sidebar detailing the dates and summaries of past Hang visits did hint that this latest incursion was the culmination of five centuries of stealthy surveillance.

Angis bellowed at a trolley and lurched to a halt at Weigh. A pair of hotel bellhops ran past, hats in hand, shouting at each other as they darted ahead of Angis and the trolley.

Meralda finished her coffee. The morning air was crisp, and, since the wind was from the north, it lacked the stench of the stockyards south of the college. Tervis caught her eye and grinned, and Meralda found herself smiling back.

“I know there’s Hang afoot, ma’am, but it is a lovely day, isn’t it?” he said.

The cab charged ahead. Meralda nodded, and Tervis turned away, his eyes on Tirlin. Meralda shuffled papers and continued to read.

The back pages of the papers held news only slightly less alarming than the Hang. The Phendelit delegation had sent word to the palace that they would be arriving two days early. Possibly even later that same day, Meralda realized with a shock.

Not to be outdone, the Alons had also sent word ahead. Hang or no Hang, they were determined to make Tirlin on schedule. “We welcome our friends from across the Great Sea,” the Alon queen was quoted as saying. “We only hope to arrive in time to compose ourselves before we meet.”

Meralda frowned at the latest statement by the Vonats. They ignored the arrival of the Hang, stating instead that due to the deplorable condition of the Eryan roadways in southern Fonth they would be delayed, placing their arrival three days hence. The unnamed Vonat spokesman also offered to give the Eryans lessons in modern road building as an expedient to further cultural exchanges.

Meralda folded the Postand imagined the turmoil that must be transpiring in the Gold Room. Any one of the calamities could be handled. Indeed, any one disaster was, aside from the Hang arrival, expected. But all taken together?

As the cab rolled to a halt by the palace gates, Meralda almost felt sorry for Yvin.

The palace was abuzz. The wide, carpeted halls were thick with guardsmen and nobles and Eryans and penswifts, all marching determinedly to and fro. Except, Meralda noted, for the penswifts, who tended to lurk in corners before leaping out at distracted court members.

Meralda had to wait for admittance at the doors, and once inside she had to practically shoulder her way through the hall to the foot of the west stair.

A penswift, not one she recognized, charged up the west stair behind her, calling out “Thaumaturge! A moment, please!”

Meralda didn’t slow, nor did she look back, but the Bellringer’s treads halted, and the penswift’s cries came no closer.

Meralda smiled and climbed serenely up the stair. At the top, she found her key, opened the laboratory doors, and stepped quickly inside. She dropped the papers in a heap by the door.

The Timesfell face-up, displaying the words “Hang Invasion” in tall black letters.

A single flickering gas lamp lit the laboratory. Tiny hints of movement played about the shadows, and though Meralda knew they were merely reflections of the gas lamp on various reflective surfaces she couldn’t help but be reminded of tiny hands waving.

Meralda kicked the paper flat and unlatched the ward spell with a word and a pat on the polished copper globe that sat atop her biggest spark coil apparatus.

The ward spell collapsed. Papers rustled throughout the laboratory, fluttering and waving in the still air as if blown by a sudden gust of wind. The big old scrying mirror bolted to the middle of the east wall flashed, bright and brief, behind the blanket Meralda kept hung over the glass.

“Lights,” said Meralda, when the ward spell static discharge faded.

A pair of head-high spark coils surrounded by a cage of shiny copper bars whined and crackled in the corner. On the high stone ceiling two dozen glass rings flickered, brightened, and filled the windowless laboratory with soft white light.

“Music,” she said, and from the clutter of bisected brass globes and wire-wound glass tubes heaped on a work bench just beside the door came the soft strains of an Alon violin.

“Miracles,” she muttered. The big old scrying mirror pulsed blue behind its blanket, and a few of her more intelligent instruments make querulous chirps, but nothing else occurred.

Meralda sighed, and gazed around. She stood in the midst of what was arguably the best equipped, and certainly the oldest, magical research facility in the Realms. She could take two steps and put her hands on old Phillitrep’s Mathematical Calculating Engine, which was still working, gears and rods awhirl, three hundred years after commencing calculations for Phillitrep’s last “little” problem. She could walk to the rear of the room and, along the way, stand beneath the tall, gleaming bulk of Arkot’s Walking Barge, touch the carefully folded fabric of the very first gas-filled airship, or watch the prototype of Lafrint’s Steam Motor hiss and turn its heavy steel axles.

Eyes, some of steel and glass, others of stone and iron, turned and fixed themselves upon Meralda. Imeck’s Pondering Noggin winked at her, and she waved idly back at it. Tarmore’s Watcher blinked at her, and a moment later Meralda heard the steady scratching of a mechanical pen drawing her likeness on the same scrap of parchment she’d fed the machine months ago. All about the shelves and alcoves of the laboratory, lightning danced, caught in the glass of this or the coils of that. Some of the devices were only half finished, some so old their names and purposes were long forgotten. Still, Meralda could not look upon them without thinking that the least of them held wonders, or the keys to wonders.

Meralda turned her eyes from the ranks of intricate devices. She stalked to her desk, snatched up a fresh sheet of architect’s paper, and began to draw the Tower.

Meralda heard voices beyond the door. One was Tervis. One was not. When she heard her name called Meralda put down her pencil and stretched. Time for a break anyway,she thought. She counted rings on the face of Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper. Ten of the clock, and high time for a snack.

Meralda rose as Tervis began to knock. “Pardon, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Urgent summons from the crown. May we have a word?”

Meralda winced. Urgent summons from the crown,she thought. Those have to be my least favorite words.

Meralda threw the door open, stepping back as she did. A trio of grim-faced, black-clad palace guards stood between Kervis and Tervis.

“Pardon, Thaumaturge,” said the tallest of the guards. “You are required upstairs. Immediately. The king is waiting.”

The guard, a stony-faced sergeant perhaps ten years older than Meralda, lowered his voice.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Thaumaturge,” he said, before Meralda could speak. “But the captain told me to tell you to bring whatever you’ll need to seek out foreign sorcery.”

“Foreign sorcery?” asked Meralda.

The guard nodded.

A door slammed down the hall, and the sound of booted feet in a hurry followed.

Meralda lifted a finger. “One moment,” she said, and spun.

Foreign sorcery. She darted past her desk, snatched her light staff from its hooks on the wall, found her black bag and put a fresh glass and copper holdstone in the pouch sewn into the side.

“Confound, dissuade, confuse,” she mumbled, latching the ward spell with words since her hands were full.

The spark coils flared, the glow tubes died, and the doors closed softly behind her.

“Let’s go,” she said. The palace guards headed for the stair. Meralda followed, the Bellringers close behind.

“What’s happened?” asked Tervis, as a trio of regular red-clad army troopers charged up the west stair, causing Meralda and her party to squeeze to one side.

The palace guards exchanged glances. “Don’t know,” said the sergeant. “The captain just said to fetch the thaumaturge.”

Another trio of army troopers charged past at the base of the stair. At the Burnt Door, five troopers stood fast, confusion evident on their faces and their hands near their sword hilts.

Beyond the Burnt Door, the hall was empty. Meralda counted doors as she sped past-eight, nine, and ten. The palace guards halted, one knocked, and after a low exchange of words the door opened.

The captain emerged. “Thaumaturge,” he said. Then he turned to the palace guardsmen. “Lieutenant Heathers is patrolling the north wing apartments,” he said. “Join him there.”

The guards trotted away, and the captain motioned Meralda and the Bellringers inside.

Meralda had seen the door before. Two doors past the kitchen, four before the entrance to the Gold Room. It’s a storage room,she thought. For the chairs and folding tables sometimes used at banquets, when the King’s Tables weren’t sufficient.

Frowning, she crossed the threshold. The room was dark, until the door shut behind Kervis.

Light flared, revealing a small, narrow room perhaps twice the length of Meralda’s apartment. Another door stood in the center of the far wall; other than that, the room was bare.

Bare, yet not empty. His Highness, Yvin II, son of Histel, Lord of the House of Yvin, stood glowering at Meralda from perhaps five long steps away. Beside the king stood his queen, her eyes narrowed. Yvin might be glowering,thought Meralda, but the queen is quite ready for an old-fashioned round of murder.

Five Red Guards stood close by, short swords drawn. Another was stationed by the door Meralda had just entered.

The captain moved to stand before the king.

“We’ve had a visitor, Thaumaturge,” said the captain.

Meralda frowned. Details of the room’s construction were becoming obvious in the dim light. The doors were made of iron. Solid iron, with wood over the outer face. Those bumps on the walls weren’t nail heads, but rivets.

“This is a siege retreat?”

“Aye,” growled Yvin. He balled his hands into fists, and glared at the captain. “An iron-plated rat-hole, where frightened monarchs might hide. Siege retreat!” His voice rose to a bellow. “He was only one man!”

The captain bowed. “Indeed, Majesty,” he said, with a glance toward Meralda. “One man. One man who walked through the palace gates and past twenty-seven guard stations without being stopped, signed, or even, as far as I can tell, seen.”

Meralda put her bag down.

“He walked into the Gold Room,” said the captain. “Walked up to the king’s brunch table, introduced himself as envoy to the House of Chentze, and asked permission to enter Tirlin.”

More mindful of the queen’s glare than anything else, Meralda permitted herself no more reaction than to lift an eyebrow. “I see,” she said, after a moment of what she hoped seemed careful reflection. “What, pray tell, were this person’s exact words, as Your Highnesses recall them?”

The queen spoke. “‘Greetings,’” she said, her voice icy. “‘I am envoy to the House of Chentze, sent before my House to beg right of entry and stay from the House of Yvin.’”

Meralda fought to hide her bewilderment. Never before has a Hang asked for such a thing,she thought. The Hang’s words had the ring of ritual to them. What ritual, though, Meralda could not say.

“And what did Your Highness reply?” asked Meralda.

Before Yvin could speak, the queen took hold of his arm and squeezed. “The king bade him welcome,” she said, pride in her voice. “He finished his tea and put his cup down and bade him welcome, and enter, and stay, just as if Hang wizards interrupted our brunch every other Furlday.” The queen smiled, and Meralda realized that Yvin was actually blushing.

The captain shook his head. “There were probably two hundred people in the Gold Room, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Fifty of them soldiers. Ten of them my men. One of them me. And no one but the Highnesses saw the Hang until he turned and began to walk away.”

Yvin snorted. “He’s a wizard, Captain,” he said. “Don’t fault yourself for not seeing through a foreign caster’s spells.” The king looked through bushy eyebrows at Meralda. “That’s where the thaumaturge here comes in.”

Meralda kept her face impassive. “You want me to find this Hang,” she said. How,she thought, does one look for an invisible man?

“We want you to find his trail,” said the captain. “He must have used sorcery to conceal his movements, until he reached the king. He must have used sorcery to leave. If, indeed, he is gone.”

“He’s gone,” said Yvin, softly. “He said what he came to say, and he left. I’m sure of it.”

“I am not,” said the queen, still gripping Yvin’s arm. “He found his way into the Gold Room. Why not our chambers? What is to stop him?”

“I am,” said the captain. He turned toward Meralda. “If he used sorcery, can you find it?”

Meralda took a breath.

“Of course she can,” said Yvin, before Meralda could speak. “But she can’t do it locked away in this iron-plated hidey-hole. You, there,” barked the king, at a round-eyed Red Guard. “Bring us some chairs. And you,” added the king to Meralda. “You go find this Hang wand-waver’s trail.”

Meralda picked up her bag. “Yes,” she said aloud, while inside she seethed. Oh, yes,she thought. I’ll just find the foreign magics, I will. After all, Hang spells are only the products of an arcane science probably older and certainly much different from our own. How bloody hard could it be to find traces of a thing you’ve never seen before, especially if the spellcaster took pains to conceal his passage?

A pair of guards pulled the doors to the hallway open. The captain motioned Kervis and Tervis out.

“Go with the thaumaturge, Captain,” said the king.

“Sire-”

“Go with the thaumaturge,” repeated the king. “We’ll be fine. Go.”

The door closed.

Kervis and Tervis, their matched eyes wild, looked to each other and then to Meralda. The captain, his grizzled face ruddy, looked toward her, too.

“What do you need?” asked the captain.

Meralda bit back a word Angis seemed fond of, when the traffic masters failed to suit him.

“I need to follow our visitor’s route,” she said, instead. “Show me where he went. From the first time this Hang was seen, to the time I presume he vanished in a puff of fog. Show me all of it. Quickly.” She put her bag on the floor. “Tervis,” she said.

Tervis jumped. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightening.

“Take my bag, if you will,” she said. “I need both hands for my staff.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That way,” growled the captain, pointing down the hall, toward the west door entrance to the Gold Room. “No one saw him, of course, but I suspect he walked right through the west doors, regal as a lord.”

Meralda nodded. “We’ll need to check all doors, Captain, but we’ll start with this one.” She motioned him forward. “If you please?”

The captain turned and stamped off down the hall, his boots making dull thumps in the thick Rist Hill carpet. Meralda followed, the Bellringers close behind.

Her fingers traced a small pattern on the staff’s center, and when the black wood grew cold Meralda whispered the first three syllables of a word. The spell unlatched, but not completely. It tugged at the wood, leaving Meralda with the impression that she was forcing the staff through a vat of molasses.

The staff’s movements were random and unfocused. If a spell had been released nearby, the staff would be repelled by even the faintest leavings, thus allowing Meralda to at least guess the spellcaster’s position and perhaps his skill.

Instead, she found nothing. Not that I expected anything different,thought Meralda. I can think of half a dozen ways to confound such a search. So, I’m sure, can others.

The captain stopped at the door and lifted his eyebrows at the sight of Meralda’s lazily swooping staff. “Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing yet,” she replied. The captain threw open the west doors, bellowed at the guards on the other side, and stepped into the throne room.

Meralda followed, holding the staff gingerly at its center as she passed over the threshold, feeling for even the slightest hint of steady pressure.

“Nothing,” she muttered. The Gold Room was empty. Tables and chairs were strewn about, some overturned, some in stacks, as though workmen had been called away in a panicked rush. A crystal pitcher of water sat on a table nearby, and the water still rose and fell slightly, lapping at the top as if recently disturbed. “Nothing at all.”

The captain grunted. Meralda halted. “Where was the king seated?” she asked.

“Over there,” said the captain, pointing across the Gold Room to one of the small, plain tables scattered about the northeast corner of the room. “The Highnesses had missed breakfast, what with all the goings-on, and Yvin had the porters set up a brunch here.” The captain frowned and raised his hands. “This wasn’t planned, Thaumaturge. No one knew where the king was going to be at nine of the clock today. And yet he walked right up-”

Meralda shrugged. “Even so,” she said. “But if one were looking for a king, the throne room seems to be a likely place to begin one’s search, does it not?”

“He may have wandered about for hours, if he was invisible,” said Tervis. The captain’s neck went crimson, and the color began to creep up his face.

“He was never invisible,” said Meralda, quickly.

“Then how did he just walk into the Gold Room?” said the captain.

Meralda wheeled her staff back and forth before her. “How many people were in this room, Captain?” she asked.

“Two hundred and eighty-six,” said the captain. “Not counting myself, the Highnesses, the Eryan ambassador who was seated with them, and forty-four of my lads, spread all about the place. They’re all being held in the big conference room on the second floor while we take their statements.”

Meralda slowly started for the table the captain had pointed out. The staff continued to wobble and float, though it detected no hint of sorcery, foreign or otherwise.

Meralda bit her lip. This isn’t going to work,she thought. “Captain,” she said, and then the staff swung about, as though struck. When it halted, the ends were level with the floor, the shaft lay in a straight line between the west doors and the king’s brunch table, and the wood was growing cold to Meralda’s touch.

The captain halted. “Thaumaturge?” he said.

“Hush a moment,” said Meralda. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and forced her perceptions out along the faint traceries of the faded spell she’d found.

The spell was faint. “Faint as smoke from yesterday’s fire,” Mage Fromarch had once said. Meralda found the phrase doubly fitting, as she tried to make sense of the twisting debris.

There,she thought. And there.Anchor points, and common enough. But what were those structures out along the periphery? Meralda frowned. The more she searched for the terminal ends of the operative functions, the more it seemed they looped back to the latching point.

Meralda pushed again, and her staff grew so cold the air about it steamed. The smoke-like remains of the spell vanished in a flash that Meralda saw clearly through her tightly shut eyes.

“Thaumaturge!” bellowed the captain, and at least one of the Bellringers. Boots thudded on the Gold Room tiles.

Meralda opened her eyes, blinked at the dots that swam before her, and dropped her staff before it froze tight to her hands.