Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  "Let us be perfectly honest with one another, shall we?" said Estiane. "No banter, no gamesmanship. No hidden agendas. We are both men of Aba, who do our best to serve the Good, and often fail miserably along the way. Agreed?"

  Silverdun sat up. A witticism reared up in his mind and he choked it down. "Fine," he grunted.

  "I know why Everess came to see you today," said Estiane. "He and I have had a number of rather serious conversations over the past few months."

  "Really?" said Silverdun. "Is Everess an Arcadian? He never struck me as the type."

  "No, no," said Estiane. "These conversations were of a purely political nature. We don't like to advertise it, of course, but the Church is as immersed in the world of politics as any other large organization. We have power and influence and knowledge, and it has to be wielded."

  Estiane tapped the envelope gently against his fingers. "As you may know, the Church has a rather sizable network of believers among the Unseelie. Not even we know exactly how many of us there are across Mab's empire because the Bel Zheret enjoy torturing names out of Arcadians, and we like to offer them as few as possible.

  "Much of the useful information our queen possesses regarding the Unseelie comes from us. We have believers at almost every level of government and at every rank in the military. Sometimes their consciences guide them to reveal certain things."

  Silverdun smiled. "And you barter that knowledge for influence at Corpus and with the queen's court."

  "Of course we do," said Estiane, his voice rough. "We'd be fools not to. This all has very little to do with serving Aba, but the Church is not itself holy. The Church is an organization that exists in space and time, and it must do what it must in order to survive and thrive. If you'll recall, when you were a boy, Arcadianism was practically illegal." Estiane unsuccessfully attempted to hide the guilt he clearly felt. "And that brings us to you, Perrin Alt. Lord Silverdun."

  Silverdun sighed. "I was wondering when something would bring us to me. What's this about?"

  "I'm not exactly sure, to be honest," said Estiane. "I know that Everess is very keen to bring you back to the capital, but I don't know why. Something to do with the Foreign Ministry, I should imagine."

  "Honestly, Abbot!" said Silverdun. "Where's the holiness in that?"

  "Holiness?" Estiane hissed the word. "Holiness is a privilege granted to blessed souls like Tebrit, your tormentor. Tebrit doesn't have to make decisions about how the Church's influence is used to direct affairs, or whether those affairs ought to be directed, or what the dire outcome for the Church and its followers will be if those affairs are ignored. Tebrit will not have any blood on his hands if a new war begins because there is nothing he could do to help prevent it.

  "I, however, am required to make those decisions. There is no way for me to do this without getting blood on my hands. I don't have the luxury of being spotless."

  Silverdun leaned back again, nodding. "I understand now. Everess needs your information, and you've decided to exact payment. He agrees to take me on in whatever role he's dreamed up for me, knowing that I'll be acting as your proxy, and in return you'll provide information."

  "Not just information," said Estiane.

  "Money as well?" Silverdun was shocked.

  "We're being honest, are we not? Silverdun, you don't read the reports that I read, the list of martyrs' names that come across my desk day in and day out. The Unseelie take perverse joy in hunting down and murdering Arcadians. What do you think would happen if they were to take down Regina Titania? The Church would cease to exist. Aba's work in Faerie would be finished."

  Estiane leaned in, and Silverdun could detect the faintest trace of brandy on his breath. "I will not allow that to happen."

  Silverdun stood and pulled his sword down from the shelf above the bed. He unsheathed it and flicked it back and forth in frustration. "And what if I refuse? What if I just want to be a monk?"

  Estiane stood and smoothed his robes. "You never wanted to be a monk, Perrin. You just needed a place to hide for a while. Your hiding time is over-I'm kicking you out."

  "You can't do that!"

  "I'm the abbot. I can do whatever I want."

  Silverdun swung the sword harder in the air, striking at an intangible foe.

  "Fine," said Silverdun. "Kick me out. I'll go back to Oarsbridge and live out my days as an eccentric country gentleman. Find a pretty, dumb daughter of a nearby baron to marry to keep me warm at night. How's that?"

  Estiane smiled. He walked to the door. "It's not that simple, Perrin. Life never is."

  "It can be."

  "Here," said Estiane, holding out the envelope. "This was delivered just after Everess left. There were two notes inside. One was addressed to me, the other to you. My note simply asked me to pass yours along to you before I allowed you to leave here.

  Silverdun took the envelope, again noting the chamberlain's seal. Inside was a single sheet, printed in a flowing, beautiful hand. It was not the script of Chamberlain Marcuse. Silverdun knew whose script it was, though. He knew it without needing to be told.

  Perrin Alt. Lord Silverdun:

  When last we met, I warned you that there would come a time when I would call on you by name. That time has come. Consider well what has been asked of you. You are one who, like a prize racehorse, thrives only when placed upon the track. Go where you will thrive.

  The note was not signed, but it didn't need to be. It had been penned by the queen herself.

  "Shit," said Silverdun. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

  He reached up to the shelf and pulled down his boots.

  The difficulty, which has yet to be resolved, is as follows. For an Elemental unbinding at a distance, the standard formulation requires the spoken trigger (i.e., the unbinding word) to interact physically with the binding. Given a distance, d, and the speed of sound, r, the effects of an unbinding word should require time t, where t = d/r. It has been demonstrated in controlled circumstances, however, that the unbinding occurs simultaneously with the trigger.Thaumaturges have debated this question for centuries, but no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered. Since reitic force decreases exponentially over distance, this is rarely a problem in practice. Students are encouraged to use the standard release-chain formulation in most circumstances.

  -Dynamics, Chapter 7: ''Indirect Mechanisms of Release in Distributed Systems'

  L was dawn, and Ironfoot was still awake, his head throbbing, poring over the map. The thing was so big that he'd had a local craftsman create a table for the sole purpose of holding it unrolled. It was a topological map, commissioned some number of years ago by a local governor with a penchant for geography and dreams of wealth from silver mining. The map had been of no use whatever to the governor, save perhaps feeding his ego. But to Ironfoot it had become invaluable.

  The readings came in from across the site, and Ironfoot meticulously added them as points of data, using a ruler to draw perfectly straight lines of radiance from one point to the next. A pattern was beginning to emerge, but it still wasn't enough.

  He slammed the table with his fist. Years as a scholar had never tempered the wild part of his nature. He knew it and it infuriated him.

  He rubbed his eyes and took a long sip of coffee. His mug had been holding down the lower left corner of the map, and now it tried to roll up a bit. He absently smoothed it with his hands. He reached for the next slip of paper and there were none left.

  He stood, feeling the ache in his shoulders and back, feeling the fatigue that flowed through him. He could have himself spellrested by the on-site medic, but that false rest affected only the body and not the mind. He needed sleep. Real sleep.

  He opened the flap of the tent and was assaulted by the dusty wind that assailed the site day and night. The dust got into everything: clothes, boots, instruments. Some of it was blown south from the Unseelie steppes, but some of it-and this he tried carefully not to think about-was the incinerated remains of Fae men, women, and children. The
descendants of the founders of the oldest Elvish city.

  "Armin," he called out to his assistant, who stood at the edge of the crater, sipping water from a metal cup. Armin was young, still a student, but already teaching classes of his own at the university and almost certain to be made full professor once they returned to the City Emerald.

  "Over here, Master Falores," Armin said, still looking down into the crater. Ironfoot joined him.

  "I wish you'd call me Ironfoot like everyone else does."

  "I'm sorry; my mother wouldn't approve," said Armin. He was a careful, dutiful student. It was fine if he wanted to be a bit old-fashioned.

  Below, the team of students walked the remaining sections of the site, testing each bit of rubble, bone, and metal. Each student carried an intensity gauge, and every few moments would lean down and carefully take a reading, noting the result on a slip of paper that would go to feed Ironfoot's map. The students had caviled at the assignment at first, having not really understood what it was they were volunteering for, but they quickly got over their reser vations. The promise of free food and even the smallest of stipends would, Ironfoot was sure, convince any common student to freely give up a limb.

  "Shall we have a look?" asked Armin. "See how things are progressing?"

  Ironfoot nodded. "It won't be long now. Another day or two and we'll have all we can get."

  They had both unconsciously begun breathing through their mouths; they started down into the crater that had, a year ago, been the Seelie city of Selafae.

  There was a peculiar smell down in the crater, one that nobody could quite recognize, though it had components upon which everyone could agree. There was a hint of cinnamon to it, a bit of roasted pork, almost pleasant but undercut with an ugly ratlike stink that lingered in the nose. They'd been here for six weeks and no one had yet gotten used to it. Some of the students wore cloths tied around their faces, but these didn't seem to help much. A visiting professor of Elements had offered to remove the odor with a simple transmutation, but Ironfoot had refused, not wanting to contaminate the site.

  The students and researchers knew better. At Ironfoot's insistence, not a single breath of re was to be expended at the site. No little luck charms, no cantrips to sing the pain out of aching muscles.

  Walking among the ruins, the smell crept into Ironfoot's senses and he flinched away from it. There was something about it that he couldn't quite put his finger on, something that might be important. It was a memory, an experience from long ago; he could sense it in the way that any unique smell might recall a memory of younger days, but he couldn't place it and it was driving him crazy.

  "How goes it, Mister Beman?" Armin said to one of the students, a tall pale boy who looked as if he hadn't had a decent meal since his schooling had begun, and was only now beginning to fill out under Ironfoot's auspices.

  "Coming along, Professor. I hope to have my section finished by lunchtime." He beamed, patting his intensity gauge.

  Ironfoot scowled and took the gauge from him. "You're not holding it quite right," he said, demonstrating. "It needs to be held as far from the body as possible, so your own re doesn't affect the readings. See?"

  The intensity gauge was something Ironfoot had developed in his own student days, working under the Master Elementalist Luane, who had almost single-handedly invented the field of inductive thaumatology. The instrument consisted of a brass tube, about the height of Ironfoot's waist, with a silver tip on one end and a series of graded markings lining the outside of the tube. Inside was a silver plate, opposite a plate of cold iron. In the absence of re, the silver and iron plates nearly touched, their natural repulsion negligible. But when the tip was applied to an object or creature that was imbued with the magical essence, the silver plate repelled the iron plate in proportion to the strength of the field, moving a needle along the graded markings. Ironfoot was more than a little proud of it.

  He handed the gauge back to the student, who seemed relieved when he and Armin continued on their way. He knelt to inspect a few of Beman's readings: Each item, from the tiniest pebble to the largest section of wall, had been marked with runes designating the direction and intensity of re embedded in it. All food for the map.

  Once everything had been marked, all the data cross-checked and analyzed for errors, and the artifacts corrected for the many interlocking auras of re that permeated any Fae city, then Ironfoot's work could begin in earnest. Fortunately for him (though clearly not for the citizens of Selafae), the blast that had destroyed the city was massive, its reitic force so potent that it had nearly annihilated any background essence that existed in the city before its impact.

  Ironfoot was eager to have this done. Eager to solve the problem and move on. Solving problems was what Ironfoot did. The specific problem didn't usually matter to him, so long as it was interesting and got him out of the city. But this one was different. This one would linger.

  Once the map was complete, then, he would return to Queensbridge, and would perform what he sincerely hoped would be the greatest feat of investigative thaumatology to date: He would reverse-engineer the monstrous magic that had destroyed an entire city in an instant. He would recreate the Einswrath weapon using only its aftermath as a guide.

  And after that? Then what? Would anything seem as important after this? That part of him that was the source of his anger and impatience was singing to him again lately, as it had more and more often over the last few years: time to move on.

  He and Armin continued their walk, listening to the sounds of the instruments clinking against the rubble, and the light conversation of the students at their work. Someone was singing an old, sad Arcadian hymn:

  The tune was haunting and lovely, and it struck Ironfoot that what he was strolling through was not simply a project, not merely a research site. It was a massive graveyard, a charnel house of unprecedented proportions. Those white bits of debris scattered among the torn-up cobblestones were not pebbles-they were fragments of bone.

  He left Armin with one of the students who had a question about an anomalous reading and continued walking, careful not to tread on anything other than dirt.

  Ironfoot was a scholar, but he had at one time been a soldier as well, and these echoes of violence stirred thoughts of revenge and aggression that he liked to believe belonged to his younger self. The drive to win that had never quite left him. And there was no good that could come of thinking about that.

  So he pushed it away, all of it. There was work to be done, and he had no time for his old regrets.

  When Ironfoot returned to his tent an hour later, there was a middle-aged nobleman waiting for him, holding a cloth over his face against the smell. Armin was nervously preparing tea over the small camp stove.

  "A Lord Everess to see you, Master Falores," said Armin.

  Everess bowed slightly toward Ironfoot. "A pleasure to meet you, Falores. A genuine pleasure."

  He wasn't the first noble to come sniffing around the site. Most wanted a tour of the wreckage and a brief talk with Ironfoot regarding his theories about the weapon. Some of them appeared to have genuine concerns about the Einswrath weapon, though some others seemed to have come out of nothing more than ghoulish curiosity. He couldn't tell from looking at him which one Everess was.

  "The pleasure is mine, Lord Everess," said Ironfoot, with the requisite deeper bow. "How can I be of service?"

  Everess smiled. "Ah," he said. "That's the question, isn't it?"

  "It's certainly the one I just asked," said Ironfoot.

  "A scholar, and a wit as well." Everess smiled. If he was insulted by Ironfoot's somewhat insolent comment, it didn't show. "I can see that you're a busy man, so I'll be as direct as possible. Come walk with me, won't you?" He picked up a walking stick that had been leaning against his leg and pointed outside.

  Ironfoot took Everess through the camp to the edge of the crater, and waved him forward. "This is the best place to go down," he said.

  "Oh, I don't need t
o go down there," said Everess. "I've been here once before, the week after it happened. Once was enough for me, I can assure you."

  Ironfoot was stymied. "Sorry, Lord Everess, but if you're not here to tour the site, what is it you're here for?"

  "You," said Everess. "I'm here about you, Master Falores."

  "Please, call me Ironfoot, sir. Most everyone does."