Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  Shut up, Silverdun.

  He eyed the bars of the cell glumly; he could almost feel their repulsion, even from here. There was something curious about the way the dim light in the room hit the bars at chest height. They looked as though viewed through a prism, or through a glass of water, the bars seeming to jog slightly to the right for a few feet, then resuming their course above. As sometimes happened to him during times of stress, Silverdun found himself focusing on this odd optical illusion rather than the problem at hand. A trick of the mind, perhaps, to stave off despair.

  Silverdun stepped forward to examine the trick of light more closely, his curiosity momentarily dispelling his discomfort. When he looked more closely, he smiled.

  This was no trick of the light; the bars had actually been shifted by Ilian's fold. When Than swapped with Silverdun, he'd simply rotated the space around them in a half-circle. But the bars didn't quite line up properly when reversed.

  Silverdun's face and shoulders still burned where Than had pulled him against the iron. Wincing, Silverdun ran at the off-kilter section of the bars and kicked out with all his might. The pain was intense, the same crawling sensation, now running up his leg, twisting his scrotum. The bars bent and cracked, but didn't break.

  He stepped back for another kick. By the queen's tits, he did not want to do this again. He did it anyway.

  Silverdun's second kick sent a huge portion of the cell door flying backward with an ugly metallic clatter. He pulled his leg back too quickly, however, and caught his shin on the sharp edge of one of the bars that had been cut apart. The cold iron dug into his flesh, creating an entirely new kind of pain, like barbed ice in the blood. Silverdun staggered backward, falling to the floor. He screamed.

  There was a creaking noise. Silverdun looked up. The lock of the cell's door was now on the floor, part of the portion that Silverdun had kicked away. The creaking was the sound of the door swinging open on rusted hinges.

  He stood, shaking, eased himself through the opening with extreme care, and hurried up the stairs, taking the knife from his boot with a shaky hand.

  Silverdun hurried up the stairs to the main floor and stopped. Silence. Silverdun replaced the knife in his boot, exchanging it for the petite arbalete on the wall of the main room. He cocked it as quietly as possible, ensuring that the quarrel was set properly, just as Jedron had taught him.

  Where would Than have gone? Upstairs? Or would he have attempted to escape in the Splintered Driftwood? Silverdun headed for the stairs, if for no other reason than the fact that the wound in his calf was still screaming, and the thought of running all the way to the quay filled him with dread. Each step toward Jedron's office, however, was like a knife-thrust in his leg. There had never been anywhere near as many steps in this staircase as now, even at Silverdun's most exhausted.

  As he rounded the stairs to the level of his own bedroom, there was a loud crash from above, and a muffled shout. Silverdun forced himself forward, his body protesting with every movement.

  Just when he thought he couldn't take another step, he reached the top, and the wooden door to Jedron's office. He pushed it open.

  Jedron and Ilian were inside, facing each other. They'd been grappling with one another. The desk was broken, on its side. Books and maps were strewn everywhere. Jedron and Ilian circled one another, both unarmed. Ilian's face was red and he was sweating profusely. Jedron was flushed, but no sweat appeared on his brow. Neither man turned when Silverdun entered the room.

  "Glad you're here, Silverdun," said Jedron. "Perhaps you'd like to pitch in? Test some of those skills I've drummed into you?"

  Than scowled. "You know that he's mad, Silverdun! If you don't believe me, ask him what happened on the night you were drugged! Ask him!"

  "He's just trying to confuse you, boy. He knows you wouldn't understand."

  "That man you saw," said Ilian, "the one on the table. His name was indeed Ironfoot. He was the other recruit. Jedron-"

  Jedron lunged at Ilian, tackling him and pushing him backward. He was strong, Silverdun knew. But Than seemed evenly matched with him.

  Silverdun held the petite arbalete up, aiming at the two men. This was clearly a serious situation, but it was also utterly preposterous. Part of him wanted to shoot both of them and try to sail the boat back to the mainland himself, where he would find Everess and kill him using one of the nearly infinite methods that Jedron had taught him. Unfortunately, the tiny crossbow contained only one bolt, and Silverdun doubted he could take either Than or Jedron hand to hand even when his entire body wasn't racked with pain. So he'd have to pick one or the other. But which?

  Than got his feet between himself and Jedron and shoved hard; Jedron was flung backward, into a bookcase, smashing it, sending books and scrolls flowing onto the floor. Jedron pushed himself up into a standing position.

  Jedron glared at Silverdun with the fierce rictus that passed for his smile. "Just like I told you at the dock, eh boy? Nothing is as it seems!"

  "Ah," said Silverdun. He aimed the crossbow at Jedron's head and pulled the trigger.

  The bolt in the crossbow was bound with a healthy dose of Motion, vectored in the direction of the bolt's flight. When the trigger was pulled, the binding was released and the bolt flew astonishingly fast; then a separate binding of Elements was released and the bolt's head exploded.

  All this happened so quickly that to Silverdun it appeared that him pulling the crossbow's trigger and Jedron's head erupting in flame were two separate, unconnected events. It was not flesh and bone, however, that sprayed outward, but rather bronze and gold and bits of silver.

  Jedron was not alive-he was one of his own automata. His headless body swooned and fell smoothly to the ground, its glamour evaporating, leaving no doubt as to its true form.

  Ilian stood, dusting off his shirt and trousers. "Good shot," he said. "Though I hope you realize the replacement cost for that thing is coming out of your wages."

  "Your name's not Ilian," said Silverdun.

  "No," he said simply.

  "You're Jedron."

  The other man clapped, smiling. "Very good, Silverdun! Not everyone figures that part out at first."

  The real Jedron righted two chairs and bade Silverdun sit in one of them. "So tell me," he said, "when did you figure it out?"

  Silverdun sat, laying the crossbow on his lap, not quite comfortable letting it go. "I wasn't absolutely certain until he mentioned something that he'd said at the quay. But it wasn't something he'd said; it was something you'd said. He wasn't there." Silverdun sighed. "But I suspected it earlier."

  "Oh, good. Because that verbal slip was my last-ditch attempt to keep you from shooting me. When did you first suspect?"

  "It was when I knocked you out in the cell, and when I went upstairs, Jedron was asleep. But he wasn't really asleep; he was only inactive, the way the automata on the Splintered Driftwood are."

  The real Jedron smiled and nodded. "Hm. Well, I hate to admit it, but you really put me through my paces. You weren't supposed to wake up the night that I inducted Ironfoot. That required some truly inspired improvisation on my part."

  "That wasn't part of the test," said Silverdun. "Or whatever it was."

  "No. You were supposed to begin to suspect Jedron over a slightly longer period of time, ultimately leading to a final confrontation in which you killed him in order to save yourself. Killing the teacher is a very important part of the training."

  "Why's that?" said Silverdun. The pain in his leg was beginning to subside, finally.

  "Like I said-and by 'I,' I mean that fellow on the ground over thereit's important for you to understand that you cannot trust anyone. Not anyone. Not ever again. It's the sort of thing one hears but must experience firsthand in order to truly grasp. Better you learn it here where it won't get you killed."

  "But," said Silverdun, "what if I'd shot you instead of him?"

  Jedron waved the question away. "It would take a lot more than one of those little quarrel
s to stop me. As you'll soon discover for yourself."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You want to know what happened that night, don't you? The man you thought you saw killed?"

  "It was going to be my next question, yes."

  "Let's go see then, shalt we? I think you're ready."

  Jedron stood and motioned for Silverdun to follow. Silverdun's head was spinning. Again he asked himself: What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  At the bottom of the steps, the torches were already lit. Jedron led Silverdun down the stairs and onto the stone expanse. There was a man standing before the pit, holding a black robe.

  Silverdun started to sweat, the pain in his body now replaced with a shivering dread. What was about to happen?

  The man in the robe stepped forward, and Silverdun recognized the face immediately. It was the man he thought he'd seen Than murder.

  "Hello," the man said. "My name is Styg Falores. But you can call me Ironfoot."

  "I'm not certain what the proper greeting is for this occasion, so I'll just say hello back," said Silverdun, attempting to regain his composure.

  "Strip down and put this on," said Ironfoot, holding out the robe. Sitverdun looked over at Jedron and Jedron nodded.

  Why not? How much stranger could this day possibly get? Whatever was happening, this Ironfoot fellow had gone through the same thing. Some kind of initiation ritual, perhaps? Silverdun thought about the bone, and the ash.

  He looked toward the pit, but inside all he could see was darkness.

  He stripped off his clothes and pulled on the black robe. It was made of silk. It made him feel like a part of the night.

  "Walk to the edge of the pit," said Jedron. Silverdun did so. He squinted, still seeing nothing.

  "Look down and tell us what you see," said Jedron. He said the words as though they were part of a ritual, with a musical cadence.

  Silverdun looked down. At first he saw nothing, but then he noticed something moving, something barely distinguishable in the glint of the torchlight. But it was only black on black. Perhaps it was nothing.

  "Perrin Alt," said Jedron, "what do you see?"

  "Nothing," said Silverdun.

  Jedron and Ironfoot pushed him then, hard, into the pit. There was something inside, waiting for him. It received him. Enveloped him.

  The pain that came next made the touch of cold iron seem like a lover's caress.

  For reitic energy compressed into a contained binding, the formula is consistent regardless of the specific physical Gift involved, be it Motion, Elements, or even Folding. There is a practical limit to the amount of energy that can be compressed in a given container, as the required binding energy increases exponentially with the volume of the container. For any given volume v, the required binding energy is Y2ev2, regardless of the bound form. Thus it is recommended that when large energy bindings are required, sufficient space is allotted in the design.

  Since it is often impractical to contain energies of multiple Gifts in a single binding, the problem often arises when it becomes necessary to mingle the products of multiple Gifts prior to the full unbinding of a closed system. Students often attempt to rechannel such products across a binding in order to avoid the difficulties that arise with nested binds. Unfortunately, this is not possible.

  To understand why it is impossible to channel one Gift through another, it is necessary to understand the formulae for channeling Gifts through a medium. The standard formula for that energy is, in its most basic construction, c = 2/(e - m)r at any point during the transition, where c is the required channeling energy, e is the energy to be channeled, m is the total energy of the channeling medium, and r is the inductive resistance factor of the channeling medium.The problem that arises when both e and m are reitic energies is that during the channeling, e inevitably increases at the sourcepoint of the channel, while m inevitably decreases, such that at a determinable point during the channeling process, (e - m) = 0. At this point, the equation fails, as the bottom term becomes undefined.

  It is tempting to imagine that one might avoid this problem by channeling ever greater amounts of energy into e, but regardless of the value of m, the required value of e will inevitably approach infinity before the sourcepoint completes the transition.

  -Dynamics, chapter 8: ''Channeling Methodology in Closed Bindings'

  A shopkeeper from one of my villages came to me with a problem; he'd been advertising an opening in his shop and had thus far received only two applicants. One was a penniless drifter, the other a retired mestine.

  I counseled him to hire the drifter, his being the slightly more reputable profession.

  -Lord Gray, Recollections

  he first rehearsal following a tour was always the worst. The props had been put away roughly after the final show in the last city, and the sweaty costumes were dumped in trunks without being washed or folded. Everyone was sick of it all, and nobody wanted to come back to work.

  The Bittersweet Wayward Mestina had finished its sweep of the southern cities and had finally returned home to Estacana after four weeks on the road. They'd then taken a well-deserved week off, having done a brisk business while away. But now the week was over, and it was time to get back to work.

  Faella let herself into the theater early and stepped up on the stage, alone. The theater was called The Snowflake, and it had been her father's dream. Father, however, hadn't lived to see it.

  Ironically, it seemed that all this time, Father had been the one standing in the way. While he was running the Bittersweet Wayward it had only ever been marginally profitable. Usually they could afford to eat; usually they had comfortable lodgings. But it wasn't unheard-of for them to sleep in the wagons outside the walls of a city, crowded up on makeshift beds of costumes and curtains.

  It wasn't until after Father had died, and Faella had inherited the business, that she realized how incompetent he'd been. Always the showman, always the promoter, he'd managed to secure business across the kingdom, but he'd mismanaged the funds horribly, given away too much of the gate to unscrupulous theater owners, squandered money on expensive theatrical detritus: props, amplifying cabinets, real velvet costumes when felt would do just as well.

  No, Father had been a deeply impractical man. Faella had loved him, and had grieved when he'd passed away just after the end of midwinter, but now she rarely thought of him. And now, just a year later, The Snowflake was hers. The down payment had been made with gold that she herself had earned through hard work and perseverance.

  The problem was, it wasn't anywhere near enough.

  She stood upon the stage and bowed deep to the empty theater. Legions of imagined adoring fans applauded her. She stretched, sang a few scales.

  Faella had been a brilliant mestine since she was a little girl; that was common knowledge. She'd been the star of the Bittersweet Wayward since she'd been old enough to speak. All the other mestines in her employ knew it and grudgingly accepted it.

  It had never occurred to Father, though, that Faella might not have wanted that for herself. He'd just assumed that because she was so talented, and because she enjoyed it so much, that she'd never want anything else.

  Faella knew she was meant for more. She just knew it. She'd hoped that owning the theater, being in charge of the mestina, would do the trick. But quite the opposite was true: It only made her feel more constrained, more trapped in her tiny life.

  There must be more than this. It was as though there was a living thing inside her that yearned for greatness, that lived inside her heart and pummeled at her to be released from the tedium of her days.

  Such thoughts always led to thoughts of Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun. She'd met him on the way to Estacana, during the dead of midwinter. She'd fallen in love with him on sight. Foolish girl that she was, she'd assumed the feeling was mutual because he was attracted to her.

  Silverdun was everything she'd ever dreamed of. Gorgeous, talented, intelligent. And important.

  Silver
dun was a lord. A nobleman. He could sweep her away, make her a lady. Surely that would fulfill her longings? In her headstrong desire, she'd made an ass of herself, thrown herself at him. And when he'd done what any man would have done-that is, bed her and then leave her-she'd become furious. Beyond furious. If only she'd known then how vile other men could be, she might have been a bit more forgiving. But not so then.

  Then something very strange had happened. The thing inside her that knew she was destined for greatness had leapt out at him. It had done something. It had made him ugly. Changed his face somehow. Not that there was really a thing in her. It was her. The part of her she'd been pushing down all her life.