Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  The Seelie Embassy was located on a quiet side street. It was built of imported Faerie marble, and seemed dour and out of place in the gayness of Mag Mell. The rain, however, seemed appropriate to it. As they piled out of the hansom, Silverdun smelled calendula and capelbells, Faerie flowers from the garden fronting the embassy, mixing with the odor of earthworms and horse dung.

  The Seelie ambassador was a Fae gentleman named Aranquet, who dressed in the colorful linens of Mag Mell, with his Seelie Army medals pinned directly to the pink blouse. He welcomed them to the embassy, smiling. Glienn passed out powerfully strong drinks that smelled of mint and were served in cups made of tightly woven reeds.

  "Welcome to Mag Mell, gentlemen!" Aranquet sang, shaking their hands briskly. "Come, come!"

  He led them to his office, which was airy and spacious, filled with furniture also woven from reeds of some kind, and satin pillows in the color of peaches and limes. A riotously colored bird sat on a perch in a corner, its beak tucked beneath its wing. Glienn left them, shutting the door behind her.

  Once the door was closed, Aranquet's demeanor hardened. He drained his drink and set the cup aside, his eyes on the two men in front of him.

  "So," he said. "You're Paet's replacements, eh?"

  "You know him?" said Silverdun. "Has he always been so charming as he is now?"

  Aranquet laughed out loud. "Ah! I can see we're going to get along famously." He reached for his drink cup, found it empty, and scowled. "No, Paet has never been renowned for his wit or charm. Then again, he's done things for the Seelie that ... well, he's accomplished some astonishing things in his time and received no credit for it. Not publicly, anyway. And never asked for any."

  Aranquet tapped the cup on his desk. "Still and all, though, a bit of a bastard."

  "We were told you'd have some documents for us," said Ironfoot.

  The ambassador looked sideways at Ironfoot. "You're the diplomatic one, I take it?"

  "No," said Ironfoot. "I'm just more scared of Paet than he is."

  Aranquet took two sets of papers from a drawer and handed them across the desk to Silverdun and Ironfoot. Passports and travel documents.

  Silverdun looked at the passport, which was a perfect forgery as far as he could tell. The glamour imprinted on the page looked exactly like him, but gave his name as Hy Wezel, with an address in Blood of Arawn.

  "The two of you could hardly pass as Maggos or Annwni," said Aranquet, indicating the passport, "so we wrote you up as Unseelie Fae instead. A bit more dangerous, perhaps, but these are quality documents. They'll hold up to close scrutiny. If you get detained with them, however, they'll probably cut your heads off."

  Silverdun glanced at the travel documents and laughed. "Eel merchants?" he said.

  "Lot of eel going back and forth between-worlds. The Annwni can't get enough of them. The Maggo variety, I mean. Decent Fae eel they turn up their noses at."

  "I was an eel merchant once before," said Silverdun. He thought of his trip across Faerie with Mauritane, who had tried with a total lack of success to pass them off as eel merchants to a traveling mestine named Nafaeel and his troupe, the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina. And the star of that show had been Nafaeel's daughter. Faella.

  Now was no time to be thinking about Faella. She'd been bad for him. She'd ruined his face. There'd been something strange about her, as well: She'd manifested a Gift that Queen Titania had referred to as the Magic of Change, the Thirteenth Gift. Silverdun liked to think of himself as a worldly fellow, but he'd never heard of such a thing, and hadn't really felt like asking his sovereign to elaborate on the subject. But his thoughts kept coming back to Faella at the oddest moments. Seeing her face in his mind, he felt a subtle pang, a queer sense of loss.

  Aranquet sniffed. "I don't suppose it's any good asking you two the nature of your errand in Annwn? If you were to give me some clue, I might be able to ... assist somehow?" He looked significantly at Silverdun.

  "Her Majesty's business, I'm afraid," said Ironfoot. Silverdun only shrugged. Information was as precious a commodity in Mag Mell as it was back home.

  "Well, then," said Aranquet. "If there's nothing else, I'll need to be getting along. I've a dinner with Baron Glennet tonight, and the wife expects me to help her browbeat the cooks."

  If Annwn had ever been a pleasant place, that time had been prior to Mab's rule. Beyond the city center of Kollws Kapytlyn, the streets of Blood of Arawn were filthy, strewn with rotting garbage and horse dung. Beggars lined the streets. Some played tiny harps and sang, in a distinctively nasal, plaintive wail. Others simply sat on street corners rattling cups. Most nonofficial buildings were desperately in need of repair.

  "I've been in some foul-smelling places," Silverdun told Ironfoot as they stepped warily down the main road in the district of Kollws Vymynal. "But there's something truly awful about the stench here. It's like despair mixed with ... rotting fish."

  "Villages on the Gnomic borders smell worse," Ironfoot said. "Like feet. Nobody knows why."

  "Never been," said Silverdun. "Never seen a Gnomic. Though I was told by a young lady at university that they're really quite noble and deeply misunderstood."

  "Put her alone in a room with one for ten minutes and she'll be telling a different story."

  The street they were on climbed steadily upward toward the summit of the hill upon which the district was built. As they climbed, a slight breeze blew, taking some of the smell with it, and the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. Silverdun looked back; from here he could see most of the city. The Unseelie flag flew limply here and there; outside the walls was a tent city blown by the dust of the plains.

  They found the address they were looking for at the end of a cul-de-sac, a claptrap four-story building that had seen much, much better days. They looked around, saw nothing suspicious, and went inside. As they climbed the stairs, Silverdun took a small leather notebook from his jacket pocket.

  The door of the third-floor apartment was opened by a tiny woman in a faded linen dress who didn't look them in the eye. "What is it?" she asked in a small voice.

  "We'd like to talk to Prae Benesile, please," said Silverdun, mimicking an Unseelie accent and trying to sound as pompous and official as possible. He and Ironfoot had agreed to pose as bureaucrats from the Unseelie Revenue Office. It wouldn't endear them to anyone, but the Annwni would be afraid not to speak to them.

  "Prae Benesile? He's been dead for years," said the woman.

  "Ah," said Silverdun. "Well, there's a tax matter we need to discuss with his next-of-kin then. Do you happen to know where we can find them?"

  A man came to the door. He was small but muscular, wearing only breeches. His beard was clipped short but ragged. "What's this about?" he asked.

  "They're here for your father," said the woman. "Something about the taxes."

  "Dead men can't pay taxes," spat the man. "Or do you Unseelie bastards intend to dig him up and go through his pockets?"

  "Tye!" hissed the woman, her eyes wide. "Please."

  Tye Benesile examined Ironfoot and Silverdun. "Come in then," he said. He waved them in. As Silverdun passed him he could smell the brandywine on the man's breath.

  The apartment was small, the air stifling. Tye Benesile's wife stood looking at them, suspicion worn into her features. Benesile himself sat on a pasteboard chair and indicated a stained sofa for Ironfoot and Silverdun. "If it's revenue you've come for," he said, "you came to the wrong place. I'm out of work. You should have that written in your book." He pointed at Silverdun's notebook.

  "It's information we're here for, not money," said Silverdun. He took a fountain pen from his pocket and unscrewed the top. "We'd like to know what your father was doing when he died."

  "My father?" said Tye. "My father was a scholar. He studied at a famous university. You should have that written in your book as well."

  Silverdun and Ironfoot shared a brief glance. Silverdun tried again. "Do you happen to know if your father was working on an
ything of note at the time of his death?"

  Tye Benesile's eyes widened. "They said that he was killed in the riots on the night you lot showed up, by the looters. But I always knew it was a murder. I told them when they came; I said there was nothing here anyone would want to loot. This was his place then, you know. All he had was his books, and they aren't worth a copper slug."

  "Do you have any idea why someone would have wanted to murder your father?" asked Ironfoot.

  "I'm going out," said Tye's wife. She had a basket over her shoulder. "They said there might be eggs at the market today."

  "Go then," said Tye, resenting the intrusion. She stamped her foot and slammed the door behind her.

  Tye Benesile pointed at his chest. "My father always said I should go to university. He said if I worked hard I could do it, but I never wanted to. I was young; I didn't want to do anything for my own good. Too late now, though, right? He said the brandywine would rot my brain, and I took it as a personal challenge."

  Silverdun sighed, rolling his eyes. This was going nowhere. But Ironfoot held up his hand. "Go on," he said to Tye. Ironfoot seemed to grow taller and stronger when he said it. Ah. The Gift of Leadership. Interesting fellow, this Ironfoot.

  Tye responded to Ironfoot instantly, seeming to forget that Silverdun existed. "Like I said, all he had left was those books, and I know they weren't worth much because I tried to sell some of them after he died, and I couldn't get anyone to even look at them. Some of them are in different languages, even. He could read Thule Fae as well. Can you imagine that? There's but ten or eleven in all the Known who can read the Thule Fae these days. But he could. He was retired; you know that. He spent all of his last days up here reading and writing."

  "Did he ever speak to anyone?" said Ironfoot. "Did anyone ever come to see him?"

  "Just the one fellow," said Tye Benesile. "Another scholar. Unseelie. That was before, of course. Before the war and all. My father didn't care for that scholar, though. He was the wrong sort, if you know what I mean."

  Silverdun leaned forward, now interested. "I'm not sure I do," said Silverdun. "What sort would that be?"

  "Black Artist," Tye Benesile whispered. "That's what Father said. I never met him. But if Father knew things that a Black Artist wanted to know, then you can put that in your book for certain."

  "What was this Black Artist's name?" said Silverdun. He supposed it was possible that there were still Black Artists among the Unseelie, though Tye Benesile was clearly not the most reliable witness.

  Tye thought for a moment. "Father never said it. If he had, I would have remembered, because I've got a fine memory, even now. You can't imagine how fine it was then. But he was a Black Artist, even if you don't believe me."

  "When was this?" asked Ironfoot. "How long ago?"

  "That was before, I said. Before all this," he said, waving his hand around. Silverdun assumed that by "all this," he meant the Unseelie invasion.

  "How long before?"

  "It was when I was still working at the mill," said Tye Benesile. "I remember it, of course. That was three months to the day before."

  "And did the Black Artist continue visiting your father until he died?"

  "No. They had a falling out; something Father had that he wanted. Tried to buy it off of him, but Father refused. Funny thing with lights in a box. So he beat Father up and took it."

  "I don't suppose you've kept any of your father's books?" said Silverdun.

  "Well I couldn't sell them, could I? So I threw some away, burned some. There are still a few left, though. The really expensive-looking ones. Figured maybe a book dealer in Mag Mell might take an interest if I could ever find the time to make the journey."

  Tye led them to the tiny bedroom, where a sunken mattress sat on the floor and a wooden box served as a bedside table. There was an antique wardrobe pushed up against one wall. A nail had been hammered into its crest and a clothesline strung from it to the wall. Tye nodded at the wardrobe; then his face fell.

  "Stupid! Stupid! Now you're going to take them, aren't you? I never should have said anything!"

  "Don't worry," said Ironfoot, the Leadership resonating in his voice. "We aren't going to take anything."

  That seemed to satisfy Tye. He sat down heavily on the bed and watched as Silverdun opened the wardrobe.

  It was stuffed with books. Silverdun picked one up and read from the spine. Inquiry into Matters Philosophical and Theological. Prae Benesile's own Thaunaatical History of the Chthonic Religion. Another was in High Court Fae, and Silverdun struggled to translate its title. Something like A School of Thought Regarding the Gods of the Earth, Bound, and Their Origins. The next books he examined were in languages he couldn't read. One appeared to be from the Nymaen world, a human tongue. Another was in Thule Fae, like the inscriptions on the Tuminee burial mounds north of the river in Oarsbridge, where Silverdun had been raised. Ironfoot, scholar that he was, seemed to be having an easier time with the translation, but still looked confused.

  "I don't supposed you're versed in Thule?" Silverdun asked Ironfoot.

  Ironfoot looked up from the book he'd been flipping through. "I am," he said. "But I can't imagine what a Black Artist would have wanted with someone who studied all this stuff."

  Silverdun scanned a few lines of verse from Prinzha-Las Days and Works. A story about one of the daughters of the god Senek, who fell in love with a mortal Fae. Senek turned him into a ram. You always had to be careful messing around with a powerful man's daughter. Some things never changed.

  "I suppose," said Tye from the bed, "if you wanted to purchase a few of them I'd be willing to let them go for a reasonable price. You gentlemen being representatives of the government." What had happened to the angry man who'd greeted them at the door? Had Ironfoot's Leadership changed all of his spleen to ardor with a single glance?

  "That won't be necessary," said Silverdun. He fished in his pocket for a few coins and slapped them into Tye's hand. "For your trouble."

  Tye looked to Ironfoot to make sure the transaction was acceptable. It was.

  "I don't think we're going to learn anything else of value," Ironfoot whispered. Silverdun nodded.

  They thanked Tye for his time, and the man bowed to Ironfoot a bit more deeply than was required by custom. Now it was just getting annoying.

  "If there's anything I can do for you, sir, day or night, I'm your man," he said, his voice slightly wheedling. "Just call on me."

  Ironfoot looked a bit puzzled, but thanked the man.

  Outside in the stairwell, Silverdun said, "That's quite a Gift you've got there. With that much Leadership in you, I'm surprised you weren't commanding a battalion back in your army days."

  Ironfoot stopped on the landing and faced him. He looked troubled. "I've always had it," he said. "A bit, anyway. But on my best day, I could possibly convince a good friend to go along with a suggestion he was already inclined to favor, if I pushed with all my might. I've never done anything like that before."

  "Why do you suppose that is?" said Silverdun.

  "Whitemount," said Ironfoot. "Don't you feel it?"

  "Every day," Silverdun said. "I haven't slept much. I've felt strange. A bit unbalanced sometimes."

  "So have I," said Ironfoot. "I just assumed it was the stress of the new job, you know? All of Jedron's tricks, then straight into Paet's service."

  "You think it's more than that?"

  "I don't know. When we were in Tye Benesile's apartment just now, I was getting nervous. I was worried we were about to fail our first assignment. It kept growing inside me like a panic. Did you notice it?"

  "No."

  "I did my best to hide it," said Ironfoot. And then something ... happened in my head. It was as though I had far more capacity for re than I've ever had before, and it all just surged into me. But when it happened I pushed with the Leadership, and it was like a dam had burst. I think Tye Benesile practically worships me now."

  "He's in love with you, if you ask me.
"

  Silverdun wanted to ask Ironfoot about that night at Whitemount. The fire, the pit, the blackness. But something inside him wouldn't allow it. He decided to force the issue.

  "Ironfoot," he began.

  There was a crash below, and the sound of boots on the stairs.

  "Tye's wife," said Silverdun, scowling. "She must have given us up."

  "We can go down or up," said Ironfoot. "Any preference?"