Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  But it was what rested on the platforms that gave Silverdun pause. Wrapped in bindings of iron were twelve giant bodies. They had the features of the old Thule Fae, the true elves, their ears long and swept to elegant points, their eyes large, their bodies tall and slender. They were all dressed the same, only in different colors and with different insignia on their long gowns. Six were male, six female.

  Twelve figures in all.

  "What is this place?" said Silverdun.

  "You don't know?" shouted Hy Pezho. "You're meddling around in here and you don't know where you are?"

  "Well, we will if you tell us," said Silverdun.

  "I should think it was obvious," said Hy Pezho. "You got here the same way I did, I assume. Using a cynosure to direct a fold?"

  "That's right," said Silverdun.

  "A Chthonic artifact," said Hy Pezho. "Look around you; these are the Chthonic gods. The bound gods."

  "You're kidding," said Ironfoot.

  "You're in Prythme," said Hy Pezho. "The place where the gods were locked up millennia ago. And if you don't stop whatever it is you're doing," he said, pointing at the branches of gray that were even now spreading across the bindings that held the figures down, "you're going to let them out."

  Hy Pezho glared at them. "And trust me when I say that you don't want that to happen."

  "This is ludicrous," said Ironfoot. "Bound gods, Prythme. And I suppose that you're actually Uvenchaud and you just came from slaying the last of the dragons."

  Hy Pezho gingerly landed on the ground. The silver armor flowed off of him, its individual pieces retracting to allow him to simply step out of it. He was dressed in a simple robe and was unarmed. The silver suit flitted up into the air and disappeared in the shadows among the arches on the ceiling, where Hy Pezho's witchlight did not penetrate.

  "Trust me, this is all very real."

  Faella and Sela stepped around the platform beyond which Silverdun and Ironfoot were standing. Hy Pezho looked curiously at Faella. "You're doing this, aren't you?" he asked. "The re coming from you. It's like that of the ... hell, you're her."

  "Who am I?" said Faella.

  "You're the one with the Thirteenth Gift. Faella. You think that Mab hasn't noticed you? You burn in Faerie like a bonfire in the night."

  "I'm flattered," said Faella.

  "Mab launched her invasion for two reasons," said Hy Pezho. "One was to grind Titania under her heel. The other was to kill you."

  "And why do I merit such undue favor from your empress?" said Faella.

  "Because you're capable of doing incredibly stupid things like what you're doing right now," said Hy Pezho. "If you don't stop and turn those bonds back into iron, we're all dead. Maybe worse than dead."

  "Explain to me what this place is, and perhaps I shall."

  Hy Pezho looked up at the platform next to them, which was growing more and more gray by the second, and sighed. For some reason the branches seemed to have a harder time crawling up the platforms. Were they somehow reinforced?

  "It was during the Rauane Envedun-e," said Hy Pezho, "the era during which the vast majority of the most ridiculous and dangerous things in Fae history took place." He looked up again, licking his lips. "The Chthonic faithful had been around already for a thousand years, happily worshipping their twelve gods. Worshipping them with an astonishing fervency, in fact.

  "Now, at the time, these gods didn't actually exist. They were the prehistoric Thule beliefs, inventions of superstitious natives to explain the rising of the sun and the fortunes of war. One sees such things in many worlds.

  "But Faerie, of course, is not like other worlds. And during the Rauane, there was more free re than at any time before or since. Magic was everywhere, capable of just about anything. So the worshippers of the Thule gods inadvertently performed a staggering feat of thaumaturgy, perhaps the greatest ever accomplished.

  "They channeled all of their vast essence into their faith, into their devout worship. They prayed for so hard and so long that they actually worshipped their gods into existence. "

  "You're saying they created gods on the spot," said Silverdun.

  Hy Pezho looked up at the ever-graying bonds and glared at Silverdun.

  "Not just that. They did such an incredible job of manifesting them that the gods actually became what the faithful believed them to be. They truly were responsible for the rising sun, and the fortunes of war, and for who fell in love with whom. The believers wished their gods into existence from the beginning of time, so that they not only existed, but always had. They created immortal gods out of whole cloth."

  "That seems a bit far-fetched," said Ironfoot.

  "This was the generation of Fae who turned the rain to wine when they were too drunk to stand up for another bottle," said Hy Pezho. "They turned the sky orange for fun, drafted sea monsters from their imagination on a whim. One of them taught an entire forest of trees to talk as a practical joke. There was nothing they couldn't do."

  "How did the gods end up here?" asked Sela, looking strangely sad.

  "Well," said Hy Pezho, and now he was talking through clenched teeth, his anxiety growing by the moment. "It turned out that having their gods among them was far less fun than the original Chthonics had imagined it would be. The gods were created to be in charge, so they took charge. They were created to judge, and they judged. They had been set above the Fae, and they took to their assigned parts with relish.

  "Unfortunately for them, however, not all of the Fae were believers. They did not care to be judged by gods that they, themselves, did not believe in. So a very large and powerful coterie of wizards crafted a very large and powerful binding, and went to war against them. There was a great battle, the gods lost, and the wizards locked them up down here for eternity."

  "And that was that," said Silverdun.

  "Not exactly," said Hy Pezho. "The Chthonics continued to worship their gods. They worshipped them even though they were powerless, trapped in this otherworldly prison. At the end of the Rauane one of their cleverest thaumaturges constructed the cynosures, whose sole purpose is to direct the faith of the Chthonic worshippers here, into Prythme."

  "To keep them alive," said Sela.

  "To keep them alive and to one day free them," said Hy Pezho. "These bodies are massive storehouses of pure undifferentiated re. Growing more full with every passing Chthonic service. Someday they would have been strong enough to break their bonds, I suppose, though it would have been long after we were dead. Of course, you've moved up their timetable quite a bit."

  "So the power source for the Einswrath," said Ironfoot. "It comes from them."

  "Each bomb contains a single drop of Ein's blood," said Hy Pezho. "That's him up there, by the way. Ein, I mean." Hy Pezho pointed up at the platform where he had minutes before been floating. "I was drilling out a few drops when you showed up."

  Hy Pezho stepped toward Silverdun and looked him in the eye. "And now that I've explained to you in explicit detail exactly what you've stumbled into, would you please tell your pretty friend here to stop what she's doing before these gods wake up and decide to take back Faerie, drunk on five thousand years of stored vengeance?"

  Faella frowned. "I don't know how," she said.

  "What?" said Hy Pezho.

  "It wasn't so hard to turn the iron into cobalt," she said, "if that's indeed what I did. But I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to make it go the other way. I was just pulling the iron apart, like shattering a glass. I can't put it back together."

  "Then, my dear," said Hy Pezho, "the five of us are all dead, and Faerie is doomed." He smiled at Faella in cynical resignation. "And it's all your fault."

  Hy Pezho sighed. "All I did was make a bomb."

  "He's telling the truth," said Sela. "He knows all this to be true. He's studied ancient texts, peered into the past with dark powers. Everything he's saying is right."

  "Indeed," said Hy Pezho. "And as much as I'd like to stay here and be the first to be devour
ed once these gods awaken and so spare myself from their rule, I am now Bel Zheret, and I have been ordered by Mab to create more Einswrath. I've got enough blood to build a sufficient amount to bomb the Seelie Kingdom into oblivion. Really, I'll be doing them a favor, assuming I get to them first."

  The silver armor fluttered down from the ceiling, and Hy Pezho stepped toward it. "Within a day the Great Seelie Keep will be a smoldering ruin," he said. "And then the Chthonic gods will rule us all. Ironically, Titania might have been the only one powerful enough to stand a chance against them."

  "You're not going anywhere," said Silverdun. "You're going to stay here and help us stop this."

  "That wasn't in my orders," said Hy Pezho. "I belong to Mab heart and soul, and I must do as I'm bidden."

  Hy Pezho reached out his hand and waved. A blast of Motion struck Silverdun and slammed him backward. Sela, Ironfoot, and Faella were all flung in different directions.

  Hy Pezho climbed into his armor. "Good-bye, Shadows," he called. "Fare thee well." The wings began to flap, and he rose off of the floor, beginning to chant an incantation of Folding.

  Silverdun channeled Elements and pried open the front of the armor. Hy Pezho fell to the floor, his concentration broken. The silver armor listed to the side, its wings flapping crazily. Silverdun ran at him and tackled him, knife in hand.

  "Ironfoot!" he shouted. "Get with Faella and find a way to stop this!" He slashed with the knife, but Hy Pezho slipped from his grasp and kicked out, catching Silverdun in the face. He was as strong as the other Bel Zheret had been. The one that had killed him.

  The floor shook. Silverdun cast a brief glance upward and saw Ein's hand open and close. The god's bonds rattled.

  A voice boomed into the wide space, speaking in a very, very old dialect of High Fae. "Who pricks my skin and wakes me from my slumber?"

  In the rooftop garden in Elenth, Sergeant Hy-Asher supervised the reloading of the catapult with the second Einswrath. The lieutenant was looking over the edge of the rooftop toward the battle.

  "Hurry!" he shouted. "They're almost to the gate!"

  "You understand," said Hy-Asher, "that if we lob it this close, we'll kill our own troops, and probably half the city as well."

  "Who cares?" said the lieutenant. "If they get through the gate, we're all dead anyway!"

  Hy-Asher continued winding back the beam, a feeling of dread that he could not control stealing over him.

  The High Priest: I fear that we will never agree, then, on what constitutes a good man.

  Alpaurle: Is it wise to fear disagreement? Should we not, rather, embrace it?

  The High Priest: Surely it is better to agree on such matters.

  Alpaurle:You must be correct, of course, as you are very wise. But that is not what I asked. Should we not embrace a state of disagreement, on the grounds that from debate comes knowledge?

  The High Priest: In matters of morals, I believe that unanimity is key. I find the idea of ambiguity in such matters disquieting.

  Alpaurle:Why?

  The High Priest: Because I desire to know the truth, of course!

  Alpaurle: But what if truth is to be found in ambiguity?

  -Alpaurle, from Conversations with the High Priest of Ulet, conversation VI, edited by Feven IV of the City Emerald

  ronfoot ran toward Silverdun to help him, but Silverdun waved him away. "No! Stay with Faella!" he shouted. "You can tell her how to change all this back into iron!"

  Ironfoot turned back to Faella and Sela, while Silverdun wrestled with Hy Pezho a dozen yards away.

  "Sela," he said. `Join me and Faella together, like you did back in the temple. Let's see if we can stop this."

  "Take my hands," said Sela. "I'll do what I can."

  Ironfoot closed his eyes and felt Faella and Sela flow into him. Now was the time to be perfect. Now was the time not to fail. Now was the time to be the best.

  Ironfoot tried to sift through Faella's understanding, but it was difficult; she had no thaumatic training, no understanding of what it was she was doing, or how she did it. She was raw power, a creature of pure intuition.

  And what she did, what Lin Vo had done back at the Arami Camp, was beyond anything Ironfoot even understood. All of his equations, all of his understanding about the workings of the Gifts-none of these applied here. This was an entirely new approach to magic. And he was going to have to work it out right here, right now, while his partner fought a demon to the death and gods rose up all around him.

  What was iron? What was cobalt? What lay beneath Elements and Insight? What was at the heart of things, beyond reason and understanding? What was the quotient of division by zero?

  Silverdun struggled against Hy Pezho, trying to work the knife up into his ribs. Hy Pezho had all of the strength and quickness of Silverdun's previous opponent, but what he lacked was Asp's skill, his experience. Asp had enjoyed a lifetime of killing before Silverdun had met him. Hy Pezho probably knew a thing or two about killing as well, but not the Bel Zheret kind. Not the punching, kicking, biting kind.

  They rolled on top of each other, slammed up against the base of Ein's column. Above them, Ein bellowed and strained.

  Ironfoot and Faella walked together through the substance of things. He asked questions without words; she provided answers without thoughts. Slowly he began to understand. The ground shook around them and Sela cried out, but Ironfoot couldn't worry about that right now.

  As he watched Faella flail against her lack of understanding, trying to reach out with her Giftless re, Ironfoot began to see something. It wasn't music without pitch, not colorless color, but something that lay behind pitch, beyond color. It wasn't a Giftless Gift, but that which lay beyond Gifts, gave rise to them. Beyond iron and cobalt lay something else, a deeper reality. Both were expressions of a deeper whole.

  There was no division by zero. That was a function of numbers that applied to the Gifts. The Gifts were not the reality, though. They were a special case of reality. The thaumatics that applied to them, applied to them only in their special cases. In the depth beneath that spawned them, those equations simply did not apply. That depth was the genesis of the equations and was not bound by them.

  He and Faella saw it at the same time. Cobalt and iron were simply variations on a theme, as were the Gifts. Thaumaturges had believed in the Gifts for so long that they had made them the reality, just as the Chthonics had made a reality of their own gods. Believing made it so.

  Believe in iron, Ironfoot told Faella. Something reached out of Faella, colorless color beyond sight, and twisted.

  The truth is sharper than any blade.

  -Fae proverb

  ela watched Faella and Ironfoot think back and forth at each other, marveling at the speed and clarity of their thought. Sela understood almost none of it. It was all beyond her. Color without color? Belief in iron? It made no sense.

  She looked away from them to catch a glimpse of Silverdun and Hy Pezho. Hy Pezho had Silverdun on the ground, kneeling over him, wrestling the knife from Silverdun's grasp.

  She screamed "Silverdun!" Oh, how she loved him. Despite all that was going on around her, all she wanted was for him to be safe. She knew he could never love her. It hurt, but it didn't change how she felt.

  After all that Lord Tanen had done to her, after all that she had seen in her time with the Shadows, she wondered whether she could ever be whole. Lin Vo, in the time they'd spent alone together in the Arami's tent, had told her that she was like a bird who'd lived all her life with clipped wings. She was capable of flying higher and farther than other birds. She was capable of seeing so deeply into the heart that if Lord Tanen had nourished her rather than hobbled her, she might have ascended beyond what she was.

  Sela had no idea what Lin Vo meant by "ascended," but it brought back memories of childhood. Memories of a feeling of wholeness, of a knowledge of things that now baffled her. It was something akin to what Ironfoot and Faella were now discussing. Seeing beyond. Seeing through.
When she was a child she had known bliss.

  And then Lord Tanen had come and taken that bliss away from her and turned her into a monster. That word "ascended" also reminded her of the thing in her that she'd showed to Lord Tanen and the crones, to the doctor at Lord Everess's apartment, and to the Bel Zheret in Elenth.

  She'd asked Lin Vo whether she could ever be whole again.

  "No," Lin Vo had said sadly. "Not in this life. You will never know bliss. But you may find a way to live."