All the Paths of Shadow

by Frank Tuttle

  Chezin’s jaw muscles tightened, and he stared for a moment at Mug, but then his eyes resumed their patrol of the platform and the stair.

  Donchen regarded Mug and then Meralda with a hint of wonder. “I have heard the Tirlish thaumaturge enjoyed the company of a most uncommon helpmate,” he said. “I see the tales were understated.”

  Que-long whispered something. Chezin nodded, then stepped toward Meralda.

  “The Mighty Dragon wishes to better know your familiar,” he said. “We were told it has the power of speech.”

  Meralda felt herself nodding. “Of course,” she said. What better way to start war than with Mug’s candid social observations?

  Mug moved his leaves, and bunched his eyes together in clumps, according to color. “Hello,” he said, as Que-long and a reluctant Chezin approached. “I have twenty-nine eyes.”

  Meralda frowned. Mug’s voice had changed. He was bright and cheery, all traces of his usual mocking tone gone.

  “Marvelous,” said Donchen, who watched with Meralda as Que-long put his face close to Mug. “And you created him as a child?”

  Meralda nodded. Donchen had somehow come within a single pace of her.

  “It was, um, unintentional,” she said. “It’s a fairly common occurrence among young mages. Mage Fromarch, for instance, has a staff he crafted from his father’s walking stick.”

  “No one knew I had any talent until this stick started singing, one day on the trolley,” gruffed Fromarch.

  Donchen laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said to Meralda, after a moment. “I was rude to you the other morning, at breakfast.” He shrugged. “Chezin once said I have the spirit of a lotash trapped inside me.”

  Meralda fought away a blush. “If anyone owes anyone an apology, it is I,” she said. “I was gawking. Forgive me.” She took a quick breath. “What, may I ask, is a lotash?”

  “A mischievous supernatural being, which of course does not exist,” said Donchen. “And you weren’t gawking. It is only natural to be curious about new things. We, for instance, are curious about you.” His smile widened. “I do hope the dragon isn’t upsetting your familiar.”

  Meralda glanced toward Que-long, and saw that he was moving his finger back and forth in front of Mug, who was following the fingertip with clumps of moving eyes. Chezin stood by, motionless.

  “On the contrary,” she said. “Mug loves attention, more than water or mulch.”

  Donchen watched Mug for a moment, and then he looked away, turning his gaze upon the Tower. Meralda watched him follow it all the way up, until his head was tilted back and he squinted at the sunlight.

  “So this is the Tower,” he said. “Immortal, eternal, legacy of an age, enduring remnant of a mighty sorcerer’s grim reign.” He glanced sideways at Meralda and grinned. “So says the marker in the park.”

  “It tends toward hyperbole,” she said. “Otrinvion was a monster, and if the kings of old could have brought the Tower down it would have been rubble a hundred times over.”

  Donchen nodded, his eyes still on the Tower. “That, I think, would have been a shame.”

  More footsteps sounded on the stair, and Meralda heard Shingvere’s voice, raised in laughter. Donchen turned back to face her.

  “Your Eryan friend tells us the Tower is haunted. He suggested I ask you for the details.”

  “My Eryan friend,” said Meralda, struggling to keep her smile, “also tends toward hyperbole. The Tower is no more haunted than this platform. But there are those who see ghosts in every patch of shadow.” She cast a nod toward the stair. “Eryans, you will find, are particularly susceptible.”

  Donchen nodded. “In my country, it is assumed that any structure larger and older than last year’s bird nest is infested with the most bewildering variety of phantoms,” he said. “A regrettable superstition, but one to which people cling.” He gazed again upon the Tower, and lifted his hands as he spoke. “We should have to invent whole new classes of specters, were we to find such a tower in the midst of our land.”

  Shingvere stepped onto the platform just as Donchen spoke. “Morning, Thaumaturge,” he said. “I see you’ve met our friends.”

  Meralda nodded, and Shingvere stepped aside, and another Hang sidled past him.

  “May I present Loman?” said Chezin. “Wielder of the Word, Bearer of the Staff.”

  “The approximate equivalent of your own title,” whispered Donchen, to Meralda. “He makes magic for the king, at least when the court isn’t badgering him with trivia.”

  The platform, built for a king and four guards, not a thaumaturge, a work bench, three Hang, and a Shingvere, was suddenly crowded. Loman shuffled his way past Shingvere and Donchen to stand before Meralda, who marveled when she saw Que-long motion Chezin back and squeeze himself in the corner between the rail and Meralda’s table so the aging Hang wizard had room to walk.

  Of all the Hang, only the wizard Loman showed signs of age in his walk. He was stooped and slow, shuffling one foot forward at a time, his face turned toward the floor planks, his knuckles white upon his staff, so tight was his grip. His hair was shoulder-length, grey like dirty snow. His downturned face was wrinkled, though Meralda could see little of it aside from bushy white eyebrows and the tip of his blunt nose.

  He wore a loose white robe, black pants underneath, and his shoes were plain black slippers. Phendelit slippers, Meralda realized.

  Fromarch’s Phendelit slippers, in fact. I gave those to him First Snow, two years ago.

  Now I know where the mages have been.

  Loman halted, and looked up. His face was ancient, all wrinkles and sagging skin. His eyes, though, were brown, bright, and clear.

  He spoke. “Greetings, Mage.” His voice was as thin and frail as his frame.

  Meralda bowed. “Greetings, Wielder and Bearer.” She saw Donchen nod approval at the edge of her vision. “You honor me with your presence.”

  The old man smiled. “It is good that we are met, Mage of Tirlin. Perhaps one day we will stand side by side and cast our magics together.”

  He bowed again. And then, before Meralda could speak, he lifted both arms, hands open and even with his shoulders, spoke a short phrase in Hang, and brought his hands together with a single loud clap.

  Then he turned, and shuffled back toward the stair.

  Meralda made a hasty bow.

  Donchen stepped to her side. “He just said hello, in an official sense,” said Donchen softly.

  Meralda nodded. “I’ll ask later what he said,” she whispered.

  Donchen nodded, clasped his hands behind him, and fell silent. Meralda noted the Hang, even Que-long, stood still and watched Loman go.

  Meralda watched as well, though she did exchange a brief look with Mug’s red eyes, which Mug held in the upright line that signaled bemusement or mild surprise.

  Shingvere, waiting upon the stair, nodded to Meralda, took Loman’s hand in his, and helped him down the first tread.

  The Big Bell pealed out, striking eleven times from the palace, faint above the traffic and the crowds. Meralda felt her stomach tighten, partly from hunger, partly from realization of just how much of the day was gone, and how much remained to be done.

  Chezin nodded, as if she had spoken aloud. “The mage has much work to do,” he said. “We should leave her to it.”

  Que-long nodded. “Goodbye,” he said, to Mug. Mug bowed, sweeping all is leaves and eyes down and forward. “I hope we meet again, Mighty Dragon,” said Mug, his voice still high and cheery.

  Chezin frowned, but Que-long clapped and beamed. “This is a wondrous land,” he said, and Meralda smiled despite herself.

  “Thank you,” she said, only barely remembering to turn and address Chezin. “We are glad you think so, and glad you came.”

  Que-long made a small bow, and turned, and departed.

  Chezin came close behind, halting long enough before Meralda to repeat Que-long’s bow before following his dragon down the stair.

  Donchen w
atched them go. “Goodbye, Mage,” he said. He bowed, and turned to go, and then turned back toward Meralda again. “Will you join me at my table, tomorrow night? I believe we are to join your court for a ‘feast of traditional Alon cuisine, with sherberts’.” Donchen hesitated, and his features took on the appearance of sudden concern. “These ‘sherberts,’” he said. “They would not be the finely-chopped snout of an oxen, would they?”

  Meralda laughed. “Sherbert is a frozen dessert,” she said. “Ice and milk and…sugar, I suppose,” she said. “Not a scrap of ox snout.”

  Donchen lifted his hand to his forehead in mock relief. “Thank heavens,” he said. “One must be careful, so far from home.”

  And then he turned and glided down the stair.

  Mug bunched his leaves. Meralda glared, and he fell silent.

  “Tervis,” shouted Meralda.

  After a few moments, Tervis came thump-thumping up the stair.

  “Yes, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Send word to the Watch and the Builder’s Guild foreman,” she said. “I’m going to test the spell during lunch. It is a harmless spell. They may see a darkening in the air about the Tower, nothing more. Tell them there is no cause for alarm.”

  “No cause, yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” said Meralda. Tervis turned and sped down the treads.

  “Can you be ready by lunch?” asked Mug. “That’s only an hour away, you know.”

  Meralda watched as the Hang and their entourage made for the Tower. Shingvere, from his post at the right of Loman’s wheelchair, gestured and pointed toward the Tower, while Fromarch waved his hands and shook his head in angry negation.

  Meralda looked away, and picked up her wand. “Begin,” she said. “Refract.”

  Her wand buzzed and grew cold in her hand.

  Meralda sagged, put both hands on the workbench, and leaned over it while the Big Bell clanged out noon.

  “You all right, mistress?” asked Mug.

  “I’m fine.” Meralda looked up. In her second sight, Mug was ablaze, lit within by tongues of fire.

  Tervis clambered up the stair. “I warned the watchmen and the guilds,” he said. “Is it time?”

  Meralda straightened. “It is time.”

  “Good luck, ma’am,” said Tervis. “Yell out, if you need us.” He turned, and hurried down the stair.

  Meralda turned her sight upon the Tower. “Well,” she said. “Have I forgotten anything?”

  “Aside from refusing to attempt the thing, no, you’ve made all the necessary preparations,” said Mug. He pushed eyes closer to Meralda.

  “Do be careful, Meralda,” he said. “I swear it’s watching you back.”

  Meralda frowned, but said nothing. She looked up and up, seeing the flat with her eyes, and the latch with her Sight, and she took a breath and found the first retaining wand with her right hand and lifted it.

  People in the park below saw, and the din of conversation muted. “Look!” cried a man. “Here she goes!”

  Meralda spoke the word that released the first refractor. The wand went hot, and then cold, and it twitched in her grasp as the spell leaped away toward the latch.

  A ragged hush moved over the crowd. Meralda felt hundreds of eyes upon her. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she resisted the urge to step back away from the rail and out of sight.

  The first spell reached the latch, and stopped. Meralda spoke and released the second, and the third, and the fourth, and then she dropped the frost-rimed wand in a bucket of water and watched and waited.

  Without Sight, Meralda knew, the Tower appeared unchanged. But seen through trained eyes, the latch was a murky sphere impaled by a quarter of the Tower’s upper length, and the refractors were shreds of playful rainbows racing and darting just within the sphere’s smooth skin.

  Meralda groped for her staff, her eyes still upon the spells. “To your right,” said Mug, and it was.

  “A bit of flourish, now,” said Mug. “The taxpayers are watching.”

  Meralda lifted her staff, and though shouting the final word was hardly necessary she did speak it in a loud, commanding voice.

  “Disperse!”

  Her staff made a cracking noise, like the breaking of dry timber, and the darting shreds of rainbows vanished as they fell into place. The dark sphere about the Tower grew fainter, and fainter, and though the Tower’s shadow was small and fat in the midday sun, the shadow shrank, inching back over the grass toward the foot of the Tower.

  “So far so good,” said Mug. Half his eyes were on the Tower. The other half were on the brass-faced stopwatch clicking madly away on Meralda’s workbench. “Fifteen seconds since unlatching.”

  Meralda turned her gaze from the flat and watched the shadow shrink. Spectators drew hastily back into the sun, though one child followed the line of darkness, stamping it with his foot as it moved, until he reached a stern-faced guard and was marched away from the Tower.

  “Forty seconds,” said Mug.

  Meralda wiped her brow with her hand. Elation rose within her. I’ve done it, she thought. It’s going to work.

  She turned her Sight back to the latch. Faint as distant smoke against the blue of the sky and the black of the Tower, Meralda struggled to see it.

  “Eighty seconds,” said Mug. “Shadow nearly gone.”

  Inside the latch, something moved.

  Meralda pushed. Sight can be intensified, its resolution limited only by the skill of the seer and the arcane qualities of the objects being seen. Meralda frowned and held her breath and extended her Sight so intently that her normal vision began to fade.

  The latch and the refractors were a spherical haze about the flat. Within the haze, though, things moved. Meralda saw barrel-sized masses, dark bulks against the Tower, circling the flat like falcons tethered to a pole. She counted as they flew. Six, eight, ten, a dozen.

  Meralda pushed her Sight further, hoping to distinguish details of the masses. Instead, she saw clearly the wakes each dark mass left in the latch as it flew. Wakes that represented wide, encircling rips in the structure of the latch.

  Rips that had, over the course of the night, torn the heart of the latch neatly in half.

  Meralda gasped and lifted her staff.

  “Thaumaturge?” said Mug. “Is there a problem?”

  Before Meralda could speak, the weakened latch darkened, swelled like a street minstrel’s balloon, and lost its grip on the Tower.

  The refractors within spun and tangled like rags in a whirlwind. The sky about the Tower flashed dark, then light, then dark again, blurring as the broken latch fell. Shouts and a few inebriated cheers rose up from the crowd as the latch and the refractors fell away from the flat and drifted toward the ground.

  The latch swelled again.

  Every bird in the park took sudden, noisy flight.

  Meralda spoke a word, and her staff went ice cold, but the latch still fell, unchecked. Five heartbeats and halfway down the Tower, the refractors began to flail about outside the wobbling orb of the latch. Shadows flew, and shafts of sunlight, and the cheers became shouts and a few onlookers took flight.

  Nearly at the Tower’s foot, the latch rolled away from the Tower entirely and proceeded down Wizard’s Walk. The walk cleared as people dashed aside, leaving Meralda and her platform directly in the latch’s wide path.

  “It’s a harmless collection of refractors, correct?” asked Mug, half his eyes still on the clock.

  Meralda nodded. That’s all it is, she said silently. But as she looked with her Sight within the rapidly approaching spellwork, the refractors came together in a writhing bunch, spun, and then grew still.

  Meralda blinked, and when she looked again, the shadows in the latch were gathered in the shape of an angry, open-mouthed face.

  Meralda shivered. The eyes in the face opened, and they burned like the eyes in her dream.

  “Otrinvion,” she heard, and Meralda knew the voice was not her own. “Vonashon, empalos, endera.�
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  Meralda’s sight broke. The latch loomed up and engulfed her, and shadows wheeled like birds, and then it was past and gone.

  Meralda squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, all she could see were moving bands of dark and light.

  “Mistress!” said Mug. “Are you all right?”

  Tervis came charging up the stair, heard Mug’s words, and leaped onto the platform.

  Meralda rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. She squinted back toward the park wall, her normal vision still blurred from her long use of Sight. “Is it gone?”

  “Earthed itself here, I think,” said Mug. “Probably on your staff.”

  Meralda blinked and stepped to the rail.

  The spectators, calmed now, were milling about, pointing and talking and laughing at the temerity of their fellows. “Good show!” came a shout from below. “Now that’s good magic!” bellowed another.

  Meralda waved and smiled, unable to make out much more than blobs of color and hints of movement.

  “Was it supposed to do that?” asked Tervis. “Come down and roll about, I mean.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” said Meralda. She turned back toward the Tower. “Guardsman. Quickly. Tell the mob of penswifts no doubt gathering at the foot of the stair that the test did what it was meant to do. Nothing more.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then get Kervis to go to the guards at the Tower door. Tell him to tell them that no one goes in or out. No one, for any reason, until I arrive. Is that clear?”

  Tervis nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Go.” Tervis sped away.

  Mug turned eyes on Meralda. “‘Until you arrive?’” he asked. “Why would you arrive at all? The latch failed. Did you see something I didn’t?”

  “I did,” she said, sorting through her instruments until her fingers found the cloth-wrapped wand that held her single ward work.

  Meralda felt it, and it was warm. It’s a killing spell, she thought. I never thought I’d cast a killing spell.

  Mug imitated the sound of fingers drumming in impatience, and Meralda drew her hand away. “Well?” said Mug. “You can’t go around claiming you saw strange things in the Tower and not provide details. It’s rude.” He pushed eyes toward Meralda. “You saw the face from your dream, didn’t you?”