All the Paths of Shadow

by Frank Tuttle

  Yet, thought Meralda. No harm just yet.

  “Still, we could perhaps test passing an inanimate object back and forth through the glass,” said Donchen, eyeing Meralda speculatively. “Something of your approximate mass and composition?”

  “Careful,” grumbled Mug.

  Meralda rose and brushed back her hair. “No. I’m sorry, Donchen, but the staves can either be trusted, or they cannot, and without them, we are already undone.” She held out her hands and took a deep breath. “Nameless, Faceless. To me, please.”

  The air about Meralda snapped, as if a solid door was slammed shut, and the staves appeared in her hands.

  “Mistress!” cried Mug.

  “Your mistress is a brave woman,” said Donchen. “Know that if she comes to harm I will set about finding a very sharp axe and a very hot fire.”

  Meralda smiled.

  “Did you hear?”

  “One heard,” came a voice Meralda knew only she could hear.

  “As did this one,” said the other. “Neither mages nor mirrors will suffer harm.”

  “To the Wizard’s Flat,” she said.

  The staves leaped in her hand. The laboratory simply vanished. She felt the slightest, most subtle sensation of being lifted, and then—

  Then, the Wizard’s Flat.

  Bright sun streamed through the windows. Silence gripped the air. With the door still shut, not a single sound penetrated the Tower’s thick walls.

  Meralda let go of the staves. They flew to their indentations in the floor and stood there, still and quiet in the sunlight.

  “Thank you,” said Meralda.

  “Mistress! Mistress, we can see you,” cried Mug’s voice, from Meralda’s pocket. “Are you all right? Are you all there? Donchen is pacing, mistress. Muttering about kindling wood.”

  Meralda raised Tam’s speaking device to her lips and smiled. “I’m perfectly intact, Mug,” she said. “It wasn’t even unpleasant.”

  She heard Mug sigh in relief.

  “Well, what now, mistress?”

  “I’m here, Mug. I might as well get to work. I’ll be busy for a bit. Watch, but please don’t speak.”

  Meralda dropped the speaking device back in her pocket, closed her eyes, and raised her Sight.

  “I may need some assistance here,” she said. She felt the staves place themselves in her hands, felt the first rush of power flow from them and toward her.

  “Sight,” she said aloud.

  The hidden spaces that filled the flat revealed themselves, one by one, wonder by wonder.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The Times is predicting rain for the commencement ceremony, mistress,” said Mug, shuffling quickly through the newspapers scattered on a workbench with quick motions of his vines. “The Post is promising sun.”

  Meralda shrugged, her attention focused on the delicate mesh of steel she struggled to solder in place between two curved lengths of springy copper. Smoke rose up and tickled her nose, and she bit back a sneeze as she secured the last bit of steel and held it fast to let the molten solder cool.

  The Accords begin tomorrow, she thought. And if I am unable to restore the tethers, rain will be the least of anyone’s problems.

  “Done,” she said, frowning at her handiwork. “That should speed things up in the flat.”

  Mug swiveled half his eyes toward her latest creation.

  “You’re getting very good at metal-working, you know.”

  “Thank you, Mug.”

  A soft knock, one-two-three, one-two-three, one, sounded at the door.

  “That would be supper,” observed Mug. “He’s certainly punctual, your Donchen. That’s a fine quality in a man, you know.”

  Meralda turned so Mug wouldn’t see her blush. “He’s hardly my Donchen,” she said, before walking for the door.

  Mug chuckled at her back.

  Donchen and his cart trundled into the room, filling the laboratory with the smell of the Hang dishes Meralda was coming to love. Donchen smiled above his cart and greeted Meralda with a sweeping bow.

  “Your dinner is served,” he said, in a perfect rendition of a refined Eryan accent. “I took the liberty of providing the Bellringers with egg rolls and fried rice.”

  Meralda laughed and executed a curtsey. “Why thank you, kind sir. I do hope you’ll join me?”

  Donchen smiled. “After I see us served, of course,” he said. “Pray be seated, while I prepare the table.”

  Mug groaned from across the room. “I’m still trying to heal over here, you two,” he cried. “This isn’t helping.”

  Donchen pushed the cart to Meralda’s desk, covered it with a stark white linen tablecloth, and began dispensing the meal. “I brought you a decanter of spring water, all the way from my homeland,” he said, to Mug. “This particular spring is said to both heal the wounded and grant them one wish.”

  “I wish my new eye to be yellow, then,” said Mug. He waved a small, but growing eye bud toward Donchen. “See? The one I lost is budding back out.”

  Donchen leaned down and inspected the bloom critically. “You heal quickly, Mr. Mug. I am glad to see that.”

  Meralda found chopsticks and glasses and poured cold tea from a silver pitcher.

  “He’s doing remarkably well.” Donchen reached into the cart and produced a crystal flask capped by a delicate filigree of silver worked into the shape of a grinning dragon’s head.

  “The spring water,” he said.

  Meralda took the flask and watched it glitter in the light as it turned. “Do all the springs in Hang grant wishes?”

  Donchen grinned. “According to some. I am of a more skeptical bent. But the healing qualities of this spring are at least supported by some evidence.”

  “You are certainly free with the treasures of the House of Chentze,” said Meralda.

  Donchen shrugged. “The waters of healing are best drunk by the wounded.”

  “That has the sound of a proverb.”

  Donchen straightened the napkins, nudged an errant piece of rice back into its bowl, and brought his hands together.

  “It is just that. Part of a legend, actually. Would you care to hear the rest?”

  Meralda pulled back his chair and motioned him to sit. He laughed and sat.

  Meralda pulled her own chair close to his.

  “I’m starved. You talk. I’ll eat.”

  Donchen handed her an egg roll, and began his story.

  “He’s twenty-two, by the way.”

  “Who?”

  Mug rolled his remaining twenty-eight eyes. “Your friendly Hang ghost. Donchen. He’s twenty-two years old. Not really so much older than you.”

  Meralda frowned. “And just how do you suddenly know his age?”

  “I said ‘Tell me how old you are.’ He said ‘twenty-two’. I asked him if those were the same as Tirlish years, and he went into a wholly unnecessary explanation of planetary rotation, but the upshot is that yes, Hang years and Realm years are the same thing. So he’s twenty-two and now you know and you are very welcome.”

  Meralda felt her cheeks flushing. “I didn’t ask you to ask the man his age!”

  “No, and that would have been another very simple question.” Mug brought a wobbling cluster of blue eyes toward Meralda. “Mistress, I may be a bit vegetative, but I’ve lived with you mobile folk long enough to know a few things. About gentlemen and ladies…”

  “Mugglewort Ovis. That is quite enough.” Meralda rose and stalked away. “The very existence of Tirlin hangs by a thread. The Vonats are aiming spells who knows where this very moment. The Accords may see an epic disaster born. Do you really think I have time to behave like some…” she fought for words “…moon-eyed schoolgirl?”

  “I understand the situation, mistress. I do. But to reply to a question with a question, what better time than now to, um, explore exciting new friendships, shall we say?”

  “Any time would be better than now, if I wanted such a thing.”

  �
��Which you clearly don’t.”

  “Of course I don’t. He is a Hang noble of some sort. Or a spy. Or both.”

  “When he isn’t cooking you elaborate meals, that is.”

  “I haven’t asked for a single scrap, Mug, and you know that!”

  A knock sounded at the door. Kervis stuck his head inside and peeked about.

  “I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee,” he said. “And some pastries.”

  “Bring them in,” said Meralda, with a final glare at Mug. “I’ll be working all night.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the Bellringer. He brought a carafe of coffee and a plate full of donuts inside and placed them carefully on a workbench.

  “Anything else, ma’am?”

  “No,” said Meralda, suddenly weary. “Thank you. That was very thoughtful.”

  Kervis nodded and darted back through the doors.

  Mug turned his eyes back toward the glass and began to hum. Meralda poured a cup of coffee and returned to her calculations, pretending she didn’t recognize the old Phendelit wedding march Mug sang.

  Twenty-two. He looks a bit older, mused Meralda, instantly chiding herself for doing so. What difference does it make to me, whether Donchen is twenty-two or sixty-two? If we survive the Accords he’ll soon be boarding that monstrous ship of his and sailing away forever, anyway. Even the Hang can’t cross the Great Sea on a whim.

  “Seven times five is most certainly not sixty,” said Mug. He pointed with a vine toward Meralda’s latest scribble. “Someone’s mind is wandering.”

  Meralda crossed out the error and resumed her calculations without a word. Mug regarded her with a pair of sad blue eyes for a moment, before turning his attention back to the mirror, and its slow deliberate sweeps of the halls and corridors near the laboratory.

  “Are you sure this is necessary? It’s nearly midnight, mistress.”

  Meralda shook her head. “I know the time, Mug. What of it?”

  “The Tower. At midnight. Hello? Haunted tower, dead of night? You don’t see a potential for mischief anywhere in that description?”

  “I can assure you my volume is free of any phantasmal presences,” said Tower. Meralda thought she heard a hint of amusement in Tower’s careful tone. “At midnight, or any other hour.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t bloody know if you were haunted, now would you? That’s how ghosts work. Showing up where you know they can’t possibly be.”

  “So the presence of a ghost is confirmed by the absence of a ghost?”

  Meralda raised her hand for silence. “I’m going, Mug. Tower will be with me. So will Nameless and Faceless. I can’t save the kingdom on banker’s hours.”

  “I still don’t trust you-know-who and you-know-what,” whispered Mug.

  “I know.” Meralda rose, picked up her equipment bag, and moved to her workbench, where she began sorting the instruments strewn atop it and filling her bag. Holdstones, wire mesh field director, spare latching wands, a dagger in my boot. I might as well wear a helm and carry a sword, too. Maybe then Mug would stop tossing his leaves at me.

  Midnight, in the Tower. Meralda shivered and pushed the thought aside. Tower is hardly an ancient spectre of evil. And I am hardly a fainting penny-novel maiden, ready to swoon at the first sight of an errant shadow or sound of far-off laughter.

  “That should suffice.” Meralda looped the bag strap over her shoulder and faced Mug and the mirror. “Nameless, Faceless. To me, if you please.”

  The staves appeared in her hands.

  “Be careful, mistress.”

  Before Meralda could reply, she was whisked away into the flat.

  Mug watched as Meralda’s form blurred for an instant before simply vanishing. Even with his fastest eyes, he could see nothing of her actual passage through Goboy’s fragile old glass.

  “I’m never going to get used to that,” he muttered.

  Then he sought out Meralda’s shadowy form in the darkness of the flat.

  Meralda worked in the dark, using only her Sight and her touch to carefully weave her own tether spells among the turnings of the damaged originals.

  Tower murmured to her, now and then, his soft words relayed by Mug through the speaking device.

  The first new tether took root in Tower’s central shaft, and then spiraled out, wrapping the old tether as it went, and stopping just short of attaching itself to the cursework whirling through the night.

  “Done,” said Meralda.

  “I shall count,” said Tower, through Mug. “One. Two. Three…”

  Thirty seconds passed.

  The tether held.

  Meralda let out her breath.

  “Mistress,” said Mug, his tone hushed. “It worked.”

  Meralda sank to her knees for a moment. Her heart pounded, and her head felt light, and for an instant she nearly lost her Sight.

  This may work after all, she thought. I didn’t truly believe it would.

  Tower spoke. “I am prepared to proceed with the remaining structures when you are ready, Mage. Well done.”

  Meralda rose. “My feet are killing me,” she said.

  Mug laughed. “Words for the ages, mistress. You take all the time you need.”

  Meralda stretched, yawned, and straightened. “Let’s get this done.” Then she extended her Sight, and began latching the second tether to Tower’s central spellwork.

  One by one, the tethers latched, coiled, and spun. Tower reported no wobbling or changes in speed. Meralda sent Nameless and Faceless out into the night, pushing her Sight through them, watching the circling curseworks for any sign of trouble, and seeing none.

  The new tethers glowed bright amid Tower’s ancient spells. Meralda loosed the final portion of her spell upon them, concealing them from any Sight other than her own, and one by one they dimmed and appeared to vanish.

  From far down the Tower, there came the sound of tramping boots upon the stair.

  Meralda froze. The sound stopped.

  Perhaps I’m imagining things, she thought. I’m exhausted.

  A cough echoed up through the dark.

  Meralda closed her hand tight about the speaking device and brought her finger to her lips.

  “Mistress, what is it?” whispered Mug.

  Meralda pointed down, and then she released the brass shaft that activated the speaking device.

  The unmistakable sound of boots scraping on the stair resumed.

  I can’t have Mug shouting about ghosts when he hears that, she thought.

  “Staves,” she mouthed, silently. “To me.”

  Nameless and Faceless fell silently into her hands.

  Meralda moved to the open door, keeping to the edge of it. The night was moonless and dark, but stray city lights through the windows in the flat might still show her outline to anyone on the stair, if they were looking up.

  Meralda listened.

  Someone was in the Tower. Someone was on the stair, still far below, but climbing.

  Meralda knew the park was under full night guard, and the Tower doors were locked and warded and ringed with a dozen hawk-eyed Special Duty soldiers who were, themselves, being watched by another two dozen palace regulars. And probably Fromarch and Shingvere and whatever odd magics they had aimed at the place.

  But the boots scraped and the man coughed again and Meralda even saw a faint blob of yellow-gold light begin to bob on the stair, far below.

  “One comes,” said Nameless from her right hand.

  “He is hidden by strange magics,” said Faceless from her left.

  “Is he known to you?”

  “Humindorus Nam.”

  “Shall we strike him down?”

  Images formed in Meralda’s mind’s eye.

  She saw the staves swooping down, saw them striking at the Vonat like hawks. Saw him scream and flail and fall, shrieking, shrieking, gone.

  She saw how she could remove his spells even as he fell. Saw how she could take them into her, make them hers, make them far more powerful t
han the Vonat ever imagined they could become.

  “You could defeat him that easily?”

  “Who can say?”

  “Shall we try?”

  The single word ‘yes’ formed on Meralda’s lips. Such an easy word to say. And why not say it? The man sought out the destruction of Tirlin. He is obviously here to ready his deadly electrical spell, so the commencement speech will see the death of hundreds.

  And he tried to kill me, just days ago.

  Why not say yes?

  So easy to say yes.

  She felt a peculiar expectant silence from the staves.

  What would Tam have done?

  “You know your master’s likeness,” mouthed Meralda, to the staves.

  “Indeed,” they chorused.

  “Clothe me in it. His likeness. His voice. The aspect of his magics. Can you do that?”

  “It is done,” said Nameless. “Behold.”

  The air before Meralda became a brief mirror, and in it stood Otrinvion the Black.

  He was indeed tall, as the legends said. Tall and scarred and black-haired and dark-eyed. His beard covered many of the scars on his face, but not all. The hands that gripped the staves were huge, strong, covered in sigils and runes which moved and changed shape.

  Meralda looked away, lest those eyes peer right into the secret places in her soul.

  “It has been long since we beheld him,” said Nameless.

  “May he rest in peace,” said Faceless.

  The mirror vanished.

  “Maintain this appearance,” said Meralda. She took a deep breath. “His voice, too.”

  Meralda took to the stair, stepping quietly until Nameless showed her a way to silence her own movements. After that, she walked quickly, watching the Vonat’s tiny light weave and wobble its way up toward her.

  Meralda stopped.

  Humindorus Nam stopped as well. His light flared suddenly brighter. The sound of harsh Vonat words, spoken in a chant, echoed up the Tower’s empty expanse.

  “Now?” asked Nameless.

  “Now,” said Meralda.

  Her awareness merged with that of the staves.

  Light, she thought, and light there was, blazing from both staves, flooding the midnight dark of the Tower with the sudden harsh light of day.