The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  Throughout these last months, Eldyn had received but a single letter from Dercy, and this had contained but a few lines stating that he had arrived in the country safely and was staying at the house of his cousin, who was vicar in a small parish. That was all.

  More than once, Eldyn had been tempted to buy a seat on the post and travel to the country. Only he knew he could not. After all, there was nothing he could do that might heal Dercy. In one violent, rending act, Archdeacon Lemarck had stolen more than half a lifetime of light from Dercy—afflicting him with the mordoth in the process. After those awful events, he had traveled to his cousin’s house to convalesce.

  Only it wasn’t simply for the purpose of recuperation that Dercy had departed the city. Given how little light he had left, he could not ever risk crafting illusions again. Which meant he had to get away from Durrow Street, and from anything that might tempt him to make illusions.

  Or from anyone. That included his friends at the Theater of the Moon. And that included Eldyn as well. It was vital that Dercy conserve his light, and being around other illusionists could only entice him to do the opposite—at least until such a time came when he had truly learned to set such temptations aside. Which meant that the only thing Eldyn could do to help Dercy was to wait for him.

  And Eldyn would wait for him, no matter how long it took.

  So it was, when he was not at the theater, there was nothing to distract Eldyn from dedicating himself to the study of making impressions. As it turned out, it was a good thing he had such a surplus of time. Eldyn quickly realized he was going to need it. Fortunately, he had an exceedingly patient teacher in Perren.

  Indeed, so generously did Perren give of his time—in exchange for nothing save the punch or whiskey, which Eldyn always bought—that Eldyn often marveled at the entire situation. When he considered it, he could only suppose Perren was passing along the kindness that had been done to him by the illusionist who taught him to craft impressions. Or perhaps it was Eldyn’s own diligence which inspired him. Besides, it was not as if they did not find amusement in their lessons, which often ended only when they were both of them too merry from drink to either teach or be taught.

  During those first few lessons, Eldyn simply watched. From what he had heard before, he had believed that, when making an impression, an illusionist’s thoughts somehow directly affected the surface of the engraving plate which he held in his hands.

  He was entirely mistaken.

  Instead, Perren would begin by heating a waxen substance—one that had particular properties—in a small pot over a flame. Then he would use a boar bristle brush to carefully apply a thin coating of the substance to the polished surface of a copper plate. It was called impression rosin, and it was this material, Perren explained, that actually responded to what the illusionist envisioned in his mind.

  If done properly, it all happened very quickly. Afterward, the plate was submerged in a bath of mordant. The acidic mordant etched the copper plate anywhere the coating of rosin had been pushed aside from the surface by the force of the illusionist’s thoughts. Then the plate was rinsed and the rosin stripped away, leaving it ready to be rolled with ink and pressed against paper to make a print.

  “It’s just like shaping the light with your thoughts,” Eldyn had said after that first time he watched Perren at his craft.

  “It is, with one important difference,” Perren said.

  “What’s that?”

  “When you craft an illusion, you can conjure anything you can imagine. But you can only make an impression of something you’ve witnessed yourself. And it has to be exactly as you saw it. If you try to alter even one small detail, the whole impression will fail.”

  Eldyn was astonished by this, but intrigued as well. “But why? Why can’t you just make up a scene in an impression?”

  “It’s a property of the impression rosin,” Perren explained. “It will only let you tell the truth.”

  Maybe that was why making impressions was so difficult, Eldyn thought. It was easy to envision a scene. But it was devilishly hard to envision it truly—as he discovered the first time he attempted to make an impression. He did this using a scratch plate—one that was too damaged to be used for printing—as engraving plates were costly. He shut his eyes and concentrated with all his might, seemingly to no effect. Only then, just as he was about to give up, he thought he saw the faintest glimmer of green light against his eyelids. At the same time he had the sensation of something shifting or giving way.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw two things. The first was Perren’s grin, his blue eyes bright behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. The other was a small but distinct smudge in the rosin that covered the plate.

  Though small, it was a beginning, and it gave him hope. After that, it was really nothing more than a matter of long hours of practice, learning to touch the rosin with his thoughts and shape it just as he had previously learned to touch and shape light. As for what the rosin exactly was, and what was contained in it, Perren could not say. In the entire city, there were only three illusionists who made impression rosin, and all of them were reluctant to share the secret of its formula.

  All Eldyn knew was that when he shaped the rosin with his thoughts, he would always see a green light against his eyelids. And the better he got at shaping it, the brighter the light grew.

  There was much more to it than just affecting the rosin that coated the engraving plate, of course. Indeed, that was the simplest part. Much harder was learning to see in an entirely different way—to see the truth. Eldyn had always thought he was an observant person, but he quickly learned how wrong he had been when Perren set down a dozen playing cards face up on a table, then quickly turned them over and asked Eldyn to tell him the number of pips on each one.

  That first time, Eldyn got hardly any of them right. But the more he practiced, the more he got. Soon he could recall the face value and position of a dozen cards that had been flipped over, then twenty-four, and then thirty-six. He and Perren would walk around the city, and suddenly Perren would stop him, tell him to shut his eyes, and order him to describe everything around them in minutest detail.

  After two months of preparation and practice, Perren finally let him try his skills on a real engraving plate, not a scrap. After three months, they finally submitted a plate to the bath of mordant to etch it, then made a print. The result was so blurry as to be incomprehensible, but Eldyn used some of his wages from the theater to buy more plates and impression rosin (and more whiskey and punch for Perren and himself) and kept trying.

  Then, just yesterday, he had at last created an impression that was good enough to have a chance at being printed in a broadsheet. Perren had known it the moment he took the plate from Eldyn, or so he said—even before they etched it in mordant and ran off that hasty print. They had left Perren’s room above the Theater of Mirrors and rushed across the Old City to the offices of The Swift Arrow on Coronet Street.

  And now, here before him, was the result.

  “Well, I am sure we will have more time later to look at Mr. Garritt’s fine work,” Master Tallyroth said. “However, there is to be a performance tonight—providing this awful lumenal ever sees fit to end. Yet I can only assume it will at some point, and I remain unconvinced that everyone fully comprehends the new staging. Let us proceed through it once more.” He thumped his cane against the stage. “Take your places, gentlemen!”

  The master illusionist of the Theater of the Moon was a frail man with a powdered face, dressed in a ruffled coat of black velvet, but he might have been a general on the battlefield for the way the illusionists responded to this order. The players sprang into motion, hurrying across the stage to take up their positions. Not wanting to be last, Eldyn hastily set the broadsheet down and found his mark.

  “And begin!” Master Tallyroth called out.

  At once, the stage was transformed into a cloudscape beneath a brilliant blue sky. With a thought, Eldyn shaped the dusty light into the pear
lescent form of a winged horse, galloping among the clouds. This time the horse was not riderless, for Riethe was here to complete the phantasm. He made a gesture with his fingers, and suddenly a maiden rode upon the back of the horse. She was clad in a flowing gold gown with a laurel wreath upon her brow and a blazing torch in her hand.

  The clouds parted, and the maiden swooped down on the winged horse. Below her, rows of stiff figures marched across the stage. They were conjured only as faceless, shadowy outlines—for artistic effect, and also because it would have been too difficult to conjure them all in detail. Moving among the soldiers were several illusionists, clad in black themselves in order to blend in. They carried banners on poles: green hawks fluttering against a white background.

  As the maiden raised her torch, beams of gold light radiated from it toward the army below. Each time one of the gold rays struck a shadowy figure, it raised its arms as if in agony, then vanished. In moments the army was destroyed, and the banners clattered to the stage. The horse and the golden maiden flew back up, disappearing into the clouds.

  That was Eldyn’s cue. He ceased the illusion of the horse, as it was now out of sight, then conjured a silvery aura around himself and stepped onto the stage, moving stealthily and casting looks as he went. When he reached center stage, he made a play of noticing one of the fallen banners and picked up a corner of the cloth. He laughed, then let the cloth fall and hurried the rest of the way across the stage.

  Tallyroth banged his cane again. The clouds dissipated, and the players all returned to gather around him to hear his pronouncement.

  “Well,” the master illusionist said, the corner of his mouth turning up just a fraction, “perhaps you grasp the new staging, after all.”

  Riethe grinned. “Of course we do, now that I’m here.”

  This resulted in several groans, and someone resummoned one of the clouds over Riethe’s head, only now it was dark, and bolts of lightning stabbed down at the big illusionist’s skull. He made a pantomime as if he had been struck a blow, clapping a hand to his brow and staggering about as the groans became laughter. That was Riethe—an enormous idiot, but hard not to like.

  “Go on, then,” Master Tallyroth declared. “Go get some rest before the performance tonight—whenever tonight shall be.”

  So directed, the illusionists all bounded from the stage like boys released from study by their schoolmaster, and Eldyn with them.

  THE SUN LURCHED to the horizon, and night fell at last. The theaters opened their doors, and lights were conjured and tossed into the sky to signal to the city that the houses of illusion on Durrow Street were ready for business. By the time the curtain rose, the theater was only half full, but that was better than some nights. And there was hope the next night would be better, for the audience heartily applauded and stamped their boots at the newly added scene. Eldyn could only be glad for this, even if he could not say he cared much for the scene himself.

  It was expertly designed, of course, as were all of Master Tallyroth’s scenes. The problem was that it had little to do with the rest of the illusion play. It was the charter of the Theater of the Moon, granted by the Guild of Illusionists, to tell the story of the Sun King and the Moon Prince—how the former ever pursues the latter, but can never really catch him. For even when it seems the silvery youth is captured at last, and the Sun burns him to a cinder, the Moon is reborn to grow and shine forth once again.

  Despite this deviation from the usual theme of the illusion play, Master Tallyroth had little choice in the matter—not if the theater was to remain in business.

  Was it really just a few months ago that the receipt box had been overflowing after each night’s performance? It seemed so long since that time. Their play had become a sensation on Durrow Street, and its notoriety was only increased by the series of performances they gave that led to the downfall of the Archdeacon of Graychurch—after exposing him as an illusionist who had used his abilities to drive the Archbishop of Invarel mad.

  Only then King Rothard died, succumbing to his long illness, and the city entered the required period of mourning. By law during this time, displays of public merriment were halted, and so all of the theaters on Durrow Street were forced to shut their doors, going dark for two months. By the time the period of mourning was over, only half of the theaters that had shut their doors could open them again. Things had already been difficult on Durrow Street prior to the king’s death, and many of the theaters did not have funds enough to survive so long a closure.

  The Theater of the Moon was one of the luckier houses, for Madame Richelour had reserved much of the earnings from their success, and so it endured. But things hardly improved once the theaters opened again. When people were worried about having coins enough for bread and candles, they tended to spare few of them for more frivolous expenses such as seeing an illusion play.

  Of course, there were still plenty of people in Altania who had great amounts of money to spend. After all, if certain broadsheets were to be believed, it was the fact that so few possessed so much, while so many had so little, that provided the tinder the rebels were trying to spark into a fire. That disparity seemed to increase daily in Invarel as more folk fled the troubles in the Outlands and came to the city carrying what little they possessed on their backs and in their pockets. At the same time, a number of lords, baronets, and well-to-do gentry had departed the city, making for their estates in the east and south of the country to remove themselves as far as possible.

  Of those moneyed individuals who remained, fewer were willing to venture down to Durrow Street. Every day the newspapers printed stories of robberies of the most violent sort that occurred in the Old City. Thus it was, even with only half the number of theaters as there had been, they were making less than half of what they had before.

  The only sort of audience they could really count on attracting to the theater these days were soldiers, for the number of them stationed in the city had greatly increased. This might have been a boon, as the redcrests were paid regularly and, when off duty, had little to do for amusement, most of them being young, unattached, and away from home.

  Unfortunately, there were only two sorts of illusion plays that generally appealed to soldiers, these being burlesques or patriotic displays. Or better yet, a combination of both—for a buxom wench who waved the national banner before gustily offering herself up to an entire company of soldiers was a sight that always seemed to win approval.

  Yet popular as such things might be, a scene like that would never be found at the Theater of the Moon. Madame Richelour refused to have a burlesque on her stage. Still, some concession to popular sentiment had to be made—hence the addition of the new scene with the golden maiden. Gold was one of the three colors of the national banner (the others being blue and green), and with her laurel crown and the winged horse, the maiden was intended to evoke a goddess of ancient Tharos. This in turn was meant to bring the princess, Layle Arringhart, to mind, as tradition held that the Arringhart line was descended from the emperors of Tharos.

  In all, it was far from a ribald farce such as soldiers might find at another theater, but the maiden was made to be very pretty, and the audience, composed largely of soldiers, cheered when she used her blazing torch to smite down the shadowy army. That the army was meant to represent the rebel forces of Huntley Morden could not be made more plain given the banner they carried, which bore the green Morden hawk.

  It was all dreadfully obvious, and not particularly artistic. But it was spectacle, and they executed it well. Based on the vigorous applause, their audience tomorrow would likely be bigger than tonight’s, and for their efforts Madame Richelour rewarded the players with a few extra coins. Not so many as she might have given them in the past, but more than enough for them to get sufficiently drunk. This was a task the illusionists undertook at once, and they proceeded from the theater directly to the Red Jester. Soon the tavern’s dank interior was made light by their laughter as well as the phantasms they spontane
ously conjured.

  Eldyn was already on his second cup of punch before he realized Perren was there at the tavern. Perren was a somewhat roundish young man with a habit of wearing rumpled clothes of the blandest colors, and the soft outlines in which he was drawn tended to cause him to fade into whatever was around him. This was in fact a good trait for an illusionist, for he would never distract from his illusions, though it sometimes made him difficult to spot in the smoky interior of a tavern.

  But there he was, sitting in the corner by himself, looking at a broadsheet. This behavior in no way surprised Eldyn. If he did not know Perren was an illusionist, he would have taken him for a lawyer or a clerk. Then again, as Eldyn had been a clerk himself once, he felt a common bond with Perren. Not all illusionists could be so brash and flamboyant as Riethe—thank the light.

  Taking up a second cup of punch, Eldyn headed to the corner where the other young man sat alone.

  “Perren, why didn’t you say you were here?”

  “I was just … that is, you looked like you were occupied.”

  “Nonsense. I could never be too busy for you—especially tonight.”

  Perren smiled at this, but he quickly ducked his head, and Eldyn could only marvel. He had never met so shrinking a fellow as Perren. They had known each other for months now, and had spent hours together working on impressions. There was hardly cause to be bashful.

  Well, Eldyn knew how to get Perren in a bolder mood. He sat across from him and slid the extra cup of punch across the table. It was a good thing he had brought it over, for Perren seemed in great need of it. He took up the cup and, in several gulps, drained it. Eldyn took a sip from his own cup.

  “We did it, Perren,” he said, feeling exceedingly pleased. He tapped the broadsheet on the table. It was that day’s copy of The Swift Arrow, with Eldyn’s impression on the front page.

  Perren shook his head. “You mean you did it.”