The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  This was bad news indeed, though not entirely unexpected.

  “What now?” Riethe had asked, his face as gray as the sawdust in the bucket.

  They all adored Tallyroth, but the big illusionist perhaps more than any of them. No one received more scolding from the master illusionist—or more fatherly affection—than Riethe, and no one did more for him in return. Riethe was always at some task or running some errand for the master. It would have been him up in Tallyroth’s room at his bedside, except they all knew Merrick was the better choice, for he had spent three years apprenticing to a physician before becoming an illusionist.

  “Won’t he just get better again, if he stops conjuring phantasms like before?” Riethe said.

  Merrick did not answer, but he didn’t need to. Eldyn knew it wasn’t that simple. Refraining from creating illusions had kept Tallyroth’s mordoth from worsening, but it hadn’t made it any better, either. After all, a man only had so much light in him. And given his weakened condition, there was only one way Tallyroth could have conjured the illusions that he had tonight—by drawing on his own inner light.

  Which meant he now had less light than ever to sustain the force of his own life. It had been terribly foolish. And terribly brave. Above all else, the show—that was the motto of the Siltheri.

  “I’m going to the Theater of the Doves,” Merrick said at last. “The master illusionist there is an old friend of Tallyroth’s, and I’ve heard he knows more about the mordoth than anyone on Durrow Street. He may have some advice about what we need to do.”

  Riethe laid one of his big hands on Merrick’s thin, stooped shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Merrick gave a wordless nod, then was gone into the night. After that they finished their work in the theater, then went up to bed.

  Now, Eldyn put his foot on the first step, thinking to go up to Master Tallyroth’s room. Only that could serve no purpose other than to disturb him, and that was the last thing Eldyn wanted to do. Last night, Merrick had said Tallyroth needed sleep more than anything else. Besides, if there had been any great change in his condition, one of the others would have woken him. It was better to let him rest, and then talk to Merrick later.

  Eldyn turned from the steps and headed out the back door of the theater into the alley beyond. It was time to find some coffee before his headache grew any worse.

  There were several coffeehouses along Durrow Street, but Eldyn didn’t patronize any of them. They were no more disreputable than the taverns on the street, but while strong rum might taste fine coming from a chipped or dirty cup, the same wasn’t true for weak coffee. So despite the ache in his head, he walked some distance to a coffeehouse on King’s Street. It was a small establishment and tended to be quiet—something which suited both his mood and his head.

  He sat near the window, sipping from a hot cup. He had drunk no more than a quarter of it, though, when a flash of blue passed just on the other side of the window.

  It was a soldier running along King’s Street, his hand on the hilt of the saber that was belted alongside a pistol at his hip. Two more soldiers followed after him a second later, moving as swiftly as the first, the red plumes on their helmets whipping as they went.

  Surprised, Eldyn stared out the window. Where were the soldiers going in such a hurry? He didn’t know. But given the way they were running, and the hard looks on their faces, there must be some commotion there. Which meant maybe there was some scene worth making an impression of. He hadn’t sold anything to the publisher of The Swift Arrow since the impression of the princess, and he could do with some coin if he wanted to buy more engraving plates and impression rosin.

  Eldyn took one last swig of his coffee, then regretfully set the cup down. Well, if he sold another impression, he could afford many more cups. He tossed a coin on the table, then dashed out the door of the coffeehouse. Looking down the street, he glimpsed three flecks of red just a moment before they vanished around a corner.

  If he didn’t hurry, he was going to lose them. Eldyn broke into a run himself, weaving among horses, carts, and startled people who glared and shook their fists at him as he careened past, having just recovered from the abrupt passage of the soldiers.

  He was panting for breath by the time he reached the intersection where the soldiers had turned. While performing at the theater was physically demanding, it did not exactly provide the sort of vigorous exercise that running for long periods required, and he was still weary from last night’s exertions. All the same, he did not let up his pace as he turned the corner and ran down the broad avenue.

  He had lost sight of the soldiers, but he quickly knew he was still going in the right direction when a big bay gelding nearly ran him down from behind. The rider wore a blue coat marked with the gold stripes of an officer, and he spurred the horse in a gallop down the street.

  Eldyn ran after the horse. Now a low, roaring sound emanated from up ahead. It sounded almost like rushing water, though there was a rhythm to it he almost but didn’t quite recognize. The street had suddenly become deserted, so that he no longer had to dodge and weave among carriages and passersby. All the same, he was forced to slow to a walk, for his lungs were afire and his side ached.

  It was only then that he realized where he was. So intent had he been on following the soldiers that he hadn’t looked up to see where it was they were leading him. Now he did. This was University Street, and in the distance rose the spires that surmounted the various colleges.

  A dread welled up in Eldyn. He suddenly thought he knew where the soldiers were going. Despite the burning in his lungs, he lowered his head and broke back into a run. The street bent to the left, then ended on the edge of the open expanse of Covenant Cross.

  Only the cobbled square was anything but open. Wooden crates, barrels, and loose timbers had been heaped into makeshift barricades. Some of them were on fire, and the air was hazed with the resulting smoke. The tolling of bells rang out, a counterpoint to the clatter of hooves and the rhythmic, roaring noise, which Eldyn now realized was chanting.

  Feeling suddenly exposed, Eldyn shrank against the wall of a bookshop and, hardly thinking about it, brought in close what shadows could be found along the edges of the street. From that vantage, he could see a great portion of Covenant Cross.

  There were dozens of young men in the center of the square—no, he amended, hundreds of them—hurling rocks and pieces of wood toward the soldiers and waving flags that bore the crests of various colleges. There were the seven rings of Gauldren’s College, the crossed quills of Highhall, the crook and miter of Bishop’s College, and even the gold chalice of Eldyn’s old college, St. Berndyn’s. As the flags waved to and fro, the young men shouted a slogan over and over, though Eldyn could not make out what it was for the way it echoed and reechoed about the cross.

  The soldiers were gathered to Eldyn’s right, on the east end of the square, out of range of anything the students might throw. There were at least thirty of them, and a good number more on horse, but they were still vastly outnumbered. What’s more, the various barricades and obstacles prevented them from advancing in any sort of formation which might have afforded them some protection. Instead, to progress toward the center of the square, they would have to break up into smaller groups to pass around the heaps of wood and refuse.

  Even as Eldyn watched, some soldiers went up to one of the barricades to begin dismantling it. At the same time, several of the university men rushed up and tossed burning brands onto the barricade. It quickly burst into flame, obviously having been primed with some form of fuel, and the soldiers were forced to retreat as the flames leaped up.

  Eldyn regarded this scene in astonishment. He knew that students from the university had marched several times since Gauldren’s College was shut down, and that some of the protests had been unruly in nature. But this wasn’t merely a case of young men making impromptu mischief as an excuse to avoid attending lectures. Erecting the barricades must have taken a great amount of effort and
coordination. Also, there was a fervor to the shouting of the students—an anger that was as palpably hot as the flames that rose up from the burning barricades. More missiles of stone and wood were launched in the direction of the soldiers.

  A young man in a brown coat came running up University Street from the direction Eldyn had come, a broadsheet wadded up in his hand.

  “Ho there!” Eldyn said, leaping out of the shadows and grabbing the other man’s arm as he passed. “What’s going on here?”

  “What’s it look like?” the other fellow replied in a voice that had a noticeable West Country inflection, and he gave a wide grin. “The university men are trying to get a rise out of the soldiers. And it looks like they’re doing a right fine job of it.”

  Eldyn gaped at him. “But the soldiers have guns!”

  “Aye, and we have rocks and torches,” the other man said, his grin vanishing. “And there are more of us than them, so if they think we’re afraid of their pistols, then they can think again. Besides, if we don’t put up against them now, they’ll just come for us later when we’re not all banded together, and take us in ones and twos.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Can’t I? And why don’t you just ask old Mrs. Haddon what she thinks about that?”

  Eldyn shook his head. “What are you talking about? Mrs. Haddon is in Barrowgate.”

  “Not anymore she’s not.” He thrust the crumpled broadsheet against Eldyn’s chest. “Here, read it for yourself. Then either come join us, or stay out of our way.” And he ran into Covenant Cross, ducking around a barricade and vanishing through a cloud of smoke.

  Eldyn pressed his back to the wall. He smoothed out the wrinkles from the newspaper. It took him a moment to find the article. Then he saw the small headline near the bottom of the first page, and as he read it he knew the reason why this demonstration was larger and angrier than the others.

  COFFEEHOUSE PROPRIETRESS, TRAITOR TO HANG AT DAWN, read a dark line of print.

  He wasn’t certain when the sun had risen that morning, but it had to have been hours ago. Long enough for the awful deed to have been done. Long enough for news to spread, and for anger to grow.

  A sick feeling came over Eldyn, and a sorrow with it, but it was not only for the sake of Mrs. Haddon. He felt it for all of them out in the square—the young men who had frequented her coffeehouse, whom she had doted on and mothered. She had paid for her actions against the Crown with her neck. How many here today in Covenant Cross would do so with their blood?

  Even as he wondered this, there was a crackling noise like a load of copper kettles falling from a cart. Eldyn snapped his head up, then drew as many shadows about himself as he could grasp. Across the square, six soldiers pointed their smoking rifles into the air. The sudden volley had caused the university men to scurry back, and under that cover a number of soldiers ran forward to throw buckets of water on two of the barricades. Then they quickly scattered the steaming timbers.

  By the time the students realized what was happening, it was too late. The soldiers marched forward double-time, and now they had enough room to fall into a proper formation, their rifles arranged in a precise double row, one held high and one low in alternation, and all of them fitted with bayonets. The soldiers were still greatly outnumbered, but if they were to advance toward the center of the square now, no one would be able to stand in their way, lest they be pierced by those sharp points.

  A hush descended over the square. The students ceased chanting their slogans and crouched behind the remaining barricades; the soldiers stood stock-still. Even the flames flickered and sank down. All in the square seemed frozen; or rather, all was pulled taut as a cord under a great load, stretched to the very point where it must be released or break.

  Eldyn held his breath, as if even the slightest motion might ruin the precarious balance. Surely the university men knew that they couldn’t stand against the soldiers now. They had made their point; they had demonstrated their outrage for all in the city to see. But now they must fall back and give up their protest.

  Then, at last, the students began to do just that. They crept away from the barricades and retreated west, toward the streets and alleys by which they could depart the square. They lowered their flags as they went; they were leaving. Eldyn breathed a sigh of—

  The sharp report of breaking glass shattered the stillness. Had a bottle been thrown at the soldiers? Or had it simply fallen to the cobbles from some unstable perch atop a barricade? Eldyn didn’t see. But it was in horror that he witnessed what occurred next.

  Maybe the loud noise had sounded too close to gunfire. Maybe a splinter of glass had gone flying and struck one of the soldiers, making him think he’d been shot at. Or maybe the sound had simply startled him, causing his finger to jerk and pull a trigger it already rested too firmly against.

  No matter the reason, the result was the same. There was a flash and a cloud of smoke near the center of the line of soldiers as one of the redcrests fired his rifle. Perhaps afraid they were under attack, or simply startled into action, another soldier in the line did the same, and another, until all of them fired their rifles in a terrible display of smoke and fire that filled the square with thunder.

  As the noise and smoke dissipated, other sounds quickly rose within the walled confines of Covenant Cross: cries of dismay and of pain. Most of the students had been safe behind the cover of the barricades, but not all. In the center of the square, several young men staggered and limped, blood streaking their faces or oozing between hands clutched to their arms or chest. Nearby, two more men lay sprawled upon the ground, and these did not move; though even as Eldyn watched, crimson rivulets began to extend from beneath them, threading their way among the ridges and grooves of the cobbles like crimson serpents.

  Quickly, the square was plunged into chaos. Many of the men who had been creeping to the west now ran pell-mell, fleeing down the side streets and alleys. But at least as many remained behind their barricades, and they launched a new volley of bottles, stones, and pieces of timber toward the soldiers, who were now at closer range.

  The soldiers who had fired knelt and put the butts of their rifles against the ground to begin reloading them. At the same time, those soldiers who had been crouching low now stood and extended their rifles before them. One of them staggered back as a rock struck him on the forehead, causing a fount of blood to burst forth, but the others held their ground.

  “No!” someone was shouting. “Get out of there! All of you, get out of there now!”

  The ragged voice was, Eldyn realized, his own. He had stepped away from the wall and, madly, was waving his hands. But his shouts were lost as fifteen flashes of light simultaneously appeared, followed by fifteen peals of thunder. For a moment all was obscured by smoke, then the fog swirled and broke apart to reveal several more forms lying crumpled on the cobblestones.

  Men were yelling and screaming and fleeing in all directions now. A large number of them were running straight toward Eldyn. If he didn’t move, in a few moments he would be trampled.

  Only he didn’t move, not right away. Instead he stared, eyes wide and unblinking, as he fixed the awful scene in his mind—the smoke, the sprawled bodies, the glittering lattice of blood in the cracks of the cobbles. Then another volley of rifle fire rang out, the sound of it causing him to flinch, shutting his eyes in reflex.

  And by the time he opened them again, Eldyn was running with the other men down the street.

  IVY MOVED DOWN the grand staircase to the front hall, a robe over her nightgown and a wavering candle in her hand. As she reached the bottom, the light gleamed off the mosaic that covered the floor of the hall, like torchlight from a ship on the ocean, revealing the dim shapes of fish and dolphins just beneath the surface.

  She sailed across the hall herself, her robe fluttering like a silent sail behind her. A light at the north end of the hall guided her. She approached it, then peered through into the room beyond.

  From th
e door, Ivy watched as Mr. Quent worked at the writing table in his study. Furrows creased his brow as he concentrated upon several sheafs of paper before him, and he scratched his thick brown beard absently as he read. He wore only a linen shirt, for it was one of those peculiar umbrals again—warm and stifling despite its length.

  In all, Mr. Quent looked more like a huntsman making an inventory of his lord’s hounds and horses than an official high in the government—one who might very well be made into a lord himself in the coming days. Not that Ivy minded to see him dressed in such a manner, as the powerful shape of his arms and chest was more easily discerned for the light cloth of the shirt. Even in the act of reading, and pausing now and then to write down some note, he was vigorous. He gripped the pen with what she imagined was the same firmness as he might a skinning knife.

  She must have made some small noise, for he suddenly looked up from his papers.

  “What are you doing awake, Ivoleyn?” he said in a low voice.

  “I might ask the same of you,” she said, crossing the threshold of his study. “It is very late, yet you are still working.”

  He gave a sigh. “And I fear I will be a little while longer.”

  “Are those reports from other inquirers?” Ivy never pried into the particulars of his work; she knew secrecy was crucial to the operations of the Inquiry. All the same, she could not help but be curious regarding the work that so often engrossed her husband.

  He raised an eyebrow as he regarded her, then nodded. “At present there are a great number of inquirers out of the city performing investigations. They all submit a report each quarter month, or more often as needed. And each of their missives must be responded to.” His beard could not conceal the grimace that shaped his mouth. “In great detail.”

  Despite the seriousness of the matters before him, Ivy could not help a fond smile. She had no doubt he would much prefer to be one of the inquirers trekking about the country, observing the Wyrdwood or pursuing rumors of a Rising, rather than the one back in the city reading reports of investigations conducted by others.