Before long, she was assisting with the staging as well. After observing how weary the illusionists were becoming, it had been her idea to manufacture new props that could take the place of phantasms. Stars and comets needed to be conjured, but waves could be made with sheets of blue fabric undulated by the actions of people offstage. Trees could be fashioned of wood and canvas, and the same was true for mountains or castles. Once these were varnished with an illusory glow, they were nearly as beautiful and convincing as if they had been conjured entirely from light.
By means of these and other creations, the burden upon the players was lessened, and they were able to keep up the pace of the productions. It seemed nearly every performance Lily had fashioned some new piece for them to use onstage—something onto which they needed only to cast a glamour of light in order to give it the proper look. More than once, Eldyn was reminded of the tableau Lily had created for her and Rose’s party last year. The tableau had been so well executed that all it took was a bit of pearly light summoned by Eldyn and Dercy to make those in attendance gasp in wonder.
It was the same here at the theater. Eldyn had observed Lily to have a remarkable aptitude for using mundane materials—paper and paste and paint—to craft astonishingly realistic pieces of scenery. He had always known the youngest Miss Lockwell had an artistic nature, but he had not realized how profound her ability was. And perhaps she had not known herself, for sometimes she gazed upon something she had made with a look of wonder that was not unlike what Eldyn had felt upon seeing the first illusions he had conjured himself.
But then, were not her creations a form of illusion themselves? Certainly by means of her labors, their work upon the stage was made easier each night. As a result, it did not take long before the other players grew used to Lily’s presence at the theater, and then came to rely upon her. As for Eldyn himself, any fear he might have had that Lily’s nature was akin to his own sister’s had long been dispelled. While Sashie had possessed a similarly impetuous nature, she had never demonstrated such cleverness and industriousness, or such a finely developed sensibility. Nor was he the only one with such an opinion.
“Lily is the most remarkable young woman!” Madame Richelour had exclaimed to Eldyn more than once since Lily’s arrival. “I have seldom seen such a theatrical eye and a gift for staging, let alone in a person of such few years. And she has such a spirit! She lifts us all up just by being here. I wonder how we managed without her. I doubt we could have done so for much longer.”
That Madame Richelour had an especial fondness for Lily was evident in all their interactions. That very first day, the madam of the theater had acted as if Lily were a foundling who had been left upon the step, and had proceeded to lavish every sort of motherly affection upon her. Not that Eldyn was entirely surprised by this. Madame Richelour had never married, and so she had no children of her own. She had always mothered the young men who worked at the theater, of course, but Eldyn could imagine how she might have longed for a daughter. Now, at last, she had one she could call her own.
For her part, Lily received these affections freely and gladly. While Madame Richelour had never had a daughter, Lily herself had been deprived of her own mother not long ago, and so their pairing was in every way natural. What was more, knowing that Madame Richelour cared for Lily reassured Eldyn to some degree, and allowed him to believe that the theater was not an entirely unwholesome place for Lily—even if Lily’s change in attire and appearance was largely due to the madam’s influence.
Despite the bias that naturally arose from her affections for their foundling, Eldyn was beginning to think that Madame Richelour was right, and that they would not have endured much longer had it not been for Lily’s presence. It wasn’t just her work upon the set pieces, or the way she had taken over some of the duties of the madam of the theater, so that Madame Richelour could spend more of her time tending to Master Tallyroth. Rather, it was Lily’s spirit that buoyed them and kept them from sinking.
It was with this thought that Eldyn let go of his worries regarding the secret expedition for hyssop, and instead wiped his face with the warm cloth, letting the sharp scent clear his mind.
“Where is Madame Richelour?” he asked as he handed the cloth back to Lily.
“She is upstairs with Master Tallyroth.” The pink smile on her lips faded. “He is caught in a delirium again.”
Eldyn gave a sober nod. Delusions were a symptom of an advanced state of the mordoth. He had been having more and more of late.
“I’m glad she is with him,” Eldyn said.
Lily sighed. “I wish I could have seen him perform. The tales Madame Richelour tells of the days when he was onstage all those years ago—it must have been magnificent to behold!”
Eldyn was sure it would have been. But it was because of the magnificence of those performances that he was in the state he was now. He had used up too much of his light, too quickly.
But all he said was “I’m sure his performances were a marvel.”
Her smile returned, then she moved on to attend to the remainder of the illusionists. They were all of them grateful for her attentions, and some gave her kisses upon the cheek in return—though these were of course no more than brotherly in nature. While Lily might have been shocked to burst in upon Eldyn and Dercy that night at her party, she now seemed to understand and accept the direction in which the romantic attentions of illusionists lay—Eldyn’s own included. At least, since coming to the theater, she had given no indication that her affections with regard to him were anything other than what she might have for a dear friend.
For that, he was very grateful. And while associating with illusionists might bring some discredit with it, at least her honor as a young lady could not be feared for here. Rather, she now had many elder brothers who would go to great lengths to protect her.
ELDYN SHOULD have been asleep like everyone else.
God knew, he was more than tired enough. All the same, he had not even let himself lay down on the narrow bed in his chamber, for fear he would fall asleep. Instead, he read a copy of The Comet, searching for any small kernels of truth among the falsehoods printed upon its pages. Only he saw nothing about how Huntley Morden’s troops continued to advance in the West Country, or how here in the city redcrests had fired into a crowd of people when stones were thrown at them.
Nor was there any mention of Princess Layle, who had not been seen in over a month. Last Eldyn had heard, she was being kept in the Citadel—supposedly for her own protection. More likely she was being imprisoned. Eldyn could only wonder if Valhaine’s witch-hunters had been brought to her room, and what they saw when they did.
Among all the worthless reports in the newspaper, though, there was one story that did win Eldyn’s interest enough for him to read it all the way through. It was an advertising piece regarding the colony that was to be established in the New Lands. While no ships could pass eastward over the ocean at present, due to the war, reports from the initial scouting party had made it back to Altania just before the coasts were blockaded.
According to the advertisement, a suitable place for the colony had been located upon the edge of the new continent—a fecund landscape characterized by a temperate climate and vast quantities of fish, fowl, and timber ripe for the harvesting. As soon as the current conflict was concluded, the article promised, ships would be sailing for the new colony.
Once again, Eldyn fancied himself standing upon the prow of a ship, facing into a bracing wind, a lush green line thickening upon the horizon ahead. Only this time, in this vision, he did not stand alone. Rather, Dercy was there by his side, his arm draped around Eldyn’s shoulders, his hair and beard as gold as when they had first met, not streaked with pewter as they had been after Lemarck had stolen his light beneath the chapel in High Holy. There was a mischievous grin upon Dercy’s handsome face, and as he gazed forward, his eyes were as green and bright as the sea itself.…
A sharp, sudden pain pierced Eldyn’s head, a
nd the images before him wavered and dissipated. It was only as they did so that he realized he had not merely imagined the scene; rather, he had conjured it as an illusion.
That had been a foolish exertion. He was already weary from their last performance, and he had work yet to do that night. Eldyn pressed a hand to his brow, waiting for the pain to subside. At last it did. By then, the theater was quiet. He left the newspaper on the table, put on his coat, and went downstairs. Making no sound, he slipped out the rear door of the theater and into the night.
As he moved through the empty streets of the Old City, Eldyn stitched the shadows into a heavy cloak. If only it could have kept him warm like a real garment. But it could not, so he moved quickly, trying to generate heat through exertion. The umbral had been so long that the black water in the gutters was beginning to freeze. He began to fear that, no matter how thickly he wrapped the shadows around him, the white fog of his breath would betray his presence. Each time he saw a patrol of soldiers approaching down an otherwise empty lane, he would duck into a corner or alcove and cease breathing until they passed by.
At last he reached the dormitories below Butcher’s Slip. He cast off his disguise, but even so it took the two young men standing by the door a few moments to notice him in the gloom. Once they saw his face, they let him pass, and he made his way down to the chamber at the end of the hallway.
As usual, Jaimsley was awake, poring over a desk filled with papers and empty whiskey glasses. His prematurely thinning hair stood above his head in wild tufts, as if he had been continually running a hand through it.
“You’d better hope that none of the Lord Guardian’s men ever come in here and see this,” Eldyn said, picking up one of the papers. “Copies of secret missives, maps of troop positions—this would surely win you an appointment at Barrowgate if it were ever seen.”
“Don’t worry,” Jaimsley said with a wry expression. “All I need is a moment’s notice to destroy the evidence. I’ve spilled so much whiskey on these papers of late that all it would take is a touch of a candle, and they’d be gone in a flash.”
Eldyn couldn’t help chuckling. For all that he might be one of the most important men in the city aiding the rebellion, Jaimsley was still the same homely young man who could cause people to laugh in any situation.
“So how about some of that whiskey?” Eldyn said.
Jaimsley went to the sideboard. “You’re in luck. We were nearly out, but one of the boys came upon a few crates some redcrests had hidden in a house near the Morrowgate. As the redcrests shouldn’t be drinking on duty, my lads decided to relieve them of the temptation.”
He held out a full glass, which Eldyn accepted gratefully.
“Steady there, now,” Jaimsley said, and his grin flattened a bit. “I say, are you all right, Garritt?”
Eldyn looked down. His hand was trembling, and some of the whiskey had sloshed out of the glass onto the paper-strewn desk.
Hastily, Eldyn gripped the glass with both hands. “I thought I’d sprinkle a little more whiskey just to be safe in case you have need to ignite any of these papers.” Carefully he lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in one long draught. The whiskey burned his throat, but quickly diffused into a pleasant warmness in his chest.
Jaimsley watched him with close-set eyes. Then he tossed back his own whiskey in a single motion. “All right, let’s get to work.”
There was much to do that night, for there were several documents which their source within the Citadel—a clerk who was employed there—had managed to make copies of, and which provided key intelligence about the strength and movements of Lord Valhaine’s forces.
Eldyn went to the cabinet where the tools of his trade were stored, and he drew them out: engraving plates, brushes, and a vial of impression rosin. This latter had grown difficult to obtain, until Jaimsley managed to secure a steady supply from one of the few men in the city who manufactured the substance, and who it turned out was sympathetic to the revolution.
“He said if we can keep bringing him bark taken from Old Trees, he can keep making the rosin,” Jaimsley had said. Since then, rebels outside the city had been smuggling in bundles of such bark. It was taken from branches that had fallen over the wall at the Evengrove, and was brought into the city the same way messages were—through the drains, or right through the gates under the eyes of the guards in barrels of grain or blocks of tallow.
Eldyn arranged all of the materials on the sideboard. He carefully coated an engraving plate with the impression rosin. Next, he lifted one of the missives to be sent to Morden’s forces outside the city. Eldyn studied it for a number of minutes, committing every letter to mind. Then he took up one of the plates, held it before him, and shut his eyes.
A green flash of light, and it was done.
He repeated these steps, and in this manner made impressions of several more letters and diagrams. A sheen of sweat broke out upon his brow as he worked, and he found himself wishing for one of Lily’s hyssop-scented cloths. Instead he clenched his jaw and kept working.
“Can I get you more whiskey?” Jaimsley said as he took the last plate Eldyn had worked on and carefully wrapped it in a waxed cloth. “You look a little pale.”
Indeed, Eldyn felt pale. Or rather, he felt transparent somehow. It was like being a windowpane: a brittle thing through which light might pass freely, but a thrown stone could shatter.
“Yes, if you can spare some,” he said.
Jaimsley laughed. “For you, Garritt, we can spare all the whiskey you want. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be getting any messages out of the city at all these days. There are more soldiers than ever, and they accost anyone they meet. Just last umbral, one of our couriers was stopped by soldiers outside the city. They searched his satchel and found the engraving plates he was carrying, only they had no idea they were anything other than pieces of scrap metal to be sold for a coin. The redcrests confiscated his satchel, but in the end they had no cause to detain the courier and let him go.”
Eldyn let out a breath of relief. The loss of the impressions was of no matter; they could be remade. But a life could not be restored if it was taken, and he was grateful the courier had not been detained. As for the messages themselves, there was little risk they could have been intercepted or read. Even if the soldiers had somehow not smeared the impression rosin in their handling of the plates, the volatile substance would have evaporated within hours. Which meant that Eldyn’s scheme was working as planned.
Jaimsley handed Eldyn another glass of whiskey. It was less full this time. Still, even holding it with both hands, Eldyn had a difficult time keeping it from spilling as he lifted it to his lips.
“These documents you’ve gotten are all astonishing,” Eldyn said hurriedly, before Jaimsely might comment on his trembling. “I can only wonder how our man in the Citadel managed to copy these.”
“As do I,” Jaimsley said. “We have never seen him, and do not even know his name. Nor have we ever tried to learn it, for fear of exposing him. But I will say, though he may be a mere clerk, this fellow is braver than any soldier on the battlefield, and as important as any general.”
Eldyn could only grin at this, having been a clerk himself. It was strange but marvelous to think that this war could hinge not just on cannons and gunpowder, but on illusions and ink. He picked up one of the missives he had made an impression of. All of them had been fascinating. Some detailed what seemed a frantic rearrangement of troops, or reiterated urgent requests for supplies. One particularly intriguing letter made a mention that the Citadel was waiting on a report from the White Lady, but that it had not yet been received, and that her present whereabouts were unknown. Had she perhaps been captured by the enemy? If so, that would be a grave blow to the Lord Guardian, for she was one of his chief spies.
“From reading all of these, I can only start to think the Lord Guardian begins to fear he might not be victorious,” Eldyn said, setting the paper down. “Morden presses relentlessly
from the west, and at the same time Valhaine has to expend great effort here just to keep the city firmly under his thumb. All of these actions have something of a desperate quality.”
“Yes, they do,” Jaimsley said. “And there’s no one more dangerous than a desperate man, for he cannot be expected to act in a rational manner, or to safeguard those things a man usually would protect. Instead, he will bare his teeth and sever his own limb if he thinks it should free him from the trap he is caught in.” He unrolled a large sheet of paper on the desk. It was a map of the southern part of Altania, hastily drawn in spare but precise lines. “Look here. Our man in the Citadel managed to make a copy of this. Without a doubt, it is the most vital document he has provided us so far.”
Eldyn leaned over the table. “What does it show?”
“I can’t say I’m entirely certain. But do you see these?” He pointed to an arrow on the map, and to several others. “It’s apparent these places are important given the way they’re marked. And from other reports we’ve intercepted, we know that these are the very directions in which Valhaine’s troops have been moving of late.”
“But what are these marks beside each of the arrows?” Eldyn said, peering at the map. Next to the point of each arrow were several queer, angular symbols. They looked almost like writing, but none that Eldyn recognized.
“I’m not sure,” Jaimsley said. “Perhaps they’re some sort of code that states what forces are to go to these locations or what will happen there. I have to believe it’s something central to Valhaine’s plans. It seems mad to send his forces running willy-nilly all over the countryside like this, but there has to be some purpose in it. I can only believe he’s scheming some great gambit. I have no idea what it could be, but clearly Valhaine is betting much upon it—perhaps everything. And if Morden is not prepared to counter it …”
The Master of Heathcrest Hall Page 59