Illan took a small knife and, before Silverdun even realized what he was doing, swiped it across one of the many cuts on Silverdun's left hand.
"Ow!" said Silverdun. Ilian and Jedron shared a quick glance: What a baby!
Than pried open the automaton's mouth, and its tongue, a lump of argentine, lolled out. Than wiped the knife blade clean on it and shut the thing's mouth.
"Why do you think I have these spellwork sailors, when real ones would be far less expensive, and easier to maintain?" asked Jedron.
"Illan said it was because you didn't like visitors."
"True," said Jedron. "But that's not really it. It's because I live in a different world than the one you live in."
He stared out to sea. "Faerie is a more dangerous place than most suspect, and Faerie is perhaps the most civilized of all the many worlds. The real threats out here aren't bugganes or soldiers. Those are obvious. You can see them coming."
Jedron turned his gaze on Silverdun. It was piercing, and somehow deeply off-putting. Almost bestial. But not that; something else that Silverdun couldn't name.
"The real threats are the people whom you do not realize you can't trust until it is too late. Trust is perhaps the most deadly weapon that can be used against you. I have none. And neither must you.
"That is why I will not be your friend, or anything like one. I don't want you to like me. I don't want you to think you can trust even me."
Silverdun glanced at the automaton. Its face began to cloud over, as though seen through a misted mirror. "You're hardly making a case for yourself. Everess said that-"
Jedron laughed out loud. "Everess? That pompous bag of gas? He'd step on his own mother to get another rung higher on the ladder. Do you think he's gathering his own personal gang of spies purely for the love of the Seelie Heart?"
"Are you saying I shouldn't work for him?"
"Of course not. I'm only saying you shouldn't trust him."
"Well, that's one thing you didn't need to teach me. I never trusted him."
"And yet you came all the way out here solely on his word."
"I'm not doing this for him."
Jedron chuckled again. "Well said."
The mist around the automaton's face began to slowly resolve itself into skin, making a face. Dark hair began to flow out of its bald head.
Silverdun pointed at Ilian. "What about Ilian? You trust him, don't you?"
Jedron rolled his eyes. "Him I could kill in a heartbeat."
Than flicked his knife open and, more quickly than Silverdun could register, put it to Jedron's throat. With almost no effort, and just as quickly, Jedron snatched the knife from Ilian's hand and hurled him overboard, into the roiling water.
"Look," said Jedron, pointing to the automaton with his knife. Silverdun looked and shuddered. The automaton now looked just like Silverdun, an almost exact duplicate. It glared at Silverdun warily.
"There's the only one in all the worlds that you can trust, Silverdun," said Jedron.
Silverdun stood before his mechanical double. This was one of Jedron's less subtle lessons; the theater of it hardly seemed up to the old man's standards.
The automaton stepped back warily as Silverdun approached. Silverdun looked in its eyes, and a shudder of revulsion went through him. They were Jedron's eyes.
"Not quite an exact copy, though, is it?" said Silverdun. "Something about it isn't me. How it looks at me."
"No, and that's because it isn't you. I didn't say that you were the only one you could trust. You're weak and confused."
"No," said Silverdun. "Then who's he?"
"He's who you'll be when you leave here. He's who you'll be after you've completed your training."
Silverdun frowned.
"You don't like him, do you?" said Jedron. His face looked sour.
"No, to be perfectly honest."
"You'll like being him even less," said Jedron. He muttered a syllable under his breath, and the automaton's glamour vanished, leaving it a dead machine again. Jedron covered it with the tarpaulin. Silverdun, in a nonetoo-subtle frame of mind, couldn't help thinking that it looked like a shroud.
"You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, lad," said Jedron, smiling.
On the dock, Than was pulling himself up out of the water, shaking seawater out of his hair. Jedron walked past Silverdun toward the dock. As he passed, he grabbed Silverdun's shoulder.
"Hold on," he whispered, "and listen closely."
Jedron nodded toward the dock. "Ilian is a traitor. We'll have to do something about him."
Three weeks passed, during which Silverdun's training became a bit more what he'd expected upon his arrival. He learned to move without making a sound, though some of the means by which he was asked to do so seemed patently impossible. Feel the floorboards with your mind before you step on them? That would have been difficult even for someone with a well-developed Gift of Insight. Silverdun possessed the Gift, but had never studied it.
There was Silverdun's problem in a nutshell. Insight was a Gift of the Head, and Glamour was of the Heart. Silverdun had poured all of his efforts into Glamour as a youth because he had always fancied himself an artist. Insight was a Gift for research thaumaturges and alchemists. Men who sat in chairs and pondered. Silverdun's father had pushed him toward Insight as a more noble form of study. Silverdun knew that he could have been great at Insight. As it was, he was a mediocre Glamourist at best. But at least he'd gotten what he wanted.
In the mornings were the daily drills with Jedron. They drilled with knives and the petite arbalete, a small, short-range crossbow. Silverdun learned how to kill without making a sound, how to kill painfully, how to disable without killing, all with a calculating precision that teased at his scruples more and more with each passing day.
Silverdun took his meals with Ilian, who said little, but always seemed to keep an eye on him. Than was always nearby, always ready to assist in training, or stepping in to clean something, or bringing Jedron his meals. Jedron and Than appeared to have no relationship that Silverdun could divine. They almost never spoke to one another.
Silverdun asked about the other trainee a few more times. Ilian assured him that he was around somewhere, but that Silverdun wouldn't meet him until he was ready.
Every few days, Jedron would invite Silverdun to his study for an evening drink, but these evening drinks likely as not turned into hours-long study sessions. And Jedron never ceased to be amused by his habit of unexpectedly hurling blunt objects at Silverdun's head.
Silverdun had managed to reshape what was left of his bed into a makeshift pallet, which was far from the least comfortable arrangement he'd ever had (sleeping outdoors in the dead of midwinter after a full day's ride took the prize by a long shot), but was a far cry from paradise. Most nights, though, Silverdun was so tired that by the next morning he didn't remember his head hitting the pillow, and he rarely dreamed.
"We haven't talked about swords at all," said Silverdun one day, after a long practice session of hand-to-hand fighting with Jedron. Silverdun was sweating and huffing, but Jedron wasn't even breathing heavily. Astonishing for a man of his age.
"No," said Jedron. "And we won't."
"Why not?"
"A sword is a weapon of last resort in our work. If you find yourself drawing one, then you've done something terribly wrong."
"And what if someone draws on me?"
"Throw a knife in his neck and run," said Jedron, matter-of-factly.
"That hardly seems within the bounds of propriety," said Silverdun.
"Propriety is a millstone around your neck, boy. The man with propriety is the one who dies first. The sooner you get used to that idea, the better off you'll be."
"But," began Silverdun. He paused, carefully choosing his words. Had he heard correctly? Jedron might as well have told him to get used to the idea of kicking puppies and slitting the throats of milkmaids. "If our goal is to protect the Seelie way of life, how do we achieve the goal by abandoning the very
thing that makes us Seelie?"
"Your precious propriety is for the safe ones. We provide the luxury of civilized ideas like personal honor by eschewing them."
"I don't understand," said Silverdun.
Jedron pointed east, toward the City Emerald. "All those pretty Fae over there, all those civilized Fae, live in a giant cocoon spun of the silk of ignorance."
It was the most poetic Jedron had ever been, and Silverdun said so.
"Go to hell, Silverdun. I'm being serious. It is a grand thing to believe oneself safe. All of the great things of civilization are crafted by those who are free from danger. Their error-the one we are employed to hide from them, and rightly so-is their belief that they can uphold civilization by acting civilized. The reason the Shadows have existed for so long, despite the public hue and cry about their rumored existence, is that those in positions of power are continuously reminded of that error when it kicks them in the face."
"If you're so apathetic about honor and propriety and civilization," Silverdun spat, "then why bother protecting it at all? Why risk your life to protect something for which you seem to have little use?"
"Because if I don't, who else will? We are beset on all sides by ignorance and savagery, Silverdun. The bestial Gnomics to the south. Mab's legions of blind, devoted `citizens' who might as well be slaves. Or worse, really ... at least a good slave owner values the life of his investment. I may not have much use for the finer things in life, but I loathe the alternative.
"And," he said, smiling wickedly, "I love my job."
A week later, Jedron had Silverdun in his office, studying maps. Most were maps of Faerie: city maps, diagrams of the movement patterns of Unseelie cities, topographical maps. Others were of Mag Mell, the world of ten thou sand islands; Annwn, its vast lands almost unpopulated except for the one great city called Blood of Arawn; the Nymaen world, mostly water, mapped to an astonishing precision. Jedron, of course, expected him to memorize every detail of every map and quizzed him throughout the evening, hurling paperweights and books at him if he answered incorrectly. He seemed in an especially surly temper tonight. Even Ilian seemed unsettled, which Silverdun couldn't remember ever having noticed before.
Finally Jedron bid him put the maps away. He poured them brandy from the decanter and they shared a silent drink. When Silverdun finished, Ilian appeared from the shadows and escorted him to his bedroom.
In his room, Silverdun began to feel strange. He knew this feeling. At university, he'd taken a class on poisons. He'd dropped out of it after a week, and never gotten credit for it. The reason he'd dropped it was that he'd accidentally ingested a potion called iglithbi. Not a poison, exactly-it was created for recreational purposes-but in a large enough dose easily lethal. Odorless and tasteless, favored by careful thieves and rapists. If he'd been stupid enough to accidentally sip it, he'd be stupid enough to accidentally kill himself.
And now there was no question about it: He'd been drugged with iglithbi. The effect was unmistakable. But how large a dose?
Silverdun's faculties began to abandon him. He thought wildly for the composition of iglithbi, its organic ingredients and reitic bindings. And there in his mind, amazingly, was the formula; one of the few things he'd actually retained from his university days. He reached out with his Gift of Elements, searching for the binding called Elesh-elen-tereth. It was easy to locate using only the Gift, and easy to unbind. He found it, could sense its particular color of re flowing through him. He reached out and pushed it with his Gift, changing Elesh-elen-tereth into water and spiritus sylvestre.
Unfortunately, a good deal of the potion had already found its way into Silverdun's mind. He was still awake-that was something-but unsteady. The room seemed to breathe around him, the walls quavering.
Was Ilian truly a traitor? Had he done this? Or was this another of Jedron's mean-spirited tests? Jedron had drunk from the same bottle of brandy, true. But it was easily possible that Jedron possessed Elements as well.
Silverdun wanted badly to lie down and sleep. His bed, or what was left of it, suddenly seemed like the most appealing place in all Faerie.
But he wouldn't allow himself the pleasure. Jedron's demonstration on the Splintered Driftwood had affected him more deeply than he'd thought. If Than had spiked the brandy, and if Jedron didn't possess Elements, then Jedron could be dying in bed at this very moment, and Than doing whatever treachery he had planned.
But still-the bed.
Silverdun heard a scream outside the window. Or thought he did. Time and space seemed to plummet in random orbits. Silverdun stumbled to the window and looked out. All was a blur. Down below there were flickering lights, waving in the night. Torches. Fireflies. Witchlight. Embers.
He ran toward the door and missed, hitting the wall instead. He corrected and stole out of his bedroom into the passage. A few minutes later, he stood at the main gate, peering out into the overcast, empty night. He wasn't quite sure how he had navigated the stairs down to the floor level of the castle. He knew he'd done it, but couldn't remember how.
The scream again. Silverdun plunged into the darkness. Out through the main courtyard, down toward the rocks. A set of steps Silverdun hadn't seen before. He took them down, down, toward the water's edge. At the bottom of the steps was an expanse of stone, a circle of torches, a pit. Fire. A man tied to a table, screaming. He looked up at Silverdun. A stranger. His face, filled with fear, burned itself into Silverdun's mind. Out of the ring of fire another face. I1ian. Ilian annoyed. A word of binding. Silence. Blackness.
Silverdun came awake again, his face pressed against the cold, wet steps. Wet bruised chill of early morning. He tried to raise his head, and a dull sick pain rocked him. Down in the stone clearing, I1ian lifted a blackened bundle out of the pit. Charred sticks? No.
Bones.
Silverdun wanted to cry out to Ilian, but his tongue felt swollen in his mouth. He couldn't form the words. But Than saw him anyway.
Than placed the bundle of sticks (bones) gently on the ground and walked slowly up the steps.
"Your file didn't mention anything about you having studied potions," said Ilian. "That complicates things a bit, I'm afraid."
Silverdun summoned re, channeled it through his Gift of Elements, but nothing came. The required concentration was beyond his grasp. Than lashed out with his boot, knocking Silverdun's head against the stairs, and Silverdun blacked out.
Spring term has just begun, and already Perrin is overloaded with schoolwork. He's been tested for Elements and Glamour and passed both with ease. Wouldn't Father be livid if he chose to study Glamour at university! University is still two years away, though; it seems like forever.
Perrin walks through the old school garden, tucked between the library and the upper dormitory, imagining life as a famed Glamourist. He would live in a hovel in the city and smoke cigarettes and fashion glamours in a studio during the day and drink wine and make love to dangerous women at night. He would hide his noble heritage the way Rimaire had, only revealing his lordship on his deathbed.
Perrin sits on a stone bench and looks around; the garden is deserted. He's bought cigarettes from one of the school cooks and is working out how to smoke them the way the men in the city do, with the wrist extended, tapping off the ash with a flick of the thumb.
There's a shout by the garden gate and Silverdun tosses the cigarette as fast as he can into a camellia bush.
A boy comes running into the garden, smacking the gate hard against the wall, the sound reverberating in the enclosed space. Hard behind him are four other boys, chasing him.
The boy being chased runs toward Perrin and trips, falling down at Perrin's feet. It's Bit, the son of a tea guildsman from the Western Valley. His parents donated a fortune to the school to get him accepted, Perrin's been told.
"Help," pleads Bir. Then the boys are on him. They're fifth years, all tough boys, and Perrin has no interest in getting involved.
The leader of Bit's pursuers is Tremoin, the
Baronet Dequasy, who is a pompous ass and, Perrin notes with satisfaction, utterly useless at Glamour. Tremoin gets Bir down on his back and straddles him, holding a fist up to strike.
"Go on, say it!" says Tremoin. "Just say it and I'll let you go."
"I won't," says Bir.
Tremoin looks up at Perrin, noticing him for the first time. "Oh, Perrin. Lovely seeing you. Were you aware that Bir is not only common, but an Arcadian as well?"
A spike of fear plants itself in Silverdun's belly. "I was not aware of that, no.
Bir struggles, but Tremoin is much larger than he is.
"As an experiment of sorts," Tremoin continues, "I've asked him to openly deny his god to see if he's struck by lightning, thus demonstrating whether Aba is a wrathful god or not."
"I take it he's refused," says Perrin, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Natural philosophy does not appear to be an interest of his," Tremoin observes.
Perrin hopes that Bir will do the smart thing and deny Aba, but Bir has chosen to be a martyr. He shouts, "I will not deny Aba, not for you, not for the queen herself!" His voice echoes in the garden.
"A man of principle!" says Tremoin, pleased. "Boys, let's show Perrin here what we do to men of principle."
After the spectacle is over, Perrin goes to the library and creates a casual rampart of schoolbooks around him. He takes pen and paper from his bag and writes his weekly letter.
"Dear Mother," he writes. "I watched a boy at school get beaten senseless today because he refused to deny your god. But all is well, I suppose, as Aba will no doubt forgive the boy that administered the beating, and Bir (this is the boy who was beaten) will get his reward in Arcadia, when She Who Will Come arrives clad in alabaster armor or satin robes or whatever it is she's to arrive in.
"While this is all well and good, it no doubt comes as little comfort to Bir, who currently lies delirious in the infirmary. Or perhaps it comes as all sorts of comfort. I must admit that I find it difficult to comprehend a god so overflowing with love who yet stands idly by while one of his adherents is getting his face smashed in.
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