The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  "Are you threatening me?" said Throen.

  "No. But I very much need you to tell me the truth."

  "These are the deepest mysteries of our faith," said Throen. "It's not the sort of thing one simply discusses with anyone who walks through the door."

  "I'm not just anyone," said Ironfoot. "That's what I'm trying to tell you."

  Throen thought briefly, uncertain. "Fine," he said. He reached into his robe and took out a small prayer book and a packet of herbs. "When the service begins, these herbs are burned in the thurible, along with a few drops of blood. The Guide's blood, that is. Mine. The herbs are a combination of things: some fairly common, others decidedly more rare. We read the incantations here." He opened the book to a well-thumbed page and indicated an incantation spelled out in angular runic High Fae script. "That activates the focusing charm."

  "This incantation is just a call to a stored binding," said Ironfoot. "What does it actually do?"

  Throen looked confused. "I've already told you; it focuses the reverence of the faithful."

  Ironfoot held up the herbs and sniffed them. The smell, like that at Selafae. Missing only the added texture of burning blood. What did this mean?

  "Do you even know what the stored bind does?" said Ironfoot.

  "I'm not a thaumaturge," said Throen, beginning to lose his temper. "I'm a Guide. This is a sacred object, not a spellbox."

  "I don't think you're going to like this," said Ironfoot. "But I've got to take your cynosure with me."

  "That's impossible!" said Throen. "You can't simply come into this temple and walk off with our most sacred instruments! This is outrageous!"

  Ironfoot reached for the cynosure, removing its Motion enclosure with a flick of his wrist. The thing fell into his hands; it was much heavier than it looked.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I truly am, but-"

  Throen flung himself at Ironfoot. "Get your hands off of it!" he shouted. "You are desecrating it!"

  Throen grabbed at the cynosure and pulled; he was stronger than he had any right to be. Ironfoot pulled back. Throen's face was red; he was grunting.

  Suddenly Ironfoot was struck by the absurdity of what was happening. Here he was, in a church, fighting with a priest over a holy relic as if it were a game ball. He almost laughed, but before he did, Throen shoved him hard, knocking him off the altar dais and slamming him into the first row of pews. The sound of the impact echoed like a cannon shot in the huge sanctuary. Throen was still on him, still pulling at the cynosure as if his life depended on it.

  "Let go!" he shouted.

  Ironfoot winced and pulled as hard as he could, throwing all of his Shadow strength into the motion. The cynosure came free of Throen's grasp, and Throen fell to the floor.

  Ironfoot took the thing and ran.

  "You will pay for this obscenity!" Throen shouted. "The Church will sue the Foreign Ministry for this!"

  "Tell them to go after a Lord Everess," said Ironfoot over his shoulder. "He's the one they want."

  A little later, Ironfoot and Silverdun were in the mission room, huddled over the cynosure. Sela sat on a nearby table, watching.

  "Right here," said Ironfoot. "Separate it along this edge." Ironfoot was getting impatient. He was on to something and he knew it. He watched Silverdun channel Elements carefully into the ceramic enclosure of the object, splitting it open.

  "Careful," he said.

  "You mentioned," said Silverdun. "I'm being as careful as I can. If you think you can do better, by all means be my guest."

  Ironfoot looked up to see Pact coming down the steps.

  "What are you two doing?" said Pact. "We've got work to do."

  "Ironfoot's decided to set off a holy war," said Silverdun. "So we're boldly desecrating a holy artifact. You might want to let Everess know that if we all survive the next week, he's going to get a very unpleasant visit from the Synod of Chthonic Bishops."

  "Careful, Silverdun!" snapped Ironfoot.

  "Wonderful," said Pact. "And where did we get this artifact?"

  "Ironfoot beat up a priest in a Chthonic temple and stole it," said Silverdun.

  "May I ask why?"

  "Remember our report from our first visit to Annwn?" asked Ironfoot, looking up. "When we spoke to Prae Benesile's son, he told us that Hy Pezho stole something from Prae Benesile. A box. The son didn't know what was in it, but I'm almost certain that it was one of these-a Chthonic cynosure."

  "What good would it have done him?" asked Paet.

  "If this relic does what I think it does, it may be the very secret to the Einswrath," said Ironfoot. "Under better circumstances, this would be the discovery of a career."

  "Well, get on with it then," said Paet. "And Ironfoot, I don't need a thesis. I just need a way to stop the damn thing."

  "I'll write the monograph later," said Ironfoot.

  Paet went into his office and shut the door.

  Silverdun finished the cut, and Ironfoot removed the ceramic casing. Inside was one of the most complex thaumatic mechanisms he'd ever seen. Tiny plates of solid gold and silver sandwiched together, inscribed with minuscule runes and lines of force. Diamonds were set into these lines. They were probably reitic capacitors of some kind.

  "This is unbelievable," said Ironfoot. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "What is it?" said Silverdun.

  "I'm not entirely sure," said Ironfoot. He pointed to one of the leaves of gold. "Look at this. It's a force binding. And this is ... no, that's not possible."

  "What's not possible?"

  Silverdun looked closer. "This bit here," said Ironfoot. "What does that look like to you?"

  Silverdun shrugged. "It looks like ancient High Fae that I was never particularly good at deciphering."

  "It's the binding for a fold," said Ironfoot. "This thing channels Folding."

  "That's ridiculous," said Silverdun. "Only Masters of the Gates can fold, and it takes years of training. No priest could channel anything useful into something that small."

  "What are you two talking about?" asked Sela.

  "The Gift of Folding," said Silverdun. "It's what powers the locks to travel between worlds. It allows objects and energy to pass through the folded spaces."

  "But the Gift is extraordinarily rare," said Ironfoot. "Almost no one has it, and those that do are immediately snapped up by the Masters of the Gates."

  "And look here," said Ironfoot, pointing again. "These figures specify the target for a translation." He paused. "I think."

  Ironfoot separated a few more of the thin leaves from the device. At the center was a tiny mesh of silver, of threads so narrow that they were barely visible.

  "And what is that?" asked Silverdun.

  Ironfoot channeled Insight into the mesh. He couldn't believe what he saw there. It was the same sensation he'd gotten when Lin Vo had responded to Timha's attack. The same impossible, unchanneled essence. The music without pitch. Division by zero.

  "Well?" said Silverdun.

  "It's undifferentiated essence," said Ironfoot.

  "The Thirteenth Gift," said Silverdun.

  "It's not a Gift," said Ironfoot. "It's beyond Gifts. It makes the Gifts obsolete."

  "So?" said Sela. "What does it mean?"

  "I have an idea," said Ironfoot. He'd never been more excited in his life. What Lin Vo had said to him in the Arami camp was beginning to make sense. You're all going to have to learn how to think things anew.

  "Give me a little time," he said. "I think I understand. Everything."

  A little time turned out to be almost a full day. Ironfoot worked without stopping, writing notes and equations, muttering to himself, shouting, sometimes hurling things. He was so close! Everything was coming together: the map, Hy Pezho's falsified plans, the cynosure. He now understood how Hy Pezho had sent the Unseelie thaumaturges in circles. He'd simply removed all reference to the Thirteenth Gift, knowing that none of them would ever suspect its use. How could they? Almost nobody had ever heard of
it, and those who had didn't believe that it existed.

  A few times, Silverdun or Sela or Paet would approach, questioning looks in their eyes, and Ironfoot would wave them away, sometimes gruffly, sometimes angrily. He needed to be alone. It would take as long as it took.

  Finally he had it. He checked and rechecked his figures. Translated the etchings on the gold and silver plates twice, three times. Reread every word of Prae Benesile's Chthonic history. Now that he knew what the hell Benesile was talking about, the book was practically a reference guide. Benesile's problem had not been that he was a lunatic; quite the contrary. He'd been so brilliant that he'd assumed too much from his readership, hadn't bothered explaining what to him had seemed obvious. There were no equations in the book because Benesile had believed them to be implied.

  It was as though a great weight had been removed from his shoulders. The tension of this one problem had been pressing down on him for the better part of a year, coloring everything he'd done and thought and said ever since he'd returned to Queensbridge from Selafae. It had hung like a vulture over his head the entire time he'd been a Shadow, watching him, waiting for him, until he thought he might go insane.

  And now it was over.

  He called Silverdun, Sela, and Paet into the mission room.

  "Do you have some news for us?" asked Silverdun. "Or have you called us in to let us know that you have indeed gone stark, raving mad?"

  "I know where Hy Pezho is getting the power for the Einswrath," he said. "The problem I could never understand is how he was able to condense so much re into such a small space. There's no way of doing it, and no way of binding it once it's done. And Hy Pezho must have sent the Unseelie thaumaturges who came after him into even worse fits than mine because he included every bit of instruction on how to create the Einswrath except for the one small bit of information that is the entire secret of his creation."

  Ironfoot held up the ceramic casing of the cynosure. "This relic is old. How old, I don't know. A thousand years? Two thousand? Ten? There's no way of knowing, and I'm not a history buff, but I think it's safe to say that this thing I'm holding in my hand has been in constant use for millennia."

  "Doing what?" asked Silverdun.

  "Taking in the re of Chthonic worshippers. Their spiritual devotion is focused onto this during their most private holiday services, those for believers only. In Benesile's book he describes the intensity of these rituals. On the outside, the Chthonics may seem like a fairly lackluster bunch, but these ceremonies are grueling affairs, lasting hours. There's a set of incantations that's said, some herbs that are burned, and it has the effect of drawing out the essence from everyone in the room and focusing it on the cynosure."

  "And then what?" asked Silverdun.

  "And then it takes that essence, undifferentiates it, and sends it through a fold."

  "To where?" asked Paet. "And why?"

  "I can tell you where," said Ironfoot. "The directional mapping is there, though it'll take me a little while longer to pinpoint it.

  "As to why? I haven't a clue. Perhaps the ancient Chthonics simply wanted a way to store up massive amounts of re to do the very thing with it that Hy Pezho did. I can't imagine what you might do with that much energy."

  "What did Hy Pezho do with it?" asked Sela.

  "Well, it turns out that the Einswrath, for all of its apparent complexity, is really quite simple. All it does is reverse the process. It creates a fold, draws that very same undifferentiated re out, and releases it. The difference is that this stored re is highly concentrated, and as soon as it's unfolded ..."

  "Boom," said Sela.

  "Exactly."

  "So, knowing this," said Pact, "can you build one of your own? Can you create a means of defending against them?"

  "Not in the next four days," said Ironfoot. "I don't know exactly how Hy Pezho pulled it off. But it doesn't matter. I think I may be able to do something just as good, if not better."

  "What's that?" asked Pact.

  "I can take us to wherever all that re is stored," said Ironfoot, "and channel it all off into the ether." He paused. "There's just one problem."

  "Which is?" asked Silverdun.

  "In order to get there, we need someone who is able to work this undifferentiated re. Someone who has the Thirteenth Gift. And the only Fae I've ever met that can do it is an old Arami woman out somewhere in the Unseelie, on the other side of a massive army."

  "Actually," said Silverdun. "I may know of one other. A girl I once met."

  Silverdun looked at Sela, who blanched and turned away.

  "Where is this girl?" asked Pact.

  "In Estacana, last time I checked."

  Pact sighed. "Go get her. Now."

  He looked at Ironfoot. "And while we're waiting for him to return, I've got a job for you."

  The renewal of an old acquaintance is a gift both given and received.

  -Fae proverb

  he suite of the chief high councilor of Blood of Arawn was quite a step up from the magyster's office that Wenathn had held the first time Ironfoot had met him.

  "Brenin Molmutius!" said Wenathn warmly, when Ironfoot was admitted into the office. Ironfoot was known in Annwn as Brenin Dunwallo Molmutius, the chieftain of one of the Mag Mell Isles. It required an elaborate glamour to pass as a Mag Mellian, but so far the disguise had worked just fine.

  "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," said Ironfoot.

  "Please, sit," said Wenathn. "What can I do for you?"

  "That's an excellent question," said Ironfoot. "Quite a lot, really."

  Ironfoot took an envelope from the hidden compartment in his satchel, closed with the seal of Lord Everess. "Read this," he said.

  Wenathn broke the seal and read the letter inside.

  "I don't know about this," he said.

  "You knew there would be a price for our assistance," said Ironfoot. "That someday the bill would come due."

  "But what you're asking," said Wenathn. "The repercussions."

  "You've read the letter," said Ironfoot. "It's signed by Everess and carries his impress."

  Wenathn smoothed the letter on his desk and reread it. "From what I'm told, Lord Everess's stamp may not be worth much in a few days."

  "That's a chance you'll just have to take," said Ironfoot. "Though I imagine that if word got out about the means of your rise to power, your own stamp might not press paper soon either."

  Wenathn nodded. He was no fool.

  "You and I both know that there are many on your council who would back this in an instant, especially with the full, written support of the Seelie government."

  "How long do I have to decide?" said Wenathn.

  "I can stay at least until lunchtime," said Ironfoot, putting his feet up on the chief high councilor's desk.

  Faella was on stage, alone, performing the final movement of "Twine" to a mostly empty house. The troupe had rebelled against her desire to present it earlier in the show, and it had been relegated to the dregs of the performance, the closing act performed after midnight, when most of the patrons had already left for the taverns or their beds.

  It was a subtle piece, to be sure, and not what the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina was known for. Their audience wanted grand spectacles: ferocious battles, the machinations of kings, bawdy farces. These were what paid for the theater and the salaries of her employees and the outrageous Glamourists' Guild dues.

  But "Twine" was dear to her heart, and she was determined to perform it. For the most part she'd taken herself out of the other pieces, much to the chagrin of the audience. The clashes of swords and noblemen and half-dressed bodies were fine as far as they went, but as time went on, Faella couldn't help but see them as any more than what they were: mirages, fantasies to pass the time. "Twine" was more than that, though she couldn't say what, exactly.

  The dozens of red, gold, and orange strands whirled and spun in a ferocious ballet of longing and emotion until Faella, spent, wove them together into a br
ight braid of emotion and wound it around herself, where it exploded in a shower of sparks.

  She bowed to scattered applause and left the stage, sweating. It was time for her to go.

  Backstage, the mestines were removing makeup and costumes, lingering over bottles of cheap wine, laughing. She'd never felt more remote from them. It wasn't enough anymore. Nothing was ever enough.

  She went to the theater office and went over the documents she'd prepared: assignment of title, bank slips, instructions. She was leaving the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina to the company as a whole. They would now be a self-owned collective. It could be a disaster, but she wouldn't be here to see it. She was moving on.

  Over the past few months, her powers had only grown. She now found herself able to maneuver Elements and Motion, to work glamours of astonishing complexity, to do things that didn't seem to match any kind of Gift at all. To be honest, she wasn't sure what others meant by the Gifts. She'd only ever known Glamour, and had never thought of it as "channeling" some raw element through a thing. There was only the thought, the desire, and the deed. She'd always assumed she didn't understand because she had no formal training.

  But as her abilities increased she'd begun reading more, sneaking into the university libraries and working her way painfully through textbooks. She was no scholar, and little of what she read made any sense. But there was nothing in her reading that shed any light on her strange new talents. In fact, everything that she'd read seemed to indicate that much of what she was doing was impossible.

  She'd even gone so far as to seduce a professor of natural philosophy in order to pick his brain on the subject, but he'd been far more interested in her more mundane talents, and hadn't been any help at all.

  And with each passing day, the certainty that she was wasting her life in Estacana grew. That feeling that she was meant for greatness never left her. In her most fanciful moments, she dreamed that she was destined to heal the whole world of Faerie, just as she'd healed Rieger's knife wound.

  Whatever it was she was meant to be, it wasn't the owner of a middling mestina in Estacana. She'd already booked passage on the mail coach for the City Emerald in the morning. The City Emerald was the center of the Seelie Kingdom, where every decision of importance was made, and she would find a way to insinuate herself into its movements, just as she'd found a way to do everything else she'd ever done.