In Shade and Shadow

by Barb Hendee

  “Yes, I’m Shilwise,” the man huffed. “Look at what’s been done to my shop!”

  Rodian stepped between the fake-gilded columns, glancing briefly into the scriptorium’s front room. He half turned his head to find Garrogh behind him.

  “Find out if anyone heard or saw anything.”

  Garrogh nodded and stepped out into the crowd, but Shilwise remained close at hand, shaking his head as he stared at the empty door frame.

  Rodian fingered some remaining wood shards still mounted to the hinges. The door had been made of oak about three fingers thick, though probably as unkempt as the outer walls. He glanced down, but found few pieces of wood on the inside floor. Most of the remains were scattered from the landing to the cobblestones—even halfway across the street.

  “Broken from the inside out,” he said. “You didn’t happen to lock some employees in last night?”

  “Of course not! What are you implying?”

  It was a callous jab, and Rodian quickly regained his manners.

  “But even so,” Shilwise said more calmly, “you’d need a battering log and three men to break through this.”

  Rodian stepped inside.

  Someone had gained access—with or without a key—then had forced his or her way out. How, was one question—more baffling was, Why? The shop’s front room appeared undamaged but for the gaudy examples of scribed scrolls displayed on its walls. The kind that attracted those who thought garnishments rather than content marked the value.

  “Have you touched anything?” he asked.

  “No,” Shilwise answered quietly. “I know better.”

  The shop master grew less accusatory and more attentive. This too was normal, as after a victim’s initial outrage they realized Rodian was there to help.

  “I did look around, carefully,” Shilwise added. “The worst is in the back workroom.”

  He led the way around the front counter, through a swinging hinged door, and held it aside as Rodian followed.

  “Just look at this,” he said sadly.

  Rodian shook his head at the sight and stepped into the back room. The whole place looked as if a windstorm had ripped through it.

  Scribes’ writing desks were overturned. Wood-framed canvas dividers were toppled over them. The floor was littered with quills and parchments. Amid the destruction, books and sheaves and one old-fashioned scroll were scattered as if thrown aside. And much of the mess was spattered by toppled and shattered ink bottles. Everything was cast aside in violence, of no interest to whoever had done this.

  Shilwise didn’t strike Rodian as the kind to leave any coin in the shop, and even desperate thieves would hardly waste effort on a midlevel scriptorium. At hurried footsteps, Rodian glanced back.

  Two young men rushed through the missing front door. As they came up behind Shilwise, one gasped loudly.

  “My desk! And where are my stylus tips? Master, what happened?”

  Their velvet-and-linen-clad master continued to gaze over the mess.

  “A break-in,” he said. “The captain is here, so don’t touch anything.”

  Shilwise raised puffy eyes to Rodian, and a bit of venom returned to his expression.

  “Two of my scribes.” And he cocked his head at the younger pair. “More will be coming, and we’ve a mess to clean up . . . as soon as you give the word.”

  Rodian ignored the implied demand. “Have you noticed anything specific missing?”

  He already knew what it might be, but the question still had to be asked. For the first time Master Shilwise grew nervous, sucking in his thick lower lip between his teeth.

  “One folio,” he said.

  Rodian took another long breath and let it out slowly.

  “We’re doing transcription for the sages,” Shilwise went on. “Just odd bits and pieces. Normally all drafts and finished work are sent back with guild messengers before closing up. But we ran out of time last night. The domins have been quite fussy, but I never send back unfinished work.”

  Shilwise stepped carefully through to the workroom’s near left corner, where two partitions had been knocked aside. One stout desk of walnut sat there, so old it had darkened to near black. Its entire top had been ripped off and lay tilted against the left wall’s supply shelves.

  “I locked the folio in my desk,” Shilwise said. “It was the first thing I looked for when I arrived.”

  Rodian joined him, trying not to tread on debris. He peered into the desk’s remains.

  The top drawers on both sides had been shoved outward, their locking mechanisms torn from the desk’s front. The deeper bottom drawer on each side was still in place. The right was filled with journals or ledgers, but the left was empty.

  He crouched and studied the broken desk, running a finger over the top’s outer side, and then he glanced at the exposed edges of the desk’s walls. He saw no marks of a pry bar, but he hadn’t expected to find any. Whoever had done this had been in a hurry—and had strength to fulfill such urgency.

  “What was in the folio?” Rodian demanded.

  Master Shilwise’s tone changed. “Excuse me?”

  “The pages—what did your people copy for the guild?”

  Shilwise glanced at his two scribes, who were watching Rodian in equal confusion.

  “How would we know that?” one of them asked.

  “You were transcribing sages’ notes, yes?” Rodian started coldly, and then he calmed. “I take it what they sent was written in their script?”

  Shilwise looked at him in surprise. “You know of the Begaine syllabary?”

  “Can you read it?” Rodian asked.

  Shilwise’s face tinged slightly pink. “I fear not. I bought this scriptorium, so my title is master, but it is my business and no more. I hire certified scribes to do the work. I am not . . . a master scribe myself.”

  “Like Pawl a’Seatt?”

  Shilwise snorted with a scowl, and his pink turned to red.

  “I can read a bit of it,” said one of the young scribes.

  “Shut your mouth!” Shilwise barked, and turned back to Rodian. “If you’ve spoken with a’Seatt, then you know all scriptoriums working on this project have signed contracts of silence, backed by decree of the royal family. Until you have written court orders to counter that, I won’t be caught in a breach. I have a reputation to maintain.”

  “It wouldn’t help anyway,” added the young scribe. “It’s mostly gibberish.”

  “What did I just tell you?” Shilwise warned.

  “Be quiet!” Rodian barked, and pushed past the paunchy shop owner, closing on the scribe. “What do you mean?”

  The young man was rather gangly, with oily black locks pushed back from his high forehead. His deep-set eyes flickered once to his employer.

  “The syllabary is just a system for recording . . . syllables . . . how things are spoken—in any language. It saves space, and hence paper or parchment, versus all the different letter systems for various languages. But what little I can make out, I couldn’t make sense of.”

  “Why?” Rodian asked. “What languages did you encounter?”

  “I couldn’t even say. Bits of it seemed like Sumanese, but I don’t know. And others . . .” The young scribe just shook his head.

  “That’s enough,” Shilwise warned. “Captain, if you want to know any more, go ask the sages. I’ve no idea why someone did this to my shop for a folio of nonsense. But if I find out the content was dangerous, my solicitor will file charges with the high advocate . . . for the guild offering work under false pretenses.”

  Rodian ignored the shop master’s blustering threat and looked about the workroom.

  “You’re certain nothing else is missing?”

  “I’m certain of nothing,” Shilwise snapped. “Not until we sift through all of this. But it’s the only thing I’ve noted so far. Now, if you’re finished, may we start putting things back in order?”

  “No.” Rodian waved the scribes aside and pushed through the sw
inging door. “When my lieutenant finishes questioning your neighbors, he will go over the shop. Do not touch anything until he tells you.”

  Rodian headed out, his gaze fixed on the empty front door frame.

  One massive blow seemed to have smashed out the door, for wood shards lay in a sprayed pattern, suggesting they all fell at the same time. How—and why—would someone who had managed to get inside, ransack the workroom, and steal the folio, then have to break out to escape?

  How had the culprit gained entrance?

  Perhaps someone had let him in. But then why break out?

  This was the second folio to have gone missing in the span of two nights. He still had no information regarding the content of either one. Once again Rodian’s only option was the sages.

  Ghassan il’Sänke slowed in surprise upon entering the guild’s common hall for breakfast.

  There was Wynn, sitting between two gray-robed apprentices of her order, eating a bowl of boiled oats.

  He knew she preferred to eat in her room, but not this morning. Her left-side companion was a young man the others often called Nervous Nikolas.

  Wynn looked up, and her spoon halted halfway to her mouth. She nodded politely to Ghassan. Normally he too preferred to take his repast in his quarters or while working elsewhere. But this uncommon sight, of her willingly out among the populace, piqued his interest.

  “Boiled oats again?” he said as he approached. “At my home branch there are honey cakes every morning, in case nothing else seems appealing.”

  Wynn half smiled, setting down her spoon. “Then how do you stay so thin?”

  “Oh, ages of living in near-constant distress,” he answered.

  She smiled openly at this. “You are hardly that old.”

  No, Ghassan thought, one would not think so. Nikolas and the other one—Miriam was her name—both stared in fright as he sat down across the table.

  “I . . . I need to get started on cleanup,” Miriam stammered, rising quickly to scurry off.

  Such a plain-faced, pudgy girl—her eyes were too small for her face. But apparently High-Tower had found something promising in her. The old dwarf once mentioned that he had rarely known such an apprentice who comprehended the syllabary’s complex system so easily. But most apprentices grew uncomfortable in Ghassan’s presence.

  For one, he was an exotic-looking foreigner, taller than normal for his people, and of distinguished elder appearance—or so he liked to think. Second, he was a domin of metaology.

  The Order of Metaology in Calm Seatt was smaller and less prominent than in Ghassan’s own branch, but still treated with some reserve—as were all the metaologers. In most cases rumors of the order’s abilities were exaggerated. The only true work they did in magic was mostly in thaumaturgy via artificing, which included alchemical processes. They were responsible for making cold lamp crystals and other minor items used by the guild.

  In other rare cases, rumors fell slightly short of the truth—something Ghassan kept to himself.

  To Nikolas’s credit, he kept his seat. Impressive, but Ghassan had no interest in the young man—only in Wynn. In what she knew, what she might share, and what she would keep to herself. She looked pale this morning, as if she had not slept well, but her hair was cleanly pulled back into a tail.

  “Would you care for bread with butter and honey?” Wynn asked. “I can go find some.”

  Her simple offer moved him. Then he hardened himself against sentiment.

  She possessed a giving spirit, but under the present circumstances this was not a good thing. If only she were closed off and self-serving, then she would cause him less concern. He had often been forced into cold decisions, doing what was necessary, and regret was not something he could afford.

  Ghassan shook his head politely at Wynn’s offer. He was about to tell her that boiled oats would be fine when his attention shifted. High-Tower suddenly appeared from the smaller northeast entrance.

  The old dwarf’s mouth was set in an angry, determined grimace, and his cloak was tied tightly about his wide shoulders. He strode halfway through the hall toward the main wide arch and the passage to the double front doors.

  Where was the dour domin going so early?

  Symbols and lines of Ghassan’s art appeared in his mind, lacing over the sight of High-Tower. He reached for the domin’s mind, attempting to pick up surface thoughts.

  A loud commotion rose out of the main archway, echoing from the outer main passage.

  “Sir! Sir, you cannot go in there. You must have permission first!”

  High-Tower came to a sudden halt as Captain Rodian strode in.

  Everyone in the common hall looked up to see an initiate scurrying backward before the captain. But the captain’s threatening gait quickly backed the boy into a nearby table.

  “What do you think you are doing?” High-Tower growled.

  Rodian locked eyes with the dwarf. “I assume you’re heading out to Master Shilwise’s scriptorium to demand your folio?”

  The entire hall fell silent, and Ghassan tensed.

  Rodian’s growing involvement concerned him almost as much as Wynn did. If nothing else, the captain struck him as competent. Not at all what Ghassan needed.

  “I’ll save you the effort,” Rodian said softly, though his voice carried clearly in the silence. “The folio is gone. Someone broke into Shilwise’s shop last night, ransacked the place, and took it.”

  The captain closed another two steps on High-Tower.

  “Now, would you care to go to your study,” he continued, “and tell me what was in that folio? Or do I still need an order of the court or a decree from the royal family?”

  Ghassan glanced at Wynn.

  She seemed as taken aback as everyone else, watching the exchange in stunned silence. Nikolas, however, was staring at the captain, and the young man’s brow glistened with a sudden cold sweat.

  “More unfounded assumptions, Captain,” said a calm reedy voice from the smaller north entrance.

  All heads turned as High Premin Sykion entered, silver hair tied back and her long gray robe sweeping the floor.

  Rodian did not even flinch. “Unfounded?”

  “Do you have evidence that the thieves intentionally broke into Master Shilwise’s scriptorium . . . for the sole purpose of taking our folio?”

  “It’s the only thing missing.”

  “You are certain, without a doubt, that nothing more was taken?”

  “With respect,” Rodian replied, “two of yours were murdered, and the folio they carried is missing. The following night another is stolen directly from a scribe shop. My duty is to protect this city, including your guild . . . and even from itself. You will tell me exactly what was in—”

  “Premin Sykion!”

  The initiate who had been driven before Rodian came running back into the hall. Ghassan had not even noticed the boy leave.

  “Forgive me, Premin, b-b-but . . .”

  The boy looked anxiously about the hall, then hurried close to Sykion and whispered.

  Ghassan focused upon the initiate, once again stroking the mental symbols and ciphers he needed. As Sykion leaned down, he slipped into the young one’s thoughts and heard . . .

  Duchess Reine is here! She asks to be admitted immediately.

  Before Ghassan could try for the premin’s thoughts, the captain whirled about, facing the archway. Nearer to Sykion, he had obviously overheard the boy.

  Shifting a spell’s focal point was not so easy once a connection to target was established. The captain appeared startled, and all anger and determination faded from his demeanor. By the time Ghassan grasped at the captain’s thoughts, all he caught was . . .

  Oh, Blessed Trinity! Why is she here—now, of all times?

  Sykion straightened with a worried glance to High-Tower.

  “Everyone out!” High-Tower shouted. “Any but domins, clear the room!”

  Rodian glanced back, frustration plain on his face, but Premin Sykio
n relaxed where she stood, offering the captain a polite smile. Or was it an expression of relief?

  The hall filled with the noise of rushing feet. Initiates, apprentices, and a handful of journeyors hurried for the exits. Some were diverted away to the northeast exit when they tried in confusion to leave through the main archway. Nikolas seemed reluctant, and Wynn pulled him up.