House of Shadows

by Rachel Neumeier

  But he knew very well that the chance of such an easy escape was purely illusory. If the conspirators were not confident they had a leash on him, they would not have let him go.

  Besides, if he fled Lonne tonight, he would never know whether he might, after all, have struck a sharp blow against the Dragon of Lirionne. Though in some ways… in some ways, in fact, never having to know the answer to that question was a greater temptation to flight than getting away from Miennes. Or even from Ankennes.

  But regardless of the pull of the sea, how could he leave Lonne without at least considering whether he might rather comply with rather than avoid the demand Miennes had set on him?

  Taudde allowed Benne to drive him back to his rented house, but he found he could not bear its close confines. Not tonight, of all nights he had spent in Lonne. He opened the shutters of his window and stood gazing out into the night. It seemed to him he could hear the ceaseless murmur of the sea, though this far from the shore no sound of the waves should have been audible.

  Though he was bone weary, Taudde found himself unable to be still. His flute was in his hand, though he had no memory of reaching for it. He hesitated a moment to recover prudence, and another moment to try at least for good sense. But then, he had a murder to arrange… at least to consider arranging. He had every reason, indeed nearly a requirement, to dispense with good sense.

  So he allowed himself to lift the flute to his lips. He played himself into the shadows and the night breeze and the mist. He did not trouble overmuch with subtlety. If he would test Ankennes’s protection, why not at once? So when he clambered out the window, he did not fall, and when he reached the cobbles of the street at last, his boots on the stone made no sound. Turning away from the house, back into the dimly lit streets, he strode toward the sea.

  As Taudde walked west toward the sea, the streets became gradually narrower and rougher, and the residences that lined them smaller and more crowded. Wealth ran like water down from the mountains toward the sea, so the people of Lonne said, growing shallow as it neared the docks. Taudde bent his steps north of west, not quite toward the sea but toward the Niarre River.

  By this time of evening, the candlelight district had come to graceful life. Aika establishments had hung out blue paper lanterns shaped like flowers and silver ones shaped like crescent moons, and theaters were lighting the elaborate candelabra fixtures that arched over their doors. One restaurant after another was putting back its shutters and setting out lanterns—plain ones—to illuminate its sign, and the keiso Houses were alight with round, white porcelain lamps.

  In contrast to the flower world, the Paliante was somnolent. Nearly all the traffic across the bridge was moving toward the candlelight district and the residential areas of the city farther south. But Taudde thought there were as yet enough late travelers through the streets of the Paliante that his presence there should go unremarked.

  Taudde found the shop of oddments and instruments with less trouble than he’d expected, for all he’d been there only once. It was closed and locked. More than locked: shut fast with some magecrafted spell that wove back and forth across its entire façade. For a moment, Taudde considered trying to unweave the guarding spell. But it was complex and powerful. He suspected that any attempt he made in that direction would fail of Ankennes’s injunction in favor of “continuing discretion.”

  Instead, Taudde coaxed open the simpler lock of the neighboring tailor’s establishment with the merest whisper of melody and stepped in among racks of finished clothing and bolts of cloth. The shutters at the front of the shop were closed fast, so he felt it should be safe to play a soft fall of moonlight through the tailor’s shop—enough to find his way among the racks to the back of the shop. Here, he paused and studied the wall that separated the tailor’s shop from the neighboring shop of oddments and instruments.

  The wall was plaster, painted a pale bird’s egg blue. Laying a hand upon it, Taudde let his awareness settle into and past the paint and the plaster. He found no web of magery within the wall, only timbers and stonework, and then on the far side more plaster. Taudde withdrew his awareness and paused again, considering. He might yet leave the Paliante—return to his rented house, even make a real attempt to slip the conspirators’ chain and get out of Lonne entirely.

  Instead, he took out his flute once more. From it, he drew a music that melted through the plaster and wove among the interstices between the stones of the wall, that made at last a way through the solid wall that he might follow. Then he stood for a time on the other side while the sorcery faded, until he could remember how to move muscle and bone.

  He waited another long moment, listening. He heard nothing. He perceived no sign that any Lonne mage had noticed the whisper of bardic sorcery through their city. Would he, if any did? And was there any point to asking himself such questions after he’d already chosen to risk this trespass? That last question, at least, answered itself.

  Taudde made his way carefully to the rear of the cluttered shop. Yes, there was the table he recalled, with all manner of tools and fittings ready to hand for a craftsman. He got out his candlelighter, lit the waiting lamp to illuminate the table, absently pulled the nearest chair over to the table, and sat down to look over the materials available. He could already hear, in his mind, the instruments he wanted to make. Pipes—two sets, of course: one set pitched to open the way and the other to follow. He already knew their tones and voices, pure as the crystalline air in the high mountains… He reached, not even consciously looking, after a suitable blank for the first pipe, and then for a blade that would let him turn the ivory blank he’d selected into the pipe he already held, whole and perfect, in his mind.

  Lost in his craftworking, Taudde found himself surprised by the dawn. He glanced up at last, surprised by the dazzle as the rising sun found its way through chinks in the shutters of the high windows and fell across the table. Reaching up, he pushed the shutters back. Then he looked down at the work of his hands, revealed by the vivid light of the sun.

  He had worked through the night with intense concentration abetted by the occasional lift of sorcery. This was not the first time he’d lost himself in craftwork, but the resulting instruments nevertheless astonished him. He thought he had never made finer instruments. Ironic, that these should be a masterwork. What would his grandfather say to the use of uncommon skill toward such an end? Though… given the approaching solstice, he might actually say something on the order of Good work, boy. Probably Good work, boy, considering you’re a fool.

  Taudde let his breath out and steadfastly turned his attention toward more immediate matters. Two completed sets of twin pipes lay before him. Each set was composed of six pipes, three matched pairs per set. The smallest were the length of a man’s forefinger, the longest perhaps twice so long. Taudde examined his work by the morning’s clear light. The craftsmanship, he judged, evaluating the instruments with an objective eye, was indeed very fine. And the sorcery threaded through the instruments… He let it resonate through his hands and his heart and thought that the sorcery, too, should prove adequate.

  The table was littered with bits of cut wire, shavings of ivory and horn, discarded fittings, and the odd blank that had not proven amenable to the crafting. Taudde tucked the finished pipes into a belt pouch and began to clean up all this random debris. The shop’s proprietor had seemed shrewd. Probably he knew his shop as he knew the fit of his own boots. Even so… the supply of craft materials in this shop was so generous that possibly the proprietor would not realize some of his blanks were missing. Or at least not at once. Even a little delay would be sufficient. Or at least helpful.

  Taudde swept the last of the shavings into a different pouch for later disposal and tried to remember precisely where the chair had been resting before he’d pulled it over to the table. And had the table lamp always been at this exact angle?

  He had no time to decide, because at that moment—defying the general rule that late nights in the candlelight dis
trict should be followed by late mornings in wealthy districts such as the Paliante—the mage spell that guarded the door and front wall of the shop suddenly dissolved, and Taudde heard the simultaneous metallic clink of a key being inserted into the door’s lock.

  Taudde didn’t panic. Not exactly. But for one shocked instant, he froze. For that instant, he was certain that the shop’s proprietor was going to step into the shop and find Taudde still standing there like a fool, speechless and motionless.

  The door swung open and the proprietor came in. Taudde, ducking sideways and down, got just enough of a glimpse to recognize the man. He dropped to his knees, out of sight behind a bank of shelves that held more blanks and a large collection of clay jars and opaque glass bottles. Some of the bottles rattled gently as his abrupt motion rocked the shelves, and Taudde held his breath, listening intently. He could hear the proprietor moving unhurriedly about the shop and began to believe that he was, for the moment, undiscovered. This was good, although it did not answer the larger question of how he was going to get out of the shop. Bardic sorcery was out of the question; he certainly couldn’t play a single note without the proprietor hearing, and any suggestion of sorcery connected with this shop… No. It would be very bad to have anyone make that connection.

  Taudde silently uncorked one of the bottles on the shelf in front of him and sniffed at its contents. Something sharp, astringent… familiar. He identified the smell after a moment: a cleaning solution used to remove glues and waxes from a craftsman’s hands. He put the cork back in the bottle and set the bottle back on the shelf, then picked up a second bottle. This one contained a heavily viscous oil used to cure certain kinds of reeds and light woods. He hesitated over this bottle, but then put it back and selected a third.

  There were mysterious scraping sounds, wood against wood, which after a moment Taudde identified as the sound of shutters being opened… It occurred to him, belatedly, that he had forgotten to close the shutters over the window above the table. He cursed inwardly, listening to the approaching steps. And the pause in those steps. The man had just noticed the open shutters, Taudde surmised. Either the proprietor was asking himself how he’d managed to forget to close them the previous evening, or else he was asking himself whether he’d forgotten. Probably he was also noticing the smell of burning lamp oil; possibly he was even reaching out to touch the lamp and confirm that it was still hot from recent burning… Who knew what else Taudde had altered and then forgotten, which the shop proprietor would instantly notice?

  Taudde uncapped the third bottle. The scent of this one’s contents was heady and strong: rosemary oil, used to keep the skin of an instrumentalist’s hands supple. Perfect. Taudde splashed the oil generously across two wooden blanks, set them alight with his candlelighter as the scent of rosemary rose around him, and threw both blanks high over the shelves toward the back of the shop.

  The clatter and alarmed gasp that resulted was gratifying, but Taudde did not stay to listen. It wouldn’t take the man long at all to put out the fires; unlike the curing oil, rosemary oil wouldn’t burn with any great vigor. He ducked low around the other end of the shelves and sprinted for the door.

  It was locked. Taudde, not expecting this, was momentarily too startled to do anything but jerk on the handle. Ominous sounds behind him indicated the shop’s proprietor might already have dealt with the little fires and be heading through the clutter toward the front of the shop. Taudde found his flute in his hand. The temptation to simply use sorcery to slip across distance and out of peril was overwhelming.

  But if he used sorcery here, and the shop’s proprietor realized it—and if the man knew his own stock well enough to guess what Taudde had made—he might even be perceptive enough to put the pieces together after Taudde’s pipes were put to the use for which he’d made them. The risk was impossible, but the heavy door wasn’t going to yield to any simple blow, either. From a table near the door, Taudde swept up the heavy brass statue of a rearing horse, spun back toward the door, took the one long step required, and slammed the statue end-on directly against the lock. He hid a short, whistled, precisely calculated melodic phrase in the crash the statue made as it struck the door, and the lock shattered. One more blow and the door was open, and Taudde was through it on that instant and sprinting down the wide street.

  Twenty feet, thirty, forty and he could at last cut sideways down a different street—he threw a look over his shoulder as he ran and glimpsed the proprietor just emerging from his shop. Not likely the man had gotten much of a look at Taudde—he thought—and in the wide, empty streets of the early-morning Paliante, he now had the space he needed for proper sorcery. Though hardly the breath he needed to play himself out of the Paliante and across Lonne, straight back into the safety of his rented house. Relative safety. Taudde played the merest whisper of inattention and invisibility as he slipped past Nala and Benne and up the stairs into his own room. Then, shivering, he dropped his flute into its pocket, closed his shutters against the brilliance of the morning, and collapsed to sit on the floor next to his bed. For a while, he did nothing but sit there, his head tilted back against the mattress and his eyes closed. Then, eventually, he took out the two sets of twin pipes he’d made—at such unexpected hazard, and carrying worse hazard within their seeming innocence—and laid them out on the floor next to his knee.

  The pipes were beautiful. A fine example of the bard’s craft. Taudde had made too many sets of pipes to recall, but he couldn’t remember when he’d made better. But he could see the death they carried within their craftsmanship, and he could hardly stand to look at them.

  CHAPTER 7

  Stepping out of darkness, stepping into remembered light, Nemienne found herself in the middle of the long gallery that ran along the back of her father’s house. She turned in a bewildered circle, for that first moment not trusting that she had come home. Her eyes were dazzled by the light that filled the gallery from the eight lanterns that hung on hooks from the ceiling.

  Then Jehenne, sitting beside Miande on the next bed over, screamed with startled joy and jumped forward into Nemienne’s arms. Nemienne reflexively caught her little sister and held her tightly. Lifting her eyes, she met Miande’s wide bewildered gaze, and then found Liaska and Tana, equally astonished, clinging together and looking not quite certain whether they should be happy or alarmed.

  It was Miande who came forward after that brief pause and took Nemienne’s hands, exclaiming at how cold they were. It was Miande who sent Tana to bring Enelle, and who fetched a blanket from her own bed to toss around Nemienne’s shoulders, and who pulled Nemienne over to the fireplace at the far end of the gallery. Jehenne clung to Nemienne’s hand through this, and then sat on the floor nestled up against her when Nemienne, shivering with cold and reaction, sank down by the hearth.

  “Go bring some mulled cider,” Miande told Liaska, who clearly needed a job to settle her down. Then Miande knelt down next to Nemienne and looked anxiously into her face. “Are you well?” She did not ask, Where did you come from? Or, How did you come like that out of the air?

  Nemienne, though she had known her sisters loved her, had somehow not expected such evidence of it. She felt almost overwhelmed by affection for Miande and Jehenne—for all her sisters, but perhaps especially for these two, who had so clearly missed her. Guilt at how little she had missed them in return scored her heart. She missed them now, retroactively, as though their absence in the past days echoed suddenly forward into this startling present. She put an arm around Jehenne and hugged her close. “I’m well—I’m happy—except I miss you, love. All of you,” she added, reaching out to pat Miande’s arm. “And have you been well? I know you’ve been busy. Have you been helping Enelle?” she asked Jehenne.

  “Yes, I wrote out all the invitations,” Jehenne answered, with shy pride. “And Miande is making these amazing cakes for the wedding.”

  Enelle came up the stairs and into the gallery, not running, but at a very dignified adult pace. She had Li
aska with her and the same questions Miande had not quite asked in her eyes. But Enelle didn’t ask those questions either. She said only, as Liaska pressed a mug of cider into Nemienne’s hands, “Ananda is with Petris. They’re drawing up plans for their wedding. I didn’t want to alarm Petris. If you don’t need to see Ananda, I think we oughtn’t disturb them. I left Tana with them to preserve propriety.”

  The care and thoroughness with which Enelle always approached every task was exactly as Nemienne remembered, but the edge of bitterness was new. Nemienne put her hands up for Enelle’s and drew her sister down to sit with her by the fire. Enelle resisted the tug for a moment, but then yielded and sank down. Jehenne pressed in from the other side and held Nemienne’s hand. The fire, burning with a somehow more ordinary kind of heat than Mage Ankennes’s fires ever seemed to, warmed their backs.

  “Everything is very well,” Nemienne told Enelle—told them all. This reassurance tasted oddly ambiguous on the back of her tongue, and she hesitated for a second. But it was perfectly true, after all. “Mage Ankennes is kind and generous, exactly as the mother of Cloisonné House said. His house is strange but not—not generally alarming. I took a… a wrong turn, I suppose, and got…” She edited her explanation hastily. “… lost.”

  “Lost? In the house?” Liaska seemed more intrigued than alarmed by this. “I’d like to see a house you can get lost in!”

  “It’s… well, it’s a strange house. But beautifully strange,” Nemienne assured her youngest sister. “Usually. I like it. And I love what I’m learning—Mage Ankennes is teaching me wonderful things.” She tried to think of some things she’d learned that seemed charming and harmless and didn’t have anything to do with frightening reaches of heavy darkness. “How to find small things that have been lost. How to read words in a language you don’t know. How to call a fire out of the air to light a candle.”