The Dagger of Trust

by Chris Willrich

  Above Ozrif's shadow Gideon saw a dancing, juggling boy he was sure was Ozrif himself. The boy jumped aboard a ship and was embraced by the people there. The ship soon encountered a larger vessel, and it flew a chiaroscuro flag of a crown above a lion. Many on the smaller ship were killed, and many treasures taken from it. The ship sank into the mists.

  Meanwhile over Viridia's shadow there rose a farmstead, where a girl rode a horse through the grass. There came an ornate carriage bearing the crown-and-lion banner, and the girl's parents pleaded with a robed official. In the end many bags went into the laughing tax collector's hands.

  Gideon didn't want to look at his own shadow.

  Above Ozrif's there was now a bazaar scene, with the boy fleeing a slave stockade where his old crewmates stood for sale; and above Viridia's were hangman's nooses, their purpose fulfilled, with the girl raging before them.

  And still Gideon did not look to the third scene. He saw instead his friends' expressions, haunted, contorted in old anger and pain. But worse, they looked also toward him.

  "Gideon," Viridia said, "what are we seeing? I know the girl is me, and I know enough about Ozrif's past to recognize...but I don't understand yours."

  "These are scenes torn from our pasts," said Ozrif. "Grim things. Yet yours seems different, Gideon."

  Now Gideon looked.

  In his own shadow play, a boy wrestled with his older brother. From the little cape worn by the bigger boy, Gideon knew it was his brother Gareth. And from the smaller boy's toy sword, Gideon knew that he was looking at himself.

  The idyllic scene by itself was not the cause of his dread. The Singing Knight had fought the Opera Ghost many a time, sometimes with the participation of their sisters in the form of the Captive Diva, the Master Detective, and Chomper the Dinosaur. (That was Zitha, the littlest, who introduced Chomper into everything from tea parties to formal dinners; after a while it made a strange kind of sense.)

  There was no diva or detective or dinosaur this time, but there was another element. Little specks flew back and forth in the air above the brothers.

  "What are the dark dots?" Viridia asked.

  "Bees."

  "Did the bees attack you?" asked Ozrif.

  "No! The bees are just bees." What mattered was not the bees but what their presence said about the time and place. "Those are the bees of Bellis."

  The fog curdled and thickened near the bees, and the swarm dispersed. The boys looked up, the Singing Knight and Opera Ghost forgotten as they looked to where the fog had congealed.

  "What are they looking at?" Ozrif asked.

  "It," muttered Gideon.

  "What?" said Viridia. "I don't see anything."

  "That!" said Gideon, for it was plain as a bear on the Grand Bridge. And now it was as if he were back in time.

  He unsheathed his dagger and confronted the fog.

  "Gideon!" Viridia shouted, and Ozrif tried to restrain him. But he plunged forward.

  The touch of the fog was like the caress of some undead lover. It sickened him, for all that he remembered it well. And within it, something touched his mind. The same presence he'd felt on the conservatory roof. Laughing.

  All at once, the fog withdrew around a corner. He followed, his friends close at his heels.

  When they rounded the bend, it was gone.

  "What manner of monster was this?" Viridia demanded.

  "Now you're leaping to conclusions," said Ozrif. "It was a trick, a spell effect..."

  "I suggest," Gideon said, trying to return to the here and now, "that you two reach an exit and inform the guards. I'll see if the headmaster will speak to me early."

  "You sure?" Viridia asked.

  "You seem most affected—" said Ozrif.

  "I'm fine." Gideon turned and walked toward the headmaster's nook of the maze, not wanting to speak further. He needed to be alone.

  The past was the past. And Gareth was gone.

  Gideon at last reached a wall where silver light stones spelled out the sentence If you want to know what lies ahead, learn what lies behind. He found a spot on the unmarked wall directly opposite the word behind, and pressed the stone there. A panel slid aside, and cold rock gave way to warm wood, silk curtains, and embroidered furnishings.

  The headmaster had an open-door policy—if you could figure out how to open the door.

  In Xeritian's office hung portraits of the sort that great men, or men who fancy themselves great, commission. Each noble or official or wealthy merchant stood in a pose of ease and power, often fondling some token of authority—a heraldic shield, a book of laws, or brass scales—as though it were a concubine.

  In each picture Xeritian stood in the shadows behind the great personage, a dagger in his hand, a smirk upon his face.

  There was a large chair facing a vast desk strewn with papers. Xeritian made a point of having his back to you if you entered his office. A dare, Gideon supposed, though he personally thought it theatrical.

  The chair was empty, however.

  "Gideon!"

  Sebastian came down the hallway from the direction opposite Gideon's.

  "I was hoping to catch Xeritian," the corsair said. "What are you doing here?"

  "Sebastian. I'm glad to see you." Gideon explained about the fog, though something made him hold back anything about dead brothers or voices in his head.

  Sebastian frowned. Entering the office, he leaned over a brass horn embedded in the desk, its cone opening onto some cavity in the wood. He blew. Gideon heard nothing.

  "That should bring everyone running," Sebastian said. "They'll also send a messenger to Xeritian, wherever he might be."

  "They?"

  "A school like this requires many hidden staff. Will you show me where this fog manifested?"

  When they reached the spot in question, Ozrif and Viridia were gone, but there were guards present, as well as the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. Sebastian conferred with her, adding, "Do you think it was the same?"

  "That's supposition. But I mistrust coincidences."

  "The same as what?" Gideon asked.

  Sebastian took his arm. "Come with me, Gull."

  They reached a guard post and ascended a switchbacking stairway in the dark. "There've been reports across Oppara of these manifestations," Sebastian said. "Even in the Senate's halls."

  "An attack?"

  "A strange one, if so. Only certain people perceive it. Thus we've not been able to convince the mighty. Also, no one's suffered worse than a scare, and a riling of their emotions." He paused. "You do seem upset."

  "I'm fine. On the green, you mentioned a fog. Are these apparitions similar to what Corvine described?"

  "Her letter was brief, but yes, I think so. She requested an investigation. I was personally inclined to wait, but given the excitement her messenger caused at the debate, I had to show her letter to the headmaster. He insisted we inform Director Rell. I did so personally, and was returning to Xeritian when I found you. Evidently the headmaster chose to do some investigating of his own."

  "I'd volunteer. To go to Cassomir, I mean."

  "You're eager to see Corvine."

  "Well, how would you feel?"

  Sebastian laughed. "That's unclear, since no one but you and she understands your relationship. You were clearly lovers once, but something happened—"

  "I became a worthless drunk is what happened. Well, became one again. She's hinted we might start again. But I need to build a life that doesn't center around a bottle."

  They reached the top of the stairs. Dim light seeped through the edges of a secret portal. They emerged between wine barrels into a storeroom with frosted window-slits lining the upper ceiling. A permanent illusion portrayed the squeak and scuttle of a rat infestation. Sebastian pulled down a trapdoor from the ceiling as Gideon rolled a barrel back into place, with beady, illusory eyes glaring at him all the while.

  "She knows you've gone to the Rhapsodic," Sebastian said. "Does she suspect the rest?"

/>   "I don't think so."

  "Do you think she's the sort who can love a Lion Blade?"

  "I think that's a premature question." Gideon paused. Unless he's asking for his own benefit. "By the way, I hope our little argument on the green didn't raise a cloud between us."

  Sebastian paused on the trapdoor ladder. "That could never happen. Even if I'm a great believer in the Taldan way and you're an addled democracy-fool of Andoran."

  "Thanks, I guess. It's been a long while since I voted, however."

  "Do you ever want to go back?"

  "I love Andoran. But we're...estranged."

  "Hm."

  They ascended to the owner's office of The Harp and Harpoon, a tavern and inn popular with bards and sailors, and thus a natural safe house for the Lion Blades. Sebastian hailed Tithra Sparksteel, the proprietor, who grunted invisibly from behind her stack of ledgers.

  "Thought that racket was you, Tambour. By the way, that girl from The Cat and Feather came by."

  "I hope you told her I'm busy."

  "I almost told her I had an opening. If she's going to keep popping up, she might as well work."

  "You won't, of course."

  "Settle your business, man."

  "My business is Taldor, madam."

  Sebastian pulled a heavy book from a shelf and led Gideon to the common room. Amid the bright babble of seafaring conversation and snatches of song, Sebastian said, "I must take my leave for now. For even without these apparitions, I've a full schedule."

  "You won't be investigating?"

  "Not primarily. Not with the faculty already involved. I've an appointment with a ship's manifest and a mug of Bellis Mead. I'd hoped to find the headmaster here, but a school messenger's surely found him by now. My own business with him isn't urgent, and I'd best resume my duties."

  "What should I do? Before all this happened the Mistress of Stillness and Motion told me the headmaster wanted to see me."

  "You've made the effort. I'll vouch for you. I suggest you return to the college, prepare for exams, and let him find you." Sebastian smirked. "If he does, mention I'd like to speak to him again as well." After a pause, he said, "Do be careful out there."

  "You mean the fog?"

  "I mean everything."

  When Gideon emerged from the tavern into the street, the air had changed. The sky, once so bright and clear, was now pale gray.

  As he stepped onto the cobblestones, something swooped out of the pale sky.

  Gideon dove across the street, ducking around a carriage, a trio of sailors, and a flower girl in a way that might have impressed the Mistress of Stillness and Motion. He rolled into a crouch beneath a townhouse's timber jetty, dagger out.

  Swooping past the staring faces, the pigeon landed beside Gideon. A little scroll clung to its leg.

  Gideon rose and bowed to the passersby. "Alas, pigeon training is never done!"

  There was muttering to the effect that there ought to be laws against this sort of thing as the wayfarers moved on. Gideon removed the scroll. The pigeon looked familiar; some of Corvine's couriers returned to her, which spoke well of her treatment of animals.

  Bard said to bird, "Thank you. Go free."

  The pigeon fluttered into the dour sky. He opened the scroll and squinted at rows of intricate and increasingly diminutive handwriting.

  Dear Gideon,

  Salutations, greetings, waves! I'd have sent a seagull, Gull, but pigeons are better at this, and I need to move fast. How are you? I'm haunted by eldritch forces, but otherwise fine. No, don't be alarmed. It's not me personally, just my whole city. Maybe that doesn't reassure you. Maybe it doesn't reassure me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, there's a mysterious, magical, fog-like effect that seems to drive people mad. We've had reports of it around town and up the Sellen. Actually one of the reports is mine! Earlier I sent a letter to our mutual friend Sebastian

  "A coded message from the Qadiran Satrap, Gull?"

  Gideon started, and pocketed the scroll. "Headmaster!"

  Headmaster Xeritian chuckled. He was still dressed in his spattered groundskeeper's robe. "I fear you mistake me for someone else, Master Gull. I'm but a simple groundskeeper." His eyes flashed a warning.

  The day grew suddenly warmer as Gideon realized his error. They stood in the middle of a busy street, and here he was loudly proclaiming the headmaster's true identity. "Of course. My mistake."

  Xeritian nodded to the pocket containing the scroll. "Your blushing haste suggests not treachery, but romance. Your friend in Cassomir, then."

  Gideon's face burned hotter still. He stepped closer and lowered his voice to a safe level. "The Mistress of Stillness and Motion said you wanted to see me? And you were informed about the apparition at the school?"

  "Yes and yes. Walk with me."

  He followed the old man through Westport, feeling increasingly agitated at Xeritian's lack of agitation.

  They crossed some of the rougher streets of that rough district. Sometimes Xeritian would chuckle at this folly of humanity or that. Gideon had no sense of what the headmaster was up to. From time to time a disturbance would make Gideon ready to spring. A man came hurtling through the much-abused window of a tavern. Beside a brothel a woman in a man's clutches laughed in a shrieking, mocking way that hammered the ears. A man in a gutter gripped at Xeritian's leg and gasped, "Money for pesh?"

  Gideon wanted to say, You have enough trouble without sucking up that stuff, but Xeritian passed the man a coin, to a babble of thanks from which the headmaster silently removed himself.

  "You disapprove?" Xeritian asked Gideon.

  "I've seen pesh carve brains like melons."

  "His fate isn't my concern, and I admired his candor. A little honesty is a fine thing in this deceitful world."

  "In that case: why aren't you back at the Shadow School, when something like that fog's gotten in?"

  "The truth isn't going to be at the school. This is a city of a million lies, and I'm a master of liars. Sifting the lies, I may find the answers."

  "If you admire honesty," Gideon wondered aloud, "doesn't it bother you, being a master of liars?"

  Xeritian raised an eyebrow. "Not at all. I train them, but I have the privilege of being an honest man myself. If anything, I feel guilty at the discrepancy. Do the lies bother you?"

  "Somewhat." If Xeritian appreciated candor, then Gideon would give it to him. "Every song's a lie of sorts, you know. You take the pose of a narrator. Sometimes that narrator is you, sometimes not. Spycraft is kind of like that, I think. Except it isn't a show, it's a con. It does bother me, sometimes..."

  "Spoken like a bard. You're not the first with that reaction."

  "Were you a bard, Headmaster?"

  "No. I was a historian." A few unexpected snowflakes fell around them as they spoke. Xeritian caught the year's first snow in his hand. "When you grow up amid the bones of past greatness, it's a lively field." The snowflake melted, and they walked on.

  They departed Westport, and the snowflakes became a throng, dancing on the air like fat, lazy gnats. At first they left only a little moisture on the cheek or a few brief bright motes in the glorious weaves of a Taldan woman's hair. Opparans, busy with the business of the City of Empire—or surviving the City of Empire—ignored it. But the sky's gray mills weren't to be denied, and relentlessly churned out their snowy flour. Bit by bit, the streets and rooftops were covered in white, and the Gilded City became silver.

  Xeritian led Gideon to the doorstep of the House of the Immortal Son, the temple of the dead god Aroden, now converted to an opera house. He pushed open one of the great doors and gestured inside.

  "Headmaster? What does an opera rehearsal have to do with the fog?"

  "Nothing, Gull. I summoned you because of your performance this morning. It concerns me. Crises come and go, but the need to train new Lion Blades remains."

  A singing troupe was rehearsing inside, sans orchestra, yet augmented with the presence of spellcasters. As Gideo
n watched, illusory fires seemed to fill the air around the singers, and blasts of water withered the fire; yet the waves were outflanked by further flames.

  "Have you heard of the thaumacycle?" Xeritian asked.

  "A composition that incorporates magic. A revival of a lost Azlanti tradition. A difficult form." While true bards studied both music and magic, each discipline was quite demanding on its own. The combination defeated most composers. By tradition, every spell in a thaumacycle performance had to be at least theoretically castable by the author. The exact form was up to each composer, but most entries were operas.

  "You're aware of the Taldan Thaumacycle Festival?" "I've heard of it but never witnessed it. It travels around." Corvine had spoken of it with interest, and had mentioned wanting to try her hand at it.

  "The next one will be held here on Longnight, a little over a month from now. This group's already rehearsing." Xeritian winked. "But I believe there's enough time for you to enter and compose something."

  "Me? What about the fog?"

  "You're forgetting you're still a student, Gull. More experienced hands will deal with today's danger. I still need you in training, to face tomorrow's threats."

  "But—respectfully—how does this help me become a better Lion Blade? I could do it, but I'd have to drop everything else, and I doubt very much I'd win." And if he were to devote his winter recess to the work, he wouldn't be able to travel to Cassomir to investigate the fog. And see Corvine. "Maybe I'd manage the score, but the magic..."

  "Challenging, yes. But experience is the point, not victory. You seemed reluctant to employ magic during the Shadow Taunt."

  Gideon reddened. It was true. He was a quick study at spells, and could cast them at need, but they never seemed natural to him. Outside of immediate danger, he rarely thought of employing them.

  "I suspect your difficulty with magic's less a matter of talent, and more that you have a lopsided interest in music."

  "Well, I was just a musician until recently."