The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  “I am told that the Risings in Torland were the most extensive since those recorded in ancient times.” His words were hoarse but precisely enunciated. “Lord Valhaine says that the lives lost numbered in the hundreds.”

  “Regrettably, that is so, Your Majesty,” Mr. Quent said. “I confirmed the figures with him only a few moments ago.”

  The king nodded. “He also tells me that the devastation could have been far worse had it not been for your efforts in securing the person of the witch who instigated this, and that she might have caused every stand of Wyrdwood in the west of Altania to rise up. The disaster this would have caused—not only in terms of life and property, but also in its effect on the minds and hearts of my subjects, and on their confidence in the strength of their government—would have been of the gravest proportions. For averting this disaster, you have my gratitude, and the gratitude of all of Altania.”

  Mr. Quent drew a visible breath. “I did only what I must.”

  “As do all great men.” The king seemed to straighten a fraction in his chair. “It is not a man who makes himself great. Rather, it is circumstance that permits him to be so, if it is in his being. There are many men who might be great who dwell in times of peace, and so their true nature is never shown. But circumstance has revealed your true nature, Mr. Quent. Therefore I bestow this reward upon you. It is hardly enough, but I presume you will not refuse it. So come, and claim your due.”

  Mr. Quent dutifully knelt before the king and kissed his ring. The steward placed a slender sword in the king’s hands, and aided him in lifting the blade and tapping Mr. Quent on each shoulder. When he rose, the steward declared that he was now Sir Quent, Baronet of Cairnbridge. Ivy felt her heart flutter in her chest. Such pride and admiration she felt for her husband could hardly be borne.

  Nor was she the only one affected. The various courtiers no longer seemed dull. Rather, they watched with interest, and many of them even stood and clapped. And if Mr. Quent bore the whole thing soberly, it only made him seem more the worthy hero.

  Then it was finished. It was time for the king’s next audience. The whole affair had taken no more than five minutes.

  As they departed, a startling thought occurred to Ivy. Here in this room was the very king whose approval they required for the petition to release her father from Madstone’s. But there had been no time to ask His Majesty about the matter, nor could it have been deemed in any way appropriate to have used this occasion to do so. However, even as she considered this, she realized Mr. Quent was discussing the very topic with the steward.

  “I will be sure to inquire as to the status of your petition, Sir Quent,” Lord Malhew said as they paused by the door.

  “You have my thanks,” Mr. Quent replied.

  The steward nodded, then they departed the room. Ivy was beyond words, yet she knew that Mr. Quent could detect the gratitude in the look she gave him.

  As they entered the hall, Ivy looked about for Lady Crayford but did not see her. It was just as well; by the purposefulness of his gait, Ivy knew her husband was ready to depart. She took Mr. Quent’s arm—or rather, Sir Quent’s, she thought, giddy now—and they walked across the hall.

  “Well, I suppose that went well enough,” she said when it was clear he was not going to speak without prompting. “Though I confess that I was, on the whole, a bit disappointed.”

  “How so?” he rumbled.

  “For one thing, I thought there would be fanfares of trumpets.”

  “You thought no such thing!”

  She could feign seriousness no longer, and she smiled at him. “Perhaps not. But you’ll forgive me if, in my ignorance, I thought—or rather, I dreaded—that the ceremony would be grander in scale.”

  “I am in no way surprised it wasn’t. It can hardly be considered an exceptional happening for another baronet to be added to the rolls. Like lords, they are already as common as fleas on a hound.”

  “Well, then, let us hope Altania does not get an itch and shake them off, lords and baronets all.”

  “She may yet,” he said, and despite the fact that Ivy had been making a jest, his tone was grim.

  Before she could wonder what he meant, she caught a glimpse across the hall of a tall, slender woman. Was Lady Crayford still in the keep after all? However, as Ivy turned, she saw that the woman was not dressed in an apricot gown. Instead, she was clad all in black. For a moment, Ivy was aware of onyx eyes set in a pale face. Midnight blue lips curved upward, though the expression did not seem to be a smile. Then the woman stepped behind a column and was lost from view.

  Startled, Ivy realized she had just seen Lady Shayde, servant of Lord Valhaine and mistress of the Gray Conclave.

  “What a sad and pitiful creature,” Mr. Quent said quietly.

  Ivy glanced up at him. He spoke as if he knew her. Though, now that she considered it, she supposed she could not be surprised that he was acquainted with Lady Shayde. If in his work he had come to know Lord Valhaine, then surely he had encountered the Black Dog’s famed White Lady.

  Her husband tightened his hold on her arm. “The stones of this place hold the night chill,” he said. “Come, let us go back out in the sun.”

  They did so, walking through the doors of the Citadel out into the day, and so Sir and Lady Quent made their entrance into the world.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ELDYN AWOKE TO warm light. The radiance seemed to surround him, to buoy him, as if he was floating in a golden sea. He stretched and gave a great yawn, then blinked his eyes to clear the sleep from them. As had been the case nearly every morning for the last half month, it was not his chamber in the old monastery near Graychurch he saw as he opened his eyes, but rather, a small, neatly kept room above the Theater of the Moon.

  “Well, there you are at last, you layabout.” Dercy looked down at Eldyn, leaning on an elbow. “Someone must have given you too much to drink at tavern last night. I was beginning to think I would have to hasten the dawn along even more swiftly to wake you.”

  He made a motion with his hand, and the honeyed light brightened around them. Eldyn sat up in the bed and looked at the small window in the opposite wall. Through a gap in the curtain he could see a strip of slate gray sky. He let out a groan.

  “The sun’s not even up yet. This light—it’s all your doing.”

  “So it is,” Dercy said with remorseless cheer.

  Eldyn lifted a hand to his head. It was still fogged, and there was a thudding between his temples which he supposed was his own heartbeat, but which felt more akin to a drum being beaten in his skull.

  “I could still be sleeping if it weren’t for you.”

  “You were the one who told me not to let you oversleep.”

  “I was drunk when we got here last night. As you know perfectly well, since you were the one who compelled me to imbibe that last pot of punch. So you can’t hold me to my words. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  Dercy’s grin broadened. “On the contrary, you knew exactly what you were doing.”

  A warmth came over Eldyn, and this time it was not from the golden light. He had not drunk so much that he could not remember clambering up the stairs to Dercy’s room, laughing as they stumbled through the door and fell onto the bed. Despite his best efforts, his frown vanished, replaced with a smile.

  “You’re still wicked for waking me,” he said.

  Dercy’s sea-colored eyes were serious. “Of course I am. As the Church likes so well to remind us, all illusionists are wicked.” He tapped a finger against the smooth, pale skin above Eldyn’s heart. “Except for you, of course. You, my friend, are very, very good.”

  He climbed out of bed, then gave Eldyn a wink. “I’ll go downstairs and get us a pot of coffee from Cook.”

  Eldyn laughed. “You’re going down there without a stitch on? You’ll get the pot thrown at you.”

  “Really? Why would Mrs. Murnlout be angry to see a fine-looking man dressed in fine-looking clothes?” Dercy crossed his arms, a
nd suddenly he was clad in a white shirt, buff breeches, and polished brown boots.

  “You’re not seriously thinking of going down there like that.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  If Eldyn concentrated, he could see through the illusion. One moment Dercy was clad in a young gentleman’s garb, and the next he wore naught but what God had granted him. However, the glamour was exceedingly well-crafted. The cook would not be able to see past it, not like Eldyn could.

  That is, as long as Dercy kept weaving the phantasm.

  “Go on, then,” Eldyn said, still laughing. “But if I hear a scream and a crash from below, I’ll know you let the illusion slip. Nor will I come with a pair of breeches to rescue you!”

  While he waited for Dercy’s return, Eldyn entertained himself by summoning illusions. The golden light Dercy had conjured vanished when he left the room, but Eldyn brought it back with little more than a thought and a flick of his finger.

  He twisted his hand, and the light shrank into a brilliant sphere like a tiny sun. He gave a toss with his other hand, and a moon-pale sphere lofted into the air. With a nod he sent the two spinning in circles, each giving chase but never catching the other.

  The phantasms came easily to him, as they always did now. The first time he had crafted a real illusion had been that night a half month ago, when he had come to this room with Dercy after the awful sight at the Theater of the Doves, and without even thinking about it he had conjured a forest. Ever since then, he had been able to sculpt light just as he had previously woven shadows.

  Why he could do it now, why he could craft true illusions when he could manage no more than a mere glamour before, he did not know. Dercy thought that perhaps the shock of what they had witnessed that night had caused him to forget his own fears of failing.

  “A fright can cure the hiccoughs,” Dercy had said. “So maybe it cured whatever was amiss with you. Sometimes the only way to accomplish a thing is to get so rattled that you forget about even trying. You simply do it.”

  Eldyn could only admit that what they had seen outside the Theater of the Doves that night had gravely affected him. He would never forget the scene of the two illusionists before the theater door, the elder weeping as he clutched the body of the younger. Donnebric’s face had been crusted with blood; yet somehow, to Eldyn, it was the pale, cracking mask of Gerivel’s powdered face that truly signified death.

  All the same, Eldyn was not as certain as Dercy that it was due to shock that he was suddenly able to accomplish what had previously been beyond him. After all, had not something else occurred that very same night that had altered him in the most profound manner? He had drawn aside a curtain, revealing an aspect of himself he had never known existed.

  Except he had known what lay beyond there—or had an inkling of it, at least—hadn’t he? How many times at university had he kept his nose firmly planted in a book when his homely but witty friend Orris Jaimsley showed up at the library at St. Berndyn’s College with a pair of pretty young women in tow? Yet Eldyn always quickly set his book down if Jaimsley brought along his handsome Torlander friend, Curren Talinger, instead.

  However, no matter what Eldyn might have felt, acting upon such feelings was not something he had ever allowed himself to consider. His father had never taken him to a church, but Eldyn had never wanted for priests to hear proscriptions against that sort of behavior.

  Your mother was a witch, and I know what they say of a witch’s son, Vandimeer Garritt had told him more than once while drunk and sneering. But I won’t have it. I’ll make a man of you, or I’ll break your neck trying. Either way, I’ll not suffer some mincing prat for a whelp of mine!

  Only now Vandimeer Garritt was dead and in the ground. And while the disapproval of society endured, Eldyn found it difficult to keep such thoughts firmly in mind. Every time he was with Dercy, and felt the warm touch of his hand or the delightful roughness of his beard, any fretfulness Eldyn might have had regarding the opinions of others was immediately forgotten.

  In sum, now that the curtain that had concealed that part of himself had been opened, Eldyn could not seem to close it again. And was it not possible that whatever it was that gave him the ability to craft illusions had been concealed behind that curtain as well? Whatever the reason, he could now conjure any number of illusions—real phantasms, like those one might pay a quarter regal to see on Durrow Street.

  True, there were yet many things beyond his grasp. Those illusions that required careful detail, such as a human face or the fine clothes Dercy had manifested, were not yet within his ability. Like a painter who must learn to control his brush with ever finer motions to achieve the effect he desires, so Eldyn would have to learn to control his own art. For now, he could only paint with the broadest strokes of light. All it would take to improve, though, were time and practice.

  With this thought in mind, Eldyn laced his hands behind his head and gazed up at the two spheres—one silver, one gold—that chased each other around the room. He concentrated, making them brighter yet.…

  “I see you’re conjuring your own version of our play.”

  Eldyn blinked and sat up. So focused had he been on crafting the illusion that he had not noticed Dercy’s return. The other young man stood by the bed, a pot in hand, still clad in his illusory garb.

  “I was just practicing,” Eldyn said.

  “As well you should,” Dercy replied with a grin.

  He set the pot on a table by the bed, then went to the glowing spheres, which now hovered in the middle of the room, to make an examination of them. He must have seen some imperfection in them, for after a moment his smile diminished, and his expression grew thoughtful.

  “Do you know why the sun does not love the moon?” Dercy said, looking back at Eldyn.

  Eldyn shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s an old question—a riddle, really. Long ago, when the Siltheri did not move about so freely as they do today, when they had to remain hidden for fear of torture or even death, they used the question as a sort of key. If someone knocked on your door in the depths of a greatnight, you spoke the words to the person on the other side, and only if they could answer the question would you unbar the door.”

  “Then I’d never get inside,” Eldyn said, “for I couldn’t answer it.”

  “Couldn’t you? Not even after all the times you’ve seen our play?”

  Eldyn leaned his chin on his knees, thinking. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense. I mean, why should the sun not love the moon? It’s so much brighter. It owns the day and chases away the night.”

  “That’s right. It’s far more powerful. You’d think it would have no reason to be jealous of a thing so much smaller and dimmer than itself. All the same, it is.”

  Eldyn thought of the silver coins that were used as tokens of entry at many of the theaters on Durrow Street. An illusionist at the Sword and Leaf had given him one of the coins once; it had bought Eldyn his first performance at a theater. Like all such tokens, it bore an image of the sun embossed on one side and an image of the moon on the other. The two were inextricably connected, yet only one side of the coin could be seen at once.

  “I suppose,” he said at last, “the sun is jealous because no matter what it does, it can never catch the moon. It can only banish it from the sky for a time. But the moon always returns. And sometimes, when everything in the heavens is arranged just so, the moon can cover the sun.”

  As he spoke, he recalled an eclipse of the sun he had seen once as a boy. His father had shown no interest in the celestial event, which was predicted in the almanac. What was more, when Eldyn had expressed a wish to see it, his father had threatened to lock him in a closet for the duration. However, Eldyn had made sure to keep his father’s cup filled that day, and by the time the event came, Vandimeer Garritt was eclipsed himself, unconscious and snoring on the floor in the front hall at Bramberly.

  Eldyn had watched the eclipse through a piece of
smoked glass. He remembered how glorious rays had radiated from the dark circle of the moon as if they were its own.

  “It’s like the moon steals the sun’s crown,” he said.

  Dercy gave a nod. “No ruler likes it when another usurps his power, not even when that power is willingly given back. And the greater the ruler, the less he cares for it.”

  Eldyn looked up at him. “So that’s the answer to the question? The sun doesn’t love the moon because it steals his crown?”

  Dercy spread his hands. “And the door opens, and you step into warm firelight and the arms of friends. Yes, that’s the answer to the question. You got it right.”

  “I still don’t know what it means.”

  Dercy looked again at the two glowing spheres. “It’s a lesson, I suppose. It serves to remind the Siltheri of their place, and warns what happens if we reach too far, or touch what we should not.”

  “But sometimes the moon does eclipse the sun.”

  “And when it does, it is burned black.”

  Eldyn didn’t know a great deal about astrography, but he knew Dercy was right; an eclipse could occur only when the moon was completely dark, as it would be tonight. While the moon always returned from darkness, and grew full with silver light again, the same was not true for illusionists who overstepped their bounds. He did not want to, but once again in his mind he saw Gerivel and Donnebric before the Theater of the Doves. The two orbs of illusory light flickered, then vanished.

  “I’m sorry,” Dercy said. “Now I’ve gone and made you melancholy. Come, drink some coffee. It will clear your head.”

  He sat on the bed and tipped the pot over a pair of cups. At the same moment his fine clothes vanished, and Eldyn could not help letting out a great laugh—as was no doubt the intended effect.