The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  However, even as she thought about all this, she realized she should not be so astonished. After all, her father had been a friend of Mr. Quent’s, and Mr. Quent had long served the lord inquirer. That at some point Lord Rafferdy and Mr. Lockwell had encountered each other was hardly out of the question. All the same, it was something she had never considered.

  At last Ivy found her voice. “Is that why you came here—to tell me that you knew my father?”

  “Not precisely. Rather, I come to do something that Mr. Lockwell once asked me to do. It is a duty I should have discharged long ago.” He drew in a rattling breath. “Yet first, if my voice will bear it, I think I should tell you about what happened at Am-Anaru, for you have brought the matter up, and it will help you understand how I came to know your father.”

  Ivy could do no more than give a mute nod. He paused, as if gathering his strength, and once again he slipped a thin hand into his coat pocket. At last he spoke, his words echoing in the stillness of the front hall, and Ivy listened with equal measures of dread and wonder as he described how three young lords, stationed deep in the southern continent in the years following the last war with the Murgh Empire, had come upon the ancient cave.

  It was Earl Rylend who had led them there. Up to that point in their lives, Lord Marsdel had had no more than a passing interest in magick, while Lord Rafferdy had usually played the skeptic when it came to the topic. This was despite—or perhaps because of—Rylend’s insistence that Rafferdy was descended from a distinguished line of magicians.

  In his studies, Rylend had stumbled upon knowledge of an ancient artifact of power that was said to be hidden in the southern wastes of the Empire, in a place called Am-Anaru. It was a name that did not exist on any map. However, during the time the three were stationed at a remote outpost on the edge of the desert, Rylend became convinced that Am-Anaru was a real place, and that it was one and the same with a dead oasis known as Jadi Hawalfa, or “the hungry mouth” in the language of the nomads who inhabited those wastelands.

  At last, after great travails crossing blazing expanses of sand, the three young men had come to Jadi Hawalfa in the company of several porters as well as Mr. Quent—the father of her own Sir Quent—who was Earl Rylend’s faithful steward. There they discovered a dark mouth in a cliff face.

  “The Murghese porters refused to enter the cave,” Lord Rafferdy said, his voice rattling. “They claimed the place was d’waglu.”

  Ivy repeated the peculiar word. “D’waglu?”

  “It means accursed in their language. We thought nothing of it. We were Altanian men of reason! We would not make ourselves subject to any sort of foreign superstition, and so we entered. We ventured deep into the cave, until the desert heat gave way to a constant chill, so that our breath began to fog as if we walked in the depths of a greatnight. Then, in the very blackest part of the labyrinth, we glimpsed a light. Rylend saw it first—a faint crimson spark.” He nodded at her. “I suppose you can guess what the thing was, Lady Quent. After all, it lies now within this very house.”

  A gasp escaped her, for she did realize the answer. “It was the Eye of Ran-Yahgren!”

  “Yes,” he said with a grave nod. “Rylend told us that was its name, and he insisted we take it from the cave.”

  So the earl had in fact brought something back from the south, Ivy realized. Only it was not an old stone sphinx. Rather, it was the crystalline orb that now was locked in her father’s secret study upstairs. Fascinated, she listened as Lord Rafferdy recounted the rest of the tale.

  Removing the artifact was a great labor. However, after much wresting the four of them brought the orb out of the cave—wrapped in cloth so that the Murghese porters could not see what it was. The thing was loaded upon a camel and taken back across the desert. Not long after that their time in the royal army was done, and the Three Lords of Am-Anaru—as they styled themselves after the expedition—returned to Altania, along with the elder Mr. Quent. The artifact went with them and entered into Earl Rylend’s keeping.

  Only something else went with them as well, and as Lord Rafferdy recounted the events of the following years, Ivy shuddered to consider its nature. Was the cave truly cursed, as the Murghese porters had claimed? Or was it simply some ancient poison or contagion that had lingered on the air within, waiting long eons for someone to breathe it in? Either way, the result was the same. All four who entered the cave were afflicted.

  The first symptoms began to appear in the years after their return to Altania: a wasting of the flesh accompanied by violent trembling, a difficulty of breath, and lurid hallucinations. They discovered that the effects of the malady could be greatly ameliorated through the application of treatments both medical and magickal, and so the four were all able to maintain enough of their health to fashion lives for themselves.

  As the years wore on, the effects of the affliction grew harder and harder to keep at bay. The elder Mr. Quent was the first to succumb, some twenty years after their return from the Empire. Earl Rylend wasted and died a number of years later. After that, the Eye of Ran-Yahgren should have passed into Lord Marsdel’s possession, for Rylend had made the other two men swear they would see to its safekeeping. However, by then Lord Marsdel was very ill and could not take it. As for Lord Rafferdy, he knew he did not have the magickal faculties to guard such a thing. But Earl Rylend had often had magicians at Heathcrest Hall, and during Lord Rafferdy’s visits there he had come to know one of them whom he trusted.

  “It was my father,” Ivy said.

  Lord Rafferdy nodded. “While I did not always care for the magicians Rylend associated with, I felt differently about your father. As did Sir Quent, who recommended his character to me. Thus we saw that the orb was given into Mr. Lockwell’s care. Not long after that, Lord Marsdel succumbed. Of the four of us who entered that cave, only I have continued to endure all these years, and no doubt far more robustly than I should have.”

  His hand moved inside his coat pocket, as if he touched something within.

  “Yet at last the curse of that place has found me,” he went on, his voice barely above a whisper. “I can stave off the curse of Am-Anaru no longer. I have but a few more things to do. And this is one of them.”

  He withdrew his hand from his pocket and, trembling, held something out toward Ivy. She hesitated.

  “Go on,” he said, as if the words caused him great pain.

  Slowly, she reached out and took the thing from his palsied fingers. Even as she did, a rasping breath escaped him, and he slumped on the bench. At the same moment, Ivy let out a gasp.

  She gazed at the object in her hand. It was small enough to fit easily between a thumb and finger, thick as several regals stacked together, and triangular in shape. However, its edges were not sharp; rather, they were pleasingly smooth, as if polished from being rubbed for countless years. The thing it most resembled was a worry stone, but one made of wood.

  That it was a piece of Wyrdwood she was certain; there was no mistaking it. She could feel the memory of life within it, like the subtlest resonance.

  “But what is it?” she asked.

  With great effort, he raised his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea. All I know is that it was very important to your father. He asked me to keep it safe for him. I confess, I could have returned it to you long ago. I should have done so. For the most selfish reasons, I have delayed discharging my duty. You see, I think it has somehow helped to preserve me all these years. How else can I explain how I endured so much longer than the others?”

  “Then you must keep it!” she cried, holding it out toward him.

  He shook his head. “No, nothing can preserve me now. Besides, if some goodness indeed abides within this thing, then you will have need of it in the times ahead. Perhaps that was why your father asked me to give it to you. Perhaps he thought it would—”

  His words were lost as a fit of coughing wracked him. Hastily, Ivy tucked the piece of Wyrdwood into the pocket of her dress, then put an
arm around his shoulder, supporting him. In the coolness of the front hall she felt a heat emanating from him, as from sun-warmed stones after evening fell.

  At last his coughing subsided, but he appeared spent from the exertion, and he was unable to speak. He motioned toward the door with a shaking hand, and Ivy understood. She rose and went outside, hurrying down the walk and waving until she caught the attention of the driver. The young man leaped down from the bench of the carriage, and moments later the two of them dashed into the front hall.

  To Ivy’s relief, Lord Rafferdy had not fallen from the bench. Indeed, he was able to speak now, and he told his man it was time to depart. The driver helped him to rise, and slowly they made their way from the house back to the four-in-hand. The driver opened the door and, with practiced motions, helped the older man inside.

  “Thank you, Lady Quent,” Lord Rafferdy spoke from the dimness inside the carriage, “for indulging me today.”

  Ivy had to draw a breath to steady herself, lest she be overcome with tears. “What will you do now?”

  “I must go to my son,” he said. “Time grows short, and night is falling. Farewell, Lady Quent.”

  The driver shut the door and climbed back to the bench. Then, with a flick of the reins, the four-in-hand rattled away down the street. She watched it go. And it was only when the carriage was out of sight that, recalling his final words, Ivy thought to look up at the sky.

  The sun shone high above; it was broad daylight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ELDYN TURNED A silver coin in his fingers, its two faces catching the sunlight that slanted from the window high above his worktable beneath Graychurch. First a laughing moon came into view, embossed on one side of the coin, then the mien of a stern, fiery-maned sun appeared on the other. Again and again, over and over—moon then sun then moon again.

  But never the two of them at once.

  A weary smile curved upon Eldyn’s lips. These days, he knew more than a bit what it felt like to be two things in constant alternation and never both of them at the same time. He had been aware from his prior calculations that his schemes would make him a busy man. However, it was one thing to total up a number of hours and quite another to actually expend the sum.

  His work on the ledger at Graychurch required a meticulous application of concentration as well as ink, and it was endless. There were days when his hand was as cramped and stained as after a shift sitting with the other clerks at the tables of Sadent, Mornden, & Bayle.

  Evenings found him being taxed in other ways that, while far more engaging, made more than just his scribing hand ache. Eldyn had never imagined that performing in an illusion play would be so demanding an enterprise. When he finally discovered the ability to conjure phantasms, they had come to him with little exertion—especially when Dercy was present to encourage him. However, the glamours he conjured had never been of a size to fill a room, let alone an entire stage.

  What was more, he had never appreciated how much the players at the Theater of the Moon moved about during their performances. Seldom did they stand in one place as they worked their craft. Instead, they rushed, leaped, and clambered across the stage as they enacted the Sun King’s pursuit of the silvery youth.

  Eldyn had known this, of course; he had seen the play at the Theater of the Moon dozens of times. Yet it was not until he was onstage himself, following Master Tallyroth’s directions to run house left or hurry downstage, all the while maintaining the illusory existence of a dozen pearlescent stars or ripples of blue light that surged like ocean waves, that he fully appreciated how physical the roles were.

  As he was an understudy, it was his task to learn not just one part, but several of them, for there was no telling who he might need to replace some night due to an illness or injury. So far such an occasion had not occurred—and Eldyn hoped it would be a good while before it did.

  True, after a month of rehearsing, he felt he had grasped the basic requirements of the roles to which he had been assigned. He knew his cues and how to position himself on his mark, and he had practiced the required illusions over and over, so he could form them with sufficient detail and symmetry to gain Master Tallyroth’s approval.

  This was a thing that was not easily won. The slightest deviation from the prescribed form—a wave that was too greenish, or a comet whose tail was not just the right length—would result in a critical observation.

  “A star should generally twinkle rather than glow, don’t you think, Mr. Garritt?” the master illusionist of the Theater of the Moon would say, an arch expression on his powdered face. Or, “A squarish cloud might be interesting, I concede, but as nature cannot really be improved upon, I always suggest one does not try.”

  Though gently uttered, these admonitions provoked Eldyn’s resolve to do better more than any shouted rebuke. He would redouble his efforts, willing the phantasms into more precise forms with every repetition. By the end of the rehearsal he would be trembling and damp with perspiration. However, if Master Tallyroth gave him an approving nod (and so far he always had), then it was more than worth the effort.

  Performances were no less strenuous than rehearsals. It was the duty of an understudy to help the other illusionists apply the necessary tints and powders to their faces, and to assist them as they changed in and out of their costumes. Eldyn also served as a stagehand, helping to move about those parts of the set that were not fashioned of air and light but rather of lumber and cloth and metal and paint.

  There were, in fact, a large number of these. Watching the play gave an impression that everything one beheld was as ethereal as a dream. In truth, a great deal of what was onstage was physical rather than phantasmal, and after an evening of pushing and turning various platforms and flats on cue, the ache in Eldyn’s back would attest to their very real bulk.

  Despite their exertions, the players were always ready to venture to some drinking establishment as soon as the theater closed. In the past, Eldyn had always wondered how, after giving their all during a performance, they could go to tavern and conjure more illusions simply for the joy of it. Now, though he had yet to perform for an audience, he had begun to understand. Previously, his perception of Siltheri was that they were free and merry, even a bit wild; toil and drudgery were not for such fey beings, he had thought.

  His experiences as an understudy had changed that opinion. After so many hours of rigorous practice, crafting illusions to the master’s exacting ideals, it was not so much a whim he and the others experienced as it was a desperate need to fashion something free and foolish and delightful. Thus as the drink flowed so did the phantasms, until at last punch and coin purses and energy with which to conjure were all thoroughly depleted.

  After that, Eldyn would stumble with Dercy back to his room, arm in arm, laughing all the way. Within they found other, no less vigorous activities to engage in, and no matter what had happened at theater or tavern that night, or how exhausted they were, it seemed they always discovered the needed reserves.

  At last he would make one final effort—rushing home in the small hours of a long night, wrapped in shadows, or in the swift, silver dawn of a short day, in order to be back to the apartment before Sashie rose.

  Once she did, he would spend an hour listening to her chatter as they took their breakfast. Then it was time to go to Graychurch to begin his labors anew. If during all of it he had any bit of free time to himself, then it was spent reading a snippet of the Testament, to make sure he continued to rehearse for a different sort of performance in his future—one far more important and demanding than any illusion play.

  While he sometimes felt expended from it all, this was hardly an issue. Coffee imbued him with the power to do his work in the morning. The energy of the stage filled him and buoyed him up in the evening. Rum and his exertions with Dercy brought him back down so he could sleep for a few short hours. So the lumenals and umbrals passed swiftly and in a most agreeable manner, and this, Eldyn had begun to think, must be what happ
iness felt like.

  “Counting your savings, are you, Mr. Garritt? Usually our Lord in Eternum frowns upon the coveting of wealth. However, I am sure you are eager to know how close you are to gaining your portion to enter the Church. And since it is for such a holy purpose that you are amassing a sum, I am also sure that He would make an exception in this instance.”

  Eldyn looked up to see Father Gadby standing beside the table, clad in a cassock whose length and width were of similar proportions.

  A sudden alarm caused his heart to miss a beat. The coin he had been turning was not a quarter regal but rather one of the silver coins that was used by the theaters of Durrow Street. Such coins were granted to the players to give to their friends, or were passed out by the madams of theaters to court favored guests, for nothing was so good for a theater’s business as to have famous people attend its play.

  Eldyn forced himself to draw a breath. He could not imagine Father Gadby would recognize the true nature of the coin. How would a priest know of such things? All the same, with a deft motion, he spirited the token into a pocket.

  “I am not counting my fortune, Father,” he said, affecting a smile. “Rather, I am counting the good fortune with which I have been blessed.”

  Father Gadby clasped a plump hand over his heart. “You have been blessed indeed, Mr. Garritt. To have won the favor of the archdeacon—why, it is hardly less than to have won the favor of Eternum itself! But then, it can only be due to divine notice that you then were directed into his awareness.”

  Now Eldyn’s smile was no longer an illusion, but rather a genuinely felt expression. “So I believe, Father Gadby. Though why I have won any notice at all, I confess, is a thing beyond me.”

  “It is beyond any mortal man, Mr. Garritt. However, the eyes of Eternum see all, and they have perceived in you something that deserves so particular an attention.”

  A warmth suffused Eldyn—a glow not unlike the radiance he had experienced on the occasion of meeting Archdeacon Lemarck. Despite all the debts against his soul—those heaped upon him by his father, and those he had earned by himself—somehow he had been deemed worthy to receive such gifts. That the divine was anything other than the most benevolent and forgiving of forces, he would never again doubt.