He followed the others down the street and into a nearby tavern, one of their favored haunts. It was not that Eldyn was in the mood for merriment, but he had no wish to return to the apartment for fear Sashie was still up. Besides, he could not deny that he thirsted for a cup of punch.
They took up their usual residence in the tavern. One cup became two, then three. Soon the others were conjuring phantasms with their customary enthusiasm. While Riethe’s hand had at last begun to improve, he was making a show of pretending that his injury was yet causing him difficulty in properly forming illusions, and he fashioned daisy-headed mice and fairies with playing cards for wings and all manner of grotesqueries, so that soon even tall, dour Merrick was laughing. Eldyn smiled from time to time, but he could summon no laughter—though he drank his punch with diligence.
It was as Eldyn set down his fourth cup that he noticed a young man sitting all alone on the other side of the tavern. By his powdered face and the folded silk fan tucked into the pocket of his velvet coat, he was an illusionist, but he conjured no phantasms. Instead, he drank whiskey, though he did this with great difficulty. His entire body was gripped by a constant and violent palsy, and he was forced to clasp the cup in two hands to bring it to the thin gray line of his lips.
“Poor sod,” Mouse said cheerfully, nodding toward the illusionist. He took the pitcher in front of Eldyn and filled his cup. “It’s a pity he isn’t already out of his misery. He will be soon enough, I suppose.”
The content of Mouse’s words astonished Eldyn as much as their indifferent manner. “Do you know him, then?”
The little brown-haired man shook his head. “No. I’ve seen him on the street from time to time, that’s all. But I don’t need to know him to know what’s wrong with him. It’s the mordoth, of course.”
Eldyn was astonished anew. “The mordoth? Yet he is not old at all!” Indeed, despite his sunken cheeks and bony fingers, Eldyn would have guessed the solitary illusionist to be no older than he was.
Mouse squelched a swig of punch between his teeth. “You don’t have to be old to get the Gray Wasting. You just have to be a chump.”
“You mean he’s been casting too many illusions?”
“Him? No, he has been on Durrow Street hardly more than a year, I’m sure of it. You could make all the illusions you wanted, and you’d never have a hint of the mordoth in so little time. But I’ve seen him before, hanging on those painted old scags from the Theater of the Fans, letting them have their way with him, like he hadn’t any idea what he was giving up to them.”
Eldyn’s head was foggy from all the punch. “What do you mean? What was he giving to them?”
“His light, of course. Now he’s got barely a spark of it left, like one ember left in the fireplace after a cold, dark greatnight. Soon even that will burn out.”
Eldyn must have been groggier than he thought; he could not have heard correctly. “But you can’t give someone your light!”
“Of course you can. In fact, you can’t help it. Even as we sit here and talk, a little bit of my light goes to you and yours into me. It’s tiny, though—not enough to matter in a hundred years. But every exchange between Siltheri is an exchange of light. A touch gives more, and a kiss—well, a kiss is downright perilous between illusionists.” He took another swig of punch.
Eldyn stared at him, trying to understand. “But if the light goes back and forth, it can’t be all that awful.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Mouse replied with a sharp laugh. “Someone always comes out the better. There’s the kisser and the one being kissed, if you see what I mean—the one as gets the light, and the other as gives it. Then there are perils far greater than kisses. We know how dangerous those are. Yet we still can’t help ourselves sometimes when we see a pretty lad, can we?”
He winked and gave Eldyn a salacious grin.
“In the end, it all usually evens out. Unless …” Mouse cast a glance at the lone illusionist, and his grin went flat. “Unless you’re fool enough to always give, and give again, and never receive yourself. Those pinch-faced old spiders at the Theater of the Fans—they’re always spinning webs for young illusionists they can feed on to make their own illusions grander. As if any amount of light they steal could help their awful themes and staging! But they always seem to find willing idiots. They tell them they’ll be lead players one day, that all they have to do is just give up a little of what they have, and a little more. Until they’ve used up all there is. Then, once there’s nothing left to get, they toss what remains of the fool back in the gutter.”
Eldyn could only stare at the small illusionist in horror. “Surely people can be selfish and not think of what their actions do to another. But no one can truly be so wicked as to do such a thing intentionally!”
“Of course they can, and worse. I would have thought Dercy had warned you about Siltheri like that. With the wonders you’ve been conjuring of late—why, I’d think you would draw decrepit illusionists to you like moths to a flame. You seem to have more than your share of light.”
“And you think they would take it from me?”
“Take it?” Mouse’s eyes went wide. “Now that would truly be an evil! No, your light must be freely given. But that doesn’t mean a man still isn’t awful for always receiving and never giving. So keep your wits about you, Eldyn. You don’t want to end up like that wretched fellow.”
Even as he said this the lone illusionist stood, and in the most feeble and halting steps shuffled out of the tavern and was gone. Mouse drained his cup, filled it again, then turned to laugh at another of Riethe’s disfigured phantasms, a rabbit with tobacco pipe ears. Eldyn pushed his own cup away; the punch he had drunk curdled in his stomach.
As he drew his hand back, he saw that it was trembling, not unlike the illusionist with the mordoth. Yet surely he was far from ever having the Gray Wasting.
You seem to have more than your share of light, Mouse had said.
Perhaps he did, but why was that so? Eldyn had never been able to explain it. One day he could conjure no more than the simplest illusions, while the next he could summon wondrous phantasms. Something had changed the night they saw Donnebric lying dead before the Theater of the Doves. The night he and Dercy had first kissed …
His trembling worsened, and the punch churned in his stomach. What else had Mouse said?
A kiss is downright perilous between illusionists …
“No,” he said aloud, though the word was drowned out in the laughter of the others. “No, Dercy, say that you didn’t.…”
Eldyn swallowed the sour bile in his throat, then heaved himself to his feet.
“Where are you going?” Mouse said, frowning at him. “The night’s just begun.”
“Back,” he said. It was all he could manage without spilling all the punch he had drunk onto the straw that covered the floor. Before Mouse or the others could protest, he lurched to the door and out into the night.
Once outside, Eldyn turned about dizzily, unsure which way to go. Then the cool night air cleared his head somewhat, and he stumbled down the lane. He started to weave the shadows around himself, then stopped. Whose light was he using to craft the illusion? Was it even his own?
He left the shadows where they were, and went naked through the night.
ELDYN WOKE TO brilliant light.
“Dercy!” he cried out, sitting up in bed, blinking against the gold glare that had dispelled the darkness.
Then his vision cleared, and he saw it was not an illusory light that filled the little room above the theater; rather, it was the radiance of dawn. Last night, when he returned to the theater, he had found the room empty. He had meant only to rest on the bed for a little while as he waited for Dercy to return, but he must have fallen asleep as he lay there. Now the lumenal had come, though it had not brought Dercy with it.
Eldyn started to stand, then groaned and sank back to the bed, holding a hand to his temple. His head throbbed from the aftereffects of pun
ch. Or was it the awful knowledge he had drunk in at the tavern last night that had induced the pain?
He looked down at his hands. How pleased he had been with himself, how astonished at his newfound ability to conjure illusions. Only all this time, they hadn’t been his own. None of them were.
Well, he could not give back what he had taken without knowing, but he would never again conjure phantasms. Today he would tell Madame Richelour that he was quitting the Theater of the Moon. Nor would this greatly delay his plans for himself and his sister. His wages at the theater had been so generous recently that he had amassed nearly enough to pay for both of their portions. There was only one more thing he needed to do here.
The theater was quiet as Eldyn went downstairs, for it was not a habit of illusionists to rise early. Mrs. Murnlout was moving about in the little kitchen, and he asked the cook if she had seen Dercy.
She hadn’t, but Dercy would have to return to the theater eventually. He might skip a rehearsal, but he would never miss a performance. Besides, Eldyn would have to come back later himself, to speak with Madame Richelour. For now he drank a cup of coffee that the cook gave him, then left the theater and went out into the morning.
The brilliant light of morning did nothing to improve the appearance of Durrow Street, but rather laid bare its grime and squalor. The theaters, which appeared so mysterious and enticing by moonlight, were exposed by the beams of the sun for what they really were: shabby old buildings with sagging facades, their foundations riddled with rat holes. Eldyn squinted against the morning glare, then made his way down the street.
He was brought up short as a boy dashed before him, holding up fresh copies of The Swift Arrow for sale. Eldyn started to wave the boy aside, only then the fragment of a headline caught his eye, and a bolt of fear stuck him.
“Here, I’ll take a copy!” he called out.
The boy shifted from foot to foot as Eldyn fumbled for a penny in his pocket. The urchin snatched the coin as soon as it was produced, thrust a broadsheet at Eldyn, then ran down the street. A sick feeling churned in Eldyn’s stomach as he raised the newspaper.
ONE ILLUSIONIST NOT SO EASILY DISPATCHED, read the headline in the middle of the page. Quickly, Eldyn scanned the article below. It described how another body of a young man had been dredged from the waters of the Anbyrn, his eyes missing just like those of the others. Only this corpse had differed in one regard, for much to the surprise of those who pulled it from the river, it had begun to move, and then even attempted to speak.
For an awful moment, Eldyn feared that it was Dercy, and this was the reason he had been missing. Only as he read the article, it was clear from the description of the body that it was not Dercy. Nor could it be anyone from the Theater of the Moon, as this had all occurred yesterday evening, and no one besides Dercy had been missing at rehearsal.
Though it was awful another illusionist had met an ill fate, Eldyn could only feel relief that it had not been Dercy or one of the players at the Theater of the Moon. However, his relief vanished as he read the remainder of the article. In its place, a dread came over him.
It had to be a coincidence; such a connection was impossible. Only it seemed so strange, and even as he folded up the broadsheet, he could not stop thinking about it. There was only one way he could be certain.
He had to get to Graychurch at once.
THE SUN WAS rising slowly that morning, and Father Gadby must have been following suit, for when Eldyn tried the door of the rector’s office he found it locked. At that moment the verger came tottering down the stairs, and after Eldyn helped the old man to safely climb down the last few steps, he was more than willing to open the door with a key.
Once inside, Eldyn went to the cabinet where he kept those receipts that he had already entered in the ledger. He pulled out a drawer, then began looking through slips of paper.
It didn’t take him long to find what he wanted. He went to the table where he worked and set down a receipt. Then he pulled the copy of The Swift Arrow from his pocket and unfolded it on the table. Once again, he read the final words of the article on the front page.
We are as surprised as anyone that such a soft and mincing creature as an illusionist should prove so startlingly resilient, the author wrote. However, to endure after being beaten, blinded, and heaved into the river suggests that at least this particular Siltheri had some strength in him. In the end, though, it was not enough, and an hour after he was taken from the river he expired. Nor, for all that he tried to speak, was anything intelligible gotten out of him, and the only words he uttered that could be made out were something about “red curtains below the crypt.” Yet perhaps that was a fitting epitaph. For does not the fall of a crimson curtain signal the end of every illusion play on Durrow Street? And shortly after he spoke those words, this player’s final performance was at its end, and it was off to the crypt for him. Bravo!
Again Eldyn felt a dread that was not simply due to the unfortunate illusionist’s fate. He set down the broadsheet and picked up the slip of paper he had taken from the drawer. It was a receipt for a set of red curtains, dated just a few days ago, and was signed by Archdeacon Lemarck himself.
Eldyn had entered at least a half-dozen other receipts like it in the ledger. He had always supposed the curtains were meant for some cardinal or bishop with ostentatious taste. But what if the curtains had some other purpose? He recalled what Dercy had told him once, how only the color red could fully block the light of illusions …
“Mr. Garritt! What are you doing here already?”
Hastily, Eldyn slipped the receipt in between two pages of the broadsheet.
“Good morning, Father Gadby,” he said, affecting a cheerful expression. “The verger was kind enough to let me get an early start. I need to … that is, I have an errand I need to go do, and I didn’t want to fall behind on my work.”
The portly rector smiled. “That is very diligent of you, Mr. Garritt. Well, go on, then, see to this errand of yours, whatever it is. But don’t be too long. I’m sure there is much more for you to do today.”
Eldyn promised he would not be long. He folded the broadsheet over, put it in his coat pocket, and hurried from the office below the church.
A QUARTER HOUR later, Eldyn came to a halt before a prosperous-looking stone building a short way off of Marble Street. He read the number painted on the corner of the building, then pulled the slip of paper from his pocket to check it. The receipt had been made out to Profram and Sons, Number 7 Weaver’s Row. This was the place.
Eldyn drew a breath to gather his will, then went in through the door of the building. At once he was approached by a young man he took to be one of the proprietor’s sons. Dercy had told Eldyn that he was not a good liar, and it was likely so. All the same, he did his best to hold his voice steady as he explained how he wished to check on an order for curtains, and he produced the receipt from his pocket.
The young man took the receipt, then compared it against a ledger on the counter. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Another set of red curtains commissioned by the Church. They are not finished yet, but they should be done lumenal after next. I assume we are still to deliver them to the usual place?”
Eldyn blinked. “The usual place?”
“Yes, the old chapel in High Holy. I confess, I did not think that church was still in use. But I can only suppose it is being refurbished.”
Eldyn could do no more than give a mute nod.
“Very good,” the young man said cheerfully. “We will deliver the curtains as soon as they are ready. But if you don’t mind my asking, where is the priest who usually manages the orders? I trust he is well.”
“The priest?” Eldyn said stupidly.
“Yes, the tall fellow with the sharp blue eyes. I’ve never gotten his name—I confess, I speak with him little, for he’s rather imposing—but he always wears a crimson cassock.”
Eldyn could not breathe. It felt as if he had been dealt a blow in the gut. “He is not …”
He shook his head. “That is, I’m sorry, but I must go.”
Before the other man could say anything more, Eldyn turned and hurried out the door. The morning light was warm, but he was shivering all the same. As quickly as his legs would carry him, he walked down the lane, his mind a confusion of thoughts and awful notions. Only, as he went, the facts began to align themselves into a comprehensible order. Red curtains below the crypt—the final words uttered by a dying illusionist. The old chapel at High Holy, where another one of the murdered illusionists had been found. And a blue-eyed priest in a red cassock …
It was impossible. It had to be.
Yet Eldyn above anyone knew that figures could not mislead; if summed correctly, they always led to the same result, whether one cared for the final total or not. In his mind, he made the tally again. Donnebric had last been seen going to a magnate’s house in the company of a priest in a red cassock. And Father Gadby had described how Archdeacon Lemarck sometimes went about dressed as a priest—no doubt in crimson, a striking contrast to his sharp blue eyes. Over and over as Eldyn walked, he went over everything that he knew.
Over and over, the sum was the same.
Eldyn came to a sudden halt, and he was startled to find that it was not the hulking edifice of Graychurch he stood before, but rather the ramshackle building that housed the Theater of the Moon. Sweat ran down his sides, and he was breathing hard from his labors walking here. All the same, he still felt cold inside.
He went through the door and headed up to the little room above the theater. Dercy was still not there, but Eldyn knew he could not wait, that Father Gadby would be expecting him. He went to a little table, rummaged in a drawer, and there found pen, ink, and paper to write upon. Forcing his hand to stay steady, he penned a note to Dercy.
My dearest friend and companion, you were right, he wrote. I fear that the Church is not what I thought it was. Nor, if what I suspect is true, is the archdeacon the great man I had believed. I have reason to think he is scheming some awful thing beneath the old chapel in High Holy. I intend to know more, and when I do I will tell you everything. Until then, I beg of you—have nothing to do with any priest who may approach you, especially one in red!
The House on Durrow Street Page 62