Marsh refrained from asking what would happen if the children’s’ remaining relatives didn’t want to know them, but Monsieur Gravine didn’t notice her reticence as he continued.
“You’re more likely to be given access to those records as my emissary than not, and your experiences will lend authenticity to my request. I take it you will require some rest before leaving?”
Roeglin nodded.
“At least a day,” he said. “Perhaps two.”
Monsieur Gravine frowned.
“Make it three,” he said. “I’d like to have the junction to Leon’s Deep and the raiders’ trail sealed before you go. That way I can do as the Master of Shadows did and send three teams to restore the route to Kerrenin’s Ledge, with you and your trainee acting as forward scouts in the first team, Master Envermet and Tamlin in the clearing team, and Aisha and Brigitte following in a third team with a mix of shadow mages and rock wizards to light the glows and seal any junctions linked to the trail. Once that is done, the children and your journeyman will return here. Is that acceptable?”
Roeglin met his eyes.
“I will speak to the Master of Shadows tomorrow and see if he has any adjustments he would like to make, but I believe this may be acceptable as it stands.” He looked at Marsh. “Do you agree, Trainee?”
Marsh agreed, and she very much disagreed. It was just the same as when they had left the monastery for Ruins Hall. It was logical, and for the best. It also had the potential to put Aisha and Tamlin in danger. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, putting her head in her hands. She really was too tired for this…
“Trainee?”
“Agreed,” she said, and could not keep the exhaustion from her voice.
Silence followed, then Roeglin stirred.
“Monsieur Gravine, if we could leave this until tomorrow when I have spoken to the Master of Shadows?”
“Yes, that would be best. Thank you all for what you have done for us already. I look forward to speaking with you after lunch. I will send someone.”
Roeglin pushed back his chair and curled his hand through Marsh’s arm.
“Until tomorrow, Founder.”
25
A Change in Status
Roeglin woke Marsh in time for breakfast and led her to a small room set off the training ground so that they could speak with the Master of Shadows after they had finished eating.
“Are you ready?” he asked once they’d seated themselves on opposite sides of a small table, and Marsh nodded.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good.” He held out his hands, taking her fingertips in his and closing his eyes.
Even as Marsh mirrored him, she felt the link between them open to include a third; it was like they’d entered a room to stand before the Master of Shadows. He was seated at his desk as he usually was and looked up as they entered.
“Ah, Roeglin. I was wondering when you’d call. I’ve been waiting.”
“I hope I have not kept you waiting for too long, Master.”
“No.” The Master of Shadows smiled. “I’ve had Monsieur Gravine send me runners. He said I should expect some kind of contact from you from today onwards. I am glad to see he was accurate.”
“He keeps a close eye on what is happening in his world.”
“I’m sure he does. What did you wish to speak to me about?”
“I believe Marchant has surpassed the skills of any instructor we can provide and should be recognized as a mage in her own right.”
As an opening statement, it was a showstopper. Marsh felt her jaw hit the floor and struggled to keep silent as she closed it. He what?
“She can already call weapons and shields from the shadows, cloak herself in shadow, shadow-step, blend with the shadows, and speak to them. In fact,” Roeglin continued, “she is now posing questions for me and teaching me things I had not thought to try. There is very little more I can teach her. I’d like to promote her to shadow master.”
He stopped, and the Master of Shadows looked from him to Marsh.
“Show me,” he said and Roeglin did, pulling the memories of what Marsh had done from her mind and laying them out before their master. When he was done, the Master of Shadows was nodding.
“Agreed. She is beyond what we expect of a master, both in capability and control, but she still needs guidance in the way of the monastery and how we expect our mages to operate. I will make her your junior partner—an apprentice master or junior master, whatever you would like to term it—and I will draw up a new contract to supersede her trainee contract.”
He turned to Marsh.
“You can sign it on your return, but it will be dated to start today. Agreed?”
Lost for words, all Marsh could do was nod.
“Very good.” The Master of Shadows turned back to Roeglin. “What else do you have to report?”
Marsh listened as Roeglin repeated the discussion they’d had with Monsieur Gravine the day before. When he was done, the Master of Shadows nodded.
“I agree. Be his emissaries to Kerrenin’s Ledge, but be mine also. Forge a second alliance between them and the monastery, and seek their feelings on an alliance with the rock wizards. Magic is growing stronger, and there are more folks showing the ability to use it. Alliances will lead to acceptance and more help for those just learning their abilities.”
“Agreed.”
“Also keep an eye out for any who show promise at calling the shadows, but do not recruit them yet. If they wish to come with you, that is fine, but do not ask them. I would like such requests to come through Monsieur Gravine or their own leadership. We wish to operate as differently from the shadow raiders as possible.”
Again Roeglin nodded, and the Master of Shadows moved on.
“Please pass my gratitude to Monsieur Gravine and ask for his assistance in manning a waystation at the monastery junction to Ariella’s Grotto as well as the prospector’s junction. We need to hold the Ariella junction until the glows can be re-lit, and I do not want to block it completely in case someone tries to reach us for help.”
“Yes, Master of Shadows. Is there anything else?”
The man rubbed his eyes with one hand and shook his head.
“No, save Fortune’s Deep follow you and smile on your safe return.”
“Thank you, Master of Shadows,” Roeglin replied, and walked himself and Marsh out of the wizard’s head and back to their own.
Until that moment, Marsh hadn’t been aware of leaving her own mind, but now she was.
“What was that?” she asked as she opened her eyes, and Roeglin smiled.
“Something you shouldn’t have been able to do without access to mental magic. We’ll explore it later, but you, Mistress Leclerc, are only beginning to scratch the surface of what you can do. I look forward to being around to see you explore it further.”
Marsh frowned.
“Fine. Keep your secrets, but if you’re going to be around while I explore my potential, you can at least promise to help me learn how to harness any new magic I might find.”
Despite the sharpness of her tone, Roeglin grinned.
“That I can do.”
He might have said more, but they were interrupted by a polite knock at the door, followed by Gustav looking in.
“Monsieur Gravine wants your company,” he said, then held up a plate containing two small pies. “I also brought you lunch, given that you missed it. You can eat while you walk.”
Taking their pies, they followed him into the corridor and to the cavern founder’s office. To their surprise, he accompanied them inside and closed the door. This time Brigitte was not present.
“I did not want to delay sending the teams to seal the caverns,” Monsieur Gravine explained. “They left just after breakfast.”
While we were speaking with the Master of Shadows, Marsh thought and frowned, but Monsieur Gravine ignored her expression and turned to Roeglin.
“Tell me, what di
d your Master of Shadows have to say?”
“He agrees to us being your envoys, but we must also represent the monastery.”
“Very well, and?”
“And he requests reinforcements for the waystation at the Ariella’s Grotto/monastery junction and the prospector’s junction.”
“It shall be done. I’ll have them on the road in the morning. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. Marchant Leclerc is no longer a trainee, but a shadow mage in her own right, and my partner in monastery undertakings.”
Marsh noted that he left out her junior status and felt strangely elated.
“Well, congratulations, Shadow Mage Leclerc!” The cavern founder stood and offered her his hand. “Well-earned,” he said when she accepted it.
Seating himself again, he nodded to Gustav, who was standing to one side.
“I have the paperwork for your task to Kerrenin’s Ledge.”
He reached over and accepted the thick sheaves of paper Gustav had lifted from one of the shelves closest him.
“If you will sign here…and here…and here,” he said, indicating where he meant.
Gustav handed Marsh and Roeglin hollowed-out joffra claws filled with ink and they read, then signed where the founder wanted. Marsh noted that the contract said nothing they hadn’t already agreed to. She’d give the man this: he was thorough.
As soon as they’d signed, he lifted two small cloth bags from beneath the desk and set them down in front of them.
“Payment for being my envoy to the Master of Shadows. You’ll need something to trade when you reach Kerrenin’s Ledge, and it won’t hurt them to remember what they gain access to by allying with us.”
Marsh mirrored Roeglin as he reached for the bag and cautiously peered inside. Seconds later, he was staring at the founder.
“It’s too much!”
The founder shrugged.
“I added a bonus for your assistance in defeating the last shadow raid, assisting with Madame Monetti’s arrest, and your rescue of Ruins Hall citizens. There is also compensation for your injuries. I can give you an itemized list of the value if you insist, but the payment is fair for the dangers and discomforts you have faced in my service.”
This last was delivered with a long look at Marsh, and Marsh returned it with a cool look of her own.
“I also have unfinished business in Kerrenin’s Ledge,” she said, and the founder propped his chin on his hands and gave her his undivided attention. She was surprised when Roeglin didn’t intervene. Nice to see he’d made the adjustment to partner so fast.
I don’t think either of us adjusted to you being a trainee, he told her, his amusement quivering through her mind.
Marsh frowned and looked back to the founder.
“Trader Kearick may be working with the shadow raiders, and I will be investigating this. I’ll start by asking him why he tried to have me assassinated, and why he tried to retrieve a delivery scheduled for Madame Monetti.”
“I have no objections to you following this inquiry to its conclusion,” Monsieur Gravine told her, “and it lies well within my interests for you to do so. If you’ll agree to report your findings to me, I’ll pay you for the information. Further, should you discover that Kearick is working for the shadow raiders, I will pay a bounty to have him neutralized, and more for any details you retrieve regarding his business partners and dealings. Agreed?”
It was more than she had hoped for, and much more than she had expected. Marsh swallowed hard. “Agreed.”
Once that was settled, she and Roeglin chatted a little longer with Monsieur Gravine and then took their leave.
He let them get to the door before he called to them. “There is just one more thing…”
They stopped, Roeglin taking his hand from the door handle before he turned back. Marsh followed his example.
“Yes?”
“You’ll take Gustav with you—as an independent party overseeing my interests alone.”
“Agreed.”
“As of now, he will accompany you.”
Roeglin sighed.
“Very well. Will that be all?”
“Yes. Thank you. You can have two more days for preparation, and then the other teams will be free to follow you to clear and repair the route. Is that enough time?”
The tone of his voice said it had better be, and Roeglin smiled.
“More than enough, Monsieur. Will there be anything else?”
“No, that will be all.”
He bent his head to the paperwork in front of him, and Gustav crossed the room to join them. The bodyguard looked at Marsh.
“Just like old times,” he said, looking far too pleased with the idea of going with them.
Marsh smiled in return. “That it is, Dear Man.”
He blushed but laughed, remembering Fabrice using that term the last time he’d left Ruins Hall with Marchant. It didn’t take him long to recover, though.
“You have to provide pancakes and croissants to call me that.”
26
Into the Dark
Three days later, Marsh, Roeglin, and Gustav said goodbye to Marc, the owner of the eatery on the main street of Ruins Hall. They were followed by Henri and Jakob, as well as Gerry, Zeb, and Izmay, all of whom had enjoyed their last hot meal before Kerrenin’s Ledge. They’d be moving fast and light, hoping to cut the two- to three-day journey to just over one. Any nerves about the road ahead had been channeled into good-natured teasing.
“I don’t think there are enough pancakes in the world to let you call me ‘dear man’ one more time,” Gustav grumbled, and Marchant held up a chocolate croissant.
“Well, in that case…” he began, and Marsh laughed and handed it to him.
“I think you’ve been ‘dear manned’ enough. This one’s for the road.”
“The road is not getting a single crumb,” Gustav told her through a mouthful of croissant.
Crumbs sprayed as he spoke, making an instant liar of him, and they were still laughing as they swung into their saddles and turned their mules away from the rail. Roeglin joined them as he led the way out.
They made it to the edge of Ruins Hall and then to the cavern, their good spirits from the morning meal evaporating as they neared the entrance to the tunnel leading from Ruins Hall cavern to Kerrenin’s Ledge. Marsh remembered what had happened the last time she’d come down that path and wished she hadn’t.
Taking a deep breath, she tapped the mule’s sides and rode into the darkness, aware of the hoshkat pacing the shadows before them. She slowed to a halt and looked at Roeglin.
“You ready?” he asked, and Marsh passed him the lead rope clipped to her mule’s bridle.
“I’ve got this,” she said. “Let me know when you want to camp for the night.”
He caught the lead and waited until she’d taken a good grip on the pommel.
“I’ll let you know if there’s anything we need to be aware of. Is Master Envermet coming?”
“He left the fortress this morning. Tamlin’s not happy with you, you know. He thinks Aisha should be going back to the monastery and not gallivanting around the caverns looking for trouble.”
“She’s only charging glows!”
“Yeah, well, you know Aisha. She’s more like you than you realize. When isn’t she looking for trouble?”
Marsh didn’t dignify that with an answer. It wasn’t something she needed to be thinking about. She had enough on her mind as it was.
Besides getting to Kerrenin’s Ledge and hunting Kearick down before the little weasel got wind that she was in town, she had to think of what she was going to say to the Kerrenin’s Ledge council to convince them to make a formal alliance with Monsieur Gravine.
And then there was her uncle…
As much as she was looking forward to letting him know she was okay, she was dreading their next meeting, too. So much had changed between them, and then she’d changed. Now she could call the shadows, and…
It
’ll be fine, Roeglin reassured her. Besides, you’ve got to get there first.
Reminding her there was a good chance she mightn’t.
“Thanks, Ro. Thanks a lot!”
But he had a point. The trail from Ruins Hall to Kerrenin’s Ledge stretched ahead of them in the dark, and it hadn’t been traveled in weeks. Who knew what cavern denizens and tunnel crawlers had come to reside along its length, or what shadow monsters remained?
Marsh sighed and stretched her magic into the dark, blending her desire for the shadows to reveal those hiding in their depths with her ability to sense the life forces of the creatures ahead. She could trust the folk around her. She knew that.
Even Gustav, for all his loyalty to Monsieur Gravine—or perhaps because of it.
She could do this. She had to do this.
Once she’d wanted to be a seeker, finding treasures from the past in the hope of making the future better. She still wanted to be a seeker, but not of the secrets of humanity’s past. She wanted to be a seeker of shadow raiders, and when she found them, she’d destroy them all.
The end game was almost the same, except instead of just making the future better, she was hoping to ensure that humanity had a future. After that? Well, after that she could see about making it better.
First, though, there was going to be a journey through the caverns’ dark.
Author Notes - CM Simpson
February 22, 2019
Again, many thanks for taking the journey as Marsh tries to sort out the mess and menace stalking the porous underside of a devastated Paris. I hope you’ve enjoyed the story, as much as I enjoyed discovering it, because, outlines aside some characters have minds of their own.
As I write these notes, I can hear the dulcet tones of Penfold and Danger Mouse wreaking havoc in an imagined London, and I’m reminded that the podling needs to go to bed... or she’ll turn into the muck monster by tomorrow morning. I did promise her she could watch the end of the cartoon, however, and I’m desperately trying not to get suckered by the silliness, too. I’ve always enjoyed the humour of that cartoon. It’s quirky, and reminds me to look at the world in a whole different way.
Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more Page 49