Shadow and Light

by Peter Sartucci

  The wizard smiled. “Let me show you.” He led the way up the main stairs of the tower to the topmost room.

  Kirin, who had never been above the ground floor before, stared around in amazement. There were tall shelves with strange apparatus crowded in among more books than he had ever seen. A decagram graven on the floor glowed with energies. A table held a carving so life-like that he had to look twice to be sure it wasn’t a sleeping man. He froze, scared to damage something, and fought his hungry Shadow to a standstill.

  The wizard touched the recumbent form. “Here is the means to compel the Prince to listen to you and your family.” He activated a spell on the carved shape and it took on the appearance of flesh. Prince Terrell’s flesh.

  Only then did Kirin recognize it as another golem like the wizard’s other servants. No, not like them. Much, much better! It sat up and swung its legs off the table, pivoted smoothly and sat there staring vacantly into the air. It didn’t seem aware of them. The resemblance to the Prince astonished Kirin. Does he really have blond hair in his crotch like that? I guess he must since his head is blond.

  Chisaad’s intention became clear. “You want to switch this golem for the Prince!”

  “Exactly.” The wizard smiled a thin smile.

  Kirin marveled. He knew magic could do amazing things, but this seemed like a dream. A dream that he badly needed right now. “Won’t people notice?”

  “By itself, yes. However, I have another spell that will give it the Prince’s voice, ways of moving and speaking, even his knowledge. It will not last for more than a season, so you must befriend and persuade the real man in that time. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Yes.” Kirin jerked his head in a decisive nod. “I have to.” The Duermu seer promised me powerful help, and here it is. Besides, Maia and Grandmother could charm even a snake, with that much time.

  “Let us begin.”

  * * *

  “I still don’t feel right leaving you here without me,” Pen muttered under his breath to Terrell as they strode out of the Diplomatic Gate. This part of the Palace opened into Messenger Street, the broad thoroughfare that separated the Gray Fort from the Treasury. Late afternoon sunlight threw shadows over the street.

  Terrell answered, “I’ll still have five companies of the Silbari brigade here with me. We must break up this sulfur plot before the principals can escape. I cannot leave Aretzo now, not with the Mages and the Hierarchy in contention. I’ll miss you dreadfully, Pen, but it has to be this way.”

  Pen nodded in wordless concession and looked at the waiting entourage prepared for him. The Truthteller priestesses reclined in a two-person horse litter like the one that had carried Dona Seraphina and her husband to Silbar; their husbands rode horses to either side. The two young reeves had mounted their own horses and waited eagerly for this adventure to begin. The company of soldiers flanking them were all cavalry and dragoons, mounted, phlegmatic, and ready.

  “I wish we had that Ilvar clan here,” Pen said. “They could fly me to Sulmona in a couple days. Wouldn’t that surprise Lord Gwynned?”

  Terrell chuckled. “There aren’t any wizards in Aretzo talented enough to sustain a levitation spell like the Ilvars. Chisaad said even he couldn’t manage one for long enough to reach Sulmona. And how would we get your soldiers there? Sorry, Pen, you’ll have to ride.”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can,” Pen said, looking pensive. “I do hope I can get back here before . . .” He left the thought unsaid.

  Terrell’s own face saddened. “The latest dispatch says Father couldn’t rise from his bed the day before yesterday. He won’t last a great deal longer. But I’ll delay the Choosing ceremony until you return, no matter what.”

  “Thank you.” Pen’s face lightened a little at that.

  They embraced each other fiercely before the Prince of Silbar’s best friend mounted his horse and rode out Messenger Street toward Northgate. Terrell stared after him until the last of the train of soldiers and pack horses had followed. Then he sighed and turned back through the Diplomatic Gate. The day aged and he had work to do.

  * * *

  “He looks like a normal man,” Kirin whispered to Chisaad, as they gazed down on the parting from the upper works of the Diplomatic Gate. “Except for the hair.”

  The wizard had gotten him into the Palace through the Clerk’s Gate. The guards there had been introduced to Chisaad’s new apprentice and had made appropriate notations in their registers with friendly solemnity. A twisting path through the labyrinth had brought them here in time to watch the departure.

  “He is a normal man,” Chisaad murmured back. “Unfortunately raised and badly taught by Northern barbarians, but little older than you, I expect. If he had only been raised here, imagine how different he would be.”

  Kirin nodded. I’ve got to teach him about us common folk, he thought. He’ll be a better king that way. He squared his shoulders and followed the wizard as Chisaad showed him around the Palace. Tonight, Kirin knew he would have to find his way through it while avoiding human guards. Best to memorize where they were usually found. For the rest, he would have to trust to his Shadow.

  * * *

  Prince Terrell yawned, pushed the Mage Guild’s scroll away from him and let the end roll up. A Temple bell rang the tenth hour; most of the city and the Palace were already asleep. “That’s enough for today. We’ll finish in the morning.” He sent his secretaries to bed and vacated his office.

  The Palace corridors were echoingly empty. He could feel the watching spells more keenly than usual as he made his way through the labyrinth with his bodyguards.

  I miss Pen already. Simply his rock-steady presence there at my elbow, always reliable, always comforting.

  At the bridge into the Royal Apartments the soldiers perforce stopped at the Guardian, saluted, and left him as soon as he had stepped through. His two personal servants and his valet hovered on the far side, alerted by the Palace’s web of spells. Dona Seraphina stood in front of them and looked as immovable as a tree.

  “Past time for me to check you over, Your Highness,” she said in a voice that implied you disobedient puppy!

  He sighed, stood still and let her aura sweep through him. It was quicker than arguing.

  She squinted as she worked. “The Light inside you grows steadily stronger.”

  “It declines each time I use the Stone Throne,” he disagreed.

  “Only temporarily, and by smaller amounts each time,” she countered. “It is enlarging and eroding your mana-conduits, which worries me. Such damage can take a long time to heal. Perhaps you should find a way to drain off more of this Light regularly.”

  “Climbing the Hill every few days has certainly strengthened my legs. Perhaps using the Throne will strengthen my mana-conduits too.”

  She made a noncommittal sound and withdrew her aura, bowed to him and stepped aside.

  His servants followed him into his suite. “Bring me food,” he ordered. “And have, hmm, Wren attend me tonight.”

  An hour later, replete in two different ways, Terrell kissed Wren before she left his bed. “I wish they would let me know your real name,” he told her drowsily.

  She smiled and stroked his chest. “This is the way it must be. Someday, after you are married, perhaps we will meet again, and you will know me and be glad. For now, My Lord, sleep.” She left him and firmly closed the door to the concubines’ suite behind her. He wondered if she and her sister concubines would stay up exchanging gossip about him, or simply go to sleep.

  He stretched in the silken sheets; the windows were open to let in such breezes as the warm summer night offered, though heavily shielded by spells. They faced north across the moat at the western flank of the Hill of Sight. He deliberately did not call on his magesight, preferring that the blazing power of the cone not disrupt his sleep.

  Pen’s door stood ajar and his room dark and palpably empty. Pen usually closed it while Terrell enjoyed his concubines, then opened it a
gain to bid him good night after they left. But not tonight; by now Pen must be camped along the Kings Road or more likely staying at an inn somewhere many miles north of the city.

  Terrell sighed and composed himself for sleep.

  * * *

  Kirin rubbed his eyes. They’d grown weary from staring at a huge map of the Palace on the inner wall of the Royal Wizard’s office. It had markers for every spell in the enormous building and he had to stay a yard away from it at all times to calm his Shadow.

  “Have you memorized it yet?” the wizard demanded irritably. They had been cooped up in his office for hours, skipping supper and working well into the night as Kirin strove to figure out a way into the Prince’s bedroom.

  “Yes, Magister,” Kirin answered, controlling his impatience. This wasn’t too different from the tension before a performance, except tonight he hoped to go completely unseen. He checked the two brass cylinders he had tucked inside his vest, containing special concoctions prepared by the wizard that had no magic to attract his Shadow’s attention. “When can I start?”

  As he spoke a spell-marker changed color on the map of the Royal Apartments. “His servants have left for bed, all except for the one tasked to stay awake if the Prince calls for anything,” Chisaad announced with satisfaction. “Be very sure that you take that one out first, and quietly! If you wake the Prince and he has time to call for help—”

  “I know, Magister,” Kirin interrupted, rolling his eyes slightly. They had been over this half a dozen times already. You’d think he’s got stage fright.

  The wizard flicked him an irritated glance before his features smoothed into blandness. “Remember to exit through the Diplomatic Gate. It is busy throughout the night and the guards will think nothing of one more late departure.”

  “Yes, Magister. Can I start now?”

  “Go.”

  CHAPTER 29: KIRIN AND TERRELL

  The obvious way to get there went over the roof, Kirin had decided. All the interior corridors were guarded. According to Chisaad there would be more guards the closer one got to the Royal Apartments. Unfortunately, the many buildings making up the Palace were not all the same height, or even close, so getting from one roof to the next would make noise and draw attention. The guards were aware that some mages could fly, so they kept watch over the palace from towers as well as inside. Kirin checked two different routes before reluctantly concluding that he’d have to get closer to the Royal Apartments before going aloft.

  He worked his way through the labyrinth, remembering turns and corridors from the map in Chisaad’s office. Parts of his route passed through broad airy two-and-three story hallways with upper floor balconies under barrel-vaulted ceilings. Oil lamps were few and far between, so most denizens who had cause to move around inside the Palace at night used candles or mage lamps to find their way. Shadows were the rule and light the exception.

  Shadows were his friends. He wrapped himself in his own as he prowled.

  The vast roofed corridors were only a little bigger than the Serpent’s Attic, but their colorful frescoes and carved marble pillars, arches, and doorways were strange to his night-sighted eyes. He stayed under the second-floor balconies as much as possible and hugged the walls. Several times individual servants passed him on nocturnal missions. Twice clusters of young men returned from the Red Street reeking of wine, perfume, and sex. Once he nearly walked right up to a youth in servant’s garb crouched behind a pedestal that supported a massive urn. Kirin waited impatiently several steps behind him until a maid with a candle came down the hall, slipped behind the urn, and the two indulged in a passionate kiss. They finally took themselves off down a side corridor and he glided on, his bare feet silent. He had tucked his new buskins and the two brass vials into a sack tied across his back. It made him look like a hunchback, but bare feet were best on unfamiliar surfaces and he counted on not being seen at all.

  Malicious fate nearly undid him.

  The closer he got to the Royal Apartments, the more vigilant—and frequent—the guards became. Soon a broad hallway crossed the one he followed. Twisted columns upheld the intersecting vaults of the ceilings, one pair per corner, perched on wide pedestals ornamented with statues and more of the huge urns. Glass skylights soaked all four corridors in stripes of moonlight and shadow. He looked both ways and listened carefully before gliding across in one of the shadowed bands. Unfriendly moonlight lit the floor to either side.

  He made it only halfway when two guards walked out of a side corridor. He dashed across the rest bent almost double and prayed neither of them saw him.

  “Dung!” one man choked.

  Kirin flattened himself against one of the corner pillars as the guard’s partner asked, “What?”

  “Something moved!” The first voice said, amid the sound of a sword hissing out of its scabbard. “Like a shadow of something big! Right there!”

  Another sound of drawing swords and two pairs of footsteps advanced together.

  Kirin silently cursed and stared around wildly. Too much hallway stretched between him and the next hiding place, he’d never make it there in time. The second-floor balcony didn’t continue on this side and the marble walls were too slick to climb. But one of the big urns loomed over him, four feet tall and standing on a waist-high pedestal. He grabbed the rim and hauled himself up and in.

  The two guards rounded the corner slowly, swords at the ready and covering each other. They poked sharp metal into all the shadows, did the same on the other side of the hallway, and finally stood together in the middle.

  “There’s nothin’ here,” the second said reasonably. “You sure you saw somethin?”

  “I thought so.” Kirin could hear the scowl in the first voice.

  Second Voice sheathed his sword with a loud click, suggested, “Maybe a bat flew overhead, threw a shadow through the winders.”

  First Voice sighed and sheathed his own sword. “I need a smoke. You got any?”

  “Sure. Gimme your pipe, you get us a light.”

  There were footsteps, shuffling noises, and the click of a wall lantern’s brass case opening and closing. Puffing sounds as someone got a pipe drawing. “Quick! Before it burns my fingers,” First Voice implored.

  Kirin sweated inside the tall urn and breathed as shallowly as he could. He had to crouch low to keep his head hidden below the rim. A moment later a “Yeow!” echoed through the hallway, then a curse as the burned guard flung the hot ember away, followed by—

  A flaming splinter dropped on Kirin’s head.

  His thick curly hair caught the splinter and held it away from his scalp. He almost gave himself away when he shook his head so hard the splinter flew back out of the jar. Luckily the flame had gone out and neither guard noticed the dark ember drift to the floor.

  First Voice and Second Voice traded gossip, bellyached about their commander, and swapped boasts about recent prowess on the Red Street. Kirin resisted the need to sneeze and tried to hold off cramps by doing some of the Still Exercises. Just when he thought the two would never leave, their voices came closer.

  “Time we git moovin’” Second voice said from right outside the urn. “Gimme your pipe and I’ll empty it with mine.”

  A moment later the bowls of two pipes appeared above the rim of the jar, rapped sharply, and dumped hot ashes on Kirin. He held himself rigid as the ashes slid down the inside of the jar. They burned hair off his arm and singed one thigh right through his tights. He forced himself to wait and listen until the guards rounded the next corner.

  Then he leaped out of the jar, somersaulted to the floor and slapped embers off himself. Assured that he wasn’t on fire, he continued down the corridor while mentally swearing all the way. The burns were minor, he’d had worse from ropes a dozen times, but it galled him to have to stay still and take it.

  A side corridor, an inconspicuous stair, a service door guarded by spells that didn’t notice him, and he gained the roof near the bridge to the Royal Apartments. Bats soared
through the night air pursuing pale moths. A narrow band of shadow thrown by the east-bound Moon of Madness let him crawl unseen to the start of the bridge over the moat. Kirin looked south. Close at hand a tower reared near the moat’s edge, he could see two guards vigilantly watching. Farther to the southwest another tower had been set only a little way back from the moat, also boasting two guards. He thought he could avoid the eyes of the farther tower by staying on the north side of the pitched roof over the bridge. But the near tower looked right down onto it, those guards could hardly miss him.

  Unless he gave them something else to look at while he crossed the bare top of the bridge. He had made his Shadow dance with Maia’s white kerchiefs. It could just as well dance by itself.

  He rolled onto his back on the hard roof, poured Shadow into his hands, and began to mold it. His first attempt came out awful, his second merely laughable, but the third one worked, and by the sixth his shadow-bats looked good enough for night-time work. He sent the four best bats soaring like their fleshy fellows while he remade the first pair, made two more, and soon he had eight Shadow bats circling the nearer tower.

  The guards exclaimed and jabbered, taking them for real creatures. Kirin took his courage in his hands, drew his Shadow over himself, and crawled out onto the bridge roof.

  He didn’t dare move fast; sudden motion could catch the guards’ eyes even with his Shadow-bats’ distraction. Slow and steady crawling brought him to the gap in the roof between the two halves of the bridge where the glowing Guardian waited.

  If there hadn’t been men in the towers he would have chanced a running start and a leap right over the thing to the next roof. Instead he stuck his head down below the rim of the roof, made sure the bridge was empty, and flipped himself down to the floor. Getting back up and out would be a challenge, but the roof jutted only a dozen feet above the floor and the broad window sills would provide a useful step up. He remembered to draw his shadow bats down into the moat and under the bridge, then back up to him through the stone. They tried to snack on the spells, but he managed to stop them.