Mercedes Lackey: The Outstretched Shadow

He heard the sound of Noontide Bells begin to ring—the high clear note of the crystal bell of the Temple of the Light struck first, followed by the bells of the other towers in the City, and last of all the great bronze bell atop the Council House added its deep note to the chorus.

A blind man could tell time—and even the season of the year—in Armethalieh, for the intricate pattern of her bells told the hour of the day, the season, and more.

The only towers that rang all the bells were the Temple of the Light and the Council House. You could actually tell which bell of the day it was by the sound of the ring: at Midnight Bells, only those two rang together, making a beautiful and eerie sound. At Evensong, Noontide, and Morning Bells (a few bells later than actual dawn, fortunately for light sleepers), all the towers in the City rang out. And at every bell and season, the pattern changed: it was one of the duties of the Mage Council to set the towers by magic.

From Evensong until Midnight Bells, fewer and fewer towers would ring each bell, until the Temple and the Council House rang alone. Then, slowly, a few privileged towers would add their voices to each bell through the rest of the night—first the Mage College, then the Great Library, then the Merchants' Guild—until all the towers throughout the City rang-out Morning Bells, as they would ring each bell throughout the day, until Evensong, when once again, they began to fall silent.

By the sound of the bells—the pattern of the ring would have told him it was the Noontide Bells, even if he hadn't been able to see the sun—and by the emptiness of his stomach, Kellen knew it was time for dinner. Even though the Arch-Mage himself might not be home for it, dinner would be served. And if Kellen wanted anything to eat before supper, he'd better be there when the plates went on the table.

Just as he left his room, the soft gong that announced that very fact sounded through the corridors.

Down the stairs and out into the reception chamber he went, and from there to another blank panel that let him into the main part of the house. When Lycaelon entertained, this panel was left open, and the suite of enormous "public" rooms beyond it, a music room, the library, the dining room, and a garden room were all lit and furnished with anything that a guest could conceivably want. Now they were all left in shadowy half-darkness, with curtains drawn, except for the dining room at the very end of the corridor.

The same color scheme of black, white, and blue held here. The enormous ebony table, stretching the length of the room, could easily seat thirty or forty guests; there were two place settings laid as usual. One at the very head of the table was meant for Lycaelon—he appeared only rarely, but woe betide the servants if they weren't prepared for that eventuality!—the other, roughly halfway down the table, for Kellen. A series of covered dishes waited on the sideboard; a single liveried servant stood there, waiting to serve them.

In silence, Kellen took his seat, and the meal began.

One by one the dishes were presented to Kellen, and he either shook his head or nodded acceptance. Hot food stayed hot, and cold nicely chilled, thanks to more small magicks on the depressions in which the dishes rested. Kellen's bath might be cold, but his father didn't have to share that particular discomfort, whereas he did share Kellen's meals. Lycaelon spared no effort or expense when it came to the pleasures of the table.

Kellen ate with a good appetite, and was not particularly surprised to find that the meal ended with a dish of strawberries, beaten cream, and white cake. He helped himself, thinking wryly that if he'd looked closely at the mob in the Garden Market this morning he might well have seen his father's black-and-white livery on one of the servants there.

The entire meal took place in total silence, except for the faint clink of cutlery and the sounds of plates being picked up and set down. Kellen was used to it; even when his father was here, there was no conversation during a meal. Lycaelon did not believe in conversation at mealtime. He had to put up with it when he entertained, but when he and Kellen were alone, silence prevailed. And certainly in Lycaelon's absence, Lycaelon's servants would not presume to begin any conversation with his son.

When he was finished, Kellen pushed his chair away from the table and left the footman to clear up. The library — I should go look through the books in the library, he thought. I'll bet that's where I found those references to my books. If I go check now, I should have plenty of time to look in the likeliest places long before Father gets home.

Books that hid their nature…

Lycaelon apparently had never even noticed that Kellen used his library on a regular basis. I think I'd like to keep things that way, too, he thought as he walked in through the library door and headed straight for the curtains, to pull them wide and let pale sunshine stream in through the windows. In fact, he had been reading the books on magick for a very long time now—and he was at least familiar with a great deal more than his father or Anigrel suspected, even if he couldn't yet manage to put his knowledge into practice.

And I know things that neither of them want anyone under the rank of High Mage to know about, he thought, pulling one of the ladders over to the bookcase that housed some very esoteric volumes on the top shelves— volumes that, had Lycaelon or anyone else known he was poking around in the place, would surely have been removed or locked up. There were a lot of things on those shelves that were not meant for a Student's eyes.

It didn't take long at all for Kellen to find what he was looking for, because the more he thought about his finds, the more convinced he became that they were books that were hiding their nature for a very good reason.

Sure enough, he found the reference precisely where he'd begun to suspect it was, in the Ars Perfidorum, the Book of Forbidden Acts.

Kellen wasn't even supposed to be aware that the Ars Perfidorum existed, much less have leafed through it. For that matter, he didn't even think his tutor was supposed to know about it; knowledge of this particular book was, if he recalled correctly, restricted to members of the Council and specific senior Mages. And the reason Kellen knew that was because Lycaelon had once allowed one of his fellow Council members to use the library, and the fellow had carelessly left the Ars Perfidorum and two other similarly restricted books out in the music room where he had been reading them. The resulting explosion when Lycaelon found them there had been memorable.

Lycaelon had not been aware that Kellen was anywhere about, and the entertainment value of hearing his father swear and curse the stupidity of another adult—a High Mage at that!—had been so great that Kellen took his chances on being caught in order to eavesdrop. He made very sure to get back to his own rooms as soon as the coast was clear—but after that he'd been afire to find those books and see them for himself.

He vividly recalled his disappointment at finding them to be deadly dull. It had seemed to him that a book with such an exciting title should have been full of horrors—bloodcurdling examples of Forbidden Acts, in excruciating detail, so that Mages down the centuries would know exactly how to recognize a Forbidden Act when they saw it. In fact, Ars Perfidorum was a mealymouthed prude of a book, more intent on outlining the punishments to be meted out for each perfidious deed than describing the deeds themselves. It was—it was a clerkly sort of book, and sent him off into a near-doze when he tried to read it.

Maybe I thought that book was dull then, he thought, swiftly leafing through the text, but that was before anybody shoved the History of the City in Seven Volumes under my nose — hah!