Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

Meralda didn’t slow, nor did she look back, but the Bellringer’s treads halted, and the penswift’s cries came no closer.

Meralda smiled and climbed serenely up the stair. At the top, she found her key, opened the laboratory doors, and stepped quickly inside. She dropped the papers in a heap by the door.

The Times fell face-up, displaying the words “Hang Invasion” in tall black letters.

A single flickering gas lamp lit the laboratory. Tiny hints of movement played about the shadows, and though Meralda knew they were merely reflections of the gas lamp on various reflective surfaces she couldn’t help but be reminded of tiny hands waving.

Meralda kicked the paper flat and unlatched the ward spell with a word and a pat on the polished copper globe that sat atop her biggest spark coil apparatus.

The ward spell collapsed. Papers rustled throughout the laboratory, fluttering and waving in the still air as if blown by a sudden gust of wind. The big old scrying mirror bolted to the middle of the east wall flashed, bright and brief, behind the blanket Meralda kept hung over the glass.

“Lights,” said Meralda, when the ward spell static discharge faded.

A pair of head-high spark coils surrounded by a cage of shiny copper bars whined and crackled in the corner. On the high stone ceiling two dozen glass rings flickered, brightened, and filled the windowless laboratory with soft white light.

“Music,” she said, and from the clutter of bisected brass globes and wire-wound glass tubes heaped on a work bench just beside the door came the soft strains of an Alon violin.

“Miracles,” she muttered. The big old scrying mirror pulsed blue behind its blanket, and a few of her more intelligent instruments make querulous chirps, but nothing else occurred.

Meralda sighed, and gazed around. She stood in the midst of what was arguably the best equipped, and certainly the oldest, magical research facility in the Realms. She could take two steps and put her hands on old Phillitrep’s Mathematical Calculating Engine, which was still working, gears and rods awhirl, three hundred years after commencing calculations for Phillitrep’s last “little” problem. She could walk to the rear of the room and, along the way, stand beneath the tall, gleaming bulk of Arkot’s Walking Barge, touch the carefully folded fabric of the very first gas-filled airship, or watch the prototype of Lafrint’s Steam Motor hiss and turn its heavy steel axles.

Eyes, some of steel and glass, others of stone and iron, turned and fixed themselves upon Meralda. Imeck’s Pondering Noggin winked at her, and she waved idly back at it. Tarmore’s Watcher blinked at her, and a moment later Meralda heard the steady scratching of a mechanical pen drawing her likeness on the same scrap of parchment she’d fed the machine months ago. All about the shelves and alcoves of the laboratory, lightning danced, caught in the glass of this or the coils of that. Some of the devices were only half finished, some so old their names and purposes were long forgotten. Still, Meralda could not look upon them without thinking that the least of them held wonders, or the keys to wonders.

Meralda turned her eyes from the ranks of intricate devices. She stalked to her desk, snatched up a fresh sheet of architect’s paper, and began to draw the Tower.

Meralda heard voices beyond the door. One was Tervis. One was not. When she heard her name called Meralda put down her pencil and stretched. Time for a break anyway, she thought. She counted rings on the face of Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper. Ten of the clock, and high time for a snack.

Meralda rose as Tervis began to knock. “Pardon, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Urgent summons from the crown. May we have a word?”

Meralda winced. Urgent summons from the crown, she thought. Those have to be my least favorite words.

Meralda threw the door open, stepping back as she did. A trio of grim-faced, black-clad palace guards stood between Kervis and Tervis.

“Pardon, Thaumaturge,” said the tallest of the guards. “You are required upstairs. Immediately. The king is waiting.”

The guard, a stony-faced sergeant perhaps ten years older than Meralda, lowered his voice.

“I don’t know what’s happening, Thaumaturge,” he said, before Meralda could speak. “But the captain told me to tell you to bring whatever you’ll need to seek out foreign sorcery.”

“Foreign sorcery?” asked Meralda.

The guard nodded.

A door slammed down the hall, and the sound of booted feet in a hurry followed.

Meralda lifted a finger. “One moment,” she said, and spun.

Foreign sorcery. She darted past her desk, snatched her light staff from its hooks on the wall, found her black bag and put a fresh glass and copper holdstone in the pouch sewn into the side.

“Confound, dissuade, confuse,” she mumbled, latching the ward spell with words since her hands were full.

The spark coils flared, the glow tubes died, and the doors closed softly behind her.

“Let’s go,” she said. The palace guards headed for the stair. Meralda followed, the Bellringers close behind.

“What’s happened?” asked Tervis, as a trio of regular red-clad army troopers charged up the west stair, causing Meralda and her party to squeeze to one side.

The palace guards exchanged glances. “Don’t know,” said the sergeant. “The captain just said to fetch the thaumaturge.”

Another trio of army troopers charged past at the base of the stair. At the Burnt Door, five troopers stood fast, confusion evident on their faces and their hands near their sword hilts.

Beyond the Burnt Door, the hall was empty. Meralda counted doors as she sped past-eight, nine, and ten. The palace guards halted, one knocked, and after a low exchange of words the door opened.

The captain emerged. “Thaumaturge,” he said. Then he turned to the palace guardsmen. “Lieutenant Heathers is patrolling the north wing apartments,” he said. “Join him there.”

The guards trotted away, and the captain motioned Meralda and the Bellringers inside.

Meralda had seen the door before. Two doors past the kitchen, four before the entrance to the Gold Room. It’s a storage room, she thought. For the chairs and folding tables sometimes used at banquets, when the King’s Tables weren’t sufficient.

Frowning, she crossed the threshold. The room was dark, until the door shut behind Kervis.

Light flared, revealing a small, narrow room perhaps twice the length of Meralda’s apartment. Another door stood in the center of the far wall; other than that, the room was bare.

Bare, yet not empty. His Highness, Yvin II, son of Histel, Lord of the House of Yvin, stood glowering at Meralda from perhaps five long steps away. Beside the king stood his queen, her eyes narrowed. Yvin might be glowering, thought Meralda, but the queen is quite ready for an old-fashioned round of murder.

Five Red Guards stood close by, short swords drawn. Another was stationed by the door Meralda had just entered.

The captain moved to stand before the king.

“We’ve had a visitor, Thaumaturge,” said the captain.

Meralda frowned. Details of the room’s construction were becoming obvious in the dim light. The doors were made of iron. Solid iron, with wood over the outer face. Those bumps on the walls weren’t nail heads, but rivets.

“This is a siege retreat?”

“Aye,” growled Yvin. He balled his hands into fists, and glared at the captain. “An iron-plated rat-hole, where frightened monarchs might hide. Siege retreat!” His voice rose to a bellow. “He was only one man!”

The captain bowed. “Indeed, Majesty,” he said, with a glance toward Meralda. “One man. One man who walked through the palace gates and past twenty-seven guard stations without being stopped, signed, or even, as far as I can tell, seen.”