Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

“I’m glad you’re here, Mug,” she said, with a sigh. Meralda considered Mug’s aversion to travel and sought out a pair of his blue eyes. “What made you do it?”

“Well, what sort of assistant perches above the kitchen sink all day when his thaumaturge is off casting eldritch spells in the palace?” said Mug. “A poor one, that’s what,” he added, quickly. “So I decided a bit of traveling was in order, until this ordeal is done.” He tossed his leaves dismissively. “It’s not so bad, really, once one gets over the nausea, the vertigo, the feeling of one’s roots falling as the earth plummets away.”

Meralda shook her head. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” said Mug. “Now then. It looks like you’ve got the spellworks roughed out, if nothing else.”

“I do,” said Meralda. “All two hundred and forty-two of them.”

Mug was silent a moment. “One at a time, mistress,” he said. “Just like in college.” Mug poked forth a tendril and pointed at a diagram. “You’ll start here, will you?”

Meralda leaned back, and closed her eyes. It’s only sixteen days, she said, to herself. Sixteen more days.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll start there.” Just like college. One crisis at a time. “The latching spell will be the worst of all. Before I cast the real thing, though, I need to latch a quarter-scale version to the Tower, and hang a pair of refractors to that, and keep everything hung there a day and a night.” She opened her eyes. “If I hurry, I could latch and hang all three today, before sunset.” If, she added silently, that idiot king will leave me alone long enough to work.

Mug tapped the paper. “Spoken like a mage,” he said. “Shall I check over your math, just in case?”

“Please do,” said Meralda. She rose and spread her papers for Mug to see. “I’ll get started on the latch.”

Mug’s eyes poked between the wire bars of his bird cage, and he peered at papers and began to hum. By the time Meralda was at her work bench, Mug was issuing a perfect rendition of Sovett’s Music for the Night , including the hundred-voice chorus and the flute ensemble.

Meralda smiled, spoke a word, clamped a copper cable that ran up from the floor to the metal bench top, and put forth her Sight. Her work bench was suddenly lit with dozens of small glows and hanging traceries of light. The sharp silver tines of the five hundred year old charge dissipater bolted to the far end of the bench began to hiss and spit tiny sparks toward the ceiling.

She picked up a fresh holdstone. Then twisted the top, exposing the silver and gold contacts formed in the shapes of grinning dragon faces, and placed the holdstone down carefully on a sheet of oft-scorched felt. Then she found her favorite brass retaining wand amid the clutter, thought back to her calculations, and began to shape the latch.

At noon, a courier arrived, bearing a note from Yvin. “Be excused from the noon court session,” it read. Meralda smiled. It was already half-past. I excused myself, thank you very much. “But please send word on the status of your shadow spell. The Hang seem fascinated by the idea.”

The courier shuffled nervously from foot to foot, just outside the laboratory doors. Kervis and Tervis, Meralda noted, appeared to take no notice of the flashes and crackles that shone and sounded faintly at her back.

She turned the king’s paper over and pulled a pencil from behind her ear.

“Testing first spellworks today,” she wrote. “Will advise if test is successful.”

Good, she thought. It’s vague and worrisome, but absolutely true.

“Thank you,” she said, handing the message tray and paper back to the courier.

He turned and trotted away.

“Shall one of us fetch you some lunch, Thaumaturge?” Kervis asked.

“Do that,” replied Meralda. “Get some for yourselves, and wrap something up for Angis, too,” she said.

“Are we going to the Tower?” asked Tervis.

Meralda met his eyes. “To the Tower, yes,” she said. “But not up it. We’ll be working from the park today.”

Relief eased the features of both Bellringers’ faces. “Good,” said Tervis. “The night watch saw lights again last night.”

Meralda nodded, as if she knew. I’ve got to get a paper, she thought. Not that a word of it can be believed.

“That won’t concern us today,” she said. “If one of you will fetch us lunch, I’ll be ready to go when you return.”

“I’ll go,” said Tervis. He grinned slightly. “I’m sure the general here can’t carry food and his new siege piece.”

Kervis reddened. Meralda glanced down and to her right, at the crossbow propped against the wall, and realized this weapon was even larger than the monstrous Oldmark the boy had been carrying the day before.

“The armorer said it was the very latest weapon available,” said Kervis, airily. “It’s got twice the stopping power of an Oldmark.”

Meralda lifted her hand. “I’m sure it’s a formidable crossbow,” she said. “And I appreciate your zeal. Both of you.” She smiled. “Now then. Lunch? And then to the Tower?”

“We’ll be ready,” said Tervis. “Back in a bit.”

Meralda nodded, stepped back, and let the doors swing shut.

“What’s he got out there?” asked Mug. “A mule-drawn catapult?”

“Nearly,” said Meralda, softly. She made her way back to her work bench. “The lad seems to expect a surprise attack by armored assassins,” she added.

“He might do better to expect ghosts,” said Mug. Meralda pretended not to hear.

“Let’s see,” she said aloud. “I’ll need the holdstones, both retaining wands, the charger and the Riggin bottles.” She pulled her instrument bag from beneath the work bench and opened it. “What else?”

Mug reeled off more instruments and implements, and Meralda began to pack them carefully in her bag. More lights, she mused, as she worked. Unless news of the Hang overshadows the Tower, the papers will be full of news of the haunting.

Or worse, thought Meralda. Thus far, the papers had been content to play up the lights. But Meralda remembered something else she’d read, more than once, in old books about the Tower. The lights in the flat were also said to precede disaster for Tirlin.

Lights, Meralda recalled, were seen in the summer of 1566. In the autumn of that year, the Red Fever had swept through the Realms, taking half of Tirlin to the grave. The lights in 1714 preceded a great shaking of the ground which toppled two of the palace spires, destroyed half a city block in the Narrows, and sent the Lamp River running backwards for three days.

Dates and calamities raced through Meralda’s mind. She assured herself that many of the stories were no more than just stories, and tales of lights in the flat almost certainly sprang up well after the events.

Still, though, the lights in 1566 and the ones in 1714 were well documented, as were the calamities they were said to presage.

And yet the papers-even the Post -said nothing. Meralda wondered idly if Yvin had some control over the press after all.

“Mistress?” said Mug. “You’re ignoring me, aren’t you?”

Meralda looked up and smiled. “Constantly,” she said.

Mug snorted. “I was saying,” he said, in Mrs. Whitlonk’s voice, “that perhaps you ought to consider rummaging through this wizard’s treasure trove and picking out something small and lethal to carry. Surely some of these wondrous mighty magics have offensive uses.”

Meralda stared. “Have you been talking to Shingvere?”

“Certainly,” he said. “I hailed a cab and searched him out just this morning. We had coffee, and then went bowling.” Mug snorted. “Really, mistress, why would you think such a thing?”