Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

Meralda blinked away a row of dancing bright spots, and saw at last the troubled set of the captain’s face.

“What has happened?” she asked, in a whisper.

“Alons,” said the captain. “Robbed.”

Meralda went wide-eyed.

“Robbed?” she said. “Of what?”

“Their bloody crown jewels, of course,” said the captain. “The Mountain Tears. Right out of the east wing safe room. The locked and guarded east room safe room.” The captain took a deep breath, and glanced about before continuing. “The Alon queen was talking about leaving the Accords when I left,” he said. “We’ve got to find the Tears, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Got to find them soon.”

Meralda stared. We?

“Yvin thinks the thieves used sorcery,” replied the captain. “He told me to find you and fetch you,” he said. “Shall we go?”

“Oh, why not?” said Meralda. “I’ve got latches falling off the Tower, rumors of haunts, fifteen days until Commencement. Certainly, let’s go chase down jewel thieves.” She whirled. “We’ve been found and fetched, gentlemen,” she said, to Kervis and Tervis. “We’re done here, for today.”

She whirled again, and the captain shook his head. “I’m sorry about this, Thaumaturge,” he said. “But when you see how the Tears were guarded and stored, I think you’ll agree sorcery may well have been involved.”

Meralda sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know you didn’t run all the way here to ruin my afternoon.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “When this is all over, let’s both retire, shall we?”

The captain barked a short laugh. “Soldiers and mages don’t retire, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We just die quietly of over work.”

He turned, and stamped back toward the wall. Meralda motioned the Bellringers to follow, and fell wearily into step behind him.

The palace was quiet. Guards hurried to and fro, staff darted and dodged among them, somber-faced court officials popped in and out of doors. Everywhere, voices were muted, doors were closed softly, and orders were given in near-whispers. And no one, no one at all, was smiling.

Meralda hurried through the palace at the captain’s side. He chose a route intended to avoid the more public areas. Meralda knew the Alons were housed in the east wing guest halls, and the safe room was on the third floor, but she’d never seen many of the hushed corridors and dim, narrow passages she passed through with the captain.

Meralda’s Sight lingered, and she had to look away from a gas lamp lest she see afterimages of the face from the park dancing in the flame. “Vonashon, empalos, endera,” came the words, over and over. Meralda remembered just enough from her year of Old Kingdom to translate them.

Walk warily, walk swiftly, walk away.

A storybook warning, mused Meralda. How quaint.

The captain halted, banged three times on a door so old its face was blacked with coal soot, and motioned Meralda through as it was opened from the other side. “Nearly there,” he said, as Meralda passed. “But don’t expect a warm welcome from our Alon brethren.”

Meralda nodded. “I won’t,” she said, and she saw mad eyes wink in a gas lamp’s flame and put her gaze quickly back to the plain oak floor.

Tervis and Kervis tromped behind, exchanging short bursts of whispers at each portrait or Historical Society placard. “The Moon Room,” she heard Tervis whisper, as the party passed a barred and bolted door. “That’s where Mad King Foon thought he saw the vampire!”

She heard Kervis pause at the door. “Been barred up ever since,” he said, and Meralda could almost see his sudden grin. “What if I knocked, little brother?”

“What if I yanked up your boots and boxed your ears?” asked the captain, casually. The Bellringers fell back into step.

The floors went from threadbare rugs to polished hardwood and then to newly-laid carpet. After a dozen corridors and three sets of stairs, Meralda rounded a corner to find a foursome of Alon copperheads-wearing their namesake blunt-topped copper helmets, no less-facing her. The copperheads flanked a wide set of black oak double doors.

“We’re back,” gruffed the captain.

“You may pass,” said one of the copperheads, as the others drew back the doors.

Meralda, the captain, and the Bellringers stepped through, and Meralda realized that, by law, she was now on Alon soil.

Angry Alon soil, at that.

A short march down a straight corridor, and a turn, and the party faced a dead-end hall and yet another door. The door stood open, dimly lit from within by flickering candlelight, and flanked by another pair of glaring copperheads.

“The safe room?” asked Meralda.

“The safe room,” said the captain. He stopped. “Would it be best if you went in alone?”

“It would,” said Meralda. Notthat it really matters, she thought. She had no spells prepared, no wands charged, her second sight was all but useless, and her staff just earthed an errant major spellwork. She couldn’t see a barrel-full of ward spells if it was lit with torches and marked with a placard.

But here I am. Meralda remembered something Shingvere had said, years ago. “Sometimes a piercing glare and a few nonsense words are all the magic you really need.”

Good, she thought. Because that’s really all I have.

“I’ll call you in a moment, Captain,” she said. “Tervis, I may need my bag later.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis, who set it down on the floor.

Meralda nodded to the Alon guards and marched into the safe room.

It reminded her instantly of her dorm room at the college. It had bare walls, a bare floor, a low, bare ceiling. It was about the same size, as well. Just large enough for five paces from one wall to the next.

Meralda stood in the middle of the safe room and turned in a slow circle. The only door was open behind her. To her left, the wall was fronted by a plain wood table, on which burned a five-tiered candelabrum. Otherwise, the table, which took up nearly the length of the wall, was empty.

Before the table sat a chair. It too was plain and none too new. One of the legs had been replaced with lighter wood than the rest.

Centered on the far wall, directly across from the door, was a painting. The frame was on hidden hinges and had been left open, so Meralda could only see the back of the canvas and frame. Behind the painting was a steel wall safe, its door perhaps two feet high and just as wide.

The safe door was open. The safe, itself, was empty.

And that was all. A table, a chair, an open safe, a missing crown jewel, a black eye for Tirlin.

What did they want her to do?

Meralda bit her lip. All right, she thought. What can I do that the guards and the Watch cannot?

“Captain,” she said.

“Thaumaturge?” replied the captain, poking his head in the door.

“You said the jewel box was found smashed on the floor,” she replied. “Where is it?”

The captain spoke to the copperheads, then came inside, shaking his head. “The Alon wizards took it,” he said. “Right after I came for you. Claimed they were going to use it to, and I quote, ‘track down the Tirlish conjurer who dared steal from our queen’.”

Meralda bit back an Angis-word.

“It’s their country, in here,” whispered the captain. “We’re being allowed inside only as a courtesy, and that isn’t going to last much longer, judging by the shouting and the fist waving I saw before I left.” He paused. “Meralda, do you see anything? Anything at all?”

“Nothing. An empty room. Guarded, you said, at all times.”

The captain nodded. “Our Alon friends tell us the safe was undisturbed at the room check this morning,” he said. “When four of them opened the door for the afternoon check, though, they found the safe open, the box smashed, and the Tears gone. No one had been in or out.”