Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

Meralda frowned. The mirror could reflect some things, well enough. Ask it for the sky, or the clouds, or Tirlin from high in the air, and one could expect several hours of reflection before the image broke apart. But ask for anything smaller than the sky, a room, for instance, or a person, and the mirror would flash an instant’s reflection on the glass, and then begin its random perambulation through the more private parts of Tirlin. Meralda’s early investigations of Goboy’s mirror had resulted mainly in a good deal of embarrassment and ultimately the blanket.

“Mirror, mirror,” said Mug, before Meralda could stop him.

The sky and the faint sun vanished, replaced by reflections of Mug and Meralda and a single glowing spark lamp on the ceiling.

Meralda looked at her reflection, and looked away when it winked back at her.

“Show me the Tears,” said Mug, in the king’s own voice. “Show me the Tears, wherever they are.”

The mirror flashed bright white, casting brief shadows on Meralda’s desk. Startled, Meralda looked up at the glass, but it was dark.

Dark, but not black. Indeed, a dim light flickered at the right edge of the glass, halfway up the frame.

“I’ll be trimmed and pruned,” said Mug.

The image grew lighter and clearer. The flickering light became the guttering stub of a candle, burnt down nearly to nothing. Its four fellows were gone, mere lumps that neither smoked nor glowed.

The candle stand sat on a plain wood table. A chair was pushed beneath it. And on the wall adjacent to the table, faint but visible in the failing candlelight, Tim the Horsehead grinned out of a painting.

Meralda rose, eyes wide, biting back an exclamation.

“That’s the safe room, isn’t it?” whispered Mug.

Meralda nodded, brought a finger to her lips. Mug nodded with a tossing of leaves and fell silent.

Meralda sought out Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper and watched the rings whirl round. Ten, twenty, thirty full seconds, and still the image in the mirror held.

The safe room. Meralda let out her breath, afraid to move or speak or even look away.

“Show me the Tears, wherever they are,” Mug had said.

And now we see the safe room?

Meralda rose, banged her right knee on the desk leg, shoved her chair sharply backward, and bit back a shout.

“Mistress?” said Mug, who turned half his eyes upon her, but left the other aimed motionless at the glass.

“The Tears,” said Meralda. “You asked…oh, blast, the nature of your question was such that the object in question would have its whereabouts revealed,” she said, wary of using words the mirror might interpret as a new command. “Think about it, Mug. Imagine you’re a villain. You want to cause trouble. You put a spell on the safe, or the jewel box, and you make it look as if the Tears have been stolen.”

Mug tapped the glass with a leaf. “But you hide the Tears, instead,” he said. “Somehow. Hide them in the safe room.”

“And then you just wait,” said Meralda. She stepped closer to the glass. “You just wait, because sooner or later, the Alons will be gone,” she said. “And sooner or later, Yvin will remove the guards from the safe room. Oh, he might also bar it and lock it, but given time, you can get in. And if not? Well, the damage is done.”

Meralda stared into the glass. I’m right, she thought, smiling at the guttering candle, shifting her gaze to the ghostly equine smile of the Horsehead in the portrait. I’m right.

Mug blinked with fifteen eyes. “It sounds plausible,” he said. He blinked again. “I can’t find anything wrong with it.” He paused. “Except, of course, for the mirror’s sudden spate of competence.”

Meralda felt her smile shrink, just a bit.

“Odd,” she said. “Though not undocumented. Remember the missing princes, back in 1810?”

“I thought you said that Mage Lommis made that story up, to implicate the Vonats,” said Mug.

“I may have been wrong about that,” said Meralda. She reached out and touched the dark oak frame. “I may have been wrong about a lot of things.”

Mug shrugged. “Glasses showing rooms, mages admitting errors. This is a night for rare occurrences,” he said. He thrust an eye toward Meralda. “That aside, what now?”

Meralda turned from the glass to Mug. “It’s time someone else had a very bad day,” she said, and she smiled. At the sight of it Mug pulled his eye hastily back.

“Oh, my,” said Mug.

In the glass, the candle guttered and went out.

Midnight. Meralda yawned and stretched. Mug muttered in his sleep, and Tervis rose from his chair and stood.

The scene in Goboy’s mirror was dark, aside from the faint line of light that crept in from under the safe room door.

“Shut up, you awful hyacinth,” said Mug.

“Ma’am?” said Tervis.

“He’s dreaming,” said Meralda. “Ignore him.” She reached up and stroked the topmost of his leaves.

“Never thought about plants dreaming,” said Tervis. Then he yawned. “But I reckon they get tired; too.”

“Don’t we all,” said Meralda.

Tervis muttered assent, and sat again.

The mirror remained dark. Meralda had sent for the captain, told him of her suspicions, then asked that a contingent of guards be kept ready just beyond the Alon halls. She’d refused the captain’s offer of additional guards to watch the mirror, deciding there was simply too much potential for mischief in the lab. Or, Meralda wondered, is it that I, like Fromarch and all the mages before us, simply don’t want strangers in my lair?

Meralda smiled at the thought. Next I’ll be slouching around in old robes and muttering to myself in public, she thought.

“Hedge-bush,” said Mug, and Tervis chuckled.

Meralda bit back another yawn and idly shoved her now-cold cup of coffee around on her desk. She was beginning to question the wisdom of insisting that she keep her own watch on the mirror, instead of assigning Kervis and Tervis to watch it in shifts.

But here I sit, she thought, half-asleep and bone weary. I can’t just go home and lie down. Not yet.

She lifted the coffee cup, took a sip, made a face, and put it down.

Sometime during her first hour of watching the mirror, she’d decided that one of the rival Alon wizards was probably the culprit. If so, he’d also be the one to recover the Tears. Meralda’s hope was she could find them first.

And then she’d begun to think about how the Tears were hidden, and she’d decided the Alon mages were, if the captain and Shingvere were correct, simply not up to the task.

Arcane concealment of the Tears, which would mean visual and tactile suppression of form and mass, was not something she’d like to try, she decided. If Red Mawb or Dorn Mukirk cast such a spell, there was more to Alon clan wizards than the college ever taught.

Mug shook his leaves, and Meralda yawned again.

“You’ll have the Tears in hand by tomorrow night, I’ll wager,” said Tervis.

“I wish I shared your confidence,” replied Meralda. “But I hardly know where to begin looking.”

Tervis nodded and smiled. “You’ll know when the time comes.”

“She can’t know of this,” mumbled Mug, in Shingvere’s merry voice. Meralda smiled and patted Mug’s pot. “Poor thing,” she said. “You’ll have to go outside tomorrow, get some real sunlight.”

Tomorrow. She looked to the clock and saw that sunrise was only five hours away.

Night is fled, and with her slumber, thought Meralda. Phendelit playwrights must lose as much sleep as Tirlish thaumaturges.

“And I still have shadows to move,” she said, aloud. She pushed an image of the face from the park aside and looked down at the drawings and calculations that covered her desk, and the words she’d scribbled earlier on a drawing of the Tower.