Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

The glow grew brighter, spun faster.

Meralda pushed farther.

The blue light began to beat, pulsing and ebbing like blows from a hammer, or a heart.

It’s still active, thought Meralda. An active spell, so subtle it’s too faint for Sight.

Meralda pulled in a breath, and willed her Sight deeper, farther, clearer. Memories of the exploding spellworks in the Gold Room rose, but after a moment’s observation in the glass Meralda decided this spell wasn’t preparing to strike, and she proceeded.

She fixed her mind upon the spell latched to the detector, saw it as a bright blue sphere cupped in a copper bowl. She pushed again, and her normal vision faded, and then she saw, just for an instant, a tangled skein of blue-lit spell traces, all spilling out of the wall safe like an explosion of Phendelit pasta noodles. There, at the back of the safe, she saw that the metal was lit by worm tracks of fire, and that at the center of the glow the metal was hollow.

She held her breath. Sight, she begged, and there, in the void, a glittering thing took shape. Fat raindrops caught in a spider’s web, thought Meralda, and her heart raced, and then her Sight went close and clear and the raindrops became pale diamonds and the web a delicate lattice of finely worked gold.

“The Tears,” said Meralda. I was right, she thought, elation rushing through her. They’re here.

Now to get them free.

Meralda opened her eyes, and though she let her Sight recede a bit she could still see the tangled outlines of the foreign spell riding across the disks.

Meralda tried to follow the patterns, make sense of the turnings and the whirls and coils, but it was like trying to count raindrops as they fell. What is this structure? And why would anyone cast a spell which linked large portions of the framework to itself?

“Ma’am,” said Tervis, from her side. “Ma’am, are you well?”

Meralda blinked. The blue glow from the detector pulsed faster now, as though the spell suspected it was under scrutiny and was growing troubled.

“Too late,” said Meralda, triumph in her voice. “I fooled you. Now I’ll beat you.”

“Ma’am?” said Tervis.

Meralda withdrew the detector. “The Tears are here,” she said, stepping back. She handed the detector to Tervis, mopped her face with her sleeve, and turned to Kervis. “Guardsman,” she said. “In my bag you’ll find a hammer, and a long chisel. Will you be so good as to take them up, and break out the back end of this safe?” She smiled and winked toward the corner. Let the Alons, she thought, make of it what they will. “I believe you’ll find a handful of trinkets, at yonder end.”

Kervis grinned, threw his helmet to the floor, and charged to her side. “Glad to,” he said. “I knew you’d have us home by supper.”

Meralda returned his smile and sought out the chair at the other end of the room.

Mawb and Dorn Mukirk now stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway, glaring ferociously at Meralda when they weren’t muttering behind their palms or jabbing each other in the ribs with their elbows. Meralda ignored them, and sat.

“Careful, now,” she said, as Kervis placed the long steel spike on the back of the safe, and hefted the blunt-faced hammer in his right hand. “The metal is thin, and the cavity that holds the Tears is small. It wouldn’t do to hand our hosts their crown jewels in pieces,” she said.

Kervis nodded, set the chisel, and gave it a blow.

It rang, but nothing happened. “A bit harder, this time,” he said, and he struck, and Meralda heard from across the room a faint crunch and then a sharp ping as the tip of the chisel broke through one layer of oddly brittle steel, traveled a short distance, and then struck another.

Kervis withdrew the chisel, stuck his arm in the safe, and felt about. “You’re right, ma’am,” he said. “The back of the safe is all brittle. I think I can break it with my hand.”

Kervis set his face in a scowl, strained, and grunted. There came a faint snapping noise from within and Kervis’ eyes went wide. He smiled and pulled his arm out of the safe.

Meralda resisted the urge to stand. Tervis rushed to his brother’s side. A hush fell over the Alons, and Tervis stepped aside just in time for Meralda to see Kervis hold up the Tears in sweaty, grinning triumph.

Meralda stood, and returned his smile. We’ve done it, she thought. I was right.

She looked upon the Tears, watched the diamonds sparkle in the dark safe room, marveled at the delicate skeleton of gold and silver that held the jewels in place. Then, in the hall, the gathered Alons erupted in a roar of shouts and bellows.

Dorn Mukirk produced his leg bone. “Thief!” he cried, brandishing it like a staff. “You brought them with you! Thief! Thief!”

The Alons roared. Meralda saw Ambassador Draunt lift his hands and shout, but his words were lost, and he stumbled back toward the doorway as a soldier shoved him hard in the chest.

“Liar!” bellowed Red Mawb. Kervis’ face went crimson. He took the Tears in his left hand, and drew his sword with his right.

Kervis looked toward Meralda, terror in his eyes. “Ma’am?” he asked.

Dorn Mukirk lifted his leg bone, and it began to glow. “Witch!” he shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. “Witch!”

The shouts from the crowded Alons muted, and there was a general shuffling away from the doorway. Dorn Mukirk, though, stood firm.

“Witch!” he bellowed.

Witch, thought Meralda. She knew what the word meant to an Alon. It meant warty old crones, gathered about a cauldron, stirring the remains of babies into a thick gruel as part of some evil spell.

Witch.

The anger which had been welling up inside Meralda evaporated. She heard the shouts, but they went distant. She saw the shaking fists and the half-drawn swords, but they might as well have been on a stage, in a play, for all the threat they presented.

Even the two whistle blows, which rang out faint from the hall, brought with them no panic.

I’m smiling, thought Meralda, amazed at the realization. Smiling and calm and I’m walking steadily toward the door.

“Witch?” she said, to the Alon wizard, and her voice carried over the remaining shouts. “You wave a femur in my face and dare call me witch?”

She didn’t actually recall taking all the six or eight steps across the safe room. Suddenly, though, she was there, at the threshold, at arm’s length from Dorn Mukirk’s sweaty red face.

“Witch!” he spat.

She slapped him. She brought her open right hand hard and fast across his sweat-soaked, bearded cheek. The hall went deathly silent, and Mukirk’s close-set eyes bulged in fury.

Meralda stepped back. The Bellringers flew to her sides, their swords drawn, held low and straight.

Meralda locked stares with Dorn Mukirk. “If witch I am, step across this threshold,” she said to him. Her voice rang out clear in the hall. “If thief I am, come forward and take the Tears from my hand. Dare my ward. Your talisman can dispel it, can it not? Surely your mighty relic can break the ward of a lowly Tirlish witch?”

Mukirk waved the bone frantically about. It glowed and sparked and made mutterings Meralda couldn’t understand, but the wizard did not step beyond the threshold.

Meralda watched the bone trail fire, its mutterings growing louder and angrier as it sought out a ward that wasn’t there.

“Enough,” said Meralda. She put a hand on each of the Bellringer’s shoulders. “Sheath your blades, gentlemen,” she said. She pushed each gently back, hoping they would step once again into the mirror’s view, and perhaps prevent the captain from blowing three whistles. “And step back. We will make no war today.”