Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

Meralda shook her head. “No spells here,” she replied. “It’s just a key, and that’s just a lock.” She eyed Tervis, whose complexion was looking decidedly more greenish by the moment. “If you please?”

Kervis thrust the key into the lock and turned it.

The lock made a single loud click.

Kervis withdrew the key and handed it back to Meralda. “In we go,” he said, turning the latch and pushing.

The door held fast. Kervis pushed harder.

“Open it,” said Tervis, though clenched teeth.

Kervis turned the latch again, pushed. “What am I doing wrong?” he said. “It turns, but it won’t open.”

Meralda took two careful steps ahead, to stand beside Kervis on the stair. Don’t think about the height, she said, in a stern internal voice. Don’t think about empty darkness, or the long, long fall.

She turned the latch and pushed.

The door swung open and bright, warm daylight spilled onto the stair, plunged off the edge, and fell in long, slanting shafts across the dark.

Without a word, Meralda and both Bellringers charged headlong into the light.

“Well,” said Kervis, from the far side of the flat. “I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that.”

Meralda put her back to the wall, laughed, and squinted at the sun. Tervis joined his brother, but sank into a crouch, both hands palm-down on the floor. “We’ll join the army,” he said, and Meralda knew at once Tervis was mocking his older twin. “Oh, the things we’ll see, the places we’ll go.”

Kervis shrugged and grinned. “I never said we’d ride carriages everywhere,” he said, cheerily. “Still, it’s not so bad. How many of old Barlo’s bully boys can say they’ve climbed to the top of a haunted wizard’s tower?” he asked.

Tervis put his head in his hands. “None,” he said. “They’ve got better sense. And the Tower isn’t haunted,” he said, peeking through his fingers up at Meralda. “Is it, ma’am?”

Meralda sighed and shook her head.

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just tall. Unusually tall.” She forced herself away from the wall and stepped out into the flat.

Out into Otrinvion the Black’s place of power, she thought. All the history, all the tragedy, all the wars and magics. It all started here. Started here, and ended here, seven hundred years ago.

The flat, like the Tower, was circular. Meralda knew the flat was exactly fifty-five feet in diameter, each of the flat’s four ten-by-ten windows was set at a compass point, and the ceiling was slightly convex, so the center was exactly twenty feet high. She knew the indentations in the floor by the door were square, half a foot to a side, and one foot deep. She knew Tower lore insisted these indentations once held Otrinvion’s lost twin staves, Nameless and Faceless. Meralda knew all this, but standing in the flat, she felt a touch of the same thrill she’d felt the first day she’d walked into the shadow of the palace while dirigibles swam by above.

Kervis hauled Tervis to his feet. “Look here,” he said, dragging Tervis toward the north-facing window. “Bet you can see Allaskar from there!”

Tervis shook off his brother’s grasp and pulled away from the window. Meralda motioned him toward her. “Hold this, if you will,” she said, thrusting her instrument bag into the boy’s arms.

Tervis nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh,” said Kervis, his face pressed to the glass. “Oh,” he said again, softly.

Meralda joined him at the window.

Tirlin lay sprawled below. The Lamp River wound shimmering from the east, passed beneath the bridge, and lost itself amid the walls and rooftops and spires of the college. The park wall and its dancing gargoyles were invisible, swallowed whole by the distance. The old oaks, tiny now, stood swaying in a ring. Meralda felt she was flying, looking down on the heads of giants.

Kervis gasped and started. A bright green passenger dirigible flew into view, fans straining, climbing steeply and bearing west. But before it turned and was lost beyond the window frame, Meralda was sure she saw the flash of a lady’s white-gloved hand through a brass-worked salon porthole.

Kervis rapped the glass with his knuckles. “How thick is this, ma’am?” he asked, stepping back. “And how do they clean it?”

Meralda smiled. “The glass is nearly four feet thick,” she said. “And, believe it or not, once a year a Phendelit chimney sweep named Mad Hansa hangs on a line from an airship and polishes all the glass from outside.”

Kervis’ jaw dropped. “Mad Hansa,” he said.

Meralda nodded. “It’s an all day affair,” she said. “The park fills with people who come to watch.” Meralda shrugged. “Especially after the year Mad Hansa hired an apprentice. Too bad about him, really.”

Kervis swallowed and stepped away from the window. “Now then,” said Meralda. “Work to do.” She pulled back her sleeves and brushed a damp lock of hair out of her eyes. “Tervis, my bag. Please stand back and be silent.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the Bellringers. Tervis came to stand before her, hefting her bag out at arm’s length before him.

Meralda thanked him, reached inside, and pulled out a small black cloth bag clasped with an intricate silver catch.

Tervis’ eyes bulged. Meralda released the catch, opened the bag, and pulled out a silver ball attached to a fine silver chain. A hole pierced the bottom of the ball. Meralda shook the bag until a short piece of sharpened white chalk fell into her hand. She then pushed the chalk into the hole in the ball.

Meralda grasped the far end of the chain and let the ball hang free. With her arm above her head, the ball hung just above the floor.

Meralda took a deep breath and whispered a word.

The first few windings of Meralda’s spell unlatched and flailed about. Meralda let go of the chain, and before it could fall the spell caught hold, suspending chain and ball in the empty air below the ceiling.

Tervis grinned in sudden wonder, and some of the fear left his eyes. Kervis bit back a squeak of amazement.

With another word, Meralda stilled the ball’s small oscillations.

“Stand back, if you will,” she said, to Tervis.

Tervis made great backward-shuffling strides to the far edge of the flat. Meralda squinted, said a word and made a gesture. The ball and chain sailed to rest in the center of the flat.

Meralda followed. She kneeled before the ball and chain, fumbled in her skirt pocket, and withdrew her short, battered retaining wand. The wand was warm, and at her touch it gave off a hum like the buzzing of a single angry honeybee.

Tufts of pocket lint clung to the wand. Meralda rubbed the lint off with her skirt, took the wand in both hands, and unlatched the rest of the seeking spell with a long rhythmic word.

The spell discharged with a crackle and a flash, draining Meralda’s retaining wand with a sound like frying bacon.

“Look!” said Kervis, as the ball began to dart about, swinging to and fro as if testing the air for scents.

“Hush,” said Tervis.

The silver ball strained at the chain, pulling it taut until the chalk tip touched the floor. Then the ball swung to the north, pulling the chain with it at a slight angle and drawing a short straight line upon the floor.

Meralda clapped her hands, and caught the chain as it went limp and fell. “That’s all,” she said. “We’re nearly done.”

“What now?” asked Kervis, as Meralda wound the chain loosely around her left hand.

“I use a ruler,” said Meralda. “I measure the length of the line on the floor. I use this to calculate the height of the flat.”

Kervis tilted his head.

“A ruler?” he said.