Frank Tuttle - All the Paths of Shadow

“From where? Inside?”

“Tower can’t tell. But no, not inside. From a distance, somehow.”

“Nam.”

“Probably. mistress. Tower says unless he’s stopped, you’ll need to attach your tethers in the next few minutes.”

Meralda stood. She saw the king eye her quizzically, saw a dozen guards tense and look her way.

“Nameless,” she whispered. “Faceless. To me.”

The staves fell into her hands. People about her gasped and stared.

“I’m off to move the shadow,” she shouted, with a smile. “Pray continue, Your Majesty.”

Yvin didn’t blink. “Tend to it, Mage,” he said. “Just as planned.”

Meralda nodded, and the staves lifted her up and whisked her away.

Wind howled in her ears. The robe of office flapped so hard it stung. The air grew cold and then damp and then dry again.

“I need to know where he is,” she said, to the staves. “Show me.”

Tirlin wheeled below her. Meralda extended her Sight, using secret spaces to enhance it, make it more subtle and sensitive than she’d ever dreamed possible.

The city shone below her, laced with magics, old and new. Most were simple household magics. Water was heated. Milk was cooled. Fires were kept from creeping out of hearths. Toys danced and moved.

Others were larger, more complex. Some filtered out the lifting gas for dirigibles. Some pumped water. Some kept lamp gas from leaking and burning.

But that one. That one, blazing a peculiar shade of green, sending tendrils of influence from a tiny basement room in east Tirlin toward the Tower. What was that?

Meralda flew toward the light, watching it solidify around the flat.

Saw it begin to bite into the tethers, one by one.

Meralda willed the staves down, and down they soared, hawk-quick, owl-silent. She saw a single face as she passed, mouth open in shock behind an apartment window, and then she was back on her feet, standing outside a weather-beaten door.

She extended a hint of power, and the door exploded, sending splinters flying in every direction.

Meralda stepped through the ruined doorframe.

Humindorus Nam glared back at her, his staff of bone glowing and hissing in his hands.

A mound of skulls sat atop a table before him. The skulls chanted, issuing dry whispers from between grinning, clacking jaws. Atop the heap of skulls a bright light played, and from that light led the strands of power that ravaged the tethers.

“Why?” asked Meralda. “What would drive you to do this, knowing the consequences?”

Nam spat. “They speak of peace,” he said. “Reconciliation. A joining with the Realms.” He shoved his staff of bone down deep into the light, where it smoked and screamed. “They would surrender. Surrender, to the likes of you.”

“We’re not asking for surrender. We’re not at war.”

Nam’s staff howled in agony. Meralda smelled the sudden stench of burnt hair and watched as blisters rose up on the man’s arms from the heat pouring off the light.

“We’ll be at war in a moment,” said Nam. “Let your shade’s curseworks fall. Let them burn away the weakness that chokes the heart of Vonath. Let them make us strong again, so we might ride forth and strike you all down!”

The man’s arms turned black and began to sizzle, and he shoved them harder against the light and laughed.

Meralda raised Nameless and Faceless. “Don’t make me do this,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you.”

Nam coughed blood, gripped a muttering skull, and raised it toward Meralda.

“I, on the other hand, don’t mind killing you at all,” said Fromarch.

The old wizard raised the Infinite Latch and shouted a word.

Meralda found the hidden place that slowed time. Even slowed, she was barely able to enclose Fromarch and herself in a sphere of safety, before the combined forces of what Fromarch would later claim were nine hundred and seventy industrial grade thermal spells reduced the tiny boarding house, the mound of skulls, and Humindorus Nam to a fine snow of ash that fell until the next rain finally washed it from the sky.

Meralda bore Fromarch and herself away from the lingering heat before returning to normal space.

The aging wizard blinked. “Still alive. Imagine that.”

Meralda glared. “What were you thinking?”

Fromarch shrugged. “I was thinking my hands are too old to care if they’ve got blood on them,” he said. “My gift to you, Mage Meralda. Now I’m well and truly retired. I see a pub.” He took a step away. “Don’t you have a shadow to move? A kingdom to save?”

“You are incorrigible.”

Fromarch waved, dropped the latch, and ambled away.

Meralda snatched up the latch. “Back to the stands,” she said, as Fromarch vanished inside a tavern. “Quickly.”

The staves caught her up, and the street and the tavern and the blossoming cloud of ash fell away below her.

The king didn’t blink as Meralda settled back into her seat. He merely nodded her way, as though flying mages were as commonplace as sparrows or rain in modern metropolitan Tirlin.

As her neighbors in the stands gaped and stared, Meralda smiled and brought the speaking device to her mouth.

“Tower isn’t sure what you did, mistress, but the interference has stopped.”

“The tethers?”

“Failing as we speak, mistress.” Mug paused. “Yours will have to replace them any moment now.”

“I understand. Tell Tower I am ready.”

“Good luck, mistress.”

The shadow of the Tower engulfed the last column of seats, and the podium moved into its center.

The king nodded.

Meralda rose.

She raised her Sight. Her shadow moving spells hung ready, shimmering in the dark, gossamer tangles of cobwebs moving in a gentle wind. Meralda could see the black masses of Nameless and Faceless flitting to and fro amid them.

Meralda spoke the word of unbinding, and the tangle of spells stretched and pulled and took shape.

The crowd gasped. Applause broke out, grew, became a thunder that drowned out the voices from the park.

Meralda opened her eyes.

The Tower’s shadow was gone, pierced through its heart with the bright light of day.

Donchen’s eyes met hers. His smile was warm and wide.

“You did it,” he mouthed. “Mage Meralda.”

Meralda smiled back, and the crowd stood and kept applauding.

“The tethers,” shouted Mug. “Beginning to tear. It’s now or never, Meralda.” He said something else, but his words were lost in the roar of applause. “…I love you, you know that.”

“I love you too, Mug,” said Meralda.

As the king took the podium, Meralda called the staves to her, and spoke the words that woke her tethers.

“Welcome to Tirlin,” shouted the king.

Meralda watched the curseworks whirl.

One by one, she watched the ancient tethers fail.

The new spells took hold. The curseworks wobbled.

Wobbled, but did not fall. Before the king was done speaking, they stabilized, soaring above an unknowing Tirlin as smooth and sure as kites on a string.

“Mistress,” piped Mug, from her bag. “Mistress. Tower says the you-know-whats are showing no significant signs of instability. I think that’s his way of saying you’ve saved the Realms.” Meralda heard Tower speak in the background. “You’ve done it, mistress. The tethers are holding. Better than the old ones, according to Tower. Throw yourself a parade. It’s done.”

Meralda let go her staves. They took to the air, darting and wheeling and chasing and gone.

“Welcome to Tirlin,” said the king again, in closing. “We look forward to a bright future together.”

Meralda put her face in her hands and cried.

The stands emptied slowly. Meralda waved her guards away, though the Bellringers remained close by her side until she ordered them to go and eat supper and then go home.