All the Paths of Shadow (16 page)

“Testing first spellworks today,” she wrote. “Will advise if test is successful.”

Good,
she thought.
It’s vague and worrisome, but absolutely true.

“Thank you,” she said, handing the message tray and paper back to the courier.

He turned and trotted away.

“Shall one of us fetch you some lunch, Thaumaturge?” Kervis asked.

“Do that,” replied Meralda. “Get some for yourselves, and wrap something up for Angis, too,” she said.

“Are we going to the Tower?” asked Tervis.

Meralda met his eyes. “To the Tower, yes,” she said. “But not up it. We’ll be working from the park today.”

Relief eased the features of both Bellringers’ faces. “Good,” said Tervis. “The night watch saw lights again last night.”

Meralda nodded, as if she knew.
I’ve got to get a paper,
she thought.
Not that a word of it can be believed.

“That won’t concern us today,” she said. “If one of you will fetch us lunch, I’ll be ready to go when you return.”

“I’ll go,” said Tervis. He grinned slightly. “I’m sure the general here can’t carry food and his new siege piece.”

Kervis reddened. Meralda glanced down and to her right, at the crossbow propped against the wall, and realized this weapon was even larger than the monstrous Oldmark the boy had been carrying the day before.

“The armorer said it was the very latest weapon available,” said Kervis, airily. “It’s got twice the stopping power of an Oldmark.”

Meralda lifted her hand. “I’m sure it’s a formidable crossbow,” she said. “And I appreciate your zeal. Both of you.” She smiled. “Now then. Lunch? And then to the Tower?”

“We’ll be ready,” said Tervis. “Back in a bit.”

Meralda nodded, stepped back, and let the doors swing shut.

“What’s he got out there?” asked Mug. “A mule-drawn catapult?”

“Nearly,” said Meralda, softly. She made her way back to her work bench. “The lad seems to expect a surprise attack by armored assassins,” she added.

“He might do better to expect ghosts,” said Mug. Meralda pretended not to hear.

“Let’s see,” she said aloud. “I’ll need the holdstones, both retaining wands, the charger and the Riggin bottles.” She pulled her instrument bag from beneath the work bench and opened it. “What else?”

Mug reeled off more instruments and implements, and Meralda began to pack them carefully in her bag.
More lights,
she mused, as she worked.
Unless news of the Hang overshadows the Tower, the papers will be full of news of the haunting.

Or worse,
thought Meralda. Thus far, the papers had been content to play up the lights. But Meralda remembered something else she’d read, more than once, in old books about the Tower. The lights in the flat were also said to precede disaster for Tirlin.

Lights, Meralda recalled, were seen in the summer of 1566. In the autumn of that year, the Red Fever had swept through the Realms, taking half of Tirlin to the grave. The lights in 1714 preceded a great shaking of the ground which toppled two of the palace spires, destroyed half a city block in the Narrows, and sent the Lamp River running backwards for three days.

Dates and calamities raced through Meralda’s mind. She assured herself that many of the stories were no more than just stories, and tales of lights in the flat almost certainly sprang up well after the events.

Still, though, the lights in 1566 and the ones in 1714 were well documented, as were the calamities they were said to presage.

And yet the papers—even the
Post
—said nothing. Meralda wondered idly if Yvin had some control over the press after all.

“Mistress?” said Mug. “You’re ignoring me, aren’t you?”

Meralda looked up and smiled. “Constantly,” she said.

Mug snorted. “I was saying,” he said, in Mrs. Whitlonk’s voice, “that perhaps you ought to consider rummaging through this wizard’s treasure trove and picking out something small and lethal to carry. Surely some of these wondrous mighty magics have offensive uses.”

Meralda stared. “Have you been talking to Shingvere?”

“Certainly,” he said. “I hailed a cab and searched him out just this morning. We had coffee, and then went bowling.” Mug snorted. “Really, mistress, why would you think such a thing?”

Meralda went back to her packing. “It sounds very Eryan, this notion of walking about with military magics hidden in one’s pockets. Shingvere hasn’t been by to see you?”

“He has not,” said Mug. “And why is the notion of protecting oneself so outlandish? You cannot deny these are unusual times.”

Meralda placed a coil of copper rope in the bag, counted her glass insulating rings, and added another to the bag. “The best weapon is an alert mind.”

Mug moaned. “Fine. Throw that at the Vonats when what’s-his-name attacks with flaming tornadoes.”

Meralda closed her bag and frowned. “You have been talking to Shingvere.”

Mug sighed, long and loud. “I’m merely urging you to a bit of caution, mistress,” he said. “I hardly need the advice of foreign wizards to do that, now do I?”

Meralda hefted her bag. “I suppose not,” she said. “And I appreciate it. I’ll take measures if the need arises. Is that satisfactory?”

Mug tossed his leaves. “It will have to do.” His eyes whirled about the room. “Time to take another journey, I see.”

“You can stay here. Watch the mirror. Check my math.”

Mug gathered in his leaves. “No,” he said. “I go, too.”

Meralda walked to her desk and put down her instrument bag. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” said Mug. “Bed sheet, if you please. I’ll leave my dignity here.”

Meralda covered Mug’s cage and waited for Tervis to knock at her door.

The park was, if anything, more crowded than the day before. Schools had been let out, so in addition to the sightseers and the carpenters and the court officials, children of every age were about, darting past in screaming mobs, a harried, open-mouthed nanny or parent in determined, but futile pursuit.

The Alons, shirtless and bellowing, were also present, and quite a crowd was gathered to watch their football game. Food sellers wandered among the spectators, their calls of “Sausages! Apples! Hot rolls, hot rolls here!” nearly drowned out by the rush and thud of the madly charging Alons struggling on the field.

The stands about the Tower, mere skeletons and scaffolds just a few days ago, were quickly taking shape. Meralda chose to work from Yvin’s half-completed speaking platform, as it afforded a good view of the Tower and the park while keeping the press of the workers and the crowds from wandering too close. After commandeering a work table from the Builder’s Guild and convincing Mug that the barely perceptible breeze was hardly capable of leveling the platform, Meralda set to work.

Before she could latch to the Tower, she first had to raise and shape the spell. Mug helped, reeling off whole sections of her notes from memory while Meralda stored the sections in her wands, but even so the shaping of the latch was no quick task.

As the afternoon wore on, the crowd in the park grew larger.
It looks like a sea of hats,
Meralda noted, as the throngs milled about beneath her.
It’s a good thing Tervis and Kervis are guarding the stair, or I’d be shoulder-to-shoulder up here.

Beyond the Tower, though, the crowds were not nearly so thick. In fact, a stone’s throw on the Tower’s backside, only carriage drivers and particularly naughty children idled in the sun on either side of the Wizard’s Walk. Past them, there was no one, save one lone child, and his bright yellow kite.

Meralda wiped her brow with a handkerchief, muttered a word, and held her retaining wand to a fresh holdstone. The wand crackled and spat as it charged, and as Meralda waited she watched the child.

Back and forth he ran, stout legs pumping. His yellow kite with its slanted red cat eyes and long red tail bumped off the grass behind him.

Meralda felt for any hint of a wind on her skin, but even from atop the king’s platform she felt none.
It’s a beautiful day,
she thought,
but hardly a day for kites.

Still, the child ran on. He would start at the edge of the walk, then dash south, his right arm held high, his body leaning into his charge. He ran as far and as fast as he could, and when he began to falter, he would stop, pant for a moment, then gather his kite, wrap the tail carefully around his arm, and walk slowly back toward the walk. Then he would charge toward the west wall, all over again.

The holdstone emptied with a hiss and a brief blue flash. Inside the glass bottle, the silver and gold elements of the holdstone whirled, moving away from each other in a complex spiral as the spell energies escaped. When the coils were still, Meralda took the wand away, and Mug touched her wrist with a tendril.

“Ready for the next thread?” he asked.

Meralda smiled. It felt good, to be doing magic again. Even if it was magic for a questionable cause. “I’m ready,” she said. “Shall I turn to a fresh page?”

Mug agreed, and she took the sheet of architect’s paper from the top, slid it beneath the others, and replaced the emptied holdstones at the corners of the stack, in case a breeze blew past.

Mug began to read, and Meralda lifted her wand. The child began another mad dash across the grass. Meralda felt again for any hint of a breeze, but the air was still, and the kite darted and spun, but never flew.

The wand buzzed and crackled, holding the untethered spell threads to its mass as Meralda added yet another. To anyone watching with second sight, Meralda knew she would appear to be grasping a handful of glowing, windswept ropes, all writhing and tangling and knotting with their fellows. Only when she spoke the final word would the spell take shape and latch to the Tower. But to the crowds below, she appeared to be standing and muttering, a short brass wand held at eye level before her.

Another spell thread joined the rest. Meralda moved the retaining wand from her left hand to her right, and prepared for the next.

When she cast a glance toward the child and his kite, she saw that he was no longer alone. A man was waiting for him, as the boy marched wearily back to his starting place on the walk.

The man dropped to one knee, and the two spoke for a moment. Then the boy carefully unwrapped the kite’s tail from his arm and presented kite, tail, and ball of string to the man, who took them all before rising to his feet.

Time to go home,
thought Meralda.
It simply isn’t a day for kites.

Then, to Meralda’s surprise, the man bowed, lofted the kite, and charged onto the grass, following the same path the boy had taken so many times before.

Meralda watched, as did no small number of the cabbies and idlers on the walk. Arms went up, as fingers pointed, and though Meralda heard nothing she could imagine their laughter.

The man ran.
No, that isn’t right,
Meralda thought. The child ran, legs pumping, arms churning away madly at the air. This man was gliding.

Only his legs seemed to move. His chest barely rose, barely fell. He held his right arm up, playing out the string.

On and on he ran. He reached the point where the child had stopped and turned, and on he went, his gait increasing, his steps long and fast. Meralda nearly lost the latch, and when Mug snapped out “Mistress! Mind the spell!” she had to look away, and calm the wand.

When she cast her glance back toward the man, he was merely a dot against the green grass of the park. But the kite rose above him, the red cat eyes wheeling and darting, the tail coiling and snapping.

The faint sound of cheering rose up, and Meralda saw the cabbies and the idlers had risen to their feet, their laughter turned to cheers and shouts, and their hands uplifted. The boy danced and waved, his voice lifted with the rest.

The kite whirled and swooped, climbing and rising, playing in a wind Meralda still couldn’t feel. Soon, it, too, was merely a dot and a faint streak of tail.

The man turned and began to walk back toward the walk and the child. Meralda watched the far-off kite for a moment, expecting it to plummet at any moment. It remained aloft, straining at the string, snapping faintly from high above.

Meralda hung another thread by the time the man reached the child, who still danced with glee. The cabbies rose to their feet and gave the small man a final round of cheers and hoots. The man halted, bowed to the cabbies, placed the string gravely in the boy’s hand, and patted the child’s head once before the lad darted away, kite string in hand.

After a moment, the man put his hands in his pockets, turned his back to the Tower, and ambled away, alone on the walk.

Meralda watched him go while her wand recharged. Soon he reached the Old Oaks, and vanished beneath them, swallowed up by the distance and the dark beneath the boughs.

“What are you mooning about?” said Mug.

“Nothing,” said Meralda, turning back toward her makeshift work bench and Mug. “Just catching my breath.”

“Hmmph,” said Mug. He strained to lift a pair of green eyes over the rail.

Meralda ignored him, and hung another thread.

“That should be most of the primary latchwork,” said Mug, when she was done. “Good thing, too. Six bells.”

Meralda lifted an eyebrow. “Six o’clock? Already?”

“Time flies,” said Mug. Meralda hadn’t heard the Big Bell ring, but she realized Mug was right. The Tower’s shadow had engulfed the stands, and the air had gone damp and cool.
I’ll do well to latch to the Tower today,
Meralda realized, with a frown.
The refractors will have to wait.

Her stomach growled. She walked to the head of the stair and shouted down to Kervis. “Guardsman,” she said, above the din. “Bring up a biscuit, will you?”

Kervis nodded and darted up. “Here you are,” he said, halting just below the top, a paper-wrapped biscuit held forth. “Nearly done, Thaumaturge?”

Meralda took the biscuit. “Nearly so,” she said. Kervis nodded in relief.

A crowd had gathered at the foot of the stair, and Meralda was surprised at how closely they pressed about Tervis. “Has it been like this long?” she asked, with a nod toward the ground.