All the Paths of Shadow (38 page)

Her open topped cab pitched and bounced. Her cabman glanced back over his shoulder and smiled at her before quickly turning his attention back toward the busy street.

“Done,” said Mug. “Donchen is gone, by the way. Heading back to the palace, on foot. If he shows up here, what do I tell the Bellringers to tell him?”

“Ask him to meet me for a late supper,” said Meralda. “In the lab.”

“Ooooo,” replied Mug. “Shall I order flowers and violins?”

Meralda rolled her eyes and shoved the jewel deep into her pocket.

My feet ache,
she thought. She’d used Finch’s Door again to sneak out of the laboratory, hailing the first cab she saw after stepping onto Hopping Way. If the Vonats could sense the door opening, she knew she was undone. But old Finch’s handiwork was nothing if not subtle. Even the Tower had marveled at its silence, in strictly magical terms.

And if the Vonats are watching me, it’s best they see the Bellringers by my doors and think I’m still inside. Especially given where I’m heading, and what I’m about to do,
she thought.

What I’m about to do. Is this the right thing? Am I saving Tirlin, or dooming it?

I wonder if Tim the Horsehead ever wondered that very thing.

Probably,
Meralda decided.
After all, Tim’s exploits were rather more desperate than mine.
He was lucky, more often than not.

I wonder if someday, some mage will say the same about me.

“We’re here, ma’am,” said the cabman, urging his ponies to a halt.

Meralda stepped out of the cab, placed a handful of coins into the man’s palm, and hurried up the steps and into the shade of Fromarch’s red brick house.

Fromarch himself met her at his door. “Took you long enough.” He shoved a bottle of Nolbit’s in her hand. “We’re all here, Mage. I reckon you’ve got things to tell us.”

Meralda took a long draught of the beer. “That I do, she said. “And you’d best lock the door.”

“So the Tower is haunted after all,” said Shingvere.

In the middle of the room, a single candle burned. Fromarch’s tiny sitting room was midnight dark, and with all the windows shuttered and bolted the air was hot and stale. Meralda could barely make out the three wizards who faced her, and could read nothing in their faces.

Beside the candle sat a crude contrivance of wood and glass, which hummed and buzzed and sometimes spat tiny showers of bright blue sparks. Fromarch insisted it would render any attempt at arcane eavesdropping futile, and Meralda fervently hoped the elderly wizard was correct.

“She never said it was haunted, you daft old Eryan,” muttered Fromarch. “She said it was alive. Bit of a difference.”

“Gentlemen!” Meralda took a breath. “Please. Tirlin is in danger. It’s up to us to save it.”

“I was right about the Tower all along, but I see your point, Mage Ovis.” Shingvere leaned forward, his face grim and unsmiling in the wash of flickering candle light. “So how do you intend to fight?”

Loman, the Hang wizard, raised his finger and smiled.

“Before you answer, young mage, it would perhaps be wise to dismiss me. I will take no offense. You do not know me. You are under no obligation to trust me.”

“Shingvere. Fromarch. Do you trust this gentleman?”

“Aye.”

“Without reservation.”

“Then so do I. Please, sir, remain. This concerns you as well, since your people are being targeted.”

Loman bowed his head briefly. “As you wish. Know that I am honored.”

Meralda smiled, and the old man grinned back.

“I plan to allow the Vonats to believe they have latched a killing spell to the Tower,” she said. “I plan to keep them believing that, right up until the hour Yvin takes the stage. Tower is studying the spell now. With any luck, I can render it harmless without alerting anyone that I’ve done so.”

Fromarch nodded. “And the curseworks?”

“They will have to be stabilized or removed.”

“Bit of a tall order, that.”

“That’s why she’s Mage of Tirlin,” said Shingvere. “Still, that’s a lot for any one person to do, Meralda. Especially with who knows how many Vonats running around doing who knows what kind of mischief in the meantime.”

“That’s where you gentlemen can help. I need the Vonats, and any Hang helping them, kept busy for the next seven days. The Vonats want trouble at the Accords? Well, gentlemen, I say we give them trouble. Just not the kind they planned.”

“What kind then?”

Meralda grinned. “Magical trouble. I don’t care what kind. Just keep their mages busy chasing will-o-the-wisps. Make them think their Hang partners are spying on them. Make them think I am. Make them waste time. Make them waste effort.” Meralda stood and smoothed her skirts. “The contents of the laboratory are at your disposal. I won’t watch and I won’t ask. Just don’t burn down any historic landmarks. Can I trust you gentlemen? To make trouble?”

Fromarch slapped his knee and guffawed. “Oh, that you can, Mage. That you can, indeed.”

“Anything for old Tirlin,” said Shingvere, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. “Especially that.”

Loman just smiled and sipped at his beer.

Meralda risked Hopping Way again and stepped through Finch’s Door to return to the laboratory.

Mug greeted her with a mock salute. “All quiet,” he reported. “Tower, any word from the sticks about Nam?”

“None.”

“Are there any signs I was observed using the door?”

“Again, none. I believe the door’s operation is unknown to anyone save us.”

“I hope so.” Meralda made for the doors and opened them just enough to speak through them. “I’d like some coffee and something to eat,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” chorused the Bellringers. Kervis frowned and tilted his head. “Ma’am, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Guardsman,” she said. “Just a bit hungry.”

“Tervis spoke from beyond the door. “I smelled fried chicken earlier. Will that do?”

“Indeed it will. Thank you.” Meralda closed the door.

“Mistress,” called Mug. “Have a look.”

Goboy’s glass showed a door. A pair of black crows regarded the door with curious stares for a moment before taking flight. The glass did not follow.

“Nameless and Faceless.” Meralda sat. The door opened, and a man stepped out into the sun.

“So this must be Humindorus Nam.”

Meralda saw a tall man, dressed all in black, from the soles of his knee-high leather boots to the cowl of the robe that hid his eyes. He took a single step out into the sun, and then he produced a pair of dark lensed spectacles from a pocket and slipped them over his long beak of a nose.

That was the only time Meralda saw his face, though she never saw his eyes. She did see long shocks of greasy black hair, uncombed and wild, falling over a face dark with stubble. His mouth was a thin pale line set in a scowl.

And then the cowl fell over his face, leaving only a shadowed narrow chin.

“A bit melodramatic, wouldn’t you say?” said Mug. “All he needs is a necklace made of skulls to complete the whole penny-novel villain look.”

“The staves advise they will follow,” said the Tower. “I discern no fewer than two dozen active spells latched to this man’s person.”

“Then he’s suicidal,” said Mug. “Latching spells to oneself is insane, isn’t it, mistress?”

Meralda nodded assent.

So this is Humindorus Nam,
she thought.
The most feared wizard in all of Vonath. The man who rose to his rank over the bodies of his rivals.

The man who is determined to crush Tirlin and use me as his vise.

“Ask the staves to fan out,” said Meralda. “I want to know if he’s traveling with bodyguards.”

Mug swiveled a dozen eyes toward Meralda. “The captain claimed he didn’t have any, that using bodyguards would be considered a sign of weakness in Vonath.”

“We’re not in Vonath.” Meralda watched Humindorus walk, watched as other pedestrians stepped out of his way and averted their gazes.

His strides were long and fast. His arms hung straight at his sides, his hands clenched into fists inside their black leather gloves.

“I don’t see any butterflies,” said Meralda, after a time. “Tower? Are they out of view?”

The image in the glass changed, as though the glass were snatched suddenly up into the air high above the street. No bright yellow butterflies fluttered below.

“No. Whatever their purpose, it appears they are not reacting to the wizard’s departure.”

The scene returned to street level, centered on the black-clad wizard’s march through Tirlin.

“Thank you.” Meralda pulled back her hair and yawned. “Mug, keep an eye on Ugly. Tower, ask the staves to keep their distance.”

“Aye, Captain!”

“As you wish, Mage.”

Meralda forced herself to look away from the image of Humindorus Nam’s determined march through Tirlin.
No time for that now,
she thought.
As nasty as he looks, we have bigger problems.

“Tower,” she said, pulling a fresh piece of drawing paper from the stack at the corner of her desk. “I’ve had a thought. About the curseworks.” She tested her pencil on the paper, and decided it was sharp enough to suffice. “Tell me about the composition of the outermost bindings.”

The Tower began to speak. Meralda’s pencil made tell-tale scratching noises on the paper.

Mug never took his eyes off the tall Vonat striding toward the palace in the glass.

“Mistress, pardon, but our Vonat friend is headed for the palace,” said Mug.

“I expected as much. Never mind. Show me the Vonat boarding house, please.”

The image shifted, becoming a crow’s eye view of the buildings along Ventham Street.

“Are we looking for anything in particular, mistress?”

Meralda stabbed at the glass with her pencil. “That,” she said. “Look.”

A hundred yellow butterflies suddenly took silent flight.

“Our ghost friend has been busy,” said Mug. “Look, they’re splitting up.”

The butterflies diverged, high in the air, flapping away in all directions. The image in the glass moved again, showing a view from on high.

All around the Vonat boarding house, doors opened, and furtive men came darting out. Each was accompanied by a tiny flock of yellow butterflies, flying so high Meralda knew they would be completely invisible from the street.

Once the last of the two dozen men had vanished from the glass, a stooped old man sweeping the sidewalk in front of a cigar shop straightened, put his broom against the wall, and sauntered away, stooped no more.

“He’s good at this ghost business, I’ll give him that,” said Mug. “His butterflies follow the conspirators, and Donchen follows the butterflies.”

“So it would seem.”

Mug tapped the glass with a leaf. “And then what?”

What, indeed?
Meralda rubbed her eyes and glared at the paper she’d covered with notes and diagrams.
What happens to the Vonats and their Hang conspirators will make little difference, if all of Tirlin is consumed by fire and pestilence a few days from now.

Kervis knocked at the laboratory doors, and then shouted through them. “Pardon me, ma’am, but you might want to see this message,” he said. “It’s from the captain. Marked ‘read me right now’.”

Meralda stood and stretched. Her back hurt and her eyes watered and she wanted nothing more than a good hot soak in a bathtub and a good night’s sleep on her soft, warm bed.

“Let me guess,” she muttered, as she made for the laboratory doors. “I’m about to have visitors.”

She threw the doors open. The Bellringers gazed inside, a nervous palace runner peeking into the laboratory from behind the brothers.

“Here it is, ma’am,” said Kervis. Meralda took the envelope, tore it open, and read.

“Bad news, ma’am?”

“The captain will be here in a quarter of an hour,” she said. “With half a dozen Vonat dignitaries.”

“Including the wizard?” asked Kervis.

Meralda nodded, then put her hand gently on Kervis’ hand when he reached for his sword.

“None of that. It’s just a visit. They’ll be excruciatingly polite, and so will I. And so will you two. Understood?”

The Bellringers nodded assent in reluctant unison.

“Knock when they arrive. Tervis, please keep your brother from skewering anyone. Tensions are high enough as it is.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Meralda smiled at the brothers and closed the door.

She turned, took a deep breath, and marched back toward her desk.

“You’re not going to let that creature in here, are you?”

“It’s a tradition, Mug. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tidy up a bit first.” She reached her desk and began filling its drawers with her notes and drawings, stuffing them hastily inside and shoving at them until they fit. “I need a plain reflection in the glass, please. Nothing more while our visitors are here.”

The glass flashed, became nothing but a mirror, tarnished with age and neglect.

“The staves have opted to remain with you,” said the Tower, as two dark shapes emerged from the glass and flitted toward the shadowed ranks of shelves. “I have warned them against any displays unless your life is in imminent peril.”

Meralda frowned, but nodded.
I can hardly take them in hand and throw them out.

Mug bunched his eyes together. Meralda caressed his topmost leaves and leaned down to meet his worried gaze. “He won’t try anything here, Mug. You know that. So please, be civil, or be silent.”

“Silent it is,” he muttered. “Tower, can you still see through the glass, even now?”

“I can. They are approaching the door.”

Meralda waggled her forefinger before Mug’s eyes. “Hold the tongue you don’t have, Mugglewort Ovis. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Good.”

A knock sounded at the door. Meralda took a deep breath and made her way across the room to greet the Vonat wizard.

“Well, what a pleasant surprise,” said Meralda, as she threw open both of the laboratory’s ancient doors. “Welcome to the Royal Thaumaturgical Laboratory of Tirlin.”