“Well, there she is,” said Shingvere, rising to his feet and wiping biscuit crumbs from his loose brown shirt front. “Fresh as a daisy, and twice as fair.”
Beside him, seated in one of the folding-chairs from which the Bellringers had kept watch, was Fromarch. He chewed, swallowed and wiped his lips. “Leave her alone,” he said, gruffly. “I’ve slept in that chair, too, and it doesn’t leave one well disposed toward chirpy early morning Eryan nonsense.”
The laboratory, windowless and lit only by her spark lamps, still seemed dark, as though night hung just beyond the walls. Indeed, Meralda realized the palace was oddly quiet, still gripped in a midnight hush despite the sunrise.
Coffee, thought Meralda. I smell coffee, and if those aging gluttons have left me the dregs I’ll turn them both into toads. She picked up her stride, boots making loud stamps on the cold stone floor.
She emerged from the ranks of shelves, and saw that Tervis was gone, as was Mug, and that the captain was nowhere in sight.
“Your guardsman took the houseplant outside for some sun,” said Fromarch. “And the captain received a message on the stair, and said he’d join us in a moment.”
“Aye, he has stomping to do, people to shout at,” said Shingvere. “Can’t have enough bellowing, you know.”
Meralda stepped around the glittering, moving levers of Phillitrep’s Engine, and smelled the plate of hot pancakes and sausages steaming on her desk. Beside it sat a silver pot of coffee, twin to the one resting on the floor by Shingvere’s right foot. And, Meralda noted with mild chagrin, a single red rose in a fluted crystal vase.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said, pulling back her chair, but not sitting, suddenly thankful for the absence of windows and bright morning sun. She’d done what she could with water, soap, and a tattered washing cloth, but she still felt as if she’d slept in a ditch.
The mages nodded. Shingvere sat, smiled, stabbed a sausage with his fork, and waved it toward Meralda. “Eat, before it gets cold,” he said. “We’ll talk after.”
Meralda sat. Her stomach grumbled, and she realized she’d missed supper, in all the excitement over the Tears.
She frowned and bit her lower lip. Missed supper, I did. Supper at the Hang’s table. Supper with Donchen.
“Lass, I thought you liked pancakes,” said Shingvere, his tone injured.
“Oh, I do,” said Meralda, quickly. “I just remembered something I forgot to do yesterday.”
“Anyone who got old Goboy’s glass to do as it was asked deserves a few omissions of memory,” said Fromarch. He stared hard at the mirror, which displayed the same dark room as before, and then shook his head and looked back at Meralda. “I gave up on that thing my first year.”
Meralda ate. A fine ambassador I am, she thought. First I stare at the Hang, then I give insult by not coming to dinner or sending word. She thought of Donchen seated by an empty chair, and her frown deepened. Blast it all, she groaned inwardly. And I can hardly explain my absence with the truth, either.
“You could have called us, you know,” said Fromarch. “We can watch the glass as well as anyone, and we’re not likely to burn down the palace trifling with the trinkets.”
Meralda swallowed a forkful of pancakes and reached for the syrup flask beside the coffee. “It was quite late,” she said. “But now that you’ve volunteered, I thank you.” She lifted her coffee cup, found that it still contained half a cup of yesterday’s brew, and, after an instant of hesitation, she poured it in the half-filled waste basket by her desk.
Shingvere guffawed. “You used to scold me for doing that,” he said.
“You hadn’t been up all night watching scrying glasses,” said Meralda, as she poured a fresh cup and savored the aroma. “Now then,” she said, after her first sip. “Aside from the free breakfast, what brings you gentlemen here this morning?”
The mages exchanged a brief glance Shingvere poked Fromarch in the ribs with his elbow, and Fromarch glared and hissed. “You tell her, you confounded hedge mage, even though she’s already figured it out.”
“Tell me what?” said Meralda, warily.
“We think we might know where the Tears are,” said Shingvere, nodding at Goboy’s Glass. “’Tis clear you do as well.”
Meralda lifted an eyebrow, and carefully kept her face blank. “They’re in the safe room, of course,” she said. “Right where they’ve been since this small calamity began.”
Fromarch smiled, if only for a moment.
“Well done, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Well done.”
Shingvere slapped his knee. “Rake me with a cat’s claws,” he said. “I knew we wouldn’t surprise you, lass.”
Meralda sipped her coffee, and kept her expression serene.
“We think someone wants to break up the Accords,” said Fromarch. “We don’t think it’s the Hang.”
“Neither do I,” said Meralda. “Though Mug has raised some good points against such a surmise.”
“It’s the Vonats, of course,” said Shingvere. “They’ve got people here, in the palace, and they’ve intentionally delayed their arrival to remove their entourage from suspicion,” he added. “Deplorable condition of the roads in Fonth. What nonsense.”
Meralda took another bite of a sausage. “The Hang,” she said, after a moment. “Why don’t you suspect them?”
“We’ve been keeping company with their wizard nearly the whole time,” said Fromarch.
“He means we’ve been drinking,” added Shingvere, with a wink.
“He’s a talkative fellow, once you get to know him,” said Fromarch. Then he snorted and lifted his hands. “Harmless, really. Not that he can’t do a bit of magic. He can, and don’t be fooled. But stealing jewelry and interrupting trade talks? Ridiculous.”
“Mug reminded me that good manners don’t necessarily reflect good intentions,” said Meralda. “What do we really know about these people?”
The mages, as one, took a deep breath and exchanged a sidelong glance. “Well,” said Fromarch, “this is just speculation, mind you. But we think that the Hang may have opened diplomatic channels with Tirlin ten or more years ago.”
Meralda swallowed, kept her face blank, and carefully put down her fork.
“We think Yvin may have even invited them to the Accords,” said Shingvere. “We think the Hang may be here to join the Five Realms as a trading partner,” he said. “That’s what we think.” He smiled, set his empty plate down on the floor, and lifted his coffee cup to rest on the arm of his chair. “We think the Great Sea is about to be crossed, Meralda. After all these years of wondering, or trying and failing and trying again, we’re about to see the whole wide world, Great Sea and Hang and who knows what else. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
Meralda was silent, sorting out Shingvere’s words. It does make sense, she thought. The king’s nonchalance concerning the Hang’s arrival. His instructions to consider the Hang above suspicion. The Hang’s flawless command of New Kingdom. She suspected Yvin knew things he wasn’t sharing with the full court, but nothing like this.
Fromarch met her eyes, and nodded. “Which makes all this nonsense with the Tears more than a mere inconvenience,” he said. “Say the Alons pull out. Any agreements four of the Realms make with the Hang will be forever contested by the fifth. And who knows? The Hang might leave, too, rather than have any dealings with a factious lot of simpletons who can’t all sit down long enough to sign a few pieces of paper.”
“That’s why we’re here, lass,” said Shingvere. “Not that we think you can’t handle it, mind you. Not at all. But you’ve got a heavy pack, these days. We’re only here to help you bear the load, if you’ll have us. And watching this mirror while you go off and save the kingdom seems like just the chore for two grumpy old wizards, now doesn’t it?”
Meralda pushed back her chair and stood. I’ve got to walk around a bit, she thought. My feet are still cold in my boots, and my joints still ache from sleeping in that torture chamber of a chair. “What makes you think Yvin asked them here?” she said, stretching.
Fromarch shrugged. “It’s simple, really. I don’t think they’d have come unless they were asked.”
“They certainly wouldn’t have loaded their entire royal family onto a boat, not knowing what sort of reception to expect.” Shingvere filled his fork with more pancake. “Which means this was all arranged well beforehand.”
“Oh, Yvin wouldn’t tell anyone, of course,” said Fromarch. “Best to get the Hang all here and just spring it on the Realms. That way no one gets worked up into a frenzy too soon, and we don’t have foreign troops hiding all along the Lamp.”
“He could have told us,” snapped Meralda.
“Hmmph,” snorted Fromarch. “Since when have kings sought advice from their betters? Mark my words, though. If this bit of scheming goes bad, we’ll be the ones who’ll have to sort it all out.”
Meralda glared. He didn’t tell because he doesn’t trust, she thought. And he doesn’t trust, said a voice within her, because I’m a woman.
“He wouldn’t have told me, either,” said Fromarch, gently. “I once heard Yvin tell someone, doesn’t matter who, that magic and mages were best left to the guilds, and the tradesmen. He said the age of the wizard was over, and done, and the Realms were better for it.” Fromarch sighed. “He’s wrong, of course,” he added. “But he’s the king, and that’s that.”
Meralda found her chair again. Her head began to pound, and her clothes, wrinkled and ill-fitting from a day and a night of constant wear, rubbed and stuck and sagged. She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes and sighed.
“Perhaps I should just send Yvin a message,” she said. “Perhaps I should tell him that since the age of wizards is done, he should seek the help of the guilds and the tradesmen in recovering the Tears.”
Shingvere chuckled. “I dare you,” he said.
Meralda heard Fromarch set down his cup with a small sharp click and rise slowly to his feet.
“Agree or not, the world is changing,” he said. “And we will have a hand in it, for good or ill. Might I suggest we all get to work? For the good of the realm, if not its shortsighted nitwit of a monarch?”
Meralda opened her eyes. “I’m for a bath,” she said. “Now, and Yvin be hanged.”
Shingvere crowed. “At last, our battle cry,” he said. “A bath, and the king be hanged!” he shouted, brandishing his fork. “Clean clothes, then victory!”
Meralda found a brief laugh. “Vonats,” she said, after Shingvere bowed and sat. “If you two are correct, they’d be the obvious choice for our scheming villains,” she said. “If the Hang enter the Accords as a sixth realm, Vonath will have to mind its manners. Forever.”
“Perhaps,” said Fromarch. “Or perhaps this is mere coincidence. The Vonats do love to make trouble at Accords, if you’ll recall.”
Shingvere snorted. “But this smacks of mage-cast mischief, not some bugger sneaking around with a dagger,” he said.
Boots sounded in the hall outside. “All of this is mere speculation, though,” said Fromarch, hastily. “We have discussed it with no one but you, Mage. Make of it what you will.”
A knock sounded at the door. Meralda started toward it, but Shingvere darted ahead and bade her to sit down.
“I’ll see to this,” he said, hand on the handle. “From now on, Meralda, we’re the hired help. Let us do the chores. You’ve got better things to do.”
He swung the door open. “Yes?” he inquired, managing somehow to convey through his tone and bearing that the caller was neither welcome nor, most likely, even in the right neighborhood. “Who is calling, pray tell?”
“It’s me, as you bloody well know,” said the captain, from the hall. “Are you going to get out of the way, or not?”
Shingvere flung the door open, and stepped aside with a bow and a flourish. “May I present Captain Ernest Ballen,” he said. “Late of a kitchen, somewhere,” he added.
“Eryans,” muttered the captain, stamping past Shingvere without a backward glance. “Morning, Thaumaturge,” he said, moving to stand beside Meralda. He squinted into the mirror and frowned. “Any luck?”
“No one has been in or out,” she said. “Have the mages explained our suspicions to you yet?”
The captain turned and glared. “All they’ve done is puff and moon like a pair of hoot owls,” he said. He looked back to Meralda. “I knew I’d have to ask you before I’d get an answer.”
“We believe the Tears are still in the safe room,” she said. She explained her theory to him, from her doubts concerning the Tear’s post-theft value to Mug’s joking query of the mirror and its sudden display of the safe room, and the implications she had drawn.
Halfway through it, the captain asked for a chair, and Shingvere scooted his over to him. The captain sat, and Meralda watched him sag and go nearly limp.
“You haven’t slept a wink, have you?” she asked, at last.
Shingvere stuck a fresh cup of coffee in the captain’s hand. “He’s not likely to, for a while, either,” he said.
“That’s the truth,” muttered the captain. “Interviewing doormen. Interviewing night watchmen. Listening to the Watch interview jewelers and fences and petty thieves. Bah.” He looked up at Meralda with bloodshot eyes, and smiled a crooked smile. “I came here hoping you’d have some news for me, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Thank you.”
Meralda felt her cheeks redden, and she looked away. “You’re welcome,” she said. “But until I can get back in the safe room, I haven’t done a thing,” she said.
The captain sipped coffee and frowned. “Won’t be easy,” he said. “The Alon wizards are making a big fuss. They’ve all but accused each and every mage in Tirlin,” he said. “Even the Hang.” He hesitated. “Even you, Thaumaturge.”
Meralda whirled back to face the captain. “They’ve done what?”
“They’ve bawled to Yvin that only a mage could have done such a thing,” he said. “Around sunrise, they demanded that all the mages be hauled in before the Alon queen and put to the question,” he said. “You and Loman included.”
Meralda felt her heart begin to race, and the red of her cheeks spread. “How dare those posturing wand-wavers accuse me of theft,” she said. “If any mage stole the Tears, it’s likely one of them.”
“I know, I know,” said the captain, lifting his hand. “And Yvin told them to go soak their heads. Said he’d not be delivering anyone to Alon law before Tirlish law was done with them,” he said. “He also suggested that accusing real mages of petty theft was just the sort of thing that left scorch marks on the carpets and bad smells in the halls,” he added. “You should have seen their faces when they worked out the implications of the real mages’ comment,” he said. “Priceless, really.”
Meralda returned the captain’s grin. “All right,” she said, after a deep breath. “We won’t know if I’m right until I can return to the safe room, Captain. From what you’ve just said, I might not be welcome.”
“You won’t be.” The captain frowned. “But if that’s what you need, I’ll see it done.” He drained his cup, set it down, and stood. “I’ll see it done,” he repeated. “When do you want to go?”
Meralda brushed back a lock of hair. Her body still ached. Her head hurt, a dull pain that throbbed in time with her heartbeat. She was bone tired, though barely awakened. Tired from a day of spellwork, followed by a night of scant and fitful sleep. If my Sight returns at all today, she thought, I’ll be fortunate indeed.
“Late this evening, at the earliest,” she said. “Though perhaps tomorrow morning would be best.”
“I’ll get you in, Mage,” said the captain. “Somehow. Is there anything else you need?”
“Hourly reports from the Tower,” said Meralda. “Were you told I requested them last night?”
“No,” said the captain. “But you’ll get what you asked for, or I’ll have their heads on a string.”
Meralda smiled. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, you never know,” said the captain. “It feels like that kind of day.”
And then he turned, and was at the door, and gone.
Shingvere closed the door behind him.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We’ll watch the mirror, and send a lad if anything happens. Why don’t you go home, have that bath of yours, and then come back here and find the Tears?”
Meralda stood. “I’ll do that,” she said. “How,” she added, “I don’t know. Yet. But I will.”
Age of wizards is done, is it?
She marched for the door. “Tell the Bellringers and Mug to wait for me here,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
“We will,” said Fromarch. He refilled his coffee cup, and as Meralda passed him he spoke. “Tradesmen,” he snorted. “I should have turned all his teeth backwards and filled his ears with hair.”
Meralda laughed, squeezed the old man’s shoulder, and made for the street and the sun.
Tomorrow morning, nine of the clock, said the captain’s note. And the Alon mages insist on being there. I told them your spell would require them to stand at the door. So put a bit of flash it in, if you will. Can’t have these hedge wizards getting in your way, now can we?
Meralda folded the note. Tervis stood by her desk and looked expectantly down at her. “Was it good news, ma’am?” he asked.
“Of a sort,” said Meralda. She shoved the note in a stack of papers held down by a molten blob of blue-green glass and sighed. “We’ll be visiting the safe room again, tomorrow morning,” she said. “Looking for the Tears.”
“Oh,” said Tervis, and his half-smile vanished. “In the Alon wing.”
“Yes,” said Meralda. “Has there been trouble?”
“A bit,” said Tervis. “Some of the lads got into a scuffle on the second floor. Something about a copperhead shoving a floorsweep. The guard broke it up.”
“They weren’t playing football in the park today, either,” added Kervis, from his post at the door. “People are beginning to wonder.”
Meralda nodded. “I imagine they are.”
Tervis joined Kervis at the door. “We’d best get back to our posts,” he said. “Yell if you need us,” added Tervis.
Meralda nodded, and the lab doors shut, and aside from the soft clicking and whirring from the shelves, the laboratory was silent.
Silent, as it had been all afternoon. The mages watched the mirror, exchanging whispers at times, but never once breaking into spates of name calling or joke telling or, as Meralda had feared, advice giving. They’d watched the glass and kept Meralda in tea and fresh paper and that was that.
Even Mug had barely spoken, though Meralda noted his blue eyes were always upon her. Silent Mug, silent mages. Heavens, mused Meralda, perhaps the world is changing, after all.
Meralda stretched, rubbed her eyes, and counted rings on Opp’s timepiece. Seven of the clock? Already?
The Brass Bell began to peal out, and Meralda went back to work.
She’d been at home, soaking in a hot bath, her headache gone, but her mind awhirl from the events in the park and the daunting task that lay ahead. How will I find the Tears, she had wondered, as she sank into the hot bathtub. How will I?
And then she’d remembered the park. Remembered the latch breaking and falling, recalled discovering the outlines of a spell that had been flying above Tirlin, unseen for perhaps a millennia. She had leaped from the tub so fast she’d sent water sloshing across her water closet, soaking her towels and her bathrobe in the process.
“That’s how,” she’d said, her voice a near shout. “That’s how!”
And then, of course, Mrs. Whitlonk had banged on the wall, and Meralda had laughed and clapped her hands and slipped smiling back into the bath.
That, and a day’s work at the lab since, and she was nearly done.
A few more pen strokes, another set of twisting Foumai folded space calculations, and then Meralda put down her pen, and took a breath.
“There,” she said. “There!”
Mug swung more eyes toward her.
“Mistress?”
“It’s done,” she said. “If the Tears are there-”
“They are,” chimed Shingvere.
“-this will find them,” she said. “It must.”
Mug swung a pair of eyes down upon her papers. “Hmmm,” he said. Meralda heard Shingvere’s chair creak, and Fromarch mutter something, then Shingvere sighed and settled back into his chair.
“Oh, come and have a look, both of you,” she said. “If you see a flaw, I want to know it now, not after the Alons start snickering.”
The wizards rose and hurried to Meralda’s desk. “Well, if you insist,” said Shingvere.
“Hah! I see it!” said Mug. “You’re not looking for the Tears,” he said. “You’re looking for…what? A weak spell interaction?”
“Exactly,” said Fromarch. “This bit here,” he said, pointing. “This bit here. It’s a repeating latch, isn’t it?”
Meralda smiled. “You’re correct,” she said. “I’ll go over every inch of the safe room. Latch the spell, spin the latch, watch the illuminators. Any spell interaction will cause polarized hue shifts.”
Fromarch, who had been leaning close to the drawings, rose. “How small an interaction can this detect, Meralda?” he asked.
“Ten to the minus eight,” she said. “Ten to the minus ten, if I have time to halve the spinner diameter.”
“You’re a genius, Meralda Ovis,” he said. “I never said that before, but I should have, and I’m sorry.”
Meralda turned to face Fromarch, but he turned quickly away. Shingvere shook his head when she reached for Fromarch’s sleeve.
“It’s a brilliant design,” said the Eryan, quickly. “It won’t matter how well concealed the Tears are, if you’re looking for the concealment spell itself.”
“Unless the Alons took the Tears away with the broken jewel box,” said Meralda.
Fromarch snorted, and turned once again to face Meralda. “I know them both,” he said. “They aren’t that clever. And anyone clever enough to hide the Tears wouldn’t just hide them in the jewel box, knowing that pair of buffoons will spend all their time aiming who-knows-what spells at it,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” said Meralda.
“I am,” said Fromarch. He nodded toward the drawings. “You’ll have the Tears in hand by lunchtime,” he said. “A hero of the realm.”
“Not unless she gets this built and cast,” said Shingvere. He frowned. “What are you going to call it, anyway, lass?” he asked. “Meralda’s Marvelous Locator? The All-Seeing Lamp of Mage Ovis the Great?”
“Mage Meralda’s Optical Alon Embarassor?” said Mug.
“It’s a weak charge interaction detection device,” said Meralda. “Or it will be, by midnight.”
Mug sighed. “Weak Charge Interaction Detection Device,” he said. “Rolls lyrically off the tongue, doesn’t it?”
“Quiet, you two,” said Fromarch. “The thaumaturge has work to do.” He glared at Shingvere, who shrugged and ambled back to his chair.
“You’re right, of course,” Shingvere said. “It’s going to be another long night.” He sat, and fumbled in his pockets. “Penny-stick?”
Fromarch followed, waved away the candy, and sat. Meralda gathered her papers, eager to move from the desk and her pens and Foumai calculations and onto the workbench and its copper ropes and charged banks of holdstones.
“Will you need me, mistress?” asked Mug. “I can help with the latch, if nothing else. Save your Sight for the morning.”
“I’d rather you watch the glass, just now,” said Meralda. “This isn’t a terribly complicated spellwork, and your eyes are better than any of ours.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Mug. “As you wish.”
Meralda caught up her papers and hurried away. Mug sighed, turned all but a pair of his green eyes back to the dark, still image in the mirror, and softly began to play Meralda’s favorite Eryan bagpipe piece. Shingvere hummed along, his voice soft and mournful, long into the night.
Yvin himself met Meralda and Mug on the west stair. “Good morning, Thaumaturge,” he said. “I understand you’re going to pay the Alons a visit.”
Meralda nodded. She’d finished the detector around midnight, had been home by one, had slept until six. Now she had but an hour to check the detector’s latch, charge the illuminator, try her Sight, and gather her wits.
What I don’t have time for is this, she thought.
“I am,” she said. “But first, I have certain preparations to make.”
The king, who stood with his six-man guard blocking the stair, nodded but didn’t move. “The captain tells me you think you can produce the Tears today,” he said. He glanced around, lowered his voice. “Can you, Thaumaturge?”
Oh, now you need a wizard, do you? Meralda bit back the words, and merely nodded.
“I hope so,” she said. Mug stirred in his bird cage, and Meralda gave it the tiniest of swings.
Yvin’s face reddened, and he sighed. “I suppose that’s all you’re willing to say, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is,” replied Meralda, amazed at her temerity. Must come with the title, she thought. “For the moment, Your Highness.”
“Then I’ll wish you good luck,” said Yvin. “We’ll get out of your way. Oh, and Thaumaturge? We’ll be just outside the Alon wing, with two hundred house guards and a door ram. If we must make war with Alonya I’m willing to start it here and now, so if they lay a finger on you call out.”
Meralda nodded. “I will,” she said. The king looked her in the eye, and his scowl softened, and he held out his hand. “Thank you, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Come what may, we thank you.”
Meralda took his hand, and shook it, and then Yvin stamped off down the Hall, his guardsmen on his heels.
“Well, you certainly told him,” said Mug, when they were gone. “He won’t soon forget that fire and lightning comeuppance.”
Meralda mounted the stair, scowling. “Oh, shut up,” she said. “What was I supposed to do? Call down thunder claps, here on the stair?”
“Oh, no,” said Mug. “Shaking his hand was much more effective.”
Meralda stamped up the stair, reached the landing, and nodded at the Bellringers, who stood bleary eyed and yawning by the laboratory doors. Before either could speak, though, Fromarch flung open the doors and burst into the hall.
“Blow that whistle, lad,” he said. “We’ve got people in the safe room.”
Kervis fumbled with the silver guard’s whistle at his neck, brought it to his lips, and blew a single short blast.
Down the hall and through the palace, the whistle was repeated, fainter and fainter each time until it was gone.
Meralda leaped from the stair. Fromarch saw her, and beckoned her in. “Those Alon bumblers are inside,” he said. “Better have a look.” He turned and hurried away.
Tervis rushed to Meralda’s side and wordlessly took Mug’s sheet-draped bird cage. Meralda let go, and sprinted for the doors.
“Go on, follow her!” said Mug. “I can take a bit of swinging. Run, blast you, run!”
Tervis hurried after, bird cage held high, as eyes poked and thrust their way through folds in the bed sheet.
Meralda ran. The mirror stood by her desk, in what should have been plain sight from the doors. But Shingvere stood before the glass, and his rotund form blocked any view.
“Stand aside!” shouted Fromarch, slowing to a halt. “We can’t see through your thick Eryan bottom!”
Meralda followed. One whistle meant stand alert, Meralda recalled. She wondered if the captain had actually given orders that Tirlish guards were to enter the Alon wing on the traditional three-whistle “fire, foes, fie” signal.
If so, Tirlin was only two whistle blows from war.
Meralda gently moved Shingvere away from the mirror.
There, in the glass, was the safe room, dark no more. In the room, Red Mawb and Dorn Mukirk stood before Tim’s portrait, locked in a silent round of red-faced hand waving and finger pointing.
“Off to a good start,” muttered Mug, as Tervis placed his pot on the edge of Meralda’s desk.
Meralda’s jaw dropped. In one hand, Mawb held a human skull, from which the lower jaw and most of the upper teeth were missing. The skull twitched and spun in Mawb’s hand, as though moving erratically on its own. Indeed, after one particularly violent sideways jerk Mawb slapped the boney face with his free hand.
A ruddy, smoking flame rode the air a hand’s breadth above Mawb’s bald head. Mawb’s robe, like Mukirk’s, was festooned with a variety of symbols, some of which Meralda recognized as numbers and Old Kingdom astrological markings.
“Give ’em a wagon and a tent and we’ll have a bloody circus,” muttered Mug.
Dorn Mukirk, who had appeared at first to be empty-handed, reached within his robe and withdrew a bone. It’s a leg bone, decided Meralda, with a disgusted frown. A yellowed human leg bone.
“Now there’s a use for pockets,” muttered Fromarch.
Dorn Mukirk struck a stiff pose, arms and leg bone uplifted, and mouthed a long word. The leg bone took on a glowing golden aura that left a trail in the air when the wizard swung it down level with his waist.
The Alon mages glared at each other, and began to warily circle the room, each brandishing his respective bone and muttering to it. Red Mawb’s skull twitched and jerked. Dorn Mukirk’s leg bone emitted brief tongues of pale, cold flame. Both wizards circled and chanted and, at one point, bumped into each other and broke into a fresh fit of shouting and fist-waving.
Meralda looked away, and bit back a laugh. “I can hardly believe this,” she said. “Bones?”
“The Alons have always been a bit fond of necromancy,” said Shingvere. “Though I thought they’d grown out of it, of late.” He shook his head. “Seems I was wrong.”
Bones, thought Meralda. Here, in the twentieth century.
“Will you gentlemen keep an eye on our Alons and their body parts? As amusing as this is, I need to prepare the detector.” And test my Sight, Meralda thought, with a tightening of her chest. I hope I don’t have to do this blind.
Shingvere dragged his chair close to the glass. “Aye, we’ll watch the circus, lass. And if they find the Tears I’ll eat my robes.”
Meralda hurried to her workbench, shedding her long coat as she went. The first real bite of autumn had been in the air this morning, reminding her of just how close the Accords were, and just how little she’d done to move the Tower’s shadow.
“First things first,” she muttered, as she draped her coat over a glassware rack and pulled back her chair. “Won’t be any Accords unless you work, my friend.”
She regarded the detector. She’d had no time to do more than assemble a crude framework from cast off bits of this and remainders from that. Finished, the detector was simply a half globe of copper bands, perhaps a foot across, that held a pair of glass discs mounted midway through the half globe’s shell. The glass discs were a finger’s breadth apart, and a faint bluish haze rode the air between the glasses.
Meralda had mounted a plain wooden broom handle to the edge of the half-globe, and had wrapped the gripping end of the handle with thick copper wire. All in all, Meralda decided, it bears an unfortunate resemblance to a plumber’s toilet plunger.
Meralda took a third glass disc from its stand on her bench, slipped it carefully between the two already mounted to the apparatus, and smiled when she heard a tiny click and felt the binding spell lock the disc in place.
“Skulls and leg bones,” she said, softly. “And me without a single bubbling cauldron.”
Mug laughed, and Meralda reached for her notes. First, charge the repeater, and prime the latch, she’d written, just before she’d left for the night. Then set the illuminator and the polarizing bands.
Simple enough. But her nagging worries about her Sight arose again, and Meralda knew she’d have to try now, before she could concentrate on anything else. I can see the colors in the glass change without any Sight, she thought. But who knows what else I might need to see?
“All right,” she said, taking a deep breath, and closing her eyes. “Sight.”
She reached out, willing into being that peculiar sense of things unseen that always preceded the advent of Sight. She felt it blossom, willed it from within to without, and opened her eyes.
“Sight.”
Her workbench was alight with traceries of fire. The five-tined charge dissipater was bathed in a ragged nimbus of shifting blue. The grounding cable was barely visible through its aura of midnight black. The detector, charged and shaped with only the most subtle of spells, sparkled and shone like a jeweler’s display case lit with a noonday sun.
Meralda smiled, and closed her eyes, and willed back a portion of her Sight. I’ll keep what I need to finish the detector, she decided, but save what is left for the safe room.
“Everything all right, Meralda?” asked Fromarch, from his place before the mirror.
“Everything is fine. I’m ready.”
And then she opened her eyes, rubbed her palms together, and caught up a wisp of cold, taut fire.
“Here we are,” said the captain, as he and Meralda and the Bellringers reached the four Alons flanking the doors to the east wing. “Friendly, picturesque Alonya.”
The copperheads glared. One rapped sharply on the door with his knuckles, and a moment later the doors opened and half a dozen Alons spilled out.
Meralda immediately recognized Hermish Draunt, the Alon ambassador to Tirlin. He’d been the Alon ambassador for twelve years, and Meralda knew he was regarded in the court as a reasonable, level-headed man who held the Alon queen’s favor despite being brother to the chief of Clan Fuam, which had dared a blood feud with the queen’s clan a mere two centuries past. Hermish smiled at Meralda and even bowed slightly. As Meralda returned his greeting she saw the other Alons glare.
The others were unknown to her. Each wore the plaid kilt and shoulder sash of his Clan, but to Meralda, every complicated red-and-green plaid looked very much like any other, and the sigils on their buttons were too small to make out at arm’s length. She counted five bearded, scarred, unsmiling faces, and decided introductions by name were neither advisable nor forthcoming.
“Welcome to Alonya, my friends,” said Ambassador Draunt. “The thaumaturge and her attendants may enter freely.”
Beside Meralda, the captain glared. “The thaumaturge, her attendants, and myself, thank you,” he said.
Ambassador Draunt reddened. “Regrettably, Captain, the invitation specified only the Thaumaturge to Tirlin, and her two attendants,” he said. His gaze fell. “No one else.”
“That isn’t what we were told,” said the captain.
“It’s what you’re being told now,” said a gravel voiced Alon, who stepped from behind the ambassador to face the captain. “It is not to be questioned or negotiated. Your thaumaturge, her honor guard, and that’s all. Or nothing.”
Meralda put her hand on the captain’s shoulder.
“The thaumaturge accepts,” she said, and she squeezed when she felt the captain inhale. “How could one refuse such a gracious, gentle-spoken invitation?”
The Alon reddened, and Meralda smiled. “I’ll be back soon,” she said, before anyone could speak. “This really shouldn’t take long.”
And then she steeled her jaw, lifted her chin, and marched straight into the gathered Alons.
At the last possible instant, they stepped aside, though Meralda was certain Ambassador Draunt pulled at least one Alon out of her way.
“Come, gentlemen,” she called out, to the Bellringers. “Let’s not dawdle, and impose too long upon the obvious good nature of our hosts.”
Behind her, she heard the hurry of booted feet and let out a shaky breath.
I’m here in Alonya, she thought. Now all I’ve got to do is find the Tears.
As the Alons trotted up behind her, finally sidling past her and splitting up so that three went ahead and three followed behind, Meralda began to sweat and her heart began to pound. The Alons turned, and Meralda followed, and behind her she heard Kervis whisper. “Wish I had the Oldmark,” he said. “What am I going to do with this?”
Meralda knew he referred to the ornamental swords the captain had insisted both Bellringers take. I should perhaps have left the Bellringers behind with the captain, she thought. After all, I’m not likely to be mugged here, even by the Alons.
As the Alons led her through their halls, though, Meralda began to wonder. Her six Alon guides quickly became nine, then a dozen, then sixteen. Every hall they passed or crossed was guarded by or full of soldiers, in full armor.
The Alons about her fell into a thudding marching step, and Meralda had to fight to keep from falling in, herself. The Bellringers, she noted, refused to join in as well. Kervis began whistling a Tirlish marching song which, she recalled, mentioned the Alons in less than flattering terms.
They aren’t afraid, Meralda realized, because they are with me.
I wish I was half so confident.
The party halted at a door, voices rose up, and then the door was opened, and Meralda saw past it and realized she was nearly to the safe room. She breathed a sigh of relief, but it caught in her throat as she heard Tervis say, “Now she’ll show you lot a thing or two.”
Before her, the Alons made a path. Standing at the end of it, just beyond the door, were Red Mawb and Dorn Mukirk.
“Good morning,” she said, when it became apparent neither Alon intended to speak. “We haven’t met, formally.”
“I am named Red Mawb, Mage to the Alon Queen,” spat Mawb. Beside him, Dorn Mukirk grimaced.
“As am I,” he said, his round face darkening. “As am I.”
“Oh?” said Meralda. “Your name is Red Mawb, too?”
The rotund wizard spat a curse word, and stepped forward, and as Ambassador Draunt leaped into the space between Meralda and the Alon wizards Meralda struggled to keep her smile intact.
“Please, please,” said the ambassador. “We’re all tired, and perhaps overwrought,” he said. “Let the thaumaturge be about our queen’s business, and perhaps we can lay this…unfortunate matter to rest, at last,” he said, turning and lifting his hands to the mages.” By the order of the queen, as I said.”
Dorn Mukirk mouthed a curse word, but stepped back and away from the door. Mawb followed.
Here I go, thought Meralda. Into history. Or into infamy. Her earlier convictions that the Tears lay within the safe room began to waver. What if it isn’t here? What if all I find is a table and a chair?
Meralda turned. The Alons gathered close at her back.
“Let’s go,” she said. Her voice shook, and she heard it, and she clenched her jaw and stepped forward. The Bellringers followed, and an Alon threw open the safe room door and stepped aside.
The room was dark, and Meralda halted at the threshold. “Guardsman Tervis,” she said, softly. “My bag.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis, rushing to her side and opening the bag.
Meralda reached inside. She nearly reached for her magelamp, but decided the detector and it glowing discs would be easier to see in the darkened room.
A shuffling of feet broke out behind her, and she turned to see Kervis shoving Red Mawb back with his shoulder.
“Make way,” snarled the wizard, to Kervis. “Make way, or I’ll-”
“Or you’ll what?” snapped Meralda, surprised at the steadiness in her voice. She turned to face the Alon wizard. “Are you making threats upon the person of a Tirlish guard in the palace of the king of Tirlin?”
Hushed voices rose, and hands grasped the wizard’s shoulder, and dragged him back.
“I thought not,” said Meralda. “Only myself and my attendants are to enter this room while I work,” she said. “That was the agreement. It is subject to neither discussion nor negotiation.” The Alons glared, hands on hilts, mouths set in mid-curse.
“I’ve had enough of this,” she said. “Anyone who wishes to argue may do so with a ward spell. You are familiar with ward spells, are you not?”
Then she lifted her arms, muttered a nonsense word, and brought her hands together with a clap.
The Alons surged back, away from the door. Even Kervis gritted his teeth and flinched at the sound, though he winked an instant later.
Meralda grinned and turned her back to the Alons.
Now find the Tears, she thought. If they’re here at all. She wiped sweat from her forehead, reached into her bag, and found the detector’s wire-wrapped handle. She drew it carefully forth, raised the copper basket to the level of her eyes, and spoke the last half of the long word that would mesh and engage the two dozen spells tied to the glass and copper.
The glass disks flickered and began to glow. Within a moment a light shone from the glass, bright as a magelamp and a soft, deep blue.
Hushed exclamations rose up from the hall. “Bah,” she heard Dorn Mukirk spit. “Why are we wasting our time with this foreigner’s party lamp?”
Meralda closed her eyes. “Sight,” she intoned, in a whisper. “Sight, Sight, Sight.”
And she opened her eyes, and the room was aglow.
Relief washed through her, and she let out her breath in a sigh. To work, she thought, resisting an impish urge to turn and wave at the corner. Goboy’s mirror seems to look in from there, she decided, and Fromarch, Shingvere and Mug are surely watching this very moment.
Not until I find the Tears, she thought. Not until then.
“I’ll start with this wall,” she said, to Tervis. “I’ll need you to move the table back, if you will.”
The Bellringers nodded, and sprang for the table.
Meralda lifted the detector and followed. Once there, she put the detector’s flat side to the wall, let it latch, and watched the blue light shine as she moved along the stones.
“It’ll be there, ma’am,” said Tervis. “I know it will.”
Meralda nodded and swallowed. Sweat ran down her face, plastered her hair to her temples and the back of her neck. She wondered if Fromarch was pacing now, or if Mug was holding all his eyes in a bunch.
She’d covered three of the room’s four walls, and the floor, without so much as the faintest flicker. Now she was halfway done with the ceiling, and she knew, deep in her heart, that the light wasn’t going to darken no matter how slowly or carefully she moved it across the polished ironwood beams.
“Careful, ma’am,” whispered Tervis, who stood below her and held the chair. Meralda had been forced to use the chair, as the ceiling in the safe room was higher than she recalled, and her handle had proved too short. “You nearly stepped off, that time.”
Meralda nodded, and moved the detector until she could reach no further. “Let’s move the chair,” she said. “One more time ought to do it for the ceiling, and then we’ll check the safe.”
“Good idea,” said Tervis. Meralda put her hand on his shoulder as she stepped down from the chair, and felt that his uniform jacket was wet with sweat. “I was surprised when you didn’t start there,” he said, nodding toward the portrait of Tim and the safe behind it.
“Oh, I know I’ll find traces there,” she said. Or, at least, I bloody well hope so. “But if the spell passed through the walls before latching, I want to know where it came from, and I decided I’d need fresh Sight for that.” And the spell must have passed through a wall, she thought. A wall or the ceiling or the floor, unless our scheming friend hid it months ago.
Tervis nodded, and a fat drop of sweat rolled down his nose.
It’s hotter than a furnace in here, Meralda thought, wiping her own brow with her sleeve. The Alons must have every fireplace and cook stove in the east wing going full blast. Coincidence, or more Alon hospitality?
Meralda took another long breath of hot, still air. She heard a distant clock strike ten, and Red Mawb laughed to his fellows.
Tervis scooted the chair toward the wall. Nothing, Meralda thought, and frowned. I’ve found nothing at all.
She pushed the thought aside. Well, of course you haven’t, she reasoned. Even if the spell passed through the walls, it never latched to them. The safe will likely hold the only traces of the spell. The walls and the floor needed to be checked, of course, but only out of thoroughness. No, if the Tears do remain, they are in the one place we haven’t looked yet.
Meralda bit her lip, stepped into the chair again, and quickly finished checking the ceiling. The steady blue glow never wavered.
“Well,” said Meralda, forcing a smile and climbing down to the floor. “That’s done.”
Tervis frowned. “Nothing?”
“No traces of projected spellworks,” replied Meralda. Her chest tightened. What if I’m wrong? What if the Tears aren’t here at all?
From beyond the doorway, a bevy of close-packed Alons watched, the wizard Red Mawb at the fore. Meralda met his eyes, saw in them a bemused, haughty sort of boredom.
“Is that bad?” asked Tervis.
Meralda looked away from Mawb. “It changes nothing,” she said, to Tervis. “The Tears are here, and we shall have them.”
And then she turned on her heel, walked to the portrait of Tim the Horsehead, and set her Sight upon it.
Nothing. Oh, she saw the usual eddies and swirls of radiance that hung about any surface, if one’s Sight were sensitive enough. But that was all. There was no trace, not the faintest, of the ordered patterns an old spellwork might leave behind. Meralda hadn’t brought her staff, simply because any spell too subtle to be Seen or found out by the Alon wizards wasn’t going to be found by her staff, either. But now she wished she had it, if only to hold something familiar.
“Here we go,” she whispered. Then she placed the detector firmly against the wall, just to the right of the portrait.
Right or wrong, thought Meralda. Now, we see.
After the slightest of hesitations the lighted disks went dark.
Tervis whooped and stamped his foot. “Well done!” cried Kervis.
“And not a head bone in the room,” added Tervis, under his breath but not so faintly that the wizards outside couldn’t hear. “Ma’am.”
Meralda smiled a wide, sweaty smile and propped herself against the wall with her free hand and imagined she could hear, faint but clear, the sound of cheering and clapping from her mages and from Mug, half a palace away.
She stepped back, mopped her brow, and moved the detector, letting the latch take hold once more. The blue light returned, but faint and flickering steadily.
“Good old Tirlish magic,” remarked Tervis, airily, and Meralda grinned.
Move, latch, test, move. In a few moments, Meralda saw that a spellwork had, indeed, been attached to the safe, and the wall about it. The spellwork’s footprint was circular, about four feet in diameter, with a pronounced notch running vertically above the safe.
And utterly invisible to Sight. Strain as she might, without the detector Meralda could see nothing at all, even though she knew what to look for, and where to look. I’d have never found this with my staff, she thought. Not with my staff, not with two dozen staves and every mage in the Realms.
Her elation dimmed at the realization. This is not the work of a guild master or a rogue wizard or a renegade Alon necromancer. No, Meralda decided, this is the work of a mage.A mage with skills I’ve never seen.
Mumbling and jostling sounded from the hall.
Meralda bit her lower lip, reached up, and swung Tim’s portrait away from the safe. When she lifted the detector to the back of the canvas, the light flickered and went out, and Meralda smiled. Yes, she thought, following the faint traceries of light that billowed and swam in the shimmering blue glass. This lot here. One end bound to the back of Tim’s portrait, the other end coiled like a spring. It pushed the portrait out before the safe door opened, and pulled it shut when the work was done.
She waved the detector toward the safe, which was still ajar, and the blue glasses went momentarily dark. Meralda latched to the safe door, and the glow returned, this time as a faint, rotating pattern of tiny criss-crossed lines.
Meralda frowned. Ordered, mobile traces? Of an old spell?
She reached out, opened the safe, and slowly pushed the detector inside.
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.”
The Bellringers reluctantly left Meralda alone at the door.
“I found your Tears,” she said, lifting her voice above the grumblings and her gaze above Dorn Mukirk’s furious glare. “I came in good faith, at the invitation of your queen.” She put her hands on her hips, and let her gaze wander amid the crowd. “We have endured insult and threat,” she said. “I tell you now we shall endure no more.”
Ambassador Draunt shoved a soldier aside, put his elbow in Dorn Mukirk’s ribs, and pushed him yelping out of the doorway.
“Thaumaturge!” hissed Tervis. “In the corner, to your right.”
Meralda half-turned and saw a shimmer ride the air, hanging like a cloud in the corner from which Goboy’s mirror gazed.
The shimmer spun and shrank. Red Mawb, Meralda thought, and she turned her gaze back upon the hall. Where is Mawb?
She searched the close-packed hall, but Mawb was not to be seen. When she again risked a glance aside, the shimmering in the corner was gone.
Could have been Shingvere and Fromarch, thought Meralda. Though I can hardly believe they’d risk a sending through a scrying glass.
The mob in the hall jostled and shoved. More soldiers joined the fray, forcing their way toward the ambassador with curses and shoves.
“Thaumaturge Ovis,” panted Ambassador Draunt, with a small bow. “Forgive the unthinking ardor of my countrymen,” he said. He paused to take a breath and brush back his hair, which had fallen in damp white locks across his forehead. “Alonya gives you thanks, for your service to Alonya and our queen.”
Dorn Mukirk growled something, but his words were muffled when, at a nod from Draunt, a copperhead clasped his hand firmly over the fat wizard’s mouth and dragged him away, bone flailing, boots kicking.
More boots sounded down the hall, and with them a whistle blow. Meralda’s heart raced until she realized only one whistle sounded, not three. Stand down, she thought. The captain is calling Tirlin to stand down.
Ambassador Draunt found a smile, and beckoned to the soldiers at his back. Those soldiers all wore the same colors on their sashes, Meralda noted. Clan Fuam, no doubt. Another man, this one tall, bald, and sad-eyed, squeezed through the crowd to stand beside the ambassador.
“Thaumaturge,” said the ambassador, putting his hand on the shoulder of the tall man. “May I introduce Goodman Russet, jeweler to the queen? With your permission, he will accompany me, and inspect the Tears for authenticity.” The ambassador took a breath, and spoke his next words in a near shout. “After Goodman Russet sees the jewels you found, we shall have no lingering doubt that we have recovered the Tears.”
“Of course,” said Meralda. She briefly considered pronouncing her ward spell defunct, but the thought of sharing the room with three dozen sweaty Alon bodies was too much to bear. Just a few more moments…
Meralda lifted her right hand and let her fingers dance. Let Dorn Mukirk wonder what that meant, she thought, and then she silently mouthed her grandmother’s maiden name.
“You and Goodman Russet may pass,” she said.
The Alon ambassador put a toe gingerly over the threshold, hesitated for only an instant, and then dashed into the room. Jeweler Russet followed close behind, jeweler’s loupe in hand.
Meralda nodded, and Kervis held out the Tears. Ambassador Draunt waved them away, indicating his companion. The jeweler moved to stand before Kervis, solemnly regarding the Tears for a moment, then pulled a black cloth from his jacket pocket, and used it to gingerly take up the Tears.
“Tervis,” said Meralda. “My magelamp.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis. He found the bag and reached inside, his eyes still on the Alons. When he withdrew the lamp, Meralda spoke a word and from across the room her lamp flared to life.
“Give the lamp to the ambassador, Guardsman,” she said. “I want him to be sure.”
More boots sounded in the hall, outside. But where the other footfalls had been furtive scuffles or pounding runs, these boots marched.
In an instant, the crowd in the hall melted away, except for the Alons bearing the sashes of the ambassador’s own clan. Even these saluted and stepped aside. Then, from out of the crowd, the Alon queen stepped up to the open door.
Red Mawb was at her side, panting. He met Meralda’s gaze, surprised her by winking, and turned to his queen.
“May I present to you the Mage of Tirlin?” he said, bowing. “Who has, it appears, solved our little problem.”
The tiny Alon queen met Meralda’s gaze and tilted her head forward the merest fraction. Her grey eyes shone below her brow, and the powder on her face did little to hide the blotches of fury beneath it. “I gave orders you were to work in private, Thaumaturge,” she said. “It seems my orders were ignored.”
Meralda bowed in return. “No matter,” she said. “The work went well, despite my audience.”
“I am told you may have been insulted,” continued the queen. “If so, you may claim retribution.” The queen turned to the towering copper-helmed soldier at her right. “Fetch Headsman Gaudling,” she said. “And an axe. A bucket, perhaps, as well.”
Meralda cleared her throat. “I claim no retribution,” she said, quickly. “Let there be peace among our folk.”
The Alon queen grinned. It was a small grin, quickly hidden, but Meralda saw it and smiled. “Very well,” she said, to her guards. “Still, fetch the Headsman. And bring him and Dorn Mukirk to my chambers.”
“The axe and the bucket?” asked her guard.
“Those as well,” said the queen. “Make sure Mukirk sees them, won’t you?”
“As you wish, my Queen,” said the soldier, his face utterly blank. “Shall I have a lad sharpen the axe, while he waits?”
The Alon queen smiled and beckoned to Meralda. “What a wonderful idea,” she said. Then she looked toward Ambassador Draught, who, like Goodman Russet, had snapped to full attention at the sight of his queen. “Pray, proceed, gentlemen,” said the queen.
Tervis crossed the room and gave Ambassador Draunt the short copper tube. The ambassador bowed, played the light on the Tears, and watched as Goodman Russet set his eye upon the thumb-sized diamond central to the Tears.
Silence and scowling, but only for a moment. Then Goodman Russet lowered his glass, looked up at the ambassador, and nodded.
“These are the true Tears,” he said, first to the queen, then again to Meralda. “These are the Tears, and no doubt. Heavens, Thaumaturge, you’ve done it!”
Goodman Russet wrapped the Tears in his cloth, bowed to Meralda, and said, his words barely audible over the rising cheers outside, “I’ll never get the scratches out, but thank you all the same.”
Meralda collapsed into her desk chair as the Bellringers closed the laboratory doors and took up their posts outside in the hall.
The laboratory was cool. And, aside from the muted sound of voices in the hall and the gentle busy clacking of Phillitrep’s Calculating Engine, it was quiet. Meralda was surprised to find that her ears weren’t ringing, after all the shouting in the halls.
Goboy’s Scrying Mirror still stood in its place by her desk, though now the glass showed only a cloud-tufted sky. Mug basked in the sun, silent and still after so long with only spark lamps for light.
“Busy day,” said Shingvere. He disappeared among the ranks of shelves, and was back in a moment, dragging a bucket heaped with crushed ice and the tall, narrow necks of Nolbit’s dark. “I imagine we’re all a bit thirsty.”
Fromarch rose from his chair, took two of the bottles from Shingvere’s hand, and brought one to Meralda.
“Thank you,” said Meralda, and she drank. As the icy ale poured down her throat the weight of the day settled over her like a coat of lead.
Her trip from the Alon safe room to the Tirlish end of the east wing halls had taken four hours. The Alon ambassador had spoken. Half a dozen clan lords had spoken, and then half a dozen more. Meralda was convinced she had either grasped hands with, or exchanged bows with, every single soul in Alonya, some of them twice. She’d found no respite back in Tirlish halls, either. The king himself had led a cheering procession back to the Gold Room, where, after a brief private meeting with Meralda and the captain, he had declared an impromptu feast, which even the Alon queen had joined.
The queen had been gracious and appreciative without ever actually mentioning the disappearance of the Tears. She referred instead to Meralda’s ‘great service to Alonya,’ and her ‘lasting place in the annals of Alon heroes’. She quickly realized that the queen couldn’t truly acknowledge the specifics of the event. Meralda recalled something the captain once said. The clan version of forgive and forget translates roughly as “we’ll not kill all the grandchildren.” That’s why the Alon queen didn’t arrive until after I’d found the Tears, Meralda decided. She couldn’t have arrived earlier without breaking the peace.
And a fragile peace it was, too, thought Meralda. She took another draught of Nolbit’s. One quick footstep, early on, is all it would have taken. A rush of Alon guards, three whistle blasts, the flash of swords. Meralda shook her head and shivered.
And those Alon bone wavers. Meralda would never forget the glare Dorn Mukirk turned upon her when the Alon queen named her a hero. Pure hatred, it was. I’ve never been truly hated before, mused Meralda. Certainly not by a man I barely even know.
Red Mawb, though, had surprised Meralda. Not only had he run to fetch the queen, as Mukirk tried to provoke a fight, but as his rival fumed and glared, Mawb had, in the presence of the queen and the Alon court, bowed to Meralda, and congratulated her openly upon her “mastery of a rare fine magic”.
A rare, fine magic. Meralda sipped her Nolbit’s and let the phrase echo in her mind. If either Alon wizard had known how frightened I was, in that instant before the glass went dark by the safe, or when I heard that single whistle blow and steeled myself to hear two more…
Fromarch dragged his chair closer to Shingvere, and the ice bucket.
“That was a nice bit of flummery, with the ward spell,” he said.
“Had five hundred copperheads and two frothing bone wavers terrified of an open door,” said Shingvere. “Took guts to even try it.”
Fromarch snorted. “Took brains,” he said.
“I was angry,” said Meralda. She shrugged, shoving aside the growing realization of exactly what she had dared. “I’m just glad no one tested it.”
The late afternoon sun, which streamed from Goboy’s mirror, flickered as the glass momentarily lost its place in the wide blue sky. Another flicker, and the sky reappeared, this time dotted with far-off birds, a wisp of high, thin clouds, and a lone red lumber dirigible, outbound and shrinking by the minute.
Meralda frowned at the image. The glass had held a steady image of the safe room for nearly two full days, and now it could barely remain locked on the sky.
“Show me the Tears,” Mug had said, and it had. According to the mages, the image had collapsed the instant the Tears left the room.
Meralda remembered the brief shimmer she’d seen in the corner of the safe room, and she turned to face the mages.
“Tell me,” she said. “Did either of you attempt to send a spell through the mirror while I argued with the Alons?”
Fromarch and Shingvere looked up from their beers.
“Hardly,” said Shingvere. “As I recall, skinny here used foul language. Something about dogs and swine and parentage, I believe. And the houseplant called for the king to make war.”
“While certain Eryans vowed to visit a variety of embarrassing afflictions on all of Alonya,” muttered Fromarch. “Just before he went into a fit of shoe throwing. But sendings? No.”
Mug stirred, waving his leaves in the sunlight from the mirror. “He’s got holes in his socks,” he said, his voice sleepy.
Fromarch shook his head. “You know we’ve got better sense than to try and pass spellworks through a scrying glass, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We aren’t daft.”
Meralda nodded and sipped her Nolbit’s. “Of course, of course.”
They seem to be telling the truth, she thought. But if not the mages, who?
“You saw spell traces in the safe room?” asked Fromarch, joining Meralda in frowning at the glass. “From the spot where the mirror was watching?”
“I saw something,” said Meralda. “It could have been the initial formation of a projected spellwork.”
“Wasn’t us,” said Fromarch. He lifted an eyebrow. “Could it have been the scrying glass itself?”
Meralda nodded. It could have been, she thought. Old Goboy left no notes, and we know so little about his glass. Why, though, did I only see it briefly, and only once?
Mug’s leaves quivered in a long vegetable yawn. Meralda yawned, too, unable to resist. “I’m exhausted,” she said aloud. Exhausted, and seeing ghosts in all the shadows.
“I thank you for your help, gentlemen,” she said. “Even the shoe throwing and cursing.”
Shingvere finished his bottle, searched the ice bucket for another, and frowned when he discovered it empty.
“We’ll call the day done, then,” he said. “The Tears are found, war is averted, and we’re all out of Nolbit’s.” He rose, took the bucket by the handle, and lifted an eyebrow at Fromarch. “You coming?”
Fromarch rose and gathered empty bottles. Meralda watched, bemused, as the aging wizard collected a full dozen and dropped them in the wastebasket.
“I’m coming,” Fromarch said. He wiped his hands on his pants and paused at Meralda’s side. “You ought to get some sleep,” he said. Then he hesitated, shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels.
“Oh, tell her you’re proud of her and let the woman be,” said Shingvere as he stamped toward the doors. “Bloody ice will be all melted before a pair of Tirls can work up the courage for a heartfelt goodbye.”
Fromarch laughed, squeezed Meralda’s shoulder, and stamped out after Shingvere.
The mirror wavered again, and when it steadied the sky was full of blackbirds. They cast brief darting shadows across Meralda’s desk, and then they were gone, and the glass was bright and still.
“Ah,” said Mug. He opened a dozen eyes, swung them close to Meralda.
“Hello, Thaumaturge,” he said, dreamily. “Here’s a riddle for you.”
Meralda groaned. “Not now, Mug.”
Mug ignored her. “What goes round and round the Wizard’s Flat,” he said, “and says ‘Vonashon, empalos, endera,’ to meddling Tirlish thaumaturges?”
Meralda stared. “How do you know-?”
“You sketched the flying things on one of your Tower drawings.” Mug opened another dozen eyes. “And you wrote the words below it. In quotes, no less. I saw the drawing, mistress,” he said, his tone injured. “When were you going to tell me?”
Meralda sighed.
“It’s been a very long day,” she said. “I found the Tears, nearly started a war, pretended I was safe behind a ward spell that wasn’t there, and slapped an Alon necromancer. And I still don’t know what I saw flying about the Tower, or what spoke those words to me in the park.” She raised her hand as Mug bunched his eyes. “All right,” she said, closing her eyes. “I won’t deny this might be related to Otrinvion. I won’t deny the Tower might be, for all practical purposes, haunted by his shade. I won’t deny there are forces at work here I do not understand.” She opened her eyes. “There. Are you satisfied? I’ve said it. The bloody Tower might bloody well be haunted, and now I’ve got to go back inside it and find out by what, or who.”
Mug’s leaves went utterly still.
“You’ve got to go back?” Mug asked, incredulous. “Inside the Tower?”
Meralda nodded. “Yvin wants me to proceed. I talked to him this afternoon, just before we dined,” she said. “I am to move the Tower’s shadow, and use my efforts to do so as a means to investigate the masses about the flat.”
Mug brought all his eyes upon her.
“Mistress. That’s insane.”
“No,” said Meralda, rising. “That’s my job. I’m the thaumaturge. I’ve seen evidence that the Tower or something within it is casting or directing spellworks.” Meralda bit her lip, considering. Might as well say it out loud, she thought. “And consider this, Mug. What if my latch damaged the Tower spell as much as the Tower damaged my latch?”
Mug’s eyes all opened at once.
“Exactly,” said Meralda. “What if I’ve unknowingly meddled with a hidden Tower maintenance spell?”
Mug shook his leaves. “Hold on a moment, mistress. How do you know some passing Vonat didn’t cast a spell on the Tower last week?”
Meralda shook her head. “If the Vonats could cast spells on the Tower, Mug,” she said, “we’d all be speaking Vonat and hauling rocks right now, and you know it.”
“Have you told Yvin?”
“I told him I saw what might be an original Tower spellwork, about the flat,” she said. “I told him my latch might have interfered with its function.”
Mug whistled. “Now that must have taken the steam out of the we-found-the-Tears victory feast.”
“He didn’t even curse.” Meralda yawned. “He just looked tired. Told me to deal with it as a threat to Tirlin, and use the shadow moving project as an excuse to study the Tower.”
“Meddling with the likes of Otrinvion represents a threat to Tirlin,” said Mug. “Not to mention the threat to the meddler, who certainly isn’t that fat-headed king.”
Meralda stretched, and her eyes sought out Mug’s bed sheet, which lay wadded on the floor a few steps away from her desk.
“Enough,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
Mug fell silent, and turned most of his eyes away. “You really don’t have a choice, do you?” he said.
“Not in this,” she said. “It’s take off the robe, or go back to the Tower.”
“I don’t suppose a career with the guilds holds any appeal, does it?”
Meralda pushed back her chair, covered Mug’s cage, and made wearily for home.