Meralda slept, and dreamed.
She saw Hang ships sail into Tirlin. Their masts rose up taller than the Tower, so tall the crow’s nests trailed shreds of clouds and shoved the sun aside. Meralda watched the streets fill with terrified crowds, and heard the Big Bell peal out alarms, and smelled smoke from distant fires. Still the masts came nearer, riding over and grinding down the palace, sailing inexorably toward Meralda.
Thick black smoke rose and spread behind the ships, until it blotted out the sky. Unable to move away from her window, unable to close her eyes or look away or even scream, Meralda watched the smoke swirl and billow and swell until it became a monstrous, mad-eyed face, eyes full of glowing red sparks.
The mouth moved and grumbled thunder, and the eyes turned full upon Meralda, and with a wrench and a start she awoke.
The five-twenty trolley rattled past, and then Fairlane was silent. Meralda lay gasping beneath her tangled, sweat-streaked covers and waited for the pounding of her heart to slow.
“Mistress?” came Mug’s sleepy voice from the kitchen. “Are you dreaming?”
“It’s all right, Mug,” she replied. “Go back to sleep.”
“You cried out,” he said.
Meralda poked her head out of the covers and took a breath of cool air. “Nightmare,” she said. She remembered Hang masts in the clouds, threw back the bedclothes, and sat up wearily.
Might as well get an early start, she thought. I certainly won’t go back to sleep after that.
She yawned, rubbed her eyes, and arose. What was it Grandmother always said, when we children had nightmares?
“Hot baths banish boogeymen,” she muttered.
“Then take a long one,” chirped Mug. Meralda heard his leaves rustle as he stretched. “It’s still dark,” he announced. “Where’s that lazy sun?”
Meralda headed for her water closet, kicking slippers out of her way as she went. She passed her bedroom window. It was dark, and the curtains were drawn, and yet Meralda hurried past, a small part of her sure that a face in the sky was still trying to peer in at her, still trying to open its mouth and speak horrors to her in a voice as loud and harsh as thunder.
“Nonsense,” she said, and she reached her bathroom, called up a light, and shut the door behind her.
“We’re a sight,” said Meralda, smiling into a soft, chill breeze. “A mage and her bird cage, out for a lark.”
She stood alone on the sidewalk in front of her building, waiting for Angis and the Bellringers. Traffic on Fairlane hurried past, turning sleepy-eyed but questioning faces toward the thaumaturge and her drape-covered birdcage, from which a trio of blue eyes on vines protruded and looked about.
Mug chuckled. “You’re being recognized, mistress. Must be the papers.” he said. “Ah, fame. Better drag out the hats with the veils again.”
Meralda shrugged. The bright sun beamed down, its rays slanting out of a deep blue sky. The wind that sailed past was cold, but dry. Tirlin awoke, safe and secure, bustling about her as if the Hang and the Tower and the Vonats were all on the other side of the sea.
Mug spoke. “Here comes Angis,” he said, and Meralda followed the aim of his eyes up the street.
Fairlane was full. Carriages and lumber wagons and cabs and road barges thundered past, but Meralda saw no sign of Angis. “He’s coming, just around the corner,” said Mug. “Listen.”
Clop-clop, multiplied by a hundred sets of hooves, blurred by the rattles and roll of as many tires. Meralda lifted an eyebrow, marveling at Mug’s hearing as Angis wheeled around the corner at Kemp.
Before her, a black army troop cab braked with a screech, rolled to the curb, and disgorged the Bellringers.
“Good morning, Thaumaturge,” said Kervis, with a small bow. “You’re up early.”
Meralda smiled. The troop cab rattled away. “Up before the guardsmen. I hope you gentlemen have had breakfast.”
“Some of us have had it twice,” said Tervis, nudging his brother.
Angis brought his cab to a halt. “Well, well,” he said, to Meralda and her guards. “Good morning, Thaumaturge. Lads,” he added setting his brake and clambering down. “Good to see you all out and ready.”
Meralda spied a rolled-up newspaper peeking from beneath Angis’ vest.
“Oh, no,” groaned Meralda. “That’s for me, isn’t it?”
Angis withdrew the Post.
“Got a good likeness of you on page two,” said Angis, with no hint of a grin. “Kind of winsome-like. I think the lad was a bit sweet on you.”
Meralda took the Post, but didn’t unroll it. “Save me some time,” she said to Angis as Mug sent a half-dozen eyes weaving toward the paper. “Just the high points, please.”
Angis shrugged. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “The Hang are buying up bookstores. Not the bricks and the doors. Just the books. All of them. They pay in gold, and I gather more than one or two booksellers just got rich, because the Hang don’t haggle. They just pile up gold until someone says yes.”
“Tell her about the haint,” said Kervis.
Angis chuckled. “Right lot of hogwash, that,” he said. “A street minstrel claims something grabbed him in an alley off Newbrick,” he said. “Just after dark, last night. Claimed it took three of his fellows to beat it back. Street minstrels,” spat Angis. “They’d claim they climbed the Tower if there was a penny in the tale.”
Kervis chimed in. “We heard some of the boys in the barracks talking, ma’am,” he said. “The Watch called the guard out last night, after the attack.” Kervis glanced about. “A couple of them claim they saw a gaunt. Right here in Tirlin!”
Mug lifted a corner of his bed sheet. “Do you even know what a gaunt is, lad?” he asked.
“It’s somebody dead who died in a marsh, and comes back to get their vengeance,” said Tervis. “It’s just an old story from Phendeli. Isn’t that right, ma’am?”
Meralda nodded, stuffed the rolled-up paper under her arm, and lifted Mug’s cage. “That’s right, Guardsman Tervis,” she said. “It’s just an old story. In any case, the nearest marsh is a good four hundred miles from here.”
“Long walk for a dead man,” said Mug. “Unless, of course, our Phendelit friends packed him in their luggage.”
“Would you get my bag, Tervis?” asked Meralda.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tervis.
Angis held the door, and Meralda found her seat. Tervis clambered in behind her, smiling and smelling of a rather strong army soap.
“Why do you suppose the Hang would buy whole bookstores?” he asked, as the cab rolled into traffic.
Meralda shrugged. “I imagine they’ll take the books home to study,” she said.
“That’s what I decided,” said Tervis. “Going home, I mean. After all, if they were planning to stay, or invade, why would they bother to buy anything? They could just wait and take what they want after the war.”
Meralda tilted her head. “Oh, I don’t think they came to invade us,” she said. “Five ships is hardly an invasion fleet, even if they are Great Sea five-masters,” she added.
Tervis looked about, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “Ma’am,” he said, in a ragged whisper. “I heard something. They said not to tell it again, but…” His brow furrowed, and he took a breath. “I hear there might be other ships on the way.”
Mug whistled softly. The cab rolled into a pothole, and Meralda had to steady herself with the door latch.
“Are there?” asked Tervis. “Other ships, I mean. I know it’s a secret and all, but are there?”
“Guardsman,” said Meralda. “I have heard no news of any additional Hang ships, of any sort, anywhere. I say this as a member in full of the Court of Tirlin, and I spoke to the king just yesterday. Can the person who told you about this new Hang fleet say the same?”
Kervis let out his breath in a whoosh. “No, they can’t,” he said, with a relieved grin. “I’m pretty sure they spent yesterday cleaning latrines.”
“Ah,” said Mug. “That alone should tell you something about their sources,” he added.
Tervis’ grin vanished.
“Don’t worry, lad,” said Mug. “I rather like you, and your brother what’s-his-name. I won’t tell the captain you were discussing state secrets in a public cab.”
“That’s right,” said Meralda, nudging the cage with her boot toe. “He won’t.”
Tervis sat back in his seat. “I don’t mind telling you I was worried,” he said.
“I’ll bet most of the army is still worried,” said Mug, lifting a red eye up toward Meralda. “Wonder where such a tale came from?”
Yes, thought Meralda. I wonder. It was, after all, just a story.
Wasn’t it?
Meralda dismissed the thought with a shrug. “Well,” she said, unrolling the paper and rifling through it. “Let’s see what that miserable penswift did to my hair.”
Meralda stared in horror at her picture. “I don’t own a blouse with a neckline that low,” she fumed.
Mug sneaked an eye up and snickered at the drawing.
“He fancies you a cabaret dancer, seems like.”
Meralda quickly turned the page.
“More soldiers,” said Mug, sweeping the park with a dozen of his eyes. From his perch on the platform’s rail, he commanded a good view of the entire southern park. “And another dozen mounted guards. Something’s up, mistress,” he said.
Meralda nodded. In her hand she held a cold retaining wand. The holdstone it drew from was nearly depleted, and the first refractor was only half cast.
“Hold,” she spoke, biting back one of Angis’ words. Mug waved his eyes her way.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Blasted holdstone went warm,” she said. The half-cast refractor whirled and twisted in her second sight as she groped on the work bench for a fresh holdstone.
A trumpet blew, loud and close and shrill, and Meralda started and dropped the refractor.
The spell whipped away, tangling and coiling and writhing, grounding itself in the park halfway to the Tower amid a single brief dance of shadows.
Meralda leaned glaring over the rail. Down in the crowd at the base of the half-completed speaking platform, a child hooted in glee and raised his battered trumpet to his lips in preparation for another blast.
“Shall I have him shot?” asked Mug. “Kervis is dying to shoot someone.”
Meralda turned from the rail, took a deep breath, and counted to ten. Mug waited silently.
“It’s early, yet,” said Meralda at last. “I have plenty of time.”
“Of course you do,” said Mug. “Still, perhaps a minor wound?”
“Mug,” said Meralda.
“Silent meditation, I understand,” said Mug. His eyes resumed their sweep of the park. “Take a deep breath, won’t you?”
Meralda found a fresh holdstone and a new retaining wand. “Begin,” she said, and extended her second sight. “Refract.”
“The Hang,” said Mug. “Coming this way.” He paused, then brought more eyes to bear on the Wizard’s Walk. “Sorry, mistress,” he said. “Looks like we’ll be entertaining, this morning. Better conjure up a couch, and some drinks.”
“Finish,” spat Meralda. Her wand buzzed angrily, but soon fell quiet, and Meralda wrapped it in a cloth and put it down on her worktable. “I really should come early and set wards at all the bloody gates and leave them there until the Accords,” she said. “It’s the only way I’ll ever get any work done.”
She watched as a half-dozen Hang, led by six mounted palace guards and surrounded by several dozen of the Watch, ambled down the walk. Meralda recognized Que-long, his red-robed Chezin, and Loman, the elderly Hang wizard. Loman was being pushed down the walk in a plain infirmary-issue wheelchair, by a lad whose head barely peeped over the back. Fromarch and Shingvere flanked Loman’s wheelchair, and all three wizards seemed lost in hand waving and animated conversation.
As the party drew near, Meralda tried to make out the faces or the names of the other Hang, but the press of the crowd and the mounted guards prevented her from seeing them more clearly.
“Marvelous,” she muttered, under her breath.
Tervis came clambering up the stair, halting when his head was just above the floor. “The Hang are coming to see you, ma’am,” he said. “We just got word from a runner.”
“Thank you, Guardsman,” said Meralda. “Allow them up. And remind Kervis to keep that crossbow of his on the ground.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Tervis turned and descended.
Meralda pushed back her hair. “What time is it, Mug?”
“You don’t want to know,” said Mug. He reached out with a long, thin tendril and patted Meralda’s shoulder. “They won’t stay long, mistress,” he said. “There’s nowhere to sit. They’ll make polite noises, and you’ll be polite back, and they’ll go away. Nothing to it.” Meralda watched Mug swing more eyes toward her. “Is something wrong, mistress?” he asked. “You seem a bit distracted, today.”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“It was a very bad dream, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” said Meralda.
Voices rose up from the stair. “They’re here,” said Mug. “Smile a lot.”
Meralda turned to face the stair, clasped her hands before her waist, and found a smile just as Que-long’s red-clad Chezin came smoothly up the stair.
“The House of Chentze bids you good morning,” said Chezin. He did not smile, but his voice was level and, while lacking in warmth, his tone held no threat, either. “The House would impose but briefly on your hospitality, if you would grant us an audience.”
“Your house is welcome here,” said Meralda. “Please, join me.”
Chezin made a small, fast nod and took the last two steps onto the platform.
Meralda watched, marveling at the way he moved. Smooth, like a cat. No, like a tiger, she decided. His black eyes dart this way and that, never still, and if his ears could move they’d always be swiveling, listening for danger from every direction. Meralda had the uncomfortable impression that when Chezin looked at her he was deciding how best to strike her down.
Next up the stair came Que-long. Meralda made a small bow as his eyes met hers, and the old man halted and returned her bow before taking his last small steps.
He looks even older up close, thought Meralda, as Que-long stepped onto the platform. Old, but hardly frail.
Que-long was nearly bald. Only a fringe of short white hair remained, ringing his scalp just above his ears. He had narrow brown eyes, eyebrows so light and sparse they were barely visible at all, a small straight nose, and tiny ears set close to his head. When he smiled, his teeth were straight and whole and white.
He was attired as he had been at the breakfast two days ago. Loose white robe, black trousers woven of some sheer, shiny material, and soft, laceless black shoes.
He bowed again, still smiling.
Que-long spoke a soft, faint word, which Meralda didn’t understand. Chezin nodded, and spoke.
“The dragon apologizes for interrupting your work,” he said. “He hopes you will overlook an old man’s eagerness to see wondrous foreign magics wrought by the hand of a master.”
Mug emitted a barely audible snort of derision, and Meralda felt the blood drain from her face.
“The House of Chentze is an honored guest here,” she said, quickly. “I am delighted that Chentze finds my work interesting, but I fear that the task at hand is rather, um, mundane. Still, I shall-”
A new head popped up from the stair. “Terribly sorry,” he said, halting. “A thousand contrite apologies for my intolerably rude intrusion. May I approach?”
Meralda nodded, and swallowed. The newcomer was the Hang man who’d bidden her good morning at court two days ago. Meralda had never learned his name.
The man came swiftly up the last few steps, his soft shoes silent on the treads. He leaped past the last step and landed just beyond the stair, his hands suddenly clasped behind his back, his slight frame relaxed and still.
I’ve already been caught staring once, thought Meralda. Still, she allowed herself a good look before she looked away and made a small bow of her own.
In that brief moment, she saw he had grey eyes. Light, bright grey, the exact color of fresh-poured lead. Like all the Hang, his eyes were more almond-shaped than round, from a downturned fold of skin at the inner corners. His nose was small, his hair was straight and black, and his frame was angular and compact.
The newcomer wore a plain white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Meralda could see that his arms were smooth and hairless. She tried and failed to guess his age, deciding he might be twenty or twenty-five or neither.
Meralda bowed. From the corner of her eye, she saw Chezin grimace slightly, and she couldn’t tell if he was troubled by her response or the newcomer’s sudden easy smile.
“Hello,” said the man. “I’m Donchen.” He glanced about, crooked his finger at Meralda, and leaned slightly forward before speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think that I might be a foreigner.”
Mug laughed out loud. Meralda blinked. Que-long stared in wonder at Mug, who shrugged and lifted more eyes toward Que-long.
Chezin’s jaw muscles tightened, and he stared for a moment at Mug, but then his eyes resumed their patrol of the platform and the stair.
Donchen regarded Mug and then Meralda with a hint of wonder. “I have heard the Tirlish thaumaturge enjoyed the company of a most uncommon helpmate,” he said. “I see the tales were understated.”
Que-long whispered something. Chezin nodded, then stepped toward Meralda.
“The Mighty Dragon wishes to better know your familiar,” he said. “We were told it has the power of speech.”
Meralda felt herself nodding. “Of course,” she said. What better way to start war than with Mug’s candid social observations?
Mug moved his leaves, and bunched his eyes together in clumps, according to color. “Hello,” he said, as Que-long and a reluctant Chezin approached. “I have twenty-nine eyes.”
Meralda frowned. Mug’s voice had changed. He was bright and cheery, all traces of his usual mocking tone gone.
“Marvelous,” said Donchen, who watched with Meralda as Que-long put his face close to Mug. “And you created him as a child?”
Meralda nodded. Donchen had somehow come within a single pace of her.
“It was, um, unintentional,” she said. “It’s a fairly common occurrence among young mages. Mage Fromarch, for instance, has a staff he crafted from his father’s walking stick.”
“No one knew I had any talent until this stick started singing, one day on the trolley,” gruffed Fromarch.
Donchen laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said to Meralda, after a moment. “I was rude to you the other morning, at breakfast.” He shrugged. “Chezin once said I have the spirit of a lotash trapped inside me.”
Meralda fought away a blush. “If anyone owes anyone an apology, it is I,” she said. “I was gawking. Forgive me.” She took a quick breath. “What, may I ask, is a lotash?”
“A mischievous supernatural being, which of course does not exist,” said Donchen. “And you weren’t gawking. It is only natural to be curious about new things. We, for instance, are curious about you.” His smile widened. “I do hope the dragon isn’t upsetting your familiar.”
Meralda glanced toward Que-long, and saw that he was moving his finger back and forth in front of Mug, who was following the fingertip with clumps of moving eyes. Chezin stood by, motionless.
“On the contrary,” she said. “Mug loves attention, more than water or mulch.”
Donchen watched Mug for a moment, and then he looked away, turning his gaze upon the Tower. Meralda watched him follow it all the way up, until his head was tilted back and he squinted at the sunlight.
“So this is the Tower,” he said. “Immortal, eternal, legacy of an age, enduring remnant of a mighty sorcerer’s grim reign.” He glanced sideways at Meralda and grinned. “So says the marker in the park.”
“It tends toward hyperbole,” she said. “Otrinvion was a monster, and if the kings of old could have brought the Tower down it would have been rubble a hundred times over.”
Donchen nodded, his eyes still on the Tower. “That, I think, would have been a shame.”
More footsteps sounded on the stair, and Meralda heard Shingvere’s voice, raised in laughter. Donchen turned back to face her.
“Your Eryan friend tells us the Tower is haunted. He suggested I ask you for the details.”
“My Eryan friend,” said Meralda, struggling to keep her smile, “also tends toward hyperbole. The Tower is no more haunted than this platform. But there are those who see ghosts in every patch of shadow.” She cast a nod toward the stair. “Eryans, you will find, are particularly susceptible.”
Donchen nodded. “In my country, it is assumed that any structure larger and older than last year’s bird nest is infested with the most bewildering variety of phantoms,” he said. “A regrettable superstition, but one to which people cling.” He gazed again upon the Tower, and lifted his hands as he spoke. “We should have to invent whole new classes of specters, were we to find such a tower in the midst of our land.”
Shingvere stepped onto the platform just as Donchen spoke. “Morning, Thaumaturge,” he said. “I see you’ve met our friends.”
Meralda nodded, and Shingvere stepped aside, and another Hang sidled past him.
“May I present Loman?” said Chezin. “Wielder of the Word, Bearer of the Staff.”
“The approximate equivalent of your own title,” whispered Donchen, to Meralda. “He makes magic for the king, at least when the court isn’t badgering him with trivia.”
The platform, built for a king and four guards, not a thaumaturge, a work bench, three Hang, and a Shingvere, was suddenly crowded. Loman shuffled his way past Shingvere and Donchen to stand before Meralda, who marveled when she saw Que-long motion Chezin back and squeeze himself in the corner between the rail and Meralda’s table so the aging Hang wizard had room to walk.
Of all the Hang, only the wizard Loman showed signs of age in his walk. He was stooped and slow, shuffling one foot forward at a time, his face turned toward the floor planks, his knuckles white upon his staff, so tight was his grip. His hair was shoulder-length, grey like dirty snow. His downturned face was wrinkled, though Meralda could see little of it aside from bushy white eyebrows and the tip of his blunt nose.
He wore a loose white robe, black pants underneath, and his shoes were plain black slippers. Phendelit slippers, Meralda realized.
Fromarch’s Phendelit slippers, in fact. I gave those to him First Snow, two years ago.
Now I know where the mages have been.
Loman halted, and looked up. His face was ancient, all wrinkles and sagging skin. His eyes, though, were brown, bright, and clear.
He spoke. “Greetings, Mage.” His voice was as thin and frail as his frame.
Meralda bowed. “Greetings, Wielder and Bearer.” She saw Donchen nod approval at the edge of her vision. “You honor me with your presence.”
The old man smiled. “It is good that we are met, Mage of Tirlin. Perhaps one day we will stand side by side and cast our magics together.”
He bowed again. And then, before Meralda could speak, he lifted both arms, hands open and even with his shoulders, spoke a short phrase in Hang, and brought his hands together with a single loud clap.
Then he turned, and shuffled back toward the stair.
Meralda made a hasty bow.
Donchen stepped to her side. “He just said hello, in an official sense,” said Donchen softly.
Meralda nodded. “I’ll ask later what he said,” she whispered.
Donchen nodded, clasped his hands behind him, and fell silent. Meralda noted the Hang, even Que-long, stood still and watched Loman go.
Meralda watched as well, though she did exchange a brief look with Mug’s red eyes, which Mug held in the upright line that signaled bemusement or mild surprise.
Shingvere, waiting upon the stair, nodded to Meralda, took Loman’s hand in his, and helped him down the first tread.
The Big Bell pealed out, striking eleven times from the palace, faint above the traffic and the crowds. Meralda felt her stomach tighten, partly from hunger, partly from realization of just how much of the day was gone, and how much remained to be done.
Chezin nodded, as if she had spoken aloud. “The mage has much work to do,” he said. “We should leave her to it.”
Que-long nodded. “Goodbye,” he said, to Mug. Mug bowed, sweeping all is leaves and eyes down and forward. “I hope we meet again, Mighty Dragon,” said Mug, his voice still high and cheery.
Chezin frowned, but Que-long clapped and beamed. “This is a wondrous land,” he said, and Meralda smiled despite herself.
“Thank you,” she said, only barely remembering to turn and address Chezin. “We are glad you think so, and glad you came.”
Que-long made a small bow, and turned, and departed.
Chezin came close behind, halting long enough before Meralda to repeat Que-long’s bow before following his dragon down the stair.
Donchen watched them go. “Goodbye, Mage,” he said. He bowed, and turned to go, and then turned back toward Meralda again. “Will you join me at my table, tomorrow night? I believe we are to join your court for a ‘feast of traditional Alon cuisine, with sherberts’.” Donchen hesitated, and his features took on the appearance of sudden concern. “These ‘sherberts,’” he said. “They would not be the finely-chopped snout of an oxen, would they?”
Meralda laughed. “Sherbert is a frozen dessert,” she said. “Ice and milk and…sugar, I suppose,” she said. “Not a scrap of ox snout.”
Donchen lifted his hand to his forehead in mock relief. “Thank heavens,” he said. “One must be careful, so far from home.”
And then he turned and glided down the stair.
Mug bunched his leaves. Meralda glared, and he fell silent.
“Tervis,” shouted Meralda.
After a few moments, Tervis came thump-thumping up the stair.
“Yes, ma’am?” he asked.
“Send word to the Watch and the Builder’s Guild foreman,” she said. “I’m going to test the spell during lunch. It is a harmless spell. They may see a darkening in the air about the Tower, nothing more. Tell them there is no cause for alarm.”
“No cause, yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” said Meralda. Tervis turned and sped down the treads.
“Can you be ready by lunch?” asked Mug. “That’s only an hour away, you know.”
Meralda watched as the Hang and their entourage made for the Tower. Shingvere, from his post at the right of Loman’s wheelchair, gestured and pointed toward the Tower, while Fromarch waved his hands and shook his head in angry negation.
Meralda looked away, and picked up her wand. “Begin,” she said. “Refract.”
Her wand buzzed and grew cold in her hand.
Meralda sagged, put both hands on the workbench, and leaned over it while the Big Bell clanged out noon.
“You all right, mistress?” asked Mug.
“I’m fine.” Meralda looked up. In her second sight, Mug was ablaze, lit within by tongues of fire.
Tervis clambered up the stair. “I warned the watchmen and the guilds,” he said. “Is it time?”
Meralda straightened. “It is time.”
“Good luck, ma’am,” said Tervis. “Yell out, if you need us.” He turned, and hurried down the stair.
Meralda turned her sight upon the Tower. “Well,” she said. “Have I forgotten anything?”
“Aside from refusing to attempt the thing, no, you’ve made all the necessary preparations,” said Mug. He pushed eyes closer to Meralda.
“Do be careful, Meralda,” he said. “I swear it’s watching you back.”
Meralda frowned, but said nothing. She looked up and up, seeing the flat with her eyes, and the latch with her Sight, and she took a breath and found the first retaining wand with her right hand and lifted it.
People in the park below saw, and the din of conversation muted. “Look!” cried a man. “Here she goes!”
Meralda spoke the word that released the first refractor. The wand went hot, and then cold, and it twitched in her grasp as the spell leaped away toward the latch.
A ragged hush moved over the crowd. Meralda felt hundreds of eyes upon her. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she resisted the urge to step back away from the rail and out of sight.
The first spell reached the latch, and stopped. Meralda spoke and released the second, and the third, and the fourth, and then she dropped the frost-rimed wand in a bucket of water and watched and waited.
Without Sight, Meralda knew, the Tower appeared unchanged. But seen through trained eyes, the latch was a murky sphere impaled by a quarter of the Tower’s upper length, and the refractors were shreds of playful rainbows racing and darting just within the sphere’s smooth skin.
Meralda groped for her staff, her eyes still upon the spells. “To your right,” said Mug, and it was.
“A bit of flourish, now,” said Mug. “The taxpayers are watching.”
Meralda lifted her staff, and though shouting the final word was hardly necessary she did speak it in a loud, commanding voice.
“Disperse!”
Her staff made a cracking noise, like the breaking of dry timber, and the darting shreds of rainbows vanished as they fell into place. The dark sphere about the Tower grew fainter, and fainter, and though the Tower’s shadow was small and fat in the midday sun, the shadow shrank, inching back over the grass toward the foot of the Tower.
“So far so good,” said Mug. Half his eyes were on the Tower. The other half were on the brass-faced stopwatch clicking madly away on Meralda’s workbench. “Fifteen seconds since unlatching.”
Meralda turned her gaze from the flat and watched the shadow shrink. Spectators drew hastily back into the sun, though one child followed the line of darkness, stamping it with his foot as it moved, until he reached a stern-faced guard and was marched away from the Tower.
“Forty seconds,” said Mug.
Meralda wiped her brow with her hand. Elation rose within her. I’ve done it, she thought. It’s going to work.
She turned her Sight back to the latch. Faint as distant smoke against the blue of the sky and the black of the Tower, Meralda struggled to see it.
“Eighty seconds,” said Mug. “Shadow nearly gone.”
Inside the latch, something moved.
Meralda pushed. Sight can be intensified, its resolution limited only by the skill of the seer and the arcane qualities of the objects being seen. Meralda frowned and held her breath and extended her Sight so intently that her normal vision began to fade.
The latch and the refractors were a spherical haze about the flat. Within the haze, though, things moved. Meralda saw barrel-sized masses, dark bulks against the Tower, circling the flat like falcons tethered to a pole. She counted as they flew. Six, eight, ten, a dozen.
Meralda pushed her Sight further, hoping to distinguish details of the masses. Instead, she saw clearly the wakes each dark mass left in the latch as it flew. Wakes that represented wide, encircling rips in the structure of the latch.
Rips that had, over the course of the night, torn the heart of the latch neatly in half.
Meralda gasped and lifted her staff.
“Thaumaturge?” said Mug. “Is there a problem?”
Before Meralda could speak, the weakened latch darkened, swelled like a street minstrel’s balloon, and lost its grip on the Tower.
The refractors within spun and tangled like rags in a whirlwind. The sky about the Tower flashed dark, then light, then dark again, blurring as the broken latch fell. Shouts and a few inebriated cheers rose up from the crowd as the latch and the refractors fell away from the flat and drifted toward the ground.
The latch swelled again.
Every bird in the park took sudden, noisy flight.
Meralda spoke a word, and her staff went ice cold, but the latch still fell, unchecked. Five heartbeats and halfway down the Tower, the refractors began to flail about outside the wobbling orb of the latch. Shadows flew, and shafts of sunlight, and the cheers became shouts and a few onlookers took flight.
Nearly at the Tower’s foot, the latch rolled away from the Tower entirely and proceeded down Wizard’s Walk. The walk cleared as people dashed aside, leaving Meralda and her platform directly in the latch’s wide path.
“It’s a harmless collection of refractors, correct?” asked Mug, half his eyes still on the clock.
Meralda nodded. That’s all it is, she said silently. But as she looked with her Sight within the rapidly approaching spellwork, the refractors came together in a writhing bunch, spun, and then grew still.
Meralda blinked, and when she looked again, the shadows in the latch were gathered in the shape of an angry, open-mouthed face.
Meralda shivered. The eyes in the face opened, and they burned like the eyes in her dream.
“Otrinvion,” she heard, and Meralda knew the voice was not her own. “Vonashon, empalos, endera.”
Meralda’s sight broke. The latch loomed up and engulfed her, and shadows wheeled like birds, and then it was past and gone.
Meralda squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, all she could see were moving bands of dark and light.
“Mistress!” said Mug. “Are you all right?”
Tervis came charging up the stair, heard Mug’s words, and leaped onto the platform.
Meralda rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said. She squinted back toward the park wall, her normal vision still blurred from her long use of Sight. “Is it gone?”
“Earthed itself here, I think,” said Mug. “Probably on your staff.”
Meralda blinked and stepped to the rail.
The spectators, calmed now, were milling about, pointing and talking and laughing at the temerity of their fellows. “Good show!” came a shout from below. “Now that’s good magic!” bellowed another.
Meralda waved and smiled, unable to make out much more than blobs of color and hints of movement.
“Was it supposed to do that?” asked Tervis. “Come down and roll about, I mean.”
“No, it wasn’t,” said Meralda. She turned back toward the Tower. “Guardsman. Quickly. Tell the mob of penswifts no doubt gathering at the foot of the stair that the test did what it was meant to do. Nothing more.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then get Kervis to go to the guards at the Tower door. Tell him to tell them that no one goes in or out. No one, for any reason, until I arrive. Is that clear?”
Tervis nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Go.” Tervis sped away.
Mug turned eyes on Meralda. “‘Until you arrive?’” he asked. “Why would you arrive at all? The latch failed. Did you see something I didn’t?”
“I did,” she said, sorting through her instruments until her fingers found the cloth-wrapped wand that held her single ward work.
Meralda felt it, and it was warm. It’s a killing spell, she thought. I never thought I’d cast a killing spell.
Mug imitated the sound of fingers drumming in impatience, and Meralda drew her hand away. “Well?” said Mug. “You can’t go around claiming you saw strange things in the Tower and not provide details. It’s rude.” He pushed eyes toward Meralda. “You saw the face from your dream, didn’t you?”
Meralda lifted her face to meet Mug’s eyes. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s exactly how ghosts do things,” said Mug. “They have rules to follow, you know.”
Meralda frowned. “I’ll have no more of this ghost nonsense.” She glanced back at the stair, wary of penswifts. “What I saw was something else. There are spellworks about the Tower. They ruined the latch.”
Mug frowned. “Spellworks? Whose?”
Meralda closed her bag. She remembered the words the latch had brought, but she did not speak them.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her vision clearing, she dared a look at the Tower, and though the brightness of the sky made her squint she saw nothing unusual in the air.
“What kind of spellworks? Could you tell?”
Meralda looked away, and shook her head. “No,” she said. “Aside from knowing something is up there, and part of it, at least, extends beyond the Tower walls around the flat, I don’t know a thing.”
Mug pretended to lift a small leaf and turn it to and fro in deep consideration. “Some might say that such a statement alone would justify sealing the Tower for the next hundred years and then going home,” he said. “Not that you’d ever agree with such a person.”
Too late for that, thought Meralda. What if my spell damaged an old structural spell, just as the old spell tore apart the latch?
And what if persons unknown were preparing the Tower as a place from which to attack Tirlin?
Meralda hefted her bag. “I’ll have a guard stay below to keep the tourists away,” she said. “We shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
Mug sighed. “You shouldn’t,” he agreed. “Of course, there shouldn’t be faces in the sky, or spells on the Tower, should there?”
Meralda marched down the stairs. The Bellringers looked up at her, confusion mirrored in their features.
“You,” said Meralda, to one of the half-dozen strange guards gathered behind the Bellringers. “Stay here. No one but me goes back up those stairs. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the guard. Meralda reached the last tread, and the grass of the park and the press of the crowd.
“We’re in a hurry,” she said. “Make way, will you?”
Guards bellowed, and the crowd melted away. The Bellringers fell into place on either side of Meralda.
She set a quick pace. The Tower loomed up ahead, doors ringed by guards, guards ringed by penswifts. Meralda saw them, and felt her chest tighten.
“Thaumaturge!” came shouts all about her as she reached the Tower. “Thaumaturge!”
Meralda steeled herself. I do not hear, I do not see.
“Sergeant,” she said, over the din. Kervis and Tervis kept the most insistent of the penswifts at arm’s length.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Has anyone been in or out of the Tower?”
“No, ma’am,” said the sergeant. “They hauled the last of the lumber out yesterday. Sealed ever since.”
Meralda nodded. “Open the doors, please.”
As the penswifts shouted, a pair of guards swung the Tower doors open and the Bellringers darted ahead. The penswifts leaped aside, still shouting questions, but before they could follow the Tower guards converged and the doors swung shut.
Darkness fell. Meralda and the Bellringers came to a sudden halt. Meralda found her magelamp, took a breath, and spoke the word.
Light flared.
“Pardon, ma’am,” said Kervis, his eyes on the darkness. “What are we looking for?”
“Evidence,” she said. She put her bag on the floor, bent, and opened the catch.
Tervis cleared his throat. “Will we be climbing to the flat?”
Meralda bit her lip. The spellwork I saw radiated from the flat, she thought. The only way to see it again is to climb those stairs, up into the dark.
But she’d be foolish to do so with nothing but a pair of magelamps and a single charged ward wand. “No, we won’t be seeing the flat just now,” she said aloud. The Bellringers, as one, let out their breath in a rush. “This is as far as we go.”
Meralda pointed the lamp into her bag, and withdrew the cloth-wrapped retaining wand.
It buzzed at her touch.
“I’m going to release another ward spell,” she said. “It’s far more powerful than the one I loosed in the flat.”
She heard the Bellringers each take a short step backwards.
“Don’t worry,” said Meralda. “This is a new spell. It won’t trigger until we’re all gone.” She raised her voice so that it echoed throughout the Tower. “Of course, it will target anyone hiding in the Tower the instant we leave. That would be a pity, since this new spell is easily capable of melting rock. At a distance. Still, if no one comes forward now…”
Silence. Meralda counted to ten, removed the cloth, and spoke a word.
The wand howled like a thousand angry hornets. The ward spell, when it leaped from the copper wand, burned bright as a gas lamp, and big as a fat pumpkin.
It expanded until it was a whirling, ragged ball of fire, and then it shot up into the heart of the Tower, touching the walls in every direction with an angry ring-shaped crimson glow that flashed wide and round against the first story ceiling before vanishing abruptly. The howling continued, muted, but furious.
“Can it really melt rock?” asked Tervis.
“Oh, yes,” said Meralda. “Rock, metal, hidden intruders. I suspect they’ll all leave behind the same mass of ashes.”
Kervis whistled. “That ought to give Old Ugly something to chew on.”
Meralda grinned. Then she sought her bag again, and withdrew a small cloth bag of Old Maid flour.
Tervis cocked his head. “Aha!” he said. “Going to sprinkle that on the stair, are you?”
Meralda untied the bag. “We’ll go up high enough that no one could jump down to avoid it,” she said. “And we’ll cover twenty treads or so, to keep clever persons from leaping across it.”
Kervis frowned. “Is that magic powder?”
Meralda smiled. “I doubt it,” she said. “But it does make good biscuits.” She played the light on the stair, on the far side of the Tower. “If you gentlemen will accompany me?”
The Bellringers tramped with her toward the stair.
Meralda was still squinting in the sun, halfway down Wizard’s Walk and halfway to her carriage, when Kervis looked up, frowned, and fell out of step with Tervis.
“Uh oh,” he said.
Meralda followed his gaze to the head of the walk. She still couldn’t make out faces, but the uniforms were plain enough. Palace guards, with the captain himself at the fore.
Meralda groaned. “Tell me that isn’t the captain, looking for me.”
“It isn’t, ma’am,” said Kervis. “But it is. Must be half a dozen with him, too.” Kervis shifted his crossbow and sighed. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good.”
Meralda quickened her pace. Traffic on the walk cleared as the captain and his men bore down it. Two hundred paces, one hundred, fifty. As the distance between them closed, Meralda tried and failed to read the captain’s face, and guess what calamity had brought him all the way to the park.
Meralda heard a rush of booted feet behind her, and though she didn’t turn to look she could imagine a mob of penswifts racing to catch up with her.
The captain saw, and his face went crimson, and Meralda could see the muscles of his neck tighten and bunch.
“How nice of you to drop by, Captain,” said Meralda, through a forced smile. “My days are full of surprises.”
The captain muttered to his men, and they flanked him and hurried past. Meralda grinned at the thought of the penswifts arguing with the captain’s grim-faced lieutenants.
The captain came puffing to a halt. Meralda stopped as well, noting with satisfaction that the penswifts had been shouted to a dead halt some distance behind.
Meralda blinked away a row of dancing bright spots, and saw at last the troubled set of the captain’s face.
“What has happened?” she asked, in a whisper.
“Alons,” said the captain. “Robbed.”
Meralda went wide-eyed.
“Robbed?” she said. “Of what?”
“Their bloody crown jewels, of course,” said the captain. “The Mountain Tears. Right out of the east wing safe room. The locked and guarded east room safe room.” The captain took a deep breath, and glanced about before continuing. “The Alon queen was talking about leaving the Accords when I left,” he said. “We’ve got to find the Tears, Thaumaturge,” he said. “Got to find them soon.”
Meralda stared. We?
“Yvin thinks the thieves used sorcery,” replied the captain. “He told me to find you and fetch you,” he said. “Shall we go?”
“Oh, why not?” said Meralda. “I’ve got latches falling off the Tower, rumors of haunts, fifteen days until Commencement. Certainly, let’s go chase down jewel thieves.” She whirled. “We’ve been found and fetched, gentlemen,” she said, to Kervis and Tervis. “We’re done here, for today.”
She whirled again, and the captain shook his head. “I’m sorry about this, Thaumaturge,” he said. “But when you see how the Tears were guarded and stored, I think you’ll agree sorcery may well have been involved.”
Meralda sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain. I know you didn’t run all the way here to ruin my afternoon.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “When this is all over, let’s both retire, shall we?”
The captain barked a short laugh. “Soldiers and mages don’t retire, Thaumaturge,” he said. “We just die quietly of over work.”
He turned, and stamped back toward the wall. Meralda motioned the Bellringers to follow, and fell wearily into step behind him.