All the Paths of Shadow

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.