All the Paths of Shadow

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