All the Paths of Shadow

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.