All the Paths of Shadow

And work she did. Dreading a return to the flat, but deeply troubled by the sight of the flying masses about the top of the Tower, Meralda fetched her weak spell detector, gathered her notes, gritted her teeth, and took it apart.

New spells replaced the old, a fourth glass disk was added, and, much to Mug’s delight, the worn broom handle was replaced with a straight length of polished cherry wood.

“Now it looks like a wizard’s gadget,” said Mug, as Meralda wrapped fine silver wire around the handle. “Got nice heft, too. Just the thing for bopping heads, if need be.”

Meralda sighed, put the detector aside, and called for the Bellringers. By then, night had fallen, but there were no lights in the flat. Nor had there been, since Meralda’s latch had failed and fallen.

Meralda ordered coffee and began to design a new latch for the Tower. This latch, Meralda decided, would extend no higher than the halfway point of the Tower’s bulk. “That will put Yvin’s platform in the light,” she told Mug, as she began to sketch. “Though the back rows of the seating stands may catch a bit of shade.”

Building the new latch for the Tower’s lower half took all of two days. Meralda struggled to cast fifteen refractors a day. With the Accords and Yvin’s commencement speech only nine days away, Meralda didn’t bother with a scaled down latch. This one was, if it worked, intended to be a full-scale version of the Commencement Day spell.

As such, it required more refractors than the first latch. Meralda cast thirty-five in one grueling day, working from well before sunrise until late into the night.

Through it all, Mug remained at her side, basking in the uncertain light of Goboy’s scrying mirror, which had quickly returned to its former habit of spying out bathhouses and dress shop dressing rooms. “Mirror, mirror,” Mug would mutter, when the sunlight failed. “Sun and sky, looking-glass, or I’ll have the Bellringers clean you with a hammer.”

And the sun would return, for a time.

The king sent word, at odd intervals, inquiring as to Meralda’s progress. She would scrawl hasty replies in return, often suppressing the impulse to add notes such as “Abandoning spellwork to continue this fascinating correspondence,” or “Slept late, long breakfast, taking the day off for a stroll in the park.”

“As if I have nothing better to do,” grumbled Meralda, late in the evening of a long day of refractor calculations. She planned to cast the new latch early the next day, which left her to finalize refractor spacing, charge all the holdstones, and load her staff with the framework of the latch.

Cast the latch, and dare the Tower. She thought of the long climb in the dark, of the echoes and the way her magelamp shone bright, but was soon swallowed whole by the wide and hungry dark. And she saw the face in the park again, heard the words, saw Tervis and Kervis cast back, spilling down the stair…

There came a knock, loud at the door, and Meralda started and dropped her pen.

“A missive from His Highness, no doubt,” said Mug. And indeed here was yet another nervous young guardsman at the door, with yet another note. She took it from his hand, exchanged an exasperated roll of the eyes with Kervis, and stomped back into the lab as the Bellringers shut the doors.

“You would think the man’s hand would get all cramped, badgering you with letters every quarter hour,” said Mug.

Meralda halted at her desk and unfolded the thick royal paper.

Thaumaturge, it read, in an unfamiliar hand. I do hope you’re hungry.

Meralda creased her brow.

“What is it?” asked Mug.

There came a knock at the door.

“Oh, no,” said Meralda. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t be who?” asked Mug. He brought twenty eyes to bear upon Meralda. “Mistress?”

From beyond the door, Kervis spoke. “Thaumaturge?” he said. “There’s a gentleman here to see you.”

“A gentleman?” piped Mug. “Oh, a gentleman!”

“Quiet,” said Meralda. She pushed back a lock of hair and made for the door, note still in her hand.

I could beg off again, she thought. I could explain I’m in the midst of a complicated spellwork, one that requires more time, one dangerous to onlookers. I’d even be telling a good portion of the truth.

Meralda frowned. Why should I do that? He’s only a man, Hang or not. I’ve not been made Thaumaturge by hiding behind doors and hoping men who made me uncomfortable would just go away.

Meralda took a breath, straightened her blouse, and opened the doors.

There, in the hall, stood a smiling Donchen, flanked by a confused pair of Bellringers. Donchen stood behind a silver-trimmed kitchen serving cart, which smoked and made a faint sizzling sound. The aromatic steam that wafted from beneath the closed lid crept into the laboratory and immediately set Meralda’s stomach to grumbling.

Donchen wore an apron. A palace-issue, heavily starched white kitchen staff apron, complete with a palace sigil over the heart and an oversized key pocket sewn onto the right bottom hem. Under the apron he wore plain black pants and a white round-collared Phendelit button-front shirt. Crumpled in a ball on the lid of the serving tray was a soft, shapeless Eryan beret, which half the serving staff wore to fight off the chill of the palace halls.

Just the thing, Meralda realized, to go sneaking about the palace in.

Donchen stepped back from the cart and executed a perfect Phendelit bow, keeping his hands clasped at his back, his heels together, and bending his body smoothly at the waist. “Good evening, Thaumaturge,” he said. “My, doesn’t this smell good?”

“It does,” said Meralda. Behind Donchen, Kervis met Meralda’s eyes and made a frantic ‘what do we do?’ shrug.

Donchen couldn’t have seen, but his smile widened all the same. “I see you received my note,” he said, looking at the paper Meralda still held.

“I did,” said Meralda. She took a breath and found a smile. “And I am.”

She flung the doors open wide, and stepped aside, motioning Donchen within. “Won’t you come in?”

Donchen cocked his head. “I brought picnic gear, as well as dining utensils,” he said. “I realize the Royal Laboratory to Tirlin might not be an appropriate place to host a foreigner.”

“The Royal Laboratory of Tirlin is, at the moment, mine,” said Meralda. “I keep no secrets here. So if you promise not to make off with state treasures I’ll vow not to ask you pointed questions about your nation’s foreign policy. Fair enough?”

Donchen bowed again. “Fair enough.” Donchen broke from his bow, lifted the cart’s lid, and withdrew two bulging white paper bags from within the steaming depths.

“Here you are, gentlemen,” he said, turning and thrusting a bag at each Bellringer. “Dinner, compliments of the Mighty Dragon, long may he reign, so forth and so on.”

The Bellringers went wide-eyed, but took the bags.

“Sir, thank you, sir,” said Tervis, hefting the bag as if to see if it might move in his grasp.

“Egg rolls and fried rice,” said Donchen. “And forks. I do hope you like it.”

Then he turned back to Meralda, and put his hands on the cart handle. “Are you sure, Thaumaturge?” he said, before he started to push. “I won’t be in the least offended…”

“Nonsense,” said Meralda. You’re not the only one who can be bold and thumb your nose at propriety, she thought. “Let’s eat.”

Donchen smiled, and pushed, and crossed the threshold.

The meal, Meralda decided, was fabulous.

What the meal consisted of was still largely a mystery to her. There was a tiny yellow grain that Donchen called rice, which formed a bed for most of the other entrees. And there was pork in a thick, sweet red sauce, and chicken with garlic and almonds, and a fried roll that crunched when Meralda bit into it, and was full of, among other things, chopped shrimp bits.

Donchen brought only forks. “No, we’ll not struggle with chopsticks,” he’d said, when Meralda asked how the king and court were faring with the Hang utensils. “To be honest with you, I myself may adopt your fork as my dining tool of choice,” he added, with a grin. “Chezin will have a conniption fit.”