All the Paths of Shadow

“Bugger. Good idea though. What next?”

What next, indeed?

Meralda replaced Lavey’s box on its shelf. Mattip’s Sideways Positioner? Calit’s Bracelets of Furious Wind?

Neither is very reliable, she thought. The Bracelets of Wind are as likely to injure me as the Vonat.

Meralda walked, her mind racing, her eyes fixed on the objects before her. Etter’s Phantasmal Twin?

No. Anyone with Sight could easily tell twin from original.

She stubbed her right toe on something on the floor.

The spark lamps cast more shadows than light, between the ranks of shelves, so Meralda didn’t recognize the object with which she had collided at first. But she suspected how it came to be out of place.

“Shingvere, no doubt,” she muttered, straining to see in the dark. “Probably looking for a bottle of brandy he hid in here twenty years ago.”

She reached down and lifted the object from the floor.

It looked like a staff, at first. An old one, by the wear on the rough hewn ironwood. But it bore no markings, no sigils, no runes. It had neither iron shod foot nor copper plated head.

Meralda frowned at it. Probably not even a staff, she decided. Probably just a chunk of cast off lumber stuck beneath the shelves to level them. I just hope removing it doesn’t bring one of these shelves down on my head.

Meralda leaned the length of wood against the shelf behind her and continued her prowl amid the works of the mages of old.

“Any luck?” said Mug, from the shadows.

“I could make ice or raise a sudden fog or cause empty shoes to dance,” said Meralda.

“Marvelous. We’re saved. Mistress, surely there’s something nasty back there!”

Oh, there’s plenty of nasty, thought Meralda. Kingen’s Bell causes massive internal bleeding in anyone who hears it. Stovall’s Blighted Candle melts the eyes of anyone who gazes into the flame. Both were locked away in sturdy chests, but neither offered much in the way of protection from stealthy Vonat mages.

Meralda reached the end of the shelf row, and sidled around the end of it, ready to begin searching the other side.

She walked into something hidden in a shadow and it fell with a bang and a clatter.

Meralda jumped, careened into the laboratory’s back wall, and bit back a curse word.

“Mistress? You all right back there?”

“I’m fine.” Meralda forced a smile. “Too much clutter.”

There, on the floor, was the twin to the ironwood staff she’d encountered moments before.

Meralda nudged it with the toe of her boot. It scooted with a rasping sound.

Your nerves are getting the better of you, she thought. Then she reached down, snatched the ironwood up, and leaned it carefully against the wall.

“What about Gilbert’s Cloak of Grounding?” asked Mug. “Didn’t half a dozen mages wear that when they were working with unstable wards?”

Meralda nodded. “That they did,” she said. She tried to recall where the cloak had been stored. Wasn’t it wrapped in canvas, in that yellow chest by the south wall?

She made for the far end of the row, where the lights shone bright and there was open space and room to move. The cloak wasn’t a bad idea. Particularly if one enhanced the original spells.

She took half a dozen steps. Just half a dozen steps, and then, though she heard nothing, saw nothing, sensed nothing, Meralda turned and looked back at the wall where she’d leaned the troublesome scrap of ironwood.

The wall was empty.

As was the floor.

“Mistress,” called Mug, his voice filled with rising panic. “Mistress, I think you’d better grab something right now, because we have company.”

A shadow flew over her, and with it came the sound of wings.

“Mistress, run!”

Meralda ran. Again, the whoosh and dart of shadow. She reached out, caught the first thing she grasped, and threw it toward the sound.

“Missed,” cried Mug. Something metallic landed with a clatter. “Mistress, there are two of them!”

Meralda forced her Sight up and out.

The laboratory was suddenly ablaze with moving, spinning, flashing lights. Thousands of spells shone and moved like noon in a field of wind-blown mirrors.

But above the crowded ranks of magical items about her, two blurs of purest, darkest black sailed and spun and flew.

Meralda’s Sight collapsed, and she sank to her knees, suddenly blind, suddenly exhausted. She reached out again, fumbling with the items on the shelf before her, and gasped as she found Mahop’s Portable Inferno.

I may burn down half the shelves, she thought, but let’s see how quickly these staves ignite.

“That will not be necessary, Mage Ovis.”

The voice was not Mug’s. It was far too loud to be any of Mug’s mimicry, either.

It spoke perfect New Kingdom, with no trace of a Vonat accent.

“Nameless. Faceless. Desist. Return.”

Above came the sound of troubled air, but it faded quickly, and was gone.

Meralda rose. Her hands found the two small indentations that, if covered, would cause the open end of the Inferno to spew gouts of fire reputed to be so hot they melted glass and stone alike.

“My apologies, Mage. They were intent on childish mischief, but I do not believe they meant you harm.”

“Mistress,” hissed Mug. “You are not going to believe this.”

“Oh, but she must,” replied the booming voice, to Mug. “All your fates depend upon her belief. Without it, Tirlin is doomed.”

Meralda held the Inferno in front of her, ready to bring it to life.

“Who are you?” she said, her eyes straining to penetrate the shadows about her.

“I have no name,” replied the voice. “Please. Come forward. I mean you no harm.”

“Mug?”

“No one else is here, mistress,” he replied. “It seems to be speaking from inside Goboy’s mirror.”

“The construct is correct. I am using the glass as a portal. Please approach. We have urgent matters to discuss.”

Meralda warily emerged from between the shelves, the Inferno at the ready.

Mug swiveled half his eyes toward her, keeping the rest fixed on Goboy’s mirror. From her vantage point, Meralda could not see into the glass, so she moved cautiously toward Mug and her desk.

“Those things, whatever they were, flew inside the mirror,” said Mug. “Hit it and vanished inside.”

They couldn’t possibly have done that, thought Meralda. The mirror is just glass. But she nodded and made her way to a spot behind her desk.

Goboy’s mirror showed a scene from inside the Wizard’s Flat. Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the windows. The two plain ironwood staves stood upright, their ends inside the holes carved into the floor.

Dust motes danced and twirled in the sun.

“Master often referred to me as Tower,” said the voice. “In the interest of ready communication, you may do the same.”

“Pardon me,” said Mug, “But when you say ‘Master,’ are you perhaps referring to Otrinvion the Black?”

“Master had many names,” replied the voice. “That was one of them.”

Mug’s wilt intensified.

Meralda’s mind raced, and her heart began to pound. I’m talking to the Tower, she thought. Otrinvion’s Tower. What am I supposed to say?