All the Paths of Shadow

The Tower let the silence linger.

“I am… honored by your wish to converse,” said Meralda, after a moment. “I hope my visit earlier today has not caused you any distress.”

“My actions were born of caution, not distress,” replied the Tower. “I feared your brief inspection of my form had caused you injury, so I used the transport word to place you close to your friends. Your sudden displacement caused your ward work to erroneously identify you as an intruder, forcing me to both expedite your departure and disable your ward.”

Meralda exchanged a glance with Mug, whose leaves still drooped in a terrified wilt.

“I thank you for your concern,” said Meralda. She bit her lip, hesitant to say more.

How many mages spent how many lives trying to pry even a single hidden spell out of the Tower? And what would they say, if told the Tower itself were alive?

What would Shingvere ask, if he were here?

“Very well, Tower,” she said. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions of you?”

“It is vital that you do so,” replied the Tower. “Else I would not have revealed myself.”

Mug’s leaves shook. “I knew it,” he said, in a whisper to Meralda. “I knew it. All this meddling with shadows and wards. Something’s wrong. So badly wrong it’s breaking a thousand years of silence and using your mirror to do it.”

“Hush,” said Meralda, with a glare.

“The construct is correct,” said the Tower. “Master forbade me to reveal myself, and I have obeyed. Until now.”

“Why?” asked Meralda. “And why to me?”

“Because Tirlin is doomed,” said the Tower. “Doomed, by Master’s hand. I can no longer stay his wrath. It is my hope that perhaps you can.”

Meralda put down the Inferno. Steady, she said to herself. Perhaps it is merely engaging in melodrama.

“Doomed, in what way?”

“See this.”

The image in the glass rippled, twisted, and became an exterior view of the Tower.

From the flat, a series of spokes shot out, parallel to the ground. At the end of each spoke, a dark mass formed, and then the spokes began to turn.

Mug turned eyes upon Meralda. “You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?”

“Briefly,” she answered. “In the park, when my first latch collapsed.”

“Yes,” said the Tower. In the glass, Meralda saw her latch and refractors form, watched as the latch was chewed in half by the turning spokes, saw it fall away and vanish.

“I allowed your shadow moving spell to latch,” said the Tower. “I thought it harmless. I was wrong.”

The spokes began to wobble as they turned, and the steady flight of the dark masses took on a bobbing quality. “The instability is growing,” it said. “Soon, the binding will fail.”

In the glass, the spokes jerked and flailed. Some lost speed, some began to turn faster. Then they collided and tangled and tore each other apart.

The dark masses broke free, one by one, and were hurtled out and away, vanishing from the glass.

Meralda shivered. Like falcons tethered to a pole, she’d thought, upon glimpsing them in the park.

“Curseworks,” she said, aloud. “Aren’t they?”

“They are,” replied the Tower. “Fire. Pestilence. Decay. Madness.” The Tower paused. “And others, more subtle, yet no less destructive. There are twelve. Master was vengeful, at the end.”

The image in the glass flashed, and the spokes and the masses were gone, replaced by the flat and the staves.

“How long?” asked Meralda.

“I may be able to maintain the binding for another two hundred and forty hours,” replied the Tower. “Perhaps less. But certainly no more. After that, Master’s curses will fall, and Tirlin will be consumed.”

Even Phillitrep’s Engine seemed to halt, as if listening.

“Two hundred and forty hours is ten days,” said Mug.

“Consumed,” said Meralda. “Are you speaking figuratively, perhaps?”

“Burned, razed, broken, ground to dust,” replied the Tower. “Employ what euphemism you will. Master designed the destruction to be complete. ‘Utter and thorough,’ he said. ‘Let us visit upon them what they have brought to me’.”

Meralda met Mug’s wide and staring eyes. He’s dying to ask the Tower why it isn’t just keeping quiet and letting the curseworks fall, she thought. And that isn’t a bad question.

“If that was your master’s plan,” she said, slowly, “why aren’t you just letting it happen?”

The Tower image flickered. “At the end, Master seemed confused,” it replied. “He was dying. His works were lost. His lands were aflame. But he looked upon the curseworks, and he was saddened, and I believe he tried to dispel them.”

Meralda nodded. Nothing was known about Otrinvion’s final hours. Perhaps he wasn’t the heartless villain of legend, after all.

“Did your master perhaps leave records concerning these curseworks behind?”

“He did not. They were crafted in a place beyond my senses. I know almost nothing of their basic natures.”

“And yet you believe I can render them harmless.”

The Tower hesitated.

“My knowledge of the kingdoms and the mages they employ is extensive,” it said. Meralda thought of Goboy’s glass, hanging in the laboratory for the last four hundred years. Had the Tower been watching and listening, all that time? Before that time, even? “You are the most skilled mage in all the Realms. If you do not try, then doom will befall Tirlin. I believe Master would find this event undesirable. Thus, I am bound to make every effort to forestall it.”

Mug swapped eyes between Meralda and the mirror.

“Are those your master’s staves?”

“They are.”

“Mistress,” said Mug. “If that’s true, and friend Tower is telling the truth-”

“I am.”

“-they would certainly be able to handle a Vonat or two, wouldn’t they? What about it, Tower? We help you with your little doom problem, you let the mage here borrow Nameless and Faceless?”

“Mug!”

“The staves are not under my control,” said the Tower. “They obey me when it suits them, but only then. I have already directed them to assist the mage in her efforts. If the mage is in danger, then I believe they will act to protect her.”

“You believe?” Mug tossed his leaves. “How about it, kindling wood? Do we have a deal?”

Meralda nearly shoved Mug in a drawer.

The staves stood still.

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Mug, be silent.” Meralda pulled back her chair and sat.

It could be lying, she thought. Or it could be a Vonat trick. Or a trap left by Otrinvion. Or any number of other nefarious schemes brought to life by who knows who. It could be the Hang, the Vonats, or rogue members of Tirlin’s own court.

Or it could be exactly what it says it is, and it could be telling a terrible, terrible truth.

“Tower. You said you knew nearly nothing of the curseworks and their natures.”

“Correct.”

Meralda shoved aside a heap of papers, found a fresh sheet and her pencil. “So tell me everything you do