All the Paths of Shadow

even worse.

“I was there,” he said. “They were waiting in the sewer beneath the street. I tried to stop them.” He dipped his head in a tiny bow. “I failed.”

“Come inside.”

Kervis and Tervis sidled past Meralda and entered the laboratory, hands on hilts.

“It’s empty,” said Kervis, after a moment.

Meralda took Donchen’s hand. He looked up at her, eyes wide in surprise, and then smiled.

His hand is warm, thought Meralda. What a silly thing to notice. Of course his hand is warm. It’s a hand.

“We’ll be right here,” growled the captain. “If anything wants in it can see how it likes being cut to pieces first.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Meralda, feeling her face flush crimson at the stares of so many guards.

She pulled Donchen inside, and quickly shut the door.

Donchen mopped at his face with a clean washcloth as he perched in her rickety spare chair.

“So you think he’ll heal?”

Meralda gently pushed Mug’s new soil down. Mug remained upright, his leaves twitching now and then. All his eyes were closed, and he muttered now and then, but never quite formed words.

“He will.” Meralda frowned and cleared her throat. “Of course he will. His roots are intact. His stems are bruised but not broken. He’ll be fine.”

Goboy’s mirror streamed bright, warm sun onto Mug. Meralda gave him another half-turn so all his leaves could take in some light.

Donchen nodded. His lower lip was split. His right eye was going puffy and dark. Meralda could tell from his stiff posture and barely hidden grimaces he had bruised, if not broken, ribs beneath his soiled white shirt.

I’ve never seen a more handsome man in all my life, she thought.

“I smell like an outhouse,” he said, grinning. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for that. It is not a practice in which I habitually engage.”

“Nonsense. Tirlish sewers smell of roses and perfume,” said Meralda. “You still haven’t told me what led you to enter one in the first place.”

“I carry a device similar to the one I gave you. It showed the presence of Hang magic along your route. I happened to be traveling ahead of you, so I took a bit of a detour and found a group of singularly unusual ropes gathering below the street.”

“And you tried to fight them all, at once?”

Donchen shrugged and grimaced at the effort. “I did first attempt to reason with them, Mage. But they were determined to do you harm. I decided to slow them down by entangling myself in all of their various lengths. Oh, how they struggled to escape my implacable grasp!”

Meralda smiled. “I see that. I imagine they were close to surrender when my carriage arrived.”

“Very nearly. Another moment and I’d have made bell pulls of them all.”

“Grapefruit,” muttered Mug. “Prancing hornbill.”

Donchen laughed, wincing.

“The truth is, Mage, they overwhelmed me from the first. My own magical defenses failed. Almost as if they were anticipated. Troubling, that.”

“I thought your butterflies revealed all the Hang conspirators. Have they not been…?”

Meralda hesitated, searching for words.

“Tried? Executed? Boiled in oil?” Donchen shrugged. “Truly, Mage, I don’t know what, if any, actions have been taken against them. The machinations of the House of Chezin are often well beyond my understanding.”

I find that troubling, thought Meralda.

Donchen’s slate-grey eyes met Meralda’s. “I am pleased to see that your own arcane defenses proved more than adequate.”

Meralda remembered the thrill of power she felt while holding Nameless and Faceless.

“Many of the older artifacts here are quite powerful,” she said. The lie lay bitter on her lips. “The king will be livid when he gets the bill for the water mains.”

“A small price to pay, I think.”

Is that pain in his eyes?

“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” said Meralda.

“Quite the contrary. You came to mine. I was being throttled right below your feet, when you turned my assailant into a rather showy cloud of ash.” Donchen stood. “I do smell of an outhouse. Might I borrow yonder water closet, before Mug wakes and decides I am a compost heap?”

“I’ll have fresh clothes sent up,” said Meralda, wrinkling her nose. “I can send for some of your own, if you like.”

Donchen rose slowly from his chair, holding his ribs as he moved. “Actually, I’d prefer a guard uniform, if that’s not too much a slap in the face to Tirlish military tradition. Mail shirt, helmet, sword. Can that be done?”

Puzzled, Meralda shouted for Tervis, who came at a trot.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need a uniform,” said Meralda. “In Donchen’s size. With arms. Can you do that, quietly, without telling anyone why?”

Tervis grinned and straightened. “Right away! Straight sword or Argen curved?”

“Straight, please,” said Donchen. “And sharp. Very sharp.”

Chapter Seventeen

Donchen’s plain straight sword flashed as it fell. He stepped back with his right foot, pivoted, and when he stopped the tip of his sword was a finger’s breadth from Kervis’ throat.

“You simply draw your opponent’s blade to his right, and then you step, turn, stab,” said Donchen. He flicked his sword away and fell back into a defensive crouch. “Now you try.”

Kervis nodded and charged.

Tervis sat beside Meralda and mopped sweat, fresh from his own bout with the Hang. “He’s so fast,” he whispered. “Faster than Sergeant Smithy, that’s for sure.”

Meralda looked away from Donchen and Kervis and leaned back in her chair. He looks Tirlish, in that guardsman’s garb, she thought. Dashing, in fact, even with a black eye and a split lip.

“I’m sure he is,” she said.

Tervis nodded at Mug. “He looks better, ma’am. Not so wilted. Has he said anything yet?”

“Nothing that made sense. But he’s dreaming. Watch.”

Mug’s leaves shivered, and his eye stalks moved as if in a sudden puff of wind.

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it, ma’am?”

“I’d be far more worried if he was perfectly still.”

Tervis nodded.

“I like him. I’m going to miss seeing him, when the Accords are done.” The Bellringer’s face reddened. “We’ll miss seeing you too, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“Of course I don’t mind. I didn’t want bodyguards, you know. But I’ve quite enjoyed your company. Who knows? I might ask for a permanent deployment.”

Tervis lit up with a wide sudden smile.

“We’d like that, ma’am!”

“I’ll see to it, then. If your brother agrees, of course.”

“He will. We’ve, um, talked about it. Please don’t tell him I told you that.”

“I won’t.”

“Well, I’d better get back to practice,” said Tervis. “Thank you, Mage.”