insisted on occupying seats higher than the Eryans, met Meralda with glares and exchanges of whispers.
Finally, she passed within a shout of Donchen. He waved to her, smiling, and she waved back before the press of the crowd behind her forced her to move on.
The Bellringers were seated at the bottommost rank of the king’s seats. Meralda continued on alone for another half-dozen rows, until she was seated a single rank below the king and queen themselves.
She looked out across the park and struggled to catch her breath.
Not a single patch of green grass showed anywhere. It was as if all five kingdoms of the Realms had somehow dispatched their entire citizenry to take up positions standing in the park.
Hats. A sea of hats. Half bore feathers, half showed flags. All shaded eager faces upturned toward the king.
The noise was deafening, as each of the spectators shouted above the others, until the whole of the park was filled with a growing, thunderous din.
Slowly, the stands filled, as the delegations from each of the Realms took their places. The Vonats stalked in last, their glowers and glares obvious.
Absent from their ranks was Humindorus Nam.
All the while, the shadow of the Tower swung slowly and inexorably over the stands. Mug read off the time at fifteen minute intervals, and Meralda felt her stomach tighten into knots as she realized her shadow moving spell, which was untested and hurried, would be seen by all the Realms in just a few moments.
The king began to leaf through the pages of his speech as the edge of the shadow fell across the podium.
“Mistress,” said Mug, his tone edged with fear. “Mistress. Oh no. mistress, Tower says someone is meddling with the tethers.”
Meralda’s heart froze as she fumbled for the speaking device.
“Tower. The old tethers or the new?”
Mug spoke in the background before answering. “The old ones, mistress. They’re doing the same thing you did. Trying to latch something to the flat.”
“From where? Inside?”
“Tower can’t tell. But no, not inside. From a distance, somehow.”
“Nam.”
“Probably. mistress. Tower says unless he’s stopped, you’ll need to attach your tethers in the next few minutes.”
Meralda stood. She saw the king eye her quizzically, saw a dozen guards tense and look her way.
“Nameless,” she whispered. “Faceless. To me.”
The staves fell into her hands. People about her gasped and stared.
“I’m off to move the shadow,” she shouted, with a smile. “Pray continue, Your Majesty.”
Yvin didn’t blink. “Tend to it, Mage,” he said. “Just as planned.”
Meralda nodded, and the staves lifted her up and whisked her away.
Wind howled in her ears. The robe of office flapped so hard it stung. The air grew cold and then damp and then dry again.
“I need to know where he is,” she said, to the staves. “Show me.”
Tirlin wheeled below her. Meralda extended her Sight, using secret spaces to enhance it, make it more subtle and sensitive than she’d ever dreamed possible.
The city shone below her, laced with magics, old and new. Most were simple household magics. Water was heated. Milk was cooled. Fires were kept from creeping out of hearths. Toys danced and moved.
Others were larger, more complex. Some filtered out the lifting gas for dirigibles. Some pumped water. Some kept lamp gas from leaking and burning.
But that one. That one, blazing a peculiar shade of green, sending tendrils of influence from a tiny basement room in east Tirlin toward the Tower. What was that?
Meralda flew toward the light, watching it solidify around the flat.
Saw it begin to bite into the tethers, one by one.
Meralda willed the staves down, and down they soared, hawk-quick, owl-silent. She saw a single face as she passed, mouth open in shock behind an apartment window, and then she was back on her feet, standing outside a weather-beaten door.
She extended a hint of power, and the door exploded, sending splinters flying in every direction.
Meralda stepped through the ruined doorframe.
Humindorus Nam glared back at her, his staff of bone glowing and hissing in his hands.
A mound of skulls sat atop a table before him. The skulls chanted, issuing dry whispers from between grinning, clacking jaws. Atop the heap of skulls a bright light played, and from that light led the strands of power that ravaged the tethers.
“Why?” asked Meralda. “What would drive you to do this, knowing the consequences?”
Nam spat. “They speak of peace,” he said. “Reconciliation. A joining with the Realms.” He shoved his staff of bone down deep into the light, where it smoked and screamed. “They would surrender. Surrender, to the likes of you.”
“We’re not asking for surrender. We’re not at war.”
Nam’s staff howled in agony. Meralda smelled the sudden stench of burnt hair and watched as blisters rose up on the man’s arms from the heat pouring off the light.
“We’ll be at war in a moment,” said Nam. “Let your shade’s curseworks fall. Let them burn away the weakness that chokes the heart of Vonath. Let them make us strong again, so we might ride forth and strike you all down!”
The man’s arms turned black and began to sizzle, and he shoved them harder against the light and laughed.
Meralda raised Nameless and Faceless. “Don’t make me do this,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you.”
Nam coughed blood, gripped a muttering skull, and raised it toward Meralda.
“I, on the other hand, don’t mind killing you at all,” said Fromarch.
The old wizard raised the Infinite Latch and shouted a word.
Meralda found the hidden place that slowed time. Even slowed, she was barely able to enclose Fromarch and herself in a sphere of safety, before the combined forces of what Fromarch would later claim were nine hundred and seventy industrial grade thermal spells reduced the tiny boarding house, the mound of skulls, and Humindorus Nam to a fine snow of ash that fell until the next rain finally washed it from the sky.
Meralda bore Fromarch and herself away from the lingering heat before returning to normal space.
The aging wizard blinked. “Still alive. Imagine that.”
Meralda glared. “What were you thinking?”
Fromarch shrugged. “I was thinking my hands are too old to care if they’ve got blood on them,” he said. “My gift to you, Mage Meralda. Now I’m well and truly retired. I see a pub.” He took a step away. “Don’t you have a shadow to move? A kingdom to save?”
“You are incorrigible.”
Fromarch waved, dropped the latch, and ambled away.
Meralda snatched up the latch. “Back to the stands,” she said, as Fromarch vanished inside a tavern. “Quickly.”
The staves caught her up, and the street and the tavern and the blossoming cloud of ash fell away below her.
The king didn’t blink as Meralda settled back into her seat. He merely nodded her way, as though flying mages were as commonplace as sparrows or rain in modern metropolitan Tirlin.
As her neighbors in the stands gaped and stared, Meralda smiled and brought the speaking device to her mouth.
“Tower isn’t sure what you did, mistress, but the interference has stopped.”
“The tethers?”
“Failing as we speak, mistress.” Mug paused. “Yours will have to replace them any moment now.”
“I understand. Tell Tower I am ready.”
