Shadowplay

“I know you do not feel up to such a challenge yourself, Chert, but perhaps one of the Metamorphic Brothers? I am sure they have scholars among their number who could help me...”

The idea of the conservative Metamorphic Brothers agreeing to allow ancient Funderling wisdom to be translated into one of the big-folk tongues was preposterous enough; Chert didn’t even want to imagine asking them to help with the project. In any case, he had more important matters at hand. “Chaven, I...”

“I know, I’m supposed to be solving my own problems— those I have brought with me which have become your people’s problems now, too. I know.” He shook his head. “But it is so hard to ignore all this...”

“Chaven, will you listen to me?”

The physician looked up, surprised. “What is it, friend?”

“I have been trying to speak to you, but you will go on and on about these books. Something has happened, something...disturbing.”

“What? Nothing wrong with the boy Flint, I hope?” “No,” said Chert. There at least was one thing in the world to be grateful for: Flint still had not recovered his memories, but he seemed more ordinary after his session with Chaven’s mirrors. He paid attention now, and though he still spoke little, he at least took part in the life of the household. Opal was the happiest she had been in a month. “No, nothing like that. We’ve had a message from the castle.”

“So?”

“From Brother Okros. He asks the Funderlings’ help.”

Chaven’s eyes narrowed. “That traitor! What does he want?”

Chert handed the letter to the physician, who fumbled for his spectacles and found them at last in his pockets. He had to set down his copy of Bistrodos so he could put them on and read the letter.

“To the esteemed Elders of the Guild of Stone-Cutters, greetings!

From his honor Okros Dioketian, royal physician to Olin Alessandros, Prince Regent of Southmarch and the March Kingdoms, and to his mother Queen Anissa.”

Chaven almost dropped the letter in his fury. “The villain! And look, he puts his own name before the royal child and mother. Does he know nothing of humility?” It took him a moment until he was calm enough to read again.

“I request the help of your august Guild with a small matter of scholarship, but one which will nevertheless carry with it my gratitude and that of the Queen, guardian of the Prince Regent. Send to me in the castle any among you who is particularly learned in the craft of Mirrors, their making, their mending, and the study of their substance and properties.

“I thank you in advance for this aid. Please do not speak of it outside your Guild, for it is the Queen’s express wish it be kept secret, so as not to excite rumor among the ignorant, who have many superstitions about Mirrors and suchlike.”

“And here he’s signed it—oh, and a seal, too!” Chaven’s voice was icy with disgust. “He’s come high in the world.”

“But what do you think about it? What should we do?”

“Do? What we must, of course—send him someone. And it must be you, Chert.”

“But I know nothing about mirrors...!”

“You will know more when you read Bistrodos.” Chaven picked the book up again, then let it fall back on the tabletop—the heavy volume made a noise like a badlyshored corridor collapsing. “And I will help you learn to speak like a master of captromancy.”

This was so preposterous he did not even argue. “But why?”

“Because Okros Dioketian is trying to learn the secrets of my mirror—and you must find out what he plans.” Chaven had become unnaturally pale and intent. “You must do it, Chert. You alone I trust. In the hands of someone like Okros there is no telling what mischief that mirror could perform!”

Chert shook his head in dismay, although he did not doubt the task would indeed fall to him. He was already imagining Opal’s opinion of this latest outrage.

Despite Lisiya’s healing hands, Briony was still sore in many places, but she was much happier than she had been on her own. It was better by far to walk in company, and the miles of empty grassland, broken only by the occasional settlement, village, or even more infrequent market town, went much more easily than they would have otherwise. She spoke little, not wanting to risk her disguise, although on the second night Estir Makewell had sidled up to her at the campfire and quietly said, “I don’t blame you for traveling as a boy in these dire territories. But if you make any trouble for me or the troop, girl, I will snatch the hair out of your head—and I’ll beat you stupid, too.”

It was a strange sort of welcome from the only other female, but Briony hadn’t planned on the two of them being friends in any case.

So if she could stay with them until Syan, what then? She was grateful for their fellowship, but she couldn’t imagine any of the players could help her in Tessis. Besides Teodoros, the soft-spoken but sharp-eyed eminence of the group, the troop was named for Pedder Makewell, Estir’s brother, the actor who liked his wine (and, according to Teodoros, also handsome young men). Makewell’s Men had chosen him as their figurehead because he had a reputation for playing the great parts and playing them loudly and well. The groundlings loved Makewell, Teodoros had told her, for his bombast but also for his tragic deaths.

“His Xarpedon gasps out his life with an arrow in his heart,” Teodoros had said approvingly, “and although this mighty autarch has put half of Xand to the sword, the people weep to hear him whisper his last words.”

The playwright Nevin Hewney was at least as well known as Makewell, although not for his acting— Teodoros said Hewney was a middling player at best, indifferent to that craft except as a way of attracting the fairer sex. He was, however, infamous for his plays, especially those like The Terrible Conflagration that some called blasphemous. But no one called him an indifferent poet: even Briony had heard something of Hewney’s The Death of Karal, which the royal physician Chaven had often claimed almost redeemed playwrighting from its sordid and sensational crimes against language.

“When he found his poetic voice, Hewney burst upon the world like fireworks,” Finn Teodoros told her as they walked one morning while the man in question limped along ahead of them, cursing the effects of the previous night’s drinking. “I remember when first I saw The Eidolon of Devonis and realized that words spoken on a stage could open up a world never seen before. But he was young then. Strong spirits and his own foul temper have blunted his genius, and I must do most of the writing.” Teodoros shook his head. “A shame against the gods themselves, who seldom give such gifts, to see those gifts squandered.”

Makewell’s sister Estir was the group’s only female member, and although she did not play upon the stage she performed many other useful services as seamstress and costumer, and also collected the money at performances and serviced the accounting books. The giant Dowan Birch had the beetling brow and frown of some forest wild man, but was surprisingly kind and intelligent in his speech— Teodoros called him “a quaffing of gentlemanry decanted into a barrel rather than a bottle.” But for his size and looks, he seemed distinctly unfit to play the demons and monsters that were his lot. The other leading actor was the handsome young man Feival, who although he had ended his dalliances with Teodoros and Makewell years earlier was still youthful and pretty enough to treat them both like lovesick old men. He seemed not to take advantage of this except in small ways, and Briony decided she rather liked him: his edge of carelessness and his occasional snappishness reminded her a little of Barrick. “Your other name is Ulian,” she said to him as they walked beside the horses one day. “Does that mean you are from Ulos?”

“Only for as long as it took me to realize what a midden heap it was,” he said, laughing. “I notice you did not spend long sniffing the air of Southmarch, either.”

Briony was almost shocked. “I love Southmarch. I did not leave because I disliked it.”

“Why, then?”

She realized she was already wandering into territory she wished to avoid. “I was treated badly by someone. But you, how old were you? When you left Ulos, I mean.”

“Not more than ten, I suppose.” He frowned, thinking. “I have numbers, but not well. I think I have eighteen or nineteen years now, so that seems about right.”

“And you came to Southmarch and became an actor?” “Nothing so straightforward.” He grinned. “If you have