The Office of Shadow (17 page)

Timha lingered over breakfast, but it still ended too quickly. He made his
way down a twisting corridor to Master Valmin's chambers. The doors were
manned by a pair of armed guards who opened the door for Timha, waving a
deglamouring wand over him, relaxing their grips on their weapons only
when they determined that Timha was indeed Timha.

Valmin's office smelled of burnt tea, chalk, and bitter herbs. Valmin was
already at his desk when Timha entered. The room was filled with stacks and
stacks of books, most of which were unavailable to the general populace.
Some were proscribed by Mab, forbidden even to Master Valmin himself, and
the fact that these books were currently resting open in front of Valmin was
as good a sign as any that the Project was in deep trouble.

The walls and floor of the spacious chamber were surfaced in smooth
slate, installed by journeyer Elementalists who no doubt had been annoyed at
the task but had done an excellent job nonetheless. Nearly every free bit of
space on the walls was filled with arcane sigils, mathematical equations,
apothecarian symbols, and diagrams of the dance at the heart of the Project,
drawn in white chalk.

During the night, Timha noticed, Valmin had erased some of the equations relating to the stored energy bindings. For a moment Timha's heart rose
in hope, but then he realized that Valmin had simply replaced yesterday's
unworkable mathematics with those from the day before. Every light they
shone on some aspect of the Project seemed to cast some other part more
deeply into shadow.

"Good morning, journeyer," said Valmin, not looking up from his text.
This was the Red Book, so called from the color of its binding; books on the
Black Art were required to be nameless. Valmin had been spending more and
more time studying this particular volume. Was he on to something?

"Anything, master?" said Timha. His voice came out thin and reedy,
almost rasping.

Valmin looked up briefly from his book. "Trust me, Timha, if I have glad
tidings in the middle of the night I will drag you out of bed myself."

Timha suddenly felt like crying. How shameful would it be to burst into
tears in front of Master Valmin? The thought of it chilled Timha enough to
let the tears subside. But it wasn't fair! It wasn't fair!

The Project simply ought to have yielded up its secrets to them by now.
After all the work they'd put in, the long hours poring over the plans, the
detailed instructions, the philosophical notes that Hy Pezho had left. Every
separate part of the thing made sense, if an esoteric and abstract sense. But
when put together in the way described in the plans, the interaction of
alchemy, bindings, and the essence of the raw materials, the totality of it
became so complex that no one could hope to understand it all. It was simply
impossible for a Fae mind to hold together all at once.

Valmin and Timha had been forced to admit that Hy Pezho was a genius,
perhaps the greatest thaumaturge of his age, if these plans were to be
believed. But there was nothing in Hy Pezho's history that indicated where
he might have come across such knowledge. The son of the great Black Artist
Pezho, he had spent his early years wandering from city to city, squandering
his father's small fortune and giving the world no reason to afford him any
regard whatsoever. Then he'd disappeared for several years, and the next
thing anyone knew he'd become one of Mab's inner circle. And the next thing
anyone knew after that, he was gone, the mention of his name forbidden at court. His only legacy, as far as Timha knew, was the Project. The Einswrath.
Citykiller. But what a legacy it was. A thing of such elegance and power, such
might.

If only Hy Pezho were here to explain it.

"What can I do?" said Timha, dreading the answer.

Valmin looked up wearily. He waved at a stack of books on the table
opposite him. "The answer is in there somewhere," he sighed. "Find it."

Outside, the portal lock shimmered and choked out two tall, gaunt figures in
blue robes. The guards at the lock started at their sudden entrance, reached
for their swords, then dropped them when they recognized the robes.

The arch of the lock stood on a lonely rocky promontory connected to the
Secret City by a long, narrow bridge of chalky stone. All around was the
roiling, slithering sky. Guards for this posting were handpicked for their
ability to avoid looking upward.

One of the men had skin as pale as moonlight. The other was so dark that
his eyes seemed to glow from an empty void. The guards looked away. It was
not permitted to speak to Bel Zheret unless spoken to. And neither of them
had even the slightest desire to be spoken to.

The pale-skinned Bel Zheret was named Dog. His partner was Asp. Dog
and Asp strode toward the bridge arm in arm. They were in a fine temper.
They loved each other.

At the entrance to the city, the sentries likewise lowered their eyes and
their weapons to allow Dog and Asp to pass. The Bel Zheret flowed through
the entrance, robes sweeping across the stones in a most aesthetically pleasing
manner.

As soon as they'd turned the corner past the sentry booth, the sergeant
took a message sprite from its jar, gave it careful instructions, and then
released it. It flew with an urgency typically unknown among sprites.

Above, at the entrance to the research facility, the head guardsman
received the sprite and took its message. His eyes widened. He gave a hand
signal to the second-in-command, and she ran.

Bel Zheret were coming.

Dog and Asp went slowly up the steps to the converted palace where the
researchers worked on their project. They stepped deliberately, artfully. All of
life was art, viewed properly. Bel Zheret understood this instinctively. Aesthetics is the highest order of understanding.

The city was cold and dry. Its narrow, winding streets were deserted, had
been for centuries. It was spotless. Dog commented to Asp on it, and Asp
agreed that it was a pleasing sight. Satisfying.

At the top of the steps, the palace stood out against the sky. Dog and Asp
did not find the sky particularly pleasing, but then, no one did. Perhaps Mab
did? She must have, or she wouldn't have left it that way. The guardsmen on
the palace walk were standing at stiff attention, staring straight ahead.
They'd been warned that Bel Zheret were coming. This also pleased Dog and
Asp. Fear was appropriate.

Inside the palace, Dog and Asp both stopped briefly. The smell here, of
cooking, Fae sweat, traces of garbage and offal. Unpleasant.

Dog turned to one of the guards. "This palace has an unwholesome odor.
See to it." The guard turned and ran as fast as his legs would go.

They flowed into the common room, where flabby, sweaty, hairy research
thaumaturges and their assistants and servants acted as though they hadn't
spent the last five minutes in a frenzy of preparation, cleaning, hiding, or
destroying those things that Dog and Asp might object to. Again, appropriate. They were happy to go along with the farce. Another instinctive
habit. It is a privilege to be feared. Do not abuse that privilege.

Dog turned to the most cowardly smelling of all the cowards in the room.
"Where might I find Master Valmin?" he said, his voice smooth and precise.

The coward shook, but his voice was admirably strong. "Through there,"
he said, pointing. "Last door on the right."

Dog and Asp found Valmin and his journeyer Timha pretending to be
hard at work on their assignment.

"Welcome," said Valmin, offering no other pleasantries. He had dealt
with Bel Zheret in the past.

"Tell us," said Asp. It was economical; Valmin already knew why they
were there. Economy was important. Do the most with the least.

"Yes," said Valmin. He cleared his throat, holding out a prepared document in a leather binding. "Here is the complete report, of course." Asp took
the thing without looking at it, and it disappeared inside his robes.

"Summarize for us, won't you?" asked Dog.

"We have made significant progress with the casing system, and the containment fields. And we are very close to reaching a hypothesis about the
underlying mechanism."

"Very close?" said Dog, his voice still smooth as silk. "To a hypothesis?"

Asp chimed in. "In other words, you have built a pretty box. You still do
not understand what goes in the box, but nearly have an idea about one of
many ways in which it might possibly work."

Valmin said nothing.

Dog strode calmly toward Valmin and grabbed him by the wrist. To
Valmin this motion had happened nearly instantaneously; Bel Zheret experienced time rather differently than the typical Fae. Dog turned the wrist
slowly, pushing Valmin to the ground. From this position he could snap
Valmin's elbow backward, break his wrist, reach into the small of his back
with extended claws, or any of a hundred other things. But physically
harming Valmin was currently forbidden. Injured thaumaturges were not
productive thaumaturges.

"We will return in six months," said Dog. "If by then you have not produced a functioning Einswrath, the two of you will be killed."

"But ... one cannot rush the process of inquiry! It takes as long as it takes!"

"We understand," said Asp. "And if this particular inquiry takes longer
than six months, then you will die and we shall promote others into your
positions. I am simply alerting you to your time frame."

Dog released Valmin, and the old master fell to the floor, clutching his
arm in pain. The elderly were disgusting. Dog resisted the urge to wipe his
hands on his robes.

"Good-bye," said Asp. Without any further ado, Dog and Asp turned
and left the room.

They swept back through the common room and out of the palace. At
the palace entrance, Dog sniffed the air. He picked out the guard to whom
he'd spoken earlier about the odor.

"It still smells bad," he said. "Can't you smell it?"

Dog watched the guard's face carefully. He knew what the man was
thinking. Do I admit that I can't smell what the Bel Zheret smells, or do I agree
with him to please him?

Dog didn't wait for an answer. He held up two fingers. "Your nose must
require cleaning," he said. He grabbed the guard's neck and plunged the two
fingers into his nostrils, digging into the soft membranes there with his
fingernails.

"Perhaps there is some foreign matter encrusted within?" he said,
clawing up and down. Blood began to pour from the guard's nose. The guard
began to shriek. Musical!

"Maybe your sense of smell will improve now," said Dog, letting go.
"You write and let me know if that's the case, won't you?"

Dog smiled at the thought of the guard sitting down to compose the
letter. He couldn't wait to read it.

The guard fell to the ground, clutching his face. Blood dripped down his
fingers.

"All right, then," said Dog. "Have a lovely day."

As they walked toward the lock across the narrow stone bridge, they
locked arms again. "That was fun," said Asp.

Dog could only agree.

... after loud complaints from the House of Guilds, I was
asked to pen an official statement on the matter. It read,
in part,"The so-called Shadow Office does not exist, and
never has. The notion of a secret group of spies,
strangers to propriety, and invested with powers granted
by the Black Art, is repugnant to Her Majesty. It is a fantasy promulgated by seditious elements within the very
body who proposes that said office be expunged."

The statement was, of course, a lie. The Shadows
existed then, and exist to this day. One small portion of
the statement, however, is factual.The very notion of the
Shadows is indeed repugnant to the queen. This, however, has never stopped her from employing them.

-Cereyn Ethal, Autobiography (unexpurgated)

tudying with Master Jedron was like a cross between military training
and torture, using techniques of both disciplines in equal measure.
Jedron's idea of a training exercise was to have Silverdun practice the
crossbow for an hour, and then-with no warning whatsoever-release a half
dozen hunting dogs for him to fend off. Another "exercise" was to tie Silverdun's wrists and ankles together and then have Than throw him into the
ocean from the rocky cliff at the north side of the island. Jedron would then
casually toss knives off the cliff until Silverdun caught one and used it to free
himself.