The Office of Shadow (19 page)

A week later, Jedron had Silverdun in his office, studying maps. Most were
maps of Faerie: city maps, diagrams of the movement patterns of Unseelie
cities, topographical maps. Others were of Mag Mell, the world of ten thou sand islands; Annwn, its vast lands almost unpopulated except for the one
great city called Blood of Arawn; the Nymaen world, mostly water, mapped
to an astonishing precision. Jedron, of course, expected him to memorize
every detail of every map and quizzed him throughout the evening, hurling
paperweights and books at him if he answered incorrectly. He seemed in an
especially surly temper tonight. Even Ilian seemed unsettled, which Silverdun couldn't remember ever having noticed before.

Finally Jedron bid him put the maps away. He poured them brandy from
the decanter and they shared a silent drink. When Silverdun finished, Ilian
appeared from the shadows and escorted him to his bedroom.

In his room, Silverdun began to feel strange. He knew this feeling. At
university, he'd taken a class on poisons. He'd dropped out of it after a week,
and never gotten credit for it. The reason he'd dropped it was that he'd accidentally ingested a potion called iglithbi. Not a poison, exactly-it was created for recreational purposes-but in a large enough dose easily lethal.
Odorless and tasteless, favored by careful thieves and rapists. If he'd been
stupid enough to accidentally sip it, he'd be stupid enough to accidentally
kill himself.

And now there was no question about it: He'd been drugged with
iglithbi. The effect was unmistakable. But how large a dose?

Silverdun's faculties began to abandon him. He thought wildly for the
composition of iglithbi, its organic ingredients and reitic bindings. And
there in his mind, amazingly, was the formula; one of the few things he'd
actually retained from his university days. He reached out with his Gift of
Elements, searching for the binding called Elesh-elen-tereth. It was easy to
locate using only the Gift, and easy to unbind. He found it, could sense its
particular color of re flowing through him. He reached out and pushed it with
his Gift, changing Elesh-elen-tereth into water and spiritus sylvestre.

Unfortunately, a good deal of the potion had already found its way into
Silverdun's mind. He was still awake-that was something-but unsteady.
The room seemed to breathe around him, the walls quavering.

Was Ilian truly a traitor? Had he done this? Or was this another of
Jedron's mean-spirited tests? Jedron had drunk from the same bottle of
brandy, true. But it was easily possible that Jedron possessed Elements as well.

Silverdun wanted badly to lie down and sleep. His bed, or what was left
of it, suddenly seemed like the most appealing place in all Faerie.

But he wouldn't allow himself the pleasure. Jedron's demonstration on
the Splintered Driftwood had affected him more deeply than he'd thought. If
Than had spiked the brandy, and if Jedron didn't possess Elements, then
Jedron could be dying in bed at this very moment, and Than doing whatever
treachery he had planned.

But still-the bed.

Silverdun heard a scream outside the window. Or thought he did. Time
and space seemed to plummet in random orbits. Silverdun stumbled to the
window and looked out. All was a blur. Down below there were flickering
lights, waving in the night. Torches. Fireflies. Witchlight. Embers.

He ran toward the door and missed, hitting the wall instead. He corrected and stole out of his bedroom into the passage. A few minutes later, he
stood at the main gate, peering out into the overcast, empty night. He wasn't
quite sure how he had navigated the stairs down to the floor level of the
castle. He knew he'd done it, but couldn't remember how.

The scream again. Silverdun plunged into the darkness. Out through the
main courtyard, down toward the rocks. A set of steps Silverdun hadn't seen
before. He took them down, down, toward the water's edge. At the bottom
of the steps was an expanse of stone, a circle of torches, a pit. Fire. A man tied
to a table, screaming. He looked up at Silverdun. A stranger. His face, filled
with fear, burned itself into Silverdun's mind. Out of the ring of fire another
face. I1ian. Ilian annoyed. A word of binding. Silence. Blackness.

Silverdun came awake again, his face pressed against the cold, wet steps. Wet
bruised chill of early morning. He tried to raise his head, and a dull sick pain
rocked him. Down in the stone clearing, I1ian lifted a blackened bundle out
of the pit. Charred sticks? No.

Bones.

Silverdun wanted to cry out to Ilian, but his tongue felt swollen in his
mouth. He couldn't form the words. But Than saw him anyway.

Than placed the bundle of sticks (bones) gently on the ground and
walked slowly up the steps.

"Your file didn't mention anything about you having studied potions,"
said Ilian. "That complicates things a bit, I'm afraid."

Silverdun summoned re, channeled it through his Gift of Elements, but
nothing came. The required concentration was beyond his grasp. Than lashed
out with his boot, knocking Silverdun's head against the stairs, and Silverdun
blacked out.

Spring term has just begun, and already Perrin is overloaded with schoolwork. He's been tested for Elements and Glamour and passed both with ease.
Wouldn't Father be livid if he chose to study Glamour at university! University is still two years away, though; it seems like forever.

Perrin walks through the old school garden, tucked between the library
and the upper dormitory, imagining life as a famed Glamourist. He would
live in a hovel in the city and smoke cigarettes and fashion glamours in a
studio during the day and drink wine and make love to dangerous women at
night. He would hide his noble heritage the way Rimaire had, only revealing
his lordship on his deathbed.

Perrin sits on a stone bench and looks around; the garden is deserted.
He's bought cigarettes from one of the school cooks and is working out how
to smoke them the way the men in the city do, with the wrist extended, tapping off the ash with a flick of the thumb.

There's a shout by the garden gate and Silverdun tosses the cigarette as
fast as he can into a camellia bush.

A boy comes running into the garden, smacking the gate hard against
the wall, the sound reverberating in the enclosed space. Hard behind him are
four other boys, chasing him.

The boy being chased runs toward Perrin and trips, falling down at
Perrin's feet. It's Bit, the son of a tea guildsman from the Western Valley. His
parents donated a fortune to the school to get him accepted, Perrin's been
told.

"Help," pleads Bir. Then the boys are on him. They're fifth years, all
tough boys, and Perrin has no interest in getting involved.

The leader of Bit's pursuers is Tremoin, the Baronet Dequasy, who is a
pompous ass and, Perrin notes with satisfaction, utterly useless at Glamour.
Tremoin gets Bir down on his back and straddles him, holding a fist up to strike.

"Go on, say it!" says Tremoin. "Just say it and I'll let you go."

"I won't," says Bir.

Tremoin looks up at Perrin, noticing him for the first time. "Oh, Perrin.
Lovely seeing you. Were you aware that Bir is not only common, but an Arcadian as well?"

A spike of fear plants itself in Silverdun's belly. "I was not aware of that,
no.

Bir struggles, but Tremoin is much larger than he is.

"As an experiment of sorts," Tremoin continues, "I've asked him to
openly deny his god to see if he's struck by lightning, thus demonstrating
whether Aba is a wrathful god or not."

"I take it he's refused," says Perrin, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Natural philosophy does not appear to be an interest of his," Tremoin
observes.

Perrin hopes that Bir will do the smart thing and deny Aba, but Bir has
chosen to be a martyr. He shouts, "I will not deny Aba, not for you, not for
the queen herself!" His voice echoes in the garden.

"A man of principle!" says Tremoin, pleased. "Boys, let's show Perrin
here what we do to men of principle."

After the spectacle is over, Perrin goes to the library and creates a casual
rampart of schoolbooks around him. He takes pen and paper from his bag and
writes his weekly letter.

"Dear Mother," he writes. "I watched a boy at school get beaten senseless
today because he refused to deny your god. But all is well, I suppose, as Aba
will no doubt forgive the boy that administered the beating, and Bir (this is
the boy who was beaten) will get his reward in Arcadia, when She Who Will
Come arrives clad in alabaster armor or satin robes or whatever it is she's to
arrive in.

"While this is all well and good, it no doubt comes as little comfort to Bir, who currently lies delirious in the infirmary. Or perhaps it comes as all
sorts of comfort. I must admit that I find it difficult to comprehend a god so
overflowing with love who yet stands idly by while one of his adherents is
getting his face smashed in.

"Please say hello to Father for me, if you ever see him, and to lana as well.
You are, I assume, still taking orders from the laundry maid, so be sure to
treat her with due respect when you pass along my salutations.

"I remain your devoted son."

He signs the letter and stuffs it quickly into an envelope, not reading it
over. He gathers his books, walks straight to the school office, and drops the
letter in the post box.

And immediately regrets it.

For the next week he goes through his classes filled with dread, imagining his mother receiving the letter, opening it, reading it. What will she
do? Will she take her own life out of grief and disappointment? Will she
come to the school and scold him in front of his friends? Will she simply
refuse to speak to him again?

She does none of these things. When her letter arrives, Perrin takes it
back to the garden and opens it with trembling hands. It reads,

"Dear Perrin,

"You may fear that I am upset with you for the tone of your recent correspondence, but I am not. I have placed a heavy burden on you, and for that
I apologize.

"Perhaps I should have done as so many other parents have and simply
raised you to fit in, passed along to you values typical to your class without
comment and let you grow to become whatever society would have you be.
If I had done so, however, it would have been a grave disservice to you. So
perhaps I withdraw my apology.

"You expressed in your letter some confusion as to why Aba stood by and
allowed that foolhardy young Arcadian to be hurt. Here is my response: Aba
created a beautiful, kind boy named Perrin and gave him strength and the
understanding to do what is right, and then He placed that boy exactly where
he needed to be in order to help your young Arcadian. I am not sure what
more you would have Him do.

"Who, then, stood by and did nothing?"

Perrin's face is hot and his eyes burn. With great effort he produces a
flicker of witchlight-his first and only mastery of Elements to date-and
burns the letter.

The next day Perrin learns that Bir has been dismissed from the academy.
He is called into the headmaster's office and is asked to sign a statement to
the effect that Bir is a deeply troubled boy and that he attacked Tremoin
without provocation. It will be best for everyone involved, the headmaster
tells him, if Perrin would agree with this interpretation of the story. Perrin
signs the statement gladly; the knowledge that Bir is gone fills him with
relief.