"And then what?" asked Silverdun.
"And then it takes that essence, undifferentiates it, and sends it through a fold."
"To where?" asked Paet. "And why?"
"I can tell you where," said Ironfoot. "The directional mapping is there, though it'll take me a little while longer to pinpoint it.
"As to why? I haven't a clue. Perhaps the ancient Chthonics simply wanted a way to store up massive amounts of re to do the very thing with it that Hy Pezho did. I can't imagine what you might do with that much energy."
"What did Hy Pezho do with it?" asked Sela.
"Well, it turns out that the Einswrath, for all of its apparent complexity, is really quite simple. All it does is reverse the process. It creates a fold, draws that very same undifferentiated re out, and releases it. The difference is that this stored re is highly concentrated, and as soon as it's unfolded ..."
"Boom," said Sela.
"Exactly."
"So, knowing this," said Pact, "can you build one of your own? Can you create a means of defending against them?"
"Not in the next four days," said Ironfoot. "I don't know exactly how Hy Pezho pulled it off. But it doesn't matter. I think I may be able to do something just as good, if not better."
"What's that?" asked Pact.
"I can take us to wherever all that re is stored," said Ironfoot, "and channel it all off into the ether." He paused. "There's just one problem."
"Which is?" asked Silverdun.
"In order to get there, we need someone who is able to work this undifferentiated re. Someone who has the Thirteenth Gift. And the only Fae I've ever met that can do it is an old Arami woman out somewhere in the Unseelie, on the other side of a massive army."
"Actually," said Silverdun. "I may know of one other. A girl I once met."
Silverdun looked at Sela, who blanched and turned away.
"Where is this girl?" asked Pact.
"In Estacana, last time I checked."
Pact sighed. "Go get her. Now."
He looked at Ironfoot. "And while we're waiting for him to return, I've got a job for you."
The renewal of an old acquaintance is a gift both given and received.
-Fae proverb
he suite of the chief high councilor of Blood of Arawn was quite a step up from the magyster's office that Wenathn had held the first time Ironfoot had met him.
"Brenin Molmutius!" said Wenathn warmly, when Ironfoot was admitted into the office. Ironfoot was known in Annwn as Brenin Dunwallo Molmutius, the chieftain of one of the Mag Mell Isles. It required an elaborate glamour to pass as a Mag Mellian, but so far the disguise had worked just fine.
"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," said Ironfoot.
"Please, sit," said Wenathn. "What can I do for you?"
"That's an excellent question," said Ironfoot. "Quite a lot, really."
Ironfoot took an envelope from the hidden compartment in his satchel, closed with the seal of Lord Everess. "Read this," he said.
Wenathn broke the seal and read the letter inside.
"I don't know about this," he said.
"You knew there would be a price for our assistance," said Ironfoot. "That someday the bill would come due."
"But what you're asking," said Wenathn. "The repercussions."
"You've read the letter," said Ironfoot. "It's signed by Everess and carries his impress."
Wenathn smoothed the letter on his desk and reread it. "From what I'm told, Lord Everess's stamp may not be worth much in a few days."
"That's a chance you'll just have to take," said Ironfoot. "Though I imagine that if word got out about the means of your rise to power, your own stamp might not press paper soon either."
Wenathn nodded. He was no fool.
"You and I both know that there are many on your council who would back this in an instant, especially with the full, written support of the Seelie government."
"How long do I have to decide?" said Wenathn.
"I can stay at least until lunchtime," said Ironfoot, putting his feet up on the chief high councilor's desk.
Faella was on stage, alone, performing the final movement of "Twine" to a mostly empty house. The troupe had rebelled against her desire to present it earlier in the show, and it had been relegated to the dregs of the performance, the closing act performed after midnight, when most of the patrons had already left for the taverns or their beds.
It was a subtle piece, to be sure, and not what the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina was known for. Their audience wanted grand spectacles: ferocious battles, the machinations of kings, bawdy farces. These were what paid for the theater and the salaries of her employees and the outrageous Glamourists' Guild dues.
But "Twine" was dear to her heart, and she was determined to perform it. For the most part she'd taken herself out of the other pieces, much to the chagrin of the audience. The clashes of swords and noblemen and half-dressed bodies were fine as far as they went, but as time went on, Faella couldn't help but see them as any more than what they were: mirages, fantasies to pass the time. "Twine" was more than that, though she couldn't say what, exactly.
The dozens of red, gold, and orange strands whirled and spun in a ferocious ballet of longing and emotion until Faella, spent, wove them together into a bright braid of emotion and wound it around herself, where it exploded in a shower of sparks.
She bowed to scattered applause and left the stage, sweating. It was time for her to go.
Backstage, the mestines were removing makeup and costumes, lingering over bottles of cheap wine, laughing. She'd never felt more remote from them. It wasn't enough anymore. Nothing was ever enough.
She went to the theater office and went over the documents she'd prepared: assignment of title, bank slips, instructions. She was leaving the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina to the company as a whole. They would now be a self-owned collective. It could be a disaster, but she wouldn't be here to see it. She was moving on.
Over the past few months, her powers had only grown. She now found herself able to maneuver Elements and Motion, to work glamours of astonishing complexity, to do things that didn't seem to match any kind of Gift at all. To be honest, she wasn't sure what others meant by the Gifts. She'd only ever known Glamour, and had never thought of it as "channeling" some raw element through a thing. There was only the thought, the desire, and the deed. She'd always assumed she didn't understand because she had no formal training.
But as her abilities increased she'd begun reading more, sneaking into the university libraries and working her way painfully through textbooks. She was no scholar, and little of what she read made any sense. But there was nothing in her reading that shed any light on her strange new talents. In fact, everything that she'd read seemed to indicate that much of what she was doing was impossible.
She'd even gone so far as to seduce a professor of natural philosophy in order to pick his brain on the subject, but he'd been far more interested in her more mundane talents, and hadn't been any help at all.
And with each passing day, the certainty that she was wasting her life in Estacana grew. That feeling that she was meant for greatness never left her. In her most fanciful moments, she dreamed that she was destined to heal the whole world of Faerie, just as she'd healed Rieger's knife wound.
Whatever it was she was meant to be, it wasn't the owner of a middling mestina in Estacana. She'd already booked passage on the mail coach for the City Emerald in the morning. The City Emerald was the center of the Seelie Kingdom, where every decision of importance was made, and she would find a way to insinuate herself into its movements, just as she'd found a way to do everything else she'd ever done.
And yes, Silverdun was there. But that wasn't why.
There was a knock at the door of her office, and she quickly hid the papers under a blotter. She had no intention of saying good-bye. She intended to simply leave the packet of documents on the stage, with a bound glamour of herself, waving good-bye.
"Some
one waiting to see you in the lobby," said Rieger.
Since the incident in his room, when she'd healed him, Rieger hadn't been able to look her in the eye. Something inexplicable had happened to him that night. He was both grateful and at the same time clearly frightened of her now. They hadn't touched each other since that night.
Faella stood and adjusted her hair in the mirror. She'd deal with whoever was waiting in the lobby and then retire back to her office with a bottle of that cheap wine and finish signing the papers, wait for everyone to go home, and then stage her exit.
The lobby was nearly empty; a few stragglers stood at the door: couples prolonging their dates, lonely men and women with no place better to go. She couldn't see anyone who might be looking for her.
"`Twine' was most remarkable," said a voice behind her.
She turned, and there was Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun, new face and all. He was dressed not as a nobleman but as a merchant from the City Emerald, a hat pulled low over his forehead. He looked her in the eye and smiled wide.
"Lord Silverdun," she said evenly. "What a surprise." Her heart was bolting in her chest, threatening to break out of her and go running off down the avenue.
"It's good to see you again," he said. His voice was plain, honest, not at all vengeful or contemptuous. Either he'd forgiven her, or he was doing an excellent job of faking it.
"You as well," she said. Was her voice shaking? She prayed it wasn't.
"I need to speak with you," he said. He looked around the lobby. "In private, if we might. It's a matter of some importance."
A matter of some importance.
"Of course," she said. "Come with me." She led him through the lobby, behind the ticket counter, backstage, and into her office. He shut the door behind them.
"What is it that I can do for you?" she asked.
He reached out and took her by the shoulders, pulled her to him. He pressed himself up roughly against her, kissing her.
Oh.
All of her fantasies suddenly realized in a moment, Faella's head swam. She wasn't sure at first how her body was responding, her thoughts spinning so wildly that she almost forgot where she was.
But then she felt his hand on the small of her back, and it was clear that her body was responding just fine without her.
She leaned back on the desk, pushing the blotter out of the way, drawing him on top of her. As her carefully prepared documents fluttered to the floor, she considered simply leaving them there and letting the Bittersweet Wayward Mestina work it out on their own.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to find your way back to me," she breathed.
He stopped kissing her neck long enough to whisper, "I was wondering how long I could resist."
It is the rare man who is both foolish enough to make a stupid decision and at the same time wise enough to profit from it.
-Master Jedron
his had better work," said Everess. "By my reckoning, the invasion of the Unseelie begins any minute now, and we're making these Chthonics angrier by the minute, mucking around in their temple like this."
Four days had passed since Ironfoot's revelation. In that time, war preparations had been completed, troops massed at the border. Jem-Aleth, the Seelie ambassador, had been expelled from the City of Mab yesterday without comment. War had come.
Ironfoot stood on the altar of the Temple of Bound Althoin, carefully composing a set of bindings. The deconstructed cynosure was back in place, floating above the altar, but now it had been rebuilt with some crude additions: a few hard runes, a channeling glass. Several of the paperthin leaves that had once resided within the cynosure were now connected to it by lengths of silver thread, their surfaces etched by Silverdun's Elements with additional markings of Ironfoot's design. "I told you," said Ironfoot, not looking down. "The device is calibrated to work from this location only. If we try to use it somewhere else, we'll end up in the wrong place."
Royal Guardsmen had been posted at all the exits. Guide Throen had been furious when Ironfoot had walked out with his cynosure; now he was livid, having been ejected by the Royal Guard from his own temple. The Church elders were gathering nearby for a protest, and Everess had spent a good part of the morning trying to placate them, to no effect.
Sela and Paet sat in a pew, watching Ironfoot. Sela was nervous; she could feel the tension in the room, and could also sense with Empathy the resonances of old emotions in this space. Strong emotions. Fervent ones.
"I wish Silverdun would get here soon," said Paet. "We've been going out of our way to offend every religious order in Faerie this week, and I'd like to get this operation settled before we're damned to any number of various hells."
"He'll be here," said Sela. "I can feel him."
"He'd better be." Paet stood up. "How much longer?" he said to Ironfoot. His voice rang out in the wide space of the sanctuary.
"Not much longer," said Ironfoot. "But as long as it takes. I assume you'd prefer that we survive this experiment?"
Paet harrumphed, but sat back down without speaking.
Sela watched Ironfoot. He was handsome enough, clever, intelligent. Why couldn't she have fallen in love with him instead? He had his own complications, certainly, but she could happily have overlooked them.
Then again, there was a reason she'd been taken with Silverdun. As much as she hated to admit it, she could never have fallen for Ironfoot. He wasn't hard enough. At Silverdun's core was something dark and bitterly tough, and that was what drew her.
As if her thoughts of him had summoned him, Silverdun appeared at the entrance to the sanctuary, a young woman on his arm. Faella.
She was pretty, but not as pretty as Sela. She was young, too, barely out of her teens. She took in the sanctuary with a glance, her face haughty, her eyes fierce. She was used to having all eyes on her. Sela despised her instantly. She could have happily murdered her right there and then. She knew plenty of ways to do it.
For an instant Faella's eyes met hers, and she sensed that Faella knew exactly who she was, and exactly how she felt about Silverdun. Sela consciously avoided creating a thread with her. She had no desire to feel what this girl was feeling.
Faella smiled at her. Oh, how Sela wanted her dead.
"You must be Faella," said Ironfoot, bowing slightly in her direction. "Silverdun believes that you can help us with this. Is he right?"
Faella strode almost regally down the aisle, her gold-embroidered skirt brushing the carpet. "I'm certain that Lord Silverdun has overestimated my capacities," she said. "But I have a great power and I will do my best."
What horse dung. Great power, indeed. Insecure little girl. Sela couldn't help it; she reached out and let the thread form. It sprung up, perfectly white. Sela was baffled. She'd never seen a white thread before. She didn't know what it meant. Examining it more closely in her perceptions, though, she realized that this thread was actually many threads, of all colors intertwined. Only when she examined it from a distance did it appear white.
Who was this woman?
Her emotions, as she strode toward Silverdun, eased into Sela, and Sela saw something she couldn't believe. This haughty woman, this young ingenue, believed every word she said. Faella really did believe herself to be great, but believed it with a purity that astonished Sela. Not insecurity; quite the opposite. Utter confidence.
Faella stopped halfway down the aisle and looked at Sela. A small smile spread across her face. "Not what you expected?" she said. Embarrassed, Sela looked away.
Silverdun looked to Faella, then to Sela, and cringed visibly. Clearly a fear of his was being realized. So much the better.
Sela needed to stop being petty. There was work to do here.
"Lord Silverdun explained some of what needs to be done," said Faella, "but he left the technical details to you, Master Falores."
"Ironfoot will be fine, miss."
"As you wish."
Ironfoot began to explain the workings of his plan to Faella. She asked a num
ber of questions, urging Ironfoot to put the more esoteric details into terms she could grasp.
"I must say," she finally said, frowning, "I'm not sure I quite understand."
Sela bit her lip. "Perhaps I can help," she said.
Midwinter 02: The Office of Shadow Page 40
