The Shadow Lantern

by Teresa Flavin

  Blaise winced as they turned to ash, but the double turned away from the fire with no expression on his face. He rolled the three magical paintings together and put them inside a long leather satchel.

  “You do not take your eyes from these three paintings,” Corvo’s double said, patting the satchel. “You want to steal them for yourself. You think they will teach you to have power over the stars and planets.”

  “No, we don’t want them! We are not Fausto Corvo’s enemies!” Sunni answered, her cheeks red. “No one can ever take those three paintings from him. They’re safe forever inside The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia. We have seen them there with our own eyes.”

  The double’s eyes flicked back and forth again as he thought, sending a strange chill down Blaise’s spine.

  “Perhaps.” He divided the rest of his paintings into two more satchels. In the last one he placed only a roll of unpainted canvas. “I do not know.”

  He walked around the workshop stuffing small items into a small bag across his chest: sticks of red, ochre and dark brown chalk, bits of parchment and tools.

  “Where is Fausto Corvo’s Oculus?” the double asked as he gathered things.

  “In Blackhope Tower,” said Blaise. “A man called Munro owns it now.”

  Corvo’s double stopped and poked the ashes on the glowing hearth. The light played on his dark shape as he turned to face them. “Then the Emperor does not have the shadow lantern. If his Majesty does not have it, he cannot come to this land.” He pointed mournfully at the long satchels of paintings. “And he will never learn where Fausto Corvo hid his three enchanted paintings for safekeeping.”

  “But Corvo has them!” Blaise said, at the edge of his seat. “And they are safe, even if the Emperor never got them.”

  The double began extinguishing lanterns and candles until the air was heavy with smoke and gloom.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet the Emperor,” Sunni said softly.

  Stony-faced, the double pulled on his cloak and a hat, fastening them securely. He whistled to the apprentices, who filed in wearing capes, hats and small bags across their chests. He strapped a long leather satchel on each boy’s back and then his own. Marin’s blank-faced double was given the last one with the empty canvas inside.

  His face half in shadow, Corvo’s double turned to extinguish the last candle. “Get up. We go now, before Soranzo comes,” he said to Sunni and Blaise, his hand touching the rapier’s hilt. “When we have gone, you will leave this shadowland and never return.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sunni.

  With a swift hand gesture the double sent everyone to the door and snuffed out the last candle. Outside he hastened them under arches and through gates until the dark streets opened onto quays. The moored ships twinkled with lamplight and sailors crawled over them, making ready to sail.

  Blaise walked close to Sunni and whispered, “Are you all right?”

  “Not really. We’re so far away from the Oculus’s light now.”

  He couldn’t think of anything that would make her feel better, because she was right. And he’d lost track of how many doorways and squares he’d counted.

  “Sir.” Blaise broke the silence. “How do we find the way out?”

  In a flat voice the double said, “You will be shown.” He pulled his hat low over his face and the apprentices did the same. When they reached one ship, he stopped and spoke to a man barking orders at sailors. Blaise noticed the ship’s name on its bow and was puzzled at the strange mix of letters that didn’t look like any language he’d seen before. The gobbledygook was divided into three words and he could make no sense of them:

  VYLNLUG LUVUHOM GUULN

  The seaman took a small pouch that Corvo’s double gave him and gestured to Zorzi, the youngest lookalike. The boy hung his head as the others wrapped an arm round him in a rapid goodbye. Zorzi trudged up the gangplank and they moved on.

  Dolphin watched them from the deck of a smaller ship after the double paid his passage to an unknown destination. The name of his vessel was as unintelligible as Zorzi’s:

  VYLNLUG LUVUHOM UJLCF

  Only Marin did not receive a fatherly embrace from the double. He stood expressionless in the light of a nearby lantern after Corvo gripped his upper arm hard for a second and then strode off. The eldest lookalike stalked onto his ship, whose odd name was also painted on the bow.

  VYLNLUG LUVUHOM GYC

  Corvo’s double made Blaise and Sunni walk along the darker edges of the docks, all the way to the furthest ship that had no name painted on its hull. As they stood in the shadows he said to them, “Leave this place now.”

  “We don’t know the way,” Sunni said.

  The black eyes stared. “The way will be shown. Go.”

  She glanced back at the dark contour of the city and sighed. “Okay. Thank you.”

  The double pulled his long satchel of paintings higher over his shoulder and turned towards the ship.

  “Goodbye,” said Blaise. He nodded at the satchel. “The enchanted paintings… they are safe. I swear.”

  The man’s palm opened briefly, revealing something flat and metallic before he closed his fingers over it. “If the Emperor does not have them, they are not safe. They are still waiting to be found.”

  Sunni and Blaise watched the double’s ship pull away, gliding into the lagoon with its lanterns still shining in the gathering dawn.

  “Why would he think the paintings are still out there somewhere?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t think – he’s just a clone with a script. And we weren’t part of his script so whatever we said didn’t compute,” said Blaise, quickly jotting down the odd names of the three apprentices’ ships in his sketchbook.

  “Maybe,” Sunni said slowly. “We saw the three paintings in Arcadia, but…”

  “But what?”

  “What if they’re just copies too, like the ones Corvo’s clone packed in his bag?”

  “You think that somehow the clone could be right?” he scoffed.

  “Well, he made out that Fausto Corvo hid the three paintings for the Emperor to find. And he put clues in these projections.”

  “Yeah, but we know the hiding place is inside The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia with the real Corvo,” said Blaise. “Right?”

  “I suppose,” said Sunni. “But if that’s true, the clone would know too, wouldn’t he? So why didn’t he recognise The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia and Blackhope Tower when I mentioned them?”

  “Oh.” Blaise frowned. “I see what you mean.”

  “The three magical paintings might still be lost, Blaise! And the clone says the answer is in these projections.”

  “But how do we find it if he won’t help us?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know.”

  They were not alone on the quay. From the corner of his eye Blaise saw Zago, watching the double’s departing vessel intently.

  “Stay still,” he hissed. “It’s that guy, Zago. The other one might be around too.” Alarmed, he scanned the docks, searching for the sallow man with the scarred eyebrow.

  “He hasn’t noticed us,” whispered Sunni.

  “Too busy watching Corvo’s clone.”

  As soon as the double’s ship was out of sight, Zago melted into the shadows.

  “I bet he’s heading off to report back to his boss,” whispered Blaise.

  “Let’s go after him.”

  They followed Zago through the jumble of narrow streets and squares, hiding beside bridges and ducking into doorways as early morning light lit up the city. As he crossed yet another piazza by a canal, Sunni said, “I recognise this place. I think I do, anyway. Venice is confusing.”

  Blaise’s heart leapt. “No, you’re right. I remember it too.”

  “Thank you, Zago!” she muttered as they darted after him. “If we get out of here, do you want to go into the other two slides? I mean, that’s what Corvo meant by shadowlands, right? The worlds inside the projections?”

>   “Yeah,” said Blaise. “And yeah.”

  “I thought you’d say that.”

  “I’ve got to find out if the clone is right about the three paintings,” he said, keeping a keen eye on Zago as he turned into a lane. “What about you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But how are we going to convince Munro to let us keep going?”

  Blaise thought for a moment. “Well, we’ll just have to say it again – we’re the only ones who can deal with Corvo’s magical worlds. I guess we’d have to tell him the basics of what we saw here. But I don’t think we should say too much.”

  “No.” Sunni peered into the lane Zago had followed. “Hey, he’s just turned the corner again. This is definitely the right way!”

  They raced to catch up, tailing Soranzo’s spy as he sauntered down the winding street that led to his master’s palatial house. Zago walked briskly between the two statues outside and stepped over a servant propped up asleep against the frame of the open door. Blaise held his breath as he and Sunni waited a few moments and did the same.

  The rooms were still and dim, and they could hear the slap-slap of Zago’s shoes climbing marble stairs.

  They tiptoed from room to room, alert for any sounds other than the echo of Zago’s steps. When they arrived at the base of the grand staircase, the torch next to the hunting tapestry burned brightly in the otherwise shadowy hall. They nearly skidded on the slick floor in their haste to stand in that light.

  As Sunni waved her arms up and down to get Munro’s attention, Blaise made a chopping motion that he hoped the spirit photographer would read as ‘cut the light’.

  “Why is this taking so long? Doesn’t he see us?” Sunni asked worriedly. “What if it’s morning there too and no one’s about?”

  “It can’t be,” he said. “Time hasn’t just flown in this world – it’s rocketed!”

  When the familiar pinpricks of light finally danced before Blaise’s eyes, he nearly let out a whoop. He allowed the strange sensations to overtake him and carry him back to the Mariner’s Chamber.

  He came to with Lexie’s whiskers brushing his face and Munro pointing at his pocket watch. “I said ten minutes and you’ve been gone fifteen!”

  Chapter 9

  “Blaise, stop pulling my hair,” said Sunni as she rolled over on the Mariner’s Chamber floor and struggled up to a sitting position. “Ouch!”

  Blaise stared at her. He was already on his feet and nowhere near her. “I didn’t touch your hair. It’s flying around by itself!”

  “Oh, no.” Sunni batted at the invisible fingers yanking locks of her hair with increasing ferocity. “It’s her again!”

  “The spirit’s being, uh, naughty,” said Munro with a frown. “She tried to put the Oculus’s flame out while you were in the projection. It’s a miracle it stayed lit long enough so I could see you when you got back from exploring.” He hurriedly pulled his goggles from a bag under the table and strapped them on. “It’s no use. This spirit doesn’t want to be seen.” He glanced down at his cat, languidly stretching and purring. “Even Lexie isn’t detecting her.”

  The invisible spirit pulled Sunni’s hair so hard her head jerked painfully to one side.

  “Help me get Sunni to a chair, Blaise.” Once she was seated, Munro said, “All right, Sunni. Try this. Take deep breaths and say to yourself, she cannot hurt me, she cannot hurt me….”

  “But she is hurting me!” Sunni huffed.

  Munro scanned the air around her head and said, “Spirit, you are clearly angry at Sunni, but she does not know why.”

  I do know actually, Sunni thought. Lady Ishbel couldn’t stand me when she was alive.

  “Spirit,” Munro went on in a soothing voice, “we need to understand what is making you so angry. We want to know what we can do to help put your soul to rest. Can you give us a sign?”

  The pulling stopped and Sunni gingerly rubbed her scalp. “Thank you, spirit.”

  Ahhh. A new whirlwind appeared, whipping round the Mariner’s Chamber, blowing everyone’s hair and whistling through the seats. It gathered force and circled The Mariner’s Return to Arcadia, shaking its frame so hard that Sunni was afraid it would fall off the wall.

  “The painting?” Munro called out. “Something about the painting, spirit?”

  Ahhhh! The frame stopped rattling and, as they watched, two invisible hands pressed so hard on the surface, that they made slight impressions in the canvas.

  “Spirit, I don’t understand,” Munro said.

  “Looks like she wants in,” said Blaise with a meaningful look at Sunni. “Literally.”

  The invisible hands pulled away and the Mariner’s Chamber was silent and still. Sunni and Blaise quickly examined the painting.

  “It’s all right,” said Blaise. “I don’t think she damaged it.”

  “Good. I think you hit on the answer, Blaise,” said Munro, giving them a searching look. “She wants to go inside the painting, like you did. That’s curious.”

  “I’d better not say this too loud,” Blaise replied, “but we all know nothing’s getting inside that painting again.”

  “Then she’s just going to keep torturing me,” said Sunni. Because I’m the one who dragged her out of her precious Arcadia.

  “By tomorrow she should be gone,” Munro said in a low voice. “Once Halloween is over.”

  “We can’t afford for her to mess us about today,” Sunni said. “It’s really important.” She took a deep breath and added, “We need to go into the next slide. Now.”

  “What?” Munro raked back his slightly ruffled hair. “I’m getting an explanation, right?”

  “Sure,” said Blaise. “The room Corvo painted in the first slide is in a recreation of Venice. And a clone of him is there – alive and moving around.”

  Munro beamed. “That’s amazing. Go on.”

  “The projection you saw on the wall just showed a tiny piece of the world Corvo recreated. The rest, which you couldn’t see, is called the shadowlands, like in the inscription,” said Blaise. “We watched Corvo’s clone and his apprentices pack up his paintings and run away from Venice on a ship. It was like a video diary, but we could talk to him.”

  “You talked to him – and saw his paintings?” Munro was incredulous. “All that in fifteen minutes?”

  “Yes, time moves incredibly fast in there,” said Sunni, crossing her fingers behind her back for what she was about to say. “And we have to explore the other two slides so we can tell his story to the world. Just us, no one else.”

  Munro’s face fell. “I can’t go into my own slides? What about the experts in Venice? They’ll definitely want to see all this.”

  Blaise put his hands up. “We’ll have to ask Corvo’s clone first.”

  “I’m sorry, but why should you be the only ones allowed in?” Munro asked. “It’s a bit odd.”

  “Not really,” said Blaise. “We’re the only ones who understand his magical worlds. We told him who we were and, you know, that we’re experts like you said…”

  Sunni jumped in. “Corvo thinks anyone who comes into the shadowlands is an enemy, trying to find out his secrets. But we seem to be okay.”

  “Yeah,” said Blaise. “He’s also got a very sharp sword and he almost used it on us. I’d hate to be a stranger in there…”

  “All right, I take your point,” said Munro, going over to the Oculus and easing the first slide out of its slot. He held up another with the numeral II etched onto the wooden frame and said, “Here’s Corvo’s second slide. I’ll want to know a lot more about it when you return.”

  Sunni gave him a subdued smile. “If the spirit lets us.”

  “Don’t you worry about her,” said Munro. “I’ll keep that flame lit if it’s the last thing I do.” When the second slide was securely in position, he added a bit of oil to the container and lit the wick.

  “Thanks,” said Blaise.

  Munro checked his pocket watch. “Let’s hope this visit doesn’t last much longer th
an the first one. I have another performance in forty-five minutes.”

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” said Sunni. “Just one thing. We definitely have to be where we started – and the Oculus’s flame has to go out at the same time – to be transported back.”

  “It seems that way,” said Munro. “I’ll be here watching and I’ll kill the flame the minute I see you.”

  When the Mariner’s Chamber was dark again, the projection of the second slide appeared. It showed an old wall, a rough patch of floor and part of a wooden chair. Sunni shut her eyes to face the Oculus’s light and within seconds her body tingled and waves of energy flowed through her. She was spun through time and space, disassembled and reassembled perfectly inside the second projection.

  Her nose was assaulted by indescribable smells, some sour and human, some made by the oily flames of candles she saw on the wooden tables all around her when she opened her eyes. Rank cloaks and moth-eaten fur hats were strewn around their outlandishly dressed owners who sat motionless on stools and crooked chairs in a cramped tavern. They were unlike any men she had ever seen before, even when she was inside Corvo’s painting the previous winter. Some were missing an eye; some had only one or two teeth in their heads. One wore a beard that was braided from chin to tip and flung over his shoulder while another wore a leather mask that covered the top half of his face.

  Sunni found herself leaning against the wall with Blaise beside her. And standing rigid by a nearby table was the figure of Fausto Corvo with his long satchel of paintings slung across his back, staring straight ahead.

  Blaise nodded quickly at Sunni and said in an even voice, “Greetings, Signor Corvo.”

  The figure stirred and bent into a low bow. “Welcome to this shadow-land, Your Imperial Majesty. It makes my heart glad that you are here. It means Your Majesty safely received the gift of Fausto Corvo’s Oculus and his glass paintings. Il Corvo wishes he could greet you himself but he had to flee and hide from the villain Soranzo who covets his secrets. I am il Corvo’s double, painted and brought to life by his own hand and the power of the heavens. For Your Majesty’s pleasure and knowledge, I will act out il Corvo’s arrival in your beloved home, Prague, in the winter of 1582. If you look carefully you will also find clues in the hunt for the three enchanted paintings he made for you.”