The Office of Shadow

by Matthew Sturges

  There were message sprites lined up against the office window, bored out of their little minds, all of them clamoring to be the first to deliver its message and disappear. He took them all in turn, scribbling little notes to himself. A dinner invitation from a love-struck female colleague; a meeting request from the dean that could certainly wait. And a simple message from Lord Everess.

  "He says he wants you to come over to his office and talk and so on and so forth," said Everess's sprite.

  Ironfoot took the tiny creature in hand and said, "Maybe you could just tell him I'm busy."

  The sprite's face took on an air of abused hospitality. "Well, he's not going to be too pleased with that, I can tell you. He's a lord, you know. Very fancy. He wears a hat and smokes a pipe. I don't see you with a hat or a pipe, so I guess he wins. Ha!"

  Ironfoot had a soft spot for message sprites, though he wasn't quite sure why.

  "You think so?" he asked. "You think I don't have a pipe and a hat around here someplace?"

  The sprite sniffed. "I know you don't because yesterday I got really bored and I rifled through all of your stuff."

  "Clever sprite."

  "You think so? You really think so? Because nobody else thinks so, that's for sure. Do you have any roast beef?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "I like roast beef. I like the smell of it, and I like people who like it. But I can't eat it myself because sprites are herbivores, and it's the greatest tragedy of my life except for when my family died that time."

  "Sorry," said Ironfoot. "No roast beef."

  "Darn," said the sprite.

  "Go on," said Ironfoot. "Send back my message. I think I have some parsley somewhere around here. You can have that."

  "Uh, yeah, funny thing about that parsley," said the sprite, flitting up toward the open window. "Remember what I said about rifling through your stuff.?

  Ironfoot had done every errand he could think of, returned every message, even cleaned his apartments and straightened the papers in his office. What was he trying to avoid? He'd been so impatient to get back to the city, and now that he was here, he couldn't stop stalling.

  The map loomed from the corner of his office. It was rolled up and stored in a tube that was taller than he was, sealed with his own university signet. It called to him, and part of him wanted to answer it, but part of him wanted to set fire to it.

  Why? Was this guilt? Was he worried about working on a weapon, about providing the key to re-creating the thing? He didn't think so, to be honest. As much as it might bother him intellectually, it didn't spur this gut reaction. Was it the eeriness of it, the smell of death and tar and gray dust that seemed to emanate from it, even though it produced no actual scent? No, that wasn't it, either.

  He knew what it was, but couldn't admit it.

  The next morning he awoke early, poured a strong cup of coffee, and forced himself to face the map. He unrolled it in the small parlor of his apartments, where it took up the entire floor, requiring him to lug the settee into the kitchen. He had the final measurements from the intensity gauges stacked neatly on a small stool next to his mug. He took quill and ruler in hand, and began working.

  Once the data were entered, there were calculations to be done. These he did on lined sheets of linen paper that he ordered specially from the campus stationery. With each result, a new line appeared on the map. A web was emerging, a pattern. That was good. But still, that unsettling feeling would not leave him. The feeling was linked to that tar smell that he couldn't quite place, the memory it spurred that he could not recall. As the pattern grew, so did the feeling of dread inside him.

  When he next looked up, the clock on the mantel read after midnight. The fire had died down in the fireplace, and he realized that he was cold. He stoked the fire, poured himself a whiskey, and went back to work.

  He finished the formulaic interpolations around dawn. He'd lost count of the pots of coffee he'd drunk, now measured only in the level of queasiness in his stomach and the frequency with which he'd had to visit the privy. The web was complete, more or less. Some of the data had been lost. Some of the measurements, he was certain, had been faked. One region in particular was a total loss, the readings totally inconsistent with any of the others. It had been handled by the son of a lord whose father had pressed him into the assignment believing that it would reinforce the boy's character. Ironfoot could have told him that there was nothing there to reinforce.

  Regardless, what he had was enough, and now the work could begin in earnest. He copied the pattern from the map onto a new sheet of linen paper-large, but not so big as the original map. Only the pattern remained, with detailed figures noting the invocative spectra, the normalization factors. The web stood in front of him, begging to be understood. It was a pattern, yes, but what did it mean? In his imagination about this moment, he'd assumed that the answer would leap out at him at this point. These exact physical components. This precise juggling of Elements, Motion, and Poise, and perhaps any four other Gifts that he could theorize being involved. He was damn clever. It should all have been there, leaping out at him. But it wasn't. The pattern implied nothing. The pattern meant nothing. It was only itself. It suggested things, certainly, but only impossibilities.

  Ironfoot awoke. It was late afternoon. He'd fallen asleep at some point, still contemplating the pattern, still frustrated. He opened the shades and let the (morning? afternoon?) sun illuminate the pattern. Still nothing. He stood it upside down. Nothing. He held it up to the window, viewing the pattern through the back of the page. Still nothing.

  It gnawed at him, this sensation that the key to its mystery was just outside his grasp. The Einswrath was an explosive-there had to be an Elements component to it. It was a delayed reaction, so it had to use the Gift of Binding as well. But what components? Which bindings? There was no binding ever created to hold in that amount of Elemental force, and no way to trigger it from such a distance. So what, then? It was right there in front of him. So why couldn't he see it?

  The dread inside had grown into a fever. This was what he'd truly been afraid of. This was the source of the dread that had been welling up inside him ever since he'd returned to Queensbridge.

  He had the pattern complete in front of him.

  And he didn't understand it.

  He turned toward the wall and lashed out with his fist, making a strangely satisfying crack in the plaster, though the pain that followed wasn't worth it. Raw failure sunk into him like a stone through mud.

  You can do better than this, came the voice from inside.

  He was disturbed from his misery by a message sprite tapping at the window. It looked familiar.

  "Hey, handsome! Open up!" the thing shouted.

  He tried to ignore it, but it just kept rapping on the windowpane, calling, then shouting, then howling expletives. He pulled himself out of the chair and shuffled across the room, stepping on the map and not caring. He opened the window, and the sprite flew in and alit on the edge of the chair in which he'd been sitting.

  "What do you want?" he said.

  "Wow, it took you long enough," said the sprite, sticking its tongue out for emphasis. "What are you, deaf or something? You weren't deaf last time. Did you stand too near something really loud? Because that can happen sometimes."

  Ironfoot stared at the sprite, all of his fondness for it having evaporated in his desolation.

  "I have feelings too, you know!" said the sprite, stamping its foot soundlessly. "Of course, my feelings are quite shallow, and can easily be repaired with a yummy stalk of parsley, or better yet ..." The sprite paused, rubbing its tiny hands together. "Celery!"

  "Enough already!" Ironfoot shouted, stunned at the anger in his voice. The sprite fell backward, swore loudly, then flitted up again, raising its head gingerly above the back of the chair.

  "Wow, you sure got mean."

  "I'm sorry," said Ironfoot, trying to be patient. "I've had a hard day. What's your message?"

  "Lord Evere
ss replies that he's extra-sad you won't come see him. Except he said it in a less nice way."

  The sprite thought for a moment, tapping its finger on its forehead. "There was something else, too. Something important. Let's see. Lord Everess ... extra sad and so on ... celery ..."

  It snapped its tiny fingers. "Oh, yeah! He wants to know if you're done with your map-thingy yet. He was just blah blah blah about that map."

  "I see," said Ironfoot. "Thank you."

  "Oh, happy day, you like me again!" it said, looking at him with a loopy grin. "You want to be my boyfriend? I realize that there's a serious size difference that could present some interesting physical challenges, but I'm willing to work through it if you are."

  Ironfoot sighed. Maybe this was what he liked about message sprites: their absurdity. Nothing could ever truly upset them because they had no real feelings to begin with.

  The sprite flew up and wrapped its arms around his finger. "I want to have your big fat Elvish babies!" it cried theatrically.

  "Tell Everess I'll come and see him tomorrow," he said.

  "Okay! This is the best day ever!" shouted the sprite, and it zipped out of the window.

  The city is old, older than anyone knows or suspects, save its ruler. There are myriad tales of the founding of the Seelie Kingdom and the birth of the City Emerald. Some are religious explanations; some are histories cobbled together by scholars based on the evidence of stones and documents so ancient that to expose them to light is to destroy them. Still others are the writings of retrocognitives, though even they will admit that theirs is an art rather than a science.

  There is the official history, of course, taught to schoolchildren, that Regina Titania caused the ground to be leveled and the stones of the Great Seelie Keep to rise into place during the Rauane Envedun-e, the Age of Purest Silver. Like most legends of the Rauane, however, the story is often told with a wink, and the queen's official biographers parrot it with a telling blandness.

  The city's original name was Car-na-una, which in Thule Fae meant "the first true thing," or perhaps "the basis of reality," and whatever the origin of the name, it is evocative of the feeling that the city often arouses in visitors; there is a weight, a feeling of solidity and eternity that resonates in the stones and in the art of their arrangement.

  The poet Wa'on remarked in his journals that "it is not the city itself that provokes this emotion, this unconscious awe. Rather, it appears as if it is something beneath the city, a deeper truth upon which it was built.The City Emerald is ancient, yes, but what lies beneath it is older still. Something older than Fae, older than words or memories. A giant that slumbers, while the city and its inhabitants crawl across its massive frame like fleas on a dog, each unaware of the others' presence. As I passed through the gates I had a sudden fear that the leviathan might awake and stretch its limbs and I would be crushed. By the morning, however, the feeling was gone, and I would not have remembered it save that I had noted it in the margin of a book."

  The City Emerald has a reputation as the most beautiful city in the Seelie Kingdom and perhaps in the entire world of Faerie. Even its most ardent admirers, however, have sometimes felt a momentary chill within its walls, sensing the presence of something just outside the edge of perception; something too large to be real; something that has already swallowed them whole.

  -Stil-Eret,''Unpopular Reflections on the Capital," from Travels at Home and Abroad

  he Evergreen Club was the most exclusive in the City Emerald. As a Seelie lord, Silverdun was granted a lifetime membership, and had spent a considerable amount of time here during his all-too-brief years as a carefree young noble.

  A quiet servant met him at the entrance and guided him down a hallway of polished mahogany paneling that glinted in the light of perfectly tuned witchlamps in silver sconces. They passed through the main dining room, a sea of white tablecloths and expensive clothing and aristocratic half-smiles. Heads rose as he passed, but few of the diners recognized him, and even these looked away, uninterested. Before his imprisonment at Crere Sulace, before his long journey with Mauritane, before his disfigurement at the hand of Faella, they would all have known him, the ladies especially. But those days were gone.

  As always, thoughts of Faella haunted him. Despite what she'd done to his face, he could not blame her, or be angry with her. He'd deserved it. And if not for breaking off their brief affair, then for any number of similar insensitivities in his checkered past.

  The servant stopped at the entrance to a private dining room, where Lord Everess sat with a man Silverdun recognized as Baron Glennet, who held one of the highest posts in the House of Lords, and an elderly woman he didn't recognize. They were sipping on a floral broth that smelled wonderful.

  Everess and Glennet rose when Silverdun entered, and the woman nodded. Her sash identified her as a guildmistress.

  "Am I late?" asked Silverdun.

  "Not at all," said Everess, pumping his hand. "Right on time!"

  Silverdun bowed. "Baron Glennet I know by reputation, but I'm afraid the guildmistress and I haven't had the pleasure."

  "Of course," said Everess. "Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun, may I introduce Guildmistress Heron, our illustrious secretary of states."

  "I hardly think myself illustrious," said Heron. "The foreign minister exaggerates, as is his wont." She was elderly, just this side of ancient, but her eyes shone with intelligence. She cast a slight disapproving glance at Everess, who did not miss it. Silverdun liked her already.

  "Come, Silverdun, sit," said Glennet. "We've much to discuss!" Glennet had a long reputation as a conciliator; he'd engineered any number of compromises within the House of Lords, and between the House of Lords and the House of Guilds, two bodies that could scarcely agree on the time of day, let alone governance. He too was old, but his exuberance gave him a semblance of youth.

  "I'm afraid my conversational skills have atrophied in recent months," said Silverdun, sitting. A waiter noiselessly placed a bowl of broth in front of him.

  "Ah, yes," said Glennet. "The aristocrat monk! I'm pleased we were able to steal you from your contemplation for dinner."

  "It would appear that monastic life does not suit me," said Silverdun, a bit embarrassed and trying not to show it.

  "Well, you are to be commended for attempting such an ... unusual path," said Heron. "But I believe that the wider roads are wider for a reason, if you take my meaning."

  "Of course," said Silverdun, taking her meaning and liking her somewhat less as a result.

  "I'm just glad Baron Glennet was able to pull himself away from the card table in order to join us," said Heron.

  Glennet's easy smile faltered. "We all have our little sins, Guildmistress." Not "Secretary."

  Secretary Heron was about to comment further when waiters appeared, removing the broth and replacing it with roasted quail, in a sauce of raisins and bee pollen and a liquor Silverdun couldn't identify. He took a slow bite and waited for someone to tell him what the point of this dinner was. Not a social gathering, to be sure, as Everess and Heron clearly disliked one another.

  Glennet dabbed at his chin as though it were a fine art. "Secretary Heron," he asked, "what news have we of Jem-Aleth? Has his social life improved at all?"

  "No," Heron said primly. "Our beloved ambassador to Mab continues to be politely tolerated at court, mostly ignored, and never invited to state dinners. Or teas. Or children's spinet recitals."

  "He told me that a city praetor invited him to a mestina once," said Everess, "but it was one of the bawdy type and he left ten minutes in."

  "Yes," said Secretary Heron, rolling her eyes, "but what Jem-Aleth didn't tell you is the that only reason Praetor Ma-Pikyra invited him in the first place was that he'd confused him with somebody else."

  Silverdun watched the back-and-forth, mildly interested in the idle chatter, but his thoughts were more concerned with the reason for his own presence here. "I knew Jem-Aleth in school," he said, reminding them that he wa
s still in the room. "Nobody liked him then, either. The reason for the Unseelie cold shoulder may be personal as well as political."

  "Quite the contrary," Everess said, unable to allow Silverdun to have useful information that had not come from him. "Before last year's Battle of Sylvan chilled our relations with our Unseelie neighbors substantially, JemAleth was quite well liked in the City of Mab. Though whether that's a com pliment to Jem-Aleth or an insult to the Unseelie, I can't say." He chuckled, looked around for an answering chuckle, got none, and plowed ahead. "Regardless, we've received not a whit of useful information from him in a year. He sends his dispatch each week, filled with scraps of information culled from publicans, maids, and would-be courtiers and sycophants, but even if there were anything useful buried in them, we have no method of responding to them in ... useful ways."

  Everess shot a glance at Silverdun and narrowed his eyes, smiling at Silverdun as though he were a prize pupil. "And there could not be a more urgent time to follow up, I fear. Don't you agree, Silverdun?"

  All eyes turned to Silverdun. He flashed his trademark charming smile, but he found Everess's look discomfiting. What was Everess getting him in to?

  "I've been indisposed, Lord Everess," he said after a long sip of wine. "Perhaps you'd care to educate me."

  Everess sighed, annoyed.

  "You are aware, perhaps, that the Seelie Kingdom was nearly dragged into a full-scale war with Mab last year. You were there when it happened, after all."

  "I seem to recall, yes."

  "And you recall further that during the course of that altercation, the Unseelie unleashed a weapon so powerful that it destroyed the entire city of Selafae in a single blast?"

  Silverdun's smirk faded a bit. "Yes. I remember that as well. The Einswrath, I believe they call it?"

  "Yes," said Secretary Heron, scowling. "After the Chthonic god of war. Most unseemly."