House of Shadows

by Rachel Neumeier

  Enelle hesitated. “Do you think we should—”

  “Of course,” said Nemienne. She caught her sister’s hand and stepped into the gray stone house after the cat. Stepping through the door was like stepping into the mountain itself: There was a sense of looming weight overhead. Unable to decide whether she found the unexpected presence of the mage’s house oppressive or simply interesting, Nemienne almost hesitated herself. But if she retreated now, she suspected that she’d never get Enelle back inside this house. And if they paused for long here on the threshold, the cat would get too far ahead for them to see even its white foot.

  The hallway did indeed run back a disconcerting distance before opening onto a landing. A stair came up from the left, turned on the landing, and went on up to the right. They passed no doors or windows along the length of the hall, only the occasional lantern hanging on a chain. The cat was just vanishing up the right-hand stair as they reached its foot.

  “I hate this house!” Enelle whispered vehemently, staring into the bottomless shadows down the stair to the left. She glanced up the other way, after the cat, and shuddered. The tremor was too slight to see, but Nemienne felt it through their joined hands.

  “It could be more cheerful,” Nemienne conceded.

  “We could go back,” Enelle suggested, but not as though she expected her sister to agree. However reluctantly, she let Nemienne draw her forward and up the stairs.

  There was a door ajar at the top of the stairs, friendly yellow light pouring through it to pool on the higher landing. Enelle let her breath out and went forward eagerly, so that this time it was Nemienne who followed her sister. The door was heavy but well-balanced. It swung wide easily at the touch of Enelle’s hand.

  The room behind the door was wide and warm, filled with light from lanterns and four generous windows on its far side. The windows did not look out into the Lane of Shadows but rather over the mountain heights. Nemienne, fascinated, went to the nearest and put her hands on the sill, standing on her toes to peer out. Cold struck, knife sharp, through the glass of the window. Mist blew across the jagged peaks, veiling and unveiling gray stone streaked with ice. Nemienne could almost discern the unfolding wing of a great insubstantial dragon in the shifting of the mist. Sunlight glinting from the ice was like the opening of a crystalline eye.

  Enelle crossed the room and put a hand nervously on Nemienne’s, as unhappy with the strange sharp beauty of the mountain heights as Nemienne was drawn to it. Her hand trembled. Nemienne put an arm around her sister, turning away from the windows. Indeed, once her attention had been pulled from the heights, she found herself looking with real fascination around the room in which they had found themselves.

  An enormous table stood, surrounded by mismatched chairs, before an even more enormous fireplace that took up almost the entire wall behind it. The fire that burned in that fireplace occupied only a small area in the center, but it was intensely hot and very fragrant. Nemienne wondered what kind of wood the mage might be burning.

  The entire surface of the table was cluttered with glass jars, piles of loose papers, angular metal objects that Nemienne thought might be a geometer’s tools, and a tall stack of books that seemed likely at any moment to slide down and crush a spun-glass confection of no obvious purpose. A much smaller and neater writing desk sat to one side of the fireplace, its tall-backed chair pulled out and turned as though inviting somebody to sit down in it. At the moment, the cat was sitting in that chair. No one else was in the room. The cat groomed its shoulder, ignoring the girls.

  Enelle let out a breath and gazed around with interest, looking much happier in the warmth and light. “Isn’t this just exactly the workroom of a mage?” she said in a low voice to Nemienne. “What do you suppose that glass thing on the table is for?”

  Both the comment and the question were so precisely what Nemienne had been thinking that she blinked and so missed the exact instant Mage Ankennes entered the room.

  The mage was a broad man with powerful shoulders; he looked at first glance more like a man accustomed to earn his bread with the strength of his body than with his magecraft. But a second look found that his face was carved with lines of discipline and silence, and his slate-gray eyes were as secretive as the windows of his house. He looked at Enelle and Nemienne curiously, as he might have looked at two odd, foreign insects that had inexplicably turned up in his workroom, and Nemienne felt a shiver of disquiet run down her spine and lift the fine hairs on the back of her neck. She leaned closer to her sister, and Enelle simultaneously leaned toward her, so that their shoulders touched.

  Then Ankennes smiled, and immediately the impression of chilly secretiveness vanished. His eyes met Nemienne’s, and if the curiosity in them sharpened, this was offset by the warmth of his smile. He said courteously, in a deep smooth voice, “May I hope for the opportunity to serve you?”

  “I—” said Enelle, with some confusion. “We—”

  “The Mother of Cloisonné House suggested we might come to you,” said Nemienne, quickly, to cover her sister’s distress.

  “Charming Narienneh!” said the mage. And added, his eyes still on Nemienne’s, “Clever Narienneh. Yes, I can well believe she might. By all means, please sit. Will you have tea?” At the table, two of the chairs slid back, turning invitingly, and hot tea poured itself out of the air into a pair of heavy white porcelain mugs that had suddenly appeared amidst the clutter.

  “I believe I may guess what has brought you young women to my house,” said Ankennes, pulling a steaming mug out of the air for himself and dropping heavily into the biggest chair at the table. The cat leaped lightly down from its chair, wove its way among table and chair legs, and jumped up on the table to sit at his elbow. The mage made room for it absently, shoving jars out of the way. He said, “But you had better tell me, eh?”

  Enelle sat down gingerly in a chair, mindful of a stack of papers weighted with a jar of round red marbles close by her left elbow. Nemienne took the other chair and breathed in the fragrant steam from her mug. The tea was spiced with something unfamiliar and not quite sweet.

  Enelle cleared her throat. “Our father was Geranes Lihadde,” she said. Her tentativeness was giving way again to her practiced businesslike manner.

  “Yes,” said the mage, both interest and sympathy in his tone. “I had heard of your father’s untimely death. I sorrow for your loss.”

  “You see—”

  “Yes, indeed; I understand. Thus your visit to Narienneh of Cloisonné House. Quite so. Did you then leave a sister in Cloisonné? Yes? Well, there is honor as well as beauty in the keiso life, and there is surely no better keiso House than Cloisonné. I am certain your sister is a flower that will flourish in that rich garden. And Narienneh, discerning woman, sent you on to me.”

  “We are sorry to intrude—”

  “Not at all,” the mage assured her. “Not at all.” His attention shifted again to Nemienne. “Forgive the familiarity, if you will be so kind, young woman, and permit me to ask your age.”

  “Fifteen,” said Nemienne.

  “Hmm. And what do you think of my house, eh?”

  Ankennes’s tone was casual. But his glance was sharp, and Nemienne understood that this question was one that mattered—perhaps not the last of those that would matter, but the first, and perhaps the most important. She hesitated, afraid of giving a wrong answer. No one else ever saw the slantwise world that always seemed to show itself to her.

  But she had to say something. She said hesitantly, “I think… I think your house is not really in Lonne at all. I think really your house is high up, among the peaks. That’s why your windows are blind from the outside: They are looking out on rock and ice and don’t see the city, and so the city can’t see into them, either.”

  There was a brief silence. Both Enelle and Ankennes looked surprised, but not in the same way: Where Enelle was merely disconcerted, the mage was clearly pleased. Nemienne ducked her head and looked down into her tea, searching for
patterns in the floating flecks of spice. If there were any, she couldn’t find them.

  “That is not quite correct,” the mage told her. “But it is wrong in, mmm, an interesting way. Many young people make their ways to the Lane of Shadows, believing they might like to learn magecraft. Some greatly desire to study with me. A few have families willing to pay for the opportunity.”

  “But it doesn’t matter what they want,” said Enelle boldly, when Nemienne didn’t answer. “What matters is what you want.”

  Ankennes smiled. “True.” He leaned back in his chair, which creaked as it took the weight, and drank his tea, his broad hand almost engulfing the mug.

  The cat, its tail curled neatly around its front feet, gazed into the empty air. It was purring, but very quietly, so that the vibration was more felt than heard.

  “Narienneh was right to send you along to me,” the mage said eventually. “I should hate to discourage her acuity. Perhaps… I might offer a gift of, shall we say, three hundred hard cash, if young Nemienne here will do me the favor of making a trial of the life of the mage. It is not an easy life, mind,” he added. “But you may return that amount should she prove not to care for it, or I will triple that sum again to compensate her family for her lengthening absence by, say, midwinter, if we should mutually agree that the arrangement has proved satisfactory. Eh?”

  It was a gamble, then, but not at all a dangerous one, Nemienne thought. It was indeed all to their advantage, and very generous if she suited the mage well enough for him to keep her. And she was determined that she would suit him, however demanding a master he should prove. Twelve hundred hard cash was a wonderful amount, without doubt more than Enelle had calculated in her sums of loss and hope. Twelve hundred, above the eighteen hundred Cloisonné had given them for Karah, was surely enough that they would be able to forget about selling a third sister.

  And she could see that Enelle was comforted by the thought that Nemienne could get out of this apprenticeship if it turned out badly. But it wouldn’t. Nemienne was determined it would not. She was sure of one thing amid the distress and confusion of the past days: She knew she wanted to stay in this house, to explore its strange angles and startling dimensions. To look out of its secretive windows and see the strange views onto which they opened. To find out what that odd glass thing on the table was for. She tried to communicate this to Enelle with a look.

  Enelle returned a little sideways tilt of her head, understanding at least what Nemienne meant if not how she felt. She said to the mage, “A generous suggestion, and one I believe my sister welcomes. If she wants this, though we will be distressed to miss her daily company, how can we refuse her desire?”

  Mage Ankennes did not trouble with contracts and drafts of credit but simply put out his hand. A heavy pouch fell, clinking, into it from the air. He gave this to Enelle with a little flourish and an air of bland satisfaction that somewhat called to mind the attitude of his cat.

  Enelle seemed a little doubtful as she took the pouch, wondering perhaps whether cash conjured up in such a way might vanish when the light of the sun fell across it.

  “Enkea will show you the way out,” Ankennes told her. “I believe you will find the way back to the door briefer and less disconcerting than the route you took in. Though that depends rather upon Enkea’s whim. She is a whimsical creature, I fear.”

  The cat gave Ankennes a wide green stare. Then it jumped down from the table and looked expectantly at Enelle, who rose quickly to her feet but then turned rather uncertainly to Nemienne.

  Nemienne also stood. She went to Enelle, embracing her. “Go on,” she whispered in her sister’s ear. “Go on, and don’t let anyone fear for me. This is a wonderful house.”

  “Is it?” Enelle asked a little wistfully. “Is it really?”

  “I promise you,” Nemienne assured her, glad she could speak with conviction.

  “All right.” Enelle returned her embrace with fierce, concerned affection and then stepped back. “If you change your mind—if you don’t like it—if you get lonely—”

  “She may write, of course. Or visit, if she wishes. At midwinter, perhaps.” Mage Ankennes was patient, but clearly waiting for Enelle to leave. The gray cat walked out of the room, its tail swaying gently upright.

  Enelle hugged Nemienne once more, took a step after the cat, threw one more doubtful glance over her shoulder at the mage, and was gone. Though Nemienne had wanted to stay—though she far preferred this powerful mage and this magic-dense house to Cloisonné House, and though she was very grateful for the Mother of Cloisonné’s suggestion that had brought them here—it was still hard to watch her sister step through the workroom door and vanish, leaving her behind.

  “Well,” said Mage Ankennes.

  Nemienne turned her head and met his eyes. Light slid across them, as across the surface of opaque glass or deep water, hiding everything. He was smiling, an expression that was not unfriendly, but that told her nothing.

  The mage said in a meditative tone, “Nemienne, is it, eh? And you like my house, do you? A satisfactory beginning, I should think. I wonder what we shall make of you?”

  Nemienne wondered that herself.

  CHAPTER 2

  Though lively enough in its present incarnation as a keiso House, Cloisonné House was in truth made of silence and time. Leilis sometimes had trouble believing that the dozens of women and girls who dwelled within the house did not know that the echoing clamor of their lives and voices only masked the underlying silence. At its heart, Cloisonné House was a house of stillness, and there were places in it where even the most adventurous of the girls did not go—where no one went, where nothing was stored that anyone might want to find back.

  One such place was the highest of the attics tucked up along the northwest edge of the roof. That attic had a narrow window that, set under the eaves, never admitted bright sun. Yet the diffuse light that came through the old glass always seemed to fill the attic—even in the evening, after the sun had set and there should have been no light. There was another quiet place in the deepest cellars, this one with a more perilous feel to it. Bottles of wine and casks of ale, barrels of pickles and jars of summer preserves stored in the far reaches of the cellars might last for months or years, as the cook’s girls avoided going down farther than they must.

  And the last bedchamber down the keiso gallery on the fourth floor, a small room that had a slanting ceiling and an old, enormous fireplace with three cracked hearthstones—that chamber was another such quiet place, as though it were surrounded by the musty solitude of a cloister rather than the bustle of a busy keiso House. Fires set in its fireplace burned longer but with less heat than they should, and with a faintly greenish tint, or so it seemed to Leilis.

  As none of the keiso desired this chamber, Leilis had been permitted to claim it for her own. She would lie at night on her narrow bed by the wall where the ceiling came down low, listening to the deep quiet beating softly through the darkness. Leilis liked the quiet, or had learned to because she liked the solitude it brought her.

  Now she cleared the ash out of the fireplace and laid down new kindling and small logs. Then she carried the bucket of ashes out into the hallway and paused, listening. Whispers slipped through the quiet around her. She was not quite curious. But the whispers followed her down the stairs, tugging at the edges of her attention as she went out the barred service door that led to the alley behind the House.

  Leilis tossed the ashes onto the midden heap, raising a puff of fine pale ash that tasted faintly bitter on the back of the tongue. The ash tasted of silence, she thought. Of silence and patience and the slow passing of time. It seemed strange that the memory of fire could taste of things so unlike the lively fire itself.

  She turned back to the House, walking along the alley to enter this time through the small kitchen door.

  Whispers instantly surrounded her. The keiso were all still abed, but two of the deisa, Lily and Sweetrose, were sitting at the cutting table,
sneaking sugared nuts from a batch the cook had made. The girls had their heads tilted together. Their smiles were knowing, their voices smooth.

  There was a new girl, Leilis gathered, attending at last. She must be a beauty, to judge by the spite she’d engendered so quickly in the deisa: Mother had paid a thousand hard for her, one of them murmured, and she already old, seventeen at least, and completely untrained. By the time she was bringing in a profit she’d be in debt to the House for twice what Mother had given for her. She wouldn’t earn out until she was forty years old, if ever. Lily and Sweetrose shared the satisfied tone that came from the assurance that they were going to earn out their debts while they were still young and beautiful.

  Leilis stepped past the deisa and began to clear up walnut shells. Sweetrose made room with an air that suggested she shifted out of Leilis’s way only by chance; Lily gave Leilis a glance that combined wariness, resentment, and disdain and did not move at all. Only the cook gave her a welcoming nod. Leilis returned the nod and took the nut shells out to the midden heap.

  Then it was back in and around to the banquet chambers where clients were entertained, to polish the low tables and the silverwork on the carved doors and, especially, the floors. Endless polishing: The women and girls of the House went softly shod, but clients wore boots on even the finest floors.

  The whispers made their way to Leilis once more while she was in the last chamber. They had strengthened as the keiso at last began to come out of their rooms and join in the life of the house. The rumors were carried through the air along with the sharp scent of the wood polish, running along the keiso galleries and through the servants’ narrow passages. The new girl had hair spun out of the dusky fall of twilight. Her skin was flawless, the soft color of the best Enescene porcelain. The curve of her throat… those fine delicate bones… Even her tears scattered like pearls, and her face did not blotch when she wept.