The House on Durrow Street

by Galen Beckett

  “Perhaps the stone, given its different color, has been an object of curiosity among the walkers here. As such, it would have been frequently touched, which would discourage any moss to grow upon it. Or …”

  Lord Eubrey tilted his head. “Yes, Lady Quent?”

  Ivy took a step nearer to the wall. The red stone was speckled with darker flecks, and it was smoother than the rough blocks that surrounded it. “Perhaps,” she said, “the nature of this stone is unique in some way, and its surface does not provide a hospitable place for moss to grow.”

  Lord Coulten clapped his hands. “I say, well done, Lady Quent! Those are both very plausible notions.”

  “Yet it’s the second that I think the most plausible,” Lord Eubrey said, though he did not give any reason for this conclusion. “Coulten and I are going to see if there are other stones like this one. It will be an amusing pastime as we walk, don’t you think? You must come with us, Rafferdy.”

  Ivy would have liked to search for more stones herself, to see if there were others in the wall that looked like the stone from which her father’s house had been built. However, she noted that an invitation had not been extended to her.

  Rafferdy seemed to perceive this as well, for he gave her a concerned look.

  “I should go back to the others,” she said before he could speak. “Our maid and driver were setting out a luncheon for us, and I imagine it is ready by now.”

  In fact, when she glanced back, she saw all of the others in a group, and Captain Branfort waving vigorously in her direction.

  Rafferdy gave her a smart bow. “I am certain we will encounter you this afternoon.”

  “Of course we will see Lady Quent later,” Lord Eubrey said. “After we are done with our little exploration.”

  He gave her a cheerful smile, but once again Ivy had the impression of a certain slyness about his eyes.

  “Well, are you two coming along, then?” Lord Coulten called back, for he was already proceeding down the path that went along the wall.

  The other two men followed him, and there was nothing for Ivy to do but turn and start back toward her companions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  RAFFERDY WATCHED AS Mrs. Quent walked away down the path, her figure as lithe as a willow switch in her gown of pale green.

  He gripped the ivory handle of his cane. I am sure it is impossible that we would not have met, she had said as they strolled together. Rather, it is the most expected thing that we are acquainted.…

  If only she was aware how in error that statement was! But she could not know how his father had conspired to keep the two of them from meeting. No, it was not at all expected that they were acquainted, but was instead the most unlikely phenomenon. For all Mr. Bennick’s villainy, Rafferdy could still be grateful to him for this one thing: that through his machinations, Rafferdy and Ivy had come to know each other.

  Yet it should never have had to happen in that fashion. How might things have been altered had the two of them been allowed to meet in the expected manner? The Lockwells would not have been so very low then, before her father fell ill, and Rafferdy’s family would have lifted hers up by association. She could have been properly introduced to society and allowed to rise on her own ability and merits—just as she had done in the most easy and natural manner now that she had been given the opportunity. Once society had become acquainted and charmed by her, a union between their families might not have been out of the question, and her name would not now be Lady Quent, but rather Lady Rafferdy.

  “Come along, Rafferdy,” Lord Eubrey called out. “We’ll lose sight of Coulten if we don’t hurry after him.”

  Rafferdy hesitated. A compulsion came over him to go back down the path, to take her arm and walk with her to the carriages. That impulse, though, was at odds with another—to discover just what it was Eubrey was about. He had been exceedingly mysterious on the journey here, and in the carriage he had refused to divulge even the slightest hint as to his reason for wishing to come to the Evengrove.

  If only she could accompany them! Then both of his desires would have been fulfilled. Besides, he had no doubt that she would very much enjoy seeing magick being done. However, given Eubrey’s secrecy about the whole affair, he knew that was not possible.

  In the distance, her pale green figure vanished beyond a bend in the wall. Rafferdy sighed; then, cane in hand, he turned and followed after Eubrey. He had to go at a fair jog to catch up.

  “Make it lively now, Rafferdy! I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to let Coulten get too far ahead. I would not want him trying a spell on his own.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because he doesn’t take it seriously. Not like you or I do. To Coulten, it’s all an amusing diversion. Yet he has ability—considerable ability, in fact. I would be very dismayed if he attempted something without using the proper preventatives and got himself into a dire circumstance.”

  “Attempted what?”

  Lord Eubrey grinned at him. “You’ll see,” he said, and continued walking briskly down the path.

  After proceeding only a little way, they encountered a band of several redcrests on patrol. The soldiers showed no sign of breaking their stride, so Rafferdy and Eubrey were obliged to step off the path. As the other men passed by in their blue regimental coats, Rafferdy tipped his hat. The redcrests made no reply, their faces stern as they marched at a rapid pace in the direction Rafferdy and Eubrey had come from.

  “I say, you’re very daring, Rafferdy,” Eubrey said after the soldiers had gone.

  Rafferdy shook his head. “Daring? How so?”

  “Your House ring is in plain sight, that’s how.”

  “I don’t see how that matters to a band of soldiers.”

  Eubrey raised an eyebrow. “Have you forgotten what took place at the Ministry of Printing? Even if you have, I am certain the king’s Black Dog has not! He is Lady Shayde’s master, so it must have been on his order that she showed herself at Assembly, and you can be certain the king’s soldiers have similar orders to keep watch.”

  “To keep watch over what?”

  “Over us, of course! Or rather, over any magicians. You would do well to put on your gloves like the rest of us.”

  Rafferdy looked down at the ring on his right hand, its blue gem throwing sparks in the sunlight. He recalled the man he had followed from Marble Street that day two months ago. The man had been wearing gloves until one was torn off, revealing the arcane symbol that marked his palm—the same symbol that the White Lady’s brutish servant, Moorkirk, had said marked the hands of all the men with gray blood.

  Nor can I believe it is chance that it has become popular fashion to wear gloves just when such men have appeared in the city, Moorkirk had said to him that day. Gloves just like you were wearing …

  Rafferdy lowered his hand and looked up at Eubrey. “No, I don’t believe I will put on gloves,” he said. “I’m quite done with that fashion—it’s become far too popular for my taste.”

  Eubrey studied him for a moment, then shrugged and continued down the path. Cane in hand, Rafferdy followed after.

  By now they had lost sight of Coulten altogether, and they walked at a pace that was so swift Rafferdy soon felt short of breath. Just when he was on the verge of suggesting they stop to rest a moment, they rounded a sharp bend in Madiger’s Wall, and there was Coulten, standing beside the wall a little way ahead. They quickly closed the distance to him.

  “There you laggards are!” Coulten exclaimed. “While you two have been loitering about, I have been at our task. Look at what I’ve found.”

  He stepped back from the rough surface of the wall, and Eubrey clapped his gloved hands.

  “Excellent! Well done, Coulten.”

  Coulten gave a bow, his cheeks a rosy color from the sun.

  “Well, Rafferdy,” Eubrey said. “What do you think?”

  Rafferdy took a step closer. This time it was not a single red stone in the wall, but rather a numbe
r of them. Like the one that they had seen earlier, these stones were free of moss and lichen. They were arranged in a rectangular shape a little higher and broader in extent than a man; and the whole looked like nothing so much as a door that had been closed up at some point with red stones. Rafferdy lifted his cane and tapped the end of it against one of the blocks.

  There was a bright flash from his right hand, and a line of blue sparks traveled down the length of his cane.

  “Careful there, Rafferdy!” Eubrey said. “You wouldn’t want to open it without taking a few precautions.”

  Rafferdy hastily lowered his cane, then gave the others what he had no doubt was a startled look. “You mean it is a door?”

  Eubrey moved closer to the wall. “Of course. Every wall has a door, Rafferdy; one only has to find it. That’s what magicians do. We seek out doors and open them.”

  “I believe there’s but one door you’re bent on opening, Eubrey,” Coulten said with a laugh, “and it’s not this one.”

  Rafferdy frowned; the other two men were being far too abstruse for his taste. “Speak clearly, Coulten—what door do you mean?”

  “I mean the Door, the one in our meeting room beneath the Sword and Leaf, behind the curtain.”

  Now Rafferdy understood. Only the sages—those who had been admitted to the inner circle of the Arcane Society of the Virescent Blade—were allowed to pass through the door in the meeting room. What took place beyond, Rafferdy had no idea, but one thing was certain: it was Eubrey’s ambition to be the next initiate to step through the Door. And from what Rafferdy understood, a magician was invited to become a sage only after he had proven his ability to help the society further its aim of discovering magickal secrets.

  Rafferdy examined the stones more closely, though he was careful not to touch them. There was something familiar about their reddish color, though he was not certain what it was.

  “If it is a door, then why is it here?” he said. “I thought the whole point of Madiger’s Wall was to keep the Evengrove contained within. It seems to rather defeat the purpose to go and put an opening in it.”

  “Does it?” Eubrey paced back and forth before the wall. “What prison does not have at least a few small windows so that one can peer inside and see what the prisoners are doing? And even the strongest, most impregnable prison always has at least one door.”

  Coulten’s usually open expression compressed into a frown. “I don’t know, Eubrey—I think perhaps Rafferdy is on to something. I can see how someone might want to remove a stone from the wall now and then to take a peek at what’s going on in the Evengrove. Yet what need would there ever be for something larger than that? If even the strongest prison has a door, as you say, it’s only so that more prisoners can be tossed within. However, trees grow where they are, and cutting them down destroys them. Which means I cannot imagine that anyone would ever have a need to open the door and throw more inmates into this particular prison!”

  “What makes you think it is the trees that are the prisoners in the Evengrove?” Eubrey said in a low voice.

  For a moment both Rafferdy and Coulten stared at their companion; the only noise was the drone of locusts in the fields beyond the wall.

  “Do you know something about the Evengrove?” Rafferdy said at length.

  Eubrey shrugged. “Know? We can only truly know what we have seen for ourselves. Yet I have read some things.”

  “Read some things? Where?”

  “In a history of the wall written by a magician long ago. It is a very rare volume, one that recently came into the possession of the sages, and which they have shown to me. In his account of the wall, the magician noted seeing a number of stones that exhibited peculiar qualities, and he postulated a theory that they might be intended to serve as openings in the wall.”

  Coulten let out a laugh. “Or perhaps they are here because some fellow making repairs used stones from the wrong heap, and the man who wrote that account wasn’t a real magician at all. Where did the sages come by this book?”

  “It was given to them by the magus of the High Order of the Golden Door,” Eubrey replied.

  This answer surprised Rafferdy. “The Golden Door? But isn’t that Lord Farrolbrook’s order?”

  Eubrey gave a sniff. “Farrolbrook belongs to it, yes, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was his order. I have no doubt that some people believe he’s its leader, but I know for a fact that he is not the magus of the High Order of the Golden Door.”

  Now Rafferdy could not claim he was surprised. While the Magisters might use him to effect by presenting him as their leader in public, there would be no need to maintain that ruse when meeting in secret, and surely it was an impossibility that Lord Farrolbrook could lead an arcane order.

  “Anyway,” Eubrey went on, “it is not unheard of for one magickal society to share a piece of arcane knowledge with another, if they are given something in return. I do not know how the magus of the Golden Door obtained the book, but no doubt they realized that to make a proper investigation of its mysteries, they would need not a lot of Magisters who play at working enchantments, but rather real magicians. And so here we are.” He gestured to the wall. “Rafferdy, would you be so kind as to speak a few runes of revealing?”

  Rafferdy was taken aback. “Me? But I’m sure you could work the spell better than I, Eubrey.”

  “Perhaps I could—or perhaps not. Regardless, I do not want our good skeptic, Coulten, to think I am somehow manufacturing things or making them appear as they otherwise are. If you work the enchantment, then I am sure he can have no doubt of the result.”

  Rafferdy hesitated, then approached the red stones in the wall. He glanced in either direction, but there were no other parties in sight. The three of them had come a considerable distance along the wall—farther than most people usually ventured, he would guess, as the path here had narrowed to no more than a thin, half-overgrown track. The only sound was the droning of the insects. There was not a breath of wind.

  While Rafferdy tended to complain that at meetings of the society magick was more likely discussed than practiced, it did not mean that they had not done any magick at all. For one thing, they had practiced reading magickal runes, as well as how to pronounce them.

  Some magicians held that the language of magick was older than mankind itself, as it contained sounds that the human mouth did not seem to have been designed to produce. Despite this, Rafferdy found that with some effort he could utter any of the runes that were put before him, and he could not help noticing that speaking words of magick appeared to come easier for him than it did for many of the other initiates.

  The sages had also spent some time instructing the initiates in the matter of magickal principals. At first, Rafferdy had decided he would be very bored with these discussions. The sages would sit at the front of the chamber draped in gold robes and their heads covered with hoods. It was the custom that magicians, once admitted to the inner circle of the society, thereafter never revealed their faces to the initiates; only when they stepped through the Door that lay behind the curtain would they lower their hoods.

  Of course, Eubrey and Coulten had known some of the magicians when they were still initiates, and so recognized a few by their voices. To Rafferdy, though, they were all strangers, and listening to men he did not know, their voices muffled by hoods, ramble on about this magickal axiom or that arcane principle was something he was certain could only be tedious.

  Only instead, it was engrossing. The magicians spoke of the three pillars of magick upon which all of the arcane arts were founded—that was, Knowledge, Power, and Will. Like a table with three legs, they explained, without any one of these things a magician was bound to fail. They spoke also of the purpose of magick—of opening doors, as Eubrey had said, and also of binding them, and of hiding and revealing them.

  Yet it was more than that; doors were not the only things that could be concealed or bound. Or rather, there were many sorts of doors. For what was a do
or but merely an opening from one place or thing to another? A window was like a door, as was a box. Yet those were simple comparisons; others could be made. Were not eyes like windows, the magicians posed, or books? Was not the human heart like a four-chambered box? If one did not constrain the mind by limiting it to what was obvious, and instead strove to see that which was subtle and obscure, then there was almost no limit to the things upon which magick might be worked.

  “Well, Rafferdy?” Coulten said. “Are you going to show us if there’s something here or not? I will if you do not!”

  Rafferdy shook his head. “No, I can work the spell.”

  It would not be difficult. The enchantment to reveal that which was hidden was one of the most fundamental of a magician’s spells. Whether it would reveal something was an entirely different matter. While the spell itself was not complicated, it would be countered by any spell of concealing that might have been used on the stones.

  He gripped his cane and pointed it at the wall. The cane itself was superfluous, but he found that if he imagined the force of the spell traveling down its length, it helped to focus his will. For a moment he gathered himself, recalling the words of the spell to his mind. It would not do to speak any of them incorrectly. If he uttered gibberish, the spell would merely fail. However, if in mispronouncing the runes he accidentally uttered the words of a different spell, then there was no predicting what might happen. Many a magician had perished that way, he had been told.

  At last, satisfied he had recalled it properly, he uttered the spell, concentrating to form each harsh sound firmly and precisely. Then, as he spoke the last word, he touched the tip of the cane to the wall.

  He felt it as well as saw it: crackling lines of power spiraling down his cane and striking the stone, spreading over them in a shimmering blue spider’s web. His House ring gave a bright flash. Then the lines of power faded, and his ring went dark. Rafferdy lowered his cane.