All The Turns of Light (12 page)

“What?” Meralda whirled, looking for her clock, remembering too late she wasn’t at home, wasn’t in Tirlin at all. “Two o’clock?”

“Mr. Mug said to let you sleep,” said Tervis. “These are really good donuts.”

Meralda sped about her cabin, selecting and rejecting garments, finally wrapping a scarf about her hair and donning her new ceremonial Mage’s robes from a bag in the closet. She opened the door, blinking at the light in the hall, and waved the Bellringers inside.

“The coffee smells wonderful.” Her stomach growled, and she reached for one of the three donuts left on the silver tray Tervis handed her.

“They’re as good as the ones back home.” Tervis grinned.

Kervis busied himself pouring Meralda a cup of coffee from a silver pot. He held it up to her, his wide face touched with concern.

“Mage Ovis? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She swapped her half-eaten donut for the steaming hot cup of black coffee. “A touch of airsickness, perhaps.”

“The galley has peppermint tea,” said Tervis. “They say it helps.”

Meralda sipped her coffee and closed her eyes. The hot liquid tasted just as it did when brewed by the Palace kitchen, and she smiled at the familiar flavor.

“Thank you both.” She opened her eyes. “You say Mug left earlier?”

The Bellringers nodded, their movements and expressions identical. “He said something about a game of cards,” Kervis said.

Meralda groaned. She had a disturbing vision of a scandal involving Mug, gambling, and disgruntled crew members. She found her chair and sank into it. Her head still pounded, but the coffee seemed to be easing the pain a bit.

She listened to the airship for a moment and heard the faint whine of the fans.

“Any trouble with the coils during their use this morning?” she asked.

“None,” said the twins, together. “Mr. Mug said to tell you they aren’t showing any problems.” Kervis lowered his voice to a whisper. “He also said Tower needed to speak with you, after you were rested.”

Meralda held her cup close, letting the heat and aroma bathe her face. “Thank you both,” she said. “No sightings of any sea creatures?”

“None,” they replied. “We’ve had spyglasses on the water all morning. Haven’t seen a thing.”

“Good. Thank you. I should get dressed.”

The Bellringers nodded and made for the door.

“Thank you for my breakfast. And could you please find Mug? Keep an eye on him, and if you see a riot about to break out, bring him bodily back here.”

“Yes ma’am.” Kervis grinned as he closed Meralda’s door.

Meralda finished her coffee and then slumped down against her desk, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t see her wild, tangled hair reflected in Goboy’s Glass. “I should tap the glass and call on Tower,” she muttered. “No. I’m going to bathe. Perhaps a good hot bath and some lunch will help drive this awful headache away.”

She stood, the motion leaving her briefly light-headed, and then she made her way to her cabin’s tiny water closet and its even tinier tub, which Mug had compared, not unreasonably, to a hat box. Meralda wasn’t too concerned about its size, especially since it was a luxury not afforded to every passenger on the
Intrepid
.

She closed the water closet door behind her.

On her desk, the silver plate bearing two whole donuts and a half-eaten third one shimmered briefly. When the shimmering faded, the plate remained, but was filled with a chicken leg, a scoop of mashed potatoes, a heap of steaming green beans, and a dollop of bright yellow creamed corn, topped with a melting pat of fresh-churned butter.

A pair of ragged shadows fell from two corners of the ceiling, becoming enormous crows before they landed, flapping and stepping, on either side of the steaming plate of food.

As I surmised,
said one.

Aye,
said the other.
Should we tell her? What would Master have us do?

We say nothing,
said the first
. She must find her own truth.

That way is fraught with peril. She may not survive it.

If she be worthy, she will prevail.
The crow flapped his folded wings in a corvine shrug and pecked at the corn
.

By the time Meralda emerged from her bath, the corn was gone, and so were the crows.

“Bless you, Bellringers,” she said as she seated herself, unwrapped the fork and spoon from the napkin, and began to eat. She did notice that one area of the plate was suspiciously empty, but considering she missed the normal meal service she felt lucky to have anything at all.

Later, while finishing the last of the coffee, Meralda selected a white blouse trimmed with lace ruffles, a narrow black skirt and her shiny new Fleet Street boots, which hadn’t seen the outside of the box since she’d brought them home last spring.

Her head was nearly clear by the time she seated herself and chose a hat for the day. She decided on her cheery white and red Phendelit day hat, with its splash of lacy trim. A knock sounded at her door, interrupting her dressing.

“Open up, police,” cried a gruff voice.

Meralda laughed and rose. She could hear the faint hum of Mug’s flying coils.

The dandyleaf plant sailed inside, circling the cabin once before settling expertly atop Meralda’s desk.

“I take it you are feeling better.” His eyes regarded Meralda intently. “Glad to see you up and not moaning.”

“I needed the rest. Thank you for letting me sleep. Any news?”

“I’m a better poker player than anyone aboard,” Mug reported happily. “Other than that, we are engaged in normal level flight, we are on schedule, and we are not currently engulfed in flames. Talked to Tower yet? He seemed quite smug. I gather he found a way to open the warded case.”

“I have not.” She took her seat and reached for Goboy’s Glass. “Shall we?”

She rapped on the mirror and Mug called out, “Wake up, old stones. The Mage is awake.”

The glass went black.

“Greetings, Mage,” said Tower. “I am prepared to open the Horn’s case, on your command.”

Meralda nodded. “Please do so. I know what we’ll find—an empty box—but there might also be a clue as to how the Horn was removed.”

“You may watch, if you wish,” said Tower. “I can send an image.”

Mug tapped the black glass. “Let’s see it.”

The glass flashed, and the interior of the Royal Laboratory was revealed.

Meralda’s heart nearly broke. “My Laboratory,” she said. Her desk, her rolling chair with its nice soft cushion, her favorite cups. “Oh! I forgot my good pen and there it is, lying beside my magnifying glass.”

Beyond her desk, the rows and rows of shelves extended off into the dark. But before the shelves, the familiar bulks of Phillitrep’s Mathematical Engine and Opp’s Rotary Timekeeper rose up, each whirling and twinkling and glittering as it moved.

The focus of the image shifted, racing away from Meralda’s desk and down Row 17. The view halted again, centered on the plain wooden crate to which a paper label was affixed. Amorp’s Strident Horn, Item AH11286, read the label, penned in Meralda’s precise hand. Below that was the date on which she’d sealed the crate.

“The ward spell appears intact,” said Tower. “I see no evidence whatsoever of tampering.”

Meralda instinctively began to extend her own magical Sight, but stopped when she realized she could hardly use Sight from aboard a moving airship so far from Tirlin.

“Troubling,” she said. “Proceed.”

“I am using a number of artifacts to achieve the opening,” said Tower, as Mingle’s Walking Servitor ambled into view. Its four mechanical legs tiptoed between the tall shelves. For one awful moment, the Servitor appeared to have gotten stuck between the shelves, but it kicked and shook and freed itself before coming to rest just below the Horn’s warded crate.

Como’s Agile Insect, a many-legged thing of delicate brass claws joined to a segmented body composed of silver springs, swarmed easily atop the Servitor and lifted the front half of its worm-like body so that its head was level with the crate.

“That thing gives me nightmares,” muttered Mug. “Why isn’t
it
locked in a box?”

“Hush,” Meralda said. “Well done, Tower. But how will you defeat the ward spell?”

“I shall not,” Tower replied. “Observe.”

A glowing red circle appeared on the image in the Glass, just to the right of the Horn’s box.

“When the circle turns green, please speak the Word of Unwarding,” said Tower. “I should be able to maintain a spatial congruency long enough for you to pronounce the entire phrase.”

“A spatial congruency?” Mug said. “Between two distant points, one of them moving?”

“It’s possible,” Meralda said. She took a deep breath and prepared to say the word. “Tower, I am ready.”

The red circle turned green.

Meralda spoke the Word. The circle quickly turned red again, but Meralda smelled, just for an instant, the musty, oily scent of the Laboratory.

“Done,” said Tower. “Observe.”

Como’s Agile Insect climbed up the side of the Horn’s case, wedged a pair of many-jointed brass legs into the space between the lid and the sides, and pushed the crate’s lid aside.

“Perplexing,” said Tower.

“Well move the focus, old stones,” Mug said, when the image didn’t shift to reveal the interior of the Horn’s case.

Tower obliged, and the view revealed the Horn, lying intact amid the packing straw.

“I don’t understand,” Meralda said. “Amorp only made one Horn.”

“Well, if he did, and that’s the Horn back in Tirlin, what’s hiding under your bed?”

Meralda rose, knelt by her berth, and retrieved the shoebox in which she’d hidden the Horn.

She opened the box. Inside lay Amorp’s Horn, down to the last minute detail.

“Mistress!” shouted Mug. “Come here! It’s gone!”

Meralda shut the shoebox and hurried back to her desk, box and the Horn in her hands. When she peered into the glass though, the scene was unchanged from before–there was the case, and the Horn safely inside it.

“What?” exclaimed Mug.

“Fascinating,” remarked Tower.

“What are you talking about?” asked Meralda. “What is fascinating?”

“I tell you the Horn vanished,” Mug said. “Just for a moment. But it was gone. You saw, didn’t you, Tower?”

“Indeed,” said Tower. “The Horn here in the Laboratory vanished.”

Meralda opened her shoebox and looked inside. There lay the Horn, unassuming and appearing to be quite solid.

“Mistress,” Mug said, urgently. “Please. Humor me. Don’t look at the glass. Just tell us what you see, in your shoebox.”

“Amorp’s Horn,” she said, keeping her eyes on the Horn in her lap. “Or something very like it. Why? What do you see?”

“We see an empty crate,” replied Tower. “Do you concur, construct?”

“My name is Mug and I concur,” Mug said. “Toolshed,” he added, in a whisper.

“Mage,” said Tower. “Pray look again to the glass, and fix your gaze there. Tell us, what do you see?”

Meralda looked into Goboy’s Glass. “I see the Horn, resting in a bed of straw. As I’ve seen this whole time.”

“Construct named Mug,” said Tower. “Gaze inside this shoebox which your Mistress bears, and tell us what you see.”

Mug sent a dozen eyes through the bars of his cage to peer over the side of the desk.

“An empty shoebox,” he said. His leaves shivered though no air moved. “Mistress, what does this mean?”

“You both seem to be telling me the Horn is wherever I look for it,” Meralda said. “But I see two Horns, separated by a distance of several thousand miles. Neither scenario is one I am comfortable accepting as truth.”

“Mistress, we’re telling you–I’m telling you–that the Horn disappears when you look away from wherever it was, and reappears at the spot you’re looking,” Mug said. “What could do that? I’ve never heard of such a spell!”

“Tower, is that what you observe as well?” asked Meralda.

“It is,” replied Tower. “I daresay such behavior is not among the Horn’s documented uses or abilities.”

“There isn’t a single item in all of Tirlin capable of this,” Meralda said. She held the Horn up before her, turned it this way and that. She closed her eyes, but the Horn remained in her grasp, its surface smooth and slightly cool to her touch.

“A moment of silence, Mug,” Meralda pleaded, keeping her eyes closed as she summoned her magical Sight. “Surely such a fundamental change to the original Horn, or the creation of a replica, will be obvious when I inspect the spell using Sight.”

She took a deep breath and centered herself. Then she opened her eyes and turned her Sight upon the Horn.

The old familiar spellwork revealed itself in a tangle of linked attachments and coiled energetic collectors. Meralda smiled at the cleverness of Amorp’s handiwork. Every Mage since the second century has studied the Horn’s workings as a model of parsimony, she thought, but I discover something new each time I inspect it with Sight.