The Office of Shadow (9 page)

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 Everess 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 was 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."

Everess ignored her. "Then you are aware, Silverdun, that things have
changed."

"Here we go," said Heron, her scowl widening. "Foreign Minister
Everess's stock lecture has begun in earnest."