The Office of Shadow (41 page)

He had tried to fool her, of course, as all ambitious men ultimately did.
He believed that his genius extended to his charms and political maneuverings, which for their part were as transparent and mundane as the next man's.
For that reason she had been required to condemn him to a place of infinite
suffering within the belly of the wraith fel-ala. Hy Pezho's own creation.
Now that was poetic.

The obvious betrayal was the reason she had been forced to get rid of
him, but it was his inadvertent destruction of her status quo that had allowed
her to enjoy it so much.

So the war would come, and either she or Titania would emerge victorious. There was a small chance Titania would prevail, of course. The Stone
Queen, the Seelie Witch, was at least as crafty as Mab and at least as old. She
would be difficult to surprise. Down through the centuries, Titania had
learned as well as Mab to read the signs in the stars, the rise of nations, the
glint in a man's eye.

All that was now drew inward toward a conclusion. And it was all Hy
Pezho's fault. Oh, how she loved and hated him for it.

If nothing else, though, at least it wouldn't be boring.

Three Bel Zheret flowed boldly into Mab's private apartments, without
knocking or having their presence announced. That was one of the privileges that she allowed them, as they were able to sense from a distance
whether she was receptive to their presence at any given moment. They
were tied to her with the Black Art's reflection of Empathy, and she could
control them with the slightest twist of emotion; she didn't even need to
be conscious of it.

Mab's personal secretary Ta-Hila started when they entered; he, of course,
had no way of knowing they were coming. Mab knew that the Bel Zheret
made Ta-Hila deeply uncomfortable. That was part of their job.

Dog, Cat, and Asp stood before her, without bowing. Bowing was a show of submission, and was not necessary with Bel Zheret, who were submissive
to her by their very nature. Bowing would have been redundant.

"Speak," she said.

"One of the magicians in your Secret City, a Journeyer Timha, has disappeared," said Dog. "He left the city for his mother's funeral and has not
returned."

"Who authorized the leave?" asked Mab.

"Master Valmin sent a pleading note to the lieutenant of the guard whose
task it is to provide security for the city."

"I see."

"You wish the lieutenant to die."

"Yes. But do not kill him. There is no gain in it."

She turned to Ta-Hila. "Have the gracious lieutenant reassigned to less
sensitive duties, where his generosity will reflect well upon me."

Ta-Hila nodded, making a note.

"Do you have any knowledge of journeyer Timha's whereabouts?"

"No," said Dog, smiling. "It is a mystery to us at the moment. A most
meaty mystery."

Mab wished she could enjoy such uncertainty as much as her creations did.
They were designed to love their jobs and never to despair. Fear and stress were
great motivators to the average Fae, but they also caused mistakes, and the Bel
Zheret had been crafted carefully to make as few mistakes as possible.

"This incident may perhaps explain another," said Mab. "I received word
today from my contact in the Seelie government that three Shadows have
been dispatched onto my soil."

"Really?" said Cat. "I would enjoy killing one of them very much. Is one
of them named Paet?"

"I do not know," said Mab. "And my contact was unaware of their mission. But I believe your information provides the nature of the mission, does
it not?"

The three Bel Zheret nodded in unison.

"Here is what we must do," said Mab. She gave them their instructions,
and they left without being dismissed. They knew when she was finished
with them.

Once certain plans had been set in motion, Dog, Cat, and Asp had treated
themselves to a righteous slaughter in the Secret City. It had been a lovely
afternoon. Running, screaming. A merry chase through the bone-white
streets of the Secret City. Hot blood spilling on cold white stone. Simply
beautiful.

Now, Dog stood with his companions in Master Valmin's office. The few
magicians who'd managed to survive their ministrations hung by their fingertips from the ceiling. Master Valmin wasn't one of them, sadly. He'd
killed himself as soon as they'd arrived. That showed foresight, Dog supposed, though it certainly robbed the Bel Zheret of some fun.

All the begging and pleading was over, which was nice. Desperation
wasn't pretty, wasn't aesthetically pleasing in any way. But beyond the desperation was an exquisite, ragged resignation, and that was worth the effort.

Cat was toying with one of the magicians, nibbling on his finger.

"This one is a holy man," said Cat. "I can taste it on him. Devout
Chthonic, I suppose. If he were an Arcadian he'd never have made it in here."

"I like holy men," said Dog. "They have a delicate flavor to them, a certain something that's hard to define."

"Tastes like children," said Cat, between mouthfuls.

Disaster is not a tragedy. Failing to plan for disaster is the
tragedy.

-Unseelie Proverb

his is madness," said Silverdun.

He, Ironfoot, and Sela stood in the center of the station known as the
Locks of Mab's Glorious Union, in the heart of the Unseelie.

"I have to admit," said Ironfoot. "Silverdun has a point."

"Stop it, both of you," said Sela. "We must behave as if we're Unseelie."

"What are we supposed to do?" asked Silverdun, his eyebrow arched.
"Love Mab more?"

"You know what I mean," said Sela. "We belong here. This is the center
of our world, not the den of a lion."

Silverdun had been in precarious situations before-in fact it often felt
as though his life were merely a lengthy series of them-but this was beyond
the pale.

It was hard to believe that it was just this morning that the three of them
had met in a cafe outside the Chancery Locks in the City Emerald. They'd
traveled via lock to Mag Mell, from there to Annwn, and from Annwn to this
place. Over the course of the day they'd gone by carriage, by boat, by horse,
and probably some other means of transportation that Silverdun had forgotten. Twenty-four hours and three worlds later, they'd finally arrived.

"I don't know about either of you," said Ironfoot, "but I'm in the mood
to have a nap, not to spirit away a valuable foreign thaumaturge."

"It was easy enough getting here," said Sela. "As long as everything goes
to plan, we'll be back home in the morning."

"It was easy to get here because getting here was the easy part," said Silverdun. "If this Timha's been discovered missing already, then security's
going to be tight everywhere we go. They'll be suspecting our presence."

"All the more reason to be as inconspicuous as possible," said Sela.

Silverdun looked at her. "Remember, Sela, it's up to you to detect any
dangerous suspicions. If you feel we're in imminent danger, make a comment
about the camellia blossoms."

"So easy to work into idle conversation," she said.

"Do you have a better idea?" asked Silverdun.

"No, it's fine." She smiled at him. Her smile, as always, both frightened
and compelled him. "But let's change it to laurels; camellias don't bloom
until the fall."

"Might I point out," said Ironfoot, his fatigue showing, "that it would
have been wise to have worked this out before coming on the mission?"

Silverdun sighed. "Ah, but where would the fun be in that?"

Sela chuckled. "We're all going to die," she said. Silverdun thought she'd
meant it as a joke, but if she had, it fell very, very flat.

Their Unseelie passports allowed them to book passage on a transport ship to
Preyia without raising any apparent suspicion. The name of the transport was
Mates Contempt.

"So," Silverdun noted, "it's not only ship owners on the Inland Sea who
refuse to give their vessels comforting names."

"Hush," said Sela.

When they stepped out of the station onto the main platform, Sela
couldn't believe her eyes. The rising sun glinted off a bank of clouds in the
distance. Blue-gray mountains rose in the distance, and beyond the platform
rocky hills stretched away as far as the eye could see.

But that was nothing compared to the ships. They ranged from tiny
skiffs to enormous three-masted leviathans, their billowed sails shining in the morning light. There seemed to be hundreds of them, some at dock on the
outer platform, some coming and going. The largest were almost cities themselves, their mainmasts stretching hundreds of feet into the sky, their ruddermasts depending from their hulls to dip into the clouds. In motion they
looked like so many giant fish as they plied the skies.

Sela tried to hide her astonishment, noting that none of the travelers hurrying past seemed remotely awed by the spectacle. Silverdun, who had seen
such things before, was less affected by them, and led the way, pulling Sela
by the shoulder. A glance back at Ironfoot showed that he was also doing his
best not to show his amazement.

As they walked, boys approached them offering to carry their bags,
arrange them cheap passage on private vessels, sell them sweetmeats and hot
buns. Voices of shipmasters and cargomen cut through the buzz of talk that
surrounded them.