The Office of Shadow (45 page)

The only Fae surface dwellers in the Unseelie are the
Arami, that strange breed who maintain the ways of the
wild Fae clans from before the time of Uvenchaud.They
scrupulously avoid their airborne counterparts, or
anyone else, for that matter. Thus, very little is known
about them.

It is speculated that the odd, guttural language that
has so confounded linguists (on the rare occasions the
Arami have consented to be interviewed) is actually a
variation of the original Elvish tongue. If they are to be
believed, they are the last remaining vestige of the aboriginal Fae.

The Unseelie take no heed of the Arami. The
Unseelie only leave their flying cities to take water from
the wells that dot the landscape during periods of little
rain, which are common in that northern clime. The
Arami scrupulously avoid them when they come to
ground.

-Stil-Fret, ''The Arami: the Unknown Fae of the North;'
from Travels at Home and Abroad

atterns. Ironfoot was lost in patterns. Two of them, one superimposed on
the other. They were similar, but not the same. Almost identical, in fact.
But at the heart of them was a discrepancy, an error, like an elegant equation
that hid an undefined term somewhere within it. Everything looked right on the surface; it was only by traversing the threads of the patterns that the
impossibility was visible.

But where was this error? What caused it? He traced the pattern in his
mind, but it was so large and elusive that he couldn't hold it. As he envisioned one portion of it, the others slid away from him; it was impossible to
connect it all. He needed paper, and his map.

He reached for paper, but his arm wouldn't move. He tried to sit up, but
something heavy was on top of him. He began to panic. He opened his eyes.
It was dark, black within black. His throat made a strangling noise, halfway
between a whimper and a scream. Where was he?

"Over here!" came a voice. "I heard something!"

Ironfoot reached into his body and tried to calm it, as Paet had tried to
teach him during one of their regular trainings a few weeks earlier. He'd
never quite understood what Paet had meant; but his mind was attuned to
patterns at the moment, and suddenly he could read the patterns within his
own body, the energies that coursed through him and the objects that the
energies connected. There was his heart, thudding. He willed it to slow and
it slowed. There was another tiny thing, spitting out panic into his blood. He
willed it to stop, and it stopped.

He willed strength into his arms and pushed. He and Silverdun had
lately developed what they referred to as Shadow strength, far beyond what
they'd once been used to. The thing above him moved, but not by much. But
here was a bit of useful information; there was only so much Shadow strength
in this body of his. He'd pushed too hard, and now his arms fell weakly to
his sides in the enclosed space.

It wasn't good enough. But then again, it never was.

When Ironfoot was a child, his father had always goaded him. "Don't end
up like me, boy," he'd said as the two of them sheared sheep. The price of
wool had dropped for three years straight, and his father had already sold off
three of his best ewes. "You're smart," he'd said. "You have to make something of yourself."

So when Ironfoot enlisted in the army, it was with the determination to
do everything he could to get ahead. He knew he was smart, and that he had
several of the Gifts, but there was no place for a shepherd's son at a school like Queensbridge. Most of the students at such schools were the sons and daughters of lords or wealthy guildsmen, and they'd all been sent to expensive academies as children. Ironfoot, on the other hand, had gone to the village school
until the age of ten and then had gone to work for his father. He'd stayed up
late, long after his father had gone to bed, reading, studying basic thaumatics, teaching himself to make the witchlight that he read by.

He'd moved up quickly in the ranks as an enlisted man, but as a commoner, there was a point beyond which there was no advancement.

Then came the Gnomic War. He'd been a sergeant in the Third Battalion
of the Dragon Regiment, responsible for Ram Company. In the army, Ironfoot had made a reputation as a perfectionist. He demanded nothing but the
best from himself and from his soldiers. Some hated him for it, most complained, but they all respected him. And it soon became clear as the Gnomic
campaign progressed, and Ironfoot's company led in kills without losing a
single soldier, that he was a fine commander as well.

His own commander, however, Colonel Samel-La, was far less fine. Put
simply, Samel-La was a fool, and was totally unsuited for combat. He had no
knowledge of tactics, believing that the solution to every problem was to
throw battle mages and soldiers at it until it went away. As a commander, he
was lax and allowed his junior officers to curry favor with him, listening to
those who agreed with him and ignoring those who did not. Even after Ironfoot earned four Laurels serving beneath him, Samel-La refused to take his
advice. It didn't take long for Samel-La and Ironfoot to find a way to butt
heads.

When they entered the Gnokka River Valley, just south of Cmir, everything went wrong all at once. The Gnomics were waiting for them, having
taken up positions along the slope on either side. Ironfoot saw the trap immediately, and warned Samel-La to retreat, but Samel-La claimed that Seelie
never retreated, especially against savages like the Gnomics. Ironfoot
attempted to explain that retreat was one of the fundamental tactics of war,
but Samel-La refused to listen.

The battle very quickly turned ugly. Casualties began mounting by the
dozens. More and more Gnomics appeared over the rim of the valley, and still
Samel-La refused to retreat.

It was not until they'd been flanked in the rear, when retreat was no
longer possible, that Samel-La decided he'd had enough. He took a single
company and bolted to the rear, his intent apparently to break through the
Gnomic line and flee, stranding his own battalion. He and his entire company were slaughtered moments after they left the main Seelie force.

Confusion reigned for a few desperate minutes, in which none of the
Seelie soldiers knew what to do and the lines were folding in. It appeared as
though they were doomed to a slaughter.

But Ironfoot stood up in his saddle and shouted orders to his company,
taking command of the battalion. He drew in and stitched up the lines,
reunited the soldiers into a unified force. Together they not only repelled the
Gnomic attack, but took the valley, forcing the Gnomics into a retreat.

When it was over, the regiment commander, General Jeric, explained to
Ironfoot that it was not possible to award him a fifth Laurel for his valor in
this particular battle. Samel-La had been the son of an influential lord who
had his fingers on the army's purse strings. And thus Samel-La would be said
to have died of wounds sustained leading the Third Battalion to victory in
the battle of Gnokka Valley.

General Jeric, however, understood what Ironfoot had done, and what
was taken from him. He asked Ironfoot whether there was anything he could
do to cushion the blow.

"I want to go to Queensbridge," he'd said, without a moment's pause.

Three days later, Ironfoot was honorably discharged from the Seelie Army,
just hours after being commissioned a lieutenant. As an officer in the Seelie
Army, he was eligible to attend Queensbridge, and with the warm personal recommendation of the Third Battalion's commander, he was happily accepted.

At Queensbridge he'd become more of a perfectionist than ever. He
wasn't satisfied unless he got not just top marks, but the top marks. At any
task of thaumatics, he demanded success from himself. He never quit. He
worked harder and did more and he succeeded.

And he hadn't ever been able to stop.

Here he sat now with the greatest challenge of his life in front of him. It
wasn't just that success was important. It was everything. Nothing less than
perfection mattered.

Nothing.

There was a crunching noise above him. "Right here," came the voice
again. Silverdun. "Well, don't just stand there. Help me!"

The object above him moved a little; then it began to rise slowly. There
came the sound of voices grunting in labor. The object lifted a bit more, and
then was shoved sideways.

A silhouette looked down at him, surrounded by witchlight. "Still alive,
I take it?"

"Silverdun!" he gasped.

"I know you're always eager to display your manliness," said Silverdun,
"but pinning yourself under a yacht seems excessive, even for you."

Ironfoot stood, shakily, and stumbled. Beneath him was not solid
ground, but something soft and springy, like a feather mattress, only infinitely more pliable. Silverdun reached down and pulled him up onto ...
something.

In the dark it was difficult to comprehend what he was seeing. There was
very little light other than witchlight, which illuminated Silverdun's relieved
expression. There were a number of robed figures standing nearby. Next to
him, a black hulk, was the fore half of the yacht. It registered that he had
briefly lifted the entire thing on his own. They were surrounded on all sides
by strange shapes, and the place smelled faintly of garbage.

Something slapped against Ironfoot's hip as he took a step toward Silverdun. It was Timha's satchel. Somehow he'd managed to hold on to it.

Sela was behind Silverdun. She had a huge gash on the side of her head,
and blood streaming down her dress, but she seemed not much the worse for
wear. Silverdun was a bit rumpled, but otherwise seemed fine. Timha was
stumbling toward them as well, his breathing ragged and hitching with what
might have been sobs.

All else was darkness. No, not quite; on the horizon he could see silver
wheat swaying in the moonlight.

"What happened?" he said.

"More to the point, what did not happen?" said Silverdun. "What didn't
happen was that we didn't get crushed to bits after falling a thousand feet in
a burning yacht."

"And how did that not happen, exactly?" asked Ironfoot, baffled. The last
thing he remembered was being on board the yacht, flames hissing through
the air. After that it was all a little fuzzy.

"Because of them," said Silverdun. He gestured toward the robed figures
standing nearby. Ironfoot noticed that most of them were carrying bulging
sacks; two of them were carrying a large item between them. A table?

One of them stepped forward. All that Ironfoot could see of him was that
he was lean and tall and his head was shaved clean. "Hello," he said. "I am Je
Wen. Welcome to the ground." He spoke Common haltingly, in a thick,
strange accent.

"You saved us?" said Ironfoot. "How?"

"We did not save you," said Je Wen. "You fell into our net."

A chaotic groaning sound issued from all around, and the ground swayed
beneath their feet, as though they were on a ship on the sea. Ironfoot, Sela,
and Silverdun toppled over, but the robed figures remained on their feet.

"We're standing on a sheet of Motion," said Silverdun, shakily rising to
his feet. "A massive one. Incredibly soft and flexible; like a great fluffy
pillow."

Je Wen looked back at his fellow. "Let us take what we need and be gone,"
he said. He turned to Silverdun. "We would like for you to come with us."

"Who are you people?" said Ironfoot.

"They're Arami," said Timha. "And if they saved us, they'll want something for it."

"I thought you didn't interact with the Fae of the cities," said Ironfoot.

"Only that one," said Je Wen, pointing at Timha, "is of the cities. You
are not."

"How-?" Ironfoot began, but the sea of objects around them groaned
again, and the swaying grew in fierceness.

"We must go," said Je Wen. It would be wise for the four of you to
accompany us."

Ironfoot looked at Silverdun, and Silverdun shrugged. "Unless you have
something better to do?"

"You can't trust these people," said Timha. "I'm telling you."

"You've been overruled," said Silverdun. "Let's go."

Sela nodded as well. Ironfoot followed Je Wen and his fellows toward the
silver light on the horizon. In the back of his mind were two similar patterns,
twirling in his thoughts, but they were indistinct now, and he put them out
of his mind.

Ironfoot tried to keep up with Je Wen, but it was difficult. The ground
continued to sway beneath him, and the terrain was uneven and sometimes
slippery. "What am I walking on?" he asked.

Je Wen smiled. "Our net collects what those above discard. All that they
do not want they simply throw onto the ground."

"So we're walking on their refuse," said Ironfoot.

"Indeed. Castoff furniture, uneaten food, animal scraps, feces. If they do
not want it, we catch it in our net."

Feces.

"Why?"

"Because the Arami are scavengers, who make nothing of their own,"
said Timha, straggling along behind.