The Office of Shadow (61 page)

After bringing Milla, Lord Tanen went away, and so things at the manor
have been breezy and light. The crones watch her and Milla playing together,
but say nothing. Their constant ministrations have ceased, replaced only by
a curious watching.

Before he left, Lord Tanen took Sela and explained that there are some
things Milla can never know. And that if Milla discovers them, that she will
have to be taken away. Sela didn't have to be told what he meant: the killing.

Sela enjoys killing, and looks forward to her training in the basement of
the manor house each day. She has known for as long as she can remember
that the killing is a special secret. The unreal enemies that Lord Tanen has
been training her to protect against are ever watchful. Milla has been told
that Sela's killing time is her time for "special studies." Milla has no interest
in studies, though.

"What is it you do down there all morning?" Milla asked her once.

"I train to use my Gift. I have Empathy."

Milla shrugged. She has no use for the Gifts, possessing none of her own.
She smiled. "You're so lucky."

Sela knows that Milla is not very bright. She is sweet and kind and
trusting, but she has a very hard time understanding things that are simple
to Sela. At first this bothered Sela, but now she's used to it.

Sela makes her very first thread, with Milla, one evening after supper. They
are in their bedroom, laughing about the wart on Begina's face. Begina is one
of the crones, the coldest one, the one most likely to slap Sela with a ruler.

They are laughing, laughing, and Sela takes Milla in her arms and holds
her as tight as she can. Milla tickles her and they fall over laughing; then
Milla falls backward and hits her head on the floor.

"Ouch!" says Sela, holding her head.

"Why are you ouching?" says Milla, sitting up, laughing, holding her
own head. "I'm the one that fell."

"I don't know," says Sela. She looks at Milla, and there it is: a fat, fluffy,
pink-and-gold thread, made of light, extending from her to Milla. It's not a
real thread, like in the sewing box. And it's not actually made of light, either.
It's a connection of some kind, and Milla's thoughts and feelings mingle with
her own along it. Sela has never felt so close to anyone before, believes that it
isn't possible to feel so close to anyone.

"What's happening?" says Milla. "I feel very strange."

"I feel like I could just let go and disappear forever," says Sela, her voice
soft and airy. She's starting to forget who's who. Is she Sela, or Milla? Is she
anyone at all?

She gets a glimpse of something, something that is powerful and true.
As Sela slips into Milla and Milla and Sela slip away together, something
deeper and more real than either of them begins to appear in its place. Sela is
filled with a rush of emotion she can't explain.

"I don't like this," says Milla. Sela looks at her and sees the thread that
isn't a thread convulse, thick runnels of purple and green and brown now
coursing through, spoiling the pinkness, pulling it taut, making it ugly.

Revulsion. Milla's or hers? Milla is afraid of her: has always been afraid
of her. Has always found Sela unsettling.

No, Sela's revulsion. Disgust at Milla's betrayal.

Who is feeling this?

The door slams open and Lord Tanen bolts into the room. He is not supposed to be here!

"Sela!" he shouts. "She is one of their spies! Milla is an assassin of the unreal!"
"No!" screams Sela, jerking back, away from Milla.

Milla and Sela are terrified. Milla and Sela want to be away.

Lord Tanen is carrying something, something that shines. Milla and Sela
are afraid of it.

No, Milla is afraid of it. Sela wants it. Sela reaches out for it.

Lord Tanen puts the knife in Sela's hand, and the thread between her and
Milla goes black, black, black.

"You know what must be done," says Tanen.

Milla skitters backward. Sela can feel her confusion and terror. Terror of
Sela. She knows who is who now.

Sela advances on Milla and, with trembling fingers, kills her. It's so easy;
the ones that Lord Tanen provides for her lessons have far more fight in them.
The thread vanishes not in an instant, not as the knife slices the flesh, but
slowly, sluggishly.

"Congratulations," says Lord Tanen. "Today you have completed your
training."

Sela turns on Lord Tanen, the knife wet in her grasp. A girl's blood looks
just like anyone else's. A real girl? An unreal girl? Sela draws the blade of the
knife across her wrist, severing the vein there. The blood is just the same. No
difference.

"It's too much for her," comes a voice behind Lord Tanen. One of the
crones. She's not sure which one. "You went too far with this one, just like
we told you."

"Hush!" shouts Lord Tanen, wheeling on the crone. "She's just fine. She's
stronger than any of the others."

Too far. Sela lets go of the knife. It's a meaningless object, a protrusion into
space of lines and angles. A weight, nothing more. A minute ago she'd almost
seen something, something beyond all of this meaninglessness. She has it in her
grasp, but knows that if she looks there again, she will cease to be.

"Come along now," says Lord Tanen. "It's time you and I had a long conversation."

Sela's body is, she realizes, unreal. It too is simply space and lines and
angles. Machines moving and humming, insensate, collaborating in the illusion of being. It is coming at her again, the thing she saw, from a different
angle. The thing that will consume her.

"What is it?" asks Lord Tanen, looking into her eyes. A thread forms.
Very unlike the first. Sela sees him and knows him. Knows who and what he
is and what he wants and why, but it's much too much, and the thing that
wants to eat her is reaching up to swallow her into everything, and so she
shows it to Lord Tanen instead.

Lord Tanen makes a funny sound. Not just odd, but humorous. Sela almost giggles. Everything is too big and horrid, and this thing that wants
to eat her is consuming Lord Tanen and his only response is to make such a
silly little noise.

Someone screams. One of the crones, she assumes. She shows the thing
to the crone, too. Why not? It will eat everything sooner or later, she knows.
Only a matter of time. Might as well save Sela for last.

More screaming, and now running, slamming. Sela has closed her eyes;
she doesn't want to see any of this, no thank you.

It goes on like this for quite some time. Hours. Sela is waiting for the
thing to return and show itself to her, but instead something hits her from
behind, hard, and she bites her tongue.

"Get that accursed thing on her now," comes a frightened voice.

Someone is sliding something up over her wrist. A bracelet? A gift for
me? Up over her elbow, and then snug against her arm. The thing she's been
showing to everyone loses its teeth, yawns, goes to sleep.

What was that thing? Sela is certain that it was big and dangerous, but
can't quite picture it anymore.

That voice again. "We've got her, Lord Everess," it says. "She's secure."

Secure.

Sela saw light. Light, energy, heat, all around her. She was being burned alive.
But she wasn't really seeing it; she was experiencing it on some level other
than sight. There were no eyes, no body.

A thread erupted out of her. A thick, ropy thread connecting her to a
presence larger and more terrifying than any she had ever known. An ancient
intelligence, a wisdom beyond eons, beyond stars. It saw her and knew her.

She was being incinerated in flame. She was vanishing. Then her body
was jerked to the side-but there was no body, of course-and she dropped,
hard, onto stone.

"Sorry about that," came a girl's voice. Faella.

Sela opened her eyes. She was on her knees on a platform of stone. Silverdun, Ironfoot, and Faella were here as well. Faella had landed on her feet, but both Silverdun and Ironfoot were picking themselves off the hard floor of
the platform.

The platform was circular, with a stone railing. Beyond the railing was
nothingness. Not darkness, not light. Just ... nothing. Sela had no words for
it. Emptiness without form or substance, or even absence. It was deeply
unsettling.

"I apologize for almost killing all of us," said Faella. "But I'm afraid we
didn't take into account that the fold would feed us directly into the receptacle, not into a happy landing spot. So I made an adjustment in midfold.
Harder than it sounds, I can assure you."

"Where are we?" asked Sela, her voice shaking.

"Look behind you," said Silverdun.

Sela stood, turning. Behind her was a wide road that ended at a great
stair leading up to a massive, black edifice, a squat castle without tower or
battlement, streaked reddish orange. It was blocky, unadorned, huge. Larger
than the Great Seelie Keep and twice as high.

Before them, at the start of the road, was a tall stone arch, and on the arch
was inscribed a line of script in a language that Sela didn't recognize.

"What is that?" she asked.

Ironfoot looked up at the arch, puzzling out the characters.

"This is Thule Fae," he said. "I studied it at Queensbridge. But it's an
odd dialect. Give me a moment."

"What does it say?" asked Silverdun.

"It says `Beyond This Arch Lies Death."'

"Not very welcoming," said Silverdun.

"Great. So what's the plan, boss?" asked Ironfoot.

Silverdun scowled. "We go inside and look around," he said.

"And that sign?"

"Pray it's a bit of hyperbole."

"I hate to bring this up," said Faella. "Because you may find it a bit
dispiriting, but there's something I need to tell you."

"What now?" asked Silverdun.

"While we were in the fold, I'm afraid some time may have passed.
Rather longer than you might have expected."

"How long?" asked Ironfoot.

"I think it was about four days," said Faella.

Silverdun swore. "Then the war's already begun!"

Morale is worth its weight in gold. Given the choice
between a hopeful soldier with a club and a disheartened
soldier with a sword, I will take the one with the club
every time. After the Battle of Coldwood, General
Ameus was asked how he prevailed despite being heavily
outnumbered. He famously answered, "We were less
interested in dying than they were."

-CmdrTae Filarete, Observations on Battle

auritane didn't agree with the invasion, but that didn't mean he wasn't
going to do it properly.

He stood outside his tent facing north, reviewing his Seelie Army troops
as they marched west along the Border Road toward the ruins of Selafae,
where they would amass and cross into the Unseelie at dawn. The Border
Wall itself was a hundred yards farther north, separated from the road by a
swath of swampy ground.

A seemingly unending line of soldiers, wagons, and horses flowed past,
kicking up dust along the road. The air smelled of dirt, horse dung, sweat,
and the spiced preparations of the battle mages.