It was the Theater of the Doves.

"Get away!" a voice shrieked. "All of you, get away from here!"

Eldyn recognized that voice, and by his look so did Dercy.

"It's Gerivel," he said.

Then he was hurrying toward the door, stumbling no longer. Eldyn drew a breath to steady himself and followed after.

"To the Abyss with all of you-just leave us!"

Dercy pushed his way through the small throng of people, all of whom stared at something, mouths agape. Then Dercy stopped short, and Eldyn staggered to a halt beside him. The large quant.i.ty of punch in his stomach went sour, and the world spun in a giddy circle around him. of whom stared at something, mouths agape. Then Dercy stopped short, and Eldyn staggered to a halt beside him. The large quant.i.ty of punch in his stomach went sour, and the world spun in a giddy circle around him.

Gerivel knelt on the paving stones before the door of the theater. He no longer wore his feathered costume, and was clad in plain black, though his face was still powdered. The powder had flaked off in patches, and tears had carved deep grooves through it, so that his face was a grotesque mask of anger and anguish.

Next to Gerivel, slumped against the door, was a young man. Or rather, the body of a young man. He was dressed in fashionable clothes of velvet and brocade. However, there was no way to know if he had been handsome or not, for his face was crusted with blood.

"Get back!" Dercy shouted, his voice deeper than Eldyn had ever heard it. He thrust his arms out. "All of you, get back!"

The gawkers grumbled but complied, edging away from the door. As the crowd shifted, a beam of moonlight fell upon the corpse. Now Eldyn could see the source of all the blood. Both of the young man's eyes were gone; only empty pits remained.

Dercy crouched beside Gerivel, who was pawing at the corpse with thin hands, as if trying to wake it.

"What happened, Gerivel?" Dercy gripped the older illusionist's shoulders.

"I told Donnebric not to go! I told him it could not be for good, not when it was all so secret. But he would not listen, not to me me. What value could there be in anything I had to say?" Gerivel rocked back and forth on his knees. "I went out to look for him, only I couldn't find him anywhere. Then I came back, and he was..." His words dissolved into a moan.

Dercy rose and pounded on the gilded doors of the theater, not letting up until at last it opened a crack. Sounds of outrage emanated from within, quickly trans.m.u.ting into dismay. Eldyn was aware of figures appearing in the dim doorway, of hands reaching out and picking up both Gerivel and the corpse, drawing them inside.

Then the doors shut. Without a spectacle to behold, the crowd melted away.

A hand touched Eldyn's shoulder. "There's nothing we can do here," Dercy said, his voice low.

"Should we not call for a redcrest?"

"They would not come. Even if they did, what would the king's soldiers say, except that this is what happens to men who do such things?"

Eldyn could do no more than give a mute nod. He stumbled with Dercy down Durrow Street, thinking at any moment he would be sick. His head throbbed from too much punch. He remembered pushing through a door and staggering up a flight of steps.

The next thing he knew, light flared-the mundane gold light of an oil lamp-and he saw that he was in a small but neatly kept room. They had made it to Dercy's chamber above the Theater of the Moon.

"I need to go," Eldyn said. "I need to get to Sashie."

"You're not going anywhere. You've drunk too much. Besides, it's not safe out there tonight."

"I can bring the shadows to me." Eldyn's head was clearing now. It wasn't the punch that had addled his wits so much as the sight in front of the Theater of the Doves.

"The shadows can't help you walk straight. And it's too late to find a hack cab, at least in this part of the city. You can stay here tonight. You'd best lie down. I can sleep in the chair."

Eldyn wanted to argue, but he could not. He sat on the edge of the narrow bed and drank the cup of water Dercy handed him. His head still hurt, but his stomach had settled, and he knew he would be well enough.

The same could not be said for the illusionist Donnebric.

"Who do you think did it?" Eldyn said. "Was it robbers?"

Dercy let out a snort. He stood near the window. "No, not robbers. At least not in the sense you mean. For every magnate is a robber in his way."

These words astonished Eldyn. "The magnate he performed for. You think he he had this done?" had this done?"

"Who else would do it?"

"For what purpose? Why kill him?"

Dercy gazed out into the night. "It wouldn't be the first time someone was removed in order to preserve a secret. It's one thing for a lord to have an illusionist summon gold sparrows at a party to propagate talk and interest. But cavorting with Siltheri in private is a far different matter. You can imagine what it would do to some staid old magnate's reputation if it was discovered he had let illusionists conjure lewd phantasms in his bedchamber while he paraded about without a st.i.tch on."

Eldyn could indeed imagine it. It could very well cost him his seat in a.s.sembly. After all, such actions had ended any chance Vandimeer Garritt had ever had of taking his own father's seat in the Hall of Magnates.

"That idiot." Dercy shook his head. "Donnebric would have been fine if he'd been more discreet. But he always wanted to blaze in the sun. I'm sure he must have said or done something, made some boast, that caused the magnate to fear the whole sordid affair would be revealed."

"So Donnebric was murdered," Eldyn said, hardly believing a man-a lord even-could be so cold as to buy secrecy at the cost of a man's life. "G.o.d protect us."

Now Dercy laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "Oh, he won't protect us us, Eldyn. Well, you, perhaps. You're the one who works for the Church and who looks like an angel after all. But as for us Siltheri..." He drew the curtain and turned from the window. "Men might pay to see our illusions, Eldyn, but it is better if we are not seen ourselves. What happened to Donnebric-that's what happens when our kind become too visible."

Eldyn looked down at his hands. Perhaps the world was not so vast after all. Perhaps it would never have room for people like Donnebric and Gerivel and Dercy, and they would always have to remain concealed. He began to shiver, though the night was balmy.

"Come now, what's this?" Dercy said, sitting on the bed beside him. "You're all right. You need not shake so."

"I can't stop it," Eldyn said. "I can't stop thinking about him."

Dercy put an arm around his shoulder. "There is no point in it. I would never have wished such a thing for Donnebric, but he brought it on himself by his own actions."

"Did he? Did he truly do something to deserve such an end?"

"Deserve it? No, he did not deserve it. Yet he knew the rules we must abide by, and he flouted them."

It was so cruel. How could one man have so much power over another? And how could G.o.d, who was sovereign over all, allow it? Were they just beasts, then, like the wolves and sheep in the makeshift play at the tavern, engaging in a savage dance until one consumed the other?

Still Eldyn could not stop shaking. "I feel cold."

"Then let's get you warm."

Dercy rubbed his hands against Eldyn's back, his shoulders, his arms. He did this vigorously at first, to induce the production of warmth. Then, as the force of Eldyn's shuddering eased, Dercy's motions grew slower, more gentle. Yet even when Eldyn shivered no longer, the other young man did not stop. He touched Eldyn's hands, his throat, his cheeks.

"There, do you see?" Dercy said in a low voice. "You are well, my angel."

Eldyn looked up into the young man's sea-colored eyes, and at last he understood the expression he had seen in them before: the look of hope, and of regret. How had he not realized before what it meant? Yet up until then he had been so preoccupied with trying to improve his ability at illusions that he had been insensible to that other capacity that had been steadily increasing in him whenever he and Dercy were together.

Now he recognized it for what it was, and he could only be astonished at himself. Though in a way that was foolishness, for he supposed he had always known the truth of the matter. Certainly he had never watched a pretty young woman with the same fascination that he felt when he spied two illusionists together in the shadows of a tavern.

But there was a cause for why he had factored such thoughts and feelings away, was there not-why he had endeavored to tally them to null in the ledger of his life? He had only to read a little further in the Testament, and he was sure to find the reasons all ciphered out.... and feelings away, was there not-why he had endeavored to tally them to null in the ledger of his life? He had only to read a little further in the Testament, and he was sure to find the reasons all ciphered out....

"Forgive me," Dercy said, and he shook his head. "I shouldn't have presumed..." He started to pull his hand away.

Even as he did, Eldyn caught it in his own; it was smooth and surprisingly strong. A delightful warmth welled up inside him, and as it did his trepidations vanished like ink sanded from a page. Perhaps tomorrow, when he opened his copy of the Testament in the morning light, he would again suffer concern for the perfection of his immortal soul. But now, at that moment, it was only the transient tenderness of flesh that he could consider.

Acting on an impulse, he brought Dercy's hand to his lips. Then, once again, he looked into Dercy's eyes. This time there was no regret to be seen there, only a brilliant light. For a moment the two of them were frozen, like actors in a tableau.

Then Dercy leaned in to kiss him. His beard was warm and marvelously rough against Eldyn's cheek. Their lips pressed together, suspending breath, as if that action granted them all the necessary stuff of life, so that mere air was no longer required. Eldyn gripped Dercy's shoulders like a man drowning, yet he felt no distress, only a blissful warmth. He sank, and willingly.

At last they parted. The expression on Dercy's face was at once delighted and amused.

"Good G.o.d, you act as if you've never kissed anyone before, Eldyn Garritt."

Eldyn felt his cheeks flush. Of course he had kissed others. Except he suspected Dercy would not count pecks against his sister's cheek. True, there had been a few girls he had let himself be cornered by as a youth, and he had let them kiss him, but he had never kissed them in return.

The only occasions he could remember that had been remotely like this had been the two times Westen had kissed him: once knowing him to be Eldyn, and once thinking him to be Sashie. However, for all that one of those kisses was mocking and the other l.u.s.tful, there had been a violence to both. Each had been the act of one person seeking domination over another. the other l.u.s.tful, there had been a violence to both. Each had been the act of one person seeking domination over another.

Dercy's kiss was different. The gesture had been freely given and received, and even now Eldyn could feel the force of it thrilling along his nerves like lightning along a wire.

Dercy grinned. "So have you or haven't you kissed someone before?"

"I have now," Eldyn said. And this time it was he who leaned in and brought them together.

Never had he done such a thing in his life. Yet such is the wonder of instinct that it apprehends when knowledge does not. A salmon knows which way to swim, a bird to fly. Similarly, his lips, his hands, knew what to make of themselves. He drank of Dercy as he had drunk of the punch that night. A tone hummed in him, like a crystal gla.s.s struck just so, and a green light seemed to suffuse the air.

Then, to his dismay, the other young man pulled away.

"Look," Dercy said softly, his eyes alight. "Look around you."

Eldyn did, and then wonder struck him. The room, the bed, the drab curtains were all gone. Instead, the two of them sat upon a flat stone in the midst of a forest glade. Great trees arched overhead, and fairy-lights drifted among their boughs.

"Did you conjure this?" Eldyn said, trying to comprehend.

"No, this is all from you. Don't you see? The other morning you couldn't make a tree-and now here's a whole forest of them." He gripped the back of Eldyn's neck. "You did it, my friend."

Eldyn could only stare. It seemed impossible; he had never conjured more than the smallest glamour. Yet even as he thought that the trees should be taller, and that there should be more glittering lights, these things were made manifest. Eldyn let out a sound of delight. He had crafted an illusion-a real illusion.

"Now what do I do?" he said, amazed.

Dercy's grin broadened. "Oh, I'll show you that," he said, pulling him forward and off balance. Eldyn gripped him in turn, and they both fell laughing to the green leaves that scattered the forest floor.

CHAPTER SIX.

BESIDES THE INCIDENT at the cenotaph, the broadsheets had been starved for ill news of late. The morning after Brightday, they at last had some fresh misery to feast upon. Reports had come of an insurrection in County Dorn. This was in a remote region in the northwest of Altania: a poor and rock-strewn landscape where the population was still less than what it had been before the Plague Years centuries ago.

That such a desolate location, so far from the influence of Invarel, would suffer throes of discontent could not entirely be a surprise. Ivy knew from her studies of history that the land that was the poorest for growing crops often proved the most fertile for sowing rebellion. All the same, the news of the violence at Dorn was shocking.

Provoked for some unknown reason, the men of a number of villages had banded together and stormed several manor houses, looting as they went and turning out the landlords. Then the mob had marched upon the county seat, and there they had forced their way into the keep, seized the mayor-a known loyalist to the Crown-and dragged him into the town square, where they proceeded to pelt him with stones until he was dead.

The few soldiers stationed at the keep had been unable to thwart the mob. Indeed, two of them were murdered along with the mayor, though several managed to escape, and thus reports of what had happened were brought to the south. At this point, the entire county was in a state of lawlessness, and there had been no more news. Whether more soldiers would be sent to control the situation was unknown. It had lately been the practice of the king to withdraw troops from the Outlands and station them nearer to Invarel; though whether this was seen as a prudent bolstering of the city's defenses in uncertain times, or a reckless abandoning of the countryside, depended upon which newspaper one read. to withdraw troops from the Outlands and station them nearer to Invarel; though whether this was seen as a prudent bolstering of the city's defenses in uncertain times, or a reckless abandoning of the countryside, depended upon which newspaper one read.

While it was always troubling to learn of awful news in distant places, once it was read and digested there was nothing to do but to go on with all the usual affairs of one's day. That life should continue apace for one person when it was all in tumult for others seemed grossly unfair, but it was ever the state of the world. Besides, Ivy needed some activity to direct her attention toward, for otherwise she would find herself wanting to take out a map so she could count the miles between County Dorn and the region of the northlands where Mr. Quent had gone to perform his work. And there could be no useful purpose in that.

With this in mind, Ivy decided to take the old rosewood clock to be repaired, for it was still off. Yesterday, it had marked the end of the lumenal eighteen minutes before the almanac predicted. True, when Ivy glanced out the window of the sitting room, the sky had already been getting dark by the time the black disk eclipsed the gold one on the right-hand face of the clock. However, the day had been generally cloudy. And anyway, because of the Crag looming to the west, Ivy could never get a good view of the sunset.

But she had checked the timetables in the almanac twice, and had compared the time on the rosewood clock to others in the house, and so there could be no mistake about it-the clock had chimed the start of the umbral too early. Therefore, after breakfast, she wrapped it in cloth and took it to Coronet Street, to the shop of a clockmaker.

Evidently there had been an epidemic of broken clocks in the city, for upon entering the shop she found it crowded with people. Each of them held a clock in their hands (or leaned against it if the clock was very large), and all the disparate noises of their ticking and chiming and cuckooing made for a jarring symphony.

She waited for over an hour to be seen, and then it was not by the clockmaker but rather by his apprentice. After giving the workings of her clock only a brief examination, the young man p.r.o.nounced that there was no mechanical problem that he could observe. of her clock only a brief examination, the young man p.r.o.nounced that there was no mechanical problem that he could observe.

"I will say that the workings of this clock are peculiar," he said, his eyes large behind thick spectacles. "There are extra gears and other mechanisms whose function I cannot guess. I am sure my master would have seen their like before, if he had time himself to look at it, but he does not. Regardless, it is all in good working order."

"I'm sure that's not the case," Ivy protested. "I set it according to the almanac at the beginning of the last lumenal, yet by the end it was nearly twenty minutes behind."

"Then I suppose your almanac has a misprint in it," the apprentice said, and shut the door on the back of the clock.

Ivy had never known the almanac to be incorrect. She always used Sparley's Yearbook Sparley's Yearbook, which had a reputation for being highly reliable. Yet she had to concede it was possible that there were mistakes in the almanac. After all, there were a great number of entries, and the typeface was very small.

She left the shop, the heavy clock in her arms, and walked a short distance to a bookseller's, where she bought the last copy of Gooding's Altanian Almanac Gooding's Altanian Almanac on the shelf. Then she went to hire a hack cab to take her back across the city. Her sisters had Lawden and the cabriolet, as Lily had wanted to go to Halworth Gardens again that day. on the shelf. Then she went to hire a hack cab to take her back across the city. Her sisters had Lawden and the cabriolet, as Lily had wanted to go to Halworth Gardens again that day.

The lumenal-which, if the new almanac was any more accurate than the old, was to be over eighteen hours long-was growing torrid by the time Ivy returned to Durrow Street. As she entered the front hall, she was greeted by a great racket emanating from upstairs. Evidently repairing a wall caused more of a disturbance than tearing one down.

Ivy took her burdens to the sitting room and set them on the mantel. The carved eye in the center of the mantelpiece blinked at her, and she smiled. Any dread the eyes had given her the other day had been superseded by reason. The voices she had heard the other night could not have been made by the black storks, as Mr. Barbridge had informed her, which meant they must have been produced by her imagination instead. Besides, she could not believe that the eyes were anything other than benevolent. other night could not have been made by the black storks, as Mr. Barbridge had informed her, which meant they must have been produced by her imagination instead. Besides, she could not believe that the eyes were anything other than benevolent.

Ivy took up the old almanac, but she was uncertain what to do with it. It was hardly of use now, but she could not bring herself to throw away any sort of book. Instead, she took it to the shelf in the corner of the sitting room.

The majority of her father's library was stored away in crates, awaiting the completion of work on the house to be unpacked. However, as her father had often said when she was young, a house without books was like a body without a soul, and so she had brought out a few books and arranged them here. She slipped the almanac onto the shelf beside them.

That task accomplished, Ivy considered how to occupy herself for the rest of the long morning. She supposed she should look at the household ledger. It had been some time since she had catalogued the receipts related to the restoration of the house, and she wanted to keep them in order for Mr. Quent to inspect upon his return.

Or she could read a book.

While it had long been Ivy's custom to spend every free moment reading books from her father's library-volumes about history, ancient mythology, and especially magick-it had been difficult to maintain the habit these last months. With her sisters gone, she had some rare time to herself.

The receipts could wait; after all, Mr. Quent would not return for nearly half a month. Ivy ran a finger along the spines of the books on the shelf. None of them concerned the arcane or occult; she had not thought it appropriate to bring out such tomes when strangers were coming and going. However, there were several volumes regarding various scientific studies.

Her finger came to a halt upon a book of astrography. Over the last few days, Ivy had thought a great deal about the article she had read in The Comet The Comet concerning the new planet. Further reflection concerning the new planet. Further reflection had convinced her that her hypothesis was correct-that the place she had seen through the Eye of Ran-Yahgren was in fact the planet Cerephus. had convinced her that her hypothesis was correct-that the place she had seen through the Eye of Ran-Yahgren was in fact the planet Cerephus.

Though the long morning had grown hot, a shiver crept across Ivy's arms and neck. She would never forget the lurid crimson glow that had welled forth from the crystalline orb in the secret room upstairs, or the dark shapes that had lurched across the queer landscape beyond.

What the things were, Ivy didn't know. Something alive, and ravenous. Whatever they were, the magicians had sought to use the artifact to open a door for them. They had thought to control the things, to use them for some unknown end. For power, she supposed. One glance through the orb was enough for Ivy to know that plan was madness. Indeed, merely gazing into the orb had driven the magicians mad.