The Office of Shadow

-Cereyn Ethal, Autobiography (unexpurgated)

tudying with Master Jedron was like a cross between military training and torture, using techniques of both disciplines in equal measure. Jedron's idea of a training exercise was to have Silverdun practice the crossbow for an hour, and then-with no warning whatsoever-release a half dozen hunting dogs for him to fend off. Another "exercise" was to tie Silverdun's wrists and ankles together and then have Than throw him into the ocean from the rocky cliff at the north side of the island. Jedron would then casually toss knives off the cliff until Silverdun caught one and used it to free himself.

"What's the point of this?" Silverdun blustered, after the second of these, clambering out of the water. He stumbled in turbulent surf that beat against the black stones whose edges had cut Silverdun more than once.

It was a gray day, about two weeks into the training. Low, gray sky, turgid sea. It was highsun but felt like dusk. Silverdun's clothes clung to him, flapping against his prickling skin in time with the wind. He brushed his hair out of his eyes.

Jedron and Ilian, who'd walked down from the tower to meet him, looked at each other. Jedron threw Silverdun a towel. "You don't need to know the lesson in order to learn it," he said.

"Not the test," said Silverdun angrily. "The cruelty. I was under the impression that I was being trained for a job, not being punished for my sins."

"It's both," said Jedron.

"Where's the other recruit you mentioned before?" said Silverdun. "Do you treat him as badly as you do me?"

Jedron thought about it. "No," he said. "He's not quite as stupid as you are."

"Well, where is he?"

"He's around," said Jedron. "I don't want him to pick up any of your bad habits."

Later, after Silverdun was dry, Jedron came to his quarters. "Come with me," he said.

Outside it had begun to rain, and Silverdun's fresh clothes were soon as sodden as his previous ones had been. Jedron led Silverdun and Ilian down to the quay, where the Splintered Driftwood rested, rolling in the waves. A storm out to sea somewhere was wreaking a mild havoc here. Jedron climbed aboard and beckoned Silverdun to follow.

On board, the silver-and-brass automatons had been covered with canvas tarpaulins that were tied around the things' ankles. Jedron untied one and pulled the canvas free, gesturing for Silverdun to have a closer look.

Silverdun leaned in and whistled appreciatively. The structure of the automaton's body matched that of a Fae body perfectly, only with the skin removed. Muscles of silver, tendons of brass. Eyes of glossy, polished marble.

"This is saturated argentine, isn't it?" said Silverdun. Spellplastic silver, the stuff could be manipulated easily with Elemental hook sequences. Silverdun had never seen so much of it in one place; it was astonishingly expensive.

Jedron shrugged. "Not my area of expertise," he said. "And not the point."

Illan took a small knife and, before Silverdun even realized what he was doing, swiped it across one of the many cuts on Silverdun's left hand.

"Ow!" said Silverdun. Ilian and Jedron shared a quick glance: What a baby!

Than pried open the automaton's mouth, and its tongue, a lump of argentine, lolled out. Than wiped the knife blade clean on it and shut the thing's mouth.

"Why do you think I have these spellwork sailors, when real ones would be far less expensive, and easier to maintain?" asked Jedron.

"Illan said it was because you didn't like visitors."

"True," said Jedron. "But that's not really it. It's because I live in a different world than the one you live in."

He stared out to sea. "Faerie is a more dangerous place than most suspect, and Faerie is perhaps the most civilized of all the many worlds. The real threats out here aren't bugganes or soldiers. Those are obvious. You can see them coming."

Jedron turned his gaze on Silverdun. It was piercing, and somehow deeply off-putting. Almost bestial. But not that; something else that Silverdun couldn't name.

"The real threats are the people whom you do not realize you can't trust until it is too late. Trust is perhaps the most deadly weapon that can be used against you. I have none. And neither must you.

"That is why I will not be your friend, or anything like one. I don't want you to like me. I don't want you to think you can trust even me."

Silverdun glanced at the automaton. Its face began to cloud over, as though seen through a misted mirror. "You're hardly making a case for yourself. Everess said that-"

Jedron laughed out loud. "Everess? That pompous bag of gas? He'd step on his own mother to get another rung higher on the ladder. Do you think he's gathering his own personal gang of spies purely for the love of the Seelie Heart?"

"Are you saying I shouldn't work for him?"

"Of course not. I'm only saying you shouldn't trust him."

"Well, that's one thing you didn't need to teach me. I never trusted him."

"And yet you came all the way out here solely on his word."

"I'm not doing this for him."

Jedron chuckled again. "Well said."

The mist around the automaton's face began to slowly resolve itself into skin, making a face. Dark hair began to flow out of its bald head.

Silverdun pointed at Ilian. "What about Ilian? You trust him, don't you?"

Jedron rolled his eyes. "Him I could kill in a heartbeat."

Than flicked his knife open and, more quickly than Silverdun could register, put it to Jedron's throat. With almost no effort, and just as quickly, Jedron snatched the knife from Ilian's hand and hurled him overboard, into the roiling water.

"Look," said Jedron, pointing to the automaton with his knife. Silverdun looked and shuddered. The automaton now looked just like Silverdun, an almost exact duplicate. It glared at Silverdun warily.

"There's the only one in all the worlds that you can trust, Silverdun," said Jedron.

Silverdun stood before his mechanical double. This was one of Jedron's less subtle lessons; the theater of it hardly seemed up to the old man's standards.

The automaton stepped back warily as Silverdun approached. Silverdun looked in its eyes, and a shudder of revulsion went through him. They were Jedron's eyes.

"Not quite an exact copy, though, is it?" said Silverdun. "Something about it isn't me. How it looks at me."

"No, and that's because it isn't you. I didn't say that you were the only one you could trust. You're weak and confused."

"No," said Silverdun. "Then who's he?"

"He's who you'll be when you leave here. He's who you'll be after you've completed your training."

Silverdun frowned.

"You don't like him, do you?" said Jedron. His face looked sour.

"No, to be perfectly honest."

"You'll like being him even less," said Jedron. He muttered a syllable under his breath, and the automaton's glamour vanished, leaving it a dead machine again. Jedron covered it with the tarpaulin. Silverdun, in a nonetoo-subtle frame of mind, couldn't help thinking that it looked like a shroud.

"You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, lad," said Jedron, smiling.

On the dock, Than was pulling himself up out of the water, shaking seawater out of his hair. Jedron walked past Silverdun toward the dock. As he passed, he grabbed Silverdun's shoulder.

"Hold on," he whispered, "and listen closely."

Jedron nodded toward the dock. "Ilian is a traitor. We'll have to do something about him."

Three weeks passed, during which Silverdun's training became a bit more what he'd expected upon his arrival. He learned to move without making a sound, though some of the means by which he was asked to do so seemed patently impossible. Feel the floorboards with your mind before you step on them? That would have been difficult even for someone with a well-developed Gift of Insight. Silverdun possessed the Gift, but had never studied it.