Their Friend and Lord had turned his eyes to them. An hour prior, they had told him they had important news, but he had angrily bade them be silent while he explored the thoughts floating through his mind like fast-moving clouds, sometimes assuming shape, sometimes all murk and vagueness, often stormy black. He would not make it clear whether he wished them to speak or not, but Ghost seemed determined to take a risk. If Vous angered, they would probably flee. ‘We have heard strange news,’ they said.
Vous stood, his hand reaching for the wine glass. It was all still there, every drop. He lifted it to his lips, wanting, suddenly, to shock Ghost.
‘Friend and Lord!’ cried four of the five faces in distress, the fifth gaping in mute shock. ‘Friend and Lord! Please! Take care! Are you sure you should drink that? Is it safe?’ They all spoke at once, their voices a jumble.
Vous’s hand clenched tight around the finely wrought crystal glass. His arm shook and he gazed around the room in defiance, lip curled, teeth bared. ‘Watch,’ he snarled, though he didn’t speak to Ghost. ‘You go ahead and watch.’ In his bed at night, tossing and turning, he’d toyed with the theory that Shadow’s stealing his wine was an accusation of simple cowardice. Now he threw back the drink in one swallow, spilling blood-red drops of it down his chin. The glass he flung to the wall near the mirror, where it broke.
Ghost’s faces were in shock to see their Friend and Lord break so drastically with habit. The familiar display of rage hardly registered.
Vous stepped towards the mirror. He paused only to grab a handful of green vegetables from the plate before his throne and stuff it into his mouth, pleased at having shocked Ghost and wishing for more. Ghost obliged him with more fearful gasps and whispers, until he came near and stood, hands tensed halfway to making fists.
‘Grim news,’ said the face in the middle, recovering from its shock first. It was the sad-looking round face with big eye sockets, otherwise nearly featureless. Vous had forgotten what its name had been in life. He’d forgotten the rest of their names, too.
Speak, Vous thought, then realised he hadn’t given the command aloud. They may have interpreted his posture, for they spoke. ‘We heard a conversation, when we ventured to the Arch Mage’s window.’ Ghost then told him of how the Arch Mage, arguing with two Strategists, had dismissed the importance of the word ‘shadow’ being found on the rock face where a patrol had been ambushed and killed, a day’s march from here. No survivors were reported.
Vous listened with fists tightening. He could not be told all tidings, and many things of import escaped his notice. But this? Why had this been hidden? ‘I was not told,’ he said, beginning to shake.
‘The Arch Mage claimed … he claimed …’ Ghost had become nervous; the round middle-face lost the ability to speak, so the female face took over, ‘claimed it was better for your health, not to trouble you so. And he further said it was best not to show you what he called “the letter”. One Strategist believed otherwise. They argued fiercely. Then the Arch Mage struck his face and banished him. And bade him never again mention “the letter”.’
Vous paced before the mirror for a full hour. Ghost watched every step, waiting. At last: ‘Did he know you were present in the window glass?’ referring to the Arch Mage.
‘Nothing indicated yes or no, Friend and Lord. The curtain was halfway drawn, and we hid behind it.’
Another hour’s pacing, his body regular as a pendulum back and forth.
Ghost said hesitantly, ‘Aziel, she wailed beautifully this morn-’
‘Shhh.’ Vous strode from the chamber without a further word. He went down to the Arch Mage’s room, a place of white bricks and many special iron grids in the walls to facilitate the magic air. It had been too long since he’d visited. A vast library stretched along shelves on the side walls: books on lore of all kinds, magic of all known schools detailed here and only here with such comprehensiveness. Jars were filled with black twisting smoke or fluttering light. Cages held living things that scuttled about or crawled, attacking the glass walls when they felt Vous pass by. A small red drake, perhaps the last of its kind, was imprisoned in an iron cage in the corner. It made a mixed whine and growl, pleading sadly for freedom. Old scorch marks spread out from the floor near its cage, but its fire was used up long ago, and it surely knew by now that it waited here to die. When Vous sat and ignored it, it lay down to sleep, with a long sad sigh.
The Arch Mage wasn’t home, yet again. Vous picked at the chair’s arms in irritation, then pissed out the wine right there where he sat. He thought of tearing through the room, ruining everything, all the fragile instruments, the glass orbs filled with their mysterious smoky liquid, the charts and diagrams and sculptures, setting loose the creatures. He recalled having done such a thing before, and that the Arch Mage had not reacted other than with a displeasingly mild sadness, hardly even speaking about it afterwards.
Hours passed, then a full day. At last, the sound of familiar limping footsteps. Around the door came the half-melted face, the forked tip of a silver staff, the three horns on his head emitting a light curl of smoke each — he had flown in, then, most likely assuming the shape of a bird or bat. Behind his head was a long trail of black feathers. The one good eye took in Vous in his chair and scanned briefly around to make sure all was in order, before the Arch Mage cringed back from the hostile effects of Vous’s charms and wards like someone who’d been shoved hard.
Vous’s lip curled; he always enjoyed the sight. ‘I left the bad ones in my chamber,’ he said, which was untrue — they were in his pocket, where they would be harmless enough unless he put them on.
‘What you wear still serves you well, Vous. It is good to see you. How your eyes glow — it shan’t be long, I sense. Is something the matter?’
‘The letter,’ said Vous.
The Arch Mage began to speak, then didn’t.
‘Where have you been?’ said Vous, standing. Spit sprayed from his lips. ‘Ugly, foul thing. Disgusting, filthy thing stinking of shit.’ Vous’s rage spiralled away from him and spilled into the room like a small hot wind.
Sparks of fire erupted around the Arch Mage and sent little tendrils of flame up his gown. He winced and frantically patted them out. Hurriedly he said, ‘There are things I feared to tell you … things which I felt you would take badly, which could jeopardise-’
The rage was gone as swiftly as it had come. Vous’s eyes shut, his face curdled in pain and infinite weariness. ‘The letter. Where is the letter?’
The Arch Mage pointed at his far shelf. Vous ran there, snatched off a sheaf of folded paper, snarled deep in his throat, and sprinted from the room. The Arch Mage gently shut the door behind him.
In his chamber, it was a long week before Vous read what was written therein. He left the letter sitting at times on the floor, as though it were an unimportant piece of litter. His hands moved to rip it to pieces, but always stopped. Most of all, he marvelled that this thing could command his attention solely above all else, that it could have such power over him, though he didn’t even know what message it held. That such an object of power over him had come from the Arch Mage’s chambers was not lost on him … not lost on him at all.