"You put a name to the demon so swiftly?"
"Of the three tackoo known, at most recent report, to survive, only Syathbir Tolis has the capacity for flight. Tackoo are undoubtedly hardy, but I hesitate to credit that even the most resolute non-flyer could clamber past the wards and gargoyles to reach Winter's window."
"Why would even a flyer visit the child? Can her dreams be so much tastier than easier prey found far nearer the lurking places preferred by Old Time things?"
"A flyer would if it were conjured and constrained and placed under obligation."
"A Magician is responsible?"
"Such a conclusion is inevasible, my lord, Your reasoning is apt, no Old Time demon would descend upon us while easier prey is available closer to home. Someone selected Syathbir Tolis from the literature, then found it and bound it to his will. Tackoo appear to be dull of wit and, once located, easily manipulated."
"Who?" Sloot wondered aloud. "Why? I have no enemies."
"We all have enemies, my lord. Occasionally, our enemies do not declare themselves publicly. Often we find the source of their rancor inaccessible or obscure. I suggest we concentrate instead upon freeing Winter, knowing that quest will certainly expose your enemies."
"There is hope?" Sloot brightened. He did love his daughter in more than a carnal manner, as a vessel for the Everay seed, far more than he ever loved their mother.
"The tackoo is a vampire of dreams but seldom a
destroyer or vandal. They cherish and keep them. They can be reclaimed. They can be restored. Unless your enemy is so virulent he has compelled Syathbir Tolis to repudiate his very nature. I choose not to believe this is possible."
"What is accomplished by this blow? Vonce resides in her womb already. The progression \cannot be interrupted... She will not perish of this, will she?"
"She will go on as one in a coma. For however long her allotted span. The cruel truth, though, is that Vonce will enter the world with no dreams, either. The Everay progression can be maintained but you will the last to think and rule."
Shredlu saw the suspicion poison Everay's thoughts. Sloot's eyes narrowed. They became evasive as he examined the possibility that his enemy was his own Senior Magician, bent on rule through a progression of empty-minded puppets.
"Not I, my lord," Shredlu said. Not this time.
"What will you do next?"
"Locate Syathbir Tolis. The Tackoo is the key."
"Find him. Be not retiring in assessing his chastisement."
"Fear not, my lord. Rue and woe. Rue and woe betide."
Shredlu watched as Lord Everay waddled out of the library. Sloot was lost in thought, perhaps reflecting on the strange circumstances that had made him master of Everay a generation before his time.
He was not deep and persistent. Thought would abandon him once he reached the pleasures of the bath and seraglio.
4
Not all Artifacts and Old Timers were confined to the shadowed reaches of the world. Only those whose aspect offended or whose talents terrified and who were not otherwise useful on a regular basis. And those considered too dangerous to Real People. Shredlu saw several of them as he passed through the domestics corridors. They did not see him. Not even the guards. He wore an illusion supplementing their natural disinclination to see the thing that did not belong. They felt him. They moved out of his path, puzzledly, though even under torture they would recall with certainty nothing concrete.
Shredlu returned to the principal hallways for the final approach to his destination. Manners forbid making his entrance like a servant. He scratched at the appropriate door, waited patiently. She would come when it became clear he would not go away. Someone might pass and remark upon his presence.
Lady Everay Non Ethan appeared beautifully serene when she opened the door herself, more swiftly than Shredlu anticipated. She had prepared herself to receive company. Elegantly gowned and coifed and bejewelled, she appeared a regal vision of Winter, tall, lithe, blonde, her forty-six summers unbetrayed by cunningly engineered lighting. "Shredlu. Will you stand there gawking 'till some roving band of functionaries tramples you?"
The Magician stepped forward. "You surprised me, Ethan You were waiting."
"Am I so isolated and deaf that alarums and tumults fail to reach me entirely? I hear Winter's name whispered when they think I cannot hear. What disaster has befallen the child so soon after her cheerless nuptials? Has she been laid low by melancholy, like her mother before her?"
Ethan confused melancholy with bitterness, Shredlu feared. Her bottomless well of bitterness was the principal reason he came visiting so seldom anymore. "She is laid low but wicked magic was the agent. Someone sent a tackoo to steal her dreams." His gaze swept the decadence around him. Ethan certainly made Everay pay for her participation in its progression.
"How could that be? Tackoo and dorado and the gell people.... They're nightfears you Magicians made up so you can extort a livelihood from the rest of us."
She did not believe that. It was a play-argument from a time when there had been less cool between them.
"This is no game, Ethan. A determined and abiding malice has turned its countenance upon Everay. The weight of its animosity is being born by Winter but it is not she who won the motivating hatred. She's never been out of the tower."
"Perhaps she has an enemy inside. Tuft Yarramal springs to mind. Yarramal hates everyone."
Shredlu examined the proposition from obscure and descant angles. Tuft Yarramal did indeed hate everyone but only as a mannered attitude. Nor did Yarramal hate herself enough to devise her own destruction. "It is a
thought, Ethan. I shall consult Yarramal."
"Will you go without so much as touching me?"
"My time is no longer my own. I came as a courtesy, to inform you, to caution you."
"Caution me?"
"Catastrophe has struck once. Forewarned, we need not let it slide into our midst again." Shredlu surveyed his surroundings once more. He turned to the door.
"Don't go."
He steeled himself against her loneliness. "I must. I must reclaim Winter's dreams."
He was gone before she whispered, "And what of Ethan's dreams?"
5
In addition to Senior Magician Ymarjon Shredlu and his varying apprentices, Everay employed Master Magicians Rolo Kintrude and Aleas Dubbing, their several apprentices and Journeyman Magician Tuft Yarramal. Yarramal was the sole female in the magical establishment. She subscribed to none of the purported feminine weaknesses, she considered all soft emotions vices. Shredlu suspected she would become a Master at an early age and a threat to his position, if not his person, soon afterward.
The Magicians and their followings assembled in Shredlu's laboratory in response to his summons. He observed a shadow as they awaited his pleasure, unaware of his presence. Kintrude and Dubbing remained near the entrance, in an area plainly devoid of pitfalls, managing their impatience and that of their companions. They did nothing to temper the curiosities of Tuft Yarramal, however., Yarramal prowled the aisles between Shredlu's worktables and curio cabinets, here picking up an alembic full of gangrenous ichor, there a moldy book with an angel's feather as a bookmark. Never a word of caution crossed the lips of the Masters. Perhaps they hoped Yarramal stumbled into something. They had no love for her.
Shredlu noted carefully which particulars attracted Yarramal most strongly. He had shut down most of his little protections, partly as courtesy, partly to allow Yarramal's overconfidence to build to the point where she would take the one step too many if the impulse seized her.
Shubam made his entrance on cue, fawning obsequious to the Masters and haughty toward their companions. The lad looked like he was gaining weight on a diet little better than bark tea and gravel. He might find that proclivity a greater source of embarrassment than his inclination toward sloppiness.