Songs of the Dying Earth

When Amberlin the Lesser stepped into his workroom that spring morning, he found his manservant Diffin staring out of the Clever Window again. The workroom was in the uppermost chamber of the east tower of the manse Furness and looked out over a silvery broadwater of the Scaum, then across the Robber Woods to far Ascolais. It was where Diffin was always to be found when his chores were more or less done, watching the old red sun made young and golden again by the special properties of the glass.

Not for the first time that morning, Amberlin wondered if the strange lanky creature had found a new way to slip his holding spell.

“Diffin, I was clear in every particular. You were to consult the Anto brothers about the state of the Copsy Door and bring word at once.”

The loose-limbed creature trembled with what the ageing wizard hoped was appropriate contrition, but which he suspected was more likely suppressed mirth, then swung his long face reluctantly from the window.

“No, master. You were most specific. I wrote it down on my little slate, see? You said to fetch word and bring it to you here at once. Since here is here, I did precisely as you instructed and hurried right back.”

“But I was out in the garden. Someone had neglected to water the lillobays and quentians again. Did you not hear them weeping?”

“Not at all. My mind was firmly on my task. And since you were not here any longer—”

Amberlin raised his hand. “As you say. Well, now I am here and I am dreaming of penalties. What word from the brothers?”

“The Copsy Door has formed, true and sure, as you predicted, master, and will no doubt last the day before slipping off again. The brothers have been hiding it behind the baffle screen as you instructed and will continue to honor their agreement in every respect. Once you find a way inside, then it’s a full quarter for them of whatever is within.”

“To which their response was?”

“Nothing but the happiest of smiles, master, and an idle remark that perhaps a third share would mark you as a benefactor to watch. They are actually stalwart, good-natured fellows, clearly maligned in the tales of those who do not know them as well as you or I.”

“Indeed. You told them I am wary of any of the tricks for which they are also known?”

“Just so, master. They are not too sure of what ‘wary’ means in the sense you use it, but they said that it was always good to have the full measure of one’s skills appreciated.”

“You said nothing else?”

Diffin shook his loose-jowled head. “Only that my name was Diffin, in the event they had forgotten and there was a gratuity on offer.”

“They said nothing else?”

“Nothing. I would have written it on my slate. Ah, wait. Now I remember. That they would hope to expect you at mid-morning.”

“What! It is that now! Diffin, you are far too lax!”

The creature pulled at his long chin as if deep in thought. “Perhaps I wrote it down and the slate is faulty. That would explain much.”

“Perhaps you will benefit from fetching my Holding Book so we can refresh our memories on the more instructive aspects of Genial Compliance.”

“But, master, there is no time! While tidying up, I took the opportunity of placing that least kind of books safely in the west tower library to give it a change of outlook. Also, as you well know, the book is so heavy and now resides at the top of a very tall bookcase. Would it not be better if I saved you the trouble and made recompense by staying here and keeping a sharp and dutiful watch for strangers and vagabonds approaching?”

Amberlin turned, regarded the wonder of a golden sun in the clear blue sky of aeons past. “Through the Clever Window, of course?”

“Oh yes, master. There are erbs reported out by Callow Tree. If they dare come this way, then they will look so much friendlier under a yellow sun.”

CLOSE BY the confluence of the Scaum and the River Tywy, the archmage Eunepheos the Darke had once built the splendid shadow-manse of Venta-Valu, an edifice of cunning pentavaults and intricate schattencrofts, the whole set under six fine dormers crowned with ghost-chasers and spin-alofts in one of the classic styles of Grand Motholam.

The centuries had been kind to the structure, all things considered, but following Eunepheos untimely vanishment into the Estervoid, supposedly at the hands of his great rival Shastermon, steadily, inevitably, the cohesion spells had spoiled and Venta-Valu had fallen into ruin. The intricate shadowforms were soon plundered by visiting adepts and shadow-factors, and much of what remained was leached away by shadow-wights and other creatures drawn to compressed darkness, so that, by the 21

Aeon, the residence was little more than a handful of glooms and hollows scattered along the riverbank, too insubstantial to bother with.

Except for whatever lay behind the Copsy Door. Eunepheos had been as wily as any of his fellows, and had installed what appeared to be a particular cellar or basement that remained both sufficiently corporeal and yet resistant to all attempts at entry. Sealed by a here-again, goneagain Copsy Door calibrated to the protracted time-values of its maker’s favourite requiem, it was set into the embankment well above the Scaum, as if left as a deliberate taunt to the greedy and the curious.

Amberlin believed he finally knew the way in.

Now, studying his reflection in the Safe Mirror as he prepared himself for his journey, he was by and large pleased with what he saw. He was in his final years, no doubt, like the old sun itself, but was still impressively tall and certainly formidable-looking in his dark green robe set with old-gold frogging, maiden-thread serentaps, and gilt curlicues. His long grey hair and stylish tripartite beard held by its three opal clasps still had enough flecks of black, and he liked to think his eyes were bright with resolve and old-world cunning rather than an excess of brandywine, rheum, and too many late nights spent reading in front of the fire. He felt as ready for the Door and the brothers with their interminable schemes as he could ever hope to be.

And while Amberlin knew better than to let the Copsy Door be the sole answer to his troubles, hope remained the only meal worth having these last few decades. If not this, then what else was there? Nearly a century before, at the full blush of his powers, he had known upwards of fifty spells and cantraps. He could recite them from memory—the intricate syllables and pronunciations uttered just so—even the most exacting convolutes, glossolades, and prattelays, with no need of spell books or prompt lists, no reliance on the often fractious, sometimes duplicitous sandestins and daihaks in his employ to whisper embarrassing reminders.

But then, even as years and failing memory had worn those fifty-plus spells down to a zealously guarded twelve, Amberlin had experienced his worst of days.

In the workings of an ancient feud, specifically a longstanding dispute over the ownership of a particularly fine gossawary tree in the Robber Woods, that spiteful parvenu Sarimance the Aspurge had blighted him with Stilfer’s Prolexic Inflect, so that the syllable patterns of every spell Amberlin then uttered, every conjuration that he could still remember, were tweaked, spoiled, and sent awry in some way or other: by a lengthened vowel here, a protracted consonant there, a sudden diaresis shift or interogative. Something once as trivial as renewing the Genial Compliance on Diffin—an utterance of seconds—now required an hour of careful concentration, while only rarely did a spontaneous conjuration prove effective in any way.

What an embarrassment to engage in that trifling exchange with Tralques at the Iron Star Inn that day and then, having invoked his greatest display spell, Aspalin’s Fond Retrieval, being left to explain why he had countered the upstart’s dazzling conjuration of a troupe of performing silver dryads with nothing more than a lowly earthenware teapot reciting bawdy ballads from the Land of the Falling Wall. What an agony to escape the deodand at Wayly Corners, then from his refuge in the tossing heights of a lamplight tree see his Astemic Sunderblast turn an entire hillside into yellow flowers with softly chiming wind-bells. The deodand had either been discouraged by the sheer novelty of the display, or had more likely wandered off out of boredom, but Amberlin had been left to justify to neighbors and curious passers-by why he had preferred to stay aloft swaying in the breeze for four hours instead of simply blasting the creature outright.

The whole affair had given Amberlin a not altogether unwelcome reputation for subtlety, capriciousness, and new-found stoicism. Some even called him, and never entirely in jest, Amberlin the Philosophe, and drew pleasing if somewhat off-handed parallels with his fabulous namesakes, Amberlins I and II, two of the mightiest after Phandaal in all the long history of Grand Motholam. It could have been worse.

But Amberlin knew it was only a matter of time before the spiteful Sarimance, that upstart Tralques, the Anto brothers themselves, or even that wilful mooncalf Diffin brought forth the various bits and pieces they knew and saw how it truly was, and he found himself the laughing-stock of Almery, Ascolais, and beyond, the punch-line of the season’s joke.

Amberlin glanced at the antique chronometer floating above his desk. It was well past time to be on his way. Fortunately, the housekeeping and protection spells for Furness required but a single one-syllable word, and today took merely fifteen subvocalized attempts before luck had it safely in place. Amberlin strode briskly down the path, then, with a single glance up at Diffin gazing at a sun that no longer was, he gripped his staff firmly and set off across the water-meadow to where the remains of Venta-Valu stood in the roseate morning light.

THOUGH AMBERLIN’S few remaining spells had become ordeals of frustration and dismay, with even a text as fundamental to sound wizardry as Killiclaw’s Primer of Practical Magic hardly worth the trouble of opening, he possessed other adjuncts borrowed, bought or bequeathed to him through a long lifetime that required no utterances at all. If he were reasonably careful, he could still present as someone to be approached with caution and crossed at great peril.

One such possession was the antique baffle screen the Anto brothers now used to hide both themselves and the cellar Eunepheos had wrought so long ago. As Amberlin strode along the riverbank, he fitted the yellow key-glass coin to his left eye and revealed both the Copsy Door and the brothers wilfully hiding amid the more substantial of the old manse footings.

It was hard to know what passed for humor or wit in those sly, selfserving minds. Now, by remaining quiet, it seemed as if they wanted to make Amberlin lose face by having to ask that they reveal themselves.

“Let us be about it then!” he called, taking care to direct his gaze precisely at where each was concealed, and was pleased at how swiftly the grins left the startled, moony faces. Now both scrambled to their feet and stood, burly, copper-skinned and practically hairless in their humble village work-smocks and thick leather aprons, giving silly grins again.

“Kept it safe, your magnificence,” Joanto said, brushing the grass from his apron. “Did all you said exactly to the letter.”

Boanto wiped his chin with the back of a hand. “Ready and eager to uncover what’s within, your mightiness.”

The Copsy Door itself was a smooth milk-glass lid set at forty-five degrees into the hillside. About it, merging with the grassy bank, were the schattendross relics of old wall and arch footings, a sad handful looming up to become twists and tendrils before fading into nothing. Through them, the old red sun cast a purple light that made the day seem further along than it was. Not for the first time, Amberlin wondered what had possessed Eunepheos to create such a place. There was gloom and shadow enough in these latter days.

Amberlin pushed back his sleeves in the sort of theatrical flourish all wizards practiced in the privacy of their innermost sanctoria, and made as if to study the milky lid. “Joanto, take your water-bucket and fetch fresh water—mind now, free from any impurities. Boanto, go find five red wild-flowers from that meadow there. Flawless, you understand. Not a blemish or this will not work.”

The brothers exchanged glances, clearly displeased at having to miss any part of what the wizard now did, but dared not linger. Amberlin watched as they hurried off muttering and casting backward glances. Then, even as Joanto stooped to fill his bucket and Boanto discarded one flower after another in his quest for perfect blooms, Amberlin took the green operating coin for the baffle screen in one hand and the yellow eye-coin in the other and slammed them together. The result was a rather spectacular and very satisfactory flash complete with a thunderclap that echoed in the hills and sent reed-birds rising along the Scaum.

The brothers, of course, saw it as a fine conjuration rather than the pyrotechnics accompanying ancient science at work. Even as the thunder faded, they came scrambling back, Joanto discarding his bucket, Boanto throwing aside his fistfuls of flowers along the way.

“No matter! No matter!” Amberlin called. “My simplest Sunderblast has brought Eunepheos’ door undone. Light the torches and let us proceed.”

Boanto wiped his chin again and studied the perfectly round hole where the Copsy Door had been. Its blackness was absolute. “Surely a fine magical glow would be more convenient, your magnificence.”

“Surely it would,” Amberlin countered loftily. “But think on it further, Boanto. You fine robust fellows must continue to play some modest part in this to warrant as much as a quarter share.”

Joanto gave a shrewd sideways look. “But we were the ones who found the old requiem manuscript in that trunk in Solver’s attic while—er—visiting his poor, ill—er—now deceased mother that day, then immediately brought it to you.”