A Shadow All of Light by Fred Chappell

Author:Fred Chappell
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466866133
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

VII

Shadow of Candles

We were at the paddock in the blue light of morning, inspecting the horses. They had been enclosed here for a long time, the stable being occupied by our Nighthouse and its shadow-eating plants. The horses were in need of exercise. Mutano had been absent from our villa for days and now Defender nuzzled him so heartily that he was nearly pushed over.

“How does the affair progress?” I asked him. “Do you still speak only feline?”

In that language he told me that negotiations had taken a different turn entirely. He had found out that the precious treasure, the valuable to which Tyl Rendig had unbreakably shackled the length of his life, was in the possession of Brotero.

When I asked how this impresario of cats had come by it, he told me that it had been brought to him from the château by a huge black rat he had trained to filch and poach and despoil and do dire damage upon the valuables of Brotero’s foes.

“Is it not his proper purpose to kill rats and not to league with ’em?”

“Ho now, Defender,” he said. “Be still.” The horse was always restless when addressed in cattish.

Mutano scratched with his thumbnail along the line of the black mane and said, “Now and again he will choose one rat and train it in infamous trickeries. He plucks more strings than one upon his cithara.”

“Do you know what this treasure is?”

“I do not, but we are shortly to find out.”

“How so?”

“I made a wager with the man to match Sunbolt in battle against the best of his Maulers. When Sunbolt defeats his champion, Brotero will give over the treasure to me.”

“Do you not run a dread risk? Doth Sunbolt agree to such an arrangement?”

“He is avid upon the prospect.”

“How may he profit?”

“I have wagered with him also. If he loses the battle, I will give back his shadow. If he wins, we will bargain again on different terms.”

“He has the best of it,” I said.

“We shall see.”

“Have you looked upon this Mauler? He may be of size and strength to kill your Sunbolt.”

“Incertitude makes possible the wager,” he replied.

“And the contest will be fair? Brotero does not seem an exemplar of plain dealing.”

“He may try to take a knavish advantage.”

“What then?”

“You shall be looking out for’t and, if it befall, I shall pin his carcass to the wall with a sword and possess myself of a cattery.”

“You are well fit,” I said, “as you already speak the language.”

“Make clear your hours for the second night hence,” he said. “That is the appointed time.”

* * *

The appointed place was a large, resounding, empty warehouse on Rovers Wharf. A dolorous edifice of crumbling red and black brick, it sat squat upon waterside, poking a rotting pier out over the tides like a twig thrust into a campfire. I arrived early and made a tour of the outer structure but found nothing amiss. I made short work of the lock on a narrow side door and entered the cavernous space.

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