Ch. 25: What the Wall Remembers and Ch. 26 A Useful Baseline

Chapter 25: What the Wall Remembers

The north wall looked fine from a distance. Marielle considered this an argument against assessing buildings from a distance.

From the carriage window, she could see pale stone, defensive galleries, and a line of repairs most people would mistake for uninterrupted masonry.

She could also see the maintenance ramp.

Forty-three additional paces.

Daravan had been very pleased with it.

The carriage stopped.

Halal descended first. Arvellan followed with the archive folio. Corren stepped down and turned to offer Marielle his hand.

She used her right. Lia had become more insistent that she avoid using her left until Lia figured out why it was still healing abnormally.

Before she reached the ground, Daravan appeared beside the door. “The step is wet.”

“I can see it.”

“I know.”

He remained there anyway.

Marielle descended without incident.

Mael brought the instrument case. Daravan looked at its handle.

“I have not touched it,” she said.

“I said nothing.”

“Your attention was becoming instructional.”

Behind him, Serali had stopped beside Pell.

Halal took in the guards, then turned toward the street. “This is excessive.”

Daravan followed his glance toward the Watch officers holding the maintenance lane. “No.”

“I have inspected this wall for years.”

“And you may inspect it today from inside the perimeter.”

Arvellan opened his folio. “They should not interfere with the inspection, Headmaster.”

They crossed the lane. Ordinary traffic continued on the street beyond it, carts rattling past the controlled entrance while the inspection party gathered beneath the maintenance arch.

A palace guard checked the lower chamber.

Marielle sat at the temporary table outside and opened her notebook.

Mael put the case beside her.

Daravan moved it to the right.

She looked at him.

“The clasps,” he said.

She could reach them more easily there.

“That is useful.”

He nodded and turned toward the guard.

Marielle rested her right hand on the notebook.

A pull tightened beneath the dressing on her left arm.

Brief.

Quite distinct.

She looked down. She had not moved it.

Perhaps the carriage had irritated the tissue. Delayed effects were possible.

Annoying, but possible.

The sensation faded before she finished assessing it.

Corren opened the case.

Marielle decided not to experiment with her shoulder.

For once, leaving something alone seemed the more useful test. She would inform Lia that the tugging had recurred later, when it would not impede her work.

“Lady Marielle,” Halal said. “Which point?”

“Seven first.”

“Then nine.”

“Yes.”

“Eight between them.”

She looked up. “Geographically unavoidable.”

“I mean we should examine it.”

“Yes. While we are there.”

Arvellan put three diagrams beside the notebook. “The original layout and the subsequent revision we discussed yesterday.”

Marielle drew the first closer.

Good copies. Clear lines. Legible labels.

She appreciated that more than a discussion of the weather.

The guard returned. Daravan listened to his account, then gestured toward the ramp.

Marielle stood.

No second tug.

Good.

The lower chamber was cool and smelled faintly of stone dust.

Ward-light ran through narrow grooves along the inner face. The newer mortar near the arch was the wrong color, although no one had asked her opinion of it.

She would include it in the report anyway.

Serali stood beside the main convergence, looking at something Marielle could not see.

Halal watched her.

“You use shadow to examine solar wardwork.”

“I use contrast to examine solar wardwork.”

“That was not my question.”

“It was my answer.”

Marielle set down her notebook.

They had begun efficiently, at least.

Arvellan laid the diagrams on the worktable.

Corren brought the measuring case inside. Mael remained near the door, where he could see both the approach and Marielle.

Daravan inspected the upper access before returning.

“Sit,” he said.

“There is no chair.”

He moved one from the far wall.

Marielle looked at it, then at him.

Corren had already begun turning toward the same chair.

Daravan apparently preferred not to wait.

“Here?”

Marielle indicated the table’s clear end. “I need to see the lower channel.”

He put it there.

Angled so she would not have to turn her left shoulder.

Interesting. He had become unexpectedly good at arranging furniture.

She sat and took out the narrow gauge. “Corren, the second measuring point. Hold it against the marked line.”

He obeyed.

Halal leaned over the diagram. “That measures displacement.”

“Yes.”

“Not magical load.”

“Yes.”

Marielle looked at him.

“Establishing the physical comparison first,” she added.

“Good.”

The gauge settled.

Corren read the position. She recorded it, checked the reference mark, then asked him to repeat it.

Same result.

Serali moved closer to the ward groove.

“The primary flow reaches the convergence,” she said. “The reporting return goes somewhere else first.”

Halal stepped beside her. “Where?”

“I am following it.”

Marielle let them work.

The existing panel showed the reassuring values copied into their report.

Her physical measurements did not.

That part was familiar.

What she wanted was the connection between them.

Halal pointed to the diagram. “The return should follow this channel.”

“It does,” Serali said. “After the branch.”

“There is no branch.”

“There is here.”

She held a little shadow beside the groove.

Not against it.

The pale line became easier to distinguish.

Halal bent closer.

His expression changed.

Arvellan moved the older diagram beside the revision. “Original maintenance architecture?”

“Yes,” Halal said.

Marielle looked up.

Serali had stopped tracing the main channel. Her attention rested on a smaller line beside it.

Halal ran a finger over the corresponding mark on the paper. “The reference lattice.”

“Reference to what?” Marielle asked.

“The construction tolerances. A maintenance mage could isolate a section and use it for comparison during calibration.”

“The values from yesterday,” Serali said.

“Yes.”

Marielle looked at the wall panel, then at the separate loop on the older drawing. “A stored reference.”

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Halal nodded. “Precisely.”

“Which should be isolated from ordinary reporting.”

“It should,” Halal said.

Marielle leaned forward to examine the lower access plate.

The pull returned, stronger this time.

Her breath caught, and she put the pencil down.

Daravan turned before Corren did. “What?”

“It pulled.”

“Your arm?”

“Yes.”

“From leaning?”

Marielle considered. “No. It happened outside as well. I was sitting still.”

He looked at her bandage.

There was no stain.

She had already checked.

“How long?”

“A moment.”

“Pain now?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

Serali had come away from the channel.

Marielle looked between them. “I am not bleeding.”

“Tell me if it happens again,” Daravan said.

“And Lia,” Serali added.

“Yes.”

Daravan shifted the notebook closer.

Marielle had not asked him to.

He looked toward the plate she had been trying to examine, then crouched. “This?”

“Yes. It opens from the right. Do not touch anything behind it.”

He glanced back at her. “I understand instructions.”

“Then you are ahead of several mechanisms in this room.”

Serali made a small sound.

Halal did not smile. But he waited while Daravan loosened the cover.

Marielle watched the Captain’s hands.

Careful. Controlled.

He supported the plate before drawing it away, rather than letting its weight pull on the last fastening.

She would have objected if he had done otherwise. She appreciated that she did not need to.

Inside lay old brass connections beneath a thin layer of dust.

Marielle counted them.

Then counted again.

“Oh.”

Daravan looked up. “What?”

“That should not be there.”

Arvellan brought the diagram nearer.

Three bridges in the original arrangement. There were four in the wall.

The extra one was narrow and darkened enough to resemble the others.

Halal crouched beside Daravan.

He touched nothing. “That is not in the revision either.”

Marielle traced the path on the paper with her pencil. “Here to here.”

Serali lowered herself beside the opening.

Pell moved close enough to see her hands.

She followed the connection without touching it.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Marielle looked at the panel again.

It reported that the ward was operating within tolerance.

The structure did not support that answer while the old reference did.

“Does it carry the live reading?” she asked.

“Very little power,” Serali said. “Enough to carry the reference into the return.”

Halal checked the paper.

Then the exposed bridges.

The difference was tiny. That did not make it inconsequential.

Marielle sat back. “The report is being given an answer.”

“From the reference lattice,” Serali said.

“Not from what the section is doing.”

Halal nodded once.

No one spoke for several seconds.

Marielle had spent weeks wondering why the wall appeared so satisfied with itself.

Apparently, someone had supplied it with a convenient source of reassurance.

Arvellan examined the fastenings. “Could the bridge have been left after a calibration?”

“For what purpose?” Halal asked.

“Temporary work after a major repair. The original isolation procedure may have been adapted.”

“And not restored?”

“That is a question for the records.”

Marielle considered the possibility. Temporary arrangements did acquire permanence when no one remembered to remove them.

It did not explain everything, but it might explain where someone had found a useful weakness.

“Even if it began as a mistake,” she said, “the connection is feeding the reference into ordinary reporting now.”

“Yes,” Halal said.

Arvellan drew a clean sheet from the folio. “I will mark the position against the archive copy.”

“Include the fastenings,” Marielle said. “And which surfaces are dusty.”

He nodded.

Marielle considered the breadth of the problem. “The original frost-like damage we observed used northern forms, but this alteration would require knowledge of Avalusian ward maintenance.”

Halal looked toward Serali. “You were correct not to attribute the sabotage from its northern forms.”

Serali stared at him.

Marielle paused with her pencil above the notebook.

Halal frowned. “What?”

“No one warned me you admitted when someone else was right,” Serali said.

“I prefer correct conclusions to comfortable ones.”

“I may dislike you less.”

“I would not recommend haste.”

Arvellan glanced at Marielle. “Progress.”

“Measurable,” she agreed.

Halal raised an eyebrow at Arvellan before continuing. “We still cannot conclude that Lyehira had no hand in this. Just as we cannot conclude that it is not someone in Avalusia, or an agent acting on behalf of another country.”

Serali sighed. “Agreed. We know more about what’s wrong with the wall, not who made it that way.”

Arvellan nodded. “I recommend we continue to establish the full scope of the reporting discrepancies and any other areas of suspicious damage before attempting to assign fault.”

Marielle considered that. “I agree we should prioritize determining the scope of the problem, but perhaps we will find indications of the culprit as we continue.”

Serali moved toward the door. “Let’s head to the next spot.”

Daravan stood.

Before he returned to the doorway, he looked at her arm.

“Still settled?”

“Yes.”

“We will tell Lia about both episodes.”

“I agreed.”

“I am confirming.”

That was unnecessary. But he had not asked her to stop working.

That was useful too.

Marielle turned back to gather the diagrams. Arvellan offered to carry them.

The frost-fracture had been worth questioning. Now they had even more to question. Marielle found that was normally the way things went. She walked toward the next inspection site, already cataloging the tests she wanted to run.

Chapter 26: A Useful Baseline

The eighth convergence point had no extra bridge.

Halal examined the return while Marielle compared the original drawing with the exposed connections.

The reference lattice remained separate and the connections matched. She had expected as much. The sample from point eight had been the least suspicious.

“The return follows the live channel here,” Serali said.

Halal nodded. “And the reported value differs from the construction target.”

“Marginally,” Marielle said.

“But it differs.”

She recorded that.

Daravan watched from the entrance. “So this one is sound?”

“This connection is arranged correctly,” Halal said.

Serali glanced at him. Halal tended to answer questions with incredible precision. She had yet to decide if that was a point in his favor.

“That is not a guarantee,” the Captain said.

“No,” Halal answered.

“Good.”

“I had not said otherwise.”

Marielle closed her notebook. “Nine.”

They moved on.

Corren carried the instrument case. Mael stayed beside Marielle on the ramp.

Daravan walked ahead to speak to the guard at the next arch, then returned before she reached it.

He checked the chair inside.

Serali had noticed Daravan seemed to be particularly interested in stairs and ramps all day. She chose not to comment on it.

The ninth chamber had newer masonry around its upper channel. Serali could feel the difference between the two layers of wardwork before Halal opened the relevant drawing.

One construction laid over another.

That did not necessarily indicate damage. Avalusia had repaired enough of this wall to make unfamiliarity a poor test of wrongdoing.

That was why the College’s records mattered.

She moved beside the main return.

Halal watched her hands.

She watched the ward.

“There is another branch.”

“Position?”

She sent a shadow toward the return and the wardlines glowed from the contrast.

Arvellan turned a page in the folio.

“Later reinforcement. The maintenance loop was revised with it.”

Marielle looked up. “You have that drawing?”

“Yes.” He spread it beside the original.

Serali followed the revised path.

Then stopped when she found a connection that existed in neither drawing.

Daravan removed the lower cover when Marielle directed him.

This time, two additions sat among the intended bridges.

Halal swore.

Serali looked at him.

He ignored her.

She liked him slightly more.

Marielle examined the paper and the open panel. “Two references?”

“Two versions of the maintenance architecture,” Arvellan said. “The second retained part of the original loop.”

“And both have been connected to the live reporting,” Serali said.

She traced them separately to be certain.

One carried the old reference into the return.

The other reinforced the substituted value where the later channel joined it.

Small connections, but a substantial result.

Serali folded her arms. “That takes knowledge of the revisions.”

“Yes,” Halal said.

“Access to the channels.”

“Yes.”

“And time.”

“Not necessarily much,” Marielle said. “Once the person knew where to work.”

Serali looked at the open plate.

The original sabotaging arrays had worn northern shapes badly.

This wore the wall’s own construction very well.

“The concealment uses Avalusian architecture almost seamlessly,” she said.

Halal furrowed his brow.

Daravan looked toward Arvellan. “Who could reach these connections?”

“College maintenance mages. Crown wardens. Engineering crews with the appropriate supervision.”

“Records?”

“We can assemble them.”

“Individual names where they exist.”

Arvellan made a note. “Some wartime entries may identify teams rather than individuals.”

Halal frowned. “They should have been reconciled afterward.”

“They should have,” Arvellan agreed.

The distinction appeared to sit badly with Daravan.

Serali understood why.

A procedure did not become evidence that someone had followed it merely because it ought to have been followed.

Marielle tapped the edge of the drawing. “The metal is old.”

“Older stock,” Halal said.

“Can we date it?”

Arvellan considered the fastening. “Perhaps the manufacture. Installation would be harder. The College reused stores during emergency repairs.”

“So the connection could have been made recently with an old piece,” Serali said.

“Or left from an earlier repair,” Arvellan added. “We should compare the installation history before deciding all the additions belong to one intervention.”

Halal looked at him. “You are remarkably generous toward hypothetical repair errors.”

“I am trying to establish what the saboteur needed to change.”

Marielle nodded slowly. “If an old mistake supplied a usable route, that would reduce the work.”

“And complicate dating it,” Arvellan said.

A plausible distinction.

Serali disliked it because it added another question.

That did not make it wrong.

“I will pull the maintenance files,” Arvellan continued. “The relevant revisions, installation notes and access records.”

Halal looked at him. “Assign an archivist.”

“The records were consolidated in several places after the war. I know where to begin.”

Daravan said, “Complete copies. Including attachments.”

“Of course.”

“Here, for the Royal Mage and Lady Marielle. I want the access records as well.”

Arvellan wrote it down.

Serali was grateful someone knew where the papers were.

She had spent enough afternoons discovering that a repair could be filed under a date, a location, or the name of someone who had apparently never considered another person’s need to find it.

By the time they finished documenting the accessible connections, Serali understood why Marielle wanted the independent monitors.

Finding a bad bridge did not tell them what the wall did between inspections.

Nor did a correct arrangement at eight prove every channel around it was behaving correctly.

“We need readings that do not pass through any of this,” Marielle said.

She indicated the exposed return.

Halal nodded. “Agreed.”

“And more than one location at a time.”

“Agreed.”

“I can begin with four field units,” she continued. “A fifth stays apart for calibration and comparison.”

“Is there still a concern that it would compromise the wards? If so, Her Majesty must approve.” Daravan asked the question lightly, but was clearly prepared to argue if the academics outpaced security.

Halal studied the sketch Marielle had brought. “It should be doable without impeding the wards. I can be present for the initial tests in case I need to add temporary wards or hold them manually during the test. The important thing will be to keep the control independent of the field settings.”

“Yes, I had already accounted for that.” Marielle pointed to a section of her diagram that had been violently annotated.

“And the field units must be independent of the wall’s reporting.”

“That is the purpose.”

“I have seen purposes lost during construction.”

“So have I,” Marielle said.

They looked at one another.

Serali decided not to interfere.

Marielle turned back to Daravan. “I can draft a proposal for Council and Her Majesty. Master Halal, can you provide a list of your proposed safeguards should the wards be impacted by testing a prototype?”

Halal nodded. “Yes.” Then he turned immediately to the next technical question. “Materials?”

Marielle’s expression brightened as she wrote beneath the sketch. “Matched resonance glass. Fine-drawn silver-copper wire. Unkeyed plates.”

“The College has glass,” Halal said.

“Already used for diagnostic work?”

“Some.”

“I want fresh material. Otherwise we introduce another reference we have not checked.”

Halal considered.

Then nodded. “Reasonable.”

Arvellan added, “Civilian suppliers keep unkeyed stock. The lower artisan district should have matched blanks.”

Daravan’s attention shifted.

Serali recognized that expression.

A future problem had acquired an address.

“Palace stores?” he asked.

“The wire is too coarse,” Marielle said. “We have housings and fasteners.”

Arvellan offered to include the supplier details with the records.

Marielle wrote them down.

Serali looked at the list.

The investigation had produced something they could build. That was more satisfying than another page saying the wall was behaving incorrectly.

Daravan approached a Watch officer at the chamber entrance.

They spoke quietly.

Serali continued copying the notation beside the diagnostic sketch until she heard the Captain ask, “Did they meet?”

“Yes, Captain. Briefly. Another man near the southern end of the street. The observer is following at a distance.”

Daravan stepped nearer the doorway.

Serali could no longer hear the answer to his next question.

When Daravan returned, he spoke to Pell and Orran, then to Marielle’s guards.

“Something?” Serali asked.

“A man changed position to keep the inspection party in view. The Watch is following him.”

“Do you think he is one of the agents?”

“No identification. Harrek is being informed.”

Serali glanced toward the arch.

Beyond it lay the maintenance lane and the ordinary city street.

People had watched her arrive at the palace. Watched her at First Sun. Watched her dance.

Watching alone proved little.

She was glad someone had noticed the difference anyway.

“We remain together until departure,” Daravan said. “Mistress Lia has been sent word about Lady Marielle’s arm. We return to the infirmary first.”

Marielle looked up from her list. “I can still write.”

“I can see that.”

“The list is nearly finished.”

“Finish it.”

She did.

Daravan waited.

Serali watched him move the edge of the instrument case away from Marielle’s supported arm before Corren closed it.

He had been doing things like that all morning.

She returned to the diagram.

Arvellan approached while Halal and Marielle disputed whether the ninth point’s revised label was sufficiently clear.

Pell remained within sight.

“Lady Serali,” the dean said. “May I offer a warning?”

“That depends on the warning.”

“You are not popular at the College.”

Serali looked at him. “An astonishing revelation.”

His mouth curved. “I thought you might have inferred it.”

“I have.”

“Not everyone objects for the same reason.”

She waited.

Arvellan glanced toward Halal. “The Headmaster is angry that the College was not consulted. He also believes the office requires someone formed by Avalusian practice.”

“And therefore an Avalusian.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds like prejudice.”

“It is.”

She had not expected the easy admission.

“But his objection is not principally that you are Night Fae,” Arvellan continued. “Had Her Majesty appointed a mage from Aurenne without consulting him, he would still have been furious.”

“Perhaps less furious.”

Arvellan considered. “Perhaps.”

Serali appreciated the qualification.

“Other people may object because you are Lyehiran,” he said. “Or Night Fae. Or because they wanted the office for themselves or someone they trained.”

“And this is intended to reassure me?”

“No. To help you distinguish the objections.”

Halal called for another page.

Marielle told him it was directly beneath his hand.

Arvellan waited until they resumed arguing.

“He is persuadable by competence,” he said.

“He admitted I was right.”

“Yes.”

“It appeared uncomfortable.”

“It generally is.”

Serali almost smiled.

Arvellan did. “He will not become pleasant.”

“I had not hoped for miracles.”

“Good.”

He glanced at the copied diagrams she held. “You are doing well.”

Serali’s first response was irritation at being assessed.

Then something quieter.

She had spent much of her life being assessed by people looking for a reason she should not be where she stood.

“You barely know me,” she said.

“I have seen your work.”

“That is different.”

“For the Headmaster, it is the part that matters.”

“And for you?”

“I would like us to find what is wrong with the wall.”

So would she.

Halal called, “Arvellan.”

The dean sighed. “My summons.”

“Apparently.”

He turned, then paused. “Do not spend too much effort trying to make the College like you.”

“That was not my plan.”

“Excellent. They would distrust it.”

He returned to Halal.

Serali watched him accept the disputed page, read it, and supply a correction neither Halal nor Marielle immediately rejected.

She put the new notation reference into her folder.

Beyond the arch, Daravan spoke to the Watch officer again.

Marielle finished drafting the supply list.

They had found how the wall was being given reassuring answers. Now they had to build something that would provide the correct ones.