Shadow Road: Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

5. Eye of the Storm

9th of Uirra

"That was the year Sir Gorran did an exhibition of his inventions at Glazdunne. It was a great honor, so they had this great event planned. The Dean himself was to give a speech." Father finished sorting his lot of cards, then reached out and placed a Raven Throne neatly in the middle of the top of his hard-side traveling box.

I smiled. "Starting with a bang, are we?"

"I had it, might as well open with it."

I laid down a Foreign Dignitary in the Requests position to the left of the playing deck, which allowed me to collect two extra cards from the undealt pile. I pulled two Pauper cards and made a face. "Go on."

"One of the inventions in Sir Gorran's exhibition was this incredible contraption that could be set up anywhere, and then used to lift a platform or scaffold into the air. It was supposed to be used in construction, but Kleisham took one look at the thing and came out with, 'What you wanna bet that could get up to the Administration building roof?'" Father put another high-bid card down – a Jester Eight. "As you can imagine, the temptation was too much to resist."

I glanced through my hand for the Jester Eight I already had, then slapped it down over the one in play and turned them both over. "Take that."

Father snorted lightly. He considered his cards for a moment, then put down a Foreign Dignitary card of his own. "So that's how our last Grand Prank started. I quizzed the exhibition demonstrator about the device, and he was only too happy to teach me how to make it go up and down, how to transport it and set it up. Kleish and I hid under a side-table in the display room till after the exhibition was over, and the doors were shut. Then we snuck out and just... rolled the elevation device out of the display room through the back door and kept right on going with it all the way down to the Administration building."

I raised an eyebrow and laid down a Castle card opposite his Raven Throne. "No one noticed?"

Father shook his head, a faint grin lurking about the corners of his mouth. "They were all listening to the Dean give his big speech." He covered my Castle card with a Queen, effectively cutting off my advance on his Raven Throne card. "Meanwhile, Robarri managed to get fifty-eight of his cousin's sheep in the bin of a cargo hauler. When Kleish and I arrived with the machine, we loaded the entire cargo bin, sheep and everything, onto the elevation platform, and then I started pumping away at the treadle, and Kleish hopped in the bin with the sheep. And bless Sir Gorran, that elevation device worked exactly like it was supposed to. We got the bin up to the roof, Kleish opened the door, and all the sheep trotted right out, polite as you please. I let the air out of the elevation cylinders just like the nice demonstrator showed me, then Robarri drove off with the bin. Smooth as puffed-cream candy. Took all of half an hour, start to finish." He paused as I laid an Assassin's Mace over his Raven Throne. "You mean business, I see." He pursed his lips, and eyed the cards in his hand again, then took my Mace with a Mage Healer card, and turned them over.

"Then what happened?" I prompted.

"Well, Kleish and I rolled the device back to the Oratory center and set it up again in the display room... dusted it off a bit to make sure there wasn't any farmyard on it. We were in the stadium, applauding the Dean's speech when one of the Administration secretaries came running in, screaming that there were sheep running amok in the Administration attics. They must have gotten in through a window. To this day it remains a mystery." He laid a Prince down as a new high card bid, sat back on his bunk and glanced at the timekeep.

After three days spent cooped up in that cabin, I knew what that look meant.

Father put his hands on his knees and gave me a thin smile. "Well, my dear, I need to go out for a moment," he said, getting to his feet. He reached for his hat and gloves, then turned to gaze down at me for a moment, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Hold my spot?"

I sat there, stiff and prim like the genteel lady I was taught to be, and nodded. That was all. I didn't return his smile as he stepped out into the hall and closed the door quietly behind him.

Then I bent, covered my face with my hands, and let all of my breath leave my body. Tension throbbed in my shoulders and my head ached. It had only been three days. How was I going to keep this up for two more weeks? Pretending everything was fine, smiling and laughing and playing cards all day, as if I just waited long enough maybe he'd start being normal again. It didn't seem to have done any good. Every morning and evening he still left without telling me why.

I lifted my head and eyed the door, then heaved a sigh and found my waddingpage copy of Dunston's Arrabellina. Might as well escape reality for a moment.

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