The Office of Shadow Read Online Free PDF

yanking away at a recalcitrant root,
when he heard a familiar voice boom from across the yard.
    "By Auberon's hairy ass! Is this Perrin Alt, Lord Silverdun, or a rude
villein?" The voice then broke out into laughter.
    Silverdun looked up and saw Edwin Sural, Lord Everess, standing
beneath the cloister loggia, beaming and waving.
    "Well, come in out of the rain, Silverdun!" goaded Everess. "I didn't
come all this way to watch you play peasant."
    Silverdun stood slowly, spitting out rainwater. His hair was soaked
through, lying in thick tangles around his neck. His novice's robes, likewise,
were drenched, and his hands and feet were thick with mud. He closed his
eyes for a long moment before beginning the long squelching trudge across
the garden.
    "I must say, Perrin Alt," chuckled Everess, once Silverdun was within
easy speaking distance. "I do not think the religious life agrees with you."
    Silverdun had never much liked Everess, who enjoyed his taunts a bit too
much for Silverdun's taste. "One gets used to it," he said. Whatever witty
rejoinder he might normally have come up with was drenched as surely as his
witchfires.
    "By her teeth, Silverdun! It's true what I've heard-you are changed!"
    Silverdun automatically touched his face. He could feel the nose, once straight and patrician, now angled with a slight bump. The cheekbones were
lower now as well, and the chin not quite so prominent. He had angered the
wrong woman, and she had taken her revenge on his appearance. Faella, the
young mestine, who for some reason he could not get out of his mind. Queen
Titania had told him that Faella was special, that she possessed the so-called
Thirteenth Gift, the Gift of Change. He had a feeling that Titania had not
told him this merely as a point of information.

    "It's the country air," said Silverdun. "It does wonders for the complexion."
    "Oh, come in out of the wet and stop sputtering inanities. We've important business to discuss." Everess waved Silverdun toward the calefactory, for
which Silverdun was inwardly grateful. The warming-room was the only
space in the entire monastery in which a fire was allowed to be lit at all times.
    They stepped into the calefactory and almost immediately Silverdun's
wet robes began to steam. There was a washbasin filled with hot water in one
corner of the room, and before Silverdun could even begin to acknowledge
Everess again, he washed his face and hands and feet in the basin, wincing
with pleasure as the feeling returned to his extremities with sharp needles of
pain.
    The calefactory was empty other than the two of them, which was remarkable for this time of day-it was a rest period, and on a cold afternoon one could
expect to find easily half the monks of the abbey clustered here, playing cards,
drinking the watered-down swill they called wine, or just sitting idly. The fact
that it was empty told Silverdun that Estiane had gone out of his way to ensure
that the meeting between him and Everess was a private one.
    Once Silverdun felt himself to be sufficiently presentable, he sat down at
the long table by the fireplace, where Everess was already seated. Everess had
his pipe out and was carefully stoking it.
    "I'm pleased that you agreed to see me, Perrin," Everess began warmly,
all trace of banter put aside. "What I have to speak with you about is a matter
of great importance."
    "I see," said Silverdun. "Though I should tell you that I did not, in fact,
agree to see you. That bastard Estiane agreed on my behalf without consulting me on the matter."

    "And yet here we are face-to-face, are we not?"
    "There's a fire in here." Silverdun sighed. He found the repartee tiring.
    Everess looked little different from the last time that Silverdun had seen
him, which had been in the House of Lords some five years earlier. Still stout
and red-faced, with the same bristling brown whiskers spotted with gray. His
eyes were narrow and partially hidden beneath bushy