The Fourteenth Key (The Chronicles of Terah Book 3) (96 page)

“Why?”

“Gwendolyn.”

“You don’t think she’d pull the same stunt again, do you?”

“It worked before. Why wouldn’t she?”

Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, I have, and Damien’s right. She’ll do whatever it takes to win. What better way to distract me this week than make me spend it trying to find you again?”

“Is that why you decided to leave the pages, Marcus, and Laryn where they are?”

Kevin shook his head. “I was thinking more along the lines of what she might do when the duel’s over. If she doesn’t win, I don’t want her getting back here before I do and taking her revenge out on them.”

“So you still think both of you are going to survive?”

Kevin shrugged. “Probably.”

Chris shook his head. “You need to finish this thing, once and for all. If she walks away from the duel, it’ll just drag on and on, involving more innocent bystanders, and you’ll still end up having to kill her. Might as well get it over with Saturday.”

Kevin shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Chris.”

“Yes, it is.”

Kevin took a deep breath and stared past Chris. “I need you to send a couple of letters today, but from up here. I’m serious. Don’t go in the office unless I’m here, okay?”

Chris nodded as he got up to get a piece of paper and a pen.

“I want to talk to Robyn before Saturday. Ask Brena to let Sister Glenice know we’ll be in Mapleton Thursday evening. We’ll go straight to her office.”

“What if he can’t make it?”

Kevin shook his head. “If he can’t make it, I’ll tell Glenice and have her pass it on. We don’t have time to wait for an answer. And send a letter to Tanner, Damien’s Second. Tell him I need to speak with Damien. I’ll be in Prindley to see him Friday afternoon. Ask him to let us know if Friday’s not convenient.”

“You know they’re not going to say that,” Chris said.

“I know, which is why we’re giving them the option.”

Chris grinned. “Got it. Do you want these on your calendar?”

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t want anything on my calendar this week. Besides, it’s kept in the office and we’ll be working out of here.” Kevin stood up and took out his key. “Do you need anything out of the office before I go?”

Chris shook his head. “I’ll get the letters out within the hour. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of right now. I’ll probably eat lunch at Shadron’s, so don’t expect me back until mid-afternoon.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Sparring with Jonquin was almost boring that morning. Glendymere had insisted Jonquin only use human magic for the duel, so there wasn’t a lot he could do. There were no huge waves, flying fish, tornadoes, sandstorms, or anything else that might be considered fun. Just a lot of energy bolts flying back and forth. All in all, it was a tedious couple of hours.

Kevin got to Shadron’s earlier than he’d expected. Kayla hadn’t started fixing lunch, so rather than wait until after they ate, Kevin asked his uncle to go for a walk with him while she cooked.

After they were well away from the house, the barns, and the bunkhouse, Kevin told Shadron about the council meeting and the challenge. “I need someone to stand with Chris, a sorcerer, just in case I don’t make it through this.”

Shadron nodded. “Someone for Glendymere to hand the key to.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“More than once, for Badec.”

They walked on for a bit. Then Kevin asked, “So? Will you do it?”

Shadron shook his head. “I don’t think I’m the best choice this time, Myron. The sorcerers who challenged your father weren’t challenging him personally. They were ambitious and greedy. They wanted power. They didn’t care who sat in the seat for Camden as long as they were sitting on the Master’s Chair. That’s not the case here. Gwendolyn doesn’t want to be Master Sorcerer. Her problem is with the House of Nordin, and if she sees another member of the house she hates standing there, ready to receive the key, I’m not sure what she might do. You need someone else standing with Chris, someone not connected with us in any way.”

Kevin thought for a moment. “You may be right. When she challenged me, she said she wanted to get rid of the House of Nordin for good.”

“You need to find someone else.”

“All right.” Kevin paused a moment. “I’d like to ask another favor of you.”

Shadron nodded.

“I don’t know how this duel’s going to play out. If she kills me, will you take care of the pages?

“Are you going to leave them here until after the duel?”

“I’d like to. I don’t know what she might do this week to try to distract me, and I don’t want them in the line of fire.”

“Sure, I’ll look after them, but nothing’s going to happen to you unless you get careless. She can’t beat you unless you let her.”

“Or unless I can’t bring myself to end it.”

Shadron sighed. “There is that. Afraid I can’t help you there. That’s got to come from you.”

“I know.”

“Well, don’t worry about the pages. We’ve got them covered. Just get yourself ready, and when you’re fighting her, remember all the stuff she’s done. You need to stop her before she hurts even more people. That’s where your focus needs to be, on stopping her, and the only way to stop someone like her is to kill them.”

~ ~ ~ ~

When Kevin got back to Milhaven, he took Nikki for a walk in the woods. He needed to think. He had to find someone to stand with Chris, but he needed to choose carefully. He fully intended to survive this duel, and the last thing he needed to do was put ideas in someone’s head and have them challenge him for his seat. He already had one duel staring him in the face. He didn’t need another.

The only non-relative he felt comfortable asking was Warren, but he hated to put him in that spot. He sifted through the short list of sorcerers he actually knew, searching for another candidate, for someone he could trust not to read too much into it, but he kept coming back to Warren.

Kevin waited until after dinner to go to Walnut Springs. After a quick hello to Torrey and Colin, Kevin asked Warren if he could talk to him for a moment. Then he spent the next hour giving Warren a blow by blow account of the past week, including the council meeting.

When he was done, Warren leaned back in his chair. “Is there anything I can do to make this easier for you?”

Kevin nodded and explained about needing someone to stand by Chris.

Warren shook his head. “I’m too old. If you put me up there beside Chris, the other sorcerers will know you’re not serious about having me hold that seat until a competition can be arranged. You need someone younger, not as young as you, but someone who doesn’t have a head full of white hair.”

“I can’t think of anyone I’d rather trust that seat to than you.”

Warren shook his head again. “You need to ask one of your uncles. How about Shadron?”

“Already tried that.” Kevin explained why Shadron had refused, and how that ruled out the rest of his family. “So, you see why I need you.”

“There’s got to be someone out there who’s level-headed enough to do this. Let me think.” After a few minutes, Warren leaned forward and tapped on his desk. “What about that woman? The one who did the contract to build that road. She sounded like she had good sense, and she didn’t try to take advantage of the situation. Have you thought about asking her?”

Kevin frowned. He didn’t know Nicolas that well, but she did seem to have a good head on her shoulders, and she seemed to be where she wanted to be. He might be completely off base, but if Warren wouldn’t do it and his family couldn’t, he was running out of options. “All right. I’ll see if she’s willing to do it.”

“Just be sure she understands you’re going to survive this thing, that she’s just there for show.”

Kevin grinned. “Well, we don’t really know I’ll survive, but that’s my intent.”

“And is putting an end to Gwendolyn your intention as well?”

“That I’m not quite so sure about,” Kevin admitted. “I can keep going and never run out of power. Throwing a bolt at someone who’s run out seems like cold-blooded murder to me.”

Warren shook his head. “If she’s any good at all, she can replace her power as she uses it. And if she gets low, it doesn’t take much power to hold a shield in place. All she’d have to do is stop for a minute, keep a shield up, and she could gather enough power to keep going for quite a while.”

Kevin frowned. “I thought gathering energy was a long, drawn out process.”

“What made you think that?”

Kevin shrugged. “It takes Landis a long time to get some together.”

“Your apprentice?”

Kevin nodded.

Warren laughed. “I imagine so. That’s one of the hardest things to learn, but once you get it, all it takes is practice, which is one reason sorcerers apprentice for at least five years. I’ve never let an apprentice go with less than eight years of training, and I’ve only had one I let go that quickly.”

“Seriously?”

Warren nodded. “The more you can store and the faster you can replace it, the stronger your power. The strongest sorcerers weren’t born that way, they worked hard to get there. Someone who’s strong enough to be on the council should be able to gather and store energy pretty fast. And she should be able to keep track of exactly how much she has left. So, if Gwendolyn runs out of power, she’s guilty of stupidity, and that’s not your fault. But if you let her walk away, things will only get worse, and that will be your fault.”

“That’s what everybody’s saying.”

“You know why?”

Kevin shook his head.

“Because it’s true.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin talked to Karl, Joan, and Darrell Monday morning, before he left for his practice session with Jonquin. None of them were particularly concerned about the duel. Darrell summed it up when he said they’d seen him fight and there was no way he could lose. As to what they wanted to do should he not be there after Saturday, they waved the question off as moot and said Terah was their home.

After his session with Jonquin, he went to Milhaven to talk to Theresa. Her only concern was that winning might make him feel guilty, so she spent the next hour explaining why it shouldn’t. When he got back to the castle he realized he’d never gotten around to asking her what she wanted to do if he lost.

Gen. Crandal heard about the duel from Darrell and approached Kevin shortly after he returned from Milhaven. “Are you preparing for this thing, Myron?”

Kevin nodded. “I’m sparring every morning.”

Gen. Crandal frowned. “Who with?”

Kevin hesitated. “Jonquin.”

“Good,” Gen. Crandal said with a nod. “That’s who your father trained against when he had to fight.”

Kevin’s mouth dropped open. “He did?”

Gen. Crandal nodded. “From what I understand, both Glendymere and Jonquin worked with him. Why?”

Kevin shook his head. “No reason. I just didn’t know. Neither one of them mentioned it.”

“Well, they know how to get you ready. Just be sure you pay attention Saturday. Don’t drop your guard around that woman, and if you start feeling the least bit bad about ending it, picture Syrando, picture those bodies on the dock. She might not be the one who raided that village and killed them, but it was done on her orders.”

Kevin nodded.

Gen. Crandal put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “You’ve got a lot of people depending on you, son. Be sure you come back.”

As Gen. Crandal walked off, Kevin felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He knew everyone he talked to was trying to help, to give him confidence, to make him feel better about the whole thing, but it was having the opposite effect. He decided he needed to get away for a while. And he needed to find someone to stand with Chris, so he took out his key and went to Colby Falls.

When he arrived, he was standing on the road in front of Nicolas’s house in a foot of snow and it was still snowing.

Before he started towards her house, she came out the front door. “Myron?”

Kevin walked towards her.

“I thought it was you. I was looking out the front window watching the snow and suddenly there you were, standing in the snow,” she said with a grin. “Come on in and I’ll fix you something warm to drink.”

Kevin followed her inside, and while she went to the kitchen to put a pot of water on the stove, he walked over to the fireplace and held his hands out to warm them.

“The tea will be ready in a minute,” Nicolas said as she walked back into the living room. “What brings you to Colby Falls? What can I do for you?”

“It’s sort of a long story,” Kevin said, turning away from the fire and rubbing his hands together. “Why don’t we sit in the kitchen while I explain.”

An hour later he had filled Nicolas in on the slaver raids, the fourteenth key, Gwendolyn’s kidnapping of Chris and Elin, and the council meeting.

“The reason I came to see you is I need someone not related to me to stand with my assistant during the duel. Should I lose, Glendymere has to have a sorcerer to hand the key to Terah to when it’s over.”

Nicolas shook her head, slowly at first, then faster as her eyes widened. “You’re not asking me to do that, are you?”

Kevin nodded. “It’s not that big a deal. If anything happens to me, since I have no heir, there’ll be a competition for the Camden seat. You wouldn’t have to be involved in that unless you wanted to. All you’d have to do is attend the duel and take the key from Glendymere. Chris knows how to use it, so he can get both of you back home.”

“That’s not what worries me,” she said quietly. “Myron, you’re asking me to stand near Glendymere. I’ve never met a dragon, much less him! I don’t think it would make a good impression on the other sorcerers if the person you chose to stand for you faints at the sight of him.”

“I can arrange for you to meet him before the duel. Once you get over the first bit of shock, you’ll be fine.”

Nicolas shook her head. “I doubt that, but let’s say it’s true for the sake of argument. Even if I could make it past that obstacle, I’d have to watch two sorcerers toss energy bolts back and forth in an effort to kill each other. You’re asking me to watch someone die.” Nicolas took a deep breath and shook her head again. “I’ve seen someone die from natural causes and that was bad enough, but to watch someone killed by magic? I don’t think I could do that. I know you don’t have a choice, but it goes against everything I believe in. I’d never be able to use magic again.”