The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (13 page)

Kora
holds no suspicions. She does not realize I remember that incantation, for we
never copied it from the Librette, never spoke of it at any length. She would
protest my determination, and vehemently; the entire League would. Well, the
poor girl will recover from her shock at my death, and Rexson will
reign—I will see to it he reigns, by God! I will put him on that throne
and though I may be gone, he will see Zalski’s wife hung if she escapes me somehow.
She will know I triumphed, know

The final words were smeared, as though someone
had surprised Laskenay while writing and she had shut the journal before the
ink could dry. She had never completed the final sentence, and never, her son
knew, cast that spell upon her brother. She never had the opportunity; Zalski
had bound Laskenay’s powers before she could utter a first incantation against
him. Her sister-in-law had slain her in the end, Vane knew that from Kora.

At that very moment, Kora could have no idea of
what Laskenay had sought to do; neither Rexson, if he had not lied when he
claimed he never read the journal. Vane knew his mother would have wished them
ignorant, and knew that he himself would keep her confidence. She had
sacrificed so much for him that he felt validated, even liberated, to think he
could do something small for her in turn.

CHAPTER NINE

Treel Warrell

Treel Warrell chose not to live in the servant’s
quarters, mainly because he and his sister took care of their grandmother. No
one else in his family could devote living space to the old woman. His older
brother and cousins had heaps of children, whereas Treel had none and, most of
the time, enjoyed having the matriarch around. She was far from senile, merely
weakened by age, and wise as well as able to crack a joke like the best of
them.

When Treel returned around midnight to a little
cabin not far from the Landfill, he knew both its female occupants were asleep
because there was no light, no fire gleaming through the curtained windows,
only the lantern his sister had hung on the door for him. In its glow, from a
distance, he made out the silhouette of a man waiting, leaning against the
cabin and examining his hands. The master of the house had expected as much. He
rushed his step.

“Rexson has the children,” Treel told Dorane as
he drew near.

“I know that already, or I wouldn’t be here.”

“Listen, Dorane.” Treel walked right up to the
sorcerer, masking his insecurity with a swagger that bordered on aggression. “I
helped you because we’ve been friends since before we could walk. Because when
we were kids and you saved me from that pack of dogs I told you I owed you a
favor, no questions asked. You waited close to twenty years to call me on it.
You swore the princes wouldn’t get hurt, and I kept my word. The point of you
saving my life only to ask me to risk it, I couldn’t say, but I kept my word. I
told you where to find them. You got your favor.

“The weird thing is, the royals made up all
kinds of stories. The queen fell ill, unfit to receive anyone, but never called
for a doctor. News travels fast in the Palace. I would have heard it if a
doctor came. Later, people started saying her sons had gone to Yangerton, since
they’d never been there, and then to the farmlands ‘cross the river. Not a
peep, not the smallest peep of the truth got out, even though two guards
disappeared. Just vanished. They’d gone with the boys, people said. I realized
you must have killed them, that you made me an accomplice to murder. I realized
too you must have threatened to do in the princes. That was why the royals were
so tight-lipped, you see? You flat-out lied to me. You’re a bastard, that’s
what you are. I don’t know what happened to you when you took up with those
Enchanted Fist maniacs, but you’re not who you were, not if you would have
killed those boys, and I think you would have if you had to. Like you killed
the guards. You used me, Dorane. I won’t be helping you again, do you hear me?
Get away from my home!”

Dorane listened to the tirade, waiting for a
chance to interject. When it came he produced a letter. “I need you to get this
to the king.”

“Are you deaf?” asked Treel. “I said to get away
from me!”

Dorane leaned forward. “Did you notice a girl
arrive at the Palace today? Seventeen or eighteen, something around there?
She’s in danger unless the king receives this letter. It’ll tell him what to do
to keep her safe.”

“Safe from what? From you?”

Treel snatched the parchment. He made as though
to shred it into pieces, but Dorane ripped it from his hands. “You don’t want
to do that,” said the sorcerer.

“How do I get it to the king without alerting
him you have someone in the Palace? He might already know that.”

“You’ll figure something out.”

“Why should I trust you?” Treel demanded. “I
can’t read the note. You know I can’t read.”

“I’m not lying this time. The girl’s safety….”

“Go to hell,” said Treel. “Go to the Giver’s
hell and rot there. I’m done with you.”

Dorane called after him but made no effort,
physical or magical, to prevent Treel unlocking his door and slipping inside.
Treel would have slammed it behind him but refrained, not wanting to wake the
women. He had grabbed the lantern on his way in, and its light cast shifting
shadows on the drab kitchen as his hand shook.

Treel couldn’t help sinking into, even
losing his footing in the past, just as he’d lost his footing at the age of
eight on a brisk autumn morning. At the time, he’d been running with Dorane
through the woods north of the capital where they’d gone to look for branches
to whittle into swords. They had not yet had luck when three feral dogs found
them and charged, snapping their jaws, so the boys tried to run, but Treel
slipped in a patch of mud.

Both youths carried bows, in case they
found a rabbit to bring home for dinner. That allowed Dorane to fire at the
dogs. Two of them gave horrid-sounding yelps that still rang from time to time
in Treel’s ear; they never made it to Dorane, but the third one did. It
barreled over Treel and tore into Dorane’s shoulder before Treel could right
himself and shoot the rabid thing. Well, it hadn’t really been rabid, he told
himself. Dorane would have died if it was rabid. Or had Dorane’s sorcerer
father kept the disease at bay with magic? Treel couldn’t remember the dog
foaming, or tossing frothy drool. The animal sure had seemed mad, though; as
big as he was it had been, and black. More than anything, Treel remembered the
contrast between the coat and the snarling mouth, the jet fur and the white
teeth glistening like sharpened knives.

Hang
yourself, none of that matters now! You need to figure out how to get free and
clear of this mess.

Treel felt danger pressing in from more than
one side, as though he were eight again and Dorane, instead of helping him,
transformed into a fourth hairy beast to come at him from a different angle.
The other dogs were the king and queen and army. Treel plopped himself on the
kitchen’s only stool.

I
can’t provoke Dorane. I’m a lucky bastard he didn’t just kill me. I should
watch out at the Palace too—if the royals figure out what I did, they’ll
hang me. That I can’t have, I
won’t
have. I’d rather Dorane do me in.

His best choice at the moment was to lie
low. Dorane didn’t seem to resent Treel turning against him, so that was good.
With the Giver’s blessing, the cad just might stay away. If he came back, Treel
would keep refusing to get involved, and that was that. He felt strongly there,
both because of his conscience and because he needed to avoid the king’s
attention. As for now, Rexson had no reason to suspect Treel, no knowledge of
the kitchen servant’s childhood pals. Treel had no cause for panic, not unless
he did something idiotic, something like getting Dorane’s letter to the king.

Treel gave his heartbeat time to steady,
then headed off to bed. He took the lantern with him in a hand that trembled.
He couldn’t control what Dorane might do, not in any respect, but Treel
wouldn’t help the man again. At least in that he had some kind of plan. Some
amount of power over his own life. His grip on the lantern strengthened, and
its light cast shadows that grew less and less volatile in their movements as
he entered the room where he slept.

* * *

When Dorane transported to his log cabin
in a village just north of Podrar, the first thing he saw, by lantern, was the
back of his wife’s head bent over a mended travel bag in the sparsely
furnished, rugless, and curtainless main room. Her cropped scarlet hair swung
with a slow, lazy motion as she lifted a stack of dresses and children’s
clothes piece by piece to pack them.

The hour was past midnight, but the tired
ache in Dorane’s limbs fell away. He looked to the closed-off bedroom, where
his two-year-old son was asleep, then to the top of Drea’s head, which was bent
over her bag. The woman had glanced at him when he appeared, doing her best to
point her rounded nose up in a huff before she returned to her work without
further signs of recognition.

“What are you doing?” Dorane asked.

Drea’s high-pitched voice sounded
distant. “What’s it look like? I’m going to Yangerton.”

That meant to her sister. Dorane had
returned to tell her to do precisely that. The princes were gone; if the king
should send soldiers to his home, or if Dorane should have to reveal Rexson’s
magic…. That last would endanger his son just as much as the first, and
precautions must be taken. Drea must go, and her child, but to see her walking
out on her own instigation….

He called Drea’s name. She stuffed three
dresses at once in the bag, telling him, “Reeta came by today.” A friend of
hers, also Dorane’s boss’s wife; Dorane worked at a pulp mill on the river,
unloading timber from the barges that delivered it. “She started talking about
how you’d taken an unpaid leave. How you could end up jobless because of it.
Said you hadn’t been to work for a good month. A
month
, Dorane! I knew you hadn’t been home because of some business
or other with that cursed group of fools that like to piddle around with magic,
but I never thought you weren’t working!”

“I only meant to be away for a day or
two. It’s like I told you, a project with the Fist ran out of hand.”

She hurled the rest of the clothes at
him. “I don’t care about your blasted Enchanted Fist! I care about my
fist. I care that when I dip it in the
coin tin, I have to draw it out empty. Your ridiculous group, your obsession
with sorcery, because that’s what it’s become, an obsession…. I’m not sitting
here alone while you desert me and let your son starve. They dismissed you from
university for failing exams, because you missed lectures, because all you
cared about was magic. Now the mill. The mill, Dorane, in the Giver’s name! You
can’t hold down a job at the mill?

“It’s perfectly clear what matters to
you, and that’s not us. It’s not your family, so I’m taking Zate to my sister.
I’ll find some kind of work in Yangerton, and you will not hear from us again.
You won’t poison my son’s mind with your lunacy. You….”

Dorane asked, “And how are you getting to
Yangerton, exactly?”

“Reeta’s going down tomorrow. She’s had
the trip planned for weeks and has a carriage rented, all the stops and inns
laid out. She agreed to take us with her, at dawn.”

“And if I decided otherwise?”

If he decided otherwise, she couldn’t
stop him. She had no more magic than a toad, but she laughed, a scornful laugh
that bit into his soul.

“You wouldn’t dare harm me. You wouldn’t
dare, not Zate’s mother. I’m all he has. The boy hardly knows you anymore. He
belongs with me, and he’s leaving with me, and you….” She threw herself in
front of the bedroom door as he turned toward it. “Don’t force me to fend for
myself and for the boy without my family, in some backwoods excuse for a
village. Don’t make me do that to the child, because I will, if I have to. If
that’s what it takes to ensure you won’t meddle….”

Dorane could have transported past her
into the room where his son slept, but he chose not to. He figured he would
have to expose the king within the week, would have to foment unrest that would
threaten his boy as surely as all the magicked, and feared he would lack the
strength after looking at the tot. As for Drea, he felt so torn in such varied
directions that any explanation or excuse he tried to give her would prove
incomprehensible. He could not mention how the pained resolve in her gaze made
him ache; how he loathed himself at that moment more than ever before on
account of the deadened look in her eyes for which he, he alone, was
responsible; how that child in the next room over was far and away the best
part of him; how, if he had known his marriage would come to this, he never
would have walked into that tavern outside university limits in Podrar the
night he’d met Drea seven years before. He simply asked, “You want my word I
won’t follow you?”

“I want your word you’ll never contact me
again, or I swear on my son’s life I’ll take Zate someplace you’ll never find
us and do what I can to scrape together a living. Do what I can, and most
likely fail. So what is it, Dorane? Do I go to my sister or strike out on my
own?”

Dorane threw a linen dress across the
room. Drea gave no reaction, continued to defend her post as her husband
demanded, “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

“Tell me whether I go to my sister or go
elsewhere.”

The sorcerer snarled, “Go to Yangerton.
Go, and hang yourself when you get there. You know I wouldn’t make you flee
with nothing. Hang yourself and tell your sister to keep the boy’s mark hidden
after you’re gone, won’t you? It’s on his lower back, so that should be easy
enough for her. There could be trouble brewing.”

Drea leaned against the door in alarm.
Finally, he had evoked some display of unease from her. “What’s happening? What
have you been up to? The Fist, what…?”

“I’ll keep my distance, all right? If
that’s what you bleeding well want, that’s what you’ll get. Go to Yangerton and
keep Zate’s powers secret.”

With that Dorane stormed out the cabin,
leaving the front door open. Behind his back he heard Drea lock him out—a
powerful if merely symbolic gesture—and rather than transport away, the
sorcerer turned invisible in case his wife should peer out the curtainless
windows. Only then did he realize he should have come here as soon as he’d lost
the princes. Without Rexson’s sons in his possession to ensure restraint, the
king could have sent guards here, or even Zacry Porteg, hours ago. Dorane had
not considered that as he should; his thoughts had not run to his family, but
to himself and the next tactic to ensure he got that council. Drea had spoken
true. His priorities were not with her.