The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (19 page)

Valkin jabbed the amphibian one last time, and
it jumped straight at Neslan, who stumbled back and tripped on a rotting log.
His brothers laughed. Even Kansten cracked a smile, until Neslan moved to get
up and recoiled, nursing his left wrist, which had slid beneath a raised tree
root half-hidden by leafy weeds.

“Ow!” yelled the boy. Then everyone saw a thin
strip of color cut through the grass. As August watched in terror, and Kansten
in fascination, Valkin used his magic to fling the snake repeatedly against an
oak, bashing its head. He let it fall at the base of the trunk, and Hune took a
step toward it, but August swooped upon him, holding him back. “It might not be
dead.”

“Oh it’s dead,” said Valkin.

Bands of varying hue and width spread over the
snake’s body. Hune stared at it, transfixed, and chanted, “Red against black, a
friend of Jack. Red against yellow, kill a fellow.” The serpent’s red rings
touched yellow ones. Hune started. “Oh no!” he shrieked. “Oh no, that, that’s a
coral snake. It’s poisonous!”

“How do you know?” asked Valkin.

“The rhyme. The rhyme lets you know. Rock taught
it to me.”

Everyone—August, Kansten, Hune,
Valkin—they turned like a single entity to Neslan. Still cradling his
wrist, he lay crumpled on the grass. His four companions towered over him like
a wave, and his head felt funny, as though a great amount of water were
sloshing around his brain.

“Is that snake really poisonous?” asked Kansten.
Valkin threw her aside to get to his brother.

Hune asked, “Did it bite you?”

“Let me see,” said Valkin. “Let me see your
wrist.”

The boy only drew his arm in tighter.

“Ryne, let us see,” pleaded Kansten; that was
the name Neslan went by. Then August let out an ear-splitting, blood-curdling
whistle.

“Quiet!” she demanded. “Give me room.”

The three healthy children pulled back. Gently
but forcefully, August resisted Neslan’s attempts to throw her off and extended
his arm; two red puncture marks marred his inflamed wrist.

Hune gasped, and his eyes filled with tears.
Kansten bit her lip, standing tense. Valkin cleaned his glasses on his pants,
as though the lenses were dirty and making him see wounds on his brother’s skin
that weren’t there.

“Kansten,” August called. “Your grandma, she’s
your mother’s mom?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”
Kansten asked.

“Does she do magic?”

And Kansten understood. Magic was Ryne’s only
hope. “I don’t know…. Maybe. I’ve never seen her do it, but she is my mother’s
mom. If only Mom was here! She was here yesterday. Why couldn’t this have
happened then?”

“Let’s go,” said August. “We’ve got to get to
Ilana, and fast.” She asked Neslan, “Can you walk?”

“I’m not sure,” said the boy. “My head’s fuzzy.
I feel out of breath.”

Hune bowed his head. Valkin shook his in denial.
August stooped over without a glance at the other children and took Neslan in
her arms. He was dead weight. Her muscles were burning within seconds, but she
stumbled off in the direction of Zacry’s house.

One
foot forward. Just one more. Faster. Breathe, don’t forget to breathe….

Valkin, Hune, and Kansten ran after her.
“Relax,” she told Neslan, who began to squirm and sweat. “Don’t struggle, or
I’ll drop you. Think of happy things and be brave, like Sir Brogle. Can you do
that?”

“Yes,” Neslan rasped.

“We’ll get you to the house, and everything will
be just fine.”

They arrived in fifteen minutes. August’s arms
were turning numb, and she ignored the pain of an ankle she had tweaked just
before leaving the woods. The children, with the house in sight, ran on ahead
of her. Kansten burst into the kitchen, where Ilana was fixing something for
the kids to eat come dinnertime, some kind of hearty soup by the smell.
Panting, red-faced, the girl grabbed her grandmother’s dress by the collar as
Neslan’s brothers came tromping in behind her. They barely all fit in the
narrow space. Down the hall, two babies cried in the bedroom, where Joslyn was
trying to calm them.

“Can you do magic?” Kansten asked.

Ilana did a double take. “I’ve never tried. It’s
nothing I ever set store by. Why, in the Giver’s name?”

“My brother,” said Valkin. “A snake bit him, a
poisonous one. He needs help, needs magic. He’s not breathing well.”

Ilana dropped her ladle on the floor.

“Uncle Zac has spellbooks,” Kansten announced.
She pulled her grandmother toward the hall. “In his office, he’s got tons of
them. Come on, Grams. We’ve got to find one that’ll help Ryne.”

Ilana stopped short, though Kansten kept tugging
on her arm. “Boys,” she asked, “is your brother here?”

“August’s with him,” said Hune.

“Go find them,” Ilana directed. “Stay with them.
It’ll comfort Ryne to have you near him.”

Kansten gave her grandmother a huge yank. “The
office,” said the girl. “The spellbooks. Who knows how long it’ll take to find
the right one?” She didn’t dare consider the right one might not be part of her
uncle’s collection.

Kansten found the office as she had left it that
morning, with a spellbook open on the desk. She climbed up on the armchair and
turned to the basic healing spell she had first tried to cast. “This one,” she
said. “Try this on my knee.”

“Kansten, dear….” Ilana’s face was almost as
ashen as her hair. “I’m not necessarily able….”

“That’s what we have to check. Try to heal up my
knee. If you’re a sorceress like Mom, the scrape’ll go away.”

Ilana took a deep, steadying breath. “
Kura-la
,” she said. Kansten’s leg stung
for a second, then felt oddly warm. New skin stretched over her shallow wound.
Ilana clutched the desktop with white knuckles. “Thank God,” she murmured.
“Thank the Giver.”

“Grams, could that spell help Ryne?”

“I don’t know, dear. It would close the wound, I
think, but it’s not the wound that’s hurting him. It’s the toxin. We need a
spell to eliminate the toxin. Your mother says some man-made poisons are immune
to magic, but I don’t suppose a natural venom, one from a snake…. Oh,
where
are your uncle’s spellbooks? He
has so many volumes!” She turned desperately from shelf to shelf.

“They’re here,” Kansten said. “Behind the desk,
the grubby ones on the bottom shelf.”

Ilana raised an eyebrow, and Kansten shrunk back
in shame, but no one made further comments. There was no time.

“I’ll look through the book that’s out. You skim
the titles of the others,” Ilana ordered. “Look for words like
healing
, or
emergency
.”

Kansten leapt from her chair and raced to her
uncle’s books. Her frustration at being ordinary, her fear of punishment for
having snooped in Zacry’s office, all that dissipated, replaced by the need to
save Ryne. She flung four or five spellbooks to the floor with a sweep of her
arm. They were old, and faded, and difficult to read, but not dusty. She pulled
the first open and saw, more as a result of the diagrams than words, that the
spells were for house repair and construction. On to the second: this one frightened
Kansten. The pictures showed some minor disfigurements and attacks. Horrified,
she pushed the tome away and turned to a third, which had a plain leather
binding. The first page revealed, in a swoopy, delicate hand, what looked to be
a title. Kansten tried to read the faded script.

“
Urgent
….”
she read. “Grams, this is healing magic.”

Ilana hurried over. “Let me see that,” she
demanded, ripping the book from her granddaughter. “
Urgent Situations, Helpful Magic.
I was sure your uncle had a first
aid book somewhere. I just pray it has a proper spell….”

Plopped cross-legged on the rug, Kansten beat
her fist repeatedly on her knee. She watched as Ilana carried the book to the
desk. The middle-aged matron ignored her son’s armchair, standing over the collection
of spells, and read with an intensity as feverish as she imagined that poor boy
must be. After three or four minutes and perhaps thirty pages, Ilana clutched
her chest, and Kansten hopped up. “Is that it?” she asked. “Did you find it?”

“This spell counteracts snake, spider, and
scorpion venom.”

“That’s perfect!” Kansten cried.

Ilana closed the book around her finger to mark
the page, and she and Kansten ran to the small, somber living room. August had
set Joslyn to keeping Kora’s younger children out, so only she and Neslan’s
brothers were crowded around the settee where the injured boy lay, hiding the
upholstery’s light wear.

Neslan’s face was pale. Sweat covered his
forehead, and he was struggling more to breathe than he had been. August
propped his chest up with a pillow, which helped a bit, but his eyes wouldn’t
focus. He looked minutes away from losing consciousness.

“Is that a spellbook?” Valkin asked. “Do you
have a spell?”

“I have a spell,” said Ilana. “I’ve never used
magic. I just hope mine’s strong enough to cast it.”

“Try,” August urged. “Please try. It can’t make
anything worse.”

Everyone watched with bated breath as Ilana laid
the book on the settee’s arm and took Neslan’s clammy hand. “
Veneno Nofunct,”
she said, staring at
his swollen and bruised wrist. “
Veneno
Nofunct
.”

“Did it work?” asked Hune, his blue eyes huge.
“Will he get better?”

It was impossible to say. Neslan looked more
comfortable—his breath came easier, and his muscles seemed to lose some
of their rigidity—but whether Ilana’s magic had saved him, or prevented
some degree of permanent damage, only time would reveal.

August consoled Hune with a shoulder pat while
Ilana cast the anti-venom spell again, and then the spell she had used on
Kansten, to close the puncture wounds and reduce swelling. Lastly, the matron
used a spell she had found to prevent infection, just for good measure.

“Snakes are filthy creatures,” she said. “A lot
of good it’ll do if he survives the poison only to lose his arm, even his life,
a week or two down the road.”

Valkin noticed how chapped his brother’s lips
were, how sweat had soaked his shirt. “He needs water,” said the prince.

“Then let’s get him some,” said Kansten. She led
Valkin to the kitchen, where they prepared a glass of water from Joslyn’s half-filled
well bucket without a word. As they walked out, the prince gazed with guilt at
his companion.

“Will you get in trouble? For showing your
grandmother those books?”

“I don’t think so,” said Kansten. “Everyone’s
too worried about Ryne.”

“I’ll tell her it was me who wanted to go in
there.”

“We’re in the clear,” Kansten assured him. “I
just hope your brother is too.” She paused before asking, “You all have magic?
All three? I saw what you did to that snake.”

Valkin tried to explain, “We do. I mean, Ryne
and I do. We make objects move.”

“Objects like animals,” said Kansten, her heart
sinking. Even Tommy had magic, even this stranger who had come from Herezoth
for no one knew how long. No wonder the boy could treat sorcery like a joke, or
a game….

“My father tells us not to use magic. Or to talk
about it.”

“Who am I going to tell?” Kansten demanded.

No one spoke much the rest of the day. The
afternoon passed in silent vigil over Neslan, whose color began to return and
whose respiration, by nightfall, was almost at a normal rate, though he still
had fever and his pulse was faster than it should have been. He was stiff, and
achy, but everyone’s great fears were assuaged. He even walked to the washroom
that evening, with minimal help from Valkin. Ilana seemed to have done enough
to save his life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Gambling on the Past

While August was struggling to get Neslan back
to Zacry’s house, Vane was toting two women’s travel cases down the narrow passages
of the Crystal Palace, heading toward the queen’s chamber. Gracia had invited
one of her sisters for an extended stay, for her counsel and companionship. The
women were in the throne room, receiving pleas for alms or the forgiveness of
debts, or for clemency in the case of a relative imprisoned for some crime or
other. It was the one day a year the queen was accustomed to hear such tales
personally, the eve of her birthday, and though at present the plights of
strangers were far from the center of her thoughts, she had decided, along with
Vane, that altering the normal course of events would only arouse frustration,
resentment, and possibly suspicion. As guards literally lined the throne room
walls, Vane knew no spy of the Enchanted Fist would attempt anything
threatening that day, so after an hour of watching proceedings he slipped off,
his presence unmissed. He was dressed as a servant, to fade into the
background. That was how he’d been hassled into carrying bags.

The quickest route to the royal chambers led
Vane past his guest room—or rather, at this point, the room where he
stored a few things, as he’d kept vigil the past night in the queen’s
antechamber. Before the door, he could have sworn he heard a rustle from
inside. He halted, and told his tired brain to stop imagining things. He was
about to continue down the thick blue rug when a second noise sounded, as
though someone were rooting through his bag.

Slowly, silently, Vane set the luggage against
the wall, then slid the key to his room from his pocket, just in case he might
need it. He tested the door with a steady hand, and it gave easily. “
Lassmagico
,” he yelled, sliding into the
room, prepared to duck or to dodge a blade or projectile.

A young man had been bending over Vane’s bag,
examining its contents. Purple bonds now tightened around him, and he tottered,
his face landing flat against Vane’s change of clothes. He wore an apron, as
though he worked in the kitchens.

When the man turned his head, his dimpled mouth
was stretched in a grimace. His cheeks and pointed nose were red, and his wavy
black hair looked a mess. “I surrender!” he cried. “Don’t cast more spells! I
have a family, a sister and grandma.”

Vane kicked the man over to his back, then
yanked him to his feet, making his head roll like a rag doll in the process.

“Looks like I caught me a spy.”

“The name’s Treel. I mean no harm.”

“No harm? What do you take me for? You’re the
Fist’s inside man.”

“I don’t have magic. I’m not political, all
right? I grew up with Dorane. I owe him a life debt. That’s why I helped him,
why I gave him the king’s kids. I trusted he wouldn’t hurt them.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Treel hesitated. “Not really,” he said, “no.”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“I’ve haven’t slept in days out of fear that,
well, that exactly this might happen. I’ve seen you before: years ago, when you
came to stay here. You were a boy, but your face, it’s distinctive. Your eyes
are big, real big, and few people have hair that shade of auburn. When you
showed up again in the middle of the king’s crisis, I was confused. Why would
he bring you back? Why now? When the others left and you were still here, I
figured, maybe the kid has magic. Maybe the king has some magic supporters. It
explained at least why he’d want you around. You helped rescue his sons, didn’t
you? I had to know what I was up against, who it was that’s trying to sniff me
out.”

Vane glanced around the room; the mattress no
longer lay aligned with the bedframe, the mattress he had used to hide his
mother’s journal. Horrified, Laskenay’s son punched his captive in the stomach,
and the spy doubled over. Vane held him up by his apron.

“Where’s the journal?”

“Where you left it,” Treel choked.

“How much do you know about me? How much?”

“I don’t know nothing. Nothing, all right? I
don’t read so good. Don’t read at all.”

“Like Dorane would pick a spy who can’t read.
What use is that?”

“I don’t have to read to know the princes go out
to the meadow with a couple of guards every Tuesday at two o’clock, do I?
That’s all Dorane needed me to tell him. That’s all I did
tell him. I’m not in this for the long haul. Didn’t I say I’m not
political? I didn’t want him to hurt those boys.”

“Well, he tried,” said Vane. “He would’ve killed
them, you son of a bitch.” The sorcerer dropped his hold on the captive, let
him fall to the floor with a thud.

“I owed him my life.”

“Then you could have returned the favor without
endangering children. Could have made the king agree to let Dorane live before
you revealed his plot and prevented all this madness.”

Treel blinked. “I’m not sure Dorane would’ve
considered that a favor.”

“You didn’t think of it, did you?”

“I’m in the kitchens. The blasted kitchens. You
think I have access to the royals?”

“You could have found a way.”

Treel looked not only desperate now, but
exasperated. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“The Duke of Ingleton,” said Vane. His father’s
title—his
title—issued
from his mouth without forethought. Under the circumstances, to make his
authority manifest seemed natural.

Treel’s expression became more exasperated than
ever. “Of course,” he said. “That’s just my luck. Your mother was Zalski’s
sis—”

“My mother was loyal to the king. As am I, you rat,
so don’t get any ideas you can buy me off.”

Treel let out an ironic burst of laughter. “Buy
you off? With what, exactly? I’ve got nothing. Seeing that’s the case, what
would you say’s in store for me?”

“That’s up to the king and queen, isn’t it?”

“Then I’m a dead man.”

Treel’s deadpan tone, his lack of hope, hit Vane
in the chest like a fist. What was he feeling? Surely not pity?

“The king might be merciful. If he’s successful,
he just might be, at least in your case. He’s off hunting Dorane right now, so
you’d better hope he bags his prey. If he gets Dorane, he won’t care about you
so much, but if the Fist slips away…. In that case, I’m afraid you might be
right. He’ll consider you a substitute.”

Treel’s voice came fast. He clutched at the hope
Vane offered; he might even have physically reached for it, were he not bound.
“So he’ll spare me? If he captures or kills Dorane, he’ll let me go?”

“When did I say that? I said he might
let you live. There’s no way in hell
he’s letting you go. Do you know how old his youngest boy is? Eight, Treel.
Hune’s eight.”

Treel sighed. “Listen, you seem like a decent
man.”

“I try to be.”

“I’ve seen other nobles. They’re always coming
and going. They have airs, and you don’t. The king clearly respects you. Maybe
you could talk him into not being so harsh with me.”

“Give me a reason to do that.”

“I can’t. You beat the snot out of me a minute
ago: that’s the treatment I deserve. I just figured, what’s it gonna hurt to
ask you? You’re different from the other nobles, like I said. You don’t talk
like them, or stand like them. But then, your parents didn’t raise you, did
they? You do remind me of one duke, the Duke of Crescenton.” Hayden’s title.
“But he wasn’t born noble. He’s some country-bred yokel the king gave a title
to.”

“Crescenton’s title’s as legitimate as anyone’s.
The man’s got more courage up his nose than you’ll ever….”

“I’ve got nothing against Crescenton. He’s
probably the only one of them who’d give me the time of day. So, what do you
think? Will you talk to the king? Plead my case?”

“Tell me why I should,” Vane repeated.

“Dorane did coerce me.”

“You risked the lives of children.”

“My sister and grandmother, they’ll die if I’m
executed, of hunger if not shame.”

“Executions aren’t public anymore, and my
fortune’s enough to support your family. I’ll see there’s food on the table.
Why else?”

“Nothing comes to mind. I can’t say I regret
helping Dorane. We were like brothers, and you don’t turn your back on a
brother.” The line of Vane’s mouth tightened. He could not help but think of
his mother, but he let Treel keep on. “I’m sorry Dorane turned out such a
selfish cad. I’m sorry he found me, and I’m sorry the favor he asked of me was
little less than treason, but where I come from, family’s family. A debt’s a
debt, and that’s it.”

Vane understood. He did not share Treel’s point
of view, but he understood it. He remembered his closest friend from childhood,
a friendship, like Dorane and Treel’s, that had faded over the years: Francie,
the girl who had seen the mark on his back at the swimming hole. Summer nights,
when Francie slept at Vane’s aunt’s inn—the inn Teena had rebuilt after a
troll attack the night Laskenay reunited with her son—the children would
sneak to the riverbank behind the barn to enjoy the mild weather, and count the
stars, and talk until three or four a.m., when they had to go back inside
because Teena got up before dawn. Francie rose before Vane’s mind as she used
to be, and he imagined the woman she was now. If their paths should cross, and
she should ask his help, and he refuse her…. How heartless he would feel,
despite what her mother had done to him and Teena! Like a troll, like some kind
of monster, regardless of what she wanted.

Better
a troll than a traitor, though. There are evils no friendship is worth or can
demand. Yes, better a troll.

Treel’s cynical smile returned. “Walking in my
shoes?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Dare I ask what happens now?”

“I told you, that’s up to the royals.”

“I mean right now.”

“We wait for the queen to come by. She’s bound
to look for me here. I’m not about to pull you through the halls and disrupt
her audience.”

“Don’t want to blow your cover as a servant, do
you? I could yell, you know.”

“You do and you’ll regret it.”

“That’s why I haven’t.” Treel sighed. “Look, can
you unbind me already? This is ridiculous. Where am I gonna go? One look at me
like this, and everyone will know what you are.”

Vane thought for a moment. First, he brought the
luggage inside so no passerby could wonder at it. Next, he stared at Treel and
muttered, “
Aberigwa Podair
.” Treel
shivered, an effect of Vane’s spell, but the sorcerer gave no apology or
explanation. He had tested the spy for magic; were Treel empowered, sparks
would have exploded noiselessly above him. After that, Vane searched Treel for
weapons and found nothing. Only then did he vanish the man’s bonds.

“Took you long enough.”

“Right,” said Vane. “You’re welcome.”

“So when do you think the queen’ll come?”

“Two hours? Six? How should I know?”

“Do you have cards in here? Or dice, anything we
can wile away the time with?”

Vane narrowed his eyes. “You tell me.”

“I didn’t search through everything, all right?”

“There’s always a deck of cards in the desk
drawer. Get it yourself if you want it. I’m not turning my back on you.”

Dorane’s
spy dragged himself to the desk, where he found the cards in the spot Vane had
mentioned. He raised them above his head to show the sorcerer he held nothing
more, and then took a seat on the rug.

“Don’t
be a stranger,” said Treel. He tapped the floor to indicate Vane should join
him, and shuffled the cards with a flourish. Like all decks, it carried
fifty-two cards in the traditional suits of knowledge, sorcery, fortune, and
blades.

Vane
did not care for games, but he felt sorry for the man before him, so he seated
himself as urged, though at a greater distance than was necessary. He pitied
Treel, but he also remembered the king’s exhibition in the library.

“You
play much?” Treel asked.

“Not
really, no. When I do, I like Cradle best.” The few times Vane had gone with
Parker to the local gambling house in Triflag, that was what they had played.
The game had been popular in Herezoth for years, teaching many of the lower
class basic math before making inroads across the sea.

“Dorane
and I used to play that all the time. We’d pool our coins and split it halves
to bet with. At the end we’d redistribute, ‘cause we didn’t play for money. We
played for caramel apples, the ones they sell outside the Temple sometimes.
Loser bought.”

“Caramel
apples?”

“I
guess today we’d play for drinks, if I’d seen him more than three or four times
in the last ten years. Grew apart when he started university. Beer wasn’t
exactly an option when we were ten.”

“I
guess it wasn’t.” Vane paused. “What was Dorane like as a kid?”