The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (20 page)

“He
was a good friend, for sure. Quiet around people he didn’t know. I don’t think
he thought much of himself, so he wasn’t confident, and he wasn’t good at much.
He was always trying hobby after hobby: music, dance, theatre, gardening,
drawing…. Had no real passion for any of it. Me, I was a dancer, and a sharp
one. Dorane was decent, but not great. His signals to his partner weren’t
strong enough.”

“A
weak lead.”

“He
grew jealous of me and gave it up. Didn’t give himself time to improve. He’d
turn sour when I’d talk about dancing, so I stopped talking about it, but he
stayed jealous all right, and turned callous to boot. The bastard, when he
showed up to ask about the princes…. He was putting me in a spot, and he knew
it. He didn’t give a damn what I was risking. He enjoyed it. It was like he
needed the upper hand, to prove somehow he was better than me at something.”

“Prove
to whom? You or him?”

“Hell
if I know.”

“I
don’t get it,” said Vane. “If Dorane was that smug, if you knew he was using
you….”

“Why’d
I let him? Hell if I know,” Treel repeated. “He did
save me from a mad dog once, and he used to be nice enough. He’s
also pretty damn powerful.”

“He
threatened you?”

“Wish
I could say he had. It would give me a legal defense. He didn’t, though, not
directly. He did make clear he wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t pull my weight in
his ploy. It was easy to imagine what an unhappy Dorane might do.”

“Where’s
he now, Treel?”

“If
I knew that, I’d hunt him down myself. I did pull my weight, and what does he
do? Leaves me to the wolves, that’s what. I knew he would. I knew he’d changed,
and part of me’s glad to just be rid of him, but all the same….”

“He’s
a cad,” said Vane. “He’s a brute for threatening those boys and a cad for
leaving you to your own devices.”

“That’s
life,” said Treel. “Like I said, it wasn’t a big surprise. What surprised me
was you finding me in here. I could have sworn you’d be in the throne room.”

“I’ll
admit, when I learned Dorane had a spy, you’re not what I imagined. I figured
someone in the army. Someone who supports the Fist, who has magic himself.
Someone who….”

“Someone
literate,” said Treel.

“Well,
yeah.”

“From
your end, I’d expect that too. That was the genius of Dorane using me. If you
hadn’t caught me red-handed….”

“I’d
never have suspected you.”

“If
you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about the son of a bitch. Let’s play. I’m
dealer. We’ll see who takes five out of nine rounds. If I win, you pay for my
defense. You’re a duke, so you must have the money.”

“Just
hold on, that’s my parents’ money. They died to protect the king, both of them.
I’m not sure they’d approve of me helping the man who helped kidnap his sons.
Feeding your family’s one thing….”

“If
I win, you pay my way,” Treel insisted. “If you win, I….” Treel’s eyes burned
with hope, a very vague hope. “Ingleton, how old were you when your father
died?”

Vane
studied the spy with suspicion. “Some months.”

“How
much do you know about him?”

“Precious
little.”

“How’d
you like to know more?”

Vane
scoffed. “From you? You don’t know a thing about my father.”

“I
beg to differ. I lost my father too when I was young, so his only brother
raised me. My uncle was butler to a noble, and liked to tell me stories about
work when we’d go hunting. Guess which duke he served?”

“You’re
making this up.”

“I’m
not. Ingleton—the late Ingleton—detested carrots.”

So
did Vane. “Anyone could say that. How should I know what the man ate?”

“He
had three sisters. None of them survived childhood.”

“A
fact like that’s common knowledge. You could have learned it anywhere.”

“He
visited their graves three times a year.”

“I’d
have to verify that.”

“Ingleton
had a quill,” said Treel. “An uncommon quill. It was silver, and molded to look
like a feather. My uncle said it was a gift from someone, maybe the duke’s
father, or grandfather, for his…. was it his wedding? He wrote with nothing
else. Turned three rooms upside down once when he lost it. Well, I found one
like it here, with that journal beneath the mattress. I thought maybe Zalski
had one like it, or the royal family, and someone forgot they’d left it in this
room. But that’s not the case, is it? That’s your father’s quill. Well, your
quill now.”

Vane’s
hand began to shake. “How could you know that quill was a wedding gift?”

“Because
my uncle was your family’s butler. Mentioned once that quill alone could
probably have fed us for a month with what it’d fetch on the black market. Just
in passing, of course. My uncle was no thief.” Treel paused. “So what do you
say? Do we play some Cradle?”

“And
you tell me about my father if I win? If that’s your offer, it’s not much of
one. I can ask the king about him anytime I want.”

“A
man’s servants know him better than his superiors ever will. Don’t you pretend
otherwise. Everyone puts on airs before the man who can give him a leg up. What
need would your father have to impress his butler?”

Treel
had a point, a valid point. He could describe Vane’s origins in ways Rexson
never could. Vane gambled little, it was true, but he was not unlucky; he
generally won a bit more than half the time.

“Deal
the cards.”

Treel
dealt six to each player. Vane set two cards aside as required, and after Treel
did the same the prisoner cut the deck. The card selected, which would act as a
part of each hand, was the Deuce of Knowledge.

“That’s
no good,” said Treel. He laid down the King of Sorcerers, the card that allowed
any player to cut the deck a second time. The new card was the Ace of Blades,
which actually served Vane better than the first; he held the Seven and Eight
of Blades, the Six of Fortune, and Ten of Sorcery. The value of his cards and
the ace, which counted eleven, summed to forty-two.
 
After adding five points for each set of
cards that made twenty-one (the ace and ten, and six-seven-eight) he had
fifty-two points. Subtracting the seven points he had discarded, a deuce and
five, left him with forty-five.

In
addition to the King of Sorcerers for ten, Treel held a pair of eights, which
would only score as a single card, and the Six of Fortune. With the ace he had
cut for eleven, he scored only forty points before his deductions. Vane won the
first round. The sorcerer took the second as well, then lost five straight.

“Double
or nothing,” Vane proposed. “One more hand, double or nothing. Is your uncle
still alive?”

“He
is.”

“I
win, and you tell me where to find him. I’d like to speak with him. You win,
and whatever your defenses cost, I’ll give your sister that same amount on top
of paying fees.”

Treel
could not pass up the chance to give his family such security. Sure, Ingleton
had promised not to let the women starve, but that was a far cry from the kind
of comfort Treel could provide with one more winning hand. Vane, though, scored
one point more than his opponent.

Treel
said softly, “You’re a cheat.”

“Excuse
me?”

The
spy spoke with greater confidence. “You’re a cheat,” he accused. “Cast some
kind of spell.”

“I
have to voice a spell. Did my lips move?”

Treel admitted
they had not.

“So…?”

“My
uncle’s getting old, but he’s not senile, nothing close to it. He lives in
Yangerton, in the outskirts near the fortunetelling shops, in a cottage off a
dirt path. People call his street Mudhole Road. It rains a lot there. I’d go on
foot, because the path’s too narrow for any kind of carriage, and if you’d keep
how we met to yourself, I’d appreciate it. Jorne doesn’t need to know I’ve been
arrested.”

“That’s
his name? Jorne? Look, I won’t tell him. The woman who raised me’s like a
mother. If I’d been arrested, I’d never want her to hear of it.”

“There
you go again. Won’t you quit it?”

“Quit
what?” demanded Vane.

“Putting
yourself in my place. You’re nothing like me, and I don’t need your pity.”

Vane
said, “I don’t pity you. I think you’re a fool. Why would you insult me? I
could still defend you before the king.”

“You
won’t.”

“But
I could.”

“Vane?”
came a woman’s voice. “Vane, are you in here?”

The
queen rapped lightly on the door. Realizing who had arrived, the sorcerer
scrambled up and rebound Treel with three syllables, using a weaker binding
spell than the other, one that used twine instead of magic energy. Then he backed
up to the door, his gaze locked with Treel’s frustrated, despondent eyes, to
admit Rexson’s wife.

“What’s
going on? Who is this?”

“This,”
said the sorcerer, “is our spy.”

“The
spy?” the queen repeated. Treel, still seated, was staring at his foot. Vane
could tell that a lifetime of training for public appearances was all that
prevented Gracia from snarling like a hound.

“He
told Dorane how to get to your sons,” Vane specified. “Under coercion. He’s no
magic himself.”

The
queen marched up to the kitchen worker. The folds of her sapphire-hued gown
slid and crashed like the sea upon a jetty; she bent near Treel and snapped his
face up, her hand smothering his chin. Then Gracia spit in his face. She
slapped his cheek hard enough to leave a handprint on his skin, but Treel’s
only reaction was to blink. The queen released him and dusted off her skirt.

“There
are two guards outside,” she instructed a dumbstruck Vane. “Kindly call them
in. They’ll escort this vermin to a proper cage.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Of Guidance and Geese

For
some reason, Crale Bendit’s kitchen always made Arbora feel uncomfortable. It
was smaller than hers, and older, as ancient as the rest of the remote, rundown
cottage Crale called home in one of Yangerton’s poorer neighborhoods. It
looked, in fact, just as time-beaten and tired as old Crale himself. Age had
grooved the wooden walls, the rug was threadbare, and the stove of a fashion
popular in the last century. The landscapes on the walls displayed faded tints,
and the shelves that supported six porcelain bowls showed signs of rot. Yes,
the room was old, but its decrepitude was not what bothered Arbora. The
spotlessness of it all—every cup gleaming, the paintings without a speck
of dust on them, the floor dirt-free beneath the rug’s holes and the rug itself
freshly laundered—that was what gave her discomfort. She could not help
but compare the state of Crale’s living space with the piles of used dishes and
dusty surfaces of her own.

The
octogenarian was bald and lacked facial hair, but his back was unbent and his
skin, though wrinkled, free from liver spots. He had two canvases set on an
easel; both depicted a lily-bordered bend in the Podra River. The first was a sketch,
rough but complete, which he used to guide him as he meticulously filled the
second. His paints set before him, his brush in hand, he was absorbed in his
work but addressed his guest.

“You
failed the ones who look to you for guidance.”

Crale
ran his brush across the canvas, and a streak of river foam appeared at a
boulder’s base. Arbora was pacing the length of the room.

“I
did no such thing. They didn’t come to me.”

“You
didn’t intervene, didn’t understand their intent.”

“How
could I?”

“Do
you know them not at all? You failed them, Arbora. Perhaps I failed you.”

“Don’t
you say that!”

“Why
not admit the truth? I failed you. I couldn’t teach you sorcery. I haven’t the
talent, but I tried to teach you about people: how to motivate them, how to use
their personalities and quirks to foresee their actions, and reactions. You
know Dorane has an inferiority complex that gives him bluster, Ursa that streak
of selfishness, sometimes cruelty. If they were present when the king revealed
telekinesis….”

“I
didn’t think of the two of them. I was too shocked, too disappointed to learn
Rexson a traitor to us all. To himself, even. The poor fool!”

“Rexson
may or may not be a fool, be pitiable. I’ve never met the man. I
have
met your young officers, and you
should have taken action to bar them causing disaster.”

“That’s
easy to say now. Easy to see in hindsight.”

“Anyone
can see in hindsight. Acting beforehand to prevent a crisis, that’s what’s
difficult. That’s what necessary. You’re in great danger now, and your being
here has spread it to me. You’ve placed all Herezoth in peril.”

Arbora
snapped her back straight, for she knew Crale’s accusations were valid. She had
refrained from involving him before this point for his own protection, and felt
as guilty as she ever had for coming to him now, but she needed his advice. She
resented him chastising rather than guiding her, and she rebuked, “The king’s
placed Herezoth in peril. The king, understand? If he’d allow the magic
community the voice it needs….”

“The
voice it wants,” corrected Crale. He was in no way impressed by Arbora’s show
of ferocity, and added more foam to his canvas. “The voice you
want for it, Arbora. Desires and
necessities, they’re not the same. The magicked have a voice, my dear. Zacry
Porteg publishes his essays, and doesn’t the king give you audience? Doesn’t he
hear your requests?”

“He
hears nothing I say. Oh, he lets me speak, but for all the good it does….”

Crale
put down his brush. “Listen, Arbora, I know how you are. I’ve known you since
you were born in the cabin alongside mine. You gave me an honorary post in your
group, though I myself have no power to speak of beyond igniting small fires. I
speak in that capacity, on behalf of the Fist. You’ll destroy all you’ve worked
to achieve.”

“Destroy
it? I’m striving to salvage….”

“You’re
immovable when you decide to do something. You’ve decided to support those two
clowns, and if you don’t abandon them, your entire organization will be pulled
up by the roots. You yourself will share Dorane’s fate, and Ursa’s.”

“They
might hear you, Crale. They’re only in the next room.”

Her
mentor said, “I imagine they’re listening at the door. Let them hear. They’re
barbarians.”

Ursa
traipsed into the kitchen. “You ain’t as cultured as you think you are, old
man.”

“Ursa!”
Arbora yelled. Dorane followed Ursa in, tried to guide her back out. She threw
him off, and he shrugged apologetically at Arbora.

Crale
responded, “Perhaps I’m not. But I do know how to speak.”

“An’
I don’t?”

“Ursa,
enough,” said the Enchanted Fist’s foundress.

“I
know how to speak correctly,” Crale clarified.

Ursa
retorted, “A parrot can speak correctly. You sayin’ you ain’t smarter than a
parrot?”

“In
the name of the Giver!” Arbora cried. “He’s your elder. Show some respect.”

Ursa
said, “I’ll respect the old geezer when he respects me.”

Crale
shook his head, more from disappointment than from anger. “I wish you had a
parrot’s intelligence, Ursa, or at least its instincts. When a bird feels
threatened it flies off. It doesn’t provoke its enemy by stealing its young.”

“Go
fly up a tree.”

“Forgive
me, but this is my nest you’ve invaded.”

“I’ll
invade it all right. I’ll bring in termites to eat the walls, and rats. King
snakes….”

“I
know little about snakes, but a king’s here sure enough.”

“What’s that?”
                                    

Ursa
jerked her head to the stove, near the corner. A male voice had spoken, but not
Crale’s, and certainly not Dorane’s. He was standing at her shoulder.

Yes,
Ursa saw, the king was there. Rexson, hang him, with that guardsman who was
always hovering around him, and Zacry Porteg to boot. The sorcerer must have
transported them.

Arbora
distanced herself from her mentor. Dorane gripped Ursa’s shoulder, his touch
strong, not fearful. He meant to strengthen her. As if she needed his strength!
The redhead grinned at Crale, who laid his painting on the table.

“Frightened,
old man?”

“You’re
the one who should be frightened,” he advised. And Ursa could not deny his
claim, at least not to herself. The power the king exuded was enough to
unsettle even her.

“You
imbeciles, you thought I wouldn’t track you down? Zalski had twice your power
and fifty times your brains.”

Ursa
had spent hours with Dorane conjecturing about Zalski’s death; the man’s
intellectual curiosity was too strong for him to keep quiet, and he asked, “Was
it you? Were you the one to…?”

The
king’s response was a violent, dismissive wave of the hand, one to send a
porcelain serving bowl that was perched on a shelf above Dorane crashing down.
It flipped end over end. No one thought to stop it, and Dorane was too
surprised to move; the container just missed landing on his head like some kind
of unusual hat and struck his shoulder instead, hard enough to crack in two
before it shattered against the floor. Ursa jumped aside as the bowl exploded.
Dorane dropped to one knee at the force of the blow he took.

Meanwhile,
Zacry restrained the king—restrained him, that is, until Ursa pushed her
way past Crale, who offered no resistance, to fling three cups of paint at
Rexson’s party. At the same time, Arbora sent a yellow ball of energy at Zacry
Porteg. The spell was one she had unearthed the day before in preparation for
the worst.

“
Contfabla
!”

It
was a muting spell, and it exploded against a body-sized shield the color of a
green olive that Zacry just had time to conjure. Arbora’s magic coated the
barrier with a contrasting, electric hue before all traces of both sorcerers’
incantations disappeared with a sizzle.

Ursa’s
paints, however, remained. Streaks of white and a majestic gray stained the
front of the stove, splashed the guardsman’s arm, and also—all four
members of the Enchanted Fist saw with varying degrees of surprise or
disgust—outlined a human arm that had previously been invisible.

“
Desfazair,”
Dorane cried, his eyes fixed
on the self
-
supporting limb. A person
popped into view,
not Zalski’s
skinny, doe-eyed nephew as he anticipated, but a woman in a faded house frock
with chestnut curls tied behind a bandana. The fabric stretched across her
forehead, he was sure to hide a ruby. She stood paralyzed by some strong
emotion.

“Kora,
go,” the king directed, but Kora ignored him. Arbora moved her lips in silent
repetition of the woman’s name, but otherwise felt too weak even to bat an
eyelid. Dorane was first to act, chanting an incantation Arbora did not
recognize, sending a jet of ice toward Zacry that forked as it neared his chest
to wrap around him. Zacry stood as shocked as his sister for a moment, but the
king, without hesitation, used his telekinesis to throw Crale’s painting into
the frosty jets’ path, and when the frozen arms met they could not join. They
hit the landscape instead, icing it over. Zacry ignited the canvas, in an
attempt to interrupt whatever spell his foe had cast.

He
proved successful. His flames spread back toward Dorane, up both segments of
the ice that hung in midair. The frozen material turned into a heavy black gas
as it melted, which in combination with the fumes from the smoking canvas
filled the kitchen, making sight difficult and breath painful.

“Don’t,”
Arbora whimpered. “Not his painting.” But the canvas was already half-consumed,
the burning paint letting off a noxious odor. Only Rexson’s steady hand kept
the flaming art from lighting the floor, which was wooden. Zacry cast a spell
to knock Dorane unconscious, one that should have functioned instantaneously,
with no visible jet or ball of energy, but Dorane erected a burnt yellow shield
to block its effect.

Ursa,
meanwhile, had not been idle. She had flung a window open to see a gaggle of
geese flying in formation overhead. A possibility struck her, and she directed
the leader to change course and head for Crale’s home. She could only command
the one animal, but as she hoped, the others followed. Gratton, preoccupied
with the ice and flames and smoke, saw her through the thick air from the
corner of his eye and tackled her. She kicked him in the shoulder to scramble
loose, and the lead goose set upon the guardsman, while the other birds
squawked and squealed and created a genuine havoc.

By
now, enough time had passed for Kora to come to her senses. She cast
Estatua
on the fowl now using its beak
to slice into Gratton’s cheek, and the animal became something like a
sculpture. Gratton, who had fallen back to the floor, launched himself at Ursa
again, to grab her by the legs, but missed. Kora brought her down for him by
yelling “
Kaiga
,” a tripping spell she
had used many a time with the Crimson League.

Rexson’s
arm was tiring, and in the center of the room, the flaming painting began to
shake. Dorane used a spell to launch Crale’s stove in the king’s direction.
While Crale watched the destruction of his home from the corner, Zacry voiced
an incantation to vanish the metal projectile, and Arbora, recovered from her
stupor, cast a variation of
Estatua
that froze not just one living body but all those present at once.

All
of them, that is, but Kora. She had seen Arbora’s lips move through the film in
the air. The crack of the flames, the cries of the geese, Ursa’s curses as she
fell to the ground, all had drowned the woman’s words, and Kora had responded
out of an instinct still honed from her months in the resistance: she had
crossed her arms before her chest in a kind of ‘X.’ A crimson shell appeared
around her, protecting her from Arbora’s magic.

Kora
vanished the landscape before it hit the floor and set the kitchen aflame.
Then she dropped her arms in horror,
and her shell dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. “What have you done?”
she demanded.

“They’ll
be fine. It’s just like that spell you cast on the goose.”

“I’ve
seen a spell like that
kill.”

“Would
I kill my own officers? You’re Kora Porteg, no?”

There
was no use claiming otherwise, not when the king had yelled her name. “Kora
Cason,” she corrected. “I’m married.”

“The
mother of…. five, is it?”

Kora’s
face blanched in the fog. “How do you know that?”

“All
Herezoth knows that. My God, woman, do you have any clue what a mire you left
behind you? There are crazies everywhere who claim the king fathered your
brood. It’s ridiculous, I know, but far from impossible, you being what you
are. So they say it. They say it to stoke fears that your sorcerer children,
illegitimate heirs to the throne….”